Language Ecology Research Articles

지구 언어 생태계의 변화와 (한)국어교육의 미래

지구 언어 생태계의 변화와 (한)국어교육의 미래

Family language policy in the City of Zanjan: a city for the forlorn Azerbaijani

ABSTRACT The study explores language maintenance and shift patterns from a family language policy perspective in Azerbaijani-Farsi bilingual families in the City of Zanjan, Iran. The city is the capital of Zanjan province which is surrounded by Azerbaijani, Kurdish, and Farsi speaking provinces giving it a specific demographic make-up to explore language maintenance and shift processes from a family language policy perspective. Thirteen parents (six fathers and seven mothers) from upper, middle, and lower socioeconomic statuses were interviewed about their language ideologies, practices, and management with respect to the maintenance of their ethnic language, Azerbaijani, and the official language of the country, Farsi. The findings suggest that despite the parents’ strong attachment to their ethnic language, they promote Farsi at home. The parents’ own and their children’s competence in and knowledge of Azerbaijani has been reportedly declined. The analysis shows that this shift to Farsi at home has its roots in an unfavourable language ecology in which families find themselves.

Identifying vernacular language to use in mathematics teaching

Teaching mathematics in children’s first language has both cognitive benefits and assists with developing cultural and mathematical identity. In Papua New Guinea, many different Indigenous languages are used for instruction in elementary schools and teachers often need to identify or develop mathematics terminology themselves. Building on prior research, guidelines were developed to assist teachers to find the mathematics in their own vernacular languages. The guidelines were adaptable to different language ecologies and covered mathematical areas such as counting systems, measuring and comparing, location and shapes. The guidelines were applied by teachers in professional development workshops. The paper shows examples from some of the workshops of the challenges that the teachers faced in trying to identify appropriate mathematical language, and that contributed to the refining of the guidelines.

Linguistic Diversity, Language Rights And Language Ecology

Summary Aiming at the maintenance of biodiversity and healthy ecosystem in the world – vital issues of the 21st century – it is important to preserve linguistic diversity and prevent the increasing language endangerment, thus ensuring the support of linguistic human rights. The author presents a comprehensive explanation of the key terms related to linguistic diversity and language ecology and investigates if educational language rights in international and regional Charters/Conventions support the maintenance of indigenous, tribal and minority languages (the world’s linguistic diversity), thus preventing language endangerment. The answer is that most educational systems in the word today support linguistic genocide in relation to indigenous, tribal and minority children’s language rights, by providing subtractive education as capability deprivation (according to Amartya Sen), which leads to poverty and violation of human rights in general. The author also argues why linguistic diversity and language rights are important for the maintenance of biodiversity and thus a healthy ecosystem.

The Sekujam language of West Kalimantan (Indonesia)

Almost two hundred years ago, O. van Kessel identified a language group based on a characteristic sound change that yielded -ai in the final position of some words (Van Kessel 1850: 166); Hudson (1970) named this group “Ibanic” after the Iban language widely spoken in Sarawak. Of the numerous members of the Ibanic branch of Malayic, perhaps the Sekujam language is the least known. Although Sujarni et al. (2008: 282-285) provided information about the location and traditions of the Sekujam ethnic group, there is very little information about the language. Based on available colonial and contemporary sources, this essay provides a sketch of this ethnic group, numbering perhaps only 3,000 people, split between two administrative units (residencies). Then, a brief overview of the phonology of Sekujam suggests some of its distinctive characteristics. There follows an overview of the sociolinguistic setting of the Sekujam-speaking communities in the Sekadau residency reflecting the status and functions of Sekujam in the language ecology of this multilingual area. Of interest perhaps is the praxis of split dialogic bilingualism documented in some of the area’s villages and the role of Sekujam in traditional rituals of at least one other ethnic group. Much work remains in the face of rapid social, demographic and economic change.

Uma Acustemologia da Floresta Tropical

Este texto tem como objetivo dar voz a uma realidade alternada, a um tipo de sensibilidade sonora que encontrei por meio de uma pesquisa antropológica sobre ecologia da linguagem, da música e acústica. Espero que, ao dar espaço às vozes marginalizadas de um lugar onde possam falar, gritar e cantar, a antropologia poderia por consequência contrariar a enraizada arrogância da autoridade colonial e imperial em alguma medida, assim como no caso da história escrita numa única língua, numa única voz, como única narrativa possível.

