Maintenance Of Community Languages Research Articles

Researcher positionality in linguistics: Lessons from undergraduate experiences in community‐centered collaborative research

AbstractResearcher positionality has come into focus in a number of fields, as scholars increasingly acknowledge the impact of their lived experiences and identities on all aspects of the research process. In most areas of linguistics, however, researcher positionality remains underdiscussed, even as many linguists from dominant groups conduct research on the language of subordinated groups without community self‐determination regarding the research direction and goals. While the growing emphasis on collaborative community‐centered research overcomes some inequities, another key step toward a more inclusive linguistics is the involvement of undergraduate researchers who are members of the partner community or whose backgrounds, experiences, and identities overlap with those of community members. Such undergraduate team members can contribute special insight and knowledge to the research. This article describes the role of a mostly Latinx team of undergraduate research interns in a community language maintenance survey project as part of a collaboration between a Hispanic Serving Institution and a nonprofit organization supporting the Mexican Indigenous community on California’s Central Coast. Undergraduate interns strengthened the project by drawing connections between their own linguistic experiences and those of the survey respondents, thus enabling the research team to better support community goals. The article concludes with recommendations for centering researcher positionality in linguistics in order to produce more inclusive, just, and rigorous linguistic science.

On the outside, looking in: learning community languages and Scotland’s 1 + 2 Language Strategy

ABSTRACT The Scottish Government’s ambitious 1 + 2 Language Strategy has refocused attention on language education policy (LEP) and the provision for learning additional languages in Scottish schools. However, the maintenance of community languages continues to be the responsibility of minoritised parents and their complementary schools. This article reports on a national survey of complementary school providers in order to gain insights into their perspectives of community language learning during the implementation of the 1 + 2 Language Strategy. Data are analysed using a Critical Language Policy (CLP) lens and reveal a complex picture of provision for teaching and learning community languages, outside of mainstream schools, and an untapped resource for language planning and valuing the linguistic diversity of Scotland. The article concludes with a discussion to inform future developments of the 1 + 2 Language Strategy, among which is greater engagement with language communities and a more nuanced planning approach to language learning for contemporary societies.

Attitudes of Iranian Community Parents in Australia towards their Children’s Language Maintenance

Issues of language shift (LS) and language maintenance (LM) are inevitable consequences of globalization and increased mobility of human populations. This qualitative case study investigated attitudes of migrant parents from Iran towards Persian community language maintenance (CLM) for their school-age children in Australia. Ten parents residing in Melbourne, Victoria were interviewed in two groups and demographic data were collected. The participants were seven female and three male parents who had at least one school-age child. In this qualitative case study, data were analyzed thematically. Three major themes concerning Persian CLM were identified: parents’ attitudes, strategies adopted for maintenance, and challenges for their children. The parents believed that CLM supported cultural identity, preserved family cohesion, and fostered bilingualism, all of which were considered valuable future skills for their children. Interviewees adopted diverse strategies including the establishment of family language use policies, sending their children to Iranian community language school, frequent contacts with extended family in Iran, and the use of Persian media and literature. The influential role of siblings and peers in their children’s language shift, and a lack of age-appropriate Persian books and visual materials were the main challenges to CLM mentioned by the parents in this research.

Upper Sorbian language education: when community language maintenance practices disregard top-down revitalisation strategies

ABSTRACT The article studies minority language policy in the situation of an internal division within a speech community. It is based on the example of the Upper Sorbs – a Slavic minority in Germany. The division within this community is based on language use, the level of assimilation and religion. The Catholic Upper Sorbs have maintained intergenerational transmission of the language, and have a strong identity based on language use and participation in religious life. Most of the Upper Sorbian Protestants have shifted to German. Hence, the Catholic Upper Sorbs perceive themselves as ‘real’ Sorbs and – despite the decreasing number of speakers in their community – their strategy of language maintenance is through isolating themselves from German speakers. The official Sorbian language policy includes language revitalisation to increase the number of Sorbian speakers by creating new speakers of this language through bilingual education. We discuss the conflicting situation when the institutional minority language revitalisation strategy does not fit the internal ‘core’ community's language maintenance policy. The research was carried out at one of the Upper Sorbian schools with sociolinguistic observations and interviews with pupils from Sorbian-speaking families and with Sorbian learners, and on Sorbian language research revitalisation efforts.

Spaces for learning: policy and practice for indigenous languages in a remote context

abstractBilingual and Indigenous language and culture programmes have run in remote Australian schools with significant and continuing local support. Developments such as the new national Indigenous languages curriculum offer a further opportunity to broaden and sustain Indigenous language teaching and learning activities in these schools. However, over the last two decades, increasing government attention to poor outcomes on national standardised literacy and numeracy assessments has markedly restricted the scope for Indigenous languages. This paper draws on a model of ideological and implementational spaces to discuss competing discourses in top-down and bottom-up policy. Data from an ethnographic study on education stakeholders in remote locations in Australia's Northern Territory revealed incongruities between local discourses that emphasise bi- and multilingualism, local identity and knowledge and community language maintenance and institutional discourses, which foreground a uniform model of education, with English literacy the dominant measure of educational success. The study also revealed that principals, teachers, and community members in some schools work together to develop vibrant, though often fragile, programmes. In addition to this, community members outside school systems are increasingly finding and taking up the spaces that allow innovative Indigenous language and cultural teaching and learning.

