Language Planning and Policy
LANGUAGE PLANNING AND POLICY Series Editors: Professor Richard B. Baldauf Jr., University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia and Professor Robert B. Kaplan, University of Southern California, USA Other Books in the Series Language Planning and Policy in Africa, Vol.1: Botswana, Malawi, Mozambique and South Africa Richard B. Baldauf Jr. and Robert B. Kaplan (eds) Language Planning and Policy in Africa Vol. 2: Algeria, Côte d’Ivoire, Nigeria and Tunisia Robert B. Kaplan and Richard B. Baldauf Jr. (eds) Language Planning and Policy in Europe, Vol.1: Hungary, Finland and Sweden Robert B. Kaplan and Richard B. Baldauf Jr. (eds) Language Planning and Policy in Europe, Vol. 2: The Czech Republic, The European Union and Northern Ireland Richard B. Baldauf Jr. and Robert B. Kaplan (eds) Language Planning and Policy in Europe, Vol. 3: The Baltic States, Ireland and Italy Robert B. Kaplan and Richard B. Baldauf Jr. (eds) Language Planning and Policy in Latin America, Vol. 1: Ecuador, Mexico and Paraguay Richard B. Baldauf Jr. and Robert B. Kaplan (eds) Language Planning and Policy in Pacific, Vol. 1: Fiji, The Philippines and Vanuatu Richard B. Baldauf Jr. and Robert B. Kaplan (eds) Language Planning and Policy: Issues in Language Planning and Literacy Anthony J. Liddicoat (ed.) Other Books of Interest Directions in Applied Linguistics Paul Bruthiaux, Dwight Atkinson, William G. Eggington, William Grabe and Vaidehi Ramanathan (eds) Language Decline and Death in Africa: Causes, Consequences and Challenges Herman M. Batibo Language Diversity in the Pacific: Endangerment and Survival Denis Cunningham, D.E. Ingram and Kenneth Sumbuk (eds) Language in Jewish Society: Towards a New Understanding John Myhill Language Planning: From Practice to Theory Robert B. Kaplan and Richard B. Baldauf Jr. (eds) Linguistic Landscapes: A Comparative Study of Urban Multilingualism in Tokyo Peter Backhaus Multilingualism in European Bilingual Contexts: Language Use and Attitudes David Lasagabaster and Ángel Huguet (eds) Politeness in Europe Leo Hickey and Miranda Stewart (eds) The Defence of French: A Language in Crisis? Robin Adamson
For more details of these or any other of our publications, please contact: Multilingual Matters, Frankfurt Lodge, Clevedon Hall, Victoria Road, Clevedon, BS21 7HH, England http://www.multilingual-matters.com
LANGUAGE PLANNING AND POLICY
Language Planning and Policy Language Planning in Local Contexts
Edited by
Anthony J. Liddicoat and Richard B. Baldauf Jr.
MULTILINGUAL MATTERS LTD Clevedon • Buffalo • Toronto
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Language Planning and Policy: Language Planning in Local Context / Edited by Anthony J. Liddicoat and Richard B. Baldauf, Jr. Language Planning and Policy Includes bibliographical references. 1. Language planning. I. Liddicoat, Anthony. II. Baldauf, Richard B. P40.5.L35L285 2008 306.44'9–dc22 2007050422 British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue entry for this book is available from the British Library. ISBN-13: 978-1-84769-063-0 (hbk) Multilingual Matters Ltd UK: Frankfurt Lodge, Clevedon Hall, Victoria Road, Clevedon BS21 7HH. USA: UTP, 2250 Military Road, Tonawanda, NY 14150, USA. Canada: UTP, 5201 Dufferin Street, North York, Ontario M3H 5T8, Canada. Copyright © 2008 Anthony J. Liddicoat, Richard B. Baldauf Jr. and the authors of individual chapters. The articles in this book also appeared in the journal of Current Issues in Language Planning Vol. 1: 3, 2000; Vol. 3: 1, 2002; Vol. 5: 2, 2004; Vol. 5: 2, 2004; Vol. 6: 1, 2005; Vol. 7: 1, 2006; Vol. 7: 2&3, 2006. All rights reserved. No part of this work may be reproduced in any form or by any means without permission in writing from the publisher. The policy of Multilingual Matters/Channel View Publications is to use papers that are natural, renewable and recyclable products, made from wood grown in sustainable forests. In the manufacturing process of our books, and to further support our policy, preference is given to printers that have FSC and PEFC Chain of Custody certification. The FSC and/or PEFC logos will appear on those books where full certification has been granted to the printer concerned. Printed and bound in Great Britain by MPG Books Ltd.
Contents The Contributors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . vii Introduction Language Planning in Local Contexts: Agents, Contexts and Interactions Anthony .J. Liddicoat and Richard .B. Baldauf Jr. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 Rearticulating the Case for Micro Language Planning in a Language Ecology Context Richard B. Baldauf Jr. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18 Language Communities From Language to Ethnolect: Maltese to Maltaljan Roderick Bovingdon . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45 Community-level Approaches in Language Planning: The Case of Hungarian in Australia Anikó Hatoss . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55 Micro-level Language Planning in Ireland Diarmait Mac Giolla Chríost . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75 Preserving Dialects of an Endangered Language Shelley Tulloch . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95 The Ecological Impact of a Dictionary Anthony J. Liddicoat . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 113 Prestige From the Bottom Up: A Review of Language Planning in Guernsey Julia Sallabank . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 120 Language Planning in American Indian Pueblo Communities: Contemporary Challenges and Issues Christine P. Sims . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 139 Terminology Planning in Aboriginal Australia Jakelin Troy and Michael Walsh. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 156 Changing the Language Ecology of Kadazandusun: The Role of the Kadazandusun Language Foundation Rita Lasimbang and Ttixie Kinajil. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 171 Educational Contexts Singaporean Education Planning: Moving From the Macro to the Micro Catherine Siew Kheng Chua . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 183 ‘Trajectories of Agency’ and Discursive Identities in Education: A Critical Site in Feminist Language Planning Jo Winter and Anne Pauwels . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 199 University Students’ Attitudes Towards and Experiences of Bilingual Classrooms Christa van der Walt. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 217 v
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Pacific Languages at the University of the South Pacific John Lynch and France Mugler . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 234 Micro Language Planning for Student Support in a Pharmacy Faculty Helen Marriott . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 240 Work Contexts Negotiable Acceptability: Reflections on the Interactions Between Language Professionals in Europe and NNS Scientists Wanting to Publish in English Joy Burrough-Boenisch . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 255 On Language Management in Multilingual Companies in the Czech Republic J. Nekvapil and M. Nekula. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 268
The Contributors
Editors Anthony J. Liddicoat is Professor in Applied Linguistics at the Research Centre for Languages and Cultures in the School of International Studies at the University of South Australia. He is a former president of the Australian Federation of Modern Language Teachers Associations. His research interests include: language and intercultural issues in education, conversation analysis, and language policy and planning. In recent years his research has focused on issues relating to the teaching and learning of culture through language study and his work has contributed to the development of intercultural language teaching and learning. He has published many books and papers in this area including Introduction to Conversation Analysis, Language Planning and Literacy, Australian Perspectives on Internationalisation and Perspectives on Europe. Richard B. Baldauf, Jr is Professor of TESOL in the School of Education at the University of Queensland and a member of the Executive of the International Association of Applied Linguistics (AILA). He has published numerous articles in refereed journals and books. He is co-editor of Language Planning and Education in Australasia and the South Pacific (Multilingual Matters, 1990), principal researcher and editor for the Viability of Low Candidature LOTE Courses in Universities (DEET, 1995), co-author with Robert B. Kaplan of Language Planning from Practice to Theory (Multilingual Matters, 1997) and Language and Language-in-Education Planning in the Pacific Basin (Kluwer, 2003), and co-author with Zhao Shouhui of Planning Chinese Characters: Revolution, Evolution or Reaction (Springer, 2007).
The Authors Roderick Bovingdon is a freelance linguist, Sydney, Australia. His research interests are in the Maltese language and he has published a comprehensive linguistic study of the Maltese language of Australia known as Maltraljan. Joy Burrough Boenisch drifted into correcting non-native English when, with Oxford and McGill MAs in geography under her belt and being newly married in Borneo, she was asked to check the English texts of Malaysian agricultural scientists. She learnt to be an editor in Australia. After moving to the Netherlands in 1976 she began helping Dutch scientists to publish in English. She is a founder member and past chair of the Society of English-Native-Speaking Editors in the Netherlands (SENSE) and a member of the European Association of Science Editors (EASE). She discovered applied linguistics late in life. Chua Siew Kheng Catherine, National Institute of Education, Singapore, did her PhD at the University of Queensland in the School of Education, where her research project focused on literacy in Singapore. Her research interests include: the effects of globalisation; languages; ideologies; literacy and literary studies; vii Contributors
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micro and macro policy implementation. She is particularly interested in using postcolonial theory and/or critical inquiry when researching in these areas. Anikó Hatoss is Senior Lecturer at the University of Southern Queensland where she teaches sociolinguistics and bilingualism in the post-graduate Applied Linguistics program. Her research is focused on the study of bilingualism, acculturation and language maintenance and shift in immigrant communities. Currently she is working on a project funded by the Australian Research Council to explore the motivational dimensions of language maintenance and micro-level language planning among Sudanese refugees in Australia. She has also conducted studies in the Hungarian, German and South African communities in Australia. Trixie Kinajil has been a Research Officer at the Kadazandusun Language Foundation since 1998. Previously she taught English Language in a local secondary school. For her training in Child Development she practised at Parent Educational Services, Kamehameha Schools, Hawaii, on how to observe their children’s development; and at Michigan Database, a data bank and research unit at Michigan State University, where she helped prepare statistical data for a needs project on childcare. Rita Lasimbang is Chief Executive Officer of the Kadazandusun Language Foundation after serving as Curator at the Department of Sabah Museum. She has served as a project coordinator and linguistic consultant in the compilation of the Kadazan Dusun–Malay–English Dictionary, a major application of the standardised Kadazan orthography. She maintains active involvement in the nation-wide Database of Indigenous Terms Project coordinated by the Institute of National Language and Literature in Malaysia [Dewan Bahasadan Pustaka]. John Lynch is a linguist specialising in Oceanic languages. He is a professor and the Director of the Pacific Languages Unit at the University of the South Pacific in Port Vila, Vanuatu. His areas of focus are languages of Vanuatu, history of languages of the Pacific, pidgin and creole languages, language change, dictionaries, and orthography design. Diarmait Mac Giolla Chríost (PhD) is a senior lecturer in the School of Welsh at Cardiff University, Wales. He is a native of Ireland and an authority on linguistic minorities and language planning. He has published in Irish studies, the social sciences, human geography, and the sociology of language including substantial articles in various scholarly journals and three single-author books – Language, Identity and Conflict (Routledge, 2003) and The Irish Language in Ireland (Routledge, 2005) and Language and the City (Palgrave Macmillan, 2007). He is a Fellow of The Royal Geographical Society and Royal Historical Society. Helen Marriott is an Associate Professor and teaches in the Japanese program at Monash University, Australia. She has undertaken various studies of Australian-Japanese intercultural communication and currently has an interest in the transition of overseas students to new academic contexts. France Mugler is an Associate Professor in Linguistics in the Department of Literature and Language, the University of the South Pacific. Before coming to USP, she worked in the Pacific Languages Unit (PLU) in Port Vila, Vanuatu for three years. Her main research interests are in sociolinguistics and she has
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worked on the Dravidian languages in Fiji, in part in collaboration with Indian linguists from the Central Institute of Indian Languages (CIIL) in Mysore, India. Marek Nekula is a professor at the University of Regensburg (Germany) and Chair of the Center for Czech Studies. He is editor of Language, Economy, Culture: Germans and Czechs in Interaction (1997, in German; with S. Höhne), Economics and Communication: Czech-German Economic Relationships (2002, in German; with J. Möller), among others. He has led projects on Czech and German Intercultural Communication in the Economic Sphere (1996-1998) and East European Languages as a Factor of Economic Integration (2003-2005). J. Nekvapil teaches sociolinguistics, discourse analysis and general linguistics at the Department of Linguistics at Charles University, Prague. He has published extensively in these areas. His current research focuses on language planning in Europe, language management theory and the impact of the economy on the use of languages. Anne Pauwels is Dean of the Faculty of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences and Professor of Linguistics at the University of Western Australia, Australia. She is Chair of a national Australian project,Innovative Approaches to the Teaching of Languages Other than English in Australian Higher Education. Her publications include Women Changing Language (Blackwell, 1998), Maintaining Minority Languages in Transnational Settings (Palgrave, 2007) and Linguistic Diversity and Language Change (deGruyter, 2007). Julia Sallabank is Research Fellow in Language Support and Revitalisation at the School of Oriental and African Studies, London. She has been conducting a sociolinguistic study of Guernsey Norman French since 2000, and gained her doctorate at Lancaster University in 2007. She was previously commissioning editor for applied linguistics and language teaching methodology at Oxford University Press. Christine Sims (PhD) serves on the faculty of the Department of Language, Literacy, and Sociocultural Studies in the College of Education at the University of New Mexico. She completed her doctoral work at the University of California at Berkeley, focusing on issues of heritage language maintenance and revitalisation among American Indian tribes. She specialises in indigenous language revitalisation and maintenance issues, providing technical assistance to tribes in Native language program planning, and training language teachers through the University of New Mexico’s Institute for American Indian Education. She serves as Board Chairperson for the Linguistic Institute for Native Americans (LINA), a New Mexico-based organisation dedicated to native language advocacy and support of community-based language initiatives. She is also a member of the New Mexico Bilingual Advisory Committee to the State Department of Education’s Bilingual/Multicultural Unit. Dr. Sims is a member of Acoma Pueblo and resides on the Acoma Pueblo Indian reservation in north-western New Mexico. Jakelin Troy has been working with the New South Wales Aboriginal Languages Research and Resource Centre, in Sydney Australia on research on Aboriginal languages.
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Shelley Tulloch is an assistant professor of Anthropology at Saint Mary’s University in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada. Her PhD dissertation (Linguistics, Université Laval) examined the language attitudes of Inuit youth in Nunavut. It showed how the youths’ practical and symbolic attachment to Inuktitut provides an impetus for grassroots level language planning in the communities. In a commissioned research report, she made recommendations to the Government of Nunavut for the preservation of distinct dialects in the territory. Her current fieldwork in Baffin Island communities is investigating the relationship between language maintenance and community well-being. Christa van der Walt is senior lecturer in Curriculum Studies at the University of Stellenbosch where she is involved in the training of English language teachers. Her research focuses on the role of English in multilingual educational contexts, specifically with regard to the use of more than one language in the classroom. She was involved in the development of the Stellenbosch University language policy and plan and currently helps with the development of language placement tests for newly-enrolled students. Michael Walsh began field research on Australian Aboriginal Languages in 1972 and has continued his interest to the present, mainly in northern Australia but more recently in New South Wales. Apart from the documentation and description of languages he is particularly interested in lexical semantics, cross cultural communication and language and the law. The last mentioned interest has been triggered by his involvement since 1979 in a traditional Aboriginal land claim in the Northern Territory. Until 2004 he taught linguistics at the University of Sydney. Jo Winter is Senior Research Fellow at the University of Western Australia. Her research interests and publications lie at the intersection of gender studies, discourse analysis and the sociolinguistics of Englishes. She is a co-editor of Maintaining Minority Languages in Transnational Settings (Palgrave, 2007).
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Language Planning in Local Contexts: Agents, Contexts and Interactions Anthony J. Liddicoat Research Centre for Languages and Cultures, University of South Australia Richard B. Baldauf Jr. School of Education, Faculty of Social and Behavioural Sciences, University of Queensland
Local Contexts in Language Planning Research Traditionally language planning research has focused on the actions of governments and similar macro-level institutions. Language planning as an academic discipline began in the context of nation-state formation following the end of colonialism (see for example Ferguson, 1962; Fishman, Ferguson, & Das Gupta, 1968; Pool, 1972; Rubin & Jernudd, 1971). The chief concerns were related to issues of creating national unity and developing and maintaining effective communication within emerging nations (Mansour, 1993; Ricento, 2003). Such a focus privileges the consideration of national level actions and the intervention of official bodies in the language questions facing a society. In this context and in that era, local issues of language planning were seen as secondary to the overall process of planning, or to ones that raised unwanted problems and competition for the national language. Initially, such issues often have been ignored (e.g., local language development in Indonesia – Nababan, 1991), or suppressed (Tai’yü, Hakka and aboriginal languages in Taiwan – Sandel, 2003; Tsao, 1998) if considered at all. One of the reasons for the marginalisation of micro-level language planning within the context of language planning research has been definitional. Most definitions of language planning presuppose ‘deliberate planning by an organized body enjoying either legal or moral authority, such as a government agency, commission, or academy’ (Nahir, 1998: 351). Such legal or moral authority has regularly been located within macro-level institutions created and/or sanctioned by nation-states. This view of language planning locates research within a theory of power which sees the top-down exercise of power (or domination) as the relevant construct for understanding decision-making about languages. Such a view of power in language planning is however problematic as a delimiting agent for constituting the focus of language planning research. It is problematic for a number of reasons. The first is that deliberate planning of language issues implies a direct causational relationship between decisions made by those with the power to execute them and the actual results of language planning – leaving aside a role for acceptance of the language plan itself. Such a causational link is not justified by language planning outcomes, which may be unplanned or may result from activ3
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ities which were not planned (Baldauf, 1994; Eggington, 2002). Such research shows that a restriction that limits analysis to deliberate planning is not helpful in understanding the realities of language planning. In fact, it is often local contextual agents which affect how macro-level plans function and the outcomes that they achieve. As Baldauf notes, the need for an understanding of the unplanned dimensions of language planning outcomes ‘is probably especially true at the “micro-level” because there is less awareness of language planning at this level and because such planning is ongoing and therefore commonplace’ (Baldauf, 1994: 86). The second reason is that it oversimplifies the nature of power as it applies in speech communities and how this power is realised in matters of language. All social groups involve technologies of power through which the actions of social agents are shaped. If power is understood as l’action sur les actions (Foucault, 1975), the operations and role of power become more complex as power lies not simply in the ability to dominate but also in the ability to shape the behaviour of others. The operation of power is not therefore simply enforcement of particular norms but consists in ways of getting others to act of their own volition in particular ways. This means that individuals and groups have the potential to exercise power over other members of their society in ways which affect the behaviours of others. Thus, it is not through the coercive and normative power of institutions – the power ascribed by status or realised through sanctions (Carspecken, 1996) – that behaviours are changed but through more subtle operations on the choices of others. Among these are the strategies that Carspecken (1996) identifies as charm – the ability to use culturally understood identity claims and norms to gain the trust and loyalty of others – and contractual power – an agreement specifying reciprocal obligations between parties. Within a more elaborated view of power, an exclusive focus on macro-level phenomena becomes problematic for a full understanding of the nature of language-related processes. This analysis suggests that language planning work in local contexts is a fundamental and integrated part of the overall language planning process, which merits attention both within the context of the operation of macro-level planning – as a necessary extension of it – and in its own right – as a local activity with no macro roots. The focus on local contexts in language planning mirrors an increased concern for the democratisation of decision-making in social policy in general which recognises the impact of power asymmetries on policy outcomes (Hill, 2003). Concern for democratisation has been prompted by a realisation that existing national-level power structures have undergone an erosion of legitimacy in many contexts which cannot be remedied by centralisation of decision-making, and in which there need to evolve local processes to address local contexts (Ghani, Lockhart & Carnahan, 2006). A focus on local contexts is not only warranted by the democratisation of decision-making, but also from the perspective of devolution, especially in education where the locus of much of the decision-making lies with local communities (Tunstall, 2001). However, it needs to be noted that the shift in the locus of power from the macro to the micro – to the local level – may alter only some of the power relationships, but may maintain others (Jocelyn Graf, 2007, personal communication).
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For example, regionalisation may shift power from centralised structures (e.g., the Ministry of Education in Jakarta) to more regional structures as has occurred as part of ‘Reformasi’ in Indonesia since the fall of Suharto. This had led to local government elections and in 2006 in education to the initiation of ‘localised curriculum’ that gradually is putting more power and decision making about language and curriculum in the hands of local administrators, schools, lecturers and teachers. However, consultation may not be being extended to students. Thus, although power relationships may now be more immediate, and hopefully more attuned to students’ needs, it also may be the case that from a student perspective local language planning and democratisation may have had little impact on their ability to influence change.
Agents of Language Planning at the Local Level Haarmann (1990) was perhaps the first to suggest, in the context of promotional activities for prestige planning, that there are different levels of agency in language planning – government, agencies, pressure groups and individuals – ranging from the macro to the micro. Rather than focusing on the work of governments and their agencies as the agents in language planning, a microlevel approach needs to consider a range of agents, which exist with greater or lesser formality within their local speech communities. For the latter three micro groupings of agents in Haarman’s categorisation, the range is quite diverse as language issues can arise in association with many different types of activities and in different domains. Thus, any survey of the agents of micro language planning must necessarily be incomplete because of the diversity of potential groups who need to engage in language: e.g. a local committee deciding to use sign language interpreters, interest groups disseminating their material in multiple languages, or workplaces with multilingual populations. Spolsky (2004) also has examined this issue indirectly by briefly outlining a number of domains or sociolinguistic contexts ranging from the micro (i.e. families, schools, religious organisations, the workplace, local government) to the macro (i.e. supra-national groupings, and polities) where language planning occurs. However, we would argue that power and its use ultimately are constituted by agents who exist in particular domains. Therefore, in this overview there is an attempt to outline some of the better documented agents, roughly along the lines of the three agentive groups suggested by Haarmann (1990), without a priori excluding any potential others. At the most micro-level of language planning is located the work of individuals, or often small groups of individuals, who work to revive or promote the use of a language. The influence of Eliezer Ben-Yehuda on the revival of Hebrew is widely known, although his individual role may be contested (Fellman, 1973; Nahir, 1998). His influence in actively using Hebrew as an everyday language and raising his son as a first-language speaker of Hebrew, together with the development of new lexical items as required, are frequently cited as initial steps in the revival of Hebrew. The work of linguist Rob Amery, in collaboration with the indigenous community, in the corpus planning for the revival of the Kaurna language in Australia has also been well documented (Amery, 2000, 2001). Sabino Arana (1865–1903), who created many of the cultural symbols
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of Basque nationalism, was responsible for the development of the first standardised variety of Basque in his grammar, which was based on a compilation of different existing dialects (Sánchez & Dueñas, 2002). The development of a standardised orthography and the development of a codified lexicon for Jersey Norman French was fundamentally the work of Frank Le Maistre (Le Maistre, 1966; Liddicoat, 2000). In many cases, these activities were the work of enthusiasts who were motivated by a range of different concerns. In some cases they worked in relative isolation from organisations or institutions, with goals of recording a language or because of a personal investment in the language. The work undertaken often has language planning as a secondary or even tacit goal. However, the resulting work has shaped patterns of language use and the forms of language used in speech communities. Micro-level planning is however not always, or even typically, the work of a single individual. In some cases, the evolution of language planning in a particular local speech community may be the result of the successive work of single individuals. For example, in the revival of Cornish, the process can be seen in the work of a series of individuals. Henry Jenner, in his Handbook of the Cornish Language (Jenner, 1904), not only produced the first textbook for selfdirected learning of the language, but also established a standardised spelling and grammar by regularising the uses found in extant Late Cornish texts. This work provided the basis through which other individuals began to use Cornish. Morton Nance developed a more elaborated form of Cornish, based on Jenner’s work and Middle Cornish literature with additional lexicon adapted from Breton and Welsh, known as Kernewek Unyes (Unified Cornish) (Nance, 1929). These early developments received support from Cornish cultural organisations, but there was no coordinated body supporting the revitalisation of Cornish until 1967 when the Kesva an Taves Kernewek (Cornish Language Board) was established. In the 1980s, a revision was made of Kernewek Unyes by Ken George, known as Kernewek Kemmyn (Common Cornish) (George, 1986). It retained the Middle Cornish base but regularised the spelling on the basis of phonemic theory and established rules relating spelling to pronunciation. Kernewek Kemmyn was adopted by the Kesva an Taves Kernewek as their preferred system. Similarly, language organisations have played a significant role in the local language planning for small communities. Typically some of these institutions have focused on literature rather than language specifically, but have nonetheless played a powerful role in shaping languages and language use. For example, the Selskip foar Fryske Taal- en Skriftekenisse (Society for Frisian Language and Literature) was established in 1844 primarily to promote Frisian through its literature. The primary function of the society was to develop a writers’ union in which the ‘working members’ were to write literary works in Frisian (Feitsma, 1986). It published literary work in Frisian first in the magazine Iduna and from 1850 in the annual Swanneblummen and instituted a literary prize for Frisian writing. The Selskip, although primarily a literary body, was of necessity involved in language planning work as an element of its publishing work. It established an archaicising variety of Frisian as the literary norm, with spelling conventions adopted from Old Frisian. These subsequently became codified in the Selskip’s grammar. As the principle publisher of Frisian language texts, the
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Selkip exercised a considerable influence in the early period of the standardisation of Frisian (Hoekstra, 2003). Other organisations have focused on the maintenance of language and culture more generally, such as the Institut d’Estudis Occitans (IEO), established in 1945 as a co-ordinating body for work in maintaining and developing Occitan language and culture. The IEO is an essentially militant occitaniste organisation expressing a conviction in the unity of Occitan language, culture and territory and this set of beliefs has had a powerful role in shaping ways in which the revitalisation of Occitan (as opposed to that of local varieties such as languedocien, auvergnat, limousin, etc.) has been conducted (Kremnitz, 2001).1 The establishment of a movement in support of Occitan as a single named language has therefore been a significant achievement of the IEO, and other militant organisations. The IEO is particularly engaged in Occitan language education through publishing teaching materials and conducting language courses. It also publishes a number of literary works and periodicals in Occitan and conducts conferences and other public events. As part of its work, it has adopted a unified spelling system, which has become the norm in Occitan language education. The work of the IEO has contributed significantly to the forms of language used in the Calandreta schools, although there is a tendency in Provence to use the older roumanillien orthography (Belasco, 1990). In both these cases, it can be seen that the work of an organisation with a language focus requires local level language planning as a practical necessity for undertaking written communication within their field of work. Such work may then be applied more widely, or may be revised or resisted, in the on-going development of the language. Language planning work is also conducted by official institutions which are not necessarily language oriented. One of the most prolific of these groups has been religious bodies. The work of missionary societies in the development of languages has been particularly significant and in these cases, language planning work has been secondary to proselytising, but a central tool for it. In some cases the impact of missions has been on the development of literate forms of vernacular languages and in others it has been on language spread. Missionary activity in South America at different times followed both of these trajectories, at first developing vernaculars and then replacing them. Early Spanish missionary activity in South America played a supportive role for local languages, including the establishment of a chair of Quechua in Lima by the Society of Jesus in the 1570s (Sánchez, 1992; Sánchez & Dueñas, 2002). The establishment of Quechua within the education system necessitated further work to develop a written form of the language and write grammars and dictionaries. As the process of colonialism unfolded, missionaries increasingly came to favour the spread of Spanish as the language of religious teaching and proselytising. Sánchez and Dueñas (2002) argue that the decision-making regarding the use of Spanish or indigenous languages for religious work was not based on a coherent top-down policy, but was rather undertaken locally according to the agendas and sympathies of particular individuals or groups within the missionary Church. In Taiwan, Dutch missionaries developed a written form of Siraya, a southern lingua franca, for missionary work, with the language later coming to be used for administrative matters in the Dutch colony (Tsao, 1999). Protestant missionaries of the nineteenth century tended to have a strong role
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in the development of local written vernaculars with many missions establishing written language forms and working in the area of Bible translation. In so doing they both developed written language forms and sought to introduce literacy into local language ecologies, often with changes to the use patterns of local languages. For example, the Methodist mission in New Georgia (Solomon Islands) established Raviana, the local language of the mission area as the lingua franca of the mission, being used liturgically and in the mission schools and hospital. As communities with other languages joined the mission, Roviana was adopted as the language for these contexts, leading to eventual shift to the mission language (Dunn, 2007). Since the Second Vatican Council, the replacement of Latin with vernacular languages in the liturgy of the Catholic Church has also shaped local language planning decisions (Liddicoat, 1993). In multilingual communities, the change in liturgical practice may have led to the development of multilingualism within a particular church’s practice or it may have lead to the use of a single local language and the imposition of linguistic uniformity on congregations. In some contexts, the use of vernaculars in the Catholic liturgy was the first modern use of the language in a valued context, affecting the perceived prestige of the language. These local decisions can have strong political consequences as statements of group identities and aspirations, as in the case of the adoption of Tetum in East Timor from 1975. In this case, the use of Portuguese had been banned and the use of Tetum was a form of symbolic rejection of Indonesian as the newly imposed official language (Carey, 1999). Local community education groups may also be significant agents for micro language planning. Such local groups often establish educational undertakings in order to fill gaps found in mainstream provision or even to resist perceived discrimination within the macro-language planning context. The New Zealand Ma-ori-medium Ko-hanga Reo or ‘language nest’ is a pre-school movement which began and was developed with very little government support. The success of the movement, however, has had a considerable affect on the nature of Ma-ori language education in New Zealand (May, 1998). The Ko-hanga Reo movement has grown to include primary schooling in the Kura Kaupapa Ma-ori and also in secondary and tertiary-level institutions. Since 1990 both Ko-hanga Reo and Kura Kaupapa Ma-ori have been incorporated into the state educational system and have received government funding. In Scotland, the Sabhal Mór Ostaig2 is a similar community-generated educational institute, but in this case it was established to teach tertiary level courses, especially vocationally oriented courses, through the medium of Gaelic. In 1983 the school began its first fulltime further education course and since 1997, as part of the UHI Millennium Institute, it has begun to offer Gaelic-related degree programmes, and postgraduate qualifications (Smith, 2003). Its initial course offerings sought to bridge the traditional-modern dichotomy confronting the Gaelic language ecology in Scotland and included Gaelic broadcasting and multi-media, business management and information technology (MacDonald, 1985). Its degree programme also includes music, literature, media studies, language planning and economic development. This section has reviewed a number of agents of language planning in local contexts – at an individual, pressure group and organisational level. It shows
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that language planning is not limited to government bodies with the power to impose their ideas through their own political dominance. These various bodies rely for their influence on much more distributed relationships of power. In some cases, the power involved is that of a charismatic individual or group that affects the opinions of those around them and in so doing affects their actions and behaviours. In other cases, the workings of power are more numinous and associated with the various interrelationships of prestige, ideology, social and cultural capital as they are worked through in particular communities. They reflect a richness of work around questions of language in which local contexts become key sites for the development of language forms, functions, prestige and education.
Local Contexts as Unique Sites of Language Planning For some languages in some speech communities, national level language planning may be either inappropriate or it may be impossible. National level language planning may be inappropriate in contexts in which language issues are localised and for which responses are needed at community level. Language does not simply exist at the macro-level of the nation-state, or other macrolevel polity, although as Kaplan and Baldauf (1997) have pointed out, such standard national languages may not in fact exist in reality – in a community of speakers – as they are idealised ways of speaking. Language is something with which individuals and communities engage daily in ways which are not relevant to national level objectives and processes. Each language exists in its own local language ecology and it is in relation to these ecologies that at least some language planning activity must be carried out to resolve local problems and address local needs. From the discussion of agents in this section, it can be seen that most of the work was aimed at local communities, variously defined, with wider applications coming from an expanding of the local and its intersections with language planning and policy at other levels. Language planning for the maintenance or revival of community languages is often in this situation (c.f. Latomaa & Nuolijärvi, 2002 for Finland). National planning may allocate funding or provide other structural assistance, but much of the work of planning itself is done and needs to be done at the community level. Language maintenance work primarily relates to smaller communities and with local rather than national applications. The development of new contexts of use, new resources and new processes to support a language in such a speech community all need to be responsive to local contexts in which no ‘one size fits all’ approach can be applied (e.g., see Haboud & King, 2007; King & Haboud, 2007 for Equador). Moreover, these are contexts in which local ownership is fundamental to the success or failure of the language plan (Trudell, 2006; Watson, 1999). Language planning in such situations is responsive to local agendas and local identification of issues to be resolved through planning and micro-level planning work is an appropriate and viable process for addressing these issues. Similarly, national level language planning is impossible for at least some speech communities, notably those of oppressed or ignored minorities, or for language work which actively resists national level language planning. Oppressed groups within a society are particularly unlikely to benefit from
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macro-level language planning work as they lack to power to affect the actions and decisions of members of the dominant group. However, the power such groups exercise in local communities can be considerably different, even if their local power comes from nothing other than demographic ascendancy. For example, in 1996 the Oakland Unified School District passed a resolution declaring Ebonics to be the primary language of the African-American students in its schools. The resolution further declared Ebonics to be a language in its own right, not a dialect of English. The Ebonics decision in Oakland was one which sought to address a local language problem relating to school success for African Americans, but which created controversy because it was not congruent with the dominant discourses of linguistic prestige in the wider society. Within the wider community Ebonics is a stigmatised variety spoken by the socially disenfranchised populations of inner cities (Baron, 2000). The situation here is one in which a government initiative would not be expected to occur because of the ideological positioning of Ebonics. Any attempt to claim a legitimate place for the language of African American children within education was of necessity a local issue. Much feminist language planning has also been undertaken at the grassroots level precisely because of perceptions of disempowerment among those who wished to challenge the gendered nature of the dominant language. Such work was typically undertaken without reference to, or in many cases in the face of opposition from, macro-level bodies with the power to shape language (Pauwels, 1998). It is only with the establishment of particular linguistic practices within speech communities at the local and even individual level that such language planning initiatives began to affect larger numbers individuals and to come to receive official support. Many speech communities typified as dialect-speaking areas are ignored in language planning, which conventionally aims at the levelling of dialect diversity rather than at its maintenance (Winsa, 2000). Language planning work to support and develop local language varieties, therefore, typically departs from macro-level objectives. This is the case for Tornedalen Finnish in Sweden, which in conformity to macro-level policy directions would have been considered a variety of Finnish and the speech community would have received language services, including education, in Standard Finnish rather than in the local variety. Such a solution at the macro-level would have subordinated the identity function of the variety to a purely structural assessment of linguistic affinity. The attempt to have the local variety allocated the status of language rather than dialect was the result of local initiatives and local planning work, which would have been unlikely to have occurred simply at a macro-level (for more detail, see Winsa, 1998).
Interactions between the Micro and the Macro It has been argued so far that micro-level language planning is a particular process within a general framework of language planning. In so doing, it has been necessary to establish a distinction between the micro and the macro; however, such a distinction is in reality a false one. In many cases, what happens in local language planning contexts is related to the macro-level context, but the interactions between levels can be complex.
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These interactions between the micro and the macro, between the local and the national, can operate in either direction. Language planning activities which begin at the local level can come to influence macro-level decision-making. For example, while much Frisian language planning was initially conducted at local levels by various groups of enthusiasts, their work in developing the linguistic resources of Frisian and its prestige within local communities eventually led to Frisian gaining official status within the Netherlands. Similarly grass roots language planning by feminist groups has since been incorporated into dictionaries and official style guides for language use. In both cases, the micro has expanded its sphere of influence. When a speech community comes to undertake work to change, enhance, maintain or defend its own language, such decisions are not made in isolation. While the local language ecology may be the core site for this work, such local ecologies are embedded within and influenced by broader ecologies. It is these influences which lead to local concerns being articulated as problems and with reference to, or even in opposition to, the prevailing influences and to solutions that are being articulated. Conversely, language planning at macro levels is implemented in local contexts in response to local conditions. A macro-level institution may establish norms and expectations for the ways in which languages are used in local communities, but how this is realised is dependent on decisions made at other levels. No macro-level policy is transmitted directly and unmodified to a local context. Both of these trajectories point to the importance of the local as a site for language planning. Local contexts are the contexts in which language use and language changes are experienced and understood by people. It is in response to these experiences and understandings that particular language issues come to be perceived as problems requiring solution or that the plans to resolve problems are put into practice. Viewed from this perspective, the problem posed for micro-level language planning at the beginning of this chapter can be reconsidered. Considering language planning only as the property of those who hold the institutional power to effect their decisions, ignores the interplay between the macro and the micro which is fundamental to all language planning work. It is an approach to language planning which risks failing to consider how language problems arise and come to be perceived as problems at the macro level. It also risks failing to consider how the macro is actually played out in the local communities in which it is being implemented. Furthermore it risks dismissing the work done to resolve purely local problems as part of the overall focus of language planning research and ignores the need to take an ecological perspective on language planning activities (Kaplan & Baldauf, 2008). The papers in this volume all engage with these local contexts in a consideration of how language planning process and language planning sites shape experiences of language and contribute to our understanding of language planning as a discipline.
Researching Language Planning in Local Contexts This book presents a number of case studies of language planning in local contexts in three broad areas of work: local language communities; educational institutions and professional work. These three contexts provide a range
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of examples of language problems that are addressed at local levels, and that examine language planning agents and degrees of formality in the language planning process. Collectively, while they are only a small sample of the range of language planning work that could be described for local communities, they present a broad survey of process and practice in micro-level planning. Baldauf begins by examining the parameters of micro-language planning with a particular focus on the ecological nature of language planning work. In particular he examines a range of contexts in which micro-level language planning research has been undertaken to give a wider scoping to this as an area of research. Among the issues he identifies are: sales and services, manufacturing, courts, administration, schools, families and communities. This overview indicates that the scope of micro-level language planning research is currently quite constrained and that the field has tended to be ad hoc in its approach to investigating local contexts. The series of chapters that follows focuses on issues relating to minority language communities, in which indigenous or immigrant minority groups have intervened in language practice in some way in an attempt to affect elements of the local language ecologies in which these languages are used. Bovingdon and Hatoss examine the situation of minority immigrant languages. Bovingdon examines corpus planning work in Maltese prompted by divergence between Maltese as it is used in Malta and in Australia. In his account, Bovingdon describes the community-based development of a glossary for Maltralijan – the Australian ethnolect – and the impact this has had on the ecology of Maltese in Australia through its influence on language use in some official contexts. Hatoss examines language maintenance work for Hungarian illustrating the ways in which immigrant community organisations collaborate with Hungarian government initiatives to conduct language planning work. In Hatoss’ study it becomes clear that language policy decisions made in one country (Hungary) to affect language behaviours in another (Australia) come to be implemented through local language planning activities rather than through government agencies. In this way local communities become the mechanism by which an external government can come to have influence outside its sphere of political control. The remaining chapters that investigate language planning for local communities deal with languages which are indigenous to the polity in which local level planning is being undertaken. The first study (Mac Giolla Chríost) examines the Irish language, which is both a minority language and an official language. Mac Giolla Chríost argues that implementation of macro-level language planning in the Republic of Ireland has been problematic, has not prevented the contraction of the Gaeltacht, and has been characterised in more recent initiatives by considerable micro-level work through co-operatives. These activities interact with macro-level planning to develop local solutions to the decline of Gaelic. He also documents similar community-based activities in Northern Ireland. On the basis of both he argues that micro-level planning has the potential to play a significant role in language maintenance policies aimed at reversing language shift. The next three studies examine language planning work in varieties which have historically been treated as dialects. Tulloch examines the particular
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situation of dialects in language planning work and considers how linguistic diversity can be maintained within language planning for reversing language shift. She examines three case studies: Breton, Innu and Irish Gaelic and argues that successful maintenance of linguistic diversity depends on establishing local goals and strategies for language planning based on the values speakers attach to their language varieties. The next two chapters examine how local language planning has played out in two communities in the Channel Islands of Jersey and Guernsey. Liddicoat examines how the language planning work of an individual supported by community institutions has influenced the local language ecology through the compilation of a dictionary of Jersey Norman French. The chapter examines some of the unplanned consequences of this corpus planning work. Sallabank examines the situation on the neighbouring island of Guernsey where individuals and local pressure groups have used prestige planning to plan a role for Guernsey Norman French and explores the impact this prestige planning has had on language use on the island. In both of these cases, a key concern has been to secure the status of the language variety concerned in a context in which it has had little or no recognition. The final three chapters dealing with minority language communities examine indigenous languages in regions which have undergone a process of colonialism. Sims examines the languages of Pueblo communities in the southwestern United States. Sims argues that maintaining an oral language tradition raises important issues for the ways in which language planning proceeds in local communities. She examines the ways in which indigenous groups’ perceptions of language, cultural considerations and community dynamics influence the ways in which they engage with language planning activities. Troy and Walsh examine corpus planning in indigenous communities in Australia, where such language planning work is not carried out systematically by government institutions, although some funding may be made available for language maintenance by governments. While such work may involve linguists and other language professionals, Troy and Walsh argue that the success of such activities relies very heavily on ownership by local indigenous communities. For this reason, corpus planning work for indigenous communities necessitates a local dimension. In a different colonial context, Lasimbang and Kinajil examine the work of a community-based language centre as the vehicle for a range of language planning activities for the maintenance of the Kadazandusun language of Sabah. The Kadazandusun Language Foundation provides a focus for community work in the areas of documentation, language education, and language services to support language maintenance work in the local community. The second series of chapters examines issues of language planning in educational communities, at both the school and university level. Schools represent an interface between the macro-level of language planning and the micro-level. Schools are frequently the object of governmental agencies’ language planning initiatives, but individual schools influence the ways in which those broader language goals are played out in their own contexts. Chua’s study engages specifically with this issue and examines the ways in which Singapore’s macro-level language-in-education policy is enacted within three schools. In each school the macro-level plan influences local realities in different
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ways associated with the goals, resources and wider educational considerations of the local community. Winter and Pauwels then examine the roles of individual teachers as agents of language planning. They examine the ways in which feminist language planning is enacted within the discourse of classrooms and the role that individuals’ reiteration of language planning considerations plays as an important mechanism for the spread of changed language practices. Universities are often more independent of macro-level planning and are often engaged in institutional level policy making of which language is only one dimension. Lynch and Mugler examine the ways in which the vernacular languages of the Pacific region have found a place in the teaching work of the University of the South Pacific. The chapter outlines how, in a context in which English is the main language of instruction not only of the university but also of most post-primary education in the nations served by the university, vernacular literacy programmes at primary level have created a need to alter the language practices of the university and to create teacher education courses which engage with a broader range of languages. Van der Walt examines one university’s experiences of developing an institutional language plan. The university sought to develop ways of providing instruction which catered for the linguistic diversity of the school population without reduplication of course offerings. She examines the ways in which the introduction of a policy of bilingual delivery in classrooms has affected the practices of teachers and students in the university. Marriott examines the approach taken in a single faculty to deal with the language demands raised by the internationalisation of the student body. She examines the development of a language education approach over a period of time from a language management perspective and outlines processes of information gathering and decision-making to deal with the local language needs of the faculty. The final two chapters examine aspects of language planning in two workplace contexts. Burrough-Boenisch examines the work of professional language editors as a form of language planning work. Such editors play a mediating role between non-native speaker writers and journals’ linguistic expectations and policies. As mediators of linguistic acceptability, editors work as agents of language planning at the most localised level – that of the individual text – and at the same time influence larger questions of linguistic form in the academic world. Nekvapil and Nekula investigate a more typical workplace context – that of a multilingual enterprise. Like a number of the preceding chapters they are concerned with the relative influence of the macrolevel and the micro-level and argue for a cyclic relationship between the two. In particular, they are concerned about how the policies and plans of organisational management are enacted in the local context of individual interactions.
Concluding Comments An examination of the studies in this volume suggests a number of issues which can be identified as features of research approaches to micro-level language planning and policy. These include: • the articulation between the micro and the macro levels and the relative influence each has on the other;
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• the particular processes of language planning relevant to micro-level planning activities, especially the role of local communities as agents of change; • the efficacy of local language planning activities as solutions to local language issues; • the wider effects of language planning in local contexts resulting from the momentum gained from grass-roots activities; • the intentional and unintentional effects of local level language planning activities; and • issues of power and influence and how these are played out in the context of local language issues. The study of local contexts reveals clearly that micro-level language planning is not only a legitimate area of investigation for language planning scholars, but that it is a fundamental part of the language planning process with which language planning as a discipline must engage. Notes 1. The militant Occitaniste movement has been resisted in parts of Occitan territory, most notably in Provence, where the literary heritage of Mistral and the Félibrige has often been asserted as an independent tradition not absorbed into a common Occitanie. 2. Literally the ‘Big Barn of Ostaig’, recalling its initial beginnings in a renovated barn.
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Rubin, J. and Jernudd, B.H. (eds) (1971) Can Language Be Planned? Sociolinguistic Theory and Practice for Developing Nations. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press. Sánchez, A. (1992) Política de difusión del español [The politics of the spread of Spanish]. International Journal of the Sociology of Language 95, 51–69. Sánchez, A. and Dueñas, M. (2002) Language planning in the Spanish-speaking world. Current Issues in Language Planning 3 (3), 280–305. Sandel, T.L. (2003) Linguistic capital in Taiwan: The KMT’s Mandarin language policy and its perceived impact on language practices of bilingual Mandarin and Tai-gi speakers. Language in Society 34 (4), 523–551. Smith, R.K.M. (2003) Mother tongue education and the law: A legal review of bilingualism with reference to Scottish Gaelic. International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism 6 (2), 129–145. Spolsky, B. (2004) Language Policy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Trudell, B. (2006) Local agency in the development of minority languages: Three language committees in northwest Cameroon. Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development 27 (3), 196–210. Tsao, F.-F. (1999) The language planning situation in Taiwan. Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development 20 (4), 328–375. Tunstall, R. (2001) Devolution and user participation in public services: How they work and what they do. Urban Studies 38 (13), 2495–2514. Watson, K. (1999) Language, power, development and geopolitical changes: Conflicting pressures facing plurilingual societies. Compare: A Journal of Comparative Education 29 (1), 5–22. Winsa, B. (1998) Language Attitudes and Social Identity. Canberra: Applied Linguistics Association of Australia. Winsa, B. (2000) Defining an ecological niche: The use of ‘dialect’ or ‘language’. Current Issues in Language Planning 1 (3), 431–434.
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Rearticulating the Case for Micro Language Planning in a Language Ecology Context1 Richard B. Baldauf Jr School of Education, University of Queensland, Australia Language planning is normally thought of in terms of large-scale, usually national planning, often undertaken by governments and meant to influence, if not change, ways of speaking or literacy practices within a society. It normally encompasses four aspects: status planning (about society), corpus planning (about language), language-in-education (or acquisition) planning (about learning), and (most recently) prestige planning (about image). When thinking about these aspects, both policy (i.e. form) and planning (i.e. function) components need to be considered as well as whether such policy and planning will be overt or covert in terms of the way it is put into action. Language policy and planning on this scale has dominated current work in the field. However, over the past decade language planning has taken on a more critical edge and its ecological context has been given greater emphasis, leading to an increasing acceptance that language planning can (and does) occur at different levels, i.e. the macro, meso and micro. This shift in focus has also led to a rethinking of agency – who has the power to influence change in these micro language policy and planning situations. Given this break with the dominant macro history, the question may be asked, is this developing notion of micro language planning and local agency actually language planning? If so, what are its parameters? Micro language planning studies are examined to illustrate trends in the literature.
Keywords: language planning, micro language policy, language ecology, agency
Introduction Since an earlier review of micro language policy and planning (LPP) was completed in 2003 (Baldauf, 2005a), there have been a number of studies completed, creating the need to rearticulate this area of language planning study. Although there continues to be traditional ‘modernist’ LPP work done, a range of studies are now appearing that take a more critical position, that extends the notion of language policy (and planning) to local contexts. These studies also tend to use discursive methods and are concerned with issues of agency, harking back to recommendations found in the early work of Luke et al. (1990). In a more recent overview volume on the field of language policy and planning, Kaplan and Baldauf (1997: 52) suggested that language planning occurred at several levels, the macro, the meso and the micro. Although they provided several examples in the volume of micro-level planning (e.g. a company requiring business translation in North America (Kaplan & Baldauf, 1997: 254ff)), this application of the principles of language policy and planning to micro situations was not a significant focus of the volume nor was it developed in any detail. As they indicated in their introductory chapter, 18
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when applied linguists think of language planning, they normally think of it in terms of large-scale, usually national, planning, often undertaken by governments and meant to influence, if not change, ways of speaking or literacy practices within a society. Nevertheless, Alan Davies, in a review of that volume, argued that the authors had been less convincing than they might have been about the centrality of applied linguistics to language planning and policy. He suggested that the authors tried to ‘claim too much: language planning is best restricted to governmental activity, difficult as that may be to encompass’ (Davies, 1999: 123). Governmental activity is, of course, precisely where early language planning studies and practice had their roots, in macro sociolinguistics and related disciplines (see e.g. Fishman, 1974; Fox, 1975; Rubin & Jernudd, 1971) and it continues to be the site of the majority of language planning and policy related studies2 (and critiques). Furthermore, the notion of agency often lies with government officials, who are the prime actors in language planning activity (Baldauf & Kaplan, 2003). But, studies arising from this tradition raise the question of whether language policy and planning activity, almost by definition, is restricted to such large-scale (macro) governmental activity or can the frameworks that have been developed be applied differentially, but in an equally valid manner, to micro situations? Or, to put it another way, does language planning operate on a continuum from the macro to the micro? Is the resultant micro work still language policy and planning, or does it (should it) then fall into some other sub-field of applied linguistics or of some other discipline; e.g. sociolinguistics, education, critical discourse studies (CDA) or business studies? More recently there has been some discussion of, and a number of specific studies reporting on language planning that has occurred at the micro level (i.e. language planning for businesses, educational bodies and other organisations). Although such studies often use different methodology – a focus on discourse, it might be argued that many of the same issues that can be found in the macro policy and planning frameworks and literature are relevant to the micro. To contextualise this question, it is helpful to examine briefly what is meant by language planning – and how this might relate to micro studies – the nature of the macro models and frameworks that have been developed and how those relate to the micro. Following this review, the available literature related to micro studies is then examined in an attempt to understand how this emerging area is developing. The studies in this volume provide further examples of the phenomenon.
Some Brief Definitions Traditionally, language planning has been seen as the deliberate, futureoriented systematic-change of language code, use and/or speaking, most visibly undertaken by government, in some community of speakers. Language planning is directed by, or leads to, the promulgation of a language policy(s) – by government or some other authoritative body or person. Language policies are bodies of ideas, laws, regulations, rules and practices intended to achieve some planned language change (Kaplan & Baldauf, 1997: 3). Language policy
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may be realised in very formal (overt) language planning documents and pronouncements (e.g. constitutions, legislation, policy statements, educational directives) which can be either symbolic or substantive in form, in informal statements of intent (i.e. in the discourse of language, politics and society), or may be left unstated (covert). While the distinction between language policy (the plan) and language planning (plan implementation) is an important one for users, the two terms have frequently been used interchangeably in the literature.
A Language Planning Goal-oriented Framework Over the roughly 35 years that language planning has been developing as a field – drawing on a variety of academic traditions, a number of language planners have put forward their ideas about what might constitute a model for language policy and planning (e.g. Cooper, 1989; Ferguson, 1968; Fishman, 1974; Haarmann, 1990; Haugen, 1983; Neustupný, 1974), while others (e.g. Annamalai & Rubin, 1980; Bentahila & Davies, 1983; Nahir, 1984) have contributed to our understanding of the field by concentrating on defining the nature of language planning goals. Hornberger (1994, 2006) and Kaplan and Baldauf (1997) independently have explicitly brought these two strands together in a single framework while the latter have argued that any such framework is situated within an ecological context. Kaplan and Baldauf (2003) have developed a revised and expanded framework with illustrative examples for each of the goals, drawn from polities in the Pacific basin. Several alternative conceptualisations to this framework exist, but with different scope and foci, e.g. the continua of biliteracy (Hornberger, 2002) or language management (Neustupný & Nekvapil, 2003), but in some respects one could argue that they can be seen as complementary approaches. The latter, which has predominantly developed in a French language context, has evolved somewhat separately and is briefly discussed in the next section of this paper. This evolving framework reflects the changes that have occurred in language planning itself, which was an outgrowth of the positivistic economic and social science paradigms that dominated the three post-World War II decades. Since the 1990s critical approaches to, and the broader context of, the discipline have taken on greater importance (see Ricento, 2000a for a historical overview, and 2006 for a summary of theory, methods and issues) as those involved have confronted issues such as language ecology (e.g. Kaplan & Baldauf, 1997; Mühlhäusler, 2000), language rights (e.g. May, 2001, 2005), and the place of English and languages other than English (e.g. Maurais & Morris, 2003; Pennycook, 1998; Ricento, 2000b). The framework, set out in Table 1, suggests that the practice of overt (explicit, planned) or covert (implicit, unplanned – see e.g. Baldauf, 1994; Eggington, 2002) language policy and planning may be one of four types: status planning – about society (see e.g. van Els, 2005), corpus planning – about language (see, e.g. Liddicoat, 2005), language-in-education (acquisition) planning – about learning (see e.g. Baldauf & Kaplan, 2005) and prestige planning – about image (see e.g. Ager, 2005). Each of these four types of
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Productive Goals
3. Language-in-Education Policy Development Planning Access Policy (about learning) Personnel Policy Curriculum Policy Methods & Materials Policy Resourcing Policy Community Policy Evaluation Policy
• Graphisation • Grammatication • Lexication
Auxiliary Code
• Graphisation • Grammatication • Lexication
Standardisation Corpus
2. Corpus Planning (about language) Purification Reform Stylistic simplification Terminological unification
Acquisition Planning Reacquisition Maintenance Foreign/Second Language Shift
Internationalisation
• • • •
Corpus Elaboration Lexical Modernisation Stylistic Modernisation Renovation
Spread
• International • Intra-national
Maintenance Interlingual Communication
• Restoration • Revitalisation • Reversal
Status Planning Revival
Goals
Goals
Status Standardisation Officialisation Nationalisation Proscription
2. Cultivation Planning (on function)
1. Policy Planning (on form)
1. Status Planning (about society)
Approaches to goals
Table 1 An evolving framework for language planning goals by levels and awareness
Overt
Covert
Awareness of goals
Meso
Covert Overt
Macro Overt
Covert
Micro
Levels planning processes and goals
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4. Prestige Planning (about image)
Approaches to goals
Source: Baldauf, 2005a: 960
Receptive Goal
Intellectualisation Language of Science Language of Professions Language of High Culture Language of Diplomacy
Goals
Goals
Language Promotion Official/Government Institutional Pressure group Individual
2. Cultivation Planning (on function)
1. Policy Planning (on form)
Table 1 (contd.) An evolving framework for language planning goals by levels and awareness
Overt
Covert
Awareness of goals
Meso
Covert Overt
Macro Overt
Covert
Micro
Levels planning processes and goals
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language planning can be realised under one of two approaches: a policy approach – with an emphasis on form: basic language and policy decisions and their implementation, or a cultivation approach – with an emphasis on the functional extension of language development and use. These eight language planning perspectives can be best understood through the goals that planners set out to achieve, which may be at the macro, meso or micro levels, with macro top-down goals predominating. But, however useful these perspectives may be for mapping the discipline, most of the goals in the framework are not independent of each other, e.g. policy-planning goals normally need cultivation-planning support. A particular language planning problem may also have a number of different goals, some of which may even be contradictory, e.g. the widespread introduction of a strong foreign language (like English) may potentially conflict in the school curriculum with goals related to local or regional language maintenance. Nor are goals normally implemented in isolation, but as part of a broader (even if covert or unstated) set of objectives. Thus, while it can be argued that LPP by can be implemented by progressively moving through the framework, in practice goals are often tackled independently. As Ingram (1990: 54) has pointed in relation to language-in-education planning, it ‘is more often unsystematic, incidental to other policy-making, and piecemeal than it is rational, systematic, integrated, or comprehensive’.