ПОСЛОВИЦЫ С ЗООНИМНЫМ КОМПОНЕНТОМ В СВЕТЕ ЛИНГВОЭКОЛОГИЧЕСКОГО ПОДХОДА

The article considers proverbs and anti-proverbs with the zoonym component with respect to their ecological and non-ecological functioning in speech. The material for the study is selected from the Russian National Corpus on the principle of topicality. The authors cover the issues of language ecology, the development of this modern research direction, its problems and prospects as well. It is ascertained that paroemias with the zoonym component and their transformations are mostly ecological, that is they do not violate the ecology of speech, communication and are used in order to preserve linguistic ecological balance.

National language within Language Ecology Framework: A Threat to Vernacular Languages?

AbstrakPemilihan bahasa Indonesia sebagai bahasa nasional, dimulai puluhan tahun silam sejak bangsa Indonesia berjuang meraih kemerdekaan terhadap Belanda. Puncaknya, Sumpah Pemuda pada tanggal 28 Oktober 1928 memberikan ‘status’ yang lebih tinggi kapada bahasa Indonesia diantara bahasa daerah lain. Oleh sebab itu, status bahasa Indonesia sebagai bahasa nasional harus mempertimbangkan eksistensi bahasa-bahasa lokal dalam lingkup ekologi bahasa, untuk menjamin keberlangsungan bahasa lokal di masa yang akan datang. Penelitian dokumenter ini bertujuan untuk menyibak proses sejarah perencanaan bahasa (language planning) dan perkembangan bahasa Indonesia era paska kolonial, dimana bahasa Indonesia terpilih untuk menyatukan ratusan bahasa daerah lain. Penelitian ini didasarkan atas laporan media terkemuka di Indonesia (The Jakarta Post, Nova, Republika dan Kompas) dan artikel yang berkaitan dengan isu pergeseran, pemertahanan dan ancaman bahasa daerah serta langkah-langkah yang diambil untuk melindungi bahasa daerah yang minoritas. Kata kunci: bahasa daerah, status, pergeseran dan pemertahanan, ekologi bahasa.

Language Ecology in Cyprus, Sweden and Estonia: Bilingual Russian-Speaking Families in Multicultural Settings

We investigated language transmission in Russian-speaking families in multilingual settings in Cyprus, Estonia and Sweden. What they have in common is their Russian-language background and the minority status of their native language. In Cyprus and Sweden, participants mainly come from immigrant and mixed-marriage communities, while in Estonia they live in a bilingual society, where Estonian is a prestigious language and Russian has low status. To investigate the complex contexts of the informants’ language choices, the language ecology theory was chosen as a theoretical framework. Particular attention was paid to similarities and differences in the three country groups under investigation. Written questionnaires and oral sociolinguistic interviews were used for data collection among Russian-speaking informants in the three countries. We asked whether Russian as the first language was transmitted to the second generation and why. The attitudes towards bilingualism and Russian language transmission (including the change of these attitudes over time) – depending on the parents’ success in bringing up children bilingually – seemed to matter. Parental language choice is one of the main factors contributing to successful transmission. A lot depends on whether there was a desire for integration with the dominant language community, for staying isolated and only preserving the home language, or for having a balanced bilingual/multilingual approach and positive attitude towards both majority and minority languages. The socio-economic status, level of education and mother’s employment status played crucial roles in language transmission and attitudes. The linguistic repertoire of the father (minority, majority, or mixed) also had an effect.

Language ecology and English as a “lingua franca” in a glocal multicultural society: opening intercultural windows

