This paper describes a Nyungar language revitalisation project in the southern region of Western Australia conducted in partnership between a university research team and the Esperance Tjaltjraak ...Native Title Aboriginal Corporation. It discusses how linguistic analysis of historical Nyungar documentation was essential to addressing community aims of re-embedding the language into the community, developing and using pedagogical resources, and exploring new domains for language use. In particular, this paper focuses on the community's desire for the reclamation of a dialectal flavour of Nyungar that is distinctive to the Esperance region, and the factors contributing to a successful partnership between the researchers and the community organisation in terms of capacity-building, leadership, and sustainability.
‘Death’, ‘dying’, ‘dead’, ‘extinct’, ‘endangered’, ‘murdered’, ‘resurrected’ etc. The language-death-metaphor for language loss has permeated the contemporary linguistic literature for decades and ...decades. While biological metaphors for language have served a function historically in the study of language endangerment, this paper aims to outline how the language-death-metaphor specifically fails in that functioning. Maybe, the metaphor does not actually articulate what we are trying to articulate about a process common to all languages. This paper will dissect ‘language death’ cross-linguistically, investigating the changes in morphology, the loss of domains, creolization, and language shift that are all often purported to be ‘symptomatic’ of a language in its ‘last days’. I will then propose an alternative term, ‘phasing’, that might more clearly describe the process by which a language becomes more or less dynamic, more or less adaptable, more or less use(ful)d over time. The more accurate the terminology, the more specific the tool, the more that might be done to assist from the periphery in language reclamation efforts, to aid in slowing or reversing the process of linguistic loss, and to support the speakers of ‘dying’ languages more productively in their already ongoing effort(s).
This paper is an initial attempt to evaluate the challenges of promoting a new national language as a medium of instruction (MOI) in a post-socialist higher education (HE) context. In the case of ...Kazakhstan, the choice of MOI is perceived as a key tool to strengthen national identity and resist domination of Russian; in higher education sector language policies are constructed to foster cultural independence which translates into establishing Kazakh as a full-fledged medium of academia. Drawing on the historical-structural approach (Tollefson, 1991, 2013), we analyze the ideologies and practices of university students studying in Kazakh. Findings from audio-recorded interviews suggest that implementing Kazakh-medium instruction policies face numerous pragmatic and ideological challenges, such as a dearth of teaching and learning resources in Kazakh and lack of Kazakh-speaking faculty. This study contributes to scholarship on language revitalization in the context of tertiary education.
This article draws on sociolinguistic fieldwork among speakers of one of Europe's smallest indigenous language communities, a speaker group which persists after the loss of all of its “traditional ...speakers” within living memory. The extreme language shift experienced by Manx has not led to loss of the language as a spoken and literary medium due to the efforts of significant numbers of language activists and enthusiasts over several generations, from before the loss of the traditional language community to the present. Their actions have resulted in significant linguistic institutionalisation and a rapidly expanding number of speakers of various abilities, some of whom form a new “speaker community”. It discusses the constructions of linguistic authenticity and alternative models for the revival speaker, showing how core groups of speakers have been bestowed with authenticity by the wider non-speaker population, for whom linguists' interest in language endangerment and language death are not primary concerns. The article shows how speakers appropriate and are accorded forms of authority and legitimacy in the absence of traditional native speakers.
The contributions of Chinese voluntary associations (CVAs) have often been viewed through a survivalist lens. As a process by which the activities of such organisations are interpreted through a ...rigid sense of what a Chinese community association is and should be, survivalist tendencies in academic scholarship must be re‐thought to fully assess the functions of several types of CVAs, including amid the cultural rise of the People's Republic of China. In light of Sara Ahmed's notion of ‘orientation’, we offer a vantage point from which to rethink the roles of such associations. We do so by illuminating the contributions of key organisations involved in efforts to revitalise Chinese languages other than Mandarin in two locales outside of China, namely the Siong Leng Musical Association and Viriya Community Services in Singapore, and Wongs' Benevolent Association and Youth Collaborative for Chinatown in Vancouver. By focusing on these four voluntary associations in Singapore and Vancouver and, more specifically, on the perspectives of their youth members, we show the similar dialectical nature of their activities, which are caught in the dynamic interplays between local and global cultural forces and between intergenerational perspectives on language use.
Language planning and policy (LPP), as a field of research, emerged to solve the “problem” of multilingualism in newly independent nation-states. LPP’s principal emphasis was the reproduction of ...one-state, one-language policies. Indigenous languages were systematically erased through top-down, colonial medium-of-instruction policies, such as in Canadian residential schools. To this day, ideologies and policies still privilege dominant classes and languages at the expense of Indigenous and minoritized groups and languages. To prevent further erasure and marginalization, work is required at multiple levels. There is growing consensus that top-down, government-led LPP must occur alongside community-led, bottom-up LPP. One shared and common goal for Indigenous language reclamation and revitalization initiatives across the globe is to promote intergenerational language transmission in the home, the community, and beyond. The affordances of digital and online technologies are also being explored to foster more self-determined virtual communities of practice. Following an Indigenous research paradigm, this paper introduces the
TEK-nology
(Traditional Ecological Knowledge TEK and technology) pilot project in the Canadian context.
TEK-nology
is an immersive, community-led, and technology-enabled Indigenous language acquisition approach to support Anishinaabemowin language revitalization and reclamation. The
TEK-nology
pilot project is an example of bottom-up, community-based language planning (CBLP) where Indigenous community members are the language-related decision-makers. This paper demonstrates that Indigenous-led, praxis-driven CBLP, using
TEK-nology
, can support Anishinaabemowin language revitalization and reclamation and more equitable, self-determined LPP. The CBLP
TEK-nology
project has implications for status and acquisition language planning; culturally responsive LPP methodologies; and federal, provincial, territorial, and family language policy.
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