A Language Ecology-oriented Framework Although the goal-oriented framework just described also includes a consideration of language ecology, McConnell (2005) has summarised the somewhat different direction that those writing about language planning (aménagement linguistique) in French, and in particular about Québec, have taken where language ecology has been given more prominence.3 Building on the same foundations as the previous framework (i.e. Haugen’s (1983) categories of policy, codification, elaboration, implementation and later evaluation) and with an interest in terminology and jurisprudence, the ecological model: . . . was in some ways an extension of the (LP) model, but it went beyond and covered territory not included in the (LP) macro model. In a sense what was proposed was both a macro and micro model: data on language attitudes or representations were largely specific to the micro approach. What was then established was both a structuralist-functionalist and an ethnographic model combined. (McConnell, 2005: 10) McConnell goes on to suggest that Calvet (1999: 16), who proposed a fourtiered model of language in society or social communication as a framework for understanding language planning and the relationship between the macro and the micro provides one theorisation for this approach. The four tiers consisted of the gravitational – a macro focus on the geolinguistic situation or the relationships between languages, the homeostatic – a macro self-regulatory focus for languages, the representational – a micro focus that operates at the level of individuals or groups, and the transmission tier, which deals with change and evolution across tiers. McConnell (2005: 11) further suggests that while this is
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not a well-integrated model, it is ecological in that it examines the relationships not only between languages, but with society at large. McConnell cites Heller’s (2002: 185) view that the contrast between the two traditions found in this model is that the macro aims at fixed objects or structures, while the micro aims at processes, relations and dynamic activities. Neustupný and Nekvapil (2003) provide an alternative way of viewing these same phenomena, arguing that language management issues may either be ‘organised’ – involving multiple participants and ideologies in the management process or ‘simple’ – dealing with specific often individual problems. The macro and the micro are often simultaneously at work. McConnell (2005: 13) provides the example of the French Language Charter legislation in Québec (macro policy) where it was possible to change language behaviours relative quickly in public workplaces and state dominated domains (e.g. schools), but much more difficult – even after 25 years – in manufacturing and sales (or micro, personal, in-group) situations. In Figure 1 a language planning framework is outlined which could be used to map language policy and planning development taking this perspective. By mapping the extent to which a language is present in all dimensions, i.e. (1) policy or judicial status, (2) codification or corpus tools, (3) elaboration or corpus texts – genres, and (4) implementation or domains and functions, one can see some of the relationships between languages – by using multiple charts – and within a language across macro and micro domains like schools or manufacturing. McConnell (2005: 14) concludes by arguing that it is clear ‘that macro processes cannot account for all aspects of language-in-society variation and certainly not for representations’ (social psychology). ‘On the other hand micro processes are often so localised as to be undetectable or absent at the macro level.’ Thus, while some combination of the macro and micro might be useful, he says that Heller (2002) has argued that ‘the macro processes prevent us from developing a “critical analysis”, i.e. one concerning the interaction of social actors and their environment’. While his suggestion that this discontinuity may be a blessing for minority languages whose activities may be too micro to be affected by macro policies, it also raises the question of whether the macro-micro continuum is conceptually valid. The issue of the macro and micro in an ecological context has also been seen increasingly through the lens of globalisation and the positions of power that are assumed by macro bodies such as law firms, industrial and services-based corporations and educational bodies where powerful languages, particularly English, have come to dominate. In an introduction to a volume on Reclaiming the Local in Language Policy and Practice, Canagarajah (2005b) argues that there is a disciplinary shift in progress, at least within ESL/EFL, from pedagogical practices which focus on top-down notions of ‘target language’ to bottomup ideas of ‘repertoires’ and in professional discourse from ‘dominant native varieties’ to ‘plural systems of global English language’ use. Other authors in the volume (Canagarajah, 2005c) make the case that local social practices and linguistic realities should inform languages policies and practices in classrooms and community contexts – i.e. make the case for what might be called micro LPP studies.
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Micro Language Planning and Agency Having briefly outlined how macro language policy and planning can be conceived, and its general relationship to the micro via more traditional studies, language ecology and critical studies related to globalisation and power, the question becomes how to frame such work. Are the framework or elements of the framework such as those presented in Table 1 relevant for small-scale or micro situations – remembering that the framework is meant to be used selectively, or are the two discontinuous and incompatible bodies of knowledge developing in both content and methodology, as Heller seems to suggest? In examining this issue, the notion of agency becomes an important consideration.4 The issue of agency has traditionally not been very important in language policy and planning. In macro language planning, it was often assumed that planning was done by a team of disinterested planners who investigated the linguistic, social, political and educational requirements and made decisions that were in the best interests of the state. Who they were made little difference as long as they had the required expertise.5 Baldauf (1982) was one of the first to point out that agency – who language planners were – was potentially an important variable in a given language planning situation. However, while frameworks for language planning, such as the one provided in Table 1, have largely left the issue of agency as something understood, agency has not gone entirely unnoticed, even if it doesn’t figure explicitly in most macro language planning studies. Cooper (1989: 98) in his accounting scheme for the study of language planning (i.e. ‘what actors attempt to influence what behaviours of which people for what ends under what conditions by what means through which decision making processes with what effect’) relates agency to actors (i.e. as ‘formal elites, influentials, counter-elites, non-elite policy implementers’), while Haarmann (1990: 120–1) looks at who is involved in levels of prestige planning promotion (i.e. from macro to micro – official, institutional, pressure group and individual6). The issue of agency is more important in micro language planning studies, a number of which have argued that particular groups, e.g. teachers (Ricento & Hornberger, 1996), are central agents in language policy development. Thus, it can be argued that besides the scale of the planning effort, agency is also central, i.e. are those involved in small-scale (micro) language planning work implementers or actively involved in the planning process? Where does agency lie? (See, Li & Baldauf (submitted) for a discussion of this issue in regard to school language-in-education planning in China.) Most people would acknowledge that ‘the impact of language planning and policy depends heavily on meso and micro level involvement and support’ (Kaplan & Baldauf, 2003: 201) and that there are a number of studies that have looked at micro support for the implementation of macro language planning and policy. These are what might be classified as ‘implementation studies’, because agency basically is retained at the macro level, i.e. the fundamental planning is conceptualised and carried out at the macro level with the local taking an implementation role. This is the traditional top-down approach where language policy decisions are implemented via good profes-
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sional development models. By contrast, micro planning refers to cases where businesses, institutions, groups or individuals hold agency and create what can be recognised as a language policy and plan to utilise and develop their language resources; one that is not directly the result of some larger macro policy, but is a response to their own needs, their own ‘language problems’, their own requirement for language management. Although this distinction is not always clear cut, such micro planning can be contrasted with micro implementation of macro planning some examples of which are examined in the next section.
Micro Implementation of Macro Policy In this section, a number of micro implementation studies are examined. Although these studies or this planning work is often local and small scale, agency lies centrally with the macro provider. These studies represent the way that top-down policy and planning impacts on the local and the kinds of micro implementation that is required to meet broad-scale language policy demands. This can also be seen as the traditional view of how LPP should function. Much school English language policy in Asia has historically been dominated by top-down policy making by central government education agencies, with teachers in schools seen only as implementers (see e.g. Li & Baldauf (submitted) for China, but a similar case could be made for Indonesia, Japan, Korea, Thailand and Vietnam – see Kaplan & Baldauf (2003) for further examples). Language policies in these countries have often been dictated by economic, political and social factors, with the syllabi, the methodology and the textbooks created centrally to meet these demands. Despite massive social and linguistic differences between Bangkok, Beijing, Hanoi, Jakarta or Shanghai and their respective hinterlands, common national policies have meant that students nationwide have used common materials and teachers have been required to rigidly adhere to the syllabus. Despite the moves to more communicative and student centred programmes and to a degree of decentralisation in e.g. China and Indonesia, centralised high stakes examinations and a lack of a tradition of teacher autonomy have hindered the move to more micro policy development to meet local needs. Breen (2002) provides a micro educational example with a clear national policy basis. The macro policy context is the Australian government’s idealistic policy in the 1990s to increase access to second language teaching in primary schools. However, the meso and micro implementation of that policy is dependent on the Australian States, which control education and ultimately schools. Thus, specific policy development and implementation – the reality of what happens in schools and classrooms – occurs at the State and school levels, making only general reference to national initiatives. The study examines Western Australian volunteer generalist primary teachers, who had a language background, and who then were provided with professional development in language methodology with the goal of implementing second language study in their schools. Breen examines how this micro-implementation of policy affected the 21 teachers’ professional identity and their ongoing social relationships with
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others in their work context. The tensions revealed by these teachers in their new roles have implications for the implementation of language policy in schools more generally. Blachford (2000) examined the nature and characteristics of Chinese language policies and their impact on the 90 million people from the 55 ethnic groups that make up the Chinese national minorities. These policy making and implementation processes were examined to see how they related to micro-policy goals and micro-implementations through a complex bureaucratic structure. To illuminate the macro processes, several minority groups and their languages and educational situations were closely examined, using case study methodology. DeLorme (1999) in a study in Kazakhstan used an ethnographic case study from a Kazakh-medium school to collect micro-level data that clarifies the attempts by the Kazakh ruling elite and Kazakh language medium school administrators to restore ethnic national consciousness, to consolidate the Kazakh’s political power in government and to implement Kazakh as the official language. This policy and planning had to be undertaken in such a way as not to antagonise the large Russian speaking minority, or Russia itself. Corvalan (1998) critically analysed the history and current state of schoolbased bilingual education in Paraguay, examining both the micro and macro dimensions of linguistic policies. These school programmes included both Guarani and Spanish-only speakers. Corvalan argued that policies must cater for these minority groups, not only at the general macro level, but must contribute to more micro-level decisions such as student classification, teacher training, language of instruction, and teaching the other language as a second language. Kuo and Jernudd (1993) linked macro-level language planning in Singapore, which was centred on government programmes that tried to foster national consolidation through socio-ethnic and economic development, with micro language planning, which focused on individual conduct in discourse and group behaviour in communication. They argued that these macro and micro language policy and planning methods were complementary in encouraging a new Singaporean identity that contributes to economic, social and cultural advancement through greater communicative integration. Kuo and Jernudd suggest that a greater micro-level emphasis is needed (i.e. greater attention to individual language and discourse patterns) if a balanced approach to nation building is to occur. These examples indicate that micro language planning typically has referred to the use of micro situational analysis or methodology (e.g. case studies) to examine macro issues arising from the language problems to be found in nation states. Although most of the studies are evaluative and there is often the suggestion of some tension between the macro and the micro, there is little or no suggestion that micro-level policy should be developed or that planning should extend beyond what is required to implement macro policy. Rather, it is the impact of macro polity policy (or the lack there of) on micro situations that is being examined, and agency remains firmly located in the macro.
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Micro resistance to implementation of macro policy As the previous section suggests, tensions may arise between macro-level policy and the micro situation, and teachers or other individuals can either conform to the policy, or resist by working to make what they do appropriate to their particular micro situation. One example of this conflicting policy orientation is presented in the study by Li and Baldauf (submitted). Since 1999 the Chinese Ministry of Education has had a new macro foreign language policy whereby the philosophy of ‘three-centredness’ (i.e. classroom, teacher, textbook centred) is to be replaced by task-based teaching and communicatively focused learning. The study showed that while teachers were on the whole familiar with the new policy, and were even generally in agreement with it, a number of them had not tried communicative teaching and seemed to be resisting implementing the policy. It can be argued that this is occurring because the students of English teachers at secondary schools and universities face high stakes examinations – one must pass to graduate – which have a lexical and grammatical focus. With both students’ and teachers’ careers on the line in such high stakes situations – teachers are judged on students’ examination results – teachers revert to traditional cram methods. Thus, while a more communicative English language populace may be the national macro goal, the local reality is that examinations are what really count and micro strategies are adopted to meet those needs. Martin (2005a) provides another similar example in his discussion of ‘safe’ language practices in two rural schools in Malaysia in the context of the particular classrooms and the language policy framework within which the classroom participants are meant to operate. In 2003 there was language policy change in Malaysia and a switch to English in senior schools for mathematics and science. However, this left many teachers caught between obeying macro-level policy, and meeting the needs of their students who at least in rural interior areas could not cope with instruction only in English. Even in English classes, teaching only in English would be problematic in those contexts, and other linguistic resources needed to be employed if learning was to occur. These ‘safe’ practices allow the participants to be seen to accomplish the lessons, but ‘there is little exploratory use of language in the classroom’. (Martin, 2005a: 89). Studies suggest that this type of resistance through the use of other resources, alongside the official language, is commonplace in a range of situations (see e.g. Arthur, 1996 – Botswana; Bunyi, 2005 – Kenya; Martin, 2005b – Brunei; Probyn, 2005 – South Africa). Edwards and Newcombe (2005) examined the achievements of a family focused project called Twf (‘Growth’) in Wales, where families were encouraged to raise their children bilingually. Although there has been a state policy to promote Welsh, families have been rather diffident in carrying it out. The project has raised the awareness of families and the community of the benefits of bilingualism, an important undertaking for language maintenance as language survival depends on intergenerational transmission. Whereas agency for this planning initiative initially resides in the Welsh Language Board (a macro LPP body), the purpose of the project is to transfer that agency to the family. Thus, in this case the study focuses on innovative ways of overcoming resistance through a combination of health professionals and innovative promotional materials.
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In each of the cases of resistance, agency begins top-down, but it is evident that at the micro level actors are either taking, or in the case of families in Wales, being urged to take, some of agency in order to cope with the discontinuities found in top-down policy.
Post-graduate Responses to the Micro Language Policy and Planning Challenge Studies like these have raised the question of the relevance of LPP for postgraduate students interested in applied linguistics. As it seemed unlikely that most post-graduate students would be involved in drawing up a new language policy for Mexico, China or South Africa – at least in the short or medium term, the question of relevance was raised. It could be argued that at least some of them could use the ideas of resistance in their teaching or other work-related situations, but, if language planning and policy is the premier example of applied linguistics as their textbook suggested (Kaplan & Baldauf, 1997), how then could they directly apply what they had studied in a manner relevant to their situations? Could post-graduate linguistics students use the frameworks and models of macro language planning and apply them to micro situations with which they were familiar? As these students came to this problem with no pre-suppositions about whether such a task would be possible, and as at the time there were few micro LPP studies where agency was located at the micro level for them to draw on, it was interesting to see how they approached the problem. The students came up with a range of situations, many based on real situations they had encountered in their working lives. They were able to translate what they had learned about macro language policy and planning to micro situations of their own choosing in the areas of business, education, religion, government bodies, journalism, the law and services (see Baldauf, 2005b: 237–8 for a brief overview of the studies proposed). In these projects there were examples of: • status planning goals – the need to choose which languages would be needed for what purposes in particular businesses or institutions; • corpus planning goals – the need to develop appropriate materials to support planning decisions for training or implementation; • language-in-education planning goals – the need for (re)training for staff in a variety of language skills; and • prestige planning goals – the need to give certain languages, or language related issues greater status in particular situations. Policy positions and decisions were developed and planning processes were suggested to meet a variety of goals. Importantly, in each case, agency was based at the project level. These post-graduate projects provide further (hypothetical) examples of micro planning in action, or in several cases, the failure of language planning because micro planning was ignored. Micro-centric Language Planning It might be argued that micro language policy should originate from the micro and not the macro level. However, compared to the vast macro-planning
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Yes
Sales/services
Yes – written Manufacturing Yes – oral L e g i s l a t u r e
No
Levels of Growth
5
Country Official
4
State Official
3
Regional Official
Descriptive Studies
Narrative Prose 3
Grammar
Narrative Prose 2
Dictionary
Narrative Prose 1
Courts local state national Governmental Admin . tv
radio M a s s
magazines
M e d i a
newspaper
2
Promoted
Orthography
Narrative Prose
Schools
1
Proscribed
Script
Narrative verse
R e l i g i o n
(1) Policy
(2) Codification
(3) Elaboration
(4) Implementation
Figure 1 Language planning dimensions of language development for a particular language (adapted from McConnell, 2005: 24)
literature, there are relatively few studies of this type. Perhaps this was because such work currently was not valued because it doesn’t belong to an ‘authentic’ research genre, or perhaps because business and other micro sites are less open to public scrutiny (and therefore academic analysis) than governmental entities, or perhaps because it is published in ‘business-related7 or other disciplinary journals under different headings. However, an increased emphasis on the critical studies and discursive methodology has seen a rise in this type of study. These are studies motivated by the local context where agency is located at the local or micro level. These studies can be found under a number of subheadings, some of which are present in Figure 1 in the language planning dimensions of language development (adapted from McConnell, 2005: 24). In this paper they have been categorised under seven subheadings, related to sales and services, manufacturing, the law and legal systems, administration, education and schooling, families and community language needs. This range of studies is
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probably only indicative and others may emerge as more interest is generated in this type of research. Micro language planning for sales and services Kaplan et al. (1995) and Touchstone et al. (1996) did two related studies on the banking sector in Los Angeles, one of the most polyglot cities on earth. In the first study they looked at written business communication coming from 34 bank branches located in identifiable ethnic communities – Japanese, Chinese and Hispanic. The purpose was to determine their commitment to multilingualism and to analyse their specific attempts to reach out to non-English speaking communities. Parallel English and non-English texts were compared. The second study focused on similar material, but related to home loans, for the Hispanic community which had a lower percentage of bank home loans than other communities, i.e. had a higher usage of non-bank sources of funding. In both cases, the studies found three types of ‘language problems’ with bank materials: (1) translation errors, (2) translation misfit, and (3) translation omission. They conclude that: The results of these comparisons show that there is a substantial failure on the part of banks in Los Angeles to serve their non-English speaking clientele. The economic consequences for banks that do not adequately interact with that significant segment of the market can be inferred. The findings of this study suggest that corporate banking policies concerning written banking documents reflect banks’ compliance with regulations, though the policies may not be entirely effective. It is hoped that language-planning efforts by banks might be applied more uniformly and strategically to enhance profitability in minority language communities and to serve minority communities more effectively. (Kaplan et al., 1995: 427) Kerpan (1991) pointed out that translators spend about 45% of their time on terminological research, and that this involves standardisation at the micro and macro levels. Poorly researched terminological usage results in mediocre translation. Managers generally have little understanding of the effort involved in providing accurate texts or of the micro-level language planning which results from terminological work. Individual translators need to be given more time and agency to develop better translation outcomes. Micro language planning for manufacturing Kaplan (1980) examined the language needs of migrant workers in industry for language instruction. Over two months he met with industrial executives, workers, officials and with teachers and administered a multilingual questionnaire to 291 workers. Based on this research, Kaplan offered 30 recommendations on migrant and industrial language training, on the preparation of teachers and materials and on language planning and research. He emphasised that these recommendations were not a blueprint, but rather provided in a systematic manner a ‘supermarket full of interesting options’. Although many were not new, they had in the past not been implemented due to (1) inadequate resources, (2) inadequate background preparation, and (3) inadequate planning. Arising
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from this was the challenge for New Zealanders to make choices that would work for and belong to them.8 Nekvapil and Nekula (this volume) study language planning in the context of a multinational company operating in the Czech Republic. Using a Language Management approach (Neustupný & Nekvapil, 2003), they examine the ways in which German, English and Czech are managed in the company in order to achieve the workplace of goals of the company. They demonstrate a relationship between micro and macro language planning: macro planning influences micro planning and yet macro planning results (or should result) from micro planning. This study examines how the two different levels of language management are dealt with in one context, with micro language planning identified with simple (discourse-based) management, and macro language planning with organised language management. They conclude that the optimal language planning situation is one in which organised management influences simple management, and at the same time results from simple management. Conversely, situations in which organised and simple management do not influence one another are problematic, in particular in situations where the language planners underestimate or even deliberately ignore the language problems of the speakers in individual interactions. Micro language planning for the courts Skilton (1992) examined language acquisition planning and a class action law suit filed on behalf of Asian students in Philadelphia in the United States related to meeting their linguistic and academic needs. Both micro- and macro-perspectives were examined in an attempt to understand the complexities of the situation and the effectiveness of implementing such programmes. There are also a number of micro language planning related studies in the journal, Forensic Linguistics, and the literature around language in the law more generally (e.g. Dumas & Short, 1998), although such studies often relate to the absence of such planning. There is also some additional micro material related to translation. However, much of this work has no specific planning focus, and was not written using this genre as a framework. Micro language planning for administration McEntee-Atalianis (2006) examines an international organisation, the International Maritime Organisation, an institution made up of 165 countries (and three associates) with six official and three working languages. Although the IMO is a multinational organisation it is also possible to see it as a site of microlevel planning, in which the practices of individuals establish the practices of the organisation. McEntee-Atalianis discusses the nature of interlingualism at IMO, investigating whether the instruments in place ensure equitable and efficient communication and argues that, while multilingual practices are guaranteed at the highest levels of political representation, at lower levels, English functions as the main tool of communication. The macro-level policies of the IMO form a framework which affects individual language practices, but it is the micro level which most actively determines language use in the organisation. Although the institution is multilingual, micro-level practices mean that the only language device guaranteed to permit access at all levels of functioning
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within the organisation is English. This practice ensures that some delegates have the advantage of only having to learn one language (e.g. Australian/UK/ USA/citizens), others two or three and it is perhaps here that true equity is called into question. Micro language planning for schools Corson’s (1999) book provides an excellent starting point for anyone in schools concerned with developing school-based (micro) language planning and policy. It provides a detailed discussion and a set of questions for micro language planners interested in developing school based policy in L1, L2, literacy, oracy, bilingual or multilingual education programmes. Tollefson (1981) was one of the first people to argue that the SLA process can be analysed as a series of policy level decisions that involve both macro and micro-level policy goals and implementation decisions. Tollefson has subsequently gone on to edit several books that provide examples of a wide range of studies of school-based language policy and planning decisions from around the world. Winter and Pauwels (this volume) view education as a complex site for endorsing and contesting knowledges and practices. Macro-level language planning has relied heavily on education for the implementation and spread of the particular reform agenda largely reliant on discourses of compulsory obligation (e.g. spelling reforms). However, education is not a mere external agent of implementation but central to the raising of awareness, with the practices of individual teachers, as role models of language behaviours, constituting a key language planning activity in classrooms. While Pauwels (1998) reported that the role-model strategy was far less intrusive, or constituted an example of planning at a remove, Winter and Pauwels show that intrusion is a key element of the ways in which teachers effect language planning through responsive use of text-based resources, direct challenge and comment as well as negotiation and ‘correction’. Payne (2006) discusses students’ choices in relation to foreign language education planning as an instance of micro-language planning in the context of secondary schools situated within multilingual communities in England. He argues that, as a part of the micro-level planning process, pupils themselves as the recipients of the outcomes of language planning can contribute in a meaningful way to foreign language and curriculum planning processes. The students’ decision-making about ideal language programmes in their showed a convergence towards fairness and equality of choice. They included salient community reflecting the linguistic groups prevalent in the wider community, such as Urdu or Hebrew, and also moved outside conventional thinking about modern languages provision by including Latin. Although it is clear that at the micro-level of the school language choice is dictated to a large extent by issues such as teacher availability, resources and the historical and social ties of the languages on offer, Payne demonstrates that the voice of students is a valid component of language-planning in school contexts. Marriott (this volume) reports on a case study of organised support for students who experience problems with language or academic study skills at a pharmacy faculty of an Australian university. Employing Language Man-
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agement Theory (Neustupný & Nekvapil, 2003), Marriott’s study exemplifies organised management and explores the various processes involved, including the noting of students’ problems, and the design and implementation of adjunct support programmes. She sees this as a planned language process in which local events become the basis for decision making which in turn is enacted and evaluated within the immediate context. Chua (this volume) looks at the 2004 education reforms of the government and Ministry of Education in Singapore, which are moving from a tight national system macro-level system of language planning to a more locally based microlevel system, where schools and teachers will have more choice over what they study and teach. The changes in the Singaporean education system at a national level result from the dichotomy between the global and local demands of the Singapore’s education system and have the possibility of changing local realities, benefiting certain students. In schools, therefore, macro-level planning connects with micro-level planning. Macro-level language planning requires micro-level planning not only for its implementation but also to ensure that it responds to local needs. Therefore, both macro and micro planning are needed in any readjustments in the education policy since ‘policy is both text and action, words and deeds’ (Ball, 1994: 10) and macro language planning needs micro language planning in individual schools if it is to be effectively implemented. Van der Walt (this volume) reports on the experiences in which one university – the University of Stellenbosch – has developed a language policy and implementation plan to manage language in education issues. In particular she examines the university’s bilingual teaching policy, which attempts to deal with language diversity without complete duplication of classes and materials. She examines the requirements of the language policy regarding bilingual teaching and evaluates some of the common practices used. Students gain some direct advantages from the bilingual approach in terms of access to course content and material, but that bilingual provision does not fully overcome the problems faced by students. In particular, the linguistic diversity of the student population means that it is difficult to cater for all students within a bilingual teaching programme and so students continue to have to study in languages which are not their preferred language of study. She also notes that the development of this language plan at the university has created some difficulties in that the prescriptive nature of the language plan does not always articulate with the ways in which academics have developed ways of dealing with the demands of their own subjects in a multilingual environment. Micro language planning for families In an earlier section of this paper, Edwards and Newcombe (2005) was identified as an example of resistance where families were being persuaded to accept agency for the survival of Welsh. Nahir (1998), when looking back over the revival of Hebrew a century ago, provides an example of this in action. He argued that the shift to Hebrew that occurred within communities and families was a case of micro language planning in which potential speakers constituted the language planning agents. Because there was no macro language planning and policy body involved, agency for micro language planning resided in the families.
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Neustupný and Nekvapil (2003) in their discussion of language management, use families as an example where ‘simple’ management or micro language planning occurs. There is of course a large literature on raising children bilingually, including specific examples where this has been done, which might be said to be related to micro LPP. Micro language planning for communities Mac Giolla Chriost (2002) drew on micro developments in Wales and used them as the basis for suggesting that progress in planning for Irish in Northern Ireland may depend on the use of micro language planning, since at the polity level, Irish could either be a divisive or a unifying factor. Although Irish was more strongly associated (and better known) by Catholics (as compared to Protestants), attitudes toward it were generally positive by both groups. There also seemed to be a more general revival of the language among the young and the upwardly mobile. Given the dangers of the language issue becoming embroiled in politics at the macro-policy level, Mac Giolla Chriost suggests that progress in language planning needed to be at the micro level – locally based and tailored to specific community needs. Yoshimitsu (2000) examined some language planning and policy strategies as they apply to an attempt at language maintenance by bilingual Japanese children in Melbourne whose parents are of Japanese background. This microlevel study showed that children’s background (sojourner vs. permanent resident in Australia) was the key variable affecting the maintenance process. Micro-level maintenance was the result of a combined effort on the part of the parents and the children. Jones (1996), in a community oriented study, compared the results of the findings of two methodologically identical micro studies of different Bretonspeaking communities in France. These micro to micro-level study comparisons show that replication and comparative methodology can be used to verify language trends in speech communities as a whole and to reveal localised aspects that might otherwise escape the attention of language planners. Tulloch (this volume) argues that language planning research and practice have largely ignored, or considered problematic, the diversity within endangered languages. Such a stance, though, conflicts with speakers’ attitudes and desires, which often place high value on specific dialects. As grassroots, bottomup approaches move to the forefront, so do concerns about the maintenance of distinct dialects of endangered languages. Dialect preservation has emerged (implicitly or explicitly) as a concurrent, complementary goal. Based on descriptions of dialect death and maintenance in the literature, this article suggests that ‘micro’ approaches to language planning favour the preservation of dialectal diversity within the broader pursuit of promoting endangered languages. Sims (this volume) describes some of the challenges and issues facing American Pueblo Indians in their efforts to plan and implement language maintenance initiatives. According to Sims, language planning for language maintenance is necessarily a micro-level practice because language planning has to engage and reflect local oral traditions and local social structures. For the Pueblo Indians in Sims study, oral language traditions such as collective interactions and reciprocal relationships of kinship, ceremonial life, and internal governance form
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the main contexts in which language maintenance can be addressed, while the traditional social and governance structures provide important roles for tribal leaders in language maintenance efforts. Sims argues that, by considering how community dynamics work within specific tribes, a better understanding is afforded about what drives members to engage in the types of planning activities they view as critical to language maintenance. For Sims, schools, because of their history and previous attitudes to indigenous languages, cannot easily be sites for indigenous language maintenance. Instead, processes involving negotiation and formal agreements are needed between indigenous people and local so that the underlying foundation of community beliefs about language can guide school initiatives and ongoing planning and decision-making. Dialogue between tribes, local school entities and their representatives is necessary to further an understanding about language perspectives and reasons for attempting to preserve and transmit indigenous languages. Mac Giolla Chríost (this volume) focuses upon the emergence of micro-level practices in language planning in both the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland. He argues that the limitations of macro-level have resulted in an eventual circularity of state policy and the ongoing contraction of the Gaeltacht. In response to the problems of macro level language planning, some micro-level language planning practices emerged in parts of the Republic of Ireland during the 1960s. Mac Giolla Chríost proposes that micro-level language planning could make a substantial contribution towards attaining cross-community engagement for Irish in Northern Ireland, helping secure the intergenerational transmission of the language in the Gaeltacht in the Republic of Ireland and providing more effective direction to language planning activity outside of the Gaeltacht. Hatoss (this volume) provides an example of micro-planning for the Hungarian diaspora in Australia which involves community, government and non-government organisations both in the context of immigrants’ source and host countries. The Hungarian language is supported by Hungarian government and non-government organisations, but the activities of these organisations are realised through micro-level language planning activities in Australia. Hatoss argues that micro-level planning is initiated in the community, but can only be understood within the wider scope of macro-level planning. She demonstrates that the micro-planning activities in the Hungarian community in Australia cannot be sustained simply by the community itself and rely on the community having access to and fostering links with expert support for both content and methodology. As a result, micro-level planning initiatives are essential complementary elements of macro-level language planning and neither macro-level nor micro-level planning is sufficient on its own.
Summary and Conclusions In this paper, the question of whether or not micro language planning is a genre that should be explored and developed as a way of analysing and solving small-scale language problems has been raised. Whereas there have been significant developments in the understanding of macro language policy and planning (i.e. at the polity level) in the literature, much less attention has been
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paid to micro developments, either in relation to macro planning implementation or in genuine micro-level analysis and action. However, with the turn to critical studies and from the perspectives of neophytes not bound by conventional definitions of LPP, micro language planning seems to be a useful concept for solving language problems in a range of areas including business, education and for families and communities more generally. It appears that we are seeing micro language planning beginning to get the wider research consideration it deserves. Correspondence Any correspondence should be directed to Richard B. Baldauf Jr, School of Education, University of Queensland, Brisbane, QLD 4072, Australia (r.baldauf@ uq.edu.au). Notes 1. This is an expanded and substantially revised version of a chapter first published as Baldauf (2005b). I would like particularly to thank Minglin Li and Catherine Hudson for the helpful discussions we have had on various issues related to the issues raised in this paper, and to Tony Liddicoat and Bob Kaplan for their comments on various versions of this paper. Any errors of fact or interpretation, of course, remain my own. 2. The polity studies published in Current Issues in Language Planning provide examples of this genre as do a range of monographs such as Kaplan and Baldauf (2003, 2005); Baldauf and Kaplan (2004, 2006a, 2006b); Heugh (2003) and Ho and Wong (2000). 3. It is interesting to note how LPP terminology has changed. McConnell (1977a,b) characterised language planning as descriptive of the macro situations while language management represented the micro planning that was occurring in Canada/Québec in the 1970s. 4. The nature of agency, which is a major issue of debate in the general critical literature, has broad philosophical underpinnings, but is too vast to discuss in any detail in this paper. However, a number of recent language planning studies may serve to indicate the importance of this focus. For instance, Canagarajah (2005a) argues, based on a review of Tamil language languages policies, that there is a need recognise the agency of subaltern communities to negotiate language politics in creative and critical ways that go beyond the limited constructs of language rights. In another study, dealing with the politics of Philippine English, Tupas (2004) argues for the need to recognise the situated agency of speakers of Philippines’ English speakers and their right to have their own variety recognised as a legitimate way of speaking, free of neo-colonial constraints. In a final example, Winter and Pauwels (2003) the issue of the evaluation of feminist language planning in Australia, presenting a ‘trajectory’ framework for the exploration of evaluation as part of the language planning cycle. The users’ trajectories of change are mapped through documenting their first contact with gender bias in language (an initiating trajectory); their responses, practices, and actions in relation to this (a trajectory of practice); and their perceived roles in bringing about, facilitating, and spreading change (a trajectory of agency). 5. See, for example, Rubin and Jernudd (1971: xvi); Jernudd and Baldauf (1987) for the argument as it relates to Science communication; or Baldauf and Kaplan (2003) for a polity level summary. 6. See Baldauf (2004) for Australian examples of this type of prestige promotion. 7. There is of course literature related to business and technology that would be useful for those planning for this sector (e.g. Ulijn & Strother, 1995), but these are not themselves micro language planning documents. 8. Kaplan was an academic working at University of Southern California at the time but was in New Zealand as a Fulbright scholar.
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African schools. In A.M.Y. Lin and P.W. Martin (eds) Decolonialisation, Globalisation: Language-in Education Policy and Practice (pp. 153–72). Clevedon: Multilingual Matters. Ricento, T. (2000a) Historical and theoretical perspectives in language policy and planning. In T. Ricento (ed.) Ideology, Politics and Language Policies: Focus on English (pp. 9–24). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Ricento, T. (ed.) (2000b) Ideology, Politics and Language Policies: Focus on English. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Ricento, T. (2006) An Introduction to Language Policy: Theory and Method. Oxford: Blackwell. Ricento, T.K. and Hornberger, N.H. (1996) Unpeeling the onion: Language planning and policy and the ELT Professional. TESOL Quarterly 30 (3), 401–27. Rubin, J. and Jernudd, B.H. (eds) (1971) Can Language Be Planned? Honolulu: East West Center and University of Hawaii Press. Skilton, E.E. (1992) Acquisition policy planning and litigation: Language planning in the context of Y.S. v. School District of Philadelphia. Working Papers in Educational Linguistics 8 (2), 55–87. Touchstone, E.E., Kaplan, R.B. and Hagstrom, C.L. (1996) ‘Home, sweet casa’ – access to home loans in Los Angeles: A critique of English and Spanish home loan brochures. Multilingua 15, 329–49. Tollefson, J.W. (1981) The role of language planning in second language acquisition. Language Learning 31 (2), 337–48. Tupas, T.R.F. (2004) The politics of Philippine English: Neocolonialism, global politics, and the problem of postcolonialism. World Englishes 23 (1), 47–58. Ulijn, J.M. and Strother, J.B. (1995) Communicating in Business and Technology: From Psycholinguistic Theory to International Practice. Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang. van Els, T. (2005) Status planning. In E. Hinkel (ed.) Handbook of Research in Second Language Teaching and Learning (pp. 971–91). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum. Winter, J. and Pauwels, A. (2003) Mapping trajectories of change – women’s and men’s practices and experiences of feminist linguistic reform in Australia. Australian Review of Applied Linguistics 26 (1), 19–37. Yoshimitsu, K. (2000) Japanese school children in Melbourne and their language maintenance efforts. Journal of Asian Pacific Communication 10 (2), 255–78.
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Language Communities
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From Language to Ethnolect: Maltese to Maltraljan Roderick Bovingdon Freelance linguist, Sydney, Australia This paper outlines the influences that led to new ethnolect formation among an immigrant group, the Maltese, in Australia. Their sociolinguistic background and new linguistic environment brought about a divergence, particularly in terminology, from Standard Maltese, and necessitated the compilation of a glossary of the new ethnolect, Maltraljan. The newly emerged terminology has found acceptance by a government agency as a result of community-led rather than government-planned influence.
Keywords: Standard Maltese, ethnolect formation, Maltese in Australia, immigrants, attitudes
Introduction Historical outline of the Maltese language The language of Malta, an island nation in the Mediterranean Sea, can trace its beginnings from the Arab invasions from around 870AD (Bovingdon, 2003).1 The minuscule linguistic traces from Classical Greek are so few and uncertain that scholars attach little importance to their presence (Aquilina, 1970). The same attitude is applied in the case of Phoenician and Punic, two very early languages which may have once flourished on the archipelago but traces of which are so scant and dubious that language scholars have tended to disregard their presence in a linguistic sense.2 Direct influence from Arabic is believed to have started from the first Arabic invasion in 870AD and it persisted well into the 15th century, long after the formal expulsion of the Arabs from the island in 1248AD by the invading Normans of Sicily (Cassar, 2000). But from 1091 onwards, the official arrival date of the Norman occupation, the first traces of Romance influences slowly began to find their way into the Maltese language. However, the Italian and Sicilian linguistic influence on the local Maltese idiom prior to the coming of the Knights of the Chivalric Order of St John in 1530 was negligible, as the various ruling overlords barely mixed with the local population. The arrival of the Knights brought the influence of Italian, Spanish, Portuguese and French, while the Germanic contingent was numerically so small that it left no linguistic traces upon Maltese. Steadily from the coming of the Knights onwards, the Romance linguistic influence upon Maltese infiltrated the Semitic- based Maltese tongue, forming a superstructure and becoming an intrinsic part of Maltese. Not only did Maltese begin to adopt an increasing number of lexemes, calques and phrases but this trend also infiltrated into the language’s grammatical structures and its morphology. In addition to these influences, the Maltese Catholic diocese was ruled from the Sicilian (Palermitan) hierarchical establishment, so that all matters relating to the local 45 From Language to Ethnolect: Maltese to Maltraljan
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religion came under direct Romance (Latin-Medieval Italian-Sicilian) linguistic influence. These two powerful forces, the Knights of St John and the Church, set the Romance linguistic influence on a firm and dominant course in the Maltese language. When the British Crown took over the administration of Malta in 1814 through the Treaty of Amiens in 1802 (Cassar, 2000), the newcomers soon sought to assert their administrative and political influence upon the local population by superimposing the English language over the official and predominant Italian (Hull, 1993). English continued to be a dominant force after independence from Britain in 1974. However, Italian influence took a renewed and stronger hold from 1848 onwards, with the influx of exiles from the political upheaval in Italy arising from the move towards the unification of the Italian states into one nation. Powerful action such as establishing Italian-language newspapers (Friggieri, 1979) made a swift impact upon the Maltese language, which at that time had not yet developed a uniform written tradition.3 In the late 1920s and early 1930s, the controversial Language Question was debated (Hull, 1993; Puccio, 1933). This consisted of a vicious political tussle between the local Italian sympathisers and those who supported the British, to eradicate the Italian influence once and for all from the local scene, to have it replaced with an entirely English-language administration. Laws were passed imposing English as the language for all official communication. Ironically, this political manoeuvre saw the Maltese language for the first time ever elevated to official status, in order to oust all Italian linguistic, cultural and political influence. English had gained the upper hand, but the Italian influence had deep roots from centuries of political, historical, cultural and religious ties with Malta. By now its firmly entrenched morphological and lexemic inroads upon the Maltese vernacular had become an intrinsic part of the language. Today’s Standard Maltese is acknowledged as the indigenous official language of the people of Malta, with English enjoying the shared status of a national language. In this linguistic ambience English is sharing its sphere of influence upon Maltese, alongside Italian, as one of the two most significant current linguistic influences. Onto the Arabic grammatical and morphological structure of Maltese are superimposed accretions from Italian and English, which continue to build their superstructure onto its basically Semitic foundation. Its healthy and pliable linguistic structures have enabled it to continue to flourish in a rapidly changing world community.4 Historical outline of languages in Australia The indigenous Australian Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islands populations have inhabited the continent of Australia for the last 40 millennia. However, the past two centuries have drastically reshaped the demographic character of Australian society with the massive influx of Europeans. The first non-Indigenous settlers were of British origin, colonising the continent from 1788. Settlers from Britain and other parts of Europe formed part of later waves of immigration, particularly in the years immediately following World War II. During this period in Australia’s history of European settlement, there was also a constant inflow of people from the countries in the immediate geographical Asia-Pacific neighbourhood.
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One of the more significant characteristic results of Australia’s cosmopolitan demography, then, is the kaleidoscope of languages forming the continent’s linguistic diversity. Such a rich addition to the country’s language make-up is strongly reflected in the numerous non-English-language newspapers, journals, magazines and many regular radio and television programmes: a common feature of everyday life in contemporary Australia. Then there is the obvious mélange of languages actually heard in the street and public venues on a regular basis within all major urban regions of the country.
Maltese in Australia Early settlers: Sociolinguistic background Among the immigrant groups who settled in Australia in the 20th century, those from Malta ranked as one of the numerically larger groups. Today these settlers and their descendants form the 17th largest non-English-speaking language group in Australia, with the Australian census in 2001 indicating that 41,400 people speak Maltese in the home (Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2004; Table 5.54).5 Two main waves of Maltese migrants came to Australia. The first, in the 1920s, hailed from the northern rural regions of the island of Malta and the sister island of Gozo, to the north-west of the main island. These were young, single, unemployed men, of little or no formal education, together with those who were accustomed to hard labour and long hours in their tiny family fields and the odd labour-intensive jobs in the local building industry and the stone quarries. Most of these new settlers who were sought and accepted by Australia found employment in the sugar cane fields near the northern coastal townships of Queensland. Others sought their future on the Sydney and Melbourne wharves, in the steel works of Port Kembla in New South Wales and at Whyalla in South Australia, laying railway tracks in different parts of the continent and in the mines of Tasmania and the desert township of Broken Hill in far western New South Wales. As the majority of them came from the same northern extremities of the Maltese islands, they shared similar linguistic traits in their dialectal variations from Standard Maltese. Later waves of migrants from Malta to settle in Australia, numerically by far the larger group, were those of the 1950s and 1960s. In contrast to the earlier groups, these migrants hailed from the urban regions of the Maltese archipelago and tended to migrate in family clusters rather than as the unattached young men of the former era. Their educational background frequently included a secondary level of education. The majority of the men from this latter group were from a blue-collar, skilled and semi-skilled worker category. The first group of settlers of the 1920s vintage brought with them their local dialectal speech rather than Standard Maltese, with very little or no knowledge of English. In contrast to this group, the later group from the 1950s and 1960s, who had attained a secondary level of education, had also been exposed to basic English through direct contact with personnel from the British armed forces and their families.
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These sociolinguistic factors contributed significantly to the later development of Maltraljan, the variety of Maltese that developed in Australia, with its characteristic traits of an earlier language substrate (there is a chronological gap of one whole generation between the Maltese migrants of the 1920s and the later group from the 1950s and 1960s), as well as persistent language modes reminiscent of the northern dialects of Malta. New linguistic environment By far the strongest common denominator binding the various ethnic groups together in their new environment in Australia, above every other consideration, including religious adherence, was each individual group’s respective language, in this case Maltese. The best employment opportunities for the semi-literate and sometimes totally illiterate early settlers, a social feature common to most of the early ethnic groups who settled in Australia including many of the British settlers, and certainly not exclusive to the Maltese, existed in labour-intensive jobs, wherever these occurred. It was within this sociolinguistic ambience that the first traces of the Maltraljan ethnolect were born. The Italian communities, which were frequently to be found in the same regions where Maltese settlers had formed their enclaves, experienced the same ethnic bonding in their shared commonality of the national language and dialects. Hence another identifiable ethnolect, Australo-Italian (Andreoni, 1978; Ryan, 1974), also experienced its beginnings from around the same period and within the same geographical regions of Australia as those of Maltraljan.
Dictionaries of Maltese Maltese dictionaries in perspective The first documented dictionary of Maltese, which remained in manuscript form and has never been published, was written around 1640 by a French Knight of the Chivalric Order of St John (known as the Knights of Malta), the ruling power of the day. Other similar works from an earlier period are referred to in old documents but no traces of them have been found to date. They are impressive achievements in Maltese lexicography nonetheless, especially considering that the Accademia della Crusca of Italy produced its first dictionary in 1612 and the renowned Dictionary of the English Language by Samuel Johnson was not published until 1755. In contrast to these initiatives, the Arab world had been producing dictionaries and glossaries of its ancient rich tongue from as early as the 5th century. The first comprehensive and serious attempt at Maltese dictionary compilation was Mikiel Anton Vassalli’s Lexicon,6 printed and published in Rome in 1796. This major lexicographical work became the forerunner of several later Maltese dictionary compilations which followed until contemporary times. Compiling a glossary The newly emerging ethnolect of Maltraljan, the variety of Maltese spoken in Australia, is confined to one ethnic group within Australia and differs from the
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Maltese spoken in Malta and in other parts of the world. The Maltese Language of Australia: Maltraljan (Bovingdon, 2001) is the first formal representation of a select glossary of this ethnolect, following a number of brief tentative and introductory articles which appeared in language journals and newspapers. 7 As my compilatory approach assumed a dictionary format, the glossary was classified under leading headwords in alphabetical order and following word-class grammatical rules. Even though a serious attempt was made at following a dictionary format, owing to the linguistically incomplete nature of the Maltraljan ethnolect (e.g. syntactic structures still rely on code-switching with Standard Maltese to enable a logical semantic realisation), a complete dictionary presentation could not be attained and was never intended. Hence the collated linguistic compilation is referred to as a glossary. Lexicographical sources While collating the Maltraljan glossary, the dictionary format enabled me to maximise exposure of the primary and salient features of this new linguistic development. The written form of this ethnolect was more readily available than the spoken medium. It consisted of leaflets and flyers circulated among the many Maltese social groups scattered around Australia, including the several religious publications issued by the Maltese clergy, as well as numerous translations from Australian English of official literature issued by Australian State and Federal Government bodies, by trade unions, and by the business world such as commercial banks, social groups and the like. A considerable number of local poetry anthologies and a smattering of other literary genres also proved worthwhile indicators of this language trend.
The Maltraljan Ethnolect Early evidence In 1929, one of the more enterprising Maltese to settle in Sydney, Australia, namely George Parnis, began publishing a quarterly bilingual (Maltese and English) magazine, Maltese and English and Maltese Educational Publications, which seems to have lasted for some two years (1929–30). It was aimed specifically at the immediate needs of his fellow countrymen dispersed around the wide expanses of the Australian continent. The main thrust of his writings consisted of items of interest to farmers and to workers in the sugar producing industry. This early work also had brief news items from Malta along with brief news reports from the local scene, giving the magazine a more general readership appeal. A remarkable feature of this magazine which is of particular significance to this paper was the initiative shown by the editor in documenting in written form the first glossaries of Maltese-Australian terminology. He further proceeded to add to these word lists a series of contrived conversations interspersed with Maltraljanisms between two imaginary local Maltese interlocutors, as exemplars for usage. These quarterly magazines, which are housed in the archives of the State Library of New South Wales, Mitchell Library Section, constitute the first documented traces of the newly emerging Maltese-Australian ethnolect.
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Considering the first large-scale migrations from Malta to Australia had only commenced a decade or so prior to this first Maltese language venture in local journalism, it is noteworthy how relatively soon afterwards these linguistic influences from within the new environment began to appear. Furthermore, it seems that the first Maltraljan lexemes had already become sufficiently widespread and accepted into the local Maltese-Australian idiom by 1929 as to feature them in print form. Such relatively early language development seems to imply an even earlier origin to this new idiomatic phenomenon. Language variation The Maltese language of Australia, like many other languages of minority groups which have settled within a different language environment in other regions of the globe, has deviated considerably from Standard Maltese spoken in the Maltese islands.8 Such language phenomena have occurred within all migrant communities where significant numbers of persons of the same ethnic origins have congregated.9 Australia’s geographical isolation from the country of origin, and the passage of time, in addition to other factors referred to in passing in this study, are among the more significant factors giving rise to the emergence of these new language forms. During the 70 year-period from 1929 onwards, until the year of the final compilation of this ethnolect’s glossary in 1998, Standard Maltese in Malta had itself moved onwards, altering in adaptation to the social, technological and scientific demands of modern-day circumstances. In the interim period, the Maltese language within a solely Australian environment had assumed its own linguistic characteristics to such a marked degree that it is now acknowledged as a distinct ethnolect in its own right, with its own language functionality. But as Maltraljan is not a fully developed language or even a dialect, in that a complete syntactic construction is not possible, in its present stage of development, it is unable to sustain itself in isolation from Standard Maltese (Bovingdon, 2001). While this language variety is used throughout Australia wherever large groups of Maltese have settled, each region has in turn also developed additional minor variations in the form of regional vocabulary and other language subtleties and nuances (Bovingdon, 1987). For example, farma knows its origins from the canefields of Mackay, Bundaberg and Innisfail, all of which are in Queensland. In that State the meaning is confined to owners of and workers on the sugar cane properties. When this term was transported to Sydney by the itinerant workers during the fallow season, it took on a wider semantic reference. Hence in the southern State of New South Wales it is applied to any type of farmer and is not at all associated with the sugar industry (Bovingdon, 1998). Otherwise, language divergence from Standard Maltese has generally developed along certain patterns in keeping with the linguistic knowledge the settlers brought with them at the time of their migration to the new country. This new language form immediately distinguishes them within the broader universal Maltese language spectrum as Maltese from Australia, in contrast to other groups from countries accepting migration from Malta, such as Egypt, Tunisia, Algeria, the USA, the United Kingdom, France, Italy, New Zealand and Canada. Not unlike a number of other ethnolects which have developed within the Australian environment, Maltraljan is always used in a code-switching manner,
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interspersed with Standard Maltese, or more accurately, with that form of Maltese (dialectal and mostly basic Maltese) which the settlers brought with them upon their arrival in Australia. Language exposure The Maltese migrants who arrived in Australia during the 1950s and 1960s had considerable exposure to British English, both through the educational system adopted in Malta under British influence, as well as from the daily interaction of the Maltese with the numerically large presence of British military personnel. In contrast to the later migrant groups, the educational background of the earlier wave was negligible and their direct contact with British personnel was minimal or non-existent. Such significant social and educational exposure further influenced the character of Maltraljan, with such characteristics becoming obvious through the existence of archaic terms as well as the persistent occurrence of these forms alongside more contemporary developments. The later group of Maltese had not only begun to adopt a number of lexical terms from British English prior to their arrival in Australia but, more significantly, their Maltese morphology had begun to display a definite trend towards assimilating British English language influences. This was particularly evident in the borrowings from English vocabulary, especially words common to everyday interaction. These new accretions were transported with this later group of Maltese settlers to Australia. This exposure to British English prior to their migration to Australia is even traceable within the Maltraljan ethnolect to the extent that the earlier substrate is just as readily identifiable. As the language of Australia was also English, some of the newly coined terminology from British Malta was surprisingly the same as some of that adopted by their earlier counterparts. In contrast, the earlier group of Maltese settlers, who did not have the benefit of prior British-English language exposure, had already devised their own linguistic adaptations as cited in Parnis’s publications of 1929. This explains how some of the vocabulary which crept into Maltraljan also managed to find its way into Standard Maltese in Malta concurrently with but independently of Maltraljan; a factor to bear in mind in determining which lexemes were to be included in the glossary as Maltraljan terminology. To avoid overlaps with Standard Maltese as well as more accurately to isolate Maltraljan terminology, I excluded lexical items which may have been transported to Australia from Malta by the later group of settlers. This was achieved by rigorously referring to Aquilina’s (1987–90) dictionary for each one of my lexical items, it being the most recent and most authoritative lexicon of Standard Maltese at the time. Thus, any inclusions in Aquilina were deleted from my compilation unless obvious divergences appeared. Rigorous cross-checking with other Maltese dictionaries of the era in question was also made, thus reducing any language ambiguities to a minimum. A number of lexical items which may occur in Standard spoken Maltese but are not recorded by Aquilina were included in my compilation, if recorded within an Australian linguistic context. Australian English, like its counterparts from other parts of the globe such as American English, South African English and the English used on the Indian
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subcontinent, has its own peculiar language traits. Thus even those Maltese who, prior to landing on Australian soil, had previously come into contact with British English, found that the idiom that awaited them in the new land had its own characteristic linguistic variations to contend with, for Australian English contrasted to a marked degree with British English on several levels. Such differences included phonological (pronunciation and intonation), lexical and idiomatic features which immediately identified the language as peculiar to Australia. Meanwhile, on the other side of the globe, during the period of settlement in Australia, Standard Maltese itself had continued developing, with its own other linguistic influences coming from the Italian mainland: a process which began several centuries earlier during the Middle Ages and has continued until present times, with different levels of intensity, almost unabated; and the influence of British English brought by colonisation and the presence of British military personnel. As a direct consequence of Australia’s geographical isolation from Europe, the Maltese language of Australia, Maltraljan, discontinued and severed the Italian and British English language influences abruptly, at that moment the migrants parted from their homeland. It is precisely at this juncture that the language divergence begins to evolve. Once migrants depart from their homeland they are no longer subject to those same language influences they have been accustomed to. At the same time, they still retain those more subtle morphological structures they transport with them, which had been moulded into their linguistic baggage, and proceed to apply them on an unconscious level to their new linguistic environment. Once in Australia, the direct British English and Italian linguistic influences, which occur so naturally in Malta, abruptly cease to develop further. Yet simultaneously, while still retaining their assimilated British English and Italianate language structures, Australian English and the new social environment take over and the process of development of a new ethnolect begins.