This study is a conceptual and descriptive review of the working field of language ecology from a postmodernist perspective. It looks into the pluricentric, holistic, intercultural and multidisciplinary implications of language ecology and English as a lingua franca in a variety of EU glocal, i.e. global and local, sociolinguistic scenarios. Positing a semiotic construct of language as an open and inclusive process and a close interrelationship between language and power dynamics (Bourdieu, 1982,1986,1991), the analysis gives an overview of theoretical questions related to the import of language ecology, diversity, bi/multiligualism and the functional role of English as a lingua franca and lingua mundi in the EU, in a geocentric, contextual, action-oriented and critical approach to language as opposed to the anthropocentric, decontextualized and fractional constructs of 20th century rational structuralism. Grounded in hands-on English-teaching experience, it aims to spotlight the weaknesses of a monolingual and monocultural mindset and focuses on the dilemma between a de facto English dominance and glocal bilingual and multilingual concerns across the European Union. Capitalizing on Foucalt’s inspiring paradigm of «problematization» (1972, 1977, 1980, 1985), the article is meant to stimulate critical thought and discussion of ELF application to educational and occupational settings for the purpose of a situated, even-handed and encompassing language ecology opening «[...] windows through which we are better able to see reality» (Natsoulas, 1993). Este estudio es una revision conceptual y descriptiva del campo de la ecologia linguistica desde un punto de vista posmoderno. En el se examinan las implicaciones pluricentricas, holisticas, interculturales y multidisciplinares de la ecologia linguistica y del ingles como lingua franca en una variedad de escenarios sociolinguisticos glocales de la UE, es decir, globales y locales. Partiendo de una construccion semiotica del lenguaje como un proceso abierto e inclusivo y una interconexion estricta entre las dinamicas del lenguaje y el poder (Bourdieu, 1982, 1986, 1991), el analisis ofrece una vision general de cuestiones teoricas relacionadas con la importancia de la ecologia linguistica, la diversidad, el bi / multiligualismo y el papel funcional del ingles como lingua franca y lingua mundi en la UE, en un enfoque geocentrico, contextual, orientado a la accion y critico del lenguaje en oposicion a los constructos antropocentricos, descontextualizados y fraccionarios del estructuralismo racional del siglo xx. Basado en la practica de la ensenanza del ingles, el trabajo destaca las debilidades de una vision monolingue y monocultural y se centra en el dilema entre un dominio de facto del ingles y las preocupaciones glocales bilingues y multilingues en toda la Union Europea. Aprovechando el paradigma inspirador de «problematizacion» de Foucalt (1972, 1977,1980, 1985), el articulo pretende estimular la reflexion critica y el debate sobre la aplicacion del ingles como lingua franca a marcos educativos y ocupacionales con el objetivo de una ecologia linguistica situada, equitativa e inclusiva que abra «[...] ventanas por las cuales podamos ver mejor a la realidad» (Natsoulas, 1993).

Agency and ideology in language maintenance: Hungarian immigrants’ narratives on assimilationist post-war Australia

ABSTRACT This study explored stories of intergenerational language maintenance narrated by first- generation Hungarian immigrants in Australia. It sought an understanding of Hungarian immigrants’ positioning vis-à-vis their language ecology during the assimilationist post-war era of Australia. The narratives reveal that some families accepted the monolingual norms of using English in public spaces and gave in to the pressures of homogenising schools. However, in some families, agency was deployed to resist these normalising monolingual ideologies. These families had stronger intergenerational language maintenance of Hungarian. The findings of this research contribute to our understanding of the interactions between external factors (such as policy), and the subjective factors such as the individuals’ agency in managing language use in immigrant contexts. The study discusses the way ideologies were shaped and negotiated and highlights the benefits of using linguistic narratives to reveal variability within seemingly homogenous communities.

Linguoecological Aspect of Studying the Toponimic Lexis of the Baikal Region

The article is an attempt to examine data from toponymic studies of the Baikal region from the linguoecological point of view. Geographical names of the region are of considerable interest in various aspects of linguistic knowledge, but have not yet been considered in the linguoecological context. This determines the relevance of the study. To demonstrate the main ways of developing regional toponymy in the linguoecological aspect, we bring a classification of the corresponding approaches. This classification includes interpretation of four research lines: the symbolic ecology of language, the natural ecology of language, the sociocultural ecology of language and the cognitive ecology of language [1]. Having presented this classification, we trace the ideas of ecolinguistics on aforecited lines in the data of regional toponymic material research. Identified within the framework of the article the thesis of the systemic toponymy, the idea of the coexistence of languages within a certain geographical area, explicated toponymic appellatives of the appropriate lexis, require a comprehension in the linguoecological aspect. The main conclusion of the article is that regional toponyms are ecologically significant linguistic objects. The article can be of wide interest while investigating issues of journalistic practice in the context of the modern media environment formation.