THE INFLUENCE OF LANGUAGE USE AND LANGUAGE ATTITUDE ON THE MAINTENANCE OF COMMUNITY LANGUAGES SPOKEN BY MIGRANT STUDENTS

The maintenance of community languages of migrant students is heavily determined by language use and language attitudes. The superiority of a dominant language over a community language contributes to attitudes of migrant students toward their native languages. When they perceive their native languages as unimportant language, they will reduce the frequency of using that language even though at home domain. Solutions provided for a problem of maintaining community languages should be related to language use and attitudes of community languages, which are developed mostly in two important domains, school and family. Hence, the valorization of community language should be promoted not only in family but also school domains. Several programs such as community language school and community language program can be used for migrant students to practice and use their native languages. Since educational resources such as class session, teachers and government support are limited; family plays significant roles to stimulate positive attitudes toward community language and also to develop the use of native languages.

Language proficiency and socio-cultural orientation of Turkish and Moroccan youngsters in the Netherlands

In this study, data and discourses on immigrant minority groups and languages other than Dutch at home and at school are presented in order to contextualise the status of Turkish and Moroccan communities and their languages in the Netherland. Patterns of language use, choice and attitudes of Turkish (n = 63) and Moroccan (n = 64) youngsters in the Netherlands are documented and discussed. The findings of this study show that pride in one's socio-cultural and linguistic backgrounds is not coupled with maintenance of the community language. Arabic and Berber informants report high attachment to their cultural backgrounds but their actual community language use is very restricted compared to their Dutch language use. They clearly shift to Dutch in most domains of language use. Turkish youngsters, on the other hand, show strong language maintenance patterns and their socio-cultural orientation is congruent with their language behaviour. While Moroccan youngsters identify more strongly with Islamic practices, Turkish youngsters identify strongly with the Turkish language. This, in turn, suggests that strong religious attachment does not affect community language maintenance but a strong identification with the community language does contribute to language maintenance. Apparently, for Turkish youngsters, cultural self-awareness goes hand in hand with linguistic self-awareness.

Maintaining the Community Language in Australia: Challenges and Roles for Families

Much Australian work on immigrant languages has revealed that the family is a crucial site of language maintenance (LM). The family remains for most immigrants and their offspring the main domain for community language (CL) use. At the same time, there is no doubt that positive language, education and migration policies strengthen the maintenance of CL in Australia as described in Fishman's (1991) model of LM, Reversing Language Shift. However, as Fishman (1991) has observed, supportive policies and educational provisions will only be of value if the family initiates CL acquisition and provides a practice ground for its continued use. I consider the main favourable factors, challenges and strategies for successful CL maintenance in the family, as gleaned from case studies, and conclude with suggestions for greater attention to the role of adolescents and of technology in CL maintenance.

Maintenance of community languages in multicultural Australia

Abstract It has been argued (See Quinn, 1981b, for example) that the maintenance of community languages is incompatible with the ideal of multicultural interaction. The present paper argues against this position and asserts that in order to participate in and contribute to the development of a cohesive multicultural society, it is not necessary for the members of the minority communities to break the diglossic situation and become monolingual speakers of English. Ethnic groups will not lose their ethnicity merely by giving up their native languages. Since complete assimilation is impossible, the goal of a multicultural society should be not to dissolve the differences but to resolve them by appreciating the value of each cultural group. Members of the minority communities are fully aware of the fact that they must learn English to be able to enjoy equal opportunities in the public domain and to develop meaningful social interaction with the majority community. However, multicultural interaction cannot be meaningful unless it operates on the basis of an equal footing for the parties involved. The acceptance of community languages as valid means of communication, legitimate media of cultural transmission, and a useful national resource will go a long way towards raising the self‐esteem as well as the public image of the ethnic communities, and, consequently, improving the quality of multicultural interaction. The paper also argues that the major responsibility for the maintenance of community languages lies with the minority communities themselves.

Speech Communities and Schools

A sound language education policy must be based on an understanding of the speech community in which the school exists. Sociolinguists define speech communities according to various criteria, but for educational purposes it is necessary always to start with the individual school and the community it serves. This becomes clear when one looks at the case of Navajo speaking children on or near the Navajo Reservation. Studies of the language used by six-year-old Navajo children in school revealed that 10% of them had switched almost completely to English and 20% were bilingual. However, two-thirds obviously used only Navajo at home with their parents. These overall results fail to show important local variations. First, there is a correlation between a community's language maintenance, measured by the average language score of the sixyear-olds, and its accessibility, a measure of the ease of access to an off-Reservation town. Children living near the towns are more likely to speak English. Secondly, children in BIA schools know much less English than those in public schools, because of a policy that assigns to the Bureau schools children from more remote areas. These findings point to a need for local flexibility, rather than having a monolithic education policy for a whole ethnic group. One of the key concerns of the field that I prefer to call educational linguistics1 is helping with the development of a language education policy for a school system. While the final decision will usually be political rather than educational, the educational linguist can help clarify the nature of the language situtation and the pressures of the community. Basic to establishing a sound policy is, I am convinced, an understanding of the speech community in which the school exists. While there may be good political and administrative reasons for setting generalized national and regional goals, each school should be able to modify these goals and interpret them according to the needs of its local community. To speak of a single model for a whole nation, or even for a specific sector within the national (all minority speakers, for instance) is most unwise. In order to make this clear, I shall concentrate my remarks on one particular Indian tribe, showing that even in such a seemingly homogeneous group and on such a seemingly small scale, a single model of language education would be a mistake. At the same time, I shall refer to other Indian groups and to other language groups in order to show the wider relevance of the question.