Effect of the Glossary of Maltraljan Official acceptance of a new ethnolect Since the publication of the glossary of Maltraljan terms (Bovingdon, 2001), a marked increase in the wider recognition and acceptance of this ethnolect within the Maltese-Australian community has been noted. As a practical means of more effective communication, Maltraljan is increasingly used in preference to Standard Maltese in public communication intended for Maltese speakers. SBS Radio (the national multicultural broadcasting service) uses Maltraljan as part of its Maltese programmes; the Maltese Herald, a national weekly bilingual newspaper, uses Maltraljan; Centrelink, an agency of the Commonwealth Department of Human Services, through its multicultural community services publication programme, is increasingly adopting Maltraljan terminology in information leaflets and magazines such as Age Pension News for Seniors; and the NSW Department of Public Health publishes a range of guides on health topics. Professional and commercial translations increasingly use Maltraljan rather than Standard Maltese. At public social gatherings, Maltraljan continues to gain in popularity. It is coming to be accepted as a language variety in its own right.
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For other minority languages discussed in this volume, terminology development was a planned and in some cases financially supported activity. By contrast, the acceptance of Maltraljan terminology came about as a result of the Maltese community making agencies aware that the new terminology was used by the community, rather than as a result of any initiative by any official government or community body. This was community-led, rather than government-pushed, terminology planning, with government endorsed but not planned acceptance of the terminology of a minority group’s ethnolect. Acknowledgement The author expresses his gratitude to Pauline Bryant for her patient editing. Correspondence Any correspondence should be directed to Dr Roderick Bovingdon, 99 Chetwynd Road, Merrylands, NSW 2160, Australia (
[email protected]). Notes 1. Brincat (1994) and Agius (1996) propose a Sicilian-Arabic origin. 2. I retain an open mind on this question owing to (1) unexplored archaeological and historical factors, and (2) the fact that a thorough pre-Arabic language assessment has never been comprehensively undertaken, owing to lack of tangible documentary and archaeological evidence, even though there appear to be some traces of language substrate. 3. A number of early attempts had been scant and inconsistent. 4. Maltese is an official language of the European Union. 5. The number of persons of Maltese origin permanently resident in Australia in 2001, in contrast to the number of speakers of Maltese, was 136,754 (Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2001; Table 2.1). 6. Vassalli Michaelis Antonii, Ktyb Yl Klym Malti Mfysser Byl-Latin U Byt-Taljan, Romae Apud Antonium Fulgonium, MDCCXCVI. 7. The author contributed various other articles on this topic to language journals and to the Maltese-Australian newspapers preceding his major work. 8. A common complaint among migrant communities in Australia is that all language material, spoken as well as written, originating from the homeland, is becoming progressively more difficult to understand owing to linguistic changes in the mother tongue as much as within the Maltraljan ethnolect. 9. The Turkish community in Germany, Germans in South Australia, African Americans in New Orleans, etc.
References Agius, D. (1996) Siculo Arabic. London: Kegan Paul International. Andreoni, G. (1978) La Lingua Degli Italiani D’Australia e Alcuni Racconti [The Language of Australian Italians and Other Sayings]. Quaderni del Veltro 17. Aquilina, J. (1970) Papers in Maltese Linguistics. Royal University of Malta. Aquilina, J. (1987–90) Maltese–English Dictionary (2 vols). Malta: Midsea. Australian Bureau of Statistics (2001) Australian Census 2001: Australian Census Analytic Program: Australians’ Ancestries. Publication no. 2054.0. Australian Bureau of Statistics (2004) Year Book Australia: Population: Languages. Publication no. 1301.0. Bovingdon, R. (1987) Il-Lingwa Maltija go l-Awstralja [The Maltese language in Australia]. Il-Malti: Akkademja tal-Malti [The Maltese Language: Academy of Maltese Writers], 12–19.
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Bovingdon, R. (1998) Il-Maltraljan: L-Ilsien Malti ta’ l-Awstralja [Maltraljan: The Maltese language of Australia]. In K. Borg (ed.) Lingwa u Lingwistika (pp. 321–34). Malta: Klabb Kotba Maltin. Bovingdon, R. (2001) The Maltese Language of Australia: Maltraljan – A Lexical Compilation with Linguistic Notations and a Social, Political and Historical Background. Languages of the World 16. Lincom Europa. Bovingdon, R. (2003) Maltese dialects in Australia: Maltraljan. Paper presented at the Ninth International Conference on Minority Languages, University of Stockholm. Brincat, J. (1994) Gli albori della lingua maltese: Il problema del sostrato alla luce delle notizie storiche di al-Himyari sul periodo arabo a Malta [The branches of the Maltese Language: The problem of a substrate in the light of the historical writings of al-Himyari on the Arabic period in Malta]. In J. Brincat (ed.) Languages of the Mediterranean (pp. 130–40). Institute of Linguistics, University of Malta. Cassar, C. (2000) A Concise History of Malta. Malta: Mireva. Friggieri, O. (1979) Storja tal-Letteratura Maltija, Vol.1: Il-Poezija mill-bidu sa Dun Karm, [A History of Maltese Literature, Vol. 1: Poetry From the Beginning up to Dun Karm]. Malta: Klabb Kotba Maltin. Hull, G. (1993) The Malta Language Question – A Case Study in Language Imperialism. Malta: Said International. Parnis, C.G. (1929–1930) Maltese and English and Maltese Educational Publications. Parramatta, NSW, Australia: Cumberland. Puccio, G. (1933) Il Conflitto Anglo-Maltese [The Anglo-Maltese Conflict]. Milan: Treves-Treccani-Tumminelli. Ryan, J.S. (1974) The Italians and their language in Australia. Journal of the Faculty of Arts 6 (1). Royal University of Malta.
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CILP No: 099 Language Planning in Local Contexts
Community-level Approaches in Language Planning: The Case of Hungarian in Australia Anikó Hatoss University of Southern Queensland, Australia This paper provides an example of micro-planning which involves community, government and non-government organisations both in the context of immigrants’ source and host countries. The community in question is the Hungarian diaspora in Australia. The language planning activities are aimed at maintaining an immigrant heritage language and identity. The paper first gives a theoretical discussion on the definition of language policy and planning, with specific focus on micro-planning, then describes the Hungarian linguistic minorities in the Carpathian basin and in Australia. Then, the paper presents the micro-level language planning activities initiated by the Hungarian non-government organisations in Australia with specific focus on the interaction between Australian non-government organisations, Hungarybased non-government organisations and with government bodies in Hungary and Australia. The paper argues that micro-planning is initiated in the community, but can only be interpreted within the wider scope of macro-level planning. The paper also argues that micro-planning initiatives are essential complementary elements of language planning: neither macro- nor micro level planning is sufficient on its own.
Keywords: Hungarians in Australia, micro-level language planning, language maintenance, diaspora
Introduction Theories of language policy and planning (LPP) The role of overt macro-level language policies in the maintenance of minority languages cannot be overemphasised. Still, contemporary minority communities find themselves in situations where the connections between governmentally backed and institutionalised policies on the one hand and their implementation and the utilisation of the potential benefits by the ethnolinguistic communities on the other hand need to be initiated from the communities themselves. Communities are, therefore, seen today as active agents and advocates for the maintenance of their cultural and linguistic heritage, rather than passive recipients of government support. This paper defines micro-planning as language policy originating from the micro not the macro (see Baldauf in this volume), therefore micro-planning in this paper is not a mere interpretation of macro-policy upon the ethnolinguistic community in question. Still, from the case presented it is clear that micro-level initiatives taken on the community level are not isolated from government and non-government organisations, both in the source country as well as the host country. On the contrary, the intense interaction between government and community organisations plays the crucial role in the maintenance of the cultural and linguistic heritage in the community in question. 55
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On the outset it is necessary to define some concepts used throughout the paper. Since the emergence of the field of language policy and planning in the late 1950s and early 1960s, the terms language policy and planning have been interpreted and defined in a number of ways in the literature (see e.g. Cooper (1989), Haarmann (1990), Haugen (1966), Hornberger (1996), Kaplan and Baldauf (1997) and Tollefson, (1991)). Current paradigms make a sharp distinction between language policy as ‘referring to the policy of a society in the area of linguistic communication’, which is usually formulated in an official document, and language planning, referring to ‘a set of concrete measures taken within language policy to act on linguistic communication in a community’ (Bugarski, 1992 cited in Schiffman, 1996: 3). In a recent approach to language policy development and evaluation that draws upon the laws and theories of economics, François Grin gives the following definition of language policy: Language policy is a systematic, rational, theory-based effort at the societal level to modify the linguistic environment with a view to increasing aggregate welfare. It is typically conducted by official bodies or their surrogates and aimed at part or all of the population living under their jurisdiction. (Grin, 2003: 30) While language policies are usually associated with the state and with political decision making (Kaplan & Baldauf, 1997), language policies and language planning initiatives also happen at the community level. These initiatives are often referred to as grass-roots language policies (Hornberger, 1996) or micro-planning (Baldauf, 1994; Kaplan & Baldauf, 1997). Non-governmental organisations and various institutions can be important actors in language planning and play a crucial role in the initiation and implementation of such policies. An example for such micro-planning is Clyne’s (2001) account of university level language planning in Australia. This paper argues that the role local communities play in language planning is not only a necessary gap-filling-exercise which aims to satisfy the planning needs that official policies cannot achieve. Micro-planning is an essential and a necessary complement to the overt official macro-level language policy and planning for obvious reasons. Firstly, if language planning is about influencing the language behaviour of local communities, then it is the local communities who are in the best position to fulfil this role. Secondly, as Canagarajah (2005) and others have argued, language education policies of the 21st century need to grapple with the challenge that language communities are ‘local and global at the same time’ (Canagarajah, 2005: 17). Therefore, in order to respond to the multiple challenges that small languages are facing due to the ever-increasing forces of globalisation, [ . . . ], ‘localised planning, supported by national policy and ideology, seems essential’ (King, 2004: 344). Thirdly, as Fishman has argued in numerous writings, immigrant language communities’ language behaviour can only be influenced to the benefit of the minority language if the community itself is motivated to do so. This paper aims to contribute to this debate and present an argument in support of combining macro- and micro-level planning activities. The attention on the local community
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responds to the need for scholarly work which is ‘adequately sensitive to the everyday strategies of linguistic negotiation of the local people’ (Canagarajah, 2000: 123). While the term ‘micro-planning’ is relatively new (Baldauf, 1994; Kaplan & Baldauf, 1997), examples of micro-planning initiatives are numerous and incorporate a wide range of geolinguistic contexts. In the context of language planning directions in the Republic of Ireland Mac Giolla Chríost argued for ‘exploring the complexity of relationships between state, community and individual in relation to their various roles, expectations and rights’ (Mac Giolla Chríost, 2001: 297). In the context of Quechua, von Gleich (1994) reports on the significant impact of the cultural consciousness raising movements promoted by the Indian organisations in Ecuador, Bolivia and Peru (also see numerous examples presented by Richard Baldauf in this volume). This paper aims to contribute to the understanding of similar micro-planning activism in the context of Hungarian language in Australia. Such micro-planning is even more important when the goal of planning is to maintain the identity of an immigrant community, to enhance its ethnolinguistic vitality and to reverse the intergenerational shift to English only. This is not a new idea and has been emphasised by Fishman’s seminal work (1991). As Fishman argues: RLS1-efforts must initially be primarily based on the self-reliance of pro-RLSers and on the community of Xish users and advocates whom pro-RLSers seek to mobilise and activate. (Fishman, 1991: 111) The role of communities in making language planning decisions is also recognised and emphasised in several international policy documents (including the 1992 Declaration of the United Nations, the 1992 European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages2 and the 1995 Framework Convention of the Council of Europe, and various Recommendations of the OSCE’s High Commissioner on National Minorities 1996, 1998, 1999) (Kymlicka, 2002: 2). For example, the Universal Declaration of Linguistic Rights (UDLR, 1996) makes the following statement: All language communities have the right to organise and manage their own resources so as to ensure the use of their language in all functions within society, . . . (and) . . . all language communities are entitled to have at their disposal whatever means are necessary to ensure the transmission and continuity of their language. (Universal Declaration of Linguistic Human Rights, 1996, Article 8) This Declaration is based on the principle that the rights of all language communities are equal and independent of the legal or political status of their languages as official, regional or minority languages. However, language planners should take caution, as without supportive and effective national policies such declarations remain rather powerless and utopian. In fact, linguistic human rights, as declared by several international documents3 highlight the important role sociopolitical factors play in determining the fate of minority languages in individual nation states (May, 2000). In addition, as May argues, ethnic minorities and national minorities have different types of language rights:
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‘only national-minorities can claim the automatic right to formal representation of their language in the public domain, and to state-supported minority-language education – a promotion-oriented right’, while ethnic minority groups have, at the very best, the right to preserve their language in the private, non-governmental sphere of national life, these latter are referred to ‘tolerance oriented rights’ (May, 2001: 13) . Universal language rights, therefore, are hard to protect. In addition to the complexity of promotion- vs. tolerance-oriented rights, there is a further controversy created by the Western attempt of ‘internationalising’ minority rights issues and exporting Western models to ‘newly democratising countries’ (Kymlicka, 2002: 1).4 As Kymlicka argues, this tendency is present in Eastern-Europe and since this paper deals with an ‘eastern-European’ minority group with strong traditions of language right movement in the European context this tendency is worth mentioning, even though this paper will not discuss this in detail. What is language planning then and who does language planning to what effect? The fundamental framework of language planning as proposed by Kaplan and Baldauf (1997) aims to seek responses to the question ‘Who Does What to Whom?’. While these questions seem relatively easy to answer, the impact of language planning is more uncertain. Several authors have questioned the effects of language policies on the linguistic outcomes they provide and raised the question of whether planning should follow a bottom-up or top-down pattern. Kaplan sees a reversal of role for government institutions: rather than imposing top-down policies (which rarely work), he has emphasised that bottom-up movements from the community are more likely to lead to success: In many cases, the stimulus for revitalisation arises among the population of speakers (or of the descendants of a population of speakers). It rarely arises in the Ministry of Education; rather, the Ministry of Education responds, to varying degrees, to grass-roots pressure from the community (i.e. policy development is not actually a policy matter; rather it is a matter of assisting implementation. (Kaplan, 2005: 79) Kaplan and Baldauf (1997) discuss micro-, meso- and macro-level planning and note that most language planning is described as a large-scale activity. Language planning occurs, however, on many different levels, and often the micro-level planning is what makes a difference to a community’s life and linguistic ecology. Community organisations, therefore, have a crucial role in the language maintenance process and their positions and roles. Although this paper does not aim to evaluate the micro-level implementation of macro-level policies, as stated above, it adopts the proposition that societal attitudes and practices with regard to language use, acquisition and status are strongly influenced by macro-factors, such as the political, historical and cultural events and processes (Ricento, 2000: 23). This paper presents three macro-level sociopolitical and cultural factors that impact upon the micro-level language planning activities of the Hungarian community in Australia. The first factor is attributable to the strong historical traditions of minority language maintenance in the context of Hungarian ethnic minorities in Europe, and the shift from a post-communist era to a European democracy in the 1990s. The second factor
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derives from the first and has to do with the strong connection between ‘linguistic culture’ (Schiffman, 1996) and language policy and planning as well as the fact that Hungarian language has always been a strong core value (Smolicz, 1999) in Hungarian culture. And, the third factor is the shift from assimilationist to multicultural policies in the host country, Australia, in the late 1970s and early 1980s. These three factors are discussed in the next section of the paper. It is important to note, however, that these factors are considered as background factors only, in other words this paper does not aim to seek for micro-level implementation of these macro-tendencies. Language planning and policy can be of four major types: status planning (about society); corpus planning (about language); language-in-education (acquisition) planning (about learning); and prestige planning (about image) (see Baldauf in this volume). The language planning activities described in this paper largely fit under the category of status planning (planning of language use in the society) and acquisition planning (the planning of the learning of the selected language by the community). These activities are targeted at the activation of Hungarian language in the first generation and transmitting the language to the second and third generations. Some of the cultural activities are aimed at ‘capacity building’, that is they do not directly relate to the use of Hungarian but aim at strengthening the community spirit and networking. As it will be shown in the following sections, the maintenance of Hungarian language in the migrant diaspora is seen by the community as a crucial tool in identity maintenance. The following is a background to the paper: the first section gives a short overview of the status of Hungarian language in the European context, the second section describes the Hungarian community in Australia, and the third section discusses micro-level language planning initiatives in the Hungarian community of Australia.
The Status of Hungarian Language in the European Context Factor 1: Hungarian as a minority language in Europe The current paper is concerned with the community-level language planning initiatives of the Hungarian diaspora in Australia. In the context of an immigrant minority (or using Ager’s term ‘powerless’ language community), the motivation for language planning is strongly associated with ‘correcting social inequality, injustice or inequity’ and these factors play a crucial role in their attempt to ‘actively defend their identity’ (Ager, 2001: 166). While such inequality was present in the past, in the context of contemporary Australian multiculturalism, the main motivation for the Hungarian community is to maintain a unique identity and to prevent a complete assimilation into mainstream Australia. The term diaspora in this paper refers to the communities of Hungary-born or of Hungarian origin persons residing outside Hungary. It is important to make a distinction, on the one hand, between the Hungarians outside Hungary living in minority status in the Carpathian Basin in Hungary’s surrounding countries, including Romania, Slovakia, Croatia, Ukraine and Austria, and on the other hand, the Hungarian diasporas living in other parts of the world as a result of emigration or immigration. While the first group can be considered national minorities, the second group belongs to ethnic minorities (May, 2001: 13).
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The relationships between state, national language and national culture and identity have never been straightforward in the context of Hungary. This Central European country inherited the French nation-state ideology, which prevailed until the end of World War I and was later replaced by the German model of Kulturnation. Hungarian language has always been a core cultural icon and has been regarded as an important means to express and keep Hungarian identity. While Hungarian language has been the official language of Hungary since the 1849 declaration of independence, Hungarian has been spoken by a large number of ethnic Hungarians outside the current political borders of the country. There are approximately 600,000 indigenous Hungarians in Slovakia, 160,000 in Subcarpathia, Ukraine, 1.6 million in Rumania, approximately 350,000 in Vojvodina, Yugoslavia, 8000 in Slovenia, and perhaps 5000 in Austria (Kontra, 2001: 164). These ethnic Hungarians have lived in minority status as a result of the drastic realignment of political borders as ratified by the Trianon Treaty after World War I. Since Hungary lost two-thirds of its territory and one-third of its population due to the border changes, mother tongue maintenance has had long traditions in Hungarian culture. The language maintenance efforts of Hungarians have been discussed by a number of authors (see e.g. Gal, 1979, 1999; Kontra, 1999; Lanstyák, 1999; Szépe, 1999; Szépfalusi, 1999). With the recent enlargement of the European Union, Hungary has undergone significant social and economic changes. These changes brought new opportunities and challenges with regards to the status of Hungarian language both inside Hungary and in its neighbouring countries. Hungary introduced the Status Law which intended to create stronger connections with Hungarians across the borders under the banner of one Hungarian ‘cultural nation’, but this Status Law has been subject to heated political debate and it has had a mixed impact on these ethnic minorities and Hungary’s relations with its neighbouring countries. In brief, the strong historical tradition of promoting and protecting the Hungarian language creates a strong supportive environment for the microplanning in the Australian community. Factor 2: Hungarian linguistic culture and core value The second main impact upon the language planning initiatives in the Hungarian community derives from the strong intrinsic cultural aspect of the Hungarian community. Hungarians in Australia are among those ethnic groups which appear to be language-centred, considering their ethnic language to be among their core values (Smolicz, 1999). For such group members, the value of their first language ‘transcends any instrumental consideration, and represents a striving for self-fulfilment that makes the language a symbol of survival, and hence of autotelic significance’ (Smolicz, 1999: 29). This paper investigates how political changes in Australia can affect the patterns of acculturation and language maintenance in an essentially language conscious community. As Schiffmann argues, language policy is ‘ultimately grounded in linguistic culture, that is, the set of behaviours, assumptions, cultural norms, prejudices, folk belief systems, attitudes, stereotypes, ways of thinking about language, and religio-historical circumstances associated with a particular language’ (Schiffman, 1996: 5). Hungarians have always attached a strong value to their language. In fact, it is the language itself which created a unique identity for
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the Magyar, being a Finno-Ugric language not even close to any of the other European languages, except for Finnish and Estonian. Although Hungarian gained the status of official language only after the revolution of 1848–49, since 1806 it has been a compulsory subject in every secondary school, college and university which, in addition to providing literacy education to native Hungarians, was a ‘patriotic urge to spread Hungarian’ among the multiethnic population of the Hungarian Kingdom (Medgyes & Miklosy, 2000: 170). Due to its strong nation-building role, Hungarian language has always been strongly attached to Hungarian-ness and can safely be considered as a core value in Hungarian culture. Smolicz (1999: 28) defines ‘language-centred communities’ as the ones which regard their ‘ethnic tongues as their cores’. Hungarian is one of these communities along with the Greek, Lithuanian, Latvian, Estonian, Polish and Spanish (Smolicz, 1999: 28). For Hungarians, language becomes ‘equated with affiliation to the group’. For them, as for other language-centred cultures, ‘the loss of the native tongue usually heralds a cultural shift to the periphery’ and weakens the ‘cultural transmission chain’ (Smolicz, 1999: 58). Factor 3: Macro-level language planning in the Australian context The third factor impacting upon the micro-level planning of the community was to the shift to multicultural policies and the development of a society more tolerant of ethnic and linguistic diversity in the host country, Australia. This section will highlight the impact of multicultural policies upon language maintenance activities of Hungarians.5 The development of multiculturalism in Australia has a long history going back to 1972, when the term multiculturalism was first introduced.6 Prior to multicultural policies Australia had a strong assimilationist ideology which required immigrants to conform to the Australian lifestyle and forget about their traditions and languages. This assimilationist period had a devastating impact upon the immigrant languages. The majority of immigrant ethnolinguistic communities shifted to English only and did not transmit their language to their next generation. Kipp and Clyne (2003) report the highest rates of shift among the Dutch, Germans and Austrians, while Hungarians occupied a middle ground in terms of language shift. In contrast with the assimilationist ideology prevalent until the 1970s, current multicultural policies overtly support the maintenance of community languages. The fundamental principles of multiculturalism are formulated in the policy document, The National Agenda for Multicultural Australia (Department of Immigration & Multicultural and Indigenous Affairs, 1999). The report defines three main rights and three main obligations that migrants should have. The rights are: • cultural identity: the right of all Australians to express and share their individual cultural heritage, including their language and religion; • social justice: the right of all Australians to equality of treatment and opportunity, and the removal of barriers of race, ethnicity, culture, religion, language, gender or place of birth; • economic efficiency: the need to maintain, develop and utilise effectively the skills and talents of all Australians, regardless of background.
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Among the obligations, it is stated that multicultural policies require all Australians to accept the basic structures and principles of Australian society – the Constitution and the rule of law, acceptance and equality, and English as the national language. In the early 1990s, the concept of multiculturalism underwent significant changes which are best manifested in the latest report issued by the National Multicultural Advisory Council (1999). The Council recommends the adoption of the following definition of multiculturalism: Australian multiculturalism is a term, which recognises and celebrates Australia’s cultural diversity. It accepts and respects the right of all Australians to express and share their individual cultural heritage within an overriding commitment to Australia and the basic structures and values of Australian democracy. (National Multicultural Advisory Council, 1999) The report reflects and reinforces the shift from seeing migrants as people in need of assistance, for example in helping them learn English to seeing them as an ‘asset’ to society. The new slogan of ‘inclusiveness’ reflects this change. The policy emphasises the ‘economic benefits’ that can be gained by capitalising on Australia’s wealth of cultural and linguistic skills and on the social and business networks of migrants in the Australian community (National Multicultural Advisory Council, 1999). The report continues to promote the economic benefits that can be derived from Australia’s cultural diversity in both the domestic and international markets. It was not the first time, however, that language was seen as a resource, as this concept was also included in the Senate Standing Committee’s recommendation report in 1984 (Senate Standing Committee on Education and Arts, 1984). Such multicultural policies and corresponding language policies7 ‘claim to provide a favourable environment for the maintenance of immigrant languages’ (Hatoss, 2004: 18). However, Australian multiculturalism does not go hand in hand with widespread societal multilingualism (Clyne, 1991, 1997; Smolicz, 1980, 1981, 1999). Although superficially Australia is highly multilingual, due to the immigrant languages present, this multilingualism is subject to shift to the use of English only (Clyne & Kipp, 1997, 2000). This confirms that macro-policies or planning are not successful in their attempt to influence language use and language spread in the wider society. Also, as many have argued, these macro-policies are characterised by a laissez-faire approach where migrants’ rights to their language is provided, but opportunities of doing so have to be created within the smaller microcosm of the community.
Hungarians in Australia8 In the 200 years of Australia’s history Hungarians have immigrated to this country in the last 150 years. Although the first Hungary-born migrant arrived in Australia as early as 1829 (Kunz, 1997: 19), the first arrivals were only sporadic and spasmodic. Apart from these arrivals, Hungarians came in three main waves that corresponded to and reflected Hungarian history. These included the migration after the 1948–49 revolution, after World War II and after the revolution of 1956. At the end of 1948 the first ‘contract’
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immigrants arrived and in the following three years most of the Hungarian migrants arrived as ‘displaced persons’, or so called ‘dipis’ (Kunz, 1997). Their travel cost was covered by the International Refugee Organisation (IRO) and the Australian Commonwealth contributed £10 to the travel cost in case the journey was longer than the distance between America and Australia. Migrants leaving Hungary in 1956 were supported by Australia and some international organisations. These immigrants were treated under a humanitarian programme and were not subject to the same selection criteria as other migrants in general (Kunz, 1997). While Hungarians contributed tremendously to the development of Australian industry and economy (Kunz, 1997), they only influenced the demographic growth of the country to a limited degree. Even during the times when the Hungarian migration was at its peak from 1941 to 1961, the Hungarian migrants accounted for only 2 % of the total migrant population in Australia (Kunz, 1997). Still, Hungarians were the seventh biggest ethnic group after the British, Italian, Dutch, German, Greek and Yugoslavian migrants. According to the 2001 Census (Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2001) a total of 62,859 people reported having Hungarian ancestry9, 24,485 people spoke Hungarian in their homes and this figure was 25,846 in 1996. See Table 1 for a summary of demographics of the community and Table 2 for the summary of Hungarian spoken in Australian homes according to states. Table 1 Hungarians in Australia according to the 1996 and 2001 census results Census 1996
Census 2001
Change of population from 1996 to 2001
17,892,423
18,972,350
+6.0%
Total Australian residents born in Hungary
25,263
22,752
–9.9%
Total Australian residents who speak Hungarian at home
25,846
24,485
–7.0%
(no data)
62,859
(no data)
Total Australian population
Total Australian residents with Hungarian ancestry
Table 2 Hungarian language spoken in Australian homes according to the 2001 census in states and territories States and territories of Australia New South Wales Victoria Queensland South Australia Western Australia Tasmania Northern Territory Australian Capital Territory
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Number of persons speaking Hungarian at home 8,695 8,913 3,064 1,943 1,203 139 96 432
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Micro-planning by NGOs in Australia Grass-root movement/micro-planning This section describes some of the main organisations as ‘actors’ and some of the main activities as micro-planning initiatives. The central micro-level language planning actor of the Hungarians in Australia is the Hungarian Association of Australia and New Zealand (Ausztráliai es Új-Zélandi Magyar Szövetség (AUZMSZ). This association is composed of the state-level Hungarian organisations and fulfils the function of the National Council of Australia (NCA or in Hungarian Országos Tanács, OT) in the World Association of Hungarians (in Hungarian Magyarok Világszövetsége). In the following sections, the paper will highlight some of the activities of the state level Hungarian NGOs, in three states of Australia: New South Wales, Queensland and Victoria. Traditionally these states hosted most European migrations and they have the largest population of Hungarians. In New South Wales the most significant actor of micro-planning is the Hungarian Council of New South Wales (HCNSW) which was established in 1952. The Council is a voluntary non-profit organisation which coordinates the work of the various Hungarian associations operating in NSW. These activities include cultural, social, benevolent, charitable, fraternity, church, pensioners and various youth organisations such as the Hungarian schools, scouts movement and dance groups. The crucial role the Council plays is the representation of the Hungarian communities’ interest at all official levels especially in Australian and Hungarian governmental departments and institutions. In Australia the Council keeps contact with the Department of Immigration and Multicultural and Indigenous Affairs (DIMIA) and the Hungarian Embassy in Canberra (in Australia); the Community Relations Commission and the Consulate-General of Hungary in Sydney (in New South Wales). In Hungary it keeps contact with the Ministry of Education; the Ministry of National Culture and Heritage; the Government Office for Hungarian Minorities Abroad; and several educational institutions and foundations such as the Balassi Bálint Institute for Hungarian Studies, the Illyés Foundation for Hungarians Abroad, and the Apáczai Foundation for Hungarian Education Abroad. Through these contacts the Council seeks for opportunities to fund Hungarian cultural events, with the overt aim to promote the maintenance of Hungarian language among the second and third generation Hungarian Australians. Some of these events are described in the following section.
Hungarian Identity Conferences The main forum for micro-planning Perhaps the most important language planning event in the diaspora is the Hungarian Identity Conference. This conference is organised annually by the Hungarian Council of New South Wales jointly with the Hungarian Centre in Melbourne. The aim of the event is to support the maintenance of Hungarian cultural and linguistic heritage in the diaspora and to sustain the quality of cultural life in the community. The proactive role the Council plays in the maintenance of Hungarian language and culture is reflected in the words of the President:
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It is our responsibility and our moral obligation to be aware of the assistance and opportunities our adopted country extends to us through the Act of Multiculturalism. It is indeed our privilege to retain our identity and thereby ensure the valued presence of Hungarians in Australia. (Kardos, 2004) The conference provides a forum for various ‘actors’ of micro-planning, such as scouts and youth group leaders, leaders of old-age community organisations, Hungarian media representatives and coordinators and teachers of the Hungarian schools to discuss relevant issues and identify areas where government monies could be allocated to assist programmes. The conference also hosts representatives of various cultural organisations and government departments from Hungary and from Australia, therefore it creates the crucial links across micro- and macro-level planners. The conference topics fit under the wider theme of maintaining Hungarian identity, as the conference title Megmaradásunk (Hungarian for ‘Remaining Hungarian’) suggests, and usually embrace issues such as the preparation of the syllabus for the weekend schools, the method of teaching, the selection and order the suitable textbooks and teaching aids for the schools from Hungary. Community members also discuss the various opportunities offered to students by Hungarian institutions for further education in language and culture. An initiative is to arrange refresher courses for teachers either in Hungarian Teachers’ Colleges and Universities, or in Australia by inviting lecturers from Hungary. Through the conference, the community also aims to find sponsors for exchange student programmes in Hungary and Australia. One of the examples of the achievements of the Identity Conferences is the Kapocs Cultural Manager Training Course which is organised by the Hungarian Cultural Foundation in Budapest for those Hungarian Australians who wish to take an active role in the issues of the Hungarian community. It builds upon the knowledge represented in this community. The course is designed on the basis of the needs articulated in the Hungarian-Australian community during the Identity Conferences. The aim of the programme is ‘to assist and support the activities which aim to strengthen the Hungarian identity including the support of education and management activities’ (Newsletter to the Hungarian Community, 8 October 2005). At the first Identity Conference the Council of Australian Hungarian Schools was established. The council is an example of acquisition planning as it monitors the issues related to the Hungarian schools’ needs, assists in the development of curricula, and the selection of suitable textbooks. The majority of the members are teachers of Hungarian in various schools. The Association keeps in contact with the Ministry of Education in Hungary and the National Textbook Publishing House (Hungary). The council directly contacts the Ministry for textbook needs. The working language of the conference is Hungarian, but some sections are presented in English in order to engage some second generation Hungarians who do not speak Hungarian. Some of the planning activities are targeted at building strong relations with the government offices of multiculturalism in Australia. An example of a microplanning activity was the Hungarian Presentation Day at the Parliament of NSW
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organised in 2001 to mark the Centenary of the Australian Federation and the contribution of the Hungarian Community over the past 50 years to enriching and developing multicultural Australia. On this occasion the Minister for Immigration and Multicultural Affairs recognised the role the Hungarian Council has played in ‘contributing to the success of multiculturalism in Australia’ (Ruddock, 2001).
Government and Non-government Institutions in the Source Country (Hungary) Micro-level planning initiatives also involve building a close cooperation with several government bodies and non-government organisations in Hungary. One of these key government organisations is the Office of Hungarian Minorities Abroad10 (HTMH) which makes decisions on the macro-level about the support provided for Hungarian minorities across the borders of Hungary, but mainly in the Carpathian Basin. This office was established in 1992 as a national public institution and operates under the Hungarian government, under the supervision of the Minister of Foreign Affairs. Its main responsibilities include: • maintaining and fostering Hungarian-Hungarian relationships, especially with Hungarian political and social organisations, associations and churches; • fostering bilateral relations with government bodies responsible for minority issues in countries where the Hungarian diaspora is present; • carrying out analysis and prognoses on processes concerning the Hungarian diaspora; • bringing the issues of the Hungarian diaspora outside Hungary to international forums (see HTMH website http://www.htmh.hu/en/index. php?menuid = 02). The Australian diaspora keeps in contact with this department and has lobbied successfully in order to draw the Hungarian government’s attention to the needs of the Australian Hungarian community. In 2004 and 2005 several government representatives visited the Australian community and informed the members about various grant programmes. Micro-planning also involves building contacts with non-government organisations in Hungary. Such organisations include the Illyés Foundation for Hungarians Abroad11 established in 1990. Some of the main activities of the foundation are aimed at ‘supporting the maintenance, development and strengthening of Hungarian identity in the diaspora outside Hungary, supporting initiatives which are aimed at the maintenance and development of Hungarian language, supporting the academic work concerning Hungarians outside Hungary, improving the material and human resource conditions necessary for practising religion in Hungarian cultural exhibitions of Hungarians Outside Hungary in the motherland’. While most activities are limited to the Carpathian basin and the funds are offered only to the minority groups in Hungary’s neighbouring countries, the foundation was the main sponsor for the first Hungarian Identity Conference in Australia in 2001. Another example
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is the Teleki László Foundation12 which is a research focused organisation with strong emphasis on Hungary’s international relations, the European integration and the situation of ethnic and linguistic minorities. Through these contacts the diaspora creates significant cultural exchange opportunities and opportunities for the use of Hungarian in Australia and in Hungary by second generation Australian Hungarians.
Acquisition Planning Hungarian schools in Australia Micro-level language planning, particularly acquisition planning plays a crucial role in ensuring that second and third generation Hungarian children have access to Hungarian courses in Australia. Australian children have three options to study a LOTE (Languages Other Than English). These include (1) regular day schools including government, Catholic and independent schools, (2) the School of Languages, which is a government funded Saturday school to allow children to learn a LOTE when there is no other opportunity for them to do so during normal schooling, and (3) afterhours ethnic schools run by communities, many of which are also supported financially from Federal or State government funds (Clyne et al., 2004: 6). Hungarian schools in Australia fit under the second and third categories: those run by State governments and ethnic schools run by the Hungarian community. These ethnic schools are run as a result of an ongoing micro-level acquisition planning activity and are located in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Adelaide and Perth. The instruction in these schools is focused mainly on basic Hungarian language, history and culture, but the courses also aim to prepare students for the more advanced classes provided in government schools. The continuity of these schools is largely dependent on the number of Hungarian-background children in the local community and their level of motivation to maintain or learn Hungarian. The number of children attending these schools in Sydney is approximately 80, in Melbourne 100, in Brisbane 60, Adelaide 30, and in Perth 20. Recruiting new students to these classes is one of the main micro-planning activities that the community undertakes. Classes run by government schools – mainly on Saturday mornings – take place in the states of NSW (The Saturday School of Community Languages in Sydney), Victoria (The Victorian School of Languages in Melbourne) and South Australia (The School of Languages in Adelaide). The main focus is to prepare Year 11 and 12 students for the final (matriculation) examination in the Hungarian language. Annually, 40–50 students sit for this examination. In September 1999, the Hungarian Cultural and Welfare Association (a Magyar Ház) – supported by the CHAQ – successfully applied for grant from the Apáczai Foundation (Apáczai Közalapítvány) to support a Hungarian school for the purpose of maintaining the Hungarian language for people of the second and third generation. The foundation sponsors a Hungarian teacher for a period of one year. Unfortunately, the programme allows only two lessons per week for each group, due to the limited funds and teaching staff. The lessons are held on weekday evenings as well as on Saturday mornings. Choosing the best location for the courses was one of the most difficult tasks, since the Hungarian
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community is widely spread in all the suburbs of Brisbane and its surroundings. The Hungarian House hosts three of the classes, situated in one of the southern suburbs of Brisbane, while one class is held in the north of Brisbane, one on the Gold Coast and one in Ipswich, about 50 kilometres west from Brisbane. The school is sponsored by the foundation for only one year, and the community has to apply for further funds on a yearly basis to maintain the programme. In addition to the issue of numerical strength, that is, the difficulty of getting enough students together in various districts to fill the necessary quota for government-funded Hungarian classes, the main issue that Hungarian schools face is the lack of teaching materials. In response to this need, the National Textbook Publishing Corporation (Nemzeti Tankönyvkiadó) in Budapest donated a number of textbooks titled A haza a magasban specifically written for learners of Hungarian outside Hungary. The book is intended for all those 10,000 Hungarian children who study Hungarian language outside Hungary, in the western diasporas. The authors describe the aim of the book with the following words: Our aim is to make children who are Hungarian-by-birth and Hungarianby upbringing realise that they belong to a community of 15 million people. The book orients the learner to examine his/her place in the world with the knowledge of also belonging to ‘Hungarianness’, and to raise their interest in the nation’s culture, history and present, which in time may develop into a duty. [Original Hungarian: Célunk, hogy a magyar, illetve magyarnak is nevelt diák ráérezzen arra, hogy egy tizenöt milliós közösséghez tartozik. A tanulót arra orientálja ez a könyv, hogy a magyarsághoz (is) tartozás tudatával mérje föl helyét a világban, és érdeklĘdést keltsünk benne e nemzet kultúrája, múltja és jelene iránt, amely szerencsés esetben az idĘk folyamán elkötelezettséggé alakulhat benne.] (On WWW at http://www.hotkey.net. au/~aussiemagyar/Haza_A_Magasban.htm. Accessed 25.10.05.) The book is another example of the successful matching of community needs and government support. The book was sponsored by the Ministry of Education and it was the achievement of the First Hungarian Identity Conference that the book was sent to a number of Hungarian schools in Australia.
Discussion From the various organisations and activities described in the previous section it is clear that Hungarian micro-planning activities are diverse and involve government and non-government organisations both in Australia and in Hungary. The activities of micro-planning with the actors of these micro-planning activities are presented in Table 3. From Table 3 it is clear that micro-planning in the Hungarian community is a unique case of language planning which operates on multiple levels: involving government and non-government organisations both in the source country, Hungary and in Australia. The main goals of the micro-planning activities are to maintain a Hungarian identity in Australia and avoid total ‘assimilation’. The community’s concerns of being assimilated into mainstream Australian culture are justified by the demographic figures which show that the Hungary-born Australian population is in sharp decrease and Hungarian is used in Austral-
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Australia-based nongovernment organisations
Micro-level planning activities: • acquisition planning • status planning • corpus planning (textbooks)
• organise identity conferences yearly • invite key officials from various government and non-government organisations • liaise with various government and non-government organisations • monitor Hungarian schools • lobby with Australian government offices
Actors in micro-planning • Hungarian Association of NSW • Hungarian Cultural Centre in Melbourne (Magyar Ház) • Council of Hungarian Associations in QLD • Gold Coast Hungarian Association
Micro-planning organisations based on location and status
Table 3 Actors in micro-planning and their activities13
• World Association of Hungarians
• Ministry of Education • Office of Hungarian Minorities Abroad (HTMH) • Pécs University – International Study Centre
• attend Hungarian • inform Hungarian • visit Australian Identity identity Conference in communities across Conferences Australia all countries about key • analyse needs of Australian events impacting upon • inform Hungarian community community about the Hungarian diaspora • sponsor cultural manager various study and • lobby in relation to programme scholarship opportuvarious political events • sponsor identity conference nities in Hungary • supply textbook and CD • offer European materials to Hungarian Language Council EU schools accredited language • offer scholarships for learning examination in Hungarian culture and Hungarian language in Hungary
• Hungarian Cultural Foundation • Illyés Foundation • Apáczai Foundation • Teleki Foundation • Hungarian Textbook Publishing House • Balassi Bálint Institute
Hungary-based non-government International-level nonHungary-based organisations government organisations government organisations
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ian homes to a lesser and lesser degree. This decline in the use of Hungarian is only partially attributable to the population decline. Partially, the reduction in the use of Hungarian is a clear sign of two types of language shift: (1) intergenerational shift which means that the children born in Australia do not speak Hungarian any more and (2) intragenerational shift means that the first-generation Hungarians have shifted to the sole use of English in their homes. This typically occurs in mixed marriages, where the spouse is a monolingual English speaking Australian. As the examples of language planning activities have demonstrated, the language learning needs and opportunities of the community are not met by the governmentally controlled official language planning programmes. The official school system offers LOTE programmes, but Hungarian children are not able to have access to these programmes, due to the dispersed location of the community and the small numbers they represent. From the networking activities that the community has initiated it is clear that there is a strong motivation to transmit Hungarian culture and language to the next generations. Still, attracting young members of the community to the various community events has proven to be the most challenging task for language planners.
Conclusion In conclusion, Australian-Hungarians have a number of organisations which help them maintain contact with their culture and language. Despite the diasporas relative demographic weaknesses – such as numerical weakness as well as the geographic dispersion of the community – the community is maintaining a number of activities through various government and non-government organisations. Language policies do not necessarily bring the desired effects on the linguistic environment of migrant communities. For contemporary language communities, such as Hungarian, it is essential that they take initiatives for the maintenance and development of the cultural and linguistic heritage. In the context of Australian multiculturalism it is evident that macroplanning and government level language policies need to be supported by such micro-planning in order to maximise their effect. From the case study of the micro-planning activities in the Hungarian community in Australia it is clear that it is also crucial that the community has access to and fosters links with expert support for both content and methodology. In this regard, the Hungarian Identity Conference held annually has been exemplary. It addresses the need to articulate the desired future of the Hungarian language and culture, the need for shared thinking, planning and action in order to pave the future of the Hungarian community’s identity in Australia. Some initiatives have come to fruition in forging links and opportunities for personal enrichment and further education. While the community is successful in addressing various language needs, the planning activities seem somewhat ad hoc. There is no overt and consistent policy which describes language planning goals. Still, the numerous initiatives on the micro-level are to some extent steered by the national and state level networking, mainly through the annual Hungarian Identity Conferences and the various non-government organisations.
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As the case of the Hungarian diaspora has shown, both the source country and the host country organisations play an essential part of micro-planning activities. They need to take responsibility for their share in creating opportunities for members of the diaspora to use their language. In this process, as we have seen, non-governmental organisations play a crucial role. Clearly, the Hungarian initiatives can provide a useful example for other communities. Australia’s dynamically growing and ever-changing communities need to be active agents in their language outcomes. Macro-planning can only be successful if supported by conscious and strategic micro-planning, such as the one presented in this paper. From a theoretical perspective, theories of language planning need to respond to the dynamics of changing communities, the complexities of their interactions on various levels. It is not sufficient to treat language communities as local, restricted by space and having limited mobility. Contemporary diasporas are in constant change and in dynamic interaction with other communities. This dynamism calls for a paradigm shift and the need to examine language planning in ethnolinguistic communities within the new framework of cosmopolitanism. This new framework allows theorists to move away from the rigid concepts of nation-state, diaspora, majority and minority languages. Correspondence Any correspondence should be directed to Dr Anikó Hatoss, University of Southern Queensland, Faculty of Education, West Street, Toowoomba, QLD 4350, Australia (
[email protected]). Notes 1. RLS stands for reversing language shift. 2. For a detailed discussion on the Charter see Grin (2003). 3. Such declarations include the Universal Declaration of Linguistic Human Rights (CIEMEN/International PEN, 1996), The Oslo Recommendations Regarding the Linguistic Rights of National Minorities (Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe, 1998), The Hague Recommendations Regarding the Education Rights of National Minorities (Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe, 1996). 4. This paper does not aim to review the linguistic rights situation in the Hungarian minority context in the Carpathian basin. For a review of the language situation in the Carpathian basin see Medgyes and Miklosy (2000), also in the broader context of EU enlargement in Central European countries see Kymlicka (2002). 5. For a detailed discussion on the development of multicultural policies and the history of immigration in Australia, see Jupp (2002). 6. For a review of the development of multiculturalism and the shift from assimilationist ideology to multicultural policies in 1972, see Jupp (2002). 7. The most significant language policy document in Australia was the report (Lo Bianco, 1987) published in 1987. This policy put a strong emphasis on the value of multilingualism in Australian communities and the value of maintaining minority languages. Currently, there is no overt policy in place and in general language matters are not on the agenda of the current government. 8. For a detailed review of Hungarian migration to Australia see Kunz (1997). 9. In the census survey people were asked to consider the ancestry with which they identified. Multiple responses could be provided. If more than two responses were provided, the first two were recorded. Comparative figures are not available for this item as this question was not asked in the 1991 or 1996 censuses. 10. The English language version of the official website of this government depart-
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ment is http://www.htmh.hu/en. Also see this website for a detailed review of the Hungarian language situation in the Carpathian basin and beyond. 11. The official website for the Illyés Foundation is http://www.ika.hu/logo.php. 12. The official website for the Teleki Foundation is http://www.tla.hu. 13. Government organisations are responsible for macro-level official planning. Still, for the purpose of this paper it is important to include them in order to show how they are involved in micro-level planning largely initiated by the local Australian community.
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Micro-level Language Planning in Ireland Diarmait Mac Giolla Chríost School of Welsh, Cardiff University, Cardiff CF10 3EU, Wales UK This paper focuses upon the emergence of micro-level practices in language planning in both the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland. These practices are set against the historical context for language planning in the Republic of Ireland, characterised by a macro-level approach. It is argued that the limitations of this approach are reflected in the eventual circularity of state policy and the ongoing contraction of the Gaeltacht – the territory defined as officially Irish-speaking by the Irish Government. The emergence of some micro-level language planning practices beginning in parts of the Republic of Ireland during the second half of the 1960s and continuing through to contemporary Northern Ireland is analysed. The author draws from models of microlevel language planning in Wales to indicate the potential inherent in such practices for the transformation of the dynamics of the Irish language in both the Republic of Ireland and in Northern Ireland. The paper proposes that an appropriate model could make a substantial contribution towards attaining cross-community engagement with regard to the Irish language in Northern Ireland, helping secure the intergenerational transmission of the language in the Gaeltacht in the Republic of Ireland and, in addition, provide more effective direction to language planning activity outside of the Gaeltacht.
Keywords: Irish language, Republic of Ireland, Northern Ireland, Gaeltacht, Mentrau Iaith, Fiontair Teanga
Introduction The focus of this concise exploration of aspects of language planning and policy in Ireland is upon the emergence of micro-level practices and the potential inherent in such practices for the transformation of the dynamics of the Irish language in both the Republic of Ireland and in Northern Ireland. The paper begins with a brief overview of the historical context for language planning and policy in the Republic of Ireland and the dominance of a macrolevel approach. It is observed that the failure of this approach is reflected in the eventual circularity of policy – characterised by some as a process of institutionalisation, de- institutionalisation, and re- institutionalisation (Ó Riagáin, 1988) – and in the continued contraction of the Gaeltacht – the territory defined as officially Irish-speaking by the Irish Government. It is in this context that the paper then traces the evolution of some micro-level language planning practices, beginning in the rural counties of Mayo and Kerry in the westernmost parts of the Republic of Ireland during the second half of the 1960s and continuing through to the present day in the city of Belfast in Northern Ireland. Also, the paper draws from models of micro-level language planning in Wales in order to further illustrate the potential role that micro-level language planning could play in relation to the Irish language. It is argued that an appropriate model could (1) allow for greater levels of cross-community engagement and the development of post-conflict socioeconomic rationale for the language in Northern Ireland, (2) give strategic and tactical direction to language planning activity in those cities and towns in 75
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the Republic of Ireland that are characterised by the persistent and increasing presence of the Irish language in the form of varied networks of Irish speakers, and (3) reinforce the intergenerational transmission of the language in the Gaeltacht, thereby lessening the dependency upon the education system for the acquisition of Irish and, at the same time, reinforcing Irish as the first language of the community of the Gaeltacht.
The Historical Context From the earliest beginnings of the Republic of Ireland in the 1920s, as the Irish Free State, Irish language planning and policy has been largely dominated by a macro-level approach. From the outset, the principal goals of the Irish state in this regard were three-fold (Ó Riagáin, 1988: 30–1): • to maintain the Irish language in those parts of Ireland where it continued to be the language of popular, everyday use, collectively known as the Gaeltacht; • to restore the Irish language as the language of popular, everyday use in the rest of Ireland; • to provide the infrastructure necessary for the realisation of the maintenance of the language in the Gaeltacht and the revival of the language in the rest of Ireland. A number of practical steps were taken with the intention of realising those goals. For example, in 1926, under the auspices of the commission that was established to give consideration to Irish language policy, the areas that comprised the Gaeltacht were defined at District Electoral Division level according to linguistic criteria (i.e. areas in which at least 80% of the resident population were returned as Irish speakers according to the 1911 Census). Districts for which it was known that the Irish language was spoken but was not necessarily predominant (i.e. adjacent areas in which 25–79% of the resident population were returned as Irish speakers according to the 1911 Census and termed Breac-Ghaeltacht) were deliberately included. The understanding was that the Gaeltacht proper (Fíor-Ghaeltacht) would expand and incorporate such districts as the Irish language gained ground in communities adjacent to those for which the Irish language was the common language of everyday use. However, the population of the Gaeltacht around 1926 comprised less than 16% of the total Irish population and was located in geographically isolated and economically marginal parts of the country. Thus, the prospects for its expansion were not good. Consideration was given to the nature of education in the Gaeltacht. The Government determined that education in the Gaeltacht would be through Irish and that measures would be taken to ensure that sufficient teachers were trained for the purpose. While some questioned the pedagogical qualities of some of the teachers (Brown, 1985: 52), Irish was quickly established as the medium of instruction in National schools in the Gaeltacht. Consideration was given to the manner of the provision of the services of the various departments of the Government and other agencies of the state in the Gaeltacht. In
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their report of 1926 the commission pointed out that no guidance or instructions had been issued to such departments and agencies on the delivery of services in accordance with the constitutional preference for Irish as the national language and with regard to the dealings with the Irish-speaking population of the Gaeltacht in particular. The Government took the view that a Minister of State would ensure the necessary coordination of action in this regard (Johnson, 1997: 183) and there is very little evidence to suggest that the Government made much progress in this area (Johnson, 1997). Finally, economic development shaped some of the deliberations of the commission. In their report of 1926 they offered a range of recommendations related to the development of the economic and physical infrastructure. These included a proposal to establish a body to monitor the implementation of policy in this area. The recommendations were, however, rejected by the Government on the whole (Johnson, 1997: 183). In the context of the absence of a coherent government policy on economic development in the Gaeltacht, the collapse of the small farm as a sustainable economic unit was an especially severe blow to the economy of the Gaeltacht as it comprised, by some distance, the principal economic unit of the region. The 1940s would appear to have been a critical period in this economic downturn, reflected in historically high levels of emigration from the Gaeltacht, the closure of farms and the decline in male employment in agriculture (Ó Riagáin, 1992: 26–7). Thus, while the main thrust of government policy was to maintain the population of the Gaeltacht, by 1971 the actual population of the Gaeltacht was half that which it had been in 1911 (Ó Riagáin, 1992: 104). Successive governments defended the selectivity of policy in relation to the Gaeltacht on the ground of cost-effectiveness (Ó Riagáin, 1992: 104). However, according to Johnson (1997: 175–6) ‘the treatment of Gaeltacht regions as homogenous places and the direction of economic and regional policy from the political centre precluded any genuine encounter with these linguistic communities as modern and sustainable entities’. The most crucial reason for the policy failure was in the matter of attitude towards the Irish language. For example, many of the prominent campaigners for the Gaelic League, such as Hyde, were very aware of the fact that the language was considered by the native speakers to have little value. Hyde, in his address of 1892, contended that, ‘We must arouse some spark of patriotic inspiration among the peasantry who still use the language, and put an end to the shameful state of feeling . . . which makes young men and women blush and hang their heads when overheard speaking their own language’ for, as he noted, native speakers in all parts of Ireland at this time were encouraging their children to acquire the English language while at the same time abandoning Irish (Storey, 1988: 78–84). This attitude is reflected in the Irish language literature that flourished in the first decades of the 20th century, most notably by Tomás Ó Criomhthain in works such as An tOileánach (The Islandman) (1929) and Peig Sayers in Peig (1936), in which they asserted their view that they were the last of a kind. Irish language policy-makers became aware of the attitude during the review of the Gaeltacht in 1925 that; ‘Those who spoke it traditionally saw no avenue of advancement open to them or their children without English. Thus it came to be accepted that the language was destined to pass’ (Ó Cadhain, 1963 [2002]: 19). It is in this context that the
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totality of the linguistic shift by the first quarter of the 20th century is explained, in part, by the acquiescence of Irish speakers in the process (Edwards, 1984: 285). During the 1940s it became increasingly clear that the national aim of successive governments to maintain the Irish language in the Gaeltacht and to revive it as the popular vernacular in the rest of Ireland was not being achieved. The Irish National Teachers’ Organisation reports of 1941 and 1947 were very significant in opening up a public debate on the matter. Irish language groups responded to the challenge by creating new organisations which sought urban and modern technological contexts for the language. This included the creation in 1943 of Comhdháil Náisiúnta na Gaeilge, conceived as an umbrella organisation for voluntary and community groups engaged in the promotion of the Irish language, from which Gael-Linn, a modern media company, subsequently evolved. The break with the Gaeltacht as the idealised essence of Irishness, linguistically wealthy and materially impoverished, is epitomised in literary form by An Béal Bocht (1941) by Myles na gCopaleen (Brian Ó Nualláin), a native speaker of Irish from Strabane in County Tyrone in Northern Ireland. As Brown notes: This comprehensively satirised the literary exploitation of the western island, in a hilarious send-up of the island reminiscence, particularly, in its translated form. The life evoked in this work is so awful, so miserable, so squalid, the narrator’s endless naive complaint so wearisome in its blend of querulousness and bombast that his oft repeated lament, ‘I do not think that my like will ever be there again!’ is likely to be greeted with general relief. (Brown, 1985: 192–3) The same break is expressed in a different manner by Máirtín Ó Caidhin, a native of the Connemara Gaeltacht, in Cré na Cille (1948). The depiction of the Irish-speaking world here was not one which would have been familiar to ‘Pearse or his friends’ (Kiberd, 2000: 586). However, it took much longer for a coherent institutional response to the failure to sustain the Gaeltacht or to revive the Irish language more generally to emerge, and it was not until the second half of the 1950s that the Government set about reviewing policy. From the second half of the 1950s, government policy in the Republic of Ireland underwent substantial modification and in some respects policy was reversed. In one area work continued largely uninterrupted, namely the standardisation of Irish spelling and grammar. The completion of work towards establishing a standardised form of the Irish language was largely achieved in this period. Following on from the adoption of a new spelling norm in 1945, and its revision in 1947, a new morphological form was determined in 1953 and revised in 1958. In that year the publication of the English–Irish dictionary of Tomás de Bhaldraithe and of Gramadach na Gaeilge agus Litriú na Gaeilge: An Caighdeán Oifigiúil (Irish Grammar and Orthography: Official Standard) mark the final development of the official and standard version of the Irish language – An Caighdeán Oifigiúil. The old style script was phased out in favour of Roman script in National schools in 1964 and in secondary schools in 1970. Despite some concerns, most authoritative commentators would concur with Ó Baoill (1988: 120) that:
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great strides have been made in organising Irish spelling and grammar into a vehicle of great potential in dealing with the modern world. It will be easier in the next 50 years or so to eliminate some or all of the discrepancies . . . and bring the grammar and spelling into line linguistically and semantically with what is left of a tradition cultivated by countless generations of Irish people over the last 2000 years. According to Ó Tuathaigh (1990), the publication of Irish Dialects and Irishspeaking Districts in 1951 by Ó Cuív was seminal, not least as it was the first authoritative and public recognition that the Gaeltacht as defined by the commission of 1926 was a fallacy. Subsequent to this, the first indications, from the point of view of policy and planning, that a considerable change in direction was in the offing, came in 1956 with the creation of the first governmental department dedicated to the Irish language in general and to the Gaeltacht in particular: Roinn na Gaeltachta. At the same time the boundaries of the Gaeltacht were dramatically redrawn through the Gaeltacht Areas Order (1956) so as to better reflect the social reality of the Irish language rather than the aspirations of the nation-state builders of the 1920s. That set in place, the next step was the establishment of An Coimisiún um Athbheochan na Gaeilge (Commission on the Restoration of the Irish Language) in 1958 with the remit of reviewing Irish language policy and to make recommendations to the government. An Coimisiún um Athbheochan na Gaeilge published their report in 1963. In general terms, it is fair to conclude that the tone of the response of the government to the recommendations of the report was very cool indeed. Where there was clarity of purpose on Irish language policy it was negative in its impact upon the Irish language. The policy retreat has a number of significant markers: the withdrawal of the Irish language as a compulsory subject for the Leaving Certificate (1973); accession to membership of the European Union under conditions whereby the Irish language became the only national and first official language of a nation-state member not to have the status of official working language of the European Union (1973); the withdrawal of the Irish language as compulsory for civil service entrance examinations (1974). The effect of the policy retreat can be seen in the area of education in particular where, for example, the numbers of recognised Irish-medium secondary schools dropped from 80 in 1960 to 17 in 1975 (Ó Gliasáin, 1988: 90). Thus, the position of the Irish language was significantly eroded in the domains that had been identified as most critical to the revival of the language by the founders of the state – education, legal and constitutional status, and public administration. At this point the national aim was rearticulated as ‘to restore the Irish language as a [my italics] general medium of communication’ (An Coimisiún um Athbheochan na Gaeilge, 1965: 4) and not the general medium of communication. Thus, as Brown (1985: 272) puts it, ‘Bilingualism not linguistic exchange became the new aspiration’ and until that aim was realised the Irish language would continue to be the national language but would cede de facto official language status to English: Irish must have primacy as the national language and every effort will be made to extend and intensify its use. Nevertheless, for a considerable time ahead, English will remain the language chiefly used outside the Gaeltacht for various purposes. To assume otherwise would be unrealistic
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and would detract from appreciation of the effort needed to achieve the national aim in regard to Irish. It would also be unrealistic not to recognise that, because of our geographical position and the pattern of our economic and social relationships, a competent knowledge of English will be needed even in a predominantly Irish-speaking Ireland. English is of great value as an international language in communications, trade and tourism, and as a means of participation in world affairs. It provides access to the knowledge and culture of the English-speaking countries as well as to the large body of Irish literature written in English and to the prose, poetry, songs and speeches in which Irish national aspirations have to a large extent been expressed. Moreover, knowledge of English helps us to maintain our ties with the millions of people of Irish birth or descent living in English-speaking countries. (An Coimisiún um Athbheochan na Gaeilge, 1965: 10–12) English, therefore, was the language of modernity, material progress and international inclusiveness – the language of realism. The Irish language, on the other hand, belonged to the realm of the ideal: ‘idealism is and must remain the mainspring of the language policy’ (An Coimisiún um Athbheochan na Gaeilge, 1965: 12). In parallel to this and under the Gaeltacht Industries Act (1957) the Government created an agency with particular responsibility for promoting economic development in the Gaeltacht, namely Gaeltarra Éireann. This statutory board was initially engaged in the production and marketing of tweed, knitwear, embroidery and toys. The powers of Gaeltarra Éireann were extended in 1965 and, according to Commins (1988: 15), it was very active in the attraction of investment from outside of the Republic of Ireland. This represented a significant departure from previous government policy centred upon support for agricultural improvements and traditional economic activities. The modest industrialisation of parts of the Gaeltacht under the auspices of Gaeltarra Éireann saw the numbers employed in industry, as opposed to agriculture, rise to a peak of around 4600 in 1978 (Commins, 1988: 15). However, Johnson (1997: 184–5) notes that this strategy was limited in a number of key ways. First of all, Gaeltarra Éireann was criticised for contributing to the Anglicisation of the Gaeltacht as many of the managers associated with the industrial ventures supported by them were non-Irish speakers. Secondly, as the headquarters of the branch plants were located outside of Ireland there was very little local input into decision making. Thirdly, the centralised nature of the government policy and practices in Ireland meant that there was little engagement with local communities in the Gaeltacht. Finally, Gaeltarra Éireann was concerned with economic development and the effect of its activities upon the Irish language was assumed to be positive. Gaeltarra Éireann did not possess a language policy nor did it consider itself to be engaged in language planning. One of the more positive and practical steps taken in response to the report of An Coimisiún um Athbheochan na Gaeilge was the establishment of Comhairle na Gaeilge (Irish Language Council) in 1969. This was intended as a step in further policy development. In contrast to the approach of An Coimisiún um Athbheochan na Gaeilge, this body identified a number of strategic concerns, as follows:
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• to prepare a long-term strategy with specific targets; • to establish the necessary institutional framework; • to improve the quality of available information. A number of important initiatives came from Comhairle na Gaeilge (Ó Riagáin, 1988: 34–5). One was the creation of the Committee on Irish Language Attitudes Research in 1970 and the commissioning of a national survey on the Irish language. Related to this was the establishment of Institiúid Teangeolaíochta Éireann (The Linguistics Institute of Ireland) in 1972. This research activity represents the beginnings of a more scientific approach by Irish policy and planning and to understanding the place of the Irish language in Irish society more generally. Among the aims of the research were to identify attitudes towards the language and efforts to revive it and to measure the extent to which the public as a whole supported the various policy initiatives in this regard. According to Ó Riagáin (1988: 35), the reason for the focus on public attitudes was that it was ‘the general view at the time that the major constraint on policy development was the absence of sustained public support’. The research design also gave consideration to linguistic competence and language use. This survey was conducted in 1973 and the publication of the main findings in 1975, along with the creation of Bord na Gaeilge (Irish Language Board) as the body with statutory responsibility for the promotion and planning of the Irish languagerepresent the end of a period of considerable institutional introspection on the matter of Irish language policy. The response of the communities of the Gaeltacht to the long drawn-out review of Irish language policy, as represented for example in The Great Silence (1965) by Seán de Fréine or in An Ghaeilge Bheo (Living Irish) – Destined to Pass (1963) by Máirtín Ó Cadhain, was one of bitter disappointment with successive governments from 1922 in their failure to bring about the revival of the Irish language throughout Ireland. The angst of the Gaeltacht found a number of outlets, including in 1966 a week long hunger strike in Belfast and in Dublin by a small group of radicals styled Misneach (courage), and of which Ó Cadhain was a member. This was designed to coincide with the state-sponsored events commemorating Easter 1916. During the late 1960s the level of dissatisfaction with the state crystallised in the form of a Gaeltacht civil rights movement (Cearta Sibhialta na Gaeltachta). Initially, the main areas of concern were: The lack of employment in Gaeltacht areas; the failure to provide adequate programmes in Irish on radio and television; and [the strong suspicion that] the language is gradually being ‘phased out’ in the training colleges, universities and even in secondary and primary schools. (Nollaig Ó Gadhra cited in Brown, 1985: 270) The concerns of the Cearta Sibhialta na Gaeltachta became wider. According to Commins (1988: 17) its agenda included concern that the inaction of government in the sphere of public administration was causing the further Anglicisation of the Gaeltacht and that the actions of the government-sponsored Gaeltarra Éireann, while bringing employment, was also causing the further Anglicisation of the Gaeltacht. Therefore, the position of the movement was that economic and industrial development ought to be more structured so as to facilitate public
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and community-based participation in policy formulation and decision-making processes, and that such development should be made sensitive and responsive to the particular social, cultural and linguistic circumstances of the Gaeltacht. This activity had a number of outcomes which were significant in that they revealed the potential for the development of micro-level language planning initiatives. In this particular context the emergent initiatives were community based and not a part of the infrastructure of government – in particular central government. A variety of local, cooperative ventures were established in different Gaeltacht communities. The first cooperatives were created in 1967 in the Gaeltacht communities of West Kerry and West Mayo (Johnson, 1997: 185). Over 20 cooperatives had been established by 1979 and they were variously engaged in projects to develop agriculture and industry, to promote tourism, to improve infrastructure and to facilitate summer colleges for residential students of the Irish language. However, many of the cooperatives met with difficulties during the 1980s due to the economic downturn and also because of the limited local availability of managerial skills. A more profound difficulty related to the ambivalent relationship between the cooperatives and the state. According to Commins (1988: 18), the highly centralised nature of the state meant that it could not easily accommodate to its policies and practices local, community-based organisations part of whose rationale was to challenge the historically dominant form of socioeconomic development as applied to the Gaeltacht by the state. Equally, through becoming dependent on state grant aid the cooperatives were increasingly perceived as quasi-state agencies and, thus, the autonomy and independence necessary to maintaining the sense of local ownership was compromised. Despite their limitations, the cooperatives represent the first significant initiative that was characterised by a bottom-up approach to policy and planning in relation to the Gaeltacht. Also, in their engagement with broader social and economic concerns the language was set in an appropriately wider context. The development of Naíonraí, Irish-medium pre-schools, on the initiative of local communities both within and outside of the Gaeltacht is identified by May (2001: 139–40) as a significant response to the retreat by government on Irish language policy in the area of education. The first such unit was founded in 1968 and their numbers steadily increased, reaching a total of 185 in 1988. This, in turn, contributed to the reinvigoration of the Irish-medium sector outside of the Gaeltacht to the extent that 80 Irish-medium schools had come into existence by 1994. A second outcome was the reconstitution of Gaeltarra Éireann as Údarás na Gaeltachta under the Údarás na Gaeltachta Act (1979). This was largely in response to the dissatisfaction expressed by various representatives of the Gaeltacht that Gaeltarra Éireann did not provide for the democratic representation of the local Gaeltacht communities in its decision-making processes; that its powers were inadequate for the purposes of the effective socioeconomic development of the Gaeltacht; and, that its policies and practices were insufficiently sensitive to the language (Commins, 1988: 16). Thus, Údarás na Gaeltachta was established in 1980 with members elected by the Gaeltacht communities providing the majority of its board. However, its powers with regard to socioeconomic development were little different from those possessed by Gaeltarra Éireann (Commins, 1988: 16–7). With regard to the Irish language, Údarás na Gaeltachta was charged with responsibility in this area under Section 8 (1) of the Act
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An tÚdarás shall encourage the preservation and extension of the use of the Irish language as the principal medium of communication in the Gaeltacht and shall ensure that Irish is used to the greatest extent possible in the performance by it and on behalf of its functions. The policy subsequently developed by Údarás na Gaeltachta was to encourage all enterprises in the Gaeltacht which benefited from their support to adopt ‘Language Development Plans’. If properly developed and implemented, plans of this nature have the potential to contribute to micro-level language planning activity. According to the guidance of Údarás na Gaeltachta such plans were intended to be implemented in the workplace so as to enable enterprises to ‘increase and consolidate their use of Irish’. This, they recommend, could include the use of the Irish language in branding the corporate image of the company, the use of bilingual signage within the workplace, the use of the Irish language as a feature of the normal means of communication by the company, the adoption of a positive approach to the recruitment of staff with Irish language skills and the proactive provision of Irish language training for staff. However, there is little evidence of the successful implementation of this policy in practice. Indeed, evidence that the impact of economic development under the auspices of Údarás na Gaeltachta, as with Gaeltarra Éireann, upon the vitality of the Irish language in the Gaeltacht was not wholly positive continued to accumulate. The skilled and managerial staff of such enterprises tended to be non-Irish-speaking and in many cases Irish-speaking emigrants who had been attracted back to their Gaeltacht communities brought with them nonIrish speaking spouses and children (Hindley, 1990; Ó Cinneide et al., 1985). The fact that a separate department within Údarás na Gaeltachta was responsible for this policy may well be a factor in the limited impact of Language Development Plans. The limited impact of Údarás na Gaeltachta in this particular regard, along with the eventual loss of momentum by the cooperative ventures, is reflected in the fact that the Gaeltacht continued to contract during the 1970s and 1980s. For example, a number of commentators (Hindley, 1990; Ó Tuathaigh, 1979) estimate that by the last quarter of the 20th century there were probably as few as 32,000 native speakers of Irish left in the Gaeltacht and that the proportion of the resident population of the Gaeltacht that is Irish-speaking is in itself steadily declining (Commins, 1988) and, finally, the data from the 1996 Census show that less than 50% of children aged 3–4 years and resident in the Gaeltacht were returned as Irish speakers.
Contemporary Practices By the year 2000 a fresh dynamism was increasingly apparent in the area of Irish language policy and, initially, macro-level concerns were to the fore. This dynamism included specific commitments to the Irish language under the Education Act 1998 and the Planning and Development Act 2000, as well as the work of the Treo 2000 Commission to Examine the Role of the Irish Language Voluntary Organisations and the work of Coimisiún na Gaeltachta (Gaeltacht Commission) 2002. The most substantial outcome of this activity was the passing of an Official Languages Act in 2003, aimed at ensuring the better availability and higher standard of public services in the Irish language. According
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to the Irish Government the Act comprises a number of key features (An Roinn Gnóthaí Pobail, Tuaithe agus Gaeltachta (The Department of Community, Rural and Gaeltacht Affairs), 2003). Section 20 of the Act provides for the establishment of Oifig Choimisinéir na dTeanacha Oifigiúla (Office of the Official Languages Commissioner) charged with the task of supervising and monitoring the implementation of the Act. The Commissioner, known as An Coimisinéir Teanga, will be appointed by the President and, as such, will be independent. An Coimisinéir Teanga will be able to investigate complaints, to pursue statutory investigations and to take legal action against public bodies with respect of their commitments to the Irish language. Under the Act, various public bodies will be required to prepare ‘Language Schemes’ through which they will make specific provision for the delivery of services in the Irish language. These will be subject to the approval of the Minister and will be renewed on a three-yearly basis. Also, a range of statutory obligations regarding the status of the Irish language in the public sector is identified in the Act. At this point a number of key issues for the Irish language in its contemporary social context from a micro-level language planning and policy perspective can be identified. These relate to the relationship between local, Irish-speaking communities and language planning initiatives, and the urban geography of the Irish language. It is argued here that given the diffuse nature of the social geography of the Irish language, whether as networks of Irish speakers in the various parts of Ireland or as fragmented communities dispersed across the various Gaeltacht areas, there is a necessity for intervention that is community-based in terms of moral ownership, agenda setting and action. A vehicle for language planning activity is suggested, drawn from comparative experiences. The third key issue is that of the Irish language in the city. Urban sites are central to much of the social, cultural, economic and political changes which are currently impacting upon Irish society. Developing an understanding of the functioning of the Irish language in Irish cities is identified here as being crucial to the task of planning for the language and its social continuity. In order that such an understanding might begin to emerge, the critical features of the city and potential points of engagement with language are delineated. Today the Irish-speaking community in Ireland is of a very modest size. The results of the 2002 census in the Republic of Ireland show that the notion of the Gaeltacht as a linguistically homogeneous and territorially coherent social entity cannot be sustained. For example, the Irish language is used on a daily basis by around 54% of the total resident population of the various Gaeltacht areas taken together (Table 1). The total number of daily users of the Irish language within the Gaeltacht is a little over half the number of daily users of the Irish language in the Greater Dublin Area (Table 2). There are around five times the number of daily users of Irish aged 3–4 years outside of the Gaeltacht than there are daily users of the language in the same age cohort within the Gaeltacht (Table 3). Also, it is clear from the 2002 census data, the education system is the primary means of acquisition of the Irish language within the Gaeltacht and not the home. Numbers of Irish speakers and daily users of the language rise sharply at school-going age and this has been the case for some time (Table 4) and according to other results the Irish language is not the sole language of the home in just under half of all private households in the Gaeltacht (Table 5).
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Table 1 Irish speakers aged three years and over resident in the Gaeltacht, classified by frequency of use of Irish, Republic of Ireland, 2002 All Gaeltacht areas
Daily
Weekly
Less often
Never
Not stated
Total
62,157
33,789
6,704
15,811
4,515
1,338
3–4 years
1,174
903
110
137
3
21
5–9 years
5,012
3,930
510
414
61
97
10–14 years
6,335
4,657
733
667
158
120
15–19 years
6,233
3,576
818
1,328
390
121
20–24 years
3,969
1,487
415
1,386
613
68
25–34 years
7,380
3,087
755
2,423
983
132
35–44 years
8,466
3,901
932
2,650
804
179
45–54 years
8,545
4,217
911
2,589
640
188
55–64 years
6,117
3,235
659
1,710
371
142
65 years and over
8,926
4,796
861
2,507
492
270
Sources: Republic of Ireland Census, 2002; Coimisiún na Gaeltachta, 2002
Table 2 Irish speakers aged 3 years and over resident in cities, classified by frequency of use of Irish, Republic of Ireland, 2002 City
Total resident Irish speakers
Total daily users of Irish
Greater Dublin Area
349,076
63,825
Cork
83,178
16,080
Galway
31,595
6,009
Limerick
38,339
6,879
Waterford
18,078
3,408
Sources: Republic of Ireland Census, 2002; Coimisiún na Gaeltachta, 2002
Thus, while several parts of the Gaeltacht have populations with proportions of daily users of the Irish language in excess of 75% (Table 6) this should not disguise that fact of the linguistic fragmentation of the Gaeltacht nor the significant and diverse presence of the Irish language outside of the Gaeltacht. In Northern Ireland the size of the functional Irish-speaking community is much smaller that the total number of Irish speakers identified in the census data. The results of the fieldwork of the author on levels of ability in speaking Irish indicate that about 33% of adults and 37% of young people claim better than average ability. If such levels of ability can be taken to mean that such respondents are functional Irish speakers and if this survey is taken to be representative of the Irish speakers of Northern Ireland as a whole it gives a body of functional Irish speakers of the order of 40,000 to 45,000, with some 13,000 to 15,000 (around10% of the census population of Irish speakers) possessing fluency in
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Table 3 Irish speakers aged three years and over classified by frequency of use of Irish and age, Republic of Ireland, 2002 Age group
Total Irish speakers
Daily use of Irish
3–4 years
10,450
5,991
5–9 years
131,016
84,377
10–14 years
191,893
107,957
15–19 years
204,842
68,382
20–24 years
165,520
9,111
25–34 years
237,563
13,727
35–44 years
197,073
15,982
45–54 years
182,187
15,046
55–64 years
119,250
9,304
65 years and over
131,100
9,664
1,570,894
339,541
Total
Sources: Republic of Ireland Census, 2002; Coimisiún na Gaeltachta, 2002
Table 4 Irish speakers in the Gaeltacht classified by age group, Republic of Ireland, 1961–2001 1961
1971
1981
1991
2001
3–4 years
1,944
1,490
1,566
1,117
1,174
5–9 years
6,745
5,334
5,642
5,262
5,012
10–14 years
8,255
6,347
6,485
6,708
6,335
15–19 years
6,104
5,831
5,531
5,901
6,233
20–24 years
2,866
3,215
3,960
3,236
3,969
25–34 years
5,257
4,731
7,259
6,659
7,380
35–44 years
7,198
5,056
5,717
7,431
8,466
45–54 years
8,870
6,633
5,365
5,681
8,545
55–64 years
6,948
7,422
6,284
4,928
6,117
65 years and over
10,088
9,381
10,217
9,546
8,926
Total
64,275
55,440
58,026
56,469
62,157
Sources: Republic of Ireland Census, 2002; Coimisiún na Gaeltachta, 2002
the full range of language skills. The analysis of the census data shows that this modest Irish-speaking community is dispersed across Northern Ireland. Although fragmented, this Irish-speaking community is characterised by a number of emergent cores of Irish speakers that can be identified in a number of locations in the region. The urban centres of Belfast and Derry and the more rural locations of the areas of Dungannon, Magherafelt and Newry and Mourne all contain relatively high concentrations of Irish speakers, commonly constituting over 30% of the total population in some parts. The ethnic heterogeneity
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Table 5 Private households in the Gaeltacht with daily Irish speakers classified by number of daily Irish speakers and number of persons aged three years and over in the household, Republic of Ireland, 2002 Number of daily Irish speakers
Total
One person in household
Two persons
Three persons
1
5,884
2
2,687
1,194
850
672
298
183
3,933
–.
2,122
606
691
329
185
3
2,086
–.
–.
1,035
482
367
202
4
1,366
–.
–.
–.
869
286
211
5
822
–.
–.
–.
–.
578
244
6 or more Total
Four Five persons persons
Six or more in household
511
–.
–.
–.
–.
–.
511
14,602
2,687
3,316
2,491
2,714
1,858
1,536
Sources: Republic of Ireland Census, 2002; Coimisiún na Gaeltachta, 2002
Table 6 Electoral Divisions in the Gaeltacht with proportion of daily Irish speakers in excess of 75%, Republic of Ireland, 1996 Electoral Division
Population Daily Irish speakers
Daily Irish speakers as percentage
An Turloch, Co. Galway
429
394
91.8
Scainimh, Co. Galway
433
389
89.8
Mín an Chladaigh, Co. Donegal
979
869
88.8
Camus, Co. Galway
270
237
87.8
1495
1302
87.1
883
766
86.7
An Crampán, Co. Galway Garmna,Co. Galway Cill Chúáin, Co. Kerry
314
269
85.7
1145
969
84.6
Dún Lúiche, Co. Donegal
478
391
81.8
Cill Chuimín, Co. Galway
859
702
81.7
Dún Chaoin, Co. Kerry
113
92
81.4
Leitir Móir, Co. Galway
572
465
81.3
1986
1609
81.0
Abhainn Ghabhla, Co. Galway
240
193
80.4
An Cnoc Buidhe, Co. Galway
614
488
79.5
87
67
77.0
773
592
76.6
Gort an Choirce, Co. Donegal
Machaire an Chlochair, Co. Donegal
An Ros, Co. Galway Sailchearnach, Co. Galway
Sources: Republic of Ireland Census, 1996; Coimisiún na Gaeltachta, 2002
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of Northern Ireland does not facilitate the transcending of this fragmentation as the ethnic mosaic that is Northern Ireland means that local Irish-speaking communities and networks are largely confined within small, clearly defined sociopolitical enclaves. The results of the fieldwork of the author also indicate that actual use of the Irish language is limited to closely defined and personally immediate networks of Irish speakers (Mac Giolla Chríost, 2000). The census data regarding the Irish language in the Republic of Ireland shows that the language is habitually used by the greater part of the population of the Gaeltacht and also that it is used by a community or networks of Irish speakers beyond the Gaeltacht. Particular concentrations of habitual Irish speakers may be noted in the principal cities of the Republic of Ireland, namely Dublin, Cork, Galway, Limerick and Waterford. Indeed, according to the results of the 2002 Census there, are more daily users of Irish in the Greater Dublin Area (63,825) than there are in all of the different Gaeltacht communities taken together (33,789). In urban contexts use of the Irish language is likely to be confined to tightly defined and personalised networks of Irish speakers. The work of Ó Riagáin and Ó Gliasáin (Ó Gliasáin, 1988) in the Dublin area in the late 1970s points to the centrality of Irish-medium schools to the workings of Irish-speaking networks in the city at that time. To date no significant further research has been undertaken which might better develop our understanding of the contemporary sociology of the Irish language in urban context. In general terms, the diffuse geography of the Irish language suggests that local, community-based language planning activities would be more effective than a regional, macro approach to intervention in the field. Effective intervention at this level requires that local Irish-speaking communities take ownership of language policy and planning via agencies which are both based and led by local communities. For An Foras Teanga the translation of macro policy on the Irish language to micro levels requires that a local hurdle be overcome on the measurement of local aspirations and sensitivities. In the context of the complex interlocking and overlapping of powers and competencies that define the relationships between An Foras Teanga and the instruments of governance in both parts of Ireland opportunities for innovation may well exist. As others note of multi-levelled forms of institution in general, it can realise ‘different kinds of access points for actors and the expression of interests, which also widen the potential forms of interest representation and aggregation, enabling new forms of non-traditional and unconventional political activity to find a place and take root’ (Favell & Martiniello, 1999: 9). Thus, the dynamics of the Irish-speaking community in Northern Ireland could be informed by conceptions of an islandwide language community characterised by regional and local variations in the nature of the different Irish-speaking communities in Northern Ireland and in the Republic of Ireland equally within and outside of the Gaeltacht. Such structures could be a useful vehicle for the operation of informed connections with similar language communities elsewhere in the United Kingdom and in this way language planners at micro levels in Ireland could draw valuable lessons from their peers in the Celtic-speaking United Kingdom. The development of community-based planning initiatives in the Irish language, or Fiontair Teanga, similar to the Mentrau Iaith of Wales, result from such exchange of good practice (Mac Giolla Chríost, 2000, 2002). Fiontair Teanga could serve the
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enabling of broad policy commitments to local levels in a manner similar to the Mentrau Iaith, that is as community-based initiatives which have originated in and evolved according to the desire of local people to see an increase in the use of the language in their local community. The activities of the Mentrau Iaith in Wales are not restricted to certain domains. Instead, they are engaged in a holistic form of language planning at micro levels. For example, they offer advice and support relating to the use of the language to the public, private and voluntary organisations and they support projects that provide opportunities for people, especially children and young people, to socialise through the medium of Welsh. The Mentrau Iaith are also defined by their diversity of form and their adaptability – each individual Menter Iaith reflects its particular locality and its own social and language needs. In short, therefore, their strong points are as follows: In situations which are characterised by strong language potential but weak socio-linguistic networks, they offer a significant socio-psychological fillip for maintaining the Welsh language in contexts which would otherwise lead to fragmentation. In respect of their remit as local language planning bodies, they can function as a focus to create a new set of partnerships between the central government (in the form of the Welsh Office), the Welsh Language Board, local government, statutory public bodies, health trusts and a variety of other voluntary agencies and private companies, so as to extend the opportunities to use Welsh. (Williams & Evas, 1997: 30) Community-based language planning initiatives in Ireland could imitate this pattern and be the engines for the development of the Irish language at local levels. This would give to the language a community-based and holistic form of language planning which would be economically engaged and socially inclusive. Local adaptations would be necessary but the main elements of the general rationale for Mentrau Iaith would equally apply to similar initiatives amongst the Irish-speaking communities and networks in Ireland, namely: • to create social conditions that will nurture positive attitudes towards Welsh and an increase in its use; • to normalise the use of Welsh as a medium of social and institutional communication; • to highlight the close relationship between language and attitudes which relate to quality of life issues, the environment and the local economy (Williams & Evas, 1997: 32). Beyond this, adaptations in the intended functions of Fiontair Teanga would be necessary in order to address the sociopolitical and linguistic nuances of each particular location in its context. For example, in Northern Ireland Fiontair Teanga could play an important role in strengthening the means by which the Irish language is acquired. Language reproduction within the Irish-speaking community in the region is dispersed across a number of mechanisms. Research suggests that less than 10% of adults and just over 11% of young people claimed to have acquired the Irish language as their first language (Mac Giolla Chríost,
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2002). The education system is of overwhelming importance in the reproduction of the language in Northern Ireland. Also, the acquisition of the language by Protestants in the region is frustrated by the absence of the language from the curriculum of the state education system and the limited availability of voluntary sector language classes within their locale (Mac Giolla Chríost & Aitchison, 1998). In more general terms, possible aims for community-based language planning initiatives in both parts of Ireland could include the following: • to encourage and facilitate community (including cross-community) ownership of the Irish language; • to increase levels of awareness of the language among non-Irish speakers; • to broaden accessibility to the Irish language across the community as a whole; • to increase opportunities to use the language beyond the domains of the home and school; • to offer practical help to families whose language of the home is not Irish but whose children are attending Irish-medium schools; • to offer practical help to learners of Irish as a second language; • to liaise with local employers with regard to expanding the role of the Irish language in workplaces; • to liaise with other Irish language agencies in the field so as to facilitate the knitting together of a holistic approach to language planning issues; • to increase the public profile and status of the dialectical forms of Irish; • to strengthen networking between the local Irish-speaking communities. The impact and efficacy of community-based language planning initiatives will depend, to a great degree, on the initial situation of the Irish language in the local community. It is also crucial that the momentum for community-based language planning initiatives comes from within the specific local communities rather than as the result of the action of external agencies. That said, the geographical analysis of the Irish language based upon census data, for example, serves to highlight a number of locations in which community-based language planning initiatives are likely to be able to function effectively. These locations include the official Gaeltacht areas of the Republic of Ireland, the principal cities of Ireland – Belfast, Dublin, Cork, Galway, Limerick, Londonderry and Waterford – and certain rural districts such as the Newry and Mourne area of Northern Ireland or the county of Tipperary in the Republic of Ireland. There are some tentative indications that a strategic approach to micro-level language planning activity may be of increasing interest to both policy actors and community activists alike. The Dutton Report (Dutton, 2004) on the development of a ‘Gaeltacht Quarter’ in Belfast is a prime example. This report was commissioned by a number of Northern Ireland governmental departments together, namely the Department of Culture, Arts and Leisure, the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Investment and the Department of Social Development. The principal recommendation arsing from the report is the creation of a company on the urban regeneration model which would be charged with the following central task:
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promoting a strategy which secures wealth creation within one of the most deprived parts of Northern Ireland, by maximising the economic opportunities provided by a growing cluster of Irish language and cultural based enterprises and activities, which additionally have significant tourism potential. (Dutton, 2004: 32) But the most striking feature of the report is that it was ever commissioned in the first place. The fact that several departments of government are of the view that the language is a matter of substantial, material interest is symptomatic of a significant shift having occurred in official perceptions of the place of the Irish language in the cultural, economic and political landscape of Northern Ireland. Language impact statements are another means of potentially linking language planning to language community. Intervention of this nature is more formal and structured as it is embedded in the context of the statutory planning framework. The language impact statement has emerged in the Republic of Ireland only very recently. Galway County Council committed itself to conducting language impact statements on developments in the area of the Gaeltacht in its County Development Plan 1997–2002: The Planning Authority [i.e. Galway County Council] recognises that the status of the Irish language has been undermined particularly in areas close to Galway City, by immigrant population with no competence in, or affinity for, the language. The specific aim of the council is as as follows: To strictly control residential (including single once-off houses), commercial and industrial development, which, in the opinion of the Planning Authority, will have a negative impact on the Irish language in the Gaeltacht areas. The Planning Authority will therefore require a linguistic impact statement with all applications for development in the area. (Galway County Development Plan, 1997–2002) Galway County Council also developed a short set of guidelines according to which a language impact statement would realise the following: • an assessment of the linguistic, social, cultural and economic background of the area, including the surrounding areas, of the proposed development; • the background, description, objectives and other relevant information regarding the proposed development; • information about previous developments that the developer has undertaken within the Gaeltacht and the impact that these developments have had on linguistic factors; • an assessment of the impact the development is likely to have on the use and status of the Irish language; • a statement of measures that will be taken by the developer to ensure that the development is sustainable from a linguistic point of view. It is the case that a number of language impact statements have been completed and that they have contributed to the planning process. However,
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it is clear that the language impact statement is a work in progress in the Irish context. For example, in the County Development Plan for 2003–2009 (Galway County Council) the policy commitment has evolved from the rather simplistically robust version that was formulated in the late 1990s. It reads as follows: Language Impact Statements will be required where an application is made for two or more houses, or where an applicant applied for more than one house in an area. The purpose of a Language Impact Statement will be to assess the likely impact of the proposed development on the usage of Irish within the Gaeltacht area. Permission will only be granted where the Authority [i.e. Galway County Council], is satisfied that the effect of the development will be beneficial to the usage of the language in the area, if permitted. Policy 209: Address the need for Language Impact Statements including the concept of a Language Enurement Clause in the proposed Local Area Plan for the Gaeltacht. Objective 68: The Council accepts that the language is an asset in the Gaeltacht and in order to support the language, the Council shall provide planning and other services through Irish from the Carraroe Office. The Council shall ensure that Irish is the language medium of this office. Objective 69: Commence preparation of a local area plan for Gaeltacht na Gaillimhe as soon as the County Plan is adopted. Objective 70: Recognise the economic, social and cultural importance of Irish in the Gaeltacht and throughout the county. Objective 71: Put in place an effective system through which the various aspects of the Gaeltacht ethos can be assessed and protected as part of the planning process. Objective 72: Ensure that all contractors employed by Galway County Council in the Gaeltacht will have regard to the culture in which they work. (Galway County Council County Development Plan 2003–2009: 70–1) Also, language impact statements have been the subject of a number of planning appeals (e.g. An Bord Pleanála (The Planning Board), 2005) and legal cases (e.g. Áine Ní Chonghaile agus eile -v- Comhairle Chontae na Gaillimhe (Galway County Council), 2002). The challenge in this regard is to develop a methodology for the language impact statement which is sufficiently sophisticated to account for nuanced relationships between language, community and development while at the same time being accessible to its principal users and audiences, including developers and local communities alike. Such a methodology ought to account for the impact of development upon the key aspects of community life, including the nature of the local resident population, the general quality of life, the general economic conditions, the statutory social and physical infrastructure, and the vitality of informal and voluntary social and cultural activities. The value of such a methodology would lie in helping to ground policy rhetoric and commitments, as may be read in local council Development Plans or in the National Spatial Strategy for Ireland 2002–2020, in social scientific approach to the matter of language in the statutory planning regime.
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In such a context the negotiation of the sustainability of threatened languages would become a matter of shared ownership and responsibility for agents in the public, the private and the voluntary and community sectors alike.
Conclusions The results of the 2002 Census (Coimisiún na Gaeltachta, 2002) in the Republic of Ireland show that the notion of the Gaeltacht as a linguistically homogeneous and territorially coherent social entity cannot be sustained. For example, the Irish language is used on a daily basis by around 54% of the total resident population of the various Gaeltacht areas taken together. Also, it is clear from the 2002 Census data that the education system is the primary means of acquisition of the Irish language within the Gaeltacht and not the home. Numbers of Irish speakers and daily users of the language rise sharply at school-going age and this has been the case for some time and according to other results the Irish language is not the sole language of the home in just under half of all private households in the Gaeltacht. Thus, while several parts of the Gaeltacht have populations with proportions of daily users of the Irish language in excess of 75% this should not disguise that fact of the linguistic fragmentation of the Gaeltacht nor the significant and diverse presence of the Irish language outside of the Gaeltacht. A further sign of the increasing animation of Irish speakers outside of the Gaeltacht is reflected in the fact that the record of complaints by An Coimisinéir Teanga (2004: 32) shows that of all the counties of the Republic of Ireland, the highest proportion of complaints regarding the new Act came from Dublin (35%) and that 74% of complaints came from non-Gaeltacht areas (An Coimisinéir Teanga, 2004: 32). In Northern Ireland the Irish language has been rejuvenated in networks of small but vibrant communities that are at their most dynamic in the urban centres of the region. Given the diverse geography of the Irish-speaking communities and networks in the Republic of Ireland and in Northern Ireland the need for a strategic investment in micro-level language planning is pressing. Policy actors and community activists could draw upon models of micro-level language planning in Wales in order to build a vehicle suitable for this purpose in the Irish context. The appropriate model could make a considerable contribution towards reinforcing the dynamism of the Irish language outside of the Gaeltacht in both Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. It could also make a significant contribution to the reversal of the ongoing and historically stubborn shift towards the English language in the Gaeltacht itself. Acknowledgements The author is grateful to Routledge for permission to reproduce in this text figures and material from Mac Giolla Chríost, D. (2005) The Irish Language in Ireland: From Goídel to Globalisation. Routledge: London and New York. Correspondence Any correspondence should be directed to Diarmait Mac Giolla Chríost, School of Welsh, Cardiff University, Cardiff CF10 3EU, UK (
[email protected]).
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References Áine Ní Chonghaile agus eile -v- Comhairle Chontae na Gaillimhe (2002) Neutral Citation: [2004] IEHC 317 High Court Record Number: 2000 570 JR. An Bord Pleanála [The Planning Board] (2005) Inspector’s Report. 10 March 2005. Knockanavoddy, Furbo, Co.Galway PL07.208725. An Coimisinéir Teanga (2004) Inaugural Report. To the Minister for Community, Rural and Gaeltacht Affairs. [Republic of Ireland]. An Coimisiún Um Athbheochan na Gaeilge (1965) Report. An Roinn Gnóthaí Pobail, Tuaithe agus Gaeltachta (2003) Official Language Act 2003 Overview. Brown, T. (1985) Ireland: A Social and Cultural History, 1922–1985. London: Fontana. Coimisiún na Gaeltachta (2002) Report. Commins, P. (1988) Socioeconomic development and language maintenance in the Gaeltacht. International Journal of the Sociology of Language 70, 11–28. Dutton, C. (2004) Gaeltacht Quarter. The Establishment of a Development Board and Related Issues. Final Report to the Department of Culture, Art and Leisure, the Department of Social Development and the Department Of Enterprise, Trade and Investment [Northern Ireland]. Edwards, J. (ed.) (1984) Linguistic Minorities, Policies and Pluralism. London: Academic. Favell, A. and Martiniello, M. (1999) Multinational, multicultural and multilevelled Brussels: National and ethnic politics in the ‘Capital of Europe’ WPTC-99-04. On WWW at http://www.transcomm.ox.ac.uk. Galway County Council Development Plan 1997–2002. Galway County Council Development Plan 2003–2009. Hindley, R. (1990) The Death of the Irish Language: A Qualified Obituary. London: Routledge. Kiberd, D. (2000) Irish Classics. London: Granta. Johnson, N.C. (1997) Making space: Gaeltacht policy and the politics of identity. In B.J.Graham (ed.) In Search of Ireland. A Cultural Geography (pp. 174–91). London: Routledge. Mac Giolla Chríost, D. (2000) The Irish language and current policy in Northern Ireland. Irish Studies Review 8 (1), 44–55. Mac Giolla Chríost, D. (2002) Language planning in Northern Ireland. Current Issues in Language Planning 3 (4), 425–76. Mac Giolla Chríost, D. and Aitchison, J. (1998) Ethnic identities and language in Northern Ireland. Area 30 (4), 301–9. May, S. (2001) Language and Minority Rights. Ethnicity, Nationalism and the Politics of Language. Harlow: Longman. Ó Baoill, D. (1988) Language planning in Ireland: The standardization of Irish. International Journal of the Sociology of Language 70, 109–26. Ó Cadhain, M. (1963 [2002]) An Ghaeilge Bheo – Destined to Pass. Dublin: Coiscéim. Ó Cinnéide, M.S., Keane, M. and Cawley, M. (1985) Industrialisation and linguistic change among Gaelic-speaking communities in the west of Ireland. Language Problems and Language Planning 9 (1), 3–16. Ó Gliasáin, M. (1988) Bilingual secondary schools in Dublin 1960–1980. International Journal of the Sociology of Language 70, 89–108. Ó Riagáin, P. (1988) Bilingualism in Ireland 1973–1983: An overview of national sociolinguistic surveys. International Journal of the Sociology of Language 70, 29–52. Ó Riagáin, P. (1992) Language Maintenance and Language Shift as Strategies of Social Reproduction. Irish in the Corca Dhuibhne Gaeltacht 1926–1986 Dublin: ITÉ. Ó Tuathaigh, G. (1979) Language, literature and culture since the war. In J.J. Lee (ed.) Ireland, 1945–1970 (pp. 111–23). Dublin: Gill and Macmillan. Ó Tuathaigh, G. (1990) The Development of the Gaeltacht as a Bilingual Entity. Dublin: ITÉ. Storey, M. (ed.) (1988) Poetry and Ireland since 1800: A Source Book. London: Routledge. Williams, C.H. and Evas, J. (1997) The community research project. Summary of report prepared for the Welsh Language Board. On WWW at http://www.netwales.co.uk/ biyg.htm.
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Preserving Dialects of an Endangered Language Shelley Tulloch Department of Anthropology, Saint Mary’s University, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada Language planning research and practice have largely ignored, or considered problematic, the diversity within endangered languages. Such a stance, though, conflicts with speakers’ attitudes and desires, which often place high value on specific dialects. As grassroots, bottom-up approaches move to the forefront, so do concerns about the maintenance of distinct dialects of endangered languages. Dialect preservation has emerged (implicitly or explicitly) as a concurrent, complementary goal. Based on descriptions of dialect death and maintenance in the literature, this paper suggests that ‘micro’ approaches to language planning favour the preservation of dialectal diversity within the broader pursuit of promoting endangered languages.
Keywords: dialect, endangered languages, indigenous languages, language planning, language shift, standardisation
Introduction Within language preservation activities, what place is there for the preservation of dialects? Dialects are being lost alongside languages. Although dialects may be highly valued by their speakers, macro approaches to language planning, and more specifically endangered language revitalisation, have traditionally either ignored or undermined dialectal variation, favouring the pursuit of a common, shared speech form as the natural target of interventions (cf. Ferguson, 1968; Fishman, 1974; Haugen, 1959). While top-down approaches pursue standardisation as a milestone in achieving linguistic vitality, local reactions and initiatives show preserving dialects is a salient goal for speakers. This paper examines descriptions of dialect death and maintenance in the literature, and shows how micro approaches to language planning can favour the preservation of dialects of endangered languages.
Micro Language Planning Micro-level language planning is locally driven, for and in specific contexts (Baldauf, 2005), where speakers are primary agents of the planning (Nahir, 1998). It reflects efforts by local groups (indigenous people, linguistic minorities, etc.) to determine and shape language situations based on their own needs and priorities. Such approaches contrast with top-down policies, or local implementation thereof (Baldauf, 2005), although micro and macro planning may influence each other, for example where grassroots resistance comes in reaction to a top-down policy, or where governmental funding is provided to support local initiatives. Such grassroots solutions to local problems are increasingly observed (cf. Tollefson, 2002), and efforts to preserve dialectal diversity as a local priority within language revitalisation is just one example. 95
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Although explicit cases of efforts to preserve dialects are rare in the literature (perhaps because they are indeed being pursued at the micro level without academic or governmental support or interference), the few documented cases are illuminating as to the possibilities for context-specific and locally-driven planning to preserve dialectal diversity while preserving and promoting the indigenous language.
‘Dialect’ as a Target of Language Planning Despite relatively little mention of it in endangered language research, all languages have some degree of variation, often on multiple levels, even if discrete varieties are difficult to objectively delimit. Preserving dialects, then, while a salient goal for speakers,1 faces the initial dilemma of identifying precisely what the object of preservation initiatives will be. This paper focuses on regional varieties of languages, or dialects, but acknowledges social varieties (or sociolects: speech forms characteristic of specific age groups, genders, or socioeconomic status) and contextual varieties (or registers: variation in language use depending on the specific speech situation) as equally worthy of attention in efforts to revitalise threatened languages in their fullest state. These speech varieties have characteristic pronunciations, vocabulary and expressions; they may also have different grammatical structures, as well as corresponding social rules or norms for interacting and interpreting speech (cf. Wolfram et al., 1999a). Some features are shared across dialects; some are used more frequently in one area but understood everywhere, while others are geographically limited. Even within a given individual, speech forms vary. For this reason, while researchers can identify large dialect areas based on shared features, it is harder to nail down a specific number of dialects for any given language, and to establish where their boundaries objectively lie. Furthermore, because dialects exist on a continuum, with adjacent varieties most easily intercomprehensible and more distant varieties increasingly less so, it becomes difficult to objectively establish where even a ‘language’ begins and ends. In any case, the linguistic criteria by which all mutually intelligible speech varieties (dialects) are grouped together as a ‘language’ are often overridden by social, cultural and political factors. There are numerous examples of ‘dialects’ classified as separate languages (e.g. community identification of Achi as a language distinct from K’ichee (cf. England, 1996); or Swedish legislation of Meänkieli (Finnish ‘dialect’) as a minority language (Winsa, 2000)). The reverse is also common, where mutually unintelligible varieties are classified as a single language, by speakers (e.g. Iroquoian self-identification (cf. Hickerson et al., 1952; Hickerson, 2000)), policy-makers (e.g. Mayan official policy of ‘linguistic unification’ (England, 1996)), and/or linguists (e.g. Dorais’ (1990, 1996) grouping of all Inuit speech varieties as a single language). Speakers, linguists and policy makers may also disagree as to where such boundaries lie. Following a grassroots approach to language planning, classification will ultimately be up to the speech communities: ‘neither linguistic distance nor intercommunicability are as relevant to RLS [reversing language shift]-efforts as the inside (“emic”) view of what constitutes the “natural [or feasible] language boundaries” to be defended’ (Fishman, 1997: 183). Identi-
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fication of speech varieties as dialects or separate languages will, evidently, affect priorities, strategies and methods in dialectal preservation. The micro approach is fitting for dialect preservation efforts as it allows communities’ and speakers’ intuitions regarding the substance of their dialects to guide planning.2
Speakers’ Attachment to Dialects Local speakers’ goals in language preservation often assume the recognition and continuation of their unique ways of speaking. Reasons speakers hold for valuing a dialect are many. Dialects are, at a most basic level, a communicative resource: an individual can most comfortably and effectively communicate with those who share common speech forms, and norms for using them. Conservative dialects in particular are valued as a link to the past, both at the symbolic and practical level. Knowledge of conservative dialects also allows speakers to access and understand recorded stories or oral traditions. Probably the strongest factor in valuing dialects, though, is their identity function. Mutual use of particular dialects allows speakers to show that they share similarities, and that they belong to the same group. Among outsiders, it may also display one’s separateness, for identity or political recognition. Studies have shown in some endangered language contexts that speakers’ loyalty is directed more to a specific variety than to the language overall. Dorian’s (1981: 89) study of the decline of East Sutherland Gaelic (ESG) documents such dialect loyalty, when speakers resist learning and using another, even a more prestigious, form: Solidarity within the community requires that the local speech form be maintained by community members. To abandon the local speech form is an act of linguistic disloyalty with general dissociative socioeconomic overtones. Such behaviour does occur, rather frequently, in fact, but it takes the form of abandoning Gaelic for English rather than abandoning ESG for some more prestigious form of Gaelic. Kuter (1989) reports similar loyalty to Breton dialects (see below). Such attachment may be positive for a dialect’s short-term vitality, but detrimental for the language over the long term, if speakers shift to the dominant language altogether to avoid being criticised for speaking an incorrect form of the endangered language or to emphasise cultural distinctiveness from other dialect groups. A further caution is warranted: the observed link between dialects and regional identities has led some to suggest that a focus on dialects can lead to political fragmentation, whereas a common language leads to greater unity and equality. For example, in Mussolini’s Italy, dialectal preservation was interpreted as a politically divisive and disempowering strategy: ‘emphasis was on the promotion of local Italian dialects as an expression of Italian identity (and as a means to rule the country by maintaining diversity)’ (Pennycook, 2000: 59). A standard Basque language, in contrast, was promoted for the purposes of ‘national’ unity as well as language pres-
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ervation (Fishman, 1997). Micro-level planning, which uses the local variety as a matter of course, may help avoid the potential ‘divisive’ interpretation of dialectal promotion. The speakers’ attachment to their dialects provides an impetus for preserving them. Understanding the value attached to specific dialects will help determine effective ways to promote and preserve them. Where a dialect is valued purely for the information it contains, and for gaining access to stories from the past, recording and documenting the dialect may be a sufficient goal. However, where the dialect is valued for its function as the preferred speech form of the community, favouring intergenerational transmission (thus expanding the speech community) and expanding the dialect’s public space may also be priorities. Increasing use of and exposure to a specific dialect may also be pursued in contexts where the dialect is being promoted as an identity symbol.
Processes of Dialect Endangerment In 1989, in his commentary on a collection of articles on language death, Hoenigswald asked: What about dialects? Which do we believe or expect: that dialect death is an unspectacular, endemic, everyday occurrence, taking place pervasively and beneath the threshold of awareness; or, contrariwise, that there can be no such thing as dialect death by definition? Or does it matter? It is probably no accident that none of the papers assembled here deals with such a situation however remotely . . . (Hoenigswald, 1989: 348) Expressions of attachment to local dialects, and concerns over their potential demise, coming from speakers around the globe, as well as studies documenting the decline and death of certain dialects (cf. Leopold, 1970; Ryon, 2005; Wolfram, 1997) suggest that neither is true. Dialect research and studies of endangered languages show not just the presence of dialects and their saliency for speakers, but also the reality of their life cycle – that is, the possibility for dialects to ‘die’. Dialects become endangered by many of the same social processes as lead to the loss of languages overall. Distinct dialects emerge and are perpetuated when groups are kept separated, by geographical, social, political, cultural, or economic boundaries (cf. Cotter, 2001; Dorian, 1981; Wolfram et al., 1999b). As the boundaries break down, through industrialisation, urbanisation, establishment of heterogeneous neighbourhoods, intermarriage, expanded opportunities for higher education, spread of mass media, improved transportation leading to increased travel, etc., so too may the characteristic dialectal forms (for case studies, see among others Dorian, 1981; Mougeon & Beniak, 1989).3 Regional variation in a language can be diminished when speakers abandon their dialect, shifting to another variety of the same language, or to another language altogether, or when dialects in contact merge, thus losing their distinctive features. In this way, dialect death can occur through changes to the dialect itself or through changes to its status and use. Studies of language obsolescence (cf. articles in Dorian, 1989) have shown that when languages die, both levels of change often occur at the same time, and the same may be true of dialects.
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One possibility when dialects are in contact is that they will undergo levelling (cf. Kerswill & Williams, 2000). In some contact situations, the most ‘marked’, or distinctive, or regionally limited, or difficult features fall out of use, whereas the more commonly shared or understood or simple features are maintained (for one example, see Campbell & Munzell’s (1989) discussion of levelling in Pipil). The evidence for this occurring, though, is mixed. In other cases, little or no mixture is observed (cf. Cotter, 2001; Leopold, 1970; Wolfram, 1997). Contact may even reinforce dialectal distinctiveness, when speakers exaggerate or favour differences in their speech forms to mark in-group identification and solidarity (cf. Labov, 1963; Schilling-Estes, 1997; Wolfram, 1997). Thomason (2001) calls language attitudes the ‘wild card’; they shape speakers’ linguistic behaviour, and thus the outcomes of language contact. Contact between mutually intelligible varieties of an endangered language can, further, provide support for remaining speakers and secure increased opportunities for the dialects’ use. Galloway (1992), for example, confirms that reinforcement from mutually intelligible varieties was a factor in the survival of the Samish dialect of Straits Salish. Even where convergence occurs, it can be seen as a positive sign for the language, overall, even if dialectal richness is lost. Cook’s (1995: 228) analysis of Chipewyan and Stoney concludes that ‘convergence is a symptom of vitality rather than decay’. If speakers are concerned primarily with the survival of their language, and dialect maintenance is only a secondary concern, convergence may be accepted as a natural part of their language’s continued evolution.4 In other contexts where speakers of different dialects have come into contact, the dialect has been threatened by shift to a shared speech variety that reflects neither group’s original language or dialect. Where a standard and/or more prestigious form of the language exists (e.g. English or German (see among others Leopold, 1970; Wolfram et al., 1999b)), speakers may increasingly adopt that variety, to the detriment of their original dialect. In the case of minority languages, though, the speakers shift more frequently to the dominant language (which may also be a shared speech form between speakers of mutually unintelligible dialects). One factor influencing speakers’ shift to a new language or dialect is the relative prestige of the speech forms and their users. Some dialects have been stigmatised for linguistic reasons (e.g. being perceived as a less ‘pure’ form of the language, due to innovation, borrowing, or attrition) or for social reasons, based on the status of its speakers. For example, Mougeon and Beniak (1989) report that the shift from Ontario French to English is partly precipitated by that dialect’s lack of prestige next to other varieties of French (Quebecois or European), due to changes in the language. Another factor is the minority status of the dialect and its speakers. Similarly, the Valencian variety of Catalán is denigrated due to its extensive borrowing from (Castilian) Spanish; it is judged ‘corrupted’ by contact (Pradilla, 2001). Oklahoman Cayuga speakers (Iroquoian) reportedly look down on their own dialect, which has undergone attrition and has few remaining speakers, preferring the Ontario dialect as a ‘better’ or ‘more correct’ form, both because it has more speakers and because it has been more conservative (Mithun, 1989). Dorian (1981) suggests that the ‘double-minority’ status of East Sutherland Gaelic speakers (subordinate to English and to other
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Gaelic dialects) led to their shift to English. No one factor on its own threatens a dialect, though, and speakers do not abandon their dialects overnight. Further, even if shift is sudden, Dorian (1981) suggests that the build up to it will have been long. Speakers may have suffered a ‘long period of cultural and psychological disfavour which paved the way for that surrender’ (Hamp, 1989: 208). In other words, ongoing circumstances may predispose speakers to adopt a speech form that carries greater benefits once boundaries break down and they have access to it. Adoption of a new speech form of course does not necessarily mean ‘surrender’ of the first language/dialect, but studies such as Dorian’s (1981) show that such replacement is a possibility and can result in dialect death. The potential of dialect death has received little deliberate attention in endangered language research. Studies of dialect preservation or loss have generally taken place in contexts where the language itself is secure. In 1995, the American Dialect Society’s annual meeting focused on dialect death, showing interest in the issue, but discussion was primarily of English and European languages/ dialects (Wolfram, 1997). Findings of such studies can be useful in understanding some of the possibilities, processes, and contributing factors in dialect death (for example, Leopold’s (1970) and Wolfram et al.’s (1999b) studies make evident the effect of the socioeconomic/political status of the speakers on the vitality of their dialect) and applied work (cf. Wolfram et al., 1999a) provides some strategies and concrete steps to promote endangered dialects. The applications of such research to the preservation of dialects of endangered languages can only be partial, though. Rarely in endangered language contexts are dialects threatened by speakers’ shift to a more prestigious or widely spoken variety of the same language. Rather, the dialects’ endangerment occurs in a broader context of shift to another language altogether.5 The question then remains: when all varieties of a language are threatened, how can efforts to preserve the language take into account the variation within it?
Standardisation and Dialect Preservation as Complementary Goals A particular challenge to the maintenance of dialects in endangered language contexts is that language diversity has sometimes been treated by macro-level planners as a problem to be overcome rather than as a resource to be valued (cf. Turell, 2001).6 Wherever a language is perceived as threatened, standardisation has generally been presumed as a means towards language maintenance. Standardisation has evident advantages in terms of mutual comprehension between regions, which increases opportunities to use the language. Furthermore, in order to implement the language in domains previously dominated by another (e.g. colonial) language, there is a perception that a standard variety (or standard varieties) must be chosen. A standardised language has further been perceived as a political strength, increasing the unity of the population (cf. Hinton’s (2001b) discussion of the Campa, an Amazonian tribe in Peru and England’s (1996) description of Mayan language policies). Dorian (1981) suggests that that having a standard literary model to relate spoken forms to can also improve speakers’ ability to understand other dialects. Canagarajah (2005a), (analysing planning for local and standard English varieties in India),
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points out how ambivalent communities and speakers can be, with desires both for a recognised ‘right’ form of the language and acceptance of dialectal diversity, advocating a localised, bottom-up approach. Standardisation is one area in which the conflict between macro- and microlevel goals, and between intended and unintended results of language planning (cf. Canagarajah, 2005a), can most clearly be seen. Standardisation is a thorny issue in language revitalisation because people hold to their dialects (which is positive in terms of dialect preservation), and internal strife is detrimental to language preservation activities. Standardisation may set one dialect (and its speakers) up over another, with corresponding social, political, economic, cultural implications. It may alienate speakers if they do not like the standard and refuse to speak it (e.g. if it is perceived as artificial, or a language that they cannot relate to). Standardisation may also have negative effects if speakers faced with a differing standard feel that their own variety is substandard or incorrect and become insecure speaking it. Introduction of a standard is not necessarily opposed to dialect maintenance; however, when standardisation is pursued as a goal without concurrent acknowledgement of dialects, speakers perceive it as antagonistic to their dialect, and resist (cf. Fishman, 1997). Microlevel initiatives may favour the preservation of distinctive dialects alongside, or in spite of, top-down efforts at standardisation. Standardisation and dialectal preservation can potentially be pursued as complementary and concurrent goals, to which both macro- and micro-level language planning can contribute. The lack of a shared form raises concerns for dialect vitality in terms of speakers’ every-day use of the language, as well as for governments’ attempts to promote it. Dorian’s (1981) study of the decline of East Sutherland Gaelic (ESG) identifies some of the ways in which the lack of a shared speech form hinders a dialect’s continuation. Most obviously, the size of the speech community is seriously reduced, limiting opportunities to hear and use the language outside one’s immediate community. Along the same lines, speakers sometimes resort to English rather than making the effort to decipher an unfamiliar dialect, further reducing their use of the endangered dialect/language. Finally, dialectal differences to the extent that they impede communication can be a factor in stigmatising the dialect. Attempts by Innu and Irish language planners, discussed below, show how the need for speakers of different dialects to be able to communicate with each other in the endangered language may be addressed through means other than standardisation. Increased mobility, contact with speakers of other dialects, and exposure to their speech forms may have positive effects on mutual dialect intelligibility. Common wisdom in language planning holds that as a language gains prestige and access to the ‘higher’ societal domains (e.g. government, education, workplace), it will enjoy better chances of survival. However, such inroads require specific uses of the language (e.g. literacy, curriculum development), creating the need (or perception of a need) for a standard form. Language planners are faced with a complex interplay of aspirations and practical realities: how can they go about using (and thus promoting) a standard variety of the language, while preserving its dialectal diversity, where such is prized at the grassroots level? Very basically, planners have three options: (1) accommodate all dialects; (2) insist on the standard only; (3) find middle ground (cf. Wolfram
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et al., 1999a). The third option is the most commonly adopted, and ways of doing so are discussed below. Some cases can be found where strict adherence to the standard is required, but these are the exception. Navajo language education, for instance, sets high standards for accurate use of the written language. Although some speakers resist, saying that their ‘way of speaking’ or their dialect is being disrespected if they achieve low grades, the outcome of this rigour is highly literate workers, where such skills are required (Slate, 2001). The first position, accommodation of all dialects, is ideologically attractive as it recognises and allows for the fundamental equality of all speakers. In Nunavut, for instance, the Government’s mandate is to promote ‘Inuktitut, in all its forms’ (Nunavut, 1999, 2004). In New Zealand, too, the Ma-ori Affairs Act (1974) recognises and allows for the ‘encouragement of the learning and use of the Ma-ori language (in its recognised dialects and variants) . . . ’ (cited in Fishman, 1997: 233). However, neither Government has fleshed out strategies for practically achieving such equality of all dialects.7 In the contexts for which a standard is generally developed (school, literacy, government), such accommodation is difficult because it makes it impossible to judge any use of the language as ‘correct’ or ‘incorrect’, as no speaker will be fluent in all dialects. It is not uncommon for a language to have no ‘correct’ variety, but this may be viewed as detrimental to its long-term survival, in terms of practical use of the language and speakers’ attitudes. Ultra-orthodox Yiddish, Romansch, Ladin and Friulian are examples of languages that approach language use community by community. However, Fishman (1997: 345) reports that speakers seem to negatively view this ad hoc approach in terms of the ‘respectability’ of their languages and that the absence of a standard can become ‘the excuse for apathy and defeatism vis-à-vis RLS [Reversing Language Shift] efforts.’ If speakers accept standardisation in principle, implementation can be achieved in ways that are more or less tolerant and encouraging of diversity. If an existing dialect is chosen, top-down planners can counteract the advantages such status confers on the group whose dialect is chosen by bestowing other kinds of advantages (economic, political . . . ) on the regions whose dialect was not selected (cf. Fishman, 1997; Joseph, 1984). Another possibility is to deliberately ‘standardise’, creating an artificial variety based on elements from various dialects, as occurred for Basque, Irish, and Breton. Mayan linguists are pursuing this kind of deliberate standardisation and have adopted strategies to respect various dialectal forms (England, 1996). In theory, this approach has the advantage of incorporating and reflecting all dialect groups. In practice, it still can ‘disadvantage some people whose local variety is more different from the emerging norm than others, which may well set up a prestige hierarchy among spoken dialects where almost none has existed’ (England, 1996: 191). Such a hierarchy could lead to disparagement of one’s own dialect, or to rejection of the standard in a show of local dialect loyalty. Avoiding actions or statements that would denigrate existing dialects may help protect against such outcomes. Dialect loyalty may be positive for the preservation of dialects alongside a standard variety if speakers see the standard as an addition to their linguistic repertoire, rather than as a replacement of their dialect. For example, a focus on local approaches to teaching English varieties is advocating teaching and valuing heterogeneity in the classroom: ‘ . . . traditional English-speaking com-
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munities have to now be proficient in negotiating multiple dialects, registers, discourses and, if possible, languages, to function effectively in a context of postmodern globalisation’ (Canagarajah, 2005b: xxv). In some cases (e.g. indigenous languages in the Americas), the domains for which a standard is being developed are new (e.g. publication of government documents), so dialect use has never been well-established in them: ‘the standard comes not to displace or replace the dialects, but to complement them in functions which they do not generally discharge and, therefore, in functions that do not compete with their own’ (Fishman, 1997: 344). On the other hand, for oral interactions, where the dialect has always been used, it can continue to be promoted. Basque dialects in Spain, for instance, remain viable alongside Euskara Batua (unified Basque), partly because the most prevalent and prestigious uses of the language are oral (theatre, poetry, etc.). Regional dialects thus maintain a privileged context for use and are perpetuated, regardless of standardisation (Fishman, 1997). The standard remains one dialect among others; all are linguistically equal and each has particular roles. Emphasising complementarity of domains is one way of balancing the establishment of a standard and preservation of dialects. Another approach is to have a flexible standard, which would be constantly expanding and reflect dialectal diversity. Hinton (2001a: 15) takes the position that ‘tolerance of variation is essential’, partly because variation exists (for cultural and historic reasons), and also because, linguistically speaking, there really is not one ‘right’ way to say things, and it is discouraging to speakers to say that there is.8 This second point is particularly important in contexts of language shift, where numerous cases have documented speakers’ preference to switch to the dominant language rather than be told they are speaking a poor or incorrect form of their mother tongue (see, among others, Hinton, 2001a; Thomason, 2001; Tulloch, 2004). Another ‘flexible’ approach is to develop or recognise multiple standards. American and British English, for example, are easily recognised as ‘equal but different’ regional varieties. Canagarajah (2005b) argues for the pluralisation of norms, including teaching of dialects and registers, as part of a localised approach to language planning. Although Canagarajah does not talk about preserving and teaching dialects of endangered languages specifically, the shift in approach that he reports and advocates could naturally progress to extend to such variation. Major languages such as English or French or Spanish, with recognised varieties, have resources not available to smaller speech communities, but the emergence of regional standardised systems of writing the Inuit language (cf. Dorais, 1996; Harper, 2000), and the promotion of Aranese as the ‘official variety of Occitan in Catalonia’ (Suils & Huguet, 2001: 145) are indicative of the possibility of implementing regional standards even of lesser-spoken languages. Finally, the establishment of a standard written variety of a language – i.e. common spelling, vocabulary and grammatical structures for all written uses of the language – does not need to affect the oral language, especially not the pronunciation. Many languages preserve a high degree of variability in pronunciation, which is perhaps the most difficult, and the least necessary, aspect of language to standardise. Pronunciations are also part of what gives dialects their most distinctive flavour (Nunavut Inuit joke, ‘Do you speak hi hu ha or
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si su sa?’ alluding to a major phonological distinction between the dialects); the benefits of standardisation can be realised without affecting this aspect of dialectal variation. Even those who push most strongly for standardisation as a requisite for language preservation acknowledge that attempts to impose a standard from the top down without community assent can have negative repercussions (cf. Fishman, 1997). Standardisation has identity implications, and can be divisive despite unifying intentions. Arguing about a standard form can distract the community from discussing and promoting increased knowledge and use of the language in all its forms. At the same time, implementation of a standard can have long-term benefits on the language even if it is originally resisted (Basque speakers, for instance, originally rejected Euskara Batua, but its use is now established in formal, literary domains; the standardisation of Breton, originally opposed, is also considered a factor in its ongoing vitality (Press, 2004)). Standardisation and dialect preservation are not mutually exclusive goals. Making room for both to take place concurrently, and finding the appropriate place for macro and micro initiatives, may enhance chances of success of such efforts.
Case Studies: Maintenance of Dialects of Endangered Languages Although little research on endangered languages has explicitly taken dialects into account, descriptions of attempts at language planning show how the desires and loyalties of the speakers play a key role in shaping dialect preservation along with, or in spite of, standardisation. While the push to standardise remains at the forefront of macro-level endangered language promotion, a few micro-level initiatives, such as those outlined below, are explicitly incorporating dialectal preservation. Breton (France) Breton speakers have reportedly maintained ‘authentic’ dialectal diversity alongside an artificial, imposed standard. The local dialects of Breton are valued over the standard, in part because they are used for solidarity purposes, a function that standard Breton is impotent to fill: . . . those learners [i.e. L2 non-immersion learners of another dialect or the standard] may acquire a ‘perfect’ Breton, but it will be foreign to the native speakers of their home area. Those who learn a standard Breton find themselves in a no-man’s land, speaking a colorless language which to many native speakers might as well be French for all the relation it bears to their own ‘real’ Breton. (Kuter, 1989: 85) Even native speakers who move to a different region may feel alienated by the different speech forms. This is particularly problematic for the Breton teachers, who do not necessarily find jobs in their home dialect area, and end up teaching in a different region. Language planners and educators have attempted to negotiate a place for both the dialects and the standard: teachers are trained to ‘have an ear’ for dialects, although they obviously cannot speak all of them fluently. In their classrooms, one approach is to teach in the standard, as a base
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form of Breton from which other dialects can be learned, or to ‘sample’ all dialects in courses and materials. A flexible standard has now emerged for Breton (Press, 2004). Although there is ongoing debate (taken as a sign of the vitality of the language), the concept of a standard that was resisted in the 1980s is increasingly accepted in this ‘post-standard’ period, with speakers feeling more at ease with variation in the language. Breton provides one example of micro-level language planning (in the schools), negotiating a place for dialectal preservation alongside top-down introduction of a standard. Innu (Canada) Standardisation and the preservation of dialects have sometimes appeared to be conflicting goals among the Innu/Montagnais of Quebec and Labrador (Canada). When the standardisation process began, speakers strongly identified with their reserve or village, with local speech an identifying and defining factor of that group (despite loose recognition of a common, shared language). In the aim of preserving Innu-aimun, linguists proposed a standard orthography to promote written mutual comprehensibility. This system was not intended to affect the spoken language; students would still read/pronounce words as they always had, even if the spelling reflected a more conservative form (Drapeau, 1985). Further, the standard was proposed for specific functions, but did not preclude using other systems for creative or expressive purposes. Nonetheless, planners met with reluctance among speakers to adapt to a system that did not reflect their own dialect. Negative public opinion and lack of a central means of diffusion and implementing the standard hindered its adoption. The prevalence of micro-level planning in Innu communities seems to have encouraged dialectal maintenance in the face of attempts to standardise. At the time, Mailhot lamented (1985: 24), ‘everything takes place at the local level and everything is left to individual initiative’, considering this decentralisation of initiatives as detrimental to standardisation and thus to language development. Fishman (1997: 239) brings a similar critique to Ma-ori language nest programmes: . . . the grass-roots nature of the staffing, the day-to-day management and the program-definition of the rural Ko-hanga Reos sometimes leads to the preservation or even intensification of the rural dialectal diversity of Ma-ori. This tends to counteract the emergence of a national standard Ma-ori (needed later for Ma-ori literacy) and even competes with the emergence of a more inclusive, unified, supra-local Ma-ori self-concept and identity . . . Although dialect maintenance was not the Ko-hanga Reo’s goal, it was a side effect of a grassroots movement which transmitted the language in an informal, family-like environment. Other grassroots, oral initiatives such as Hinton’s (1997) master–apprentice programme may have similar results, maintaining dialectal diversity while promoting the language overall. Today, standard Innu-aimun is relatively well established in Quebec (where it was developed), but it is still resisted in the two Labrador communities. Johns and Mazurkewich (2001), working on Aboriginal teacher training in Labrador, advocate an approach which favours mutual comprehensibility while valuing
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unique dialects. They recommend training future teachers in knowledge and respect of dialects, which they can then pass on in the classroom: ‘Each speaker should know that his or her own dialect is legitimate [and] [e]ach speaker should be exposed to the value of other dialects’ (Johns & Mazurkewich, 2001: 363). Teachers adapt materials to their own dialect, and make sure that no speakers are left feeling that they speak an incorrect or inadequate form of their language. Beyond this, they recommend increased participation of trained language professionals from the various dialect groups in the language planning process. Once again, micro-level planning in teacher training is pursued to further the local priority of dialect preservation. Overall, the experiences of linguists working with Innu-aimun in Labrador suggest that pursuing dialect comprehension may be a more effective strategy than attempting to diffuse a standard. Where dialects are mutually comprehensible, language survival is more likely because broader communication and sense of community are possible. Encouraging/teaching bidialectalism (active or passive) is pursued as one way of enhancing communication between dialect groups. Irish (Ireland) A final case in the literature where promotion of an endangered language has explicitly incorporated dialectal diversity is in Ireland. Preservation activities have included both the elaboration and implementation of a ‘synthetic’ standard Irish and the deliberate promotion of the three main dialect regions – Ulster, Connacht, and Munster – as reflected in modern literature and radio. Standard Irish, An Caighdeán, is a melded, artificial standard – a ‘compromise dialect’ – made up of historical and modern features from all three dialect areas. It was created for official functions such as government and education, and is the variety learned and used by non-native speakers. However, the prestige forms of the language remain the local dialects: ‘Interestingly, while An Caighdeán is used and ratified by the society’s institutions, the prestige targets for speakers remain the various dialects of the Gaeltacht’ (Cotter, 2001: 303). Speakers’ strong loyalty to their regional dialects was, in some ways, perceived as detrimental to preservation efforts when those unfamiliar with the other dialects tended to use English ‘rather than making the effort to continue to struggle with one another’s comparatively unfamiliar native speech forms’ (Watson, 1989: 46). Speakers would judge learners as ‘good’ speakers if they acquired the local dialect, and as ‘poor’ speakers if they learned another. Improving mutual intelligibility and dialectal awareness, then, were goals to be pursued (alongside standardisation) in order to encourage use of Irish. Expanding literacy and knowledge of the written norm was one way in which greater dialectal awareness was achieved. Increasing exposure to the other dialects, particularly on the radio, was another. Raidió na Gaeltachta (RnaG) broadcasts entirely in Irish from the three dialect regions. It has an overt policy of conservation and dialect integrity. Even if people listen primarily in their own dialect, the radio is helping them to get used to hearing the pronunciations of the other regions, thus improving mutual intelligibility. Unity between the dialect groups is promoted through shared cultural content: ‘the result is a sense of the importance of one’s own dialect and its connection to the language overall’ (Cotter, 2001: 308). In these ways, RnaG
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is helping to preserve Irish and its dialects. Even as exposure to other dialects increases, there is no evidence of levelling or convergence. Another radio station, Raidió na Life (RnaL), pursues preservation of the language while deliberately allowing for linguistic innovation. In other words, it aims to encourage any use of Irish, regardless of the form. This different perspective entails distinct priorities and methods, including broadcasting in the language variety commonly used by its (Dublin) listenership, even if this ‘new’, urban Irish is not as prestigious as the traditional dialects. The contrast between RnaG’s and RnaL’s approach is also relevant to efforts at endangered dialect/ language preservation, as it can be tempting for a nation to focus on conserving (i.e. fossilising) a language, especially when this language is valued as a link to one’s culture and traditions and is put forth as a symbol of national or ethnic identity. However, for the dialects to thrive, they must have speakers who are comfortable using them in a wide variety of settings. In this way, the functional approach of RnaL is as relevant and promising for the preservation of dialects as the explicitly preservationist approach of RnaG. Both the policies and actions of RnaG and RnaL show how planning in specific contexts (i.e. micro-level planning) can have wide-reaching implications for the preservation of dialects, and with them, endangered languages.
How Can Preserving Dialects Succeed? The three cases described above are exceptional in endangered language research in their explicit accommodation of dialectal diversity. Although the argument for recognition of the intrinsic value of linguistic diversity is now widespread in terms of language preservation (cf. Nettle & Romaine, 2000, among others), it has yet to extend to a concern for the preservation of diversity within languages. Still, dialect studies (most of which have occurred in nonendangered language contexts), show that loss of dialect diversity can occur. Furthermore, voices from within endangered language communities express the concern that it is occurring. In contexts around the globe, speakers show evidence of attachment to local ways of speaking and are planning and acting to preserve their regional dialects. Micro-level approaches to language preservation, as seen above, seem to be best suited to the preservation of dialectal diversity. Based on the principles and possibilities of dialect endangerment and maintenance extrapolated from earlier studies, the following suggestions address how planners can intentionally make room for dialectal diversity while preserving, protecting and promoting endangered languages. (1)
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Establish goals and strategies locally, based on speakers’ values. As a first step, planners can identify the values, beliefs and desires speakers hold with regard to their language and their dialect, and allow these to drive planning. Goals, strategies and actions can build on the practical and symbolic values speakers already attach to these speech varieties. These affective factors are possibly the strongest point in favour of the survival of the dialects: if people value them they will continue to speak them. Promotion requires, at the same time, that the language is allowed to evolve and fill new functions.
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(2)
(3)
(4)
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Promote the language, while embracing dialectal diversity. Where dialect prestige is strong, grassroots efforts to promote a language will naturally lead to continued use of local speech forms. Preserving a language in its full dialectal diversity may best be achieved when it is undertaken in such a way so as to not diminish pride in or use of dialects, while not emphasising their uniqueness either. Where a standard is being promoted, concurrently adopting strategies to incorporate and/or respect dialectal diversity may reassure speakers and protect dialects. Initiatives in dialectal preservation will be similar to those aiming at the preservation of a language altogether. The overriding goals of conservation, knowledge, and use are as applicable to specific dialects as they are to an endangered language overall. Focus on grassroots, oral initiatives. Certain types of language promotion activities (e.g. grassroots, oral initiatives) seem to favour dialect maintenance, even if this is not their explicit goal. Characteristic regional forms of a language have established areas of use, which preservation initiatives can target. For example, the home is one place that dialect speakers have to go back to (cf. Dorian, 1981). Participation in ‘traditional’ activities and community events also provides occasions for use and reinforcement of the dialect. Emphasising and enhancing opportunities for oral use (including the above, but also specialised functions such as theatre, song lyrics, and storytelling) maintains a ‘natural’ context for dialect use. In sum, dialectal preservation alongside language promotion may be pursued through development of community-based strategies and activities which promote informal use of the language in all its forms, on a local level. Encourage dialectal awareness and mutual intelligibility. Finally, pursuing mutual intelligibility and dialectal awareness can enhance the vitality of dialects of an endangered language. An endangered language overall will be stronger if a maximal number of people can use it in their daily interactions. Use of multiple dialects in radio, literature, and other productions can be a way of increasing mutual understanding, encouraging language use, and preserving the dialects all at the same time. Schools can also reinforce dialectal awareness and encourage tolerance of dialect forms (although formal language use there may eventually have more of a standardising influence). As a bottom line, planners may aim for an environment in which all varieties of the language may be used and respected (including innovative ones) and speakers are proud of the variety of the language that they speak. Positive language attitudes, as well as the vitality of the contexts in which the varieties are used, are key factors in dialect viability.
Conclusion Although academics and fieldworkers have studied issues of endangered language preservation extensively, there is still no set framework for understanding how a language can be preserved, let alone its dialects. This paper outlines some of the possibilities of languages and dialects in contact and outlines studies of endangered languages, showing how micro-level approaches are best suited to take dialect into account. Relevant suggestions for the preser-
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vation and promotion of distinct dialects of an endangered language have been derived from prior research. Still, as this paper advocates and is responding to grassroots desires as the impetus for language preservation activities, it also acknowledges that goals will vary from community to community and from dialect to dialect. Ideas for dialect preservation can be drawn from what has happened elsewhere, but it is the desires and needs of each local population that will prevail. Also, linguistic issues, and their solutions, are tightly intertwined with broader social, political, cultural, and economic issues, and it may well be that action on these latter fronts is needed along with language planning in order to counteract language shift and dialect loss. The preservation of dialects is seen as part of a bigger picture of the preservation of a particular language, which is itself often part of a wider strategy to negotiate greater group autonomy and empowerment. While acknowledging the multiple layers of complexity in making room for dialects in endangered language preservation, this paper suggests that micro-level approaches to language planning may effectively address speakers’ desires to preserve dialectal diversity concurrently with endangered language revitalisation. Acknowledgements I would like to acknowledge Eva Aariak, former Languages Commissioner of Nunavut, whose call for a study into the preservation of distinct dialects of the Inuit language motivated this research. Hilary Drummond and Papatsie (Evelyn) Kublu-Hill provided valuable research assistance, collecting articles and exchanging ideas. I also wish to thank Suzanne Romaine, Marguerite MacKenzie and Marie-Odile Junker for sharing references with me. All errors and omissions are, of course, my own. Correspondence Any correspondence should be directed to Shelley Tulloch, Department of Anthropology, Saint Mary’s University, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada B3H 3C3 (
[email protected]). Notes 1. If speakers are unaware or indifferent that they use distinct speech forms, preserving those forms may be irrelevant. Puckett (2003), for instance, argues that ‘Appalachian English’ is a purely academic designation; it holds no resonance among users of that variety. 2. A focus on establishing lines between languages and dialects may distract from, rather than contribute to, efforts to preserve and promote knowledge and use of the dialect/language. Pradilla (2001: 69) challenges, for example, that a focus on recognising the Valencian dialect as a language distinct from Catalán masks the real issue of speakers shifting to Castilian Spanish. 3. Language contact does not necessarily entail loss of dialectal features; in fact, such contact may lead to dialect diversification. Bradley (1989), for instance, reports the rapid dialect diversification of Ugong in contact with Thai. Certainly, cultural contact between Europeans and Inuit has led to lexical innovations for new technologies, which were developed independently in the various communities as long as they remained isolated from each other (cf. Dorais, 1996).
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4. In any case, languages and dialects are dynamic, and attempting to fossilise dialects as they exist today is unlikely to contribute to a vital, thriving language. 5. Of course, shift to a more prestigious dialect is also a possibility, as is a concurrent threat from both a more prestigious dialect and a dominant language. Ash et al. (2001) report on a dialect hierarchy in Nicaragua, where the Tuahka dialect of Mayanga was particularly endangered because it was subordinate to Panamahka (another Mayangna dialect) on top of being subordinate to Miskitu (the regional lingua franca) and then Spanish. The local bilingual education programme only taught in the dominant dialect (Panamahka) and left out Tuahka. In this case, Tuahka speakers had to become bidialectal in Panamahka (as well as multilingual in Miskitu and Spanish), although the reverse was not also true. 6. The reality and richness of linguistic heterogeneity in English-speaking communities worldwide is just now being recognised (cf. Canagarajah 2005b), with the potential that this valuation of diversity will carry over to diversity within endangered language contexts. 7. The Government of Nunavut commissioned a study in 2004 which made recommendations for the preservation of distinct dialects in Nunavut. Its language legislation was under review at the time this paper was written. 8. Tollefson (2002) also says, in regard to English language instruction, that policies which pursue uniformity are unrealistic.
References Ash, A., Fermino, J.L. and Hale, K. (2001) Diversity in local language maintenance and restoration: A reason for optimism. In L. Hinton and K. Hale (eds) The Green Book of Language Revitalization (pp. 19–35). San Diego: Academic. Baldauf, Jr, R.B. (2005) Micro language planning. In P. Bruthiaux, D. Atkinson, W.G. Eggington, W. Grabe and V. Ramanathan (eds) Studies in Applied Linguistics (pp. 227– 39). Clevedon: Multilingual Matters. Bradley, D. (1989) The disappearance of the Ugong in Thailand. In N.C. Dorian (ed.) Investigating Obsolescence: Studies in Language Contraction and Death (pp. 33–40). New York: Cambridge University Press. Campbell, L. and Munzell, M.C. (1989) The structural consequences of language death. In N.C. Dorian (ed.) Investigating Obsolescence: Studies in Language Contraction and Death (pp. 181–96). New York: Cambridge University Press. Canagarajah, A.S. (2005a) Accommodating tensions in language-in-education policies: An afterword. In A.M.Y. Lin and P.W. Martin (eds) Decolonisation, Globalisation: Languagein-Education Policy and Practice (pp. 194–201). Clevedon: Multilingual Matters. Canagarajah, A.S. (2005b) Introduction. In A.S. Canagarajah (ed.) Reclaiming the Local in Language Policy and Practice (pp. xiii–xxx). Mahwah, NJ and London: Lawrence Erlbaum. Cook, E. (1995) Is there convergence in language death? Evidence from Chipewyan and Stoney. Journal of Linguistic Anthropology 5 (2), 217–31. Cotter, C. (2001) Continuity and vitality: Expanding domains through Irish-language radio. In L. Hinton and K. Hale (eds) The Green Book of Language Revitalization (pp. 310–11). San Diego: Academic Press. Dorais, L-J. (1990) Inuit Uqausiqatigiit. Inuit Languages and Dialects. Iqaluit: Nunavut Arctic College. Dorais, L-J. (1996) La Parole Inuit: Langue, Culture et Société dans l’Arctique Nord-Américain. Paris: Éditions Peeters. Dorian, N.C. (1981) Language Death: The Life Cycle of a Scottish Gaelic Dialect. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. Dorian, N.C. (ed.) (1989) Investigating Obsolescence: Studies in Language Contraction and Death. New York: Cambridge University Press. Drapeau, L. (1985) Decision-making on a standard orthography: The Betsiamites case. In B. Burnaby (ed.) Promoting Native Writing Systems in Canada (pp. 27–32). Toronto: OISE. England, N.C. (1996) The role of language standardization in revitalization. In E.F.
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Fischer and R. McKenna Brown (eds) Maya Cultural Activism in Guatemala (pp. 178– 94). Austin, TX: University of Texas Press. Ferguson, C.A. (1968) Language development. In J.A. Fishman, C.A. Ferguson and J. Das Gupta (eds) Language Problems of Developing Nations (pp. 27–36). New York: Wiley. Fishman, J.A. (1974) Language modernization and planning in comparison with other types of national modernization and planning. In J.A. Fishman (ed.) Advances in Language Planning (pp. 79–102). The Hague: Mouton. Fishman, J.A. (1997) Reversing Language Shift. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters. Galloway, B.D. (1992) The Samish dialect and Straits Salish: Dialect death and dialect survival. International Journal of the Sociology of Language 93, 37–51. Hamp, E. (1989) On signs of health and death. In N.C. Dorian (ed.) Investigating Obsolescence: Studies in Language Contraction and Death (pp. 197–210). New York: Cambridge University Press. Harper, K. (2000) Inuit writing systems in Nunavut. In J. Dahl, J. Hicks and P. Jull (eds) Nunavut. Inuit Regain Control of their Lands and their Lives (pp. 154–68). Copenhagen: International Work Group on Indigenous Affairs. Haugen, E. (1959) Planning for a standard language in Norway. Anthropological Linguistics 1 (3), 8–21. Hickerson, H., Turner, G.D. and Hickerson, N.P. (1952) Testing procedures for estimating the transfer of information among Iroquois dialects and languages. International Journal of American Linguistics 18, 1–8. Hickerson, N.P. (2000) Linguistic Anthropology (2nd edn). Fort Worth: Harcourt. Hinton, L. (1997) Survival of endangered languages: The California Master-Apprentice program. International Journal of the Sociology of Language 123, 177–91. Hinton, L. (2001a) Language revitalization: An overview. In L. Hinton and K. Hale (eds) The Green Book of Language Revitalization (pp. 3–18). San Diego: Academic. Hinton, L. (2001b) New writing systems. In L. Hinton and K. Hale (eds) The Green Book of Language Revitalization (pp. 239–50). San Diego: Academic. Hoenigswald, H.M. (1989) Language obsolescence and language history: Matters of linearity, leveling, loss, and the like. In N.C. Dorian (ed.) Investigating Obsolescence: Studies in Language Contraction and Death (pp. 347–54). New York: Cambridge University Press. Johns, A. and Mazurkewich, I. (2001) The role of the university in the training of Native language teachers: Labrador. In L. Hinton and K. Hale (eds) The Green Book of Language Revitalization (pp. 355–66). San Diego: Academic. Joseph, J. (1984) The engineering of a standard language. Multilingua: Journal of CrossCultural and Interlanguage Communication 3 (2), 87–92. Kerswill, P. and Williams, A. (2000) Mobility versus social class in dialect levelling: Evidence from new and old towns in England. In K. Mattheier (ed.) Dialect and Migration in a Changing Europe (pp. 1–13). Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang. Kuter, L. (1989) Breton vs. French: Language and the opposition of political, economic, social, and cultural values. In N.C. Dorian (ed.) Investigating Obsolescence: Studies in Language Contraction and Death (pp. 75–89). New York: Cambridge University Press. Labov, W. (1963) The social motivation of a sound change. Word 19, 273–309. Leopold, W.F. (1970) The decline of German dialects. In J.A. Fishman (ed.) Readings in the Sociology of Language (pp. 340–64). The Hague: Mouton. Mailhot, J. (1985) Implementation of mother-tongue literacy among the Montagnais: Myth or reality? In B. Burnaby (ed.) Promoting Native Writing Systems in Canada (pp. 17–26). Toronto: OISE. Mithun, M. (1989) The incipient obsolescence of polysythesis: Cayuga in Ontario and Oklahoma. In N.C. Dorian (ed.) Investigating Obsolescence: Studies in Language Contraction and Death (pp. 243–58). New York: Cambridge University Press. Mougeon, R. and Beniak, E. (1989) Language contraction and linguistic change: The case of Welland French. In N.C. Dorian (ed.) Investigating Obsolescence: Studies in Language Contraction and Death (pp. 287–312). New York: Cambridge University Press. Nahir, M. (1998) Micro language planning and the revival of Hebrew: A schematic framework. Language in Society 27, 335–57.
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Nettle, D. and Romaine, S. (2000) Vanishing Voices: The Extinction of the World’s Languages. New York; Toronto: Oxford University Press. Nunavut (1999) The Bathurst Mandate Pinasuaqtavut: That which we’ve set out to do. On WWW at http://www.gov.nu.ca/Nunavut/English/departments/bathurst. Accessed 07.08.02. Nunavut (2004) Pinasuaqtavut 2004–2009. On WWW at http://www.gov.nu.ca/ Nunavut/pinasuaqtavut/engcover.pdf. Accessed 01.07.05. Pennycook, A. (2000) Language, ideology and hindsight. Lessons from colonial language policies. In T. Ricento (ed.) Ideology, Politics and Language Policies: Focus on English (pp. 49–65). Amsterdam: Benjamins. Pradilla, M.A. (2001) The Catalan-speaking communities. In M.T. Turell (ed.) Multilingualism in Spain (pp. 58–90). Clevedon: Multilingual Matters. Press, I. (2004) Standard Breton. Lincom. Puckett, A. (2003) The ‘value’ of dialect as object: The case of Appalachian English. Pragmatics 13 (4), 539–49. Ryon, D. (2005) Language death studies and local knowledge: The case of Cajun French. In A.S. Canagarajah (ed.) Reclaiming the Local in Language Policy and Practice (pp. 55– 72). Mahwah, NJ and London: Lawrence Erlbaum. Schilling-Estes, N. (1997) Accommodation versus concentration: Dialect death in two postinsular communities. American Speech: A Quarterly of Linguistic Usage 72 (1), 12–32. Slate, C. (2001) Promoting advanced Navajo language scholarship. In L. Hinton and K. Hale (eds) The Green Book of Language Revitalization (pp. 389–410). San Diego: Academic. Suils, J. and Huguet, A. (2001) The Occitan speech community of the Aranese valley. In M.T. Turell (ed.) Multilingualism in Spain (pp. 141–64). Clevedon: Multilingual Matters. Thomason, S. (2001) Language Contact. Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press. Tollefson, J.W. (2002) Introduction: Critical issues in educational language policy. In J.W. Tollefson (ed.) Language Policies in Education: Critical Issues (pp. 3–15). Mahwah, NJ and London: Lawrence Erlbaum. Tulloch, S. (2004) Inuktitut and Inuit youth: Language attitudes as a basis for language planning. Unpublished PhD dissertation, Université Laval, Quebec. Turell, M.T. (2001) Spain’s multilingual make-up: Beyond, within and across Babel. In M.T. Turell (ed.) Multilingualism in Spain (pp. 1–57). Clevedon: Multilingual Matters. Watson, S. (1989) Scottish and Irish Gaelic: The giant’s bed-fellows. In N.C. Dorian (ed.) Investigating Obsolescence: Studies in Language Contraction and Death (pp. 41–60). New York: Cambridge University Press. Winsa, B. (2000) Defining an ecological niche: The use of ‘dialect’ or ‘language’. Current Issues in Language Planning 1 (3), 431–4. Wolfram, W. (1997) Issues in dialect obsolescence: An introduction. American Speech 72 (1), 3–11. Wolfram, W., Adger, C. and Christian, D. (1999a) Dialects in Schools and Communities. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum Associates. Wolfram, W., Hazen, K. and Schilling-Estes, N. (1999b) Dialect Change and Maintenance on the Outer Banks. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press.
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The Ecological Impact of a Dictionary Anthony J. Liddicoat Research Centre for Languages and Cultures, University of South Australia, Magill SA, Australia The production of a dictionary of Jersey Norman French seems to have created a perception by speakers that they did not know the language. This perception appears to be the result of the ecological change which the dictionary produced by repositioning the language from an oral habitat to a written one. Such a move produces ideologies related to authority in language which alter the ways in which an individual’s own language use can be perceived. These ecological changes stem from the advent of the possibility of prescriptivism, the production of a magnavocabulary, and the attachment of the dictionary to a past language ecology, rather than contemporary usage.
Introduction In 1985, when I was conducting fieldwork on Jersey, I was frequently confronted by claims from speakers of the local Norman French that, although they spoke the language, they did not really know it. It inevitably emerged that the reason for this perception was that they felt that they did not know the ‘right’ version of the language or that they could not write it according to ‘the dictionary’. Both of these feelings stemmed from the publication in 1966 of the Dictionnaire Jersiais-Français (Le Maistre, 1996) by a local Norman French speaker. The responses of Norman French speakers to the dictionary can be seen as a consequence of grass-roots language planning without an ecological perspective.
Jersey Norman French and the Language Ecology of Jersey The Channel Island of Jersey has a language ecology in which three languages play a part: Jersey Norman French (JNF), English and French (Liddicoat, 1986, 1990, 1994). JNF is an umbrella term for a number of local varieties spoken in various parts of the island. It is spoken by a limited number of older speakers and is not actively transmitted as a first language, and has not been for some decades. JNF is restricted to domestic and local community domains and to oral contexts. French and English have a history of competition for the same ecological niche. In the eighteenth century, French was the normal language for all official, legal, educational and commercial purposes and was the only language used for writing. Since that time, however, English has come to oust French in almost all of these domains, beginning with commerce and now extending to all but a few legal contexts, such as conveyancing, where French remains the norm. JNF has evolved as a language of a culture of orality alongside English and French as languages of a culture of literacy.
Language Planning for Jersey Norman French JNF has not received the attention of official language planning bodies, and language planning attempts for JNF have occurred primarily within an organisa113 The Ecological Impact of a Dictionary
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tion known as the Don Balleine Trust. Other bodies such as the Assemblié d’Jèrriais and the Société Jersiaise have supported language-based cultural activities but have not intervened in the language situation in the same way as the Trust, although they do use the Trust’s work as a basis for their own activities and as such disseminate the Trust’s work. The aims of the Don Balleine Trust are the promotion and conservation of JNF and this is conducted primarily through publication. Of the publications of the Don Balleine Trust, the most important from a language planning view has been the publication of the Dictionnaire Jersiais-Français (DJF). The production of the DJF represents language planning by a local, unofficial language organisation, without consideration of the ecological dimensions of the plan (cf. Mühlhäusler, 1996a).1 This dictionary has become the cornerstone of the Don Balleine Trust’s language work and is central to its promotion of JNF as a language with a venerable history and a literate tradition. As such, the DJF represents JNF as a language of a literate culture and ties its maintenance work primarily to written JNF.2 The language planning work of the Trust has focused on moving JNF from being a language of a culture of orality to being a language of a culture of literacy. The Trust has sought, therefore, to move JNF into habitats formerly occupied by English or French. The environment in this case is different from that described for the Pacific by Mühlhäusler (1992). In the case of the Pacific, literacy in the vernacular has often been introduced as literacy has been introduced. In this sense, there was an available place for literacy in the current ecology. Jersey, however, is a western European society with high levels of literacy in English and, for some speakers of JNF, in French. These two cultures of literacy have existed alongside one another for a considerable period of time – literacy is currently part of the language ecology. The existence of an established culture of literacy entails the existence of sets of assumptions and ideologies about literacy. These assumptions and ideologies, along with literacy practices and domains represent a habitat in which languages are located (Fincke, 1983; Fill, 1993, 1996; Mühlhäusler, 1996b). The normal inhabitants of this literate habitat are English and to a lesser extent French. The development of the DJF in 1966 represented a cross-over for JNF from the culture of orality to the culture of literacy, or in other words, the movement of JNF from one habitat to another. The DJF, rather than early attempts at a JNF literature, seems to have been significant in this habitat change because the dictionary invoked ideologies of literacy in ways which a dialect literature did not. The JNF literature was usually considered as a ‘game’ in which half the fun was decoding the text; a dictionary, however, was a more serious matter and was responded to differently.
The Impact of the Dictionnaire Jersiais-Français on the Language Ecology The production of the DJF had an impact on the ecology of JNF in a number of ways which in the main reflect the ideologies invoked by the production of a dictionary.
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Prescriptivism One of the strong impacts of the DJF was to introduce prescriptivism as a feature of the JNF habitat. This manifests itself in two ways: (1) the establishment of an orthography; and (2) the establishment of a standard variety. Of these the former seems to have been intentional and the latter less so. The orthography developed in the DJF is an archaising, French-based system. It encodes some features that are phonetic, rather than phonemic, but which reflect differences from standard French pronunciations (e.g. the use of n to mark assimilative nasalisation in exprînmer [ekspre~:me]) and maintains some irregularities of standard French orthography (e.g. the spelling of [u] ‘August’ as août). Capitalisation, however, is done according to English norms. Moreover, the rules of the orthographic system are not explained, although the sound values of vowels and diagraphs are given, especially where these depart from standard French. The spelling system adopted is intended as a standard and has been adopted as such by the Don Balleine Trust: Throughout, the text conforms with the standardised orthography established by Dr. F. Le Maistre’s Dictionnaire Jersiais-Français published in 1966 (publisher’s note: Le Feuvre, 1976). The development of a dictionary, with a standardised spelling system, is not an ideologically neutral act. The dictionary takes its place in its new habitat with reference to the perceived functions and values associated with other dictionaries – that it, it is authoritative and normative. The existence of a written form is popularly interpreted as the existence of a correct form, which takes priority over other forms (Ong, 1982). The presentation of an authoritative, normative, but unexplained orthographic system had an ecological impact. Native speakers of JNF, who are literate in at least one language, now express a lack of proficiency in JNF because they do not know how to write the language – they have become illiterate. The perception of a lack of proficiency in JNF is greater for those educated in English than for those educated in French, as the orthographic system is patterned on French spelling rules. Thus the systems favours older rather than younger speakers. The DJF takes the compiler’s own variety as the norm for lexical entries in the dictionary, and also for the orthographic system. This means in effect that one variety has entered into the literate habitat and has taken on authority over other JNF varieties. In the orthographic system this means that etymological intervocalic r is written as th [ð], although this is realised as [r] in the east of the island. In the early publications of the Assembliée d’Jèrriais a certain flexibility was used for these sounds reflecting the origins of the writer, but in the publications of the Don Balleine Trust, th has always been the norm for intervocalic r. Dictionary entries are organised under the St Ouen (Western Jersey) forms, and forms from elsewhere are organised under the St Ouen entry. For example the entry for ‘spider’ gives: pêtre, s.m. Araignée . . . On dit aussi un prêtre et, dans l’Est surtout, un couôsîn . . . Disons que pêtre est le terme de la plupart des gens de l’Ouest y
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compris ceux de la Moie. Cependant certaines gens de St Jean ou de St Laurence diront ithangnie ou aithangnie. Dans l’Est on dit ithangnie, q.v. ou airangnie, etc. [pêtre, s.m. Spider . . . People also say un prêtre and, especially in the East, un couôsîn . . . Let us say that pêtre is the term for most of the people from the West including those from la Moie. However, certain people from St Jean or St Laurence will say ithangnie or aithangnie. In the East they say ithangnie, q.v. or airangnie, etc.] Words in bold refer to dictionary entries. If we refer to these entries, we find: ithangnie ou irangnie, s.f. 1. Toile d’araignée, dans l’Ouest . . . 2. Dans l’Est c’est souvent tant l’araignée que la toile. Certains prononcent airangnie ou athaingnie, les Faldouais aizangnie . . . [ithangnie or irangnie, s.f. 1. Spider web, in the West . . . 2. In the East it is often as much the spider as the web. Some people pronounce airangnie or athaingnie, people from Fadlouet aizangnie . . . ] aithangnie, s.f. Voir ithangnie [aithangnie, s.f. See ithangnie] couôsîn, s.m. 2. Araignée des champs, le faucheur. On l’appelle également un prêtre, q.v. [couôsîn, s.m. 2. Field spider, harvest-time spider. It is equally called a prêtre, q.v.] prêtre, s.m. 3. Araignée, le faucheur . . . On l’appelle également un couôsîn. [prêtre, s.m. 3. Spider, harvest-time spider . . . It is equally called a couôsîn.] In all the definitions, the western meaning is privileged over the eastern meaning and the reader requires a knowledge of western forms and spellings to get to the base definition. The term ithangnie is not found in the French-JNF vocabulary appended to the dictionary. The development of a magnavocabulary The production of a dictionary documents what Ong (1982) has called the magnavocabulary of JNF. The magnavocabulary is a vocabulary, with some diachronic depth and covering broad domains of language use, which represents the actual vocabulary of no native speaker. In the DJF, there are a number of terms which have been recorded from eighteenth-century texts – texts written in a Normanised version of French rather than in JNF. The DJF also records the compiler’s memories of words which his elders had used in his childhood. Magnavocabularies are one of the features of cultures of literacy. They represent an accumulation of lexical richness which is only possible in printed form, exceeding both the capacity of human memory and the needs of human interaction. The vocabulary of the dictionary, however, becomes synonymous with the vocabulary of the language – a vocabulary which no speaker can actually ‘know’ independently of the printed record. The effect of recording the magnavocabulary has developed a sense among speakers of JNF of what they do not know about their own language. In a culture of literacy, speakers are no longer the sole judge of the meaning of words (Lindstrom, 1988), nor are their interactions the sole judge of the adequacy of the extent of their vocabulary. In
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the written habitat, languages are measured by authoritative collections rather than conditions of use. Invoking a past ecology The DJF, by its form, invokes an earlier language ecology – one which is even less true now than it was in 1966. The dictionary is a bilingual dictionary with definitions in French. While the choice of French has obvious symbolic dimensions relating to a sense of Norman identity, it represents the language ecology of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries when French was the usual language of literacy and education in at least rural parts of the island. As such, the DJF is not designed to be located in a language ecology in which English is the usual language of literacy and few people have more than an elementary knowledge of standard French. The form of the DJF is, therefore, not designed to place JNF within a dynamic and future-oriented language ecology, but rather has located JNF within an ecology of the past, in French does not have a sustainable role.
Conclusion Discussions of language planning and language ecology usually focus on contexts where a higher level authority is conducting the planning; however, the case of the DJF demonstrates that locally based, grass-roots language planning is equally involved with questions of ecology. The publication of the DJF represents a significant achievement in documenting a vanishing language. However, its value for conserving that language appears to have been limited. This is primarily because it has become a measure of inadequacy and an indicator of what speakers of JNF do not know about their own language. The DJF as a result has given an impetus to language shift rather than to language maintenance3 through a sense of inadequacy. The impact of the development of the trappings of a language of a culture of literacy would not necessarily have had the same impact on speakers’ perceptions of their own proficiency if the DJF had been linked in some way to education. However, this was not the case. No provision was made for communicating the reforms the DJF entailed, and this probably for a number of reasons: (1) The DJF was seen as a record of what was already known. (2) The DJF was designed, in the first instance, for people who already spoke and used JNF. (3) The Don Balleine Trust is a grass-roots organisation of language users without connections to educational institutions. The first two points indicate the difficulties of a non-ecological approach to such language planning efforts. Language conservation involves more than recording linguistic information in a durable form. Texts such as dictionaries in a culture of literacy are not seen as simple repositories of knowledge, but rather authoritative statements on language. The existence of a dictionary alters the language ecology in which it appears. When a dictionary is published a language effectively moves into a different habitat with different environmental conditions to which is may not be suited. The assumption which underlies the DJF is that people who control
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a language control it in some complete sense and that the movement from a culture of orality to one of literacy is unproblematic. However, if we consider written language and spoken language as ‘sub-languages’ each with their own ecological possibilities and constraints, such a simple cross-over does not follow. In fact, the move into a new habitat, without other support, makes the lack of fit between the language and its new habitat apparent, with possible negative consequences. As such, a lexicographer becomes something other than Dr Johnson’s ‘harmless drudge’. Notes 1. The Don Balleine Trust has produced not only the DJF, but also a range of literary/ folkloric works, a regular journal – Chroniques du Don Balleine – and a primer Jèrriais Pour Tous (Birt, 1985). 2. Outside the work of the Don Balleine Trust itself, there are also a small number of language classes in which JNF is taught as a second language to both adults and children using materials developed by the Trust. The Assemblié d’Jèrriais also conducts a number of cultural activities using JNF. The work of the Don Balleine Trust is primarily directed at speakers of JNF. 3. Mühlhäusler (1992) has made a similar point about the effect of literacy in the Pacific.
Correspondence Any correspondence should be directed to Anthony J. Liddicot, Research Centre for Languages and Cultures, School of International Studies, University of South Australia, PO Box 2471, Adelaide SA 5001, Australia (Tony.Liddicoat@ unisa.edu.au). References Birt, P. (1985) Jèrriais Pour Tous [Jersey Norman French for All]. Jersey: Don Balleine. Fill, A. (1993) Ökolinguistik [Ecolinguistics]. Tübingen: Gunter Naar. Fill, A. (1996) Ökologie der Linguistik – Linguistik der Ökologie. [Ecology of linguistics – linguistics of ecology] In A. Fill (ed.) Sprachökologie und Ökolinguistik [Language Ecology and Ecolinguistics] (pp. 3–16). Tübingen: Stauffenburg. Fincke, P. (1983) Politizität. Zum Verhältnis von theoretischer Härte und praktischer Relevanz in der Sprachwissenschaft [‘Politizität’: The relationship between theoretical rigour and practical relevance in linguistics]. In P. Fincke (ed.) Sprache im politschen Kontext [Language in the Political Context] (pp. 15–75). Tübingen: Gunter Naar. Le Feuvre, G.F. (1976) Histouaithes et Gens d’Jèrri [Stories and People of Jersey]. Jersey: Don Balleine Trust. Le Maistre, F. (1966) Dictionnaire Jersiais–Français [Jersey Norman French – French Dictionary]. Jersey: Don Balleine Trust. Liddicoat, A.J. (1986) Lé Patouais, lé Bouon Français et l’Angliaichinn’nie: Dialect, French and the anglicization of Jersey and Sark. Working Papers in Linguistics, University of Melbourne 12, 27–39. Liddicoat, A.J. (1990) Some structural features of language obsolescence in the dialect of Jersey. Language Sciences 12 (2–3), 197–208. Liddicoat, A.J. (1994) A Grammar of the Norman French of the Channel Islands: The Dialects of Jersey and Sark. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. Lindstrom, L. (1988) The politics of dictionary-making on Tanna. In A. Pawley and L. Carrington (eds) Austronesian Linguistics at the Fifteenth Pacific Science Congress (pp. 329–41). Canberra: Pacific Linguistics. Mühlhäusler, P. (1992) ‘Reducing’ Pacific languages to writing. In J.E. John and T.J. Taylor (eds) Ideologies of Language (pp. 189–205). London: Routledge.
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Mühlhäusler, P. (1996a) Ecological and non-ecological approaches to language planning. In M. Hellinger and U. Ammon (eds) Contrastive Sociolinguistics (pp. 205–212. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. Mühlhäusler, P. (1996b) Language Ecology: Linguistic Imperialism and Language Change in the Pacific Region. London: Routledge. Ong, W.J. (1982) Orality and Literacy: Technologizing of the Word. London: Methuen
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Prestige From the Bottom Up: A Review of Language Planning in Guernsey Julia Sallabank Department of Linguistics and English Language, Lancaster University, Lancaster LA1 4YT, United Kingdom This paper discusses language planning measures in Guernsey, Channel Islands. The indigenous language is spoken fluently by only 2% of the population, and is at level 7 on Fishman’s 8-point scale of endangerment. It has no official status and low social prestige, and language planning has little official support or funding. Political autonomy has not increased the language’s status or stopped intergenerational transmission from declining. Most language planning initiatives are very small-scale and are undertaken by pressure groups or individuals, who focus on social prestige at grass-roots level rather than official status. The likelihood of success of current efforts is evaluated.
Keywords: endangered languages, revitalisation, status, prestige, planning, attitudes.
Background The Channel Islands are in the Gulf of St Malo off the coast of northern France (see Figure 1). Politically the islands are semi-autonomous dependencies of the British Crown, and are self-governing in domestic policy. They are not part of the United Kingdom and are only associate members of the European Community, so they are not subject to European laws or agreements such as the Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. Guernsey is the second largest of the islands, nine miles by seven by five miles (14.5km by 11km by 8km). The indigenous language variety in Guernsey has traditionally had very low prestige, and has no official standing. It is now at around level 7 on Fishman’s (1991) 8-point scale of language endangerment, that is, most native speakers are past child-bearing age. According to the 2001 census, which was the first to ask a language question, 14% of the total population of nearly 60,000 (i.e. 1 in 7) report having some understanding, but only 2% claim to speak it fluently (the same percentage as Gaelic in Scotland). The lack of official standing is illustrated by the fact that the variety has no official name. It is often called ‘the patois’, especially by non-speakers and by those who are not aware of the negative connotations of this word in French,1 but this is now objected to by some language campaigners. The census used the term Guernsey Norman French to avoid ambiguity, but this term is not in common use. It is also known as Guernsey French, but the majority of native speakers I have interviewed prefer to call it Guernesiais, so that is the term used in this paper. History English is a relatively recent newcomer to Guernsey; in the 18th century Methodist missionaries found very few people who could understand English (Marquis, 1997). 120 A Review of Language Planning in Guernsey
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Figure 1 The location of Guernsey in relation to France and the United Kingdom
Norman French has been spoken in the Channel Islands for over 1000 years. In 1066 Normandy (of which Guernsey was part) invaded England, and Norman French became the language of the elite in England. The Normans made widespread conquests and Norman became an international language of culture and politics in England, France and Italy, with a large body of literature. At that time the dialect of the Paris area, which later became the favoured variety of the French monarchy and Republic, was a minor local dialect. Norman is nowadays seen as a low-status unwritten patois, and there is relatively little awareness of its prestigious past, although older Guernsey people are proud that their forebears were on the winning side in the Battle of Hastings. King John of England, a descendant of the Norman conquerors and therefore ruler of both England and Normandy, lost control of mainland Normandy to the French in 1204. However, the Channel Islands chose to remain allied to the English crown; they owe their allegiance directly to the crown rather than to the British Government. In 2004 they celebrated their 800th anniversary of independence. The loss of mainland Normandy led the Normans in England to adopt a separate, English identity, and eventually the English language, although Norman French remained important until the 15th century, especially in legal documents, and had a profound influence on the development of the English language (Milroy, 1984; Thomason & Kaufman, 1988). Throughout the mediaeval period the French raided the Channel Islands (Marr, 2001); strategic importance may have encouraged the islanders to identify with the English Crown and distance themselves from a French identity. In the 17th century, Protestant refugees fled to Guernsey from religious persecution in France. At that time Guernsey was ruled by a strict Puritan ‘theocracy’
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(which almost wiped out traditional songs and dances), which welcomed Calvinist preachers fluent in French. According to De Garis (1973: 260 and p.c.), Standard French speakers thus gained positions of influence and introduced negative attitudes towards the indigenous vernacular. French was the High variety until the early 20th century (used for religion, education, government), and as in France it was seen as the language of civilisation. Until the mid 20th century a large proportion of the population was trilingual in Guernesiais, Standard French and English. In the 19th century, the Napoleonic wars brought an influx of British troops and cut the islands off from France. The development of regular steamboat services facilitated links with the UK, the growth of the tourist industry and increased immigration. The two ports (St Peter Port and St Sampson) became almost completely Anglicised. In 1898 the States (parliament) resolved that English should be permitted in debates, following pressure from St Peter Port members who could not understand French. In 1926, English was adopted as a second official language (Johnstone, 1994). From 1940 to 1945 the Channel Islands were occupied by the Germans. During the occupation Guernesiais was used more among the islanders who stayed, as a language of solidarity and secrecy. Nearly half of the population was evacuated to the UK just before the invasion, including practically all the children. The break in intergenerational transmission caused by the evacuation is commonly seen as the final nail in the coffin of Guernesiais. Its influence on language use and attitudes is debated: some speakers point out that they or relatives can still speak Guernesiais fluently after longer periods away; but the evacuees had no idea when or if they would return, and Britain in 1940 was intensely paranoid and suspicious of strangers speaking an incomprehensible language with so many /tʃ/ sounds, so evacuees felt under strong pressure to assimilate. The evacuees were also exposed to a literally less insular worldview, and when they returned were felt by others to ‘give themselves airs’. Some non-evacuees also objected to their ‘Anglicised twang’ when they spoke Guernesiais. Numerous informants have recounted how mistakes were not tolerated among children deemed to be native speakers, so confidence and motivation to speak Guernesiais were undermined. The evacuation probably hastened a process which was already well under way, as language shift is such a common phenomenon. The neighbouring island of Jersey was also occupied, but a much smaller proportion of the population was evacuated (Bunting, 1995); yet Jersey Norman French (Jèrriais) is now similarly endangered. After the war the prestige of Guernesiais was at its lowest ebb. In the culture of modernity of the time, Guernesiais was increasingly seen as an old-fashioned peasant dialect which would hold people back. English was used for all modern topics, and Guernesiais did not develop terms for new concepts such as refrigerators and bathrooms (Harry Tomlinson, p.c.). Guernsey benefited from UK economic aid, which, however, led to reliance on British expertise; and British teachers told children to ‘go home and come back when you can speak English’. Tourism increased, bringing yet more English speakers; advertising proudly boasted that the island had no language problem. The advent of mass media brought English into the home, and influenced aspirations and lifestyle.
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The banking industry grew rapidly in the 1970s, altering the balance of the previously farm-based economy. Agriculture and horticulture were hit by Britain’s entry into the EEC, as well as by the fuel crisis and the British dock strike in the 1970s. Of 2000 tomato and flower growers in 1947, only three firms remain, and 25 farmers out of 425 (Peter J. Falla, interview). The economy is currently booming due to Guernsey’s status as a tax haven and offshore banking centre. There is full employment and a high standard of living.
Research Methods I have been researching the linguistic situation in Guernsey since early 2000. The research instruments have been: · a questionnaire intended to discover the extent and contexts of the current use of Guernesiais; · a questionnaire on attitudes; · semi-structured and ethnographic interviews; and · participant observation at language festivals. Forty residents of Guernsey were interviewed in September 2001. The questionnaire contained a mixture of closed and open questions to facilitate analysis of baseline data. About a third of the interviews were conducted in Guernesiais,2 and the recordings include cultural information as well as rhymes and poems which could enrich archive material. Youngman (1978: 28) suggests that identifying respondents individually has advantages over chance or random mailings, as those who answer these will be self-selected and may be unrepresentative. I therefore identified informants via social networks (Milroy, 1987), but found that this can also have disadvantages. My primary contacts tended to be committed language activists with atypical patterns of use; I was also directed towards ‘good speakers’ (a problem identified by Watson, 1989: 56). Social network contacts are by definition socially integrated, which might skew the picture of the pattern of use if these speakers only were surveyed. In order to contact a wider range of respondents I appealed through the newsletters of local-interest societies such as La Société Guernesiaise (see ‘Language revitalisation groups’, below) and the Guernsey Society (originally a society for Second World War expatriates) and also took advantage of a generous offer by the then President of La Société Guernesiaise to circulate the questionnaire free of charge with their newsletter. Ninety responses were received, half from speakers of Guernesiais and half from Anglophones. The postal respondents proved to have much less dense social networks in Guernesiais, and lower levels of use. In May 2004 I circulated another questionnaire aimed at Anglophones to gauge attitudes towards revitalisation of Guernesiais. This questionnaire was distributed via contacts (of whom I by then had a wider variety) and elicited 200 responses, a cross-section of whom were interviewed in depth. Leading politicians and civil servants were also interviewed. A preliminary overview of results indicates that the prestige of Guernesiais may be rising, and that there is broad (though qualified) support for revitalisation.
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Haarmann (1990: 124) warns that ‘observers must always distinguish their interest in sociolinguistics from subjective evaluations of planning activities’, and goes on to say that ‘such a conflict of interest is a mere academic one and does not involve the conditions of languages and their speakers’. However, in a small community the very fact of having an outside expert doing research into a minority language can raise its prestige, and also encourage discussion of policy issues.
Levels of Use Language shift in Guernsey is further advanced than is the case with indigenous minority languages in many European countries. A colleague who visited Guernsey in July 2004 commented that ‘If it hadn’t been for the place names, the tourist visitor could easily believe the place is monolingually English’. All Guernesiais speakers are bilingual in English and most are elderly; there are relatively few second language learners due to negative attitudes and lack of provision. As noted in the Census report, there are considerably more people who understand Guernesiais than speak it fluently. Conversations where one interlocutor speaks Guernesiais and the other replies in English are not uncommon, but this requires persistence on the part of the Guernesiais speaker. Campaigners berate the failure to transform passive understanding (or competence, in language acquisition terminology, e.g. Scovel, 1998: 47) into active use (performance), but to do so would need careful encouragement and support. Children in the late 1940s and 1950s needed to understand older monolinguals, but were encouraged by parents to speak only English to improve their chances at school. The lack of Guernesiais-speaking interlocutors contributes to attrition processes in individuals and to the lexical impoverishment of Guernesiais. My 2001 survey revealed a wide range of levels of use of Guernesiais, from isolated speakers to a community of at least 100 people in early retirement who use Guernesiais for their entire social life (e.g. whist drives, bowls). However, only a small proportion have passed Guernesiais on to their children, and several seem content to let it die with them; others express regret but powerlessness. Guernesiais is predominantly used in the domestic domain. Respondents reported speaking it most often when meeting friends, at folk festivals, and at home. Festivals and church (mostly speaking to friends before and after services, although some ecumenical services are now held in Guernesiais) provide virtually the only public forums for using Guernesiais (see ‘Prestige and image planning’, below). The concept of domain proved difficult to explain to research participants. When asked what sort of things they talked about in Guernesiais, 32% of postal respondents and 57% of interviewees replied ‘general’ or ‘anything’. It appears that the deciding factor is not so much domain (as proposed by Fishman, 1991) as type of speech event. English is used for utilitarian events such as commercial and official transactions. Guernesiais fulfils a more phatic or affective role, for socially integrated speakers at least. There is a reluctance to speak Guernesiais with those who may have difficulty in responding comfortably; the circle of
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active speakers thus shrinks progressively. When Guernesiais speakers marry non-speakers, English tends to become the family language to avoid a situation where one parent feels left out of the conversation. Gal (1979) explains this as language choice by interlocutor, but it can also be explained by lack of confidence in Guernesiais due to its low social prestige: speakers are not assertive enough to demand its use. It is not thought polite to speak Guernesiais in front of people who cannot understand what is being said: one respondent commented ‘only the Welsh do this’. It can thus be seen that the prestige of Guernesiais is low, even compared to other European minority languages which have achieved a measure of normalisation and official standing. Supporters of Guernesiais are not uncommonly put in the position of having to defend its value and right to exist, which some understandably resent (De Garis, 1973).
Language Planning in Guernsey Fishman (1991) prefaces his 8-point scale of language endangerment with an important caveat for language planners involved in language revitalisation: ‘assuming prior ideological clarification’ of the relationship between language and culture, what exactly are planners trying to save, and why? Ten years later, Fishman (2001: 541) admits that it is quite common for enthusiasts to embark on revitalisation activities without such clarification, and without convincing arguments with which to counter critics. This is the case in Guernsey, where individuals and groups often disagree on matters such as the desirability of corpus planning, the effectiveness of particular activities, or the linguistic status of Guernesiais. However, a coordinating committee presents a unified face in order to maximise the impact of efforts (see ‘Language revitalisation groups’, below). The policy of the authorities, if policy it can be called, has traditionally been one of laissez-faire or benign neglect. Few Guernsey residents, even language enthusiasts, are willing to attribute anti-vernacular motives to this neglect, but it has undoubtedly increased the hegemony of English and had a negative effect on the prestige of Guernesiais. But as noted by Williams (2000: 169), ‘the absence of a legal status does not mean that language planning does not exist’. Language planning is traditionally categorised into four areas, although it is acknowledged that in practice they cannot be implemented without overlap: · · · ·
Status planning; Corpus planning; Language-in-education (or acquisition) planning; and Prestige planning. (Kaplan & Baldauf, 2003: 202)
The term ‘prestige planning’ was coined by Haarmann (1984, 1990) to differentiate activities aimed at promoting a positive view of a language from those concerned with political status or functions: ‘not only the content of planning activities is important but also the acceptance or rejection of planning efforts’ (Haarmann, 1990: 105). Ager, in this issue, introduces a new distinction between prestige planning and image planning, namely, increasing confidence in and goodwill towards a language (as in Gardner, 1993). Image planning thus covers many of the areas
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formerly subsumed under prestige planning. Ager claims that prestige planning necessarily involves conflict, but language planning activists in Guernsey prefer to avoid conflict, which they see as counterproductive to the promotion of a positive image. They recognise that English is necessary for modern life, but wish to build a new language ideology whereby: · bilingualism and linguistic diversity are valued; · it is not assumed that adopting a new language means abandoning the old; and · the traditional language is not seen as useless due to its lack of development and prestige. This echoes the preamble to the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages,3 which, while stressing ‘the value of interculturalism and multilingualism’, takes into account ‘that the protection and encouragement of regional or minority languages should not be to the detriment of the official languages and the need to learn them’. Cooper (1989: 31) notes that ‘some definitions restrict language planning to activities undertaken by governments, government-authorised agencies, or other authoritative bodies’ but concludes, ‘It would seem, therefore, that to restrict language planning to the work of authoritative institutions is to be too restrictive’. In the campaigning stages of language shift reversal efforts, bottom-up ‘planning’ is more common than the traditional view takes into account; for example, a large proportion of the case studies in Bradley and Bradley (2002). As noted by Ager in this issue, top-down planners tend to focus on status and corpus planning, whereas bottom-up campaigners focus on image and prestige. All language planning efforts in Guernsey so far have been bottom-up, by private groups and individuals, with little knowledge of linguistics, sociolinguistics or language planning theory, and there has been virtually no support from official bodies. Language revitalisation groups Guernsey is a small island with close-knit social networks, especially among the Guernesiais-speaking community. There are several local groups with an involvement in language revitalisation, but there is a considerable amount of overlap in membership and activities. · La Gaine du Vouest (The gang from the west), founded 1936, principally a singing group which has released numerous recordings of songs in Guernesiais; · L’Assembllaïe d’Guernesiais (The Assembly for Guernesiais), founded 1956, principally a forum for speaking Guernesiais; · Les Ravigotteurs (the Revitalisers), founded about 1995, which promotes second language learning of Guernesiais (all of the above also have a strong social function.) · La Société Guernesiaise, founded in the late 19th century, is principally a natural history society, but 30–40 years ago it had an active philological section. It continues to publish works in and about Guernesiais;
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· The Eisteddfod Committee organises the Guernsey French section of the annual Eisteddfod, a general cultural festival which includes everything from cake-making to roller-skating. The Guernsey French section was revived in 1985 and in recent years has expanded from one evening to two; in 2003–2004 seven primary schools and even a few individual children entered the public speaking competitions. Given the limited number of individuals involved and their other commitments, the indigenous language revitalisation movement has taken the path of collaborating on major events. Lé Coumité d’la Culture Guernesiaise (the Guernsey Cultural Committee) is an umbrella organisation originally formed for a festival in May 2000 involving groups from Guernsey, Jersey and mainland Normandy, which all have more or less mutually intelligible dialects of Norman. The festival has circulated annually between the venues since then and returned to Guernsey in 2003 and 2005, but may outgrow the organisers’ capabilities, as all are either retired or have jobs and families. Many of the activities undertaken, especially those under the auspices of Lé Coumité, have a prestige focus. They often take advantage of other events or commemorations to maximise opportunities to raise awareness of Guernesiais, for example, stressing its historical importance in a Norman feast to commemorate the 800th anniversary of island independence in 2004 using ‘the language spoken by King John’, or the 200th anniversary of the birth of Victor Hugo, who wrote many of his best known works while in exile in Guernsey and praised the local patois.4 The discussion of planning measures below will therefore focus on the prestige elements of each type. Status planning As mentioned above, Guernesiais has no official status; it is not used in any official capacity. A welcoming speech in Guernesiais for a visit by the Queen in 2000 was a significant breakthrough. At no time has the indigenous vernacular ever been considered as an official language or allowed to be used in parliamentary debates, unlike in the modern devolved assemblies of Scotland and Wales in the UK, and there is no provision for translation. One native speaker of Guernesiais who was a member of the island parliament (the States of Deliberation) at the time told me: Aen caoup dans l’s États je dis que si ch’était en guernesiais je pourrais mé – m’expressaï bian mus [laugh] – i riyaient [Once in the States I said that if it were in Guernsey French I would be able to express myself much better – they laughed]. There is no overt official language policy in Guernsey, no officially funded bodies with a mandate for language planning, and no publicly funded language officer (as there is in Jersey and the Isle of Man, islands with similar political and sociolinguistic situations). Guernsey is a member of the British-Irish Council, which was created under the Agreement reached in the Multi-Party Negotiations in Belfast in 1998 ‘to promote positive, practical relationships among its Members, which are the British and Irish Governments, the devolved administrations of Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales, and Jersey, Guernsey and the
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Isle of Man’ (British-Irish Council, 2004). The other members see maintaining regional identity as increasingly important in the era of globalisation, with regional languages a key element. As the only member not to have recognised its indigenous language, Guernsey has come under strong pressure to initiate an official language policy to support Guernesiais. The Government has been put in the position of having to be seen to do more than it is actually doing, to ‘project the desired external image’ (Ager, 1996: 26); in this context some funding has been offered to groups who can provide budgeted proposals. In anticipation of imminent recognition and funding, a committee including all interested groups has been set up to promote Guernesiais culture across the community as a whole, which proponents hope will become an officially funded commission with a full-time executive and two or three part-time workers. Collaboration with France is also being developed, with Norman French increasingly seen as a common area of cultural heritage. However, campaigning for official status is not currently seen as a priority by all campaigners. Reasons for this include an aversion to bureaucracy, a valuing of independence in policy making, and an unwillingness to cost or devalue voluntary efforts. The lack of official status affects the visibility of Guernesiais. The lack of signage, that is, written Guernesiais, in the environment has been identified by La Société Guernesiaise as a priority for increasing its status and hence its prestige. There is only one street sign overtly in Guernesiais: Bian venue à tous (Welcome all) outside the tourist board office (also in several other languages). The tourist board is the only official body to have funded language-related activities. This can be seen as indicative of the increased prestige of Guernesiais, as, unlike in the 1950s and 1960s, it is now seen as an asset rather than as something to be ashamed of. The majority of place names are still in Guernesiais (Coates, 1991; De Garis, 1976; Howlett, 1983). They tend to be written in French, although Guernesiais speakers usually pronounce them the Guernsey way. For example: Beaucamps /bjaυkε˜/; Planque /pjε˜k/; Quatre Chemins/kotkma˜/; Friquet /fritʃe/. However, knowledge of the Guernesiais pronunciations of these place-names is declining rapidly, and Beaucamps, for example, which is the name of a secondary school, is often called /bɘυkmps/.The increased mispronunciation of local place-names due to the lack of familiarity with both French and Guernesiais is a frequent topic of letters to the media.6 A sign commonly seen is Ces premises sont terre à l’amende (see Figure 2), which appears at first glance to be in French but which makes very little sense in modern Standard French (‘these assertions are land at fine’). The illocutionary meaning is ‘no parking’. This is not really Guernesiais but legal French, heavily influenced by Norman, which was used in the UK until at least the 15th century. Guernsey lawyers (known as advocates) still have to spend six months at Caen University in mainland Normandy to familiarise themselves with Norman law, although legal terminology is gradually switching to English. In the 1950s there were Guinness advertisements in Guernesiais: A-tu-y ta Guinness onier? (‘Have you had your Guinness today?’); Guinness est bonne pour te (‘Guinness is good for you’). However, the marketing rationale for these declined with the speaker base. Nevertheless, a new hypermarket owned by a Jersey company, which also owns numerous smaller shops in the islands, has signboards with types of produce in Guernesiais (see Figure 3), and also some
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Figure 2 No parking
Figure 3 Sign in Guernesiais in a hypermarket
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food packets labelled in Guernesiais. The fact that the company signals local identity through the indigenous vernacular as a marketing ploy (presumably to distinguish itself from UK-owned rivals) indicates that it must see this as advantageous. As will be seen in other areas of language planning, public opinion and private initiatives are thus ahead of official policy. Another example of this is the growing fashion to have house names in Guernesiais (outside the main towns houses do not have numbers); Guernesiais speakers are often asked to suggest names. Languages which are clearly differentiated from neighbouring languages are termed Abstandsprachen (Kloss, 1967). Others, which have established their identity by emphasising features which distinguish them from related languages, are termed Ausbausprachen. In both categories, the claims of languages to be established in their own right are often furthered by their use as a symbol of national identity in struggles for political independence. French, as the more powerful partner in the pre-20th century diglossic relationship in Guernsey, was the Dachsprache in Kloss’s terms, literally ‘roof language’, sometimes called ‘overarching language’ in English (Muljačič, 1989). According to Kloss (1952), it should in theory be easier for a language variety to develop into an Ausbausprache if its speakers are politically independent of the overarching variety. As Guernsey is politically separate from France, this should, in theory, allow Guernesiais to develop into a language in its own right. Adler (1977: 99) and Fishman (1991) see political autonomy or self-determination as one of the keys to safeguarding a language’s vitality. However, in Guernsey this has not been the case. The island has been politically autonomous since 1204, but the indigenous language is now highly endangered. It could even be possible that the language has lost prestige due to the lack of need for it as a symbol of independence. Corpus planning As mentioned above, Guernesiais contains very few terms for modern items. Lexical modernisation is not felt to be a priority by campaigners, as the language fulfils a mainly phatic role. This can lead to borrowing from English and lexical erosion in Guernesiais, which some speakers view as problematic, although others cite the influence of Norman on English and view borrowing from English as the return of a long-term loan, pointing out that what many people see as Anglicisms are in fact old Norman terms, e.g. shop, curtains, coat (Gallienne, 2004). While this stresses the former prestige of Guernesiais/Norman, it may be at the expense of its current prestige, as some Anglophones perceive Guernesiais as a random mixture of French and English and use this as an excuse to denigrate it as ‘not a proper language’. There is a certain amount of avoidance of the issue of standardisation among language campaigners, in order to avoid conflicts of opinion. There is no accepted standard spelling, and no single prestige regional variety. There is a high degree of regional variation (a common feature of non-standardised languages), even in such a small island. Relatively few Guernesiais speakers feel comfortable writing it: due to the lack of official recognition, there has never been any literacy training. A sizeable proportion of both speakers and non-speakers
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maintain that it is not a written language. Nevertheless, there is a considerable corpus of literature in Guernesiais, both published (especially 19th century poems by George Métivier, the national poet (Girard, 1980) and his friend Denys Corbet) and unpublished. However, there have been several dictionaries of Guernesiais compiled, which is one measure of how a language establishes Ausbau and raises its prestige. Métivier compiled the first dictionary in 1870, and contemporary writers praised him for having ‘placé le guernesiais au nombre des idiomes reconnus et vivants’ (‘placed Guernesiais among the ranks of recognised and living tongues’) (Boland, 1885: 68). However, his dictionary contains more French than presentday speakers find acceptable (or intelligible). Métivier (1866) referred to French as ‘the language of civilisation’ and may well have been tempted to ‘civilise’ Guernesiais by importing French elements. The most widely used dictionary was compiled in the 1960s by a committee of native speakers from L’Assembllaïe d’Guernesiais (De Garis, 1967, revised 1982). Although it is widely respected and represents a huge achievement, the compilers had no linguistic or lexicographical training, and it is not fully consistent. The majority of my respondents who write in Guernesiais claim to use its spelling and some even go and see the editor, Marie de Garis, to ask her to check pieces which are for public consumption (as happened while I was visiting her). This shows an overt awareness of the need for a common spelling, if not a standard; however, an examination of recent writing in Guernesiais shows that in practice writers often ignore the dictionary (Sallabank, 2002). There is anecdotal evidence that, in the absence of literacy training in Guernesiais, speakers who are not aware of its structure (or of Standard French spelling and grammar) find themselves unable to relate the written form to the spoken one. Language in education There is considerable debate in language revitalisation movements worldwide about the role of schools (e.g. Hornberger & King, 1996). It tends to be a key aim of campaigners, although the received wisdom among researchers is that of Fishman (1991): promoting the speaking of a language in the home is the most effective way of saving it; promoting its use outside the home, such as in schools, can wait. It is also by no means certain that children who only learn a language at school speak it outside, and even less certain that they will raise children speaking it, especially as the kind of language they learn at school is not the kind used in childcare, although Cooper (1989: 13) notes that ‘what led to the use of Hebrew at home was its prior promotion as the language of instruction at school’. This was also the case with English in Guernsey: many of my informants stated that a major reason for stopping speaking Guernesiais in the home was that it was not approved of in school. The low prestige of Guernesiais was reinforced by the education system, which explains the key symbolic role of acceptance in schools in increasing its status, prestige, and perceived utility. Since September 2003 a pilot project has been running optional extra-curricular classes once a week in three Guernsey schools with children aged 6–7. One reason for teaching this age group is the lack of an agreed orthographic standard and ‘modern’ lexis which would be needed for teaching more challenging
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content through Guernesiais. The current scheme was initiated by a member of the island parliament, Jonathan Le Tocq, but it is run on an entirely voluntary basis, with no government finance or prepared materials, and is taught by members of Lé Coumité, Les Ravigotteurs, and the Eisteddfod committee (two of whom are retired French teachers). The lessons are very popular and in one school I observed, there were more parents than children present. Mainstream teachers also attend, and practise with the children between lessons. There is particular interest among parents of British origin, which is significant given that a third of the current population of Guernsey was born outside the island. It is obvious that with less than an hour a week of input, the pupils are not going to become fluent speakers quickly. The main benefits of the scheme are symbolic: as a foot in the door to official acceptance, and to value local identity, which is the factor cited in media coverage: ‘“I’m under no illusion that it’ll become our business language, but it is a vital part of our culture”, he [Le Tocq] said’ (Baudains, 2004). The problem with a voluntary scheme is that, as with the inter-island festival mentioned earlier, it may not be sustainable. There are more schools wanting to take part than the volunteer teachers can cope with, and there are not enough teachers or resources to both continue with the children who have done one year, and introduce Guernesiais to a new set of children. But disappointing either group might risk losing some of the goodwill that has been gained. One government initiative which may have a positive effect on indigenous language maintenance (but which is still at a rudimentary stage) is the possibility of including Guernesiais in the new school Citizenship curriculum. Although there is considerable pride in Guernsey’s independence and constitution among both the public and politicians, little local culture or history is taught in schools. By and large, Guernsey follows the British National Curriculum, although it does not have to. The Education Department has been criticised for this lack of autonomy: Many teachers come to Guernsey on short-term contracts, they bring with them their culture and experience but not knowledge of the island. Nothing of island history or culture is taught in its schools. The English National Curriculum is followed. Younger Guernsey people are denied knowledge not only of the Christian faith and the French language, but also of their own cultural heritage. (Le Poidevin, 2004: 16) However, in the area of Citizenship, the island authorities have realised that the British curriculum bears no relevance to local needs, and have proposed a syllabus along the lines of ‘Local Heritage’, which may include Guernesiais, probably focusing on raising awareness. Prestige and image planning As mentioned earlier, Guernesiais is a very low-status variety, often seen as a patois or corrupt French; indeed, Standard French is still known as ‘Good French’. Current language planning measures focus on promoting acceptance of Guernesiais as a legitimate mode of expression, and providing opportunities for speakers and learners to use it. For example, as mentioned above, festivals are one of
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the few forums for speaking and hearing Guernesiais publicly, both among the audience and by announcers. They are attended mainly by Guernesiais speakers (and provide an important social function for isolated speakers), but also by tourists, friends and relatives of performers, and other interested members of the public. Festivals increase the visibility of Guernesiais and allow speakers to express pride in it, for example through media coverage, which is important for both awareness-raising and prestige. The only TV or radio provision in Guernesiais is five minutes a week of radio news at 8.35 am on Saturdays. Given this timing, remarkably 41% of interviewees who answered this question said they always listen, and 53% more listen sometimes. Interestingly, 26% of non-speaker questionnaire respondents reported sometimes listening, and 3% always: four more in total than the 11 non-speaker respondents who understand some Guernesiais. From 2001 to 2003 there was a short column in Guernesiais in a free weekly newspaper (with an English translation). Articles were contributed by the Ravigotteurs group, and provided a valuable showcase for demonstrating that non-traditional topics could be addressed in Guernesiais (e.g. the bombing of Afghanistan, or new roads), but the project was eventually abandoned due to the difficulty of obtaining regular copy, and in many cases translating it. A more recent initiative takes a different approach: the major daily paper in Guernsey has agreed to run a regular short feature giving Guernesiais vocabulary with pictures and pronunciation tips, plus a dire du jour (saying of the day). This is seen by the initiators as less challenging and more reader-friendly than longer articles, and ties in with language-in-education initiatives. The stated aim is to raise the profile of Guernesiais and attract people not originally interested in language issues (Jonathan Le Tocq, p.c.). Some minority languages, such as Welsh or Gaelic, had their prestige as literary languages enhanced by the translation of the Bible, and numerous other languages have first been given an orthography by missionaries. However, the Bible has never been translated into Guernesiais; after the Protestant Reformation in the 16th century, a French Bible and Prayer Book were used once the Anglican Church realised that nobody understood the English ones. In the first few interviews I conducted, one of the questions I asked interviewees was which language they talked to God in, following the example of Gal (1979), on the assumption that this would be the language they felt most emotionally close to. However, the reaction of interviewees to this question was quite negative, and I soon learnt that Guernesiais was not considered of high enough prestige for talking to God. Nevertheless, attitudes are changing: l’Assembllaïe d’Guernesiais holds annual ecumenical church services in Guernesiais, and in 2001 a new minister at a Methodist church in Torteval, the westernmost part of Guernsey where Guernesiais now has most ethnolinguistic vitality, was welcomed with a hymn sung in Guernesiais. Negative attitudes towards minority languages are well documented in the literature (e.g. Baker, 1992; Dorian, 1981; Kuter, 1989; Williamson, 1991 inter alia) and both contribute to and are reinforced by low prestige, a vicious circle which leads to an ideology of deficit and promotes language shift. It is not uncommon for this ideology to be internalised by the speakers themselves: Labov (1966: 489) claimed that ‘the term “linguistic self-hatred” may not be too extreme’. Spence
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(1993: 4) notes of Jersey: ‘The fact that many of those who habitually spoke Jèrriais themselves regarded it as a “patois” is certainly a significant factor in its decline, in so far as it made them less committed to the survival of the vernacular, and influenced the attitude of their children.’ As with many other minority vernaculars, Guernesiais has been perceived as an impediment to social advancement. Many people I have interviewed, especially Anglophones, view the local indigenous vernacular as ‘useless’: I think it would be more useful to teach good French. (Catholic priest, mid-60s) I think it would be more useful to teach a modern European language such as French or German. (Dentist, male, early 40s) If children are going to learn another language at school they should learn proper French or German or Spanish, or even an Eastern language – a language that’s widely used. (Retired teacher, female, early 70s) However, speakers now demonstrate increased confidence and pride in Guernesiais: I think that was the thing – that’s how we started to lose it after the war er it wasn’t the in thing – to speak Guernsey French and that is right that in certain company you didn’t speak it – because it made you feel a bit inferior but now it’s the other way round – you don’t feel at all inferior if you know it, it’s completely the opposite you know? (Retired politician, male, 70s) I was put down at school for being from the country and didn’t admit to speaking Guernsey French . . . J’oïmerais bian que tout ma fomille [pâle] pasque quënd j’étais p’tite j’étais embarrassaï dé lé pâlaï mais . . . aucht’haeure je sis aen amas fière que je peur lé pâlaï [ . . . I’d like all my family [to speak] because when I was little I was embarrassed to speak it but . . . now I’m very happy that I can speak it’]. (Office worker, female, 50s) Although over half of the school pupils aged 11–18 interviewed at four secondary schools reported having little interest in Guernesiais, a small but significant proportion independently expressed interest in learning it as ‘a secret language of our own’. This kind of covert prestige (Dauenhauer & Dauenhauer, 1998) appeals to affect rather than status, and may offer a way for language planners to sell traditional language and culture to young people, as they place little value on it otherwise.
Prospects for Revitalisation Comments from research respondents provide useful insights into the perceived success of language planning. There is a new realisation that Guernesiais really might disappear; until now it has been taken for granted as part of the island’s background, and ignored. Hence the desire of groups to raise its profile in the community. For language maintenance and revitalisation measures to gain the support of gate-keeping and funding authorities, they need to be accepted by the majority community, who by definition do not speak the minority language. Some
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non-Guernesiais-speaking respondents are overtly hostile to revitalisation: ‘No point in trying to revive – waste of time – Latin far more valuable’; ‘Communication between groups should be made easier rather than reintroducing an incomprehensible patois’; ‘The only people who want to save the language are intellectuals’. However, these respondents were in a minority, and my surveys revealed substantial though passive support for language revitalisation among nonspeakers: e.g. ‘It would be a tragedy if it were to die out’; ‘I would welcome its return via schools – wish I had had the opportunity’. Many were supportive but pessimistic, e.g. ‘Not enough middle-aged people, too much of a gap’; ‘Brave attempts by Ravigotteurs to keep language alive, but too far gone for long-term revival’. Considerable prestige and image planning will be needed to overcome such pessimism. Bottom-up efforts may be effective in improving a language’s image: Cooper (1989: 161) contrasts the relative success of language planning for the revitalisation of Ma-ori and Irish, commenting that in New Zealand the initiative for the revitalisation program has come from the Ma-oris themselves , whereas in Ireland the government promoters of maintenance made no serious attempt to promote the enthusiasm of people of the Gaeltacht themselves. The initiative came from outside . Nevertheless, Spolsky (2004: 198 and p.c.), also commenting on Ma-ori revitalisation, sees eventual government recognition and support as essential for success. Certainly this would provide more time, funds and resources than private groups and individuals currently have at their disposal. Language revitalisation in Guernsey still has a long way to go before it can claim the (relative) success of Welsh or Ma-ori, and it is likely that the current older generation will be the last fluent native speakers.
Conclusion It could easily be said that current language planning efforts in Guernsey are too little, too late. But as Dorian (1987) points out, even unsuccessful attempts raise awareness and prestige of a language. This is a necessary prerequisite to language planning in Guernsey as some residents, especially those of non-island origin or in the more Anglicised areas, are not even aware that it has an indigenous language: one informant who is a civil servant reported being asked by a British colleague what language she had been speaking on the phone to a Guernesiais-speaking colleague. I also found very low levels of awareness at a school in the second largest town (St Sampson), which was one of the earliest places to be Anglicised. It can be argued that all the current efforts involve a measure of prestige and image planning, either overtly or implicitly (although most grass-roots campaigners are not aware of the concepts). It can also be argued that this is a prerequisite for the acceptance and success of other measures, as any publicly funded measures would require the support of the Anglophone majority. However, prestige planning is not enough on its own to revive ethnolinguistic vitality, including intergeneration transmission. Some speakers whose performance in festivals is high in terms of accent and accuracy, or who teach Guernesiais in the schools project, lack the confidence to speak Guernesiais in their everyday life, or
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to transmit it to their own children. For ethnolinguistic vitality to be revived, prestige and image planning would have to reach a critical mass whereby the climate was ready for more substantive measures such as effective language teaching (e.g. immersion), full documentation, and community measures such as childcare classes including Guernesiais and a master-apprentice programme (Hinton, 1997) to link isolated speakers with learners. But Thieberger (2002) argues that token maintenance may be adequate for image and identity purposes: ‘language revival need not be an “all or nothing” venture’. The planning aspect of language revitalisation in Guernsey has not yet reached the stage of discussing the end goal; consensus is seen as essential for effective campaigning, so that as with standardisation, debating such issues may be seen as potentially divisive. I have noticed attitudes changing perceptibly over the five years of my research so far: the prestige of Guernesiais is growing and it is generally now seen as a valuable part of island heritage. Very few people, and no public figures, are now prepared to make on-the-record statements against indigenous language revitalisation. Although there have so far been few official initiatives, the climate seems to be ripe for public support of private efforts. Nevertheless, there is still little sense of urgency, and prestige and image planning remains at the ‘drip-feed’ level. Without larger-scale measures in all areas of language planning, it is likely that the current efforts will be too little, too late. Acknowledgements The researcher is grateful to the UK Economic and Social Research Council for funding this ressearch. Correspondence Any correspondence should be directed to Julia Sallabank, Department of Linguistics and English Language, Lancaster University, LA1 4YT, United Kingdom (
[email protected]). Notes 1. Martel (1966: 51) wrote: ‘We have not used the pejorative word “patois” for our dictionary. According to the Larousse dictionary, “patois” means “l’idiome populaire propre à une province et surtout un langage bizarre et incorrect”’ [“the popular variety belonging to a province and above all bizarre and incorrect language”]. Many British and some Guernsey people also associate the word patois with ‘creole’ due to its association with Jamaican patois. 2. The researcher’s mother is from Guernsey and the researcher spent most summers there when a child. Although the family did not speak Guernesiais, there must have been some passive exposure as it seems very familiar when ‘relearning’ it. As there are no published materials available for learning Guernesiais and the researcher could not spend enough time in Guernsey to attend evening classes, she learnt to speak Guernesiais by talking to speakers, using her knowledge of French as support. The researcher also had the experience, common to many Guernesiais speakers, of finding French very easy at school. 3. The Charter has, of course, no force in Guernsey as it is not a full member of the European Union, and most activists are not aware of it. 4. It is also claimed, apocryphally, that Hugo introduced a Guernesiais term into Standard French: pieuvre ‘octopus’.
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5. The pronunciation of beau in the English word ‘beautiful’ and the place-name ‘Beaulieu’ illustrates the amount of influence from Norman on English. 6. Radio announcers on short-term contracts from the UK come in for special criticism.
References Adler, M. (1977) Welsh and the Other Dying Languages of Europe: A Sociolinguistic Study. Hamburg: Buske. Ager, D.E. (1996) Language Policy in Britain and France: The Processes of Policy. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters. Ager, D.E. (2005) Prestige and image planning. Current Issues in Language Planning (this issue). Baker, C. (1992) Attitudes and Language. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters. Baudains, N. (2004) Pilot scheme will teach our language. Guernsey Press (2 January), 5. Boland, H. (1885) Les institutions de langue française à Guernesey [French language institutions in Guernsey]. Revue Internationale 8, 66–85 and 190–212. Bradley, D. and Bradley, M. (eds) (2002) Language Endangerment and Language Maintenance: An Active Approach. London: RoutledgeCurzon. British-Irish Council (2004) Work of the British-Irish Council: Minority and lesser-used languages. On WWW at http://www.britishirishcouncil.org/work/language.asp. Accessed 24.09.04. Bunting, M. (1995) The Model Occupation. London: HarperCollins. Coates, R. (1991) The Ancient and Modern Names of the Channel Islands: A Linguistic History. Mediaeval Studies 6. Stamford: Paul Watkins. Cooper, R. (1989) Language Planning and Social Change. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Dauenhauer, N.M. and Dauenhauer, R. (1998) Technical, emotional, and ideological issues in reversing language shift: Examples from Southeast Alaska. In L.A. Grenoble and L.J. Whaley (eds) Endangered Languages: Language Loss and Community Response (pp. 57–98). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. De Garis, M. (ed.) (1967, revised 1982) Dictiounnaire Angllais-Guernesiais [EnglishGuernesiais Dictionary]. Chichester: Phillimore. De Garis, M. (1973) Philological report. Transactions of La Société Guernesiaise 19, 260–61. De Garis, M. (1976) Glossary of Guernsey Place-Names. St Peter Port, Guernsey: Société Guernesiaise. Dorian, N.C. (1981) Language Death: The Life Cycle of a Scottish Gaelic Dialect. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. Dorian, N.C. (1987) The value of maintenance efforts which are unlikely to succeed. International Journal of the Sociology of Language 68, 57–67. Fishman, J.A. (ed.) (1991) Reversing Language Shift: Theoretical and Empirical Foundations of Assistance to Threatened Languages. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters. Fishman, J.A. (ed.) (2001) Can Threatened Languages be Saved? Reversing Language Shift, Revisited: A 21st Century Perspective. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters. Gal, S. (1979) Language Shift: Social Determinants of Linguistic Change in Bilingual Austria. New York: Academic Press. Gallienne, W.T. (2004) The importance of our language. Review of the Guernsey Society 60 (2), 24–6. Gardner, N. (1993) Goodwill, Language Planning and Language Policies. Carmarthen: Joint Working Party on Bilingualism in Dyfed. Girard, P. (1980) George Métivier, Guernsey’s national poet. Report and Transactions of La Société Guernesiaise 20, 617–23. Haarmann, H. (1984) Sprachplanung und Prestigeplanung [Language planning and prestige planning]. Europa Ethnica 41 (2), 81–9. Haarmann, H. (1990) Language planning in the light of a general theory of language: A methodological framework. International Journal of the Sociology of Language 86, 103–26. Hinton, L. (1997) Survival of endangered languages: The Californian Master-Apprentice program. International Journal of the Sociology of Language 123, 177–91.
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Hornberger, N.H. and King, K. (1996) Language revitalization in the Andes: Can the schools reverse language shift? Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development 17, 427–41. Howlett, C.J. (1983) Guernsey Street and Road Names: A History of the Parishes and their Folklore. Guernsey: Howlett. Johnstone, P. (1994) A Short History of Guernsey (4th edn). Guernsey: Guernsey Press. Kaplan, R.B. and Baldauf, Jr, R.B. (2003) Language and Language-in-Education Planning in the Pacific Basin. Dordrecht: Kluwer. Kloss, H. (1952) Die Entwicklung Neuer Germanischen Kultursprachen von 1800–1950 [The Development of New Germanic Languages of Culture from 1800–1950]. Munich: Pohl. Kloss, H. (1967) ‘Abstand languages’ and ‘Ausbau languages’. Anthropological Linguistics 9, 29–71. Kuter, L. (1989) Breton vs. French: Language and the opposition of political, economic, social, and cultural values. In N.C. Dorian (ed.) Investigating Obsolescence: Studies in Language Contraction and Death (pp. 75–89). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Labov, W. (1966) The effect of social mobility on linguistic behavior. Social Inquiry 36, 186–203. Le Poidevin, N. (2004) Whither Guernsey revisited. Review of the Guernsey Society 60 (2), 15–18. Marquis, J. (1997) La situâtiaon d’la langue en Guernesi depis la Réformâtiaon au jour d’ogniet [The language situation in Guernsey from the Reformation to the present day]. Le Viquet 117, 6–16. Marr, J. (2001) The History of Guernsey: The Bailiwick’s Story. Guernsey: Guernsey Press. Martel, E. (1966) Some thoughts on the compiling of ‘Le Dictiounnaire AngllaisGuernesiais’. Transactions of la Société Guernesiaise 18, 49–51. Métivier, G. (1866) Fantaisie Guernesiaise: Dans le Langage du Pays, la Langue de la Civilisation, et Celle du Commerce [Guernsey Fantasy: In the Speech of the Country, the Language of Civilisation, and that of Commerce]. Guernsey: Thomas-Mauger Bichard. Métivier, G. (1870) Dictionnaire Franco-Normand, ou Recueil des Mots Particuliers au Dialecte de Guernesey: Faisant voir les Relations Romaines, Celtiques et Tudesques [Franco-Norman Dictionary, or List of Words Particular to the Dialect of Guernsey: Demonstrating the Romance, Celtic and Teutonic links]. Guernsey: Thomas-Mauger Bichard. Milroy, J. (1984) The history of English in the British Isles. In P. Trudgill (ed.) Language in the British Isles (pp. 5–31). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Milroy, L. (1987) Language and Social Networks (2nd edn). Oxford: Blackwell. Muljačič, Z. (1989) Über den Begriff Dachsprache [On the concept of Dachsprache]. In U. Ammon (ed.) Status and Function of Languages and Language Varieties (pp. 256–77). Berlin: Walter de Gruyter. Sallabank, J. (2002) Writing in an unwritten language: The case of Guernsey French. Reading University Working Papers in Linguistics 6, 217–44. Scovel, T. (1998) Psycholinguistics. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Spence, N.C.W. (1993) A Brief History of Jèrriais. Jersey: Le Don Balleine. Spolsky, B. (2004) Language Policy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Thieberger, N. (2002) Extinction in whose terms? Which parts of a language constitute a target for language maintenance programmes? In D. Bradley and M. Bradley (eds) Language Endangerment and Language Maintenance: An Active Approach (pp. 310–28). London: RoutledgeCurzon. Thomason, S.G. and Kaufman, T. (1988) Language Contact, Creolization, and Genetic Linguistics. Berkeley: University of California Press. Watson, S. (1989) Scottish and Irish Gaelic: The giant’s bed-fellows. In N. Dorian (ed.) Investigating Obsolescence: Studies in Language Contraction and Death (pp. 41–59). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Williams, G. (2000) Language Planning and Language Use: Welsh in a Global Age. Cardiff: University of Wales Press. Williamson, R.C. (1991) Minority Languages and Bilingualism: Case Studies in Maintenance and Shift. Norwood, NJ: Ablex. Youngman, M.B. (1978) Designing and Analysing Questionnaires. Rediguide 12. University of Nottingham School of Education.
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Language Planning in American Indian Pueblo Communities: Contemporary Challenges and Issues Christine P. Sims Department of Language, Literacy, and Sociocultural Studies, College of Education, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, New Mexico, USA In the American southwest, Pueblo Indian tribes have managed to retain their languages and cultures far longer than many American Indian tribes who have suffered complete language loss as a result of historical oppression, displacement and annihilation. In more recent times, however, Pueblo Indian tribes have faced tremendous pressures to abandon their languages resulting in varying degrees of gradual language erosion. This paper describes some of the challenges and issues facing American Indian Pueblos in their efforts to plan and implement language maintenance initiatives. Maintaining oral language traditions that are the basis of Pueblo life raises important considerations about the starting point for community-based language planning. Tribal perspectives about teaching and learning language as well as tribal self-determination are discussed with regard to their influence on specific directions such initiatives have taken at the community level and in their introduction and expansion into mainstream school settings.
Keywords: American Indian language maintenance, American Indian Pueblo languages, American Indian language planning, New Mexico Pueblo Indians
Introduction Among American Indian tribes in the United States, the continuation of cultural values, traditions, native belief systems and governance is inextricably linked to language survival. Unfortunately, for some of these tribes, language loss has already occurred to the extent that few speakers remain. It has been estimated that approximately 80% of the 175 extant American Indian languages in the United States are no longer being spoken by younger generations, namely the children of these communities (Krauss, 1992, 1996). Continued transmission of these languages, therefore, represents an issue of significant concern for many American Indian tribes today. The term ‘tribe’ as used in this paper denotes a specific federally recognised indigenous group in the United States with the legal status of a sovereign political entity. This status of ‘nations within a nation’ (Calloway, 2004) is unique among indigenous people of America and has its basis in treaties and Executive Orders established by the United States Federal Government (Cohen, 1982; Deloria & Lytle, 1983). Tribal sovereignty essentially provides American Indian tribes the right to govern themselves and regulate their own internal customs, laws, and traditions (Deloria & Lytle, 1983). In the state of New Mexico, 22 separate tribes are situated in villages and ancestral lands of the American southwest. It is home to some of the oldest, continuously inhabited indigenous communities in the United States. Among 139
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the 22 tribes, 19 are considered Pueblo Indian tribes. The 1848 Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo between the United States and Mexico ensured the protection of ancestral Pueblo lands and their right to self-governance (Sando, 1992). Pueblo is a Spanish term meaning ‘town’ or ‘village’. This term was used to describe the indigenous multi-storeyed dwellings that were already in existence at the time of the 16th century Spanish entrance into the southwest (Ortiz, 1994). This term continues to be used today to differentiate the 19 Pueblo tribes from their Athabaskan neighbours, namely the Navajo and Apache, in terms of political and sociocultural differences. Today, ‘pueblo’ is often used interchangeably with ‘tribe’ denoting the separate political status that each of the 19 communities retains. Each pueblo maintains its own land base, an autonomous system of tribal governance and jurisprudence, unique social and cultural traditions as well as its own tribal language. ‘Pueblo’ and ‘tribe’ are therefore terms that will be used by the author throughout the remainder of this paper. Together, all 22 New Mexico tribes represent a rich tapestry of indigenous languages. Among the 19 Pueblo tribes, five different language families exist. These include: (1) the Keres language spoken by seven Pueblos; (2) the Tiwa language spoken by four Pueblos; (3) the Tewa language spoken by six Pueblos; (4) the Towa language spoken only in Jemez Pueblo; and (5) the Zuni language spoken in the Pueblo of Zuni. Within these linguistic families each Pueblo tribe maintains its own dialect reflecting Individual group identities, thus adding to the complexity of the region’s linguistic landscape. As well, there are the Athabaskan languages spoken by the Navajo and Apache people. For Pueblo Indian tribes specifically, the challenge of developing tribal language maintenance initiatives within the community and more recently, unique issues, have surfaced in school settings related to language planning; a process that would have been unthinkable 20 years ago given the history of vigorous language use. In this paper I describe some of the reasons that have led several Pueblos to consider community-based language planning and how this has also meant the exercise of unique and unprecedented actions based on principles of tribal sovereignty and language rights. This has been especially important in relation to mainstream educational systems where some Pueblo tribal heritage language programmes have been recently established. In these cases, tribal language planning has had to address novel issues related to the certification of native language speakers teaching in public schools, formulation of instructional content for tribal heritage language programmes, and the overall direction of tribal language initiatives within school settings. Two underlying premises are made with respect to the significance of Pueblo tribal language planning activities. First, tribal communities and their perspectives about language survival, and what this means to them, play a critical role in guiding the direction of language renewal efforts. There exists in these communities a multi-dimensional aspect to planning and implementation of language initiatives that reflect unique historical and sociocultural experiences that have shaped their perspectives about language. This means that Pueblo communities must consider not only programme development but how these programmes will serve their communities. Often this places community needs in conflict with school philosophies and regulations.
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Second, the sociocultural and sociopolitical structures of tribal community life also play an important role in the way that members of these communities maintain leadership of their own language initiatives. This is an important factor in their success and ability to undertake and sustain language efforts. The unique status that these tribes retain as federally recognised entities adds yet another dimension to language renewal efforts in their dealings with education institutions outside the tribe. Their right to self-governance and the maintenance of indigenous governance systems, in particular, has afforded Pueblo communities the protection of their social structures, thereby permitting a high degree of ‘cultural resilience’ (Blum Martinez, 2000). This aspect of internal tribal life is often unfamiliar to public agencies in terms of who sets the direction for language initiatives and how the work of language renewal is to be carried out. In the context of Pueblo Indian language initiatives, a consideration of these two fundamental aspects is especially critical where community-based language activities have arrived at a critical juncture in their expansion to mainstream education institutions. My work with American Indian language communities as a researcher, educator and a member of a Pueblo Indian community is the basis for my analysis of how community-based language planning is also illustrative of broader implications tied to tribal self-determination and its importance in American Indian language survival. The circumstances of historical experiences as well as the social and cultural organisation of these groups are vastly different from other minority language groups in the United States. Few studies or descriptions of contemporary American Indian language renewal initiatives include an examination and explication of the underlying perspectives and dynamics that play a significant role in specific tribal language efforts. In this paper, I focus on several of these aspects as they pertain to Pueblo Indian language communities with whom I have worked on language programme planning issues and language maintenances initiatives. In the following section I begin with a brief background about Pueblo Indian languages, providing the context for the contemporary issues and challenges presented in this paper. I will then present data about several specific planning processes that some Pueblo Indian communities have engaged in, further illustrating how tribal perspectives play a role in these activities, and how particular issues have been resolved and addressed within the framework of tribal sovereignty. Finally, I conclude with some considerations and implications as they apply to the broader context of language planning work and what this means for indigenous language communities.
Pueblo Indian Languages Pueblo Indian tribes have maintained their ancestral homelands for centuries. Most trace their ancestry to pre-Columbian sites and Puebloan cultures that occupied a broad pre-historic cultural area frequently referred to as the Anasazi region located in the Four Corners1 area of the American southwest (Ortiz, 1994). References to many of the ancient sites located in this area are often included in the oral traditions of many Pueblos. Among these tribes oral traditions have been the expressive medium for their native religious and spiritual practices as
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well as the basis for traditional governance and social cohesion. As such, these tribes have historically guarded and maintained their languages, their cultural ways, and spiritual practices despite past regimes of foreign domination under Spanish, Mexican and American governments (Suina, 1990). In more recent times, however, there has been ‘tremendous pressure to abandon tribal languages especially during the early 20th century when United States Federal government policies dictated the manner in which American Indian students were schooled’ (Sims, 2003). The removal of American Indian children from their homes and communities to military style boarding schools was one of the more disturbing policies resulting in the disruption of intergenerational learning in many tribes (Adams, 1988; Archuleta et al., 2000; Child, 1998; Lomawaima, 1994). The end-goal of these assimilationist policies and federal laws of the time was to sever the ties between American Indians and their tribal life-ways and to re-cast them as Anglo-Americans. These policies also eventually took their toll on indigenous languages throughout the country (Hinton, 2001). Over several decades, for example, New Mexico tribes experienced the same resulting impact of these policies (Hyer, 1990) with tribal languages undergoing varying degrees of erosion over an extended period of time. More recently, the pace of language shift towards English has accelerated and been exacerbated by modern-day influences of technology, media, transportation and new economic activities that have entered into the communities and lives of indigenous people (Romero, 2004; Sims, 2004). Thus, among American Indians of the southwest, a number of language initiatives designed to counteract the process of language shift have recently begun to emerge. These include initiatives established by the Pueblo tribes of Acoma, Cochiti, Santa Ana, San Juan, Pojoaque, Tesuque, Santa Clara, Sandia, Zia and Zuni, as well as the Navajo, Mescalero and Jicarilla Apache tribes.
Historical Influences on Pueblo Language Communities Among some of New Mexico’s Pueblo Indian tribes, a number of community-based language initiatives have been recently established for the specific purpose of maintaining and re-strengthening the oral language foundations of these communities (Hinton & Hale, 2001; Romero, 2004; Sims, 2004). To understand why some Pueblo Indian tribes have made these choices is to appreciate the extent to which oral language tradition plays a critical role in families and the wider social organisation of Pueblo life. The collective interactions and reciprocal relationships that exist among members of these communities have been the traditional contexts for language maintenance with families and extended family members playing an important role in transmitting these tribal languages (Romero, 2004). Today in most Pueblo tribes, tribal languages and cultural practices are closely guarded. Historical events and experiences over the last 500 years have made an especially long-lasting impact on how Pueblo communities view their language and cultures. At various times in their collective history, Pueblo people were forced to take their traditional religious practices underground. The 16th and
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17th century intrusion of Spanish colonial policies, for example, attempted to stamp out traditional native religious beliefs and practices among many Pueblo groups, often with dire and cruel consequences (Espinosa, 1988; Sando, 1992; Spicer, 1967). As a result, to protect their native religious practices many Pueblo communities deliberately kept their innermost ceremonial life and language well distanced from outside interference. This practice of secrecy meant cultural survival (Suina, 1990) extending well into subsequent periods of foreign domination under the Mexican and American Governments. At present, this deliberate practice of keeping the native language and cultural traditions within the community has continued in many of the Pueblo tribes. The oral language tradition continues to be the basis of the sociocultural, sociopolitical and socioreligious domains of language use. The concept of ‘domains’ first postulated by Fishman (1972, 1991) describes language function and use within broad categories such as home, community, and social institutions. This construct is useful in describing language use areas that are particularly important in Pueblo societies. The association between oral tradition and the socioreligious domain, for example, is a particularly sensitive one that is closely guarded in most Pueblos. In contrast to the longevity of these oral traditions, the development of writing systems for tribal languages has been limited to only a few Pueblos, and native literacy in these cases is usually limited to a few Individuals who may have experience in formal linguistic studies. Developing writing systems has been a matter of Individual tribal choice, with most Pueblos choosing to refrain from writing their languages. To allow the language to be written and to be learned by outsiders is considered by some tribal elders and leaders to risk opening the community’s most private ceremonial life to desecration or possible exploitation by outsiders. The legacy of secrecy developed in response to centuries of repressive attempts to eliminate indigenous practices continues to influence how much distance Pueblo communities still maintain with regard to their socioreligious life and scrutiny from the outside. Today, many of the ceremonial events observed within many of the Pueblo tribes take place entirely within an oral-based tradition and are often closed to the outside world. Even during events that are open to the public there are restrictions against photography and recording that are strictly enforced by Pueblo authorities. The lessons from past history, therefore, continue to serve as powerful reminders of how indigenous cultures and languages have managed to survive despite attempts by foreign governments to obliterate these cultures. Thus, Pueblo perspectives about how much of their language is taken beyond the community setting have been especially critical issues for them. This has not always been appreciated or understood by educational institutions that have attempted to initiate well-intended efforts to promote tribal heritage language programmes in schools (Blum Martinez, 2000).
Pueblo Tribes Today Today, despite the fact that large-scale dependence on agriculture has mainly been replaced by wage-earning economics, Pueblo societies continue a close-
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knit way of community life, supported by internal sociocultural networks of customs and traditions unique to each community. Members of these communities are expected to share in collective cultural responsibilities to both family and community. This collective sense of responsibility also extends to indigenous systems of theocratic governance in a number of Pueblo villages. Eschewing modern-day constitutional forms of governance (which many American Indian tribes adopted under federal government pressure in the 1930s), some Pueblos still retain traditional forms of internal socioreligious leadership that may consist of caciques,2 war chiefs, and other traditional leaders. These traditional leaders are not only responsible for maintaining a Pueblo’s cyclical ceremonial calendar and the spiritual welfare of their communities, but also the annual appointment of secular leaders for the tribe. Male tribal members who have been appointed as secular leaders are expected to serve their communities, often at the expense of voluntarily setting aside their regular jobs or employment for a year. Additionally, their immediate and extended family members share in the responsibility of supporting them while they are in office (Blum Martinez, 2000). The secular leaders are responsible for maintaining and safeguarding the internal religious core of leadership from outside interference in addition to representing the community involving matters with the outside world (Sando, 1992). In this manner, both the contemporary welfare and the traditional life of the community are protected (Blum Martinez, 2000). Maintaining the sociocultural systems and other internal structures of kinship and social organisation of Pueblo life are especially important to Pueblo people because these networks create the ‘fabric’ of both the ceremonial and social life of their communities. For countless generations, language has been the means by which important aspects of these systems have been taught and maintained in these oral societies. Thus, as information about language attrition began to surface in the 1990s through community surveys, saving tribal heritage languages became one of the chief reasons for establishing language immersion programmes in some Pueblos. The aim of these present-day programmes has been to first meet the needs of the community by teaching younger generations their tribal heritage language. Pueblo communities and their leadership, therefore, have played significant roles in determining what will be taught in language programmes, how a language will be taught, and who will teach the language.
Language Programme Planning in the Pueblos By the early 1990s, Pueblo communities and other New Mexico tribes were beginning to realise the cumulative effect that past and contemporary developments were having on the vitality of Native languages. For example, Sims (2004) has noted that federal and state compulsory education for school-aged youth coupled with the introduction of early childhood programmes during the late 1960s resulted in increased exposure to English among Acoma Pueblo children at earlier ages than in any previous generation. This has been seen as one cause of gradual language shift towards English in studies of Pueblo language maintenance and socialisation (Romero, 2004; Sims, 2004). Over the last half of the 20th century, as younger generations were influenced to use more English in
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school settings, it was not long before this language evolved as the medium of communication brought back into the homes and communities of Pueblo people. Thus, by the mid-1990s, when community surveys were conducted by several Pueblo communities, there were few children entering school who could be described as first language speakers of their tribal languages (Boynton & Sims, 1997; Romero, 2004). In 1995, one of the first public forums on language loss for Pueblo people was facilitated by the Linguistic Institute for Native Americans (LINA), a non-profit training organisation based in New Mexico. This organisation has worked with Native American language programmes and tribal communities in New Mexico for over 25 years, providing training services and technical assistance in language programme development, language teacher training, and language advocacy. Pueblo tribal members from New Mexico as well as Alaskan and Californian Natives were invited by this organisation to participate in an exchange dialogue where concerns about tribal language decline were shared and discussed. At the same time that these discussions were taking place, some Pueblos were already beginning to plan their first steps in addressing the challenge of language shift in their respective communities. Some Pueblos prepared language programme planning proposals and submitted them for federal funding to the Administration for Native Americans (ANA), an agency under the US Department of Health and Human Services.3 By 1997, language planning grants had been successfully obtained from this agency by at least three Pueblo communities including the Pueblos of Acoma, Cochiti, and Taos Pueblos (Hinton et al., 2001). For the Acoma and Cochiti Pueblo tribes, in particular, this first step in language planning was an unprecedented but necessary one involving community assessments about the status of language vitality in their respective communities (Pecos & Blum Martinez , 2001; Sims, 2001, 2004). Information that was deemed critical to this process by tribal community members included a need to determine: (1) the extent of language shift in the community; (2) what community attitudes were towards language maintenance; and (3) what the desired focus of language instruction would be, based on parent, student, elder, and tribal leader input (Boynton & Sims, 1997; Pecos & Blum Martinez, 2001; Sims, 2001, 2004). Information that was gathered in these communities about the language perspectives of community members later served as the basis for planning subsequent implementation activities. Elders and parents, for instance, were interviewed by community members about their concerns for what was appropriate and important for children to learn in the native language. They expressed their desire to have the younger generations learn about the important tie between language and self-identity, and one’s ties to the community. As well, elders and parents viewed language maintenance as a critical component of understanding and sustaining cultural practices. In the Acoma community, school-age youth were surveyed about their views towards learning their heritage language and to determine how best to help them learn the language. Many of the children in this particular community expressed a desire to be able to communicate with grandparents, parents, and elders in the native tongue and to be able to participate in the Pueblo’s native religious practices (Boynton & Sims, 1997; Sims, 2004).
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By collecting this information themselves, community members were able to determine what functions of language use would be important to teach to children and to plan the instructional approach that would best serve the community’s need to develop new generations of speakers. In the Acoma and Cochiti language programmes, for example, an emphasis was placed on teaching aspects of daily communicative interactions normally used in the context of Pueblo home life as well as the inherent cultural and social values conveyed through native language use in the community. Learning about language use in traditional cultural contexts was considered an important aspect of supporting and maintaining a collective tribal identity as well as developing a sense of Individual responsibility and connection to the community. Pueblo communities expected their youth to learn the functions of language associated with appropriate forms of community respect, kinship, and proper protocols for use in traditional contexts. In planning their language programmes, therefore, children were taught these expected patterns of social interaction and the underlying rules of social language use. In effect, Pueblo children in these programmes were being taught the ‘cultural literacy’ of their respective language communities (Benjamin et al., 1997; Romero, 1994, 2004). As this work unfolded, tribal members were made increasingly aware of language decline in their respective communities. The steps that some communities took in terms of language programme planning, therefore, were in direct response to language loss. By the mid-1990s, language immersion programmes for youth were being conducted in the communities of Acoma and Cochiti and in one pre-school programme in Taos Pueblo. An early childhood day-care programme modelled after the Ma-ori language nests or ko-hanga reo in New Zealand (Fishman, 1991) was also later established in Cochiti Pueblo. This latter initiative provided the opportunity for infants and toddlers to receive daily care and exposure to the native language from fluent Keres-speaking care-givers in a culturally appropriate setting. The significance of these activities and the way in which they were carried out in these Pueblos is important to note here. First, most of the work was conducted entirely by tribal members themselves. In the Pueblos of Acoma and Cochiti, summer language immersion programmes were planned and taught by fluent speakers from the community. At Taos Pueblo, speakers from the community also helped to initiate language classes for pre-school children (H. Gomez, personal communication, 2003). Fluent speakers in these communities stepped forward to learn more about language teaching and what approaches had been successfully used in other indigenous initiatives such as the Ma-ori and Hawaiian language immersion programmes (King, 2001; Warner, 2001; Wilson, 1998; Wilson & Kamana, 2001). The Linguistic Institute for Native Americans helped conduct community language forums about language loss issues and language teaching workshops for fluent speakers. Speakers received training support in how to plan language lessons, appropriate methods and strategies for oral language instruction, as well as a foundational knowledge about principles and concepts of heritage language learning. Some of these speakers who have since become the ‘veteran’ language teachers in their respective communities now help train and mentor other speakers from their communities and are often called upon by other neighbouring tribes to share their knowledge and
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experience in using methods and approaches for language immersion teaching. This particular aspect of language planning has therefore added to the internal capacity of each community to sustain its language efforts. A second key aspect of community language planning has been the instructional planning and development of content centred upon themes and lessons related to the traditional calendar of community events and cultural practices in each Pueblo. In the summer language programmes for youth in both Acoma and Cochiti Pueblos, for example, language lessons were planned cooperatively often involving the fluent speaker teachers, other community members, traditional leaders, elders, and parents. This approach to planning language lessons and activities allowed community members to collectively consider the types of language learning opportunities that would support students in making connections with other speakers, as well as understanding the application of the spoken language in the wider context of community functions (Pecos & Blum Martinez, 2001; Sims, 2004). Additionally, these activities spawned an interest among young parents in taking language classes so that they could help support and communicate with their children in the native language at home. Lastly, the primary emphasis on oral language development in these immersion programmes has differed considerably from other contemporary American Indian language programmes situated in school settings (Blanchard et al., 2003; Cantoni, 1996; Dick & McCarty, 1997; Goodluck et al., 1999; McCarty, 1994, 2002; Watahomigie, 1988; Watahomigie & McCarty, 1997). In schoolbased language programmes, for example, educational institutions have often played a major role in influencing the instructional approach as well as the content of such programmes. Traditional grammatical approaches to language teaching as well as the inclusion of Native literacy may also form the basis of language instruction (Bielenberg, 1999; Watahomigie & McCarty, 1997; Watahomigie & Yamamoto, 1987; Zepeda & McCarty, 1995). In contrast, the Pueblo immersion initiatives focused on the primary objective of re-strengthening ties that supported language use in the community (Benjamin et al., 1997; Pecos & Blum Martinez, 2001; Sims, 2004). The approach to language teaching was therefore planned with an emphasis on helping younger generations learn how to speak their heritage language so that they could begin to use it once more in their interactions with other speakers. Moreover, the centre of planning was based in community ‘ownership’ of language programmes (Sims, 2004) so that the intended focus of these efforts would remain true to the original purpose of maintaining and supporting oral language traditions. When Pueblo communities such as Acoma and Cochiti, therefore, began to consider how summer language instruction could be extended year round into local schools, a very different set of planning issues arose. Language teachers who had worked with Pueblo youth over the course of several summer immersion programmes recognised that continuous support for language learning would necessitate year round instruction in order to achieve their goal of producing language speakers. One concern, however, was how the particular features of their community-based efforts would be accepted in the schools. Prior experiences with local school agencies had not always been receptive to tribal input about how their children were to be educated or how they were to be taught their tribal languages (Pecos & Blum Martinez, 2001). Hence, the issue of tribal
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language teaching in these settings warranted a consideration of programme planning and implementation that was different from traditional bilingual approaches controlled primarily by school administrators and directed by existing school policies. Likewise, the execution of these activities in a venue outside the community would warrant new and unprecedented actions on the part of tribes. The subsequent actions they took were based on principles of tribal sovereignty and the concomitant government-to-government relationship that New Mexico Pueblo tribes had previously established with state government in a number of areas. These actions would afford Pueblo tribes the best means for continuing to uphold the purpose for which many of the language immersion initiatives were first established.
Pueblo Language Programmes in Schools Providing state and federal bilingual funding through the schools is one way in which, historically, New Mexico public education has attempted to include tribal heritage languages in traditional bilingual programmes. Since the passage of the New Mexico Bilingual Multicultural Education Act of 1973, funding has been annually allocated to local school districts for these programmes (New Mexico State Department of Education, 2001). As a result, in some public schools bilingual funds have been used for cultural enrichment programmes with some limited instruction in tribal languages. These programmes, however, have been primarily concerned with the development of English for academic achievement and tribal language instruction has usually been of secondary focus (Blum Martinez, 2000). While several New Mexico public school districts do have significant student populations for whom a tribal language is a dominant first language, a growing number of Pueblo children are now learning their tribal languages as heritage languages. As certain Pueblos began to approach local public schools about their desire to have tribal languages taught in schools, it became clear that the purpose of tribal initiatives needed to be clarified with school administrators and governing boards of education. Some of the initial issues raised by educational administrators stemmed from their perceptions about language instruction based on traditional bilingual programmes for speakers of other languages, such as Spanish. Often, such programmes, as Blum Martinez (2000: 212) notes, have been ‘forced to show their success through English language measures’. In other words, in spite of what is known about the benefits of teaching children in their own language, bilingual instructional practices may in fact result in the use of the native language in service to an English-based curriculum. These practices can be seen in the use of translated English instructional materials, the utilisation of native language teaching assistants to help with concurrent translation in the classroom, and in some cases, the introduction of literacy in the first language as a bridge to English literacy (Blum Martinez, 2000). In the initial stages of dialogue and planning with school administrators, it was clear that some administrators expected tribal language instruction to be delivered in a manner similar to academic instruction or as translations of English-based curricula. Questions were also raised about the qualifications of tribal language speakers who would be teaching tribal languages in schools.
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Still others assumed that native literacy would be taught and that language instruction would be available to all students, regardless of whether they were members of the particular Pueblo requesting the implementation of tribal language classes. For Pueblo tribes, their desire was simply to extend their community-based teaching efforts into the school day so that their children could continue to develop their language speaking skills. They wanted to have fluent speakers from their communities teach their languages and they wanted to ensure that students from their tribal communities would be the primary group that would receive language and cultural instruction. These contrasting expectations and positions created a new set of challenges for Pueblo tribes as well as for school officials who were often unfamiliar with Pueblo perspectives about language. Additionally, this new arena in which Pueblo languages were to be taught meant that tribal positions on language issues would have to be articulated in a manner that would uphold the original intent of language efforts implemented by the Pueblos. By 1999, several Pueblos had begun to create written agreements with local public school districts as a means of identifying and defining the parameters for teaching tribal languages in schools.
Tribal Sovereignty and Language in the Schools Memoranda of Understanding (MOU) negotiated between local public school districts and several individual Pueblo tribes were the initial mechanisms that helped define the parameters for tribal language instruction in selected public schools. Planning this course of action rested in the fact that a government-togovernment relationship already existed between New Mexico tribes, the state of New Mexico and its local agencies. Federal and state recognition of American Indian tribal sovereignty has been politically essential to New Mexico tribes in their interactions with government agencies on a number of issues such as water and land rights, economic development, tribal jurisprudence, and more recently, education. Thus, extending this relationship to language and school issues was considered by Pueblo tribes to fall within the proper venue of negotiation with public educational entities. Local agreements between individual Pueblos and school districts concerning tribal language programmes was therefore achieved through the development of these MOUs. Some Pueblos, such as Acoma and Cochiti, developed their MOUs reflecting specific tribal positions with regard to their respective languages (J. Suina, Cochiti Pueblo, personal communication, 2004; V. Leno, Acoma Pueblo, personal communication, 2004). In general, their MOUs addressed the following issues: (1) language instruction would be provided exclusively for students from their respective tribes; (2) tribes would designate language instructors from their communities who would teach language classes; (3) community developed approaches for language immersion teaching (meaning no English translation) would be implemented; and (4) tribes would retain ownership of instructional materials developed by the language teachers for use in their classes. Additional language in some of these agreements also outlined other corresponding responsibilities of both the public school district and the tribe in support of tribal heritage language initiatives.
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MOUs such as these were instrumental in establishing Keres language immersion classes at the elementary and secondary levels in two New Mexico public school districts by 2001. Additionally, each of the Pueblos of Acoma and Cochiti was able to leverage specific funding plans with their school districts to support their language initiatives in the schools. For example, Cochiti’s language teachers were paid directly through tribal funds with the local district’s bilingual programme providing supplemental funds for instructional supplies and other resources. Acoma and its local public school district, on the other hand, each initially agreed to fund one language teacher position from their respective sources with an additional teacher position established in subsequent years through the district’s bilingual programme funds. While these initial MOUs paved the way for a more informed and cooperative approach to initiating Pueblo language classes in local schools, they have also been the means by which these tribes have further articulated their positions on a number of other matters concerning the teaching of their languages in public schools. Two issues, in particular, have recently emerged: a state law requiring validation of native speakers’ language proficiency in order to be certified as language teachers, and the assessment of language proficiency among students receiving tribal language instruction. In 2002, the New Mexico State Legislature passed a new law requiring the licensure of Native speakers teaching language and culture in New Mexico public schools. The new teacher licensure law was touted as a means for public school districts to employ non-degreed Native language speakers as tribal heritage language teachers, but it also required certification of their language proficiency. The question posed by tribes about this new law was, who would certify speakers as being proficient in their native language and what criteria would be used to certify their language proficiency? This was especially problematic for Pueblo language speakers coming from oral-based language traditions where assessment of language proficiency among community speakers had never been needed before. It also raised the issue about what type of qualifying criteria would be appropriate for use in such a process. Over the course of two years of public discussion about these issues, New Mexico tribes and the state’s Public Education Department reached an agreement that the development of individual Memoranda of Agreement would be utilised to allow each tribe the right to establish its own certification process in response to this new state law. This was a position taken by many of the Pueblo tribes as the discussions evolved. Thus, the right of tribes to act as the certifying agent for their own tribal language speakers was affirmed. Additionally, the tribe’s authority to recommend speakers eligible for certification to the state’s certification agency was established. As of 2005, five tribes, including three Pueblos, had entered into these formal agreements with the New Mexico Public Education Department. A second critical issue that has recently emerged concerns a directive from state legislators to have bilingual programmes report the native language proficiency of students participating in tribal heritage language classes. This proposal has been fueled in part by their desire to ensure financial accountability of all bilingual programmes in the state. The issue affects tribal heritage language programmes where state bilingual funds have been utilised to provide supplemental support for these programmes in public schools.
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One assumption being made by law makers is that tribal languages, including oral-based traditions, can be easily assessed using standard academic models of language testing often used with other minority language groups. The particular concern that has been raised by some Pueblos about this proposed assessment is that such requirements do not consider how tribal language communities view language learning, that is, within the context of shared community values and speaker interactions, cooperative learning, non-competitiveness, and other social interactions that contribute to the development of self and communal identity (Romero, 2004). What policy makers have not considered, as well, is the tremendous amount of effort it has taken for some tribes, especially Pueblo communities, to arrive at a point where language programmes have taken root in school settings and in many cases have only recently begun. Additionally, the unique circumstances that have forced Pueblo tribes, in particular, to take their language initiatives into these settings have not always been appreciated or understood. Many Pueblos, for example, have generally shied away from having their languages taught in public settings beyond the community. Moreover, the careful crafting and negotiation of recent agreements establishing these programmes in schools has meant that these tribes have had to engage in deliberate, careful planning often in response to new and challenging issues and they have had to consider what approaches will work best in order to meet the language needs of their communities. The issue of how and what kind of data will be used to report the progress of students participating in tribal language programmes is an example of the continuing challenges that surround tribal language programmes in schools. This issue continues to be an important topic of discussion and deliberation among Pueblo communities as of this writing. A fundamental concern that has been raised about language assessment, especially among oral-based Pueblo language communities, is the underlying purpose for such practices. Language assessment as a standard school practice is often utilised for a variety of academic purposes and this, some people contend, may conflict with the purpose for which tribal languages are being taught. Some language instructors, for example, have noted that any attempts students make to speak their heritage language need to be validated as positive steps towards renewed language use. They have also suggested that labelling individual students in terms of who is a better speaker of the native language is not consonant with Pueblo philosophies about teaching and learning (Romero, 1994). Labels such as ‘proficient’ and ‘non-proficient’ (often used for bilingual programme reporting purposes) have been argued as defining language learning too narrowly. These terms, some language instructors have observed, do not accurately portray what students are able to do as learners and emerging speakers of their respective tribal languages. They have expressed a concern that such requirements and legislative policies regarding language assessment, may, in fact, shift the focus of tribal language instruction exclusively towards academic testing, in effect, introducing a very different element and purpose for tribal language teaching. If this occurs, some contend, it may potentially lead communities away from their intended purpose, that of re-strengthening community and culture through oral language teaching.
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While careful language maintenance planning in Pueblo communities such as Acoma and Cochiti has produced a level of success in establishing viable language initiatives based upon oral tradition, members of these and other indigenous communities recognise that dealing with challenging and often daunting language issues, such as the ones briefly recounted here, will require a long-term commitment to ensure that their efforts are sustained. Moreover, it will require a constant vigilance to make sure that each step they take is carefully planned in light of the values and goals they have set for re-strengthening tribal languages and the oral traditions of their communities.
Conclusion Unlike many minority immigrant groups in the United States who often lose their languages in order to fit more quickly into mainstream American society (Wong Fillmore, 2000), the retention of indigenous cultural systems has been vigorously fought for throughout the history of many American Indian tribes. This has been especially true for Pueblo Indians who have guarded their languages, traditions, and cultural values for centuries despite attempts by various entities to eliminate such practices. To understand the choices that American Indian tribes have taken towards language maintenance and language planning, a consideration of the meanings they assign to these activities is necessary (Sims, 2004). In the case of Pueblo Indian tribes, those meanings are based in part on their perspectives about language. These have been shaped by the unique circumstances and events that have shaped their particular experiences. Past cultural boundary maintenance as employed among many Pueblo communities, for example, has been a significant aspect in their relationship with dominant language groups. These experiences, in turn, have influenced present-day responses to community language planning as well as responses to new challenges created by interactions with mainstream educational institutions. While descriptions of American Indian language renewal efforts are increasingly being reported, many of these descriptions fall short in explicating the underlying factors that lead to specific kinds of language planning activities. Moreover, few studies attempt to describe language planning in light of community-based efforts set in oral language traditions. In this brief account, the particular circumstances that situate oral language traditions within Pueblo communities include those aspects that centre the life of these societies. This includes the collective interactions and reciprocal relationships of kinship, ceremonial life, and internal governance; all common features of Pueblo life. These are critical factors in language maintenance and transmission to younger generations, both of which are critical elements of cultural survival for Pueblo communities. The traditional social and governance structures of Pueblo societies present an additional dimension to the dynamics of language planning and implementation as seen in the important role that tribal leadership plays in language maintenance efforts. By considering how community dynamics and aspects such as these work within specific tribes, a better understanding is afforded about what drives members to engage in the types of planning activities they view as critical to
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language maintenance. The insights that community members contribute to the issues of language maintenance are equally important because they are a critical source of understanding more fully how indigenous people view their own cultural and linguistic survival. Among studies that have examined successful language transmission, the influence and extension of native language use in schools and other public domains has been proposed as one element of successful language transmission (Fishman, 1991). Historically, in the case of American Indian tribes, however, schools have been the very instrument that has generally been the antithesis of indigenous language maintenance. Attitudes and perceptions from within these institutions about the place of Native language in mainstream schools continue to be critical factors in the planning and implementation of present-day indigenous language initiatives. Present-day processes involving negotiation and formal agreements, as described in this paper, point to one solution that New Mexico tribes have arrived at in planning their response to educational institutions and their associated policies. In this manner, the underlying foundation of community beliefs about language that have helped guide their initiatives remains as the focal point for on-going planning and decision making. Furthermore, the need for dialogue between tribes, local school entities and their representatives is instructive of the level of collaboration that will be needed to further an understanding about language perspectives and the reasons why Pueblo people are attempting to preserve and transmit their languages. Indigenous sovereignty and self-determination underlie a very different view about the history, language, and values that bind American Indian tribal communities together. These are not always consonant with mainstream educational systems and views about how and where their languages fit in the broader picture of mainstream education. The challenges that tribal communities face in addressing what is important in the education of their children, therefore, will increasingly demand that indigenous communities exercise their determination to reclaim and re-strengthen what is at the core of their language and culture. As well, language planning conducted in light of tribal needs and perspectives must continue to form the basis for emerging new solutions that will help sustain tribal language efforts in the future. Correspondence Any correspondence should be directed to Christine Sims, Department of Language, Literacy, and Sociocultural Studies, MSC05 3040, 1 University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM 87131–0001, USA (
[email protected]). Notes 1. Four Corners refers to the point at which four state boundaries intersect in the southwestern United States, namely New Mexico, Arizona, Colorado, and Utah. 2. Cacique is a term that may be of Caribbean origin as suggested by H. Valiquette, Keresan linguist. The term was used by early Spanish explorers to refer to Indigenous leaders encountered in the New World. 3. The Native Languages Act of 1990/1992 established funding for American Indian language preservation initiatives through the Administration for Native Americans, the agency that solicits competitive grant proposals and funds them.
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Stabilizing Indigenous Languages (pp. 16–21). Flagstaff, AZ: Northern Arizona University Center for Excellence in Education. Lomawaima, K. Tsianina. (1994) They Called It Prairie Light. Lincoln, NB: University of Nebraska Press. McCarty, T. (1994) Bilingual education policy and the empowerment of American Indian communities. The Journal of Educational Issues of Language Minority Students. 14, 23–41. McCarty, T. (2002) A Place to Be Navajo: Rough Rock and the Struggle for Self-Determination in Indigenous Schooling. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. New Mexico State Department of Education (2001) Bilingual Multicultural Education Guidelines for Compliance with Existing Federal and State Law. Ortiz, A. (1994) The Pueblo. New York: Chelsea House. Pecos, R. and Blum Martinez, R. (2001) The key to cultural survival: Language planning and revitalization in the Pueblo de Cochiti. In L. Hinton and K. Hale (eds) The Green Book of Language Revitalization in Practice (pp. 75–85). San Diego: Academic. Romero, M.E. (1994) Identifying giftedness among Keresan Pueblo Indians: The Keres study. Journal of American Indian Education 35–58. Romero, M.E. (2004) A study of child socialization and language shift in an indigenous community. Paper presented at the National Indian Education Association Conference, Phoenix, Arizona, 28–31 October. Sando, J. (1992) Pueblo Nations: Eight Centuries of Pueblo Indian History. Santa Fe, NM: Clear Light. Sims, C.P. (2001) Native language planning: A pilot process in the Acoma Pueblo Community. In L. Hinton and K. Hale (eds) The Green Book of Language Revitalization in Practice (pp. 75–85). San Diego: Academic. Sims, C. (2003) Native languages: The connection between the past, the present, and the future. National Association for Bilingual Education News 27 (2) (November/December). Sims, C.P. (2004) Maintaining an oral language tradition: A study of language maintenance in the Acoma pueblo community. Unpublished dissertation. University of California at Berkeley. Spicer, E. (1967) Cycles of Conquest. Tucson: University of Arizona Press. Suina, J. (1990) Secrecy and knowledge in the Pueblo organization. In J. Williams (ed.) The Head of the Rio Grande: A Reader (p. 11). Albuquerque, NM: Southwest Institute. Warner, S. (2001) The movement to revitalize Hawaiian language and culture. In L. Hinton and K. Hale (eds) The Green Book of Language Revitalization in Practice (pp. 133– 144). San Diego: Academic. Watahomigie, L. (1988) Hualapai Bilingual Academic Excellence Program: Blending Tradition and Technology Model Replication Training Manual. Peach Springs, AZ: Peach Springs School District No. 8. Watahomigie, L. and McCarty, T. (1997) Literacy for what? Hualapai literacy and language maintenance. In N. Hornberger (ed.) Indigenous Literacies in the Americas: Language Planning from the Bottom Up. Berlin: Mouton. Watahomigie, L. and Yamamoto, A. (1987) Linguistics in action: The Hualapai bilingual/ bicultural education program. In D.D. Stull and J.J. Schensul (eds) Collaborative Research and Social Change: Applied Anthropology in Action (pp. 77–98). Boulder, CO and London: Westview. Wilson, W. (1998) I ka ‘olelo Hawai’ike ola, Life is found in the Hawaiian language. In T. McCarty and O. Zepeda (eds) International Journal of the Sociology of Language 132, 123–37. Wilson, W. and Kamana, K. (2001) Mai loko mai o ka ‘i’ini: Proceeding from a dream: The ‘Aha Punana Leo connection in Hawaiian language revitalization. In L. Hinton and K. Hale (eds) The Green Book of Language Revitalization in Practice (pp. 147–76). San Diego: Academic. Wong Fillmore, L. (2000) Loss of family languages: Should educators be concerned? Theory into Practice 39 (4), 203–10. Zepeda, O. and McCarty, T. (eds) (1995) Indigenous language education and literacy. Special issue. Bilingual Research Journal 19 (1).
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Terminology Planning in Aboriginal Australia Jakelin Troy NSW Aboriginal Languages Research and Resource Centre, Sydney, NSW 2052, Australia
Michael Walsh Linguistics Department, University of Sydney, NSW, Australia Australia, as far as Aboriginal languages are concerned, is not yet engaged in systematic language planning exercises. This is in contrast to other parts of the world where language planning is institutionalised and enforced. In this paper we chronicle some of the language planning exercises we have observed, been involved in, or have studied of from the historical record. Terminology planning will obviously vary according to the language situation under consideration and we claim here that much of the terminology planning in Aboriginal Australia has been highly localised, ad hoc and much less institutionalised than elsewhere. With 250 Aboriginal languages existing at first significant European contact, it is not so surprising that efforts should be localised. The better documented cases of terminology planning are mostly to be found in northern Australia where the effects of outside contact have been more recent, so that some languages are still being spoken by children. In recent years, some of the more endangered languages have been in a process of revitalisation. We provide some examples of terminology planning from such languages, with a particular emphasis on New South Wales and the Northern Territory. Of particular importance is appropriate consultation with the owners of these languages.
Keywords: Australia, terminology, Aboriginal languages
Introduction Most terminology planning in Aboriginal Australia is highly localised and less institutionalised than that found in other contexts. For example, French (e.g. Frey, 2000) and Hebrew (e.g. Bar-Acher, 1998) each have their own language academy and are both languages with a wide geographical spread. One role of the language academies is to manage terminology planning even if the speech community chooses to ignore some of their pronouncements (e.g. Hebrew terms for auto mechanics; Alloni-Fainberg, 1974). Such languages are at one end of a language planning spectrum, while we see the languages of Aboriginal Australia as being towards the other end of the spectrum. This spectrum is characterised by a number of features: · large speech communities vs, small speech communities; · institutionalised vs. less institutionalised terminology planning; · terminology planning in many domains vs, terminology planning in one or just a few domains. In our view, much of the literature on terminology planning (e.g. Antia, 2000; Cabré, 1999) tends to focus on the more intensively planned end of the spectrum rather than the other. In this paper we will focus on terminology planning which 156 Terminology Planning in Aboriginal Australia
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resides in small speech communities, is less institutionalised, and tends to operate in one or just a few domains.
The Language Situation in Aboriginal Australia Most languages in Aboriginal Australia can be regarded as endangered. One survey (Schmidt, 1990) indicates that of the 250 Indigenous languages spoken at the first significant contact with Europeans starting in 1788, just 20 can be described as healthy, 70 as weak or dying and 160 as extinct. This last term is highly problematic as many Indigenous people do not accept such a description for their languages (see, for example, Thieberger (2002) for one discussion). However, it must be conceded that many languages have few active speakers (McConvell & Thieberger, 2001; Nash, 1998). For languages with relatively few active speakers, terminology planning is often fairly recent, ad hoc, and not particularly extensive. Amery has observed that, ‘There are only a few articles which deal with new terminology in Australia’s Indigenous languages’ (2001: 180) and apart from his own work refers only to Black (1993), O’Grady (1960) and Simpson (1985). It is among some of what Schmidt has referred to as ‘healthy’ languages that more extensive terminology planning has taken place.
Australian Governments and Terminology Planning Native title Between 1990 and June 2004, the Federal Government was assisted in its work on all matters associated with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people by the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission (ATSIC). This body was unique in the world as an organisation run by its elected arm of ATSIC Commissioners to deliver a whole range of services to Indigenous people. The elected arm received input from regional councils of Indigenous people across Australia, making it much more sensitive to Indigenous community needs. This body managed a large part of the federal budget targeted directly at Australia’s Indigenous peoples. ATSIC’s administrative arm as well as its elected body were disbanded at the end June 2004. When Troy joined ATSIC in 1993, she assumed (focused by her training as a linguist) that as the peak body for all things Indigenous in Australia, ATSIC would have a policy to support Aboriginal languages by preparing literature about government policies and legislation affecting Indigenous people in their own languages. This was not the case and she found resistance to the idea that this was in any way necessary. Corporate lawyers even commented that translating legislation affecting Indigenous Australians into their languages was too difficult. ‘Some things just can’t be translated’, she was told and even worse, ‘They just don’t need to have complex laws explained’. In the newly formed Native Title Unit, Troy was involved in drafting the Commonwealth Native Title Act 1993 and creating literature explaining the Act and its processes. Native title refers to the bundle of rights any Indigenous Australian person or community is able to demonstrate that make up their relationship with land. In response to the lawyers’ criticisms of the capacity of
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Aboriginal languages to find the descriptive processes to explain native title – odd as this is actually an attempt by Westminster law to explain Indigenous Australian law to the wider Australian public through legislation – she suggested ATSIC should have her Plain English Guide to the Native Title Act for Communities translated into 12 Aboriginal languages including two creoles. This was an opportunity to institute an Aboriginal languages terminology planning exercise on behalf of the Federal Government. In 1994, ATSIC commissioned the Centre for Aboriginal Languages and Linguistics (CALL) at Batchelor College, Darwin, NT, to translate the Guide into 12 Aboriginal languages. Troy’s concern with the Guide was that, although written in plain English, it was still full of concepts that need explanation to Aboriginal people for whom English was a second or third (or subsequent) language (or not one of their languages at all). The translation project aimed not simply to provide translations produced by competent translators, but to give students of CALL, studying translation, a chance to take the Guide to their own communities and workshop the translation, that is, to engage them directly with their communities in terminology planning in their own languages. In this way, bilingual people from each of the communities who were also educated in or had better access to understanding wider Western concepts, such as the law of native title, worked with their communities to understand the law of native title as enshrined in the Native Title Act and create terminology to explain it to their communities in their own language and from their own world view. One of the most striking examples of the success of this project was that each of the translations the Centre received back was a learning exercise for those working in native title because it gave Aboriginal people a chance to explain to those working in the Government what they understood about a law that was actually designed to enshrine rights only Aboriginal people could really explain to non-Aboriginal people: a real twist in terminology planning. For Troy, the most poignant and striking of all the terms used in the translations was the independent decision arrived at by each of the communities and their translators that the only word that appropriately equated to the English term ‘native title’ was the term for ‘people’ (their own people or more broadly Indigenous Australians) in each of their languages. This is not really surprising as the legal term ‘native title’ refers to the rights Indigenous Australians have relating to their relationship with land or ‘country’, as it is usually termed when referring to Indigenous Australians’ connection to land. It is widely reported in anthropological literature about Australia that Aboriginal people see themselves as inseparable from the land; the land is literally embodied in them and they in the land. Therefore, these bundles of native title rights effectively make up the very essence of an Aboriginal person. Aboriginal people do not ‘own’ land in a strictly Western concept of possession, that can be bought and sold as a paper title. ‘The land owns them’ is perhaps a more effective way to describe the relationship, and it is an inseparable relationship as the land cannot sell or transfer its people. In undertaking this exercise ATSIC was attempting to engage Aboriginal people in terminology planning. Initiatives in New South Wales At the federal level and the state or territory level of government in Australia, each Government makes its own policy and undertakes its own planning for
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Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander languages. However, any federal policy, particularly that backed by Commonwealth legislation, will impact directly on actions of states and territories to support languages. Very recently, in mid-2004, the NSW State Government took a historic step in creating its NSW Aboriginal Languages Policy (DAA, 2004), which essentially provides an imperative to all areas of government in NSW to support the use, maintenance and revitalisation of NSW Aboriginal languages. Already this policy is supported with a state-established NSW Aboriginal Languages Research and Resource Centre (NSW ALRRC), established as part of the NSW Department of Aboriginal Affairs, and the NSW Aboriginal Languages K-10 syllabus created by the Board of Studies NSW (the education standards setting body in NSW) which will be implemented in NSW schools from January 2005. Both initiatives are already instrumental in terminology planning for Aboriginal languages in NSW in that they are supporting an increase in activity around those languages. Direct provision of financial support and expert linguistic and teaching advice to communities and individuals will assist them to revitalise and, as a corollary of this, necessarily expand the use of these languages.
Some Examples of Terminology Planning in Aboriginal Australia Examples from New South Wales In 1788, when NSW was first ‘settled’, there were around 70 distinct languages. Fairly recently (Dixon, 1991), it has been reported that there remained just a handful of speakers for one language in NSW. In his view there was just one language still active in NSW but, as we will see, this view needs re-examination. In fact, in recent times there has been a tremendous growth in activities concerning Aboriginal languages in NSW. For example, in 2003 there were already language learning programmes in half a dozen NSW languages and more are under development, with the following providing some examples. Some more activities and developments are set out in Walsh (2003).
Gumbaynggirr Gary Williams (personal communication) reports that Street Wise Comics have been adapted for the Gumbaynggirr language spoken on the north coast of NSW. This provides a challenge in capturing the original language of the comics without which their appeal would be diminished. One example is ‘feeling shitty’ where ‘shitty’ is handled by guna guna, a reduplicated form of guna ‘shit’. Wiradjuri A term for ‘computer’ was proposed by Stan Grant Sr to a meeting of the council of Wiradjuri Elders: ‘lightning brain’ (perhaps modelled on the Kaurna neologism mukarndo ‘computer’ ? muka muka ‘brain’ + karndo ‘lightning’ (Amery, 2000: 141)). However, it was rejected by them as being not part of the traditional culture. This is one example of how terminology planning can be under Indigenous control. Wembawemba Aboriginal people at Deniliquin in western NSW are working on revitalising their language and one of the processes they are in engaged in is finding ways
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to describe and discuss their world and its resources in their language. They worked with Hercus’s Wembawemba dictionary (1992) and produced a list of plants and animals they use for food and artefact production. They were unable to find the terms for some things so went about creating terminology. For example, a plant from which they made a honey drink they calqued as literally ‘honey drink’, notwithstanding that this does not accord with traditional morphosyntactic patterns. Recently, the NSW ALRRC engaged Hercus to work with the community to assist them to better understand how the language works, including the productive processes for creating neologisms. The community was very receptive to Hercus’s proposals and are working with her to better understand how to undertake terminology planning in their language. The plant from which Wembawemba people created a honey drink is a kind of honeysuckle. Hercus was unable to find a word for honeysuckle in the language so advised the community that it would be best to borrow a word from a closely related language rather than create a new item, as terms for plants tend to be individual to the plant, not a descriptive term. She suggested warrak ‘banksia’ from the Woiwurrung language of Melbourne as this was the closest item in a related language that she was able to find.
Gamilaraay Other communities are not so receptive to the advice of linguists and prefer to develop their own ways to use their language knowledge, not necessarily following strictly the language’s own rules but applying new rules drawn, for example, from their knowledge of English and particularly Aboriginal English. For example, a Gamilaraay man and an Elder (Tony Lonsdale and Ted Fields, personal correspondence, 2000) both conferred on the rules of Gamilaraay as explained by John Giacon and Anna Ash at a workshop and concluded that they would prefer to use Gamilaraay lexicon and English grammar rather than Gamilaraay grammar. The reasoning given was that all Gamilaraay people speak English and most are now more familiar with English than Gamilaraay and it is too hard to learn the full system of this language. This response horrifies linguists but is part of the processes for terminology and other language planning that Aboriginal people are engaging in while exploring the possibilities for revitalisation of their languages. While being horrified about the decisions communities might make, linguists and language educators in schools are also involved in profound exercises of language engineering, including terminology planning, that has implications for the development of NSW Aboriginal languages for the future. For example, Giacon (personal correspondence, 2004) in teaching Gamilaraay in schools, uses Gamilaraay terms for kinship and social relationships between humans but applies them to the relationships between humans expressed in English. His rationale for this terminology planning exercise is that, in his opinion, Aboriginal children now relate to other humans in the way that the English language teaches them to relate to people; therefore it would be confusing to attempt to teach them the Gamilaraay language system of human relationships. To give just one example, the term walgan traditionally referred to ‘mother-in-law (husband’s mother)’ as well as ‘aunt (man’s father’s sister)’. It has now come to be ‘used in the same way as the English word “aunt”’ (Ash et al., 2003: 137). Traditionally, the female
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siblings of each parent were quite distinct: giluu ‘father’s sister’ and gunidjarr ‘mother’s sister’, the latter term also referring to ‘mother’ (Ash et al., 2003: 216). So the scope of the English term ‘aunt’ used to be quite dissimilar to that of Gamilaraay but the ‘new’ term, walgan, has adjusted to English usage as has the language teaching programme. Examples from the Northern Territory
Yolngu economic and political discourse In the north-east Arnhem Land area of the Northern Territory, the Yolngu have experienced significant contact with Europeans for just over 100 years. In recent times, as contact has become more intense, they have become bewildered by the Western economic system. Over a number of years, Richard Trudgen and colleagues associated with an organisation called the Aboriginal Resource and Development Services Inc. (ARDS) have attempted to address this confusion. One example of the difference in the Yolngu world view can be illustrated by a member of the local Aboriginal council in the context of a discussion about the national deficit: ‘Japan makes a lot of cars and trucks don’t they? Well, they get minerals from us, so they should give vehicles to the Australian Government so the Government won’t be broke’ (Trudgen, 1995: 17). This suggestion makes sense when one realises that most Yolngu at the time believed that Toyotas were made by the Japanese Government and then imported by the Australian Government – indeed it was believed that the Australian Government owned all new equipment (Trudgen, 1995: 18–19). To address these and other confusions, Trudgen and his colleagues decided that it would be more effective to use and, if needs be, extend the meaning of traditional concepts relevant to the economic system: We spent hundreds of hours in council and other meetings trying to explain how the western system worked. It finally became clear to me that to teach a community of say 400 people a single western concept (e.g., what a contract is) by using only western thinking, concepts and language would take me two or three life-times. However, if I firstly learnt the people’s own concept of contract, then the same lesson could be done in minutes, hours, days or weeks, because the people would be learning through their intellectual structure. Their own dynamic social organisation would then carry that knowledge and learning forward. (Trudgen, 1995: 35–6) Part of this initiative has resulted in an ‘operative word list’ (Trudgen, 1995: 37–48) which includes such terms as buku-djugu’ ‘verbal contract’ where buku is ‘forehead’ and djugu’ is very similar in scope to the English term ‘contract’. In this case, the Yolngu term would have been quite a good equivalent translation for ‘contract’, but this was not the way the Yolngu had seen it; instead, many regarded the English term ‘contract’ as the equivalent of ‘making a lot of money’ (ARDS, 1994: 38). It was only through terminology planning that a better understanding of this concept has been reached.
Yolngu health terminology In another context among the Yolngu, Trudgen (2000: 229–31) refers to a workshop in which Aboriginal health workers are grappling with a condition referred
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to as ‘leaking kidneys’. Now the Yolngu language has terms for notions like ‘kidney disease’ but this required something more specific and, in particular, one needed to know what it is that leaks from the kidneys. In this context, apparently, the Aboriginal health workers had been presented with a black and white drawing of a kidney with drops of something coming from it. The Aboriginal health workers were not clear what the fluid dripping from the kidney might be. One senior Aboriginal health worker thought it might be blood leaking into the urine but in fact Western medicine asserts it is a protein. But what is a protein? This led to a discussion of traditional Yolngu food groups which in turn led to an explanation: ‘The protein leaks through these fenestrated capillaries when they become damaged’ (Trudgen, 2000: 230). Needless to say, this explanation required further explanation as did the observation that kidneys could be damaged when there was a rise in creatinine in the blood. Overall, this is one illustration of how coming up with a Yolngu equivalent of a term like ‘leaking kidneys’ requires not just a simple lexical transfer but a lengthy explanation which bridges two cultures. More generally, Trudgen observes: English is still for them in many ways an uncharted language. By ‘uncharted language’ I mean one that has not been fully analysed. For Yolngu this is the case with English, and especially for what they refer to as ‘secret’ or ‘hidden’ English [see Martin (1990) for a discussion of this term]. This covers the equivalent of what Yolngu call gurrangay matha (intellectual language). Many of the English terms that cover commerce, law, economic and medical areas of knowledge have not been linguistically analysed by Yolngu. And the same is true for Yolngu Matha from the English point of view. There are many terms and concepts in Yolngu Matha intellectual language, including abstract nouns, that have not yet been fully discovered and analysed so that English speakers can comprehend them. (Trudgen, 2000: 89) Terminology in legal contexts: Planning in a deliberate mode vs ‘on the fly’ As indicated at the start of this paper, in our view there is a spectrum of terminology planning, with languages of Aboriginal Australia at the less formalised end of the spectrum. Rather than a long-term, institutionalised, and often nation-wide approach in Aboriginal Australia, it is better to think of terminology planning ‘on the fly’. By this we mean that terms are discussed and refined as a very specific need arises, such as in the context of land claim cases in which Aboriginal people seek to regain traditional rights over certain tracts of country. Much less common is the situation when a community decides to work up a set of suitable terminology for a specific domain. One such example of this is the development of legal terminology by the Murrinhpatha people of the Northern Territory. We will discuss this example of a relatively deliberate terminology planning situation first and then turn to an example of terminology planning on the fly in a native title case on Croker Island in the Northern Territory.
Murrinhpatha legal terminology As was the case for the Yolngu, the Murrinhpatha people of the Northern Territory have found the need to develop specialised terminology in a domain
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which affects them on a day-to-day basis. In the case of the Murrinhpatha, it is the legal domain that they have focused on in recent years. This project was still under development in late 2004, but some of the background can be provided. Central to the project is Dominic McCormack, who is unusual in being a fully qualified lawyer and also having near native fluency in Murrinhpatha. The latter skill was achieved by being raised at Wadeye (formerly known as Port Keats), the main settlement in which Murrinhpatha is spoken. His parents were teachers at the local school so he grew up speaking English and Murrinhpatha. Since gaining his legal qualifications he has been engaged by the Wadeye Community to act as an interpreter in legal and other contexts. The project to develop legal terminology arose – in part – over the difficulties encountered in interpreting where a suitable term may be missing, so that the interpreter must supply a discursive explanation rather than a direct translation equivalent. The project also involves the expertise of Lys Ford, a linguist with extensive experience in the languages of the region. They have been working with community members towards a set of legal terminology which will eventually be available online, as well as being published in paper form (p.c. to Walsh from Ford and McCormack).
The Croker Island case Before examining this case specifically, it is useful to understand how legal discussion in such cases is often framed. In discussing a particular native title case in the Northern Territory, Evans (2002: 77–8) sets out a useful summary of how Indigenous terminology acquires particular relevance in such cases. In this summary, ‘X’ stands for an English word/expression and ‘N’ stands for its supposed equivalent in a local Aboriginal language: A common argument or move employed in such hearings can be schematised as having the structure: Barrister: What is your word for [zone X]? Witness: N. Barrister: Okay. Now does your country include the N [people]? Do members of other clans need to ask permission to go into N? The apparent rationale for this procedure is to move onto the witness’s own linguistic ground, as it were, so that answers to questions phrased using the English words act as a stimulus. Evans goes on to point out the pitfalls in this procedure and sets out a detailed account of two terms referring to tracts of the sea (2002: 81–6). It turned out the difference between the two terms was not satisfactorily resolved: In a sense this non-closure is predictable. It results from the attempt to investigate a complex semantic domain by unsuitable methods – ethnosemantics by cross examination. As well, it demonstrates two crucial points for the conduct of Native Title claims – the pitfalls of introducing decontextualised words from Indigenous languages into cross examination and the need for detailed prior work to be carried out by linguists in the relevant semantic domains, such as geographical terminology. (Evans, 2002: 86)
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There is nothing uncommon about such debates over terminology in legal cases involving land and sea rights: what is unusual is the detail in which this case has been reported.
Terminology Planning in the Educational Domain Bilingual education Bilingual education in Aboriginal Australia has generated a certain amount of new terminology – mostly in an ad hoc fashion. For instance, Walsh has noticed the development of the new term yigulu ‘igloo’ in Murrinhpatha which appears in literacy materials written after viewing a video of Inuit people. More generally, bilingual education has operated across much of northern Australia, especially since the early 1970s. But the progress of delivery and uptake of bilingual education has not always run smoothly. (See Hoogenraad (2001) for an account of Central Australia.) However, there will have been many instances where new terms have been developed to meet immediate needs in the development of literacy materials. It would require a major research effort to investigate the extent of these developments and the extent to which these terms have taken hold in communities. Given the ebb and flow of bilingual education in many communities, we would anticipate that there will be terms that have been developed but are not at all widely known in the community. Instead, these terms lie buried in literacy and other educational materials in a back cupboard of the school if one is lucky. Regrettably, some of these materials were only ever produced locally and in short print runs and some of them have not survived. One area in which terms seem to have had a better survival rate is in mathematics. In some instances this is a matter of finding appropriate translation equivalents for Western mathematical terms and adopting them. For the Kaurna of the Adelaide area of South Australia, Amery (2000: 143, 2001: 181) used birth-order names to develop a base–10 number system, in contrast to most Aboriginal languages which traditionally employ a base–2 system which can quickly become unwieldy and in any case is not compatible with basic Western mathematics. However, the Yolngu of north-east Arnhem Land in the Northern Territory have developed what they refer to as Garma (Living) Maths. The term garma, ‘meeting place’, reflects this community’s concern that the mathematics they develop should be a meeting place of Western and Yolngu intellectual traditions. At one time (1985–87) the Yolngu had felt sufficiently alienated from Western mathematics to impose a total ban on its teaching. It is beyond the scope of this paper to give details of this hybrid mathematics (Cooke, 1996; Thornton, 1996); suffice it to say that fundamental concepts like ‘relation’ and ‘recursion’ are captured in a culturally relevant way, particularly through traditional kinship terminology. Syllabus development In recent years a range of syllabuses has been developed specifically for Aboriginal languages. Some of these are for specific languages like Arabana. Wilson and Hercus (2004) provide specific examples from the language that illustrate how meaning is extended; for example:
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In Arabana the word yuka- ‘to go’ becomes yuki- ‘to make go’, and by a very simple extension this came to include ‘to drove cattle, to drive a car’ . . . A stronger example here might be the shift of meaning from kadnhaardi ‘pebble’ to also include ‘money’. (Wilson & Hercus, 2004: 27) Apart from meaning extension, the syllabus sets out other techniques, like direct borrowing, e.g. kurlu from ‘school’, or coinages. It also supplies a range of vocabulary for classroom interactions (Wilson & Hercus, 2004: 27–8). Other syllabuses are generic, for example, the Indigenous Language and Culture Syllabus developed for the Northern Territory, or the Aboriginal Languages K-10 Syllabus developed by the NSW Board of Studies (Board of Studies NSW, 2003). These cover a wide range of language situations. In the case of the Northern Territory, this range includes languages in which intergenerational transmission is common through to those which are no longer in active use. Specifically, the Indigenous Languages and Culture component of the NT Curriculum Framework divides into three sections: Culture; Language Maintenance; Language Revitalisation (for a full account see NT Department of Employment, Education and Training, 2002). Obviously the amount of terminology will differ across these language situations, but an awareness of terminology is encouraged as students are invited to identify loan words from English and from other Indigenous and non-Indigenous languages. The NSW Syllabus is quite explicit about developing new terminology, particularly when setting out learning goals for senior students: · identify gaps in words and expressions in own language and explore linguistic techniques for addressing these gaps; · identify techniques other languages have used to address these gaps, e.g. Ma-ori, Kaurna, Western Apache. (Board of Studies NSW, 2003: 50) We can expect the development of new terminology in Australian languages as these syllabuses are implemented in various educational systems. As always, it will be interesting to see to what extent these efforts are adopted more widely through Aboriginal communities.
Bible Translation At least parts of the Bible have been translated into many Aboriginal languages (see Harris, 1990: 829–46 for an overview). The first translation was carried out by a missionary, Lancelot Edward Threlkeld, with the assistance of an Aboriginal man, Biraban, in the Awabakal language spoken in the Newcastle–Lake Macquarie area of NSW. The Gospel of Luke was initially completed in 1830 in this language. The translation process involved close collaboration between Biraban and Threlkeld: ‘Thrice I wrote it, and he and I went through it sentence by sentence, and word for word, while I explained to him carefully the meaning as we proceeded’ (Harris, 1990: 830). Each translation project has developed new terminology or at least has extended the scope of existing terms. An interesting example can be found in the Western Arrernte language of Central Australia. The Lutheran missionary, Carl Strehlow, worked at the Hermannsburg mission from 1894 until he died in 1922:
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A skilled linguist with a lifelong interest in Aboriginal languages and culture, Strehlow found the Aranda (Arrernte) language well able to express complex abstract spiritual concepts . . . Although Carl Strehlow had finished the New Testament by his death, it was completely revised by his son, Theodore, and published by the Bible Society in 1956 ¼ (Harris, 1990: 836) In the late 1970s another team of Lutheran missionaries were retranslating the New Testament. Why? Theodore Strehlow had been raised trilingually in English, German (the language of his parents) and Western Arrernte (the language of his childhood playmates and the Hermannsburg community at large). Strehlow had burrowed down into the language to find just the right term to translate the complexities of the Bible, drawing on his own native speaker fluency and the detailed knowledge of senior Aboriginal men. By the late 1970s, many terms used by Strehlow in the scripture translation were either not understood at all or only partially remembered. The new Bible translation team needed to devise new terms which would be more widely understood in the current sociolinguistic context (John Pfitzner, p.c. to Walsh).
Place Names Names for localities have figured strongly in recent years in terminology planning for Australian languages. Often this involves the identification of former Aboriginal place names and their reinstatement into a wider domain. This can be achieved through renaming (involving the substitution of an Aboriginal name for an introduced name), or through dual naming (where an existing introduced name comes to stand side by side with its Aboriginal counterpart) or through naming from scratch. Some examples of the last mentioned are provided by the Kaurna Kura Yerlo ‘near the sea’ for an Aboriginal community centre located near the sea; or Yaitya Warra Wodli ‘Indigenous language place’, a centre for the languages of South Australia (Amery, 2001: 166–7). Over the last few years the process of dual naming has been actively pursued in NSW. The Geographical Names Board of NSW has played a leading role in this initiative, leading, for example, to the dual naming of Dawes Point/Tar-ra (at the southern foot of the Sydney Harbour Bridge) in 2002. Their policy can be briefly summarised as follows: Relying on community involvement, a dual name can be assigned where there is strong evidence, in the form of written or oral tradition, of a pre-existing Indigenous place name. It should be noted that the dual naming policy applies to geographical and environmental features, it does not apply to suburbs, towns or streets. (GNB, 2004) In collaboration with the Australian National Placenames Survey and the NSW ALRRC, the dual naming of 17 additional localities around Sydney Harbour is being finalised in the latter part of 2004.
Linguistic Terminology One domain in which Australian languages have had much more activity in terminology planning than others is, curiously enough, in the area of linguis-
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tics. This emphasis has arisen out of a desire by Aboriginal people to describe their own languages in their own terms. An important impetus for this aspiration was the establishment of the School of Australian Linguistics based for most of its life at Batchelor, NT, but with a brief for the whole of Indigenous Australia. The School of Australian Linguistics (SAL) was an unusual institution that provided language and linguistic education to some two thousand speakers of about a hundred Australian languages and dialects between 1974 and 1989 . . . (Black & Breen, 2001: 161) SAL was in part triggered by the views of Ken Hale, a linguist who had worked extensively in Australian Aboriginal contexts as well as among Native Americans: . . . the people who can best decide its [linguistics’] relevance to concerns of American Indian communities are the members of those communities. The distribution of linguistic talent and interest which is to be found in an American Indian community does not necessarily correspond in any way to the distribution of formal education in the Western sense. If this talent is to flourish and be brought to bear in helping determine the particular relevance of the study of language or languages to the communities in which it is located, then ways must be found to enable individuals . . . to receive training and accreditation which will enable them to devote their energies to the study of their own languages. (Hale, 1972: 392–3) SAL is not the only institution that has addressed these needs but it has had a major influence and has spawned a good deal of linguistic terminology. One of the more striking examples comes from the Warlpiri language of Central Australia. Gavan Breen has kindly passed on some examples which he says were ‘devised/compiled at a School of Australian Languages course in the late 1970s’ (personal correspondence Breen, 18 October 1995). Consider a term like yintirdi-yirrarnu yaapukari ‘stem-forming affix’. This is built up from ordinary Warlpiri words adapted for a new purpose: · yaapu? ‘part’ [perhaps from English ‘half’, Breen thinks. All but a few Australian languages lack fricatives so English ‘f’ is usually replaced with ‘p’ or ‘b’, and many Australian languages do not allow final stops and so add a vowel – rather like Japanese in this respect]; · yaapukari ‘pieces broken from a whole’ ? ‘ending’, ‘prefix’; · yintirdi ‘stem, base of something, e.g. trunk of tree (less, roots, branches, leaves)’ ? ‘stem of word’. Other terms include: · yimi ngarrirninyjaku ‘linguistic rule’; · warruyirrairninyjaku yimi-kirlangu (yimi ngarrirninyjaku) ‘word-order changing (rule) (e.g. scrambling)’; and · nyintanypa-kurlangu yimi ngarrirninyjaku ‘phonological rule’ (e.g. vowel harmony) where the first element nyintanypa ‘segments’ ordinarily refers to ‘segments, as of a centipede or grub’.
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As with specialised terminology in English, an ordinary term like ‘set’ or ‘group’ may take on a specialised meaning within the domain of logic or mathematics and it is mostly those specialists who will use the terms in a specialised way. (See also Walsh (2001) and Yunupingu (1996) for one Indigenous perspective.)
Indigenous Control of Terminology Planning During a major survey of NSW Aboriginal languages (Hosking et al., 2000), the creation of neologisms was a recurring issue. Some meetings of Aboriginal people were firmly against the idea, some were quite in favour and some meetings were divided in their opinions. Of those against the idea, some suggested that creating ‘new words’ (terms for objects/concepts from the modern world like ‘computer’) was ‘against Aboriginal law’. One point of consensus seemed to be that there should be Indigenous control in the process (see also Walsh, 2003: 115). The Kaurna of the Adelaide area of South Australia is one group that has embraced quite a range of new terms. Perhaps the acceptance of such terms was made easier by the fact that over 100 new terms had been recorded by German missionaries in the first half of the 19th century (Amery, 1993). In recent times neologisms have often arisen in an ad hoc fashion in connection with translation tasks. Occasionally, new terms have been developed in a more considered manner. For instance, in workshops held in November 2000, we set out to develop words and expressions for use in a variety of situations in which parents interact with children, including bathing, nappy changing, mealtimes, cooking, shopping, etc. Accordingly, we set out to develop terms for salient items needed, such as ‘soap’, ‘shampoo’, ‘nappy’, ‘microwave’, ‘fridge’, ‘newsagent’, ‘bank’, etc . . . Suggestions for these new terms were put forward by workshop participants and discussed by the group of Kaurna language enthusiasts present until a consensus was reached. (Amery, 2001: 180–1) Within the recently developed NSW Aboriginal Languages Syllabus K-10 (Board of Studies, 2003), the creation of new terms is not merely an area of study but an activity that students are encouraged to engage in. In this and other language activities the Syllabus expects that appropriate Aboriginal consultation will take place (Board of Studies, 2003: 5).
Conclusion In this brief coverage we have merely sketched some of the activities across Aboriginal Australia in terminology planning. Because of the range of language situations across Australia and the highly localised nature of most activities, a fuller coverage would amount to a major research undertaking. Even in this limited account it can be seen that terminology planning, while taking place in many locations and across a wide range of domains, has been highly localised, ad hoc, and much less institutionalised than might be found elsewhere. Of major importance for the satisfactory uptake of these efforts is the sense that the community has ownership of the process.
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Changing the Language Ecology of Kadazandusun: The Role of the Kadazandusun Language Foundation Rita Lasimbang and Trixie Kinajil Kadazandusun Language Foundation, PO Box 420, 89507 Penampang, Sabah, Malaysia This article examines the role the Kadazandusun Language Foundation has played in changing the language ecology of the Kadazandusun language. Over the period of the last 15 years, the state of the Kadazandusun language has undergone major progression that includes the making of a trilingual Kadazan Dusun–Malay– English dictionary. This article also relates to the impact the language situation has had on changing attitudes toward mother-tongue use in the Kadazandusun community.
Sociolinguistic Background
1
There are 138 languages in Malaysia,2 of which 54 are indigenous to Sabah (Grimes, 1996). Thirteen of these indigenous languages are classified under the Dusunic language family.3 There are no current data for language from the recent national census, but according to the 1999 Sabah census projection, speakers of Kadazan/Dusun ethnicity should have numbered 750,000 by 2000 – making Kadazan and Dusun the largest single language community in the State. Speakers of the Kadazan/Dusun language are mainly found along the west coast of Sabah and also extending some distance inland (see Banker & Banker, 1984 for details). ‘Kadazan’ and ‘Dusun’ in this article are terms that various groups of people who speak varieties of this language have come to call themselves. The term ‘Kadazandusun’ is the conjoined term decided on as the official name of the shared language – the standard language – that has been introduced in Sabah schools. More recently, the word has been used as a general umbrella term for both Kadazan and Dusun people, and as a loose term for all languages in the Dusunic language family. According to Banker and Banker (1984), the Kadazan/Dusun language consists of a chain of dialects that are reasonably understood by neighbouring communities. But because the language differs in varying degrees, communication between members from one end of the chain to the other may be more difficult, e.g. between Coastal Kadazan speakers in the south, and Central Dusun speakers in the north. Bahasa Malaysia, the national language of Malaysia since 1963 (Omar, 1984), was selected on the basis of having the greatest number of speakers – at the time the Malay people made up more than half of the population of Peninsular Malaysia. However, Sabah on the island of Borneo, with 80% of its population made up of indigenous ethnic groups,4 presents a host of ethnic languages to choose from when selecting a lingua franca for that region. 171 Changing the Language Ecology of Kadazandusun
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The Kadazandusun Language Beginnings The Penampang populace – south-east of the capital Kota Kinabalu – was first introduced to literacy through the school-building efforts of Mill Hill Missionaries who arrived in the early 1880s.5 However, World War II interrupted these educational efforts. Mission schools were resiliently set up again after the war. These schools were known as Native Voluntary Schools in the 1960s. They appealed greatly to the local Kadazan and Dusun folk because they ‘opted to teach literacy to rural folk initially through their local Kadazan or Dusun dialect only shifting gradually by the third or fourth year into English’ (Reid, 1997). The Kadazan language underwent vast developments post-war. The year 1953 saw the Kadazan language introduced in the all-English newspaper Sabah Times. The following year Radio Sabah started a Kadazan programme that ran for 15 minutes daily, increasing to 14 hours per week in 1960 (Reid, 1997). The 1960s saw massive publication of literature. The earliest record of a Kadazan publication was Samuel Majalang’s Tanong do Kadazan [Kadazan Stories], which was published by the Borneo Literature Bureau in 1962. During the Nationalism era (after joining Malaya in 1963), mother-tongue development went into decline as emphasis was put on the acquisition of the national language, Bahasa Malaysia (Malay). To safeguard social and economic interests as well as to assist assimilation into the fast-growing Malaysian culture, Kadazan/Dusun parents had begun to allow the use of the Malay language in the home. However, this move did more harm than good when code-mixing became evident, slowly removing the need to converse in the mother tongue (Lasimbang, 1996). The Kadazan/Dusun community only began to identify with the now-apparent language loss in the early 1980s. By then, the infiltration of ‘broken’ Kadazan and Dusun songs into the music industry had added further damage to the situation. Their fun and catchy tunes belied the growing disparaging view held against mother-tongue use by many Kadazan/Dusun speakers. Therefore, as has happened in many other language situations around the world (see, e.g. Mühlhäusler, 1996), modernisation and development has meant that the ecology of the Kadazan/Dusun language chains was breaking down and powerful new languages were entering that ecology (i.e. Bahasa Malaysia, English). Cultural factors in the changing ecology of the Kadazandusun language A new sustaining ecology for the language family was also slow to develop, as the process of forming a common nomenclature was a difficult one. According to Lasimbang and Miller (1990), this was seen as early as 1886 in the problematic ‘language labelling’ exercise conducted by various groups amongst the indigenous population of North Borneo. Members of groups could not agree on a common language/ethnic group label, nor could they agree to the labels outsiders had for them. Since language labelling works only if members of a group are open to it (Lasimbang & Miller, 1990), the not un-alike Kadazan and Dusun
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communities had to contend with the continuing pressure to arrive at a single way of identifying themselves. By the 1960s it became obvious that this dilemma was also causing problems for the preservation of the mother tongue. While the desire for mother-tongue education was central to both communities, the touchy subject of identity – whether Kadazan or Dusun (Reid, 1997) – created confusion as to how to go about the matter. The following decade saw more ambivalence to mother-tongue issues and to cultural identity for that matter. Finally, in 1985 there was a breakthrough with the crucial decisions being taken on orthography and, in 1995, the standardisation of dialects materialised. With that, a close approach to a wider group identity was achieved. In the following sections, we discuss how this new language ecology has begun to emerge. Orthography and dialects standardisation issues The 100-year old initial Kadazan orthography was standardised in 1985, based on the orthography decisions by the Kadazan Cultural Association (KCA) Language Sub-Committee in 1984. The amendments to the orthography included the writing of the glottal stop whenever it occurs, the marking of plosives, e.g. b and d, uniformity in the use of hyphens, spelling of particles or clitics, and decisions on the use of varying spellings (Miller & Miller, 1983, 1984). The KCA began the first application of the standardised Kadazan orthography during the 1985 publication of books from a Kadazan Children’s Literature Production Workshop. In 1987, the biggest application of the standardised orthography was made in the update of Antonissen’s 1958 Kadazan Dictionary and Grammar. The update was manifested in the first-ever linguistic and trilingual Kadazan Dusun–Malay–English Dictionary. In 1988, much encouraged by the outcome of a language survey conducted amongst Kadazan children, the KCA began to make efforts to request that the Kadazan language be taught in schools. The survey revealed that the Kadazan community had long wanted their language to be taught in schools but that their desire for this had never been made public (Lasimbang et al., 1992). That same year, the Minister of Education made a statement that the study of languages such as Kadazan might be incorporated into the school syllabus.6 This raised great hopes within the Kadazan/Dusun community. However, the long-standing issue of standardisation of the various dialects within the Dusunic language family still needed to be resolved before this could occur. Therefore, the following year a symposium, Towards the Standardisation of the Kadazan Dialects, organised by KCA, was held to examine the matter. But old differences quickly cropped up on which label to use for the standard language – whether Kadazan or Dusun. All too soon, conflicting views of identity had shelved the issue of standardisation and with it, the hope of teaching the Kadazan language in schools. The re-introduction of the Kadazandusun language in Sabah schools Nevertheless, in September 1990, various efforts to include the Kadazan language in schools were once again put forward,7 but none of these efforts were
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fruitful. The idea of the re-introduction of the Kadazan language in schools was not revived until 1994, when a concerned Member of Parliament and a Kadazandusun himself, YB [Honourable] Tan Sri Bernard G. Dompok, began seriously pursuing the matter.8 At that time, however, with no provision for the Kadazan language to be taught in public schools, a private class was proposed and set up under the trading licence of the Kadazan Language Centre (KLC). Nonetheless, YB Tan Sri Bernard G. Dompok continued pushing for the teaching of the Kadazandusun language and succeeded in the re-introduction of the Kadazan/Dusun language in schools in April 1995.9 However, the problem of the old ‘name game’ – the need to define the new language ecology – still lacked a definitive resolution. The Sabah Education Department played the mediator for the two cultural custodians – the Kadazan Dusun Cultural Association and the United Sabah Dusun Association – on the decision for the name of the standard language that was to be taught in schools. The compromise went on to document the combined term ‘Kadazandusun’ as the official name of the shared language,10 at the same time solving the issue of standardisation of dialects within the Dusunic language family. In 2000, the Kadazandusun language was being taught to 19,731 children by 881 trained teachers, in 440 primary schools in 21 districts throughout the State of Sabah.11
The Role of the Kadazandusun Language Foundation With these official developments in progress, the time had come for the KLC (now called the Kadazandusun Language Centre) to expand its functions. In order to ensure continued efforts to preserve, develop and promote the Kadazandusun language, an official language body to monitor and coordinate language work needed to be set up. In December 1994, the first five trustees-to-be met to discuss the formation and registration of a trust for the Kadazandusun Language Foundation (KLF). On 20 June 1995, the KLF’s joint trustees were granted a Certificate of Incorporation under the Trustees (Incorporation) Ordinance 1951 Cap. 148 (Sabah). The KLF’s objectives are wide-ranging and are subdivided into four programme areas: Linguistics and Anthropology; Literacy and Literature; Translation and Community Service; and Training and Development. Since its establishment, the KLF has been particularly concerned with mobilising the Kadazandusun community towards taking increasing responsibility for the development of the language. The KLF recognises that community involvement in and acceptance of its work is vital to the survival of the Kadazandusun language. To this end, the following language activities have been conducted by the KLF to ensure positive involvement by the community in the directions the Kadazandusun language is taking. Imparting basic linguistic knowledge The KLF has taught several groups from a variety of backgrounds the basic linguistic aspects of their mother tongue. Aside from primary school teachers,
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who needed to understand the linguistic components of the Kadazandusun language before being sufficiently confident to teach the subject in schools, participants have also included journalists, school-aged children, young working adults, pre-school teachers and tertiary-level instructors. These input sessions are often coordinated by the respective Kadazandusun communities themselves; for example, the KLF continues to be called upon to provide input on linguistics in a yearly teacher-training workshop held by Suausindak, a Community Pre-school. Suausindak was the first school in Sabah to offer Kadazandusun language classes to pre-school age children. Providing technical support, advice and consultancy Once it was agreed to go ahead with the teaching of the Kadazandusun language in schools, the Sabah Education Department called upon the KLF to provide technical advice and consultancy. The KLF first began to provide this service in April 1995 to key personnel from the Department in the first national-level meeting to draft the Kadazandusun language curriculum. The KLF continues to provide technical consultancy to the Sabah Education Department on a needs basis. The KLF has also assisted the University of Malaysia Sabah in the preparation of their Kadazandusun language classes, which they offered as an elective in 1998. Perwira Tuition Centre, a local organisation that offered conversational Kadazandusun language courses, was also given assistance in setting up their coursework. On the occasion of the yearly Harvest Festival (a traditional Kadazandusun celebration), district level and village level committees have continued to seek the KLF’s advice on judging criteria and the suitability of material used in reading and story-telling competitions. The KLF is also often invited to head the judging panel. Providing funding support The KLF has also assisted the Sabah Education Department in acquiring funding for running Kadazandusun language teachers’ district-level in-house training programmes. Up to now, the KLF has channelled 29 funding packages to the districts that required them, as well as providing additional funds for a major centralised training programme held in 1998. The KLF continues to look for funding opportunities to support training requests of Kadazandusun language teachers in schools. Another request by the Sabah Education Department for language materials saw the KLF raising funds to purchase 100 copies of the ‘Kadazan Dusun–Malay–English Dictionary’ in 1999. A second ‘Dictionary Drive’ is to be conducted shortly. Where possible, the KLF also sponsors language materials for school-level language activities/competitions. Production of local literature The KLF has undertaken a publishing role that had been badly needed in the Kadazandusun community. It serves as an official outlet for the production of vernacular books, with the hope that in this way much of Kadazandusun oral
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tradition could be preserved. To date, 21 titles have been published and circulated. By increasing the production of mother-tongue literature, the KLF continues to tap into local talent for materials written in the mother tongue. By conducting a yearly writing competition, members of the community have been encouraged to put folktales and short stories down in writing. Since 1996, winning entries in the competition have been compiled into volumes and made available at book fairs and exhibitions. Training workshops Training and workshops have been highly useful in mobilising more community involvement in mother-tongue preservation. For a new supportive language ecology to develop, human resource development and the transference of skills must take root. To push for this ideal, the KLF has conducted writers’ workshops to address the development of literature in the mother tongue. The aim is to increase writers’ motivation as well as to provide them with the skills to produce literature to support local education efforts. To enable writers to tap into information found in source languages, a translation workshop has been conducted where translation principles are taught. Editors’ training and workshops are also conducted to add to the skills of the body of local writers. It is hoped that this will help to ease the backlog of publication since more members of the community will be confident and able to assist in the publishing component of literature production. The KLF also has organised a Shell Book Production Workshop to introduce the technique of producing massive numbers of books in a short period of time using a template (shell). The Shell Book technique has been useful in the instruction of basic concepts such as health and hygiene for beginning literates. Networking In setting up a Local Writers’ and Illustrators’ Network, the KLF has encouraged local writers and illustrators to forge their like-minded ideas together. This network, begun in 1997, has the potential to become a strong advocate for preserving and promoting the mother tongue. Providing translation services Over the years, the KLF has provided major translation services to several government agencies that needed them, e.g. the translation of health materials, speeches, advertisements and patriotic songs into Kadazandusun. There is a growing awareness of the possibilities of using the Kadazandusun language to address a wider audience or to market materials or ideas. In the use of health pamphlets amongst rural communities in particular, it is especially important to be able to provide instruction in the mother tongue, as there is a great likelihood that clients only have basic literacy acquisition. The written text then will be extremely useful to both Kadazandusun and non-Kadazandusun health personnel. Preserving oral tradition It has been suggested by some scholars that once a non-literate community becomes literate, it will abandon its oral tradition (cf. the discussion in Crowley,
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this volume). That has not been the case in the Kadazandusun community. Rather, the strong desire to draw out this oral component of the culture has been evident in community participation in events such as the Humius (Traditional Kadazandusun Singing) and Mananong (Traditional Kadazandusun Story-telling) conducted by the KLF. For example, a Humius event in June 2000 involved as many as 24 participants, most of whom were Bobohizan (Kadazandusun priestesses) and elders in the community. Traditional songs as in ritual chanting and songs traditionally sung in community gatherings were performed. It was truly a celebration of oral tradition as the Kadazandusun community heard it in its original form – the expression of culture found in traditional songs. In an earlier event, a Mananong demonstration was held to impart story-telling skills to Kadazandusun language teachers who coach their students yearly for a Traditional Kadazandusun Story-Telling Competition. Observations of this activity countered the finding that school students were strongly influenced by Malay or English language story-telling styles, e.g. in voice modulation, intonation, pitch, etc. Both events have been videotaped and properly recorded, i.e. transcribed and translated for cultural posterity. The Kadazandusun community is proud that samples of oral tradition within the community have been preserved, and that the KLF has maintained equal interest in the promotion of the rich oral tradition of the Kadazandusun people. Production of language-learning software A major first in terms of Kadazandusun language development in the age of computers has been the production of the ‘Learning Kadazandusun’ CD-ROM. Produced in January 2000, it displayed the ability of the Kadazandusun language to respond to the changing needs of the Kadazandusun community and even the wider public. The CD-ROM has also given welcomed prestige to the relatively new Kadazandusun language efforts.
Conclusion The KLF’s role in helping to map out the changing ecology in which the Kadazandusun language is now located has been well defined and given due recognition by both the Federal and State governments. As a coordinating language body, the KLF’s role has also given the Kadazandusun community the firm assurance that language maintenance will be supported. In addition to this great responsibility, the KLF must also bear an added role in the promotion of a future-oriented outlook for Kadazandusun language development. For this to happen there is a need for further study of community responses to the Kadazandusun language, e.g. acceptance or rejection of the label ‘Kadazandusun’, the teaching of the standard language in schools, and parental support or lack thereof for language use at home. This will enable the KLF to further understand the perspective of the Kadazandusun community and enable it to meet new community needs as they arise. Understanding and working with the community on its mother tongue needs will also encourage ecologically sound language planning and policies to assist
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practitioners at all levels of language development. Perhaps of paramount importance in the short term is the need to understand whether the community has accepted the Kadazandusun language as a standard language. Acceptance would indicate that the standard language is in its final stage of development (Lasimbang, 1998). This paper has provided an example of the role that community-based language planning bodies like the KLF can have in sustaining language ecologies. There are great expectations from those involved in the KLF and in the preservation of the Kadazandusun language that a viable language ecology can be developed and sustained. However, the ultimate outcome of this will be known when the Kadazandusun language is finally accepted, publicly acknowledged and fully owned by the Kadazandusun community itself. Notes 1. We wish to thank Associate Professor Richard B. Baldauf Jr of the University of Sydney for his kind assistance in the preparation of this article. 2. UNESCO statistics (1998) – http://www.escap-hrd.org/fsmal.html. 3. SIL/Malaysia Branch, Revised ‘List of Western Austronesian Languages and Dialects in Sabah’ March 1996: Kota Kinabalu. 4. Yearbook of Statistics – Sabah (1999 projection) p. 15. 5. St. Michael’s Parish Jubilee Celebration Souvenir Book, July 2000, Penampang, Sabah. p. 12 6. Sabah Times. 19 November 1988. ‘Kadazan in school?’ 7. Borneo Mail. 11 March 1999. ‘Kadazandusun language earns degree of recognition.’ 8. Borneo Mail. 5 June 1994. ‘PDS to push for classes in schools.’ 9. Daily Express. 4 April 1995. ‘Federal govt’s move on Kadazandusun lauded.’ 10. ‘Perjanjian Perisytiharan Bahasa Kadazandusun sebagai Bahasa Rasmi’ [Declaration of Agreement that ‘Kadazandusun’ is Official language] 24 January 1995. 11. Launching speech of YB Tan Sri Bernard G. Dompok, Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department, during the Kadazandusun Language Week 2000 organised by the Sabah State Library Borneo Mail 20 June 2000. ‘No Place for Opposition’.
Correspondence Any correspondence should be directed to Ms Rita Lasimbang, Kadazandusun Language Foundation, PO Box 420, 89507 Penampang, Sabah, Malaysia,
[email protected] References Antonissen, A. (1958) Kadazan Dictionary and Grammar. Canberra: Government Printing. Banker, J. and Banker, E. (1984) The Kadazandusun/Dusun language. In J.W. and J.K. King (eds) Languages of Sabah: A Survey Report (pp. 297–324). Pacific Linguistics C-78. Canberra: Australian National University. Crowley, T. (2000) The consequences of vernacular (il)literacy in the Pacific. Current Issues in Language Planning 1(3). Grimes, B.F. (ed.) (1996) Ethnologue: Languages of the World. Texas: Summer Institute of Linguistics. Kadazan Cultural Association (1984) Orthography decisions. Mimeographed minutes. KCA Sabah (1989) KOISAAN Language Symposium: Towards Standardisation of the Kadazan Dialects [Souvenir Book]. 13–15 January. Kundasang, Sabah. Lasimbang, R. (1996) Cherish your language through knowing your language. Paper presented at ‘Embrace Your Culture, Cherish Your Language for Excellence and Unity’ seminar, in conjunction with Minggu Galakan Membaca Bahasa Kadazandusun [Kadazandusun Language Week]. Kota Kinabalu, Sabah, Malaysia, 4 November.
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Lasimbang, R. (1998) Kadazandusun mother tongue education. In K.K. Soong (ed.) Mother Tongue Education of Malaysia Ethnic Minorities (pp. 96–9). Kuala Lumpur: Dong Jiao Zong Higher Learning Centre. Lasimbang, R. and Miller, C.P. (1990) Language labelling and other factors affecting perception of ethnic identity in Sabah. In J.T. Collins (ed.) Language and Oral Traditions in Borneo (pp. 115–39). (Selected Papers from the First Extraordinary Conference of the Borneo Research Council, Kuching, Sarawak, Malaysia, 4–9 August.) Borneo Research Council Proceedings Series (vol. 2). Williamburg, VA: Borneo Research Council. Lasimbang, R., Miller, C. and Miller, J. (eds) (1995) Kadazan Dusun–Malay–English Dictionary. Kota Kinabalu: Kadazan Dusun Cultural Association (KDCA). Lasimbang, R., Miller, C.P. and Otigil, F.G. (1992) Language competence and use among coastal Kadazan children: A survey report. In W. Fase, K. Jaspaert and S. Kroon (eds) Maintenance and Loss of Minority Languages (pp. 333–55). Studies in Bilingualism 1. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Majalang, S. (1962) Tanong Do Kadazan [Kadazan Stories]. Kuching: Borneo Literature Bureau. Miller, J. and Miller, C. (1983) Problem areas within the Kadazan writing system. Paper submitted to KCA as reference in updating the spelling system of Kadazan. Unpublished manuscript. Miller, J. and Miller, C. (1984) Addenda and additional comments on Kadazan spelling. Paper submitted to KCA as reference in updating the spelling system of Kadazan. Unpublished manuscript. Mühlhäusler, P. (1996) Linguistic Ecology: Language Change and Linguistic Imperialism in the Pacific Region. London: Routledge. Omar, A.H. (1984) The development of the national language of Malaysia. In A. Gonzalez (ed.) Panagani: Essays in Honour of Bonifacio P. Sibayan on his Sixty-Seventh Birthday (pp. 7–23). Manila: Linguistic Society of the Philippines. Reid, A. (1997) Endangered identity: Kadazan or Dusun in Sabah (East Malaysia). Journal of Southeast Asian Studies 28, 120–36. Singapore: National University of Singapore.
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Singaporean Educational Planning: Moving from the Macro to the Micro Catherine Siew Kheng Chua National Institute of Education. Nanyang Technological University, Singapore 637616 This paper looks at current reforms by the Government and Ministry of Education, which are moving from a tight national system to a more locally based system, where schools and teachers will have more choice over what they study and teach. This paper addresses this reform at three levels. First, it highlights the changes in the Singaporean education system at a national level. Second, it examines the issues surrounding these changes, in particular in relation to the dichotomy between the global and local demands of Singapore’s education system. Third, it explores how these demands will change local realities, benefiting certain students and affecting the status of humanities, in particular subjects like English literature and connects macro-level planning with micro-level planning. Increasingly, the language planning literature is stressing the need for education planning to move from a focus on the national to a focus on the local. Singapore, which has adhered to a heavy top-down planning model, with a significant focus on language issues, presents an interesting case study of whether such change is possible.
Keywords: Singapore, top-down planning model, micro language planning, global and local demands, diversified pathway, Science and Technology
Introduction It’s a different generation of Singaporeans, different from the group which fought for independence, different from the group which grew up with independence in the immediate post-independence years . . . now it’s a new generation and it’s got to take Singapore another step forward, another level higher. (Lee, 2004: 6) According to Prime Minister (PM) Lee Hsien Loong (2004: 6), in order for Singapore to succeed, there must be a ‘balance between continuity and change’, as the situation has changed from when Singapore entered the stage of post-industrial development. In the face of new global challenges, a different generation of Singaporeans is needed to be the country’s primary source of competitive advantage. In an era of rapid globalisation and intense competition, Singapore’s future economic growth requires a radical expansion of its economic scope and depth (Chang, 2002). The PM (Lee, 2004: 6) is convinced that in order for Singapore to succeed, it must keep what ‘is still working and good and strong’, yet at the same time it has to invent ‘new ideas to deal with new problems’, and develop ‘new strategies to thrive in a different world’. A new Singapore would need ‘unconventional solutions’ for its ‘unpredictable problems,’ as ‘old solutions will simply not do any more’ (The Straits Times, 2004a). The present world differs from the past as it enters into a period of unprecedented and far-reaching change. The 183
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stress is to be different because advancement has transformed the spaces in which people work and live. More remarkably, these transformations are not permanent. Rather they will be continuous, thereby causing a radical change in economic relationship between the regions of the world. Most importantly, it has led to an increasing emphasis on the ways goods and services are produced, and not just on what are produced. In other words, the concept of productivity has moved beyond efficiency and speed. Instead, it also stresses creativity and innovation. In sum, the future economic growth will be powered by ‘human capital – skills and knowledge residing in individuals and systems – rather than the traditional factors of production, capital, and labour’ (Lim, 2002: 38). As shown, economic restructuring and technological changes have demanded a change in the education structure and its pedagogical style, thus affirming the importance of education in a country’s economic development. According to Baldauf (1990), education is used as a tool to aid in a country’s language development process. Initially, language planning was used for ‘creating a more efficient, more scientific, more objective mechanism for resource management’ after the Second World War (Kaplan, 1990: 1). Therefore, language planning is a massive and complex project that is carried out by a well-coordinated team. Ho and Wong summarised this massive planning as ‘an activity undertaken by the state’, which is usually carried out ‘to implement or promote such a policy that is explicitly stated or sometimes left implicit’ (Ho & Wong, 2000: 1). Kaplan and Baldauf (1997: xi) termed language policy as ‘a body of ideas, laws, regulations, rules and practices’ that are ‘intended to achieve the planned language change in the society, group or system’. In view of this, language policy exists in three interrelated contexts: text production; practice and influence (Taylor et al., 2002). It is implemented at two levels: the macro (national) and the micro (institutional or school) levels. Macro-level planning and micro-level planning have usually been treated as different approaches to language planning, and have been studied independently of each other. However, macro and micro planning can work together to achieve language planning goals. At the macro level, texts are produced to implement explicit programmes that aim to reorganise the linguistic, cultural and political structure of a country. They operate at a national level that stresses maintaining regularities and organising the overall structure, such as status planning and language corpus planning. On the other hand, unlike macro planning, micro planning operates at an individual level that focuses on the actual implementation of the policies. At this level, different strategies are adopted to ensure that the macro policies are enforced. In short, policies are: Processes prior to the articulation of the text; it also involves processes prior to the articulation of the text and processes which continue after the text has been produced, both in modifications to it as a statement of values and desired action, and in actual practice. (Taylor et al., 2002: 28) Based on this argument, both macro and micro planning are interdependent processes that are needed to achieve the national goals of any language policy. This paper will examine this interdependence in the context of Singapore’s
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language-in-education planning to examine how the Singaporean Government and schools have responded to these global changes and demands through an examination of its national policies. The paper is organised in four sections. The first section of the paper gives an overview of the Singapore’s Government structure and its relationship with Singapore’s education system. The second section looks at the effect of globalisation on Singapore, and how it has changed its definition of an ideal future workforce. It discusses how the Government has responded to this change, looking particularly at the adjustment of its education policies. The third section highlights Singapore’s education initiatives in 2005 and beyond, specifically looking at its shift towards meeting local demands. The last section concludes by discussing the dichotomy between the global and local demands of education in Singapore. These issues are examined in the context of a topdown Singaporean educational and community-based language policy that has over the years increased its focus on high status economic language (English and Mandarin), and it examines the potential effects this latest turn may have on aspects of language education.
An Overview of the People’s Action Party The People’s Action Party (PAP) is the dominant party in Singapore, which has the capacity to govern and fully control the political arena (Mauzy & Milne, 2002). Over the years, despite the recruitment and renewal of new ministerial talents, the PAP has continued to run the country in an authoritarian manner, taking a heavy top-down approach. This was reinforced by the previous PM, Goh Chok Tong, when he said, ‘this “politics of consensus and convergence” is the best way forward for us’ (Goh, 2004: 2). Therefore, unlike some countries that have powerful social movements which can demand democratic engagement in policy processes, in Singapore, the policies of the PAP are the central component of the Singaporean Government’s governance of the country. The PAP’s key driving forces, which propel the development and advancement of Singapore, are the ideologies of survival, pragmatics, and meritocracy. The ideology of survival emphasises the importance of national cohesiveness and stability. The ideology of pragmatics emphasises appropriating outcomeoriented strategies in dealing with potential challenges faced by Singapore. The ideology of meritocracy has enabled the Government to operate the country under the premise that the merit of one’s work would be judged and appraised, rather than one’s race, ethnicity, or language background. Most importantly, based on this ideology, all Singaporeans will be rewarded in accordance with their hard work and contributions. And these ideologies form the basis for the government initiatives, including the education policies (Chua, 2004a). Linking education changes with Singapore’s economic demands Language planning in Singapore is designed to provide practical strategies to achieve the national goals of the Government. Education is recognised in Singapore and in most countries as an important vehicle for both social mobility and cultural identity. It is especially the case in contemporary
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societies that schools play a critical role in providing the skills that ultimately allocate people to positions in the occupational structure. Naturally, the Singaporean education system operates in accordance with its country’s economic demands. Lee (2005: 3) states that ‘education is important to give Singaporeans the skills and training for a new economy’, as it provides an up-to-date workforce for the country. Hence, for pragmatic reasons, Singapore’s Government measures the effectiveness of the education policies against two possible sets of criteria: • how well it helps to increase Singapore’s chances of survival and development; • how well it helps to develop the productive potential of the individual. (Chang, 2002: 140) The Singaporean Government regards the education system as a vital component of the nation-building process in Singapore, and language policy has played an important role in that development, developing a common lingua franca, a language for international communication and languages to serve as the focus for identity (Chua, 2004b). Hence, it can be seen that the Singaporean Government constantly repositions its education system to the ‘needs’ of the economy, as education is perceived to be the key form of contribution to the developing of individuals’ productivity rates, which in return improves the country’s economic growth. For the Government, an investment in education and training will increase Singaporeans’ chances of survival. Language skills are an important element that underpins such development.
Globalisation: In Principle and in Singapore Globalisation has created patterns of interdependence and interconnection between countries. With advancement in technology, the proximity between countries is shortened, thereby allowing cultures and economics of various countries to influence each other rapidly in complex and often unpredictable ways (Graddol, 1997). Most importantly, the emergence of new regional players (mainly China and India), coupled with a more rapid pace of technological evolution and globalisation have meant that the post-1997 world is a very different one (Toh et al., 2004: 55). The global competition has intensified and the pace of change has expedited, hence Singapore’s economy environment has changed from a labour-intensive manufacturing industry to one that stresses technologyintensive production and a service-based industry (Chua, 2004c). PM Lee (2005) has said that Singapore has gone beyond efficiency; the basis for the present economy is knowledge, innovation and talent, and that the speed of economic restructuring is likely to remain high. Technological change has altered the employment structure whereby there is a stress on demands of knowledge, skills and expectations, thus leaving not much room for the least educated and least qualified. The speed of corporate and technological change means that ‘workers must turn their hands quickly to a wider
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variety of activities and retrain regularly’ (Graddol, 1997: 33). Consequently, the lower-educated and older workers are likely to experience painful dislocations and structural unemployment. PM Goh had already confirmed this change by saying that in the coming years, the global economic environment will be more competitive. Lower-skilled jobs will migrate to lower-cost countries; older, less-educated workers will have to be retrained in order to stay employed in the market (Goh, 2004). Thus, in this globalised economy the development of human resource is considered the key factor for economic growth and development.
Singapore’s Language Practice − at Macro Level Not surprisingly, in the light of these views, the improvement of the quality and efficiency of education has become a key concept for the Singapore Government. Singapore’s educational practice and language policy have moved Singapore from a Third World country to a First World nation (Pakir, 2003). Bilingual policy In the early years, literary policy was centred on equipping Singaporeans with basic literacy skills to provide the country with a technically qualified labour. English has always been the major international language for trade, and therefore proficiency in that language was deemed essential. Consequently, the Singapore Government made it mandatory for students to be literate in English, as they believed that by learning the language of an economically strong community it would open up Singapore’s market for international trade (Chua, 2004b). Since English remains the common business language, it has become the co-first language for all Singaporeans. In addition, the concept of literacy has changed because it has to adapt to the changing international conditions and demands. Literacy in the Singaporean context is required to fulfil a practical role in educating Singaporeans and transforming them into economic assets in order to ensure Singapore will survive and prosper (Chua, 2004b). Now, the Singaporean Government has defined literacy in terms of lifelong learning. The quest for this ‘lifelong’ education system is the result of the new social pressures created by this globalised economy. According to Belanger (1998: 262), lifelong education ‘covers the whole range of learning activities and could be divided into three specific constituent parts: initial training, adult education or continuing training, and learning environment’. In other words, in the present times, literacy is equated with the concept of continuous learning, and therefore in order to be literate in this new economy, one has to learn through one’s life. In short, in order for Singapore to maintain its international competitiveness in the global economy, Singaporean workers must learn to adapt, adjust and be flexible. Peterson and Farrer (2004) understand such lifelong learning skill as the growing awareness of the importance of lifelong learning in maintaining competitiveness and employability. The concept of literacy has become more diversified in conjunction with this technology-based worldview. It encompasses creative and critical skills, and schools are called to play a major role in bringing about this change (Tan, 2002).
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This means that Singaporean workers are expected to generate new ideas and solutions in response to new challenging problems. It is the Government’s view that it is important for Singaporeans to possess these language and literacy skills, as the country’s future economic growth is powered by human capital – skills and knowledge residing in individuals and systems – rather than the traditional factors of production, capital, and labour. Singapore’s responses to global needs As the previous sections have shown, human resources are perceived to be a vital asset for Singapore’s economic development due to its limited natural resources. PM Lee’s main priority now is to ‘grow and upgrade [Singapore’s] economy’. To him, the country needs ‘to develop new skills and capabilities, open new markets abroad, bring in investments and see new areas of growth’ (The Straits Times, 2005). However, long before this, the Government had already made provision for this inevitable global shift. The Thinking Schools Learning Nations (TSLN) policy was launched to improve the country’s educational productivity as well as the country’s economic productivity. At the centre of this policy initiative is a governmental commitment to the development of cultural capital, as well as to transform all students into active learners who are equipped with critical thinking skills (Tan, 2002). TSLN is a national information technologies programme designed to equip all future Singaporeans with the desired technological skills to thrive in the face of globalisation and rapid changes. Hence, the Government is playing a critical role at the macro level to introduce IT literacy skills in all the schools. The Government’s goal is to create a total learning environment that facilitates the development of a creative and critical thinking culture within schools, but most importantly it seeks to provide a first-class education that would equip a future generation of Singaporeans, who are able to adapt to changes and keep Singapore vibrant and prosperous (Tan, 2000). In PM Lee’s 2005 National Day Rally speech, he reinforced the view that the two new growth engines that will empower the future Singapore economy are: innovation and enterprise, and research and development. Dr Tony Tan, previous Deputy Prime Minister and Defence Minister, together with Mr Lee himself, would drive the country’s R&D efforts. It is a massive project because it will be a joint enterprise with people from the private sector, the scientific and academic communities, as well as key ministers (Koh, 2005).
Education Re-adjustments: Changes at the Macro Level Singapore’s IT Masterplan: Phases I and II The Singapore Government’s intervention at a national level occurs through its monetary and fiscal policies. In order for all Singapore’s students to be well versed in Information Technology (IT) skills, an ambitious attempt to incorporate information technology in teaching and learning in all schools was launched in the year 1997 by the Government. As articulated in the Information Technology (IT) Masterplan, the key objective for this comprehensive implementation is to ensure all Singaporeans are IT literate by building IT-based infrastructure in all schools. The Ministry of Education (MOE) received both monetary and fiscal support from the Government. Starting in early 1980s, the Government had
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already laid down a strong foundation in IT awareness among Singaporeans. But it was only in 1997 that the Government gave its full endorsement to this strategy when it launched its first IT Masterplan in education (Chua, 2004c). The first phase of the IT Masterplan was to inculcate learning, creative thinking and communication skills by equipping every student with the essential IT skills. At the national level, the Government has been generous in its pledges of support as far as physical infrastructure is concerned, as it has set aside 2 billion Singapore dollars to hard wire all Singapore’s schools. In July 2002, the IT Masterplan moved into the second phase. In this phase, a comprehensive approach to using IT was adopted. Building on the first phase of the Master Plan, this second phase focuses on technology research and development to enhance learning at school both at national and global levels. Advanced facilities, such as computer laboratories, media resource libraries, IT learning resource rooms, pastoral care rooms and health and fitness rooms will be built over the next seven years in these schools (Chua, 2004c). Project work In 1999, the MOE had planned to allocate 10% of the total entrance mark for project work for students seeking admittance into local university in the year 2003 (Ministry of Education, 1999). The education ministry uses project work as a tool to cultivate critical and creative thinking skills, which subsequently become compulsory for all students. ‘It has also become an alternative form of assessment to measure the students’ abilities in applying, synthesising, and presenting the information they have gathered’ (Chua, 2004c: 9). The MOE strives to encourage schools to develop the following core set of life skills and attitudes in students: • • • • •
a spirit of inquiry and thinking originally; a willingness to do something differently, even if there is a risk of failure; a ruggedness of character, the ability to bounce back and try again; a willingness to stand in a team, lead a team and fight as a team; a sense of ‘giving back’ to the community (Ministry of Education, 2005a).
As this section suggests, Singapore’s education system operates very much in accordance with global demand that stresses creating a highly adaptable workforce, which is creative, innovative and not afraid of failure.
Education Re-adjustments: Changes at the Micro Level After establishing the bilingual policy, IT Masterplan and project work at the macro level, individual education institutions are adopting different strategies to expand on these polices at the micro level. Moreover, at the school level, the investment in advanced technology and facilities has created an IT-rich environment that fosters the integration of IT-related activities in schools. The implementation of these macro-level policies can be seen in the micro-planning of particular schools. This section will examine the micro planning in three Singaporean schools in order to understand how macro level policies are implemented at the micro level. The Convent of the Holy Infant Jesus is a Catholic Primary School for girls.
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In response to the new government directions in education, CHIJ has introduced language enhancement programmes, such as the writer’s programme, speech and drama, as well as public speaking workshops into its curriculum. In addition, students were given opportunities to showcase their acting talent in front of other students (CHIJ, 2005b). The school science and technology department has embarked on a Computer Skills Acquisition Programme that spans Primary 2 to Primary 6 levels. The Primary 2 students learn Basic Keyboarding; Primary 3 students take lessons on Word Processing; Primary 4 students focus on using the MS Powerpoint programme for slide presentation; Primary 5 students learn how to use the Internet; and finally Primary 6 students concentrate on learning to use MS Frontpage for Webpage Publishing (CHIJ, 2005a). On 4 October 2000, the school also launched a ‘CHIJ Goes Green’ Aeroponics Project to develop its very own aeroponics system in school. With the assistance of the science teachers, the students attempt to plant their first crops without the use of soil. Introducing such a project allows the students to build substantial knowledge on a progressive basis. In this aeroponic project, students have to form hypotheses, refine and enlarge on what they have already learned in their science lesson on the topic of lifecycle of plants (CHIJ, 2005c). Most importantly, all these programmes are interrelated. By learning IT skills, the students are able to use them in their projects, which are complemented by the language programmes since they will help them to be more eloquent when presenting their research results. The Anglican High School is an independent government-funded coeducational secondary school covering Secondary 1 to 4 levels. It has language enrichment programmes, such as oratorical competitions and debates, writing for publications, literary appreciations and presentation skills workshops. These internal activities aim to ‘promote confidence in public speaking’, and ‘promote interest in literary work’, as well as ‘to enhance pupils’ writing skills’ (Anglican High School, 2005a). External activities such as the National InterSchool Debating Championships and the University of New South Wales International Competitions (English) are also available for selected groups of students. According to the school, such language enrichment activities raise the students’ language awareness to a higher and global level (Anglican High School, 2005a). Likewise, the science department has organised a life sciences training programme and life sciences research programme for its Secondary 3 students. It also has organised trips to the Singapore Science Centre, incineration plant and hydroponic farm. Other activities include a DNA fingerprinting workshop for 20 Secondary 2 students as well as a Discovery Flight Science Workshop for 15 of its Secondary 3 students (Anglican High School, 2005b). Raffles Junior College (RJC) is a top junior college in Singapore covering JC 1 to 2 levels. Materials from the school explain that programmes, such as the Raffles Bicultural Programme (China), provide opportunities for students to work with schools and businesses in China and with local universities. In RJC, learning Mandarin has gone beyond learning how to speak and write the language. Now it includes learning philosophy and literature. It also touches on political and economic development of modern China as well as Sino-Singapore relations (Raffles Junior College, 2004a). The English programme has debates, media analysis, and workshops that help students to voice their opinions on
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individual, national and international matters (Raffles Junior College, 2004c). The school has also set up special programmes, such as Research@Raffles, to provide students who have the exceptional interest and ability in science to participate in research projects with Nanyang Technological University (NTU), the Defence Science and Technology Agency (DSTA) and the Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR). In addition, teachers play an active role in mentoring students to ensure that they have acquired the skills needed for high level research (Raffles Junior College, 2004b). The examples above show that in Singapore, macro policies have progressed beyond acquiring the basic speaking and writing skills in English and Mother Tongue and this macro-level planning is reflected in the micro-level planning of individual schools. Presently, schools are encouraging their students to use English and Mother Tongue to express their thoughts through poetry recitation, language games, drama, role play and storytelling. In addition, students are sent to workshops to improve their writing skills and to take part in national and international competitions to further enhance and improve their language skills. Likewise, in order to fulfil the Government’s plan to develop lifelong learning skills, schools have taken up a new form of assessment that would encourage students to experiment with IT. This is done by incorporating IT-based learning activities into the present school curriculum in their project work. Similarly, the original IT Masterplan has taken off into the next level, as the definition of IT skills in Singapore has also expanded to include IT for experimenting, thinking, charting and presenting what they have learned in science as well as other subject areas. Currently, IT literacy in Singapore means to acquire an active and independent learning attitude, especially for Singapore’s research industries. As illustrated, schools are taking the initiatives to build on the implemented macro policies and create related activities to improve their students’ language, IT and research skills. In order for macro planning to be effectively enforced, micro planning is needed. However, it is important to note that macro planning nonetheless differs from micro planning. Macro planning in this case takes the form of explicit policies that are uniform and standardised, thus serving as a guide for all schools. In comparison, micro planning is not standardised; it operates at the level of schools and classrooms depending how the macro policies are read and implemented. As discussed, different schools at different levels are drawing up individual and personalised activities to strengthen their language and IT skills, and since different schools adopt different strategies, the level of participation and outcome will vary from school to school. In sum, policies are dynamic and interactive as they are ‘not merely a set of instructions or intentions’ (Taylor et al., 2002: 15).
Singapore’s Future Education Endeavours Significantly, although there is a strong macro emphasis on aligning Singapore’s education system with the global demands, at the same time there is a more micro shift towards meeting local demands. Singapore’s present stand in education is to provide more room for students to shape their own learning. Its main aim is to recognise diverse talents and many ways to success – ‘we are
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aiming for a mountain range, not a pinnacle. We want many routes up, many ways to succeed.’ (Chia, 2005). PM Lee has emphasised specifically that there are ‘many paths to success’, and it is important to ‘give second chances to those who have failed’ (Lim et al., 2004: 14). This emphasis is reflected in the setting up of specialised independent schools such as the Singapore Sports School, NUS High School of Mathematics and Science, and proposed Arts School, which are being built in order to provide facilities for different students with talents in specific fields. According to PM Lee (2004), this is ‘to groom special talents and spot ability all across the spectrum’ (The Straits Times, 2004b). The present education system puts stress on students pursuing their individual passions. In recent times, education in Singapore has strived to move beyond filling the students with knowledge; it aims to inculcate a love of learning in the students. PM Lee spelled this out clearly, suggesting that the educational system should start trimming its curricula. He has advocated that schools must teach less in order for students to learn more. His new philosophy, Teach Less, Learn More (TLLM), can be summarised diagrammatically as in Figure 1. Although the proposal is not new to the education system, the Government is determined to succeed this time by implementing this philosophy across the whole spectrum of education, from primary to university level (Chua & Ng, 2004). The Education Minister Tharman Shanmugaratnam followed up this pronouncement by saying that this new curriculum would see students having more time and space to learn and absorb what has been taught. According to the Ministry of Education, this builds on the groundwork put in place by the systemic and structural improvements under TSLN (Ministry of Education, 2005b). Figure 1 shows that at the local level, teachers are encouraged to adopt
Figure 1 Teach Less, Learn More Adopted from (Ministry of Education – Contact: Learning More as Less is Taught (part 1))
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interdisciplinary lessons whereby more cooperative learning strategies such as peer coaching are used in the classroom. Teachers are also to take the role as facilitators so as to give the students a greater responsibility for their own learning. In addition, assessment modes are to be widened to include project assessment and oral presentation. Finally, in order to get the students more interested and motivated in learning, multifaceted activities, especially those that could inculcate life-skills or leadership skills, should be included in class (Ministry of Education, 2005b). The theme for Singapore’s education in 2005 is remaking Singapore together. The main aims are: (1) (2)
to tap everybody’s contributions, maximise each one’s talents, open opportunities for all; recognise that each contribution – big or small – is one of many threads that weave together to make the fabric of Singapore (Majid, 2005).
The focus in education is on post-secondary education, especially on the polytechnics and Institutes of Technical Education (ITEs). Local polytechnics are encouraged to link up with foreign universities to run degree programmes that are different from the local universities such as interactive media, resort management, culinary arts, childcare and nursing (Ng, 2005). Though the education system has been moving towards celebrating diversities, this received more recognition in 2005 when PM Lee reinforced the need to provide many modes of success for different students. The MOE will continue to develop a curriculum that stresses local needs and the production of diverse talents. Other changes that focus on local demands are that schools will be given more flexibility in setting their own Primary 4 year-end examination. This is to allow individual schools to organise and group their students according to their learning abilities. Another significant change is in its GCE (General Cambridge Examination) O- and Alevel examinations. Since gaining independence, Singapore has been depending on the UK-based Cambridge system for issuing and assessing its examinations. However, starting from 2006, the MOE will take greater responsibility for developing syllabuses and formats, setting standards, and awarding grades. The MOE and the Singapore Examinations and Assessment Board (SEAB) will work with the University of Cambridge Local Examinations Syndicate (UCLES) to customise the MOE curriculum and examinations to Singapore’s education needs. In time, schools may even develop new subjects in their curriculum niche areas or even develop new GCE O-Level subjects with recognised post-educational institutions (Ministry of Education, 2004). As illustrated above, Singapore’s education system is moving to place more emphasis and importance on micro planning whereby schools and teachers are encouraged to draw up more individual plans to cater to the diverse talents and needs of their students.
The Dichotomy between Global and Local Demands Figure 2 shows how the Singaporean education system adheres to a heavy top-down macro educational ‘literacy’ planning model. Both the IT Masterplan and setting up of biomedical research industries by the Government have resulted in a series of changes in the education curriculum. Schools in Singapore,
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Figure 2 To remember why we teach Adapted from (Ministry of Education: Bluesky: Teach Less, Learn More)
using the guidelines laid down by the MOE, have introduced project work and the concept of Innovation and Enterprise (Ministry of Education, 2005a) into the school curriculum. This has flowed onto the classroom level, and teachers have had to take different and more micro-level approaches to develop a better learning environment. The outcome of these policies is that in line with the Government’s initiatives, the MOE aims to provide the future Singaporean students with: • the best opportunities to develop their skills, character and values so that they are able to do well in this future and to take Singapore forward; • a more flexible and diverse education, which would give them greater choice and ownership in their learning; • different approaches in education to encourage them to follow their passions and promote a diversity of talents (Ministry of Education, 2004). Thus, instead of a one-lesson-fits-all kind of top-down education, what is required is a micro-oriented system that allows achievers to fly high, no matter in which direction they decide to go. Education now means far more than grades because the Government believes that in order for Singapore to reach its next stage of development in uncertain times, it needs individuals who are not afraid to find unconventional solutions to unpredictable problems. As this study illustrates, the PAP Government has had a great deal of influence in the education system. Since Singapore depends largely on international trade for its economic development, the Government has given strong support and made heavy investment in science and technology, and in research industries at the national level. This has already sent waves of change into the schools. Although the Government is now attempting to encourage diversity in schools, the massive provision of infrastructure for these industries no doubt
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provides a strong magnet for people to move towards them. As Bertrand (1998: 158) has explained, individuals tend to ‘invest for their future by making a rational estimate of the returns of education, and then orient their careers in consequence’, hence investing in skills that are recognised by the market force. This change in emphasis apparently has had an impact as it is reflected in the declining popularity of subjects like English literature in Singapore, which are perceived to be irrelevant in this new economic context. This may also be the result of top-down planning over the last few decades that has reduced the status of literature in Singapore’s schools to that of a non-compulsory subject (The Straits Times, 2000). Thus, although aspects of the educational system are moving to a more micro and individual focus, any forms of change take time to materialise. Time is needed for the general public to accept this new shift, and especially for the teachers themselves to adjust to their new roles. Mr Ong Jin Cheng, Head of English Department at Anderson Primary School has said: There’s a need for a mindset change among the experienced teachers. They would think: Since children are doing well based on the current system, why change it? It will take time to convince these teachers. (Chua & Ng, 2004: 16) Fernandez (2004) has argued that though these plans are basically good and encouraging, it is very important not to over hasten the changes. He said that ‘it is more important to exercise the students’ minds through discussions rather than merely adhering to the designated texts’. And looking beyond schools, it is also critical to gain support from the parents for the new teaching methods in schools (Fernandez, 2004: 17).
Summary and Conclusion In conclusion, education policies in Singapore are indeed moving from the macro towards the micro level. The Government has recognised that although it is paramount for Singapore to stay ahead in this globalised economy, it is also equally important to establish an education system that is tailored to its local needs. Therefore, both macro and micro planning are needed in any readjustments in the education policy, since ‘policy is both text and action, words and deeds’ (Ball, 1994: 10) and macro language planning needs micro language planning in individual schools if it is to be effectively implemented. Nevertheless, after the years of top-down conformity, it