The Expansion of Marine Culture and the Rise of China

With the development of human society and the progress of science and technology, land resources are increasingly exhausted, people’s understanding of the ocean is becoming more and more profound, and the concept of marine culture is gradually becoming popular. The rise of China also benefits from the expansion of marine culture, that is to say, the rapid economic growth since China’s reform and opening-up policy cannot be separated from the factors of marine culture. In other words, as a stable system form, marine culture has had a lasting and profound effect on China’s economic growth. This paper holds that China’s opening-up to the outside world starts from the southern coast, and is gradually promoted from the regions to the industries through language evolution that official languages with marine cultural ideas bring changes in folk languages, thereby making the generation of public policy discourse represented by marine culture-oriented political reports of the Party Congress. By establishing an analytical framework of culture-linguistics-institution-economic growth, this paper constructs static and dynamic panel data models that match economic growth, and incorporates the expansion of marine culture into an economic system in three dimensions. And it abstracts a variable from the expansion of marine culture to measure, and introduces it into an econometric model. Then it uses OLS and GMM empirical analysis methods to estimate the impact of the expansion of marine culture on the rise of China. It shows that opening-up to the outside world has raised the status of marine culture, brought about full expansion of marine culture, changed the whole social language ecology, facilitated a new system of public policy, promoted the change of the socialist market economic system with Chinese characteristics, and improved the economic growth of China through the gradient and level effects, so as to realize the rise of China. The econometric model also shows that, after controlling the related variables, the expansion of marine culture has significantly positive effects on economic growth, and the static and dynamic test results are consistent. The robust test also supports this conclusion, indicating that the conclusion of this paper is reliable. Of course, the expansion of marine culture may also produce some negative effects. To this end, we should strive for countermeasures appropriate to the national conditions: to resist the western maritime cultural hegemony and build marine culture with Chinese characteristics so as to make it an inexhaustible driving force for economic growth. We should cultivate the spirit of Chinese marine culture, foster its cohesive force and stimulating function, promote the continuous innovation of ocean culture, construct Chinese-style ocean discourse, and enhance the soft power of Chinese marine culture. This paper attempts to go deep into the cultural level, try to connect marine culture with economic growth, discuss the internal logic of China’s rapid economic growth, and discuss the path dependence of China’s rise from a new perspective. It hopes that in the new era of the ocean century, China will quickly realize the dream of a powerful maritime power and push forward all-round construction of the Belt and Road Initiative.

Całościowe badania społeczności językowych

Comprehensive Research on Speech CommunitiesEinar Haugen’s theory of “ecology of language”, also known as ecolinguistics and linguistic ecology, is an interdisciplinary approach within linguistic studies. The description of language with its “environment”, i.e. speech community, its history, economic and political situation, legal status and other features, is an important part of many research reports in sociolinguistics and contact linguistics. Despite of the usefulness of non-structural factors in linguistic analysis, one has to admit that many scholars, not only representatives of social sciences but also linguists, tend to concentrate on the sociological or anthropological part of ecolinguistic studies and neglect the question of linguistic phenomena or significantly reduce their description. However, there are certain studies from the field of linguistic ecology which can be characterized as comprehensive approaches in the research on speech communities, where socio-cultural and linguistic questions are paid equal attention. One of the most detailed research reports in this field is Tadeusz Lewaszkiewicz’s monograph on the language of resettlers from Navahrudak and its surroundings after the World War II. This in-depth study of a speech community is a rare example of a multifaceted analysis of idiolectal and generational evolution of the Polish language of the Eastern Borderlands.

Experienced teachers’ beliefs and practices toward communicative approaches in teaching English as a foreign language in rural Ukraine

Communicative language teaching (CLT) in an English as a foreign language (EFL) context is a dynamic process involving teachers’ perspectives and practices. Although CLT is a widely accepted approach to second language instruction, scholars in the field continue to have a narrow understanding of how teachers conceptualize and implement this approach in various international contexts. The present multiple case study focuses on the interrelationships between in‐service teachers’ beliefs and practices with CLT in an EFL context: rural Ukraine. Ukraine only recently adopted a national CLT curriculum, and how experienced teachers integrate this approach into their current teaching has not been closely examined. To uncover mediating factors that influence their practices, the researchers drew on the approach of language ecology to analyze three experienced teachers’ beliefs and practices. Drawing on multiple data sources (surveys, interviews, and classroom observations), they identified two primary mitigating factors: access and privilege. The study's overall rich description in an asset for the EFL or English as a second language (ESL) professional, but the authors also integrated the findings into two reflective tools to guide teachers in self‐evaluation of their own communicative‐based teaching, their teaching situation, and supplementary training opportunities to enhance their teaching practices.

Linguistic landscaping in Singapore: multilingualism or the dominance of English and its dual identity in the local linguistic ecology?

ABSTRACTAlthough Singapore, a linguistically and ethnically diverse city–state, uses four official languages, namely Malay, Mandarin, Tamil, and English, which are supposed to enjoy equal status, there appears to be a pecking order to these languages. English seems to be the dominant language when taking into consideration the bilingual education policy, numerous campaigns promoting its use in terms of spoken language, and language use by the media. Another mechanism that also contributes to the predominance of English over the other three official languages is linguistic landscape, i.e. language use in public space. Adopting the ecology of language as its conceptual framework and linguistic landscape as its methodological tool, this article, by analyzing public signs in and around 30 MRT (Mass Rapid Transport) stations of the Circle Line (CCL), discloses not only English imperialism but also the complexity of this language in Singapore with its dual identity as a global language as well as a local one. Consequentially, it is postulated that Singapore is monolingual- rather than bilingual- or multilingual-oriented.

“We talk in saltwater words”: Dimensionalisation of dialectal variation in multilingual Arnhem Land

In Arnhem Land, northern Australia, speakers of the Burarra language live and communicate within a highly multilingual and multilectal language ecology. This paper explores how regional ideologies of socio-cultural distinctiveness and unity are projected into the linguistic space at the level of the language (within Maningrida's language ecology), as well as at the level of the lect (in terms of dialects and sociolects within the Burarra language). Drawing from current ethnography, naturalistic interactional and elicited language data, and other existing materials, the paper considers how speakers reproduce and evaluate language-internal variation within a linguistically diverse region. These processes are contextualised within the dynamics of long-term ‘egalitarian’ multilingualism which continue to shape contemporary practices and contemporary means of social meaning-making.

Communicative rationality in conflicted language ecologies post #RhodesMustFall at the University of the Free State

Past regimes governing South African public life have used language as one means towards sociopolitical control and economic exclusion. Twenty years into the current, democratic state of affairs, the #RhodesMustFall movement called for a cementing of egalitarian praxes into all aspects of university business. At historically Afrikaans universities (HAUs), this demand inevitably intersected with language politics, raising two chief concerns: the retention of Afrikaans and the precarious status of African languages in the academy. While the problematic, colonial/ imperial roots of English were repeatedly acknowledged, so too, was its status as the lingua franca in higher education and the necessity for competency in the language in pursuing goals of access, equality and redress. Linguists in the south African research terrain routinely question the status of English, frequently pointing out the gains of multilingual practice and ‘mother tongue instruction’ but seldom address the materialities of oppositional politics in diverse linguistic ecologies. By applying Habermas’s theory of discourse ethics and ethnographic insights from the University of the Free State (UFS) during its language policy review process of 2015, this paper suggests that depoliticising processes are useful in fostering the communicative rationality needed for inclusivity, social cohesion and meaningful transformation while fulfilling constitutional imperatives.

‘Getting our spirits out’, letting youth spirits and life worlds into the classroom through youth radio arts for transnational students

ABSTRACTThis paper analyses the cultural practices that were introduced in a radio improv class on the first day of Youth Radio Arts for immigrant students, and how these practices served as resources to mediate students’ understanding of, and realisation of ‘voice’ over time. The theory-method combines insights from interactional ethnography and postmodern approaches to multilingual language ecologies. The analysis focuses on speech body play, parody, and embodied expression as salient dimensions of interactions with the radio improv mentor that found echoes in student reflections at the end of the year regarding the purpose of the programme and the meanings of voice and communication. The analysis of interactions from the first day together with ethnographic records from across the year, revealed the importance of taking into account the subjective and affective dimension of language, embodied perceptions, and cultural memory in multilingual settings constituted by transnational students.

KATA-KATA PINJAMAN DALAM ISTILAH SEPAKBOLA (SEBUAH KAJIAN MORFOLOGI)

Different language has its own difference in writing or pronunciation Sometimes, an activity may have not the actual word to express it. When one language has no word to express, the word from other’s language is used. The word itself is known as loanword. This case mostly appears in the football area. This article entitled ‘Loan Words in Football Terminology’ explains about the loan word which is usually used in the football terminology. The writer used the dictionary about football terminology “Kamus Istilah Sepakbola” by Nugraha Edy in order to find the data to be analyzed. The writer also uses the theory of Haugen “The ecology of Language” which will describe how the loan word formed. Before analyzing the data, the writer looked for the terminology in the data source and then analyzes it using the theory stated. At the end of analysis, the writer finds that many of football terminology in English has not be converted to Indonesian, so Indonesian has to loan English terminology to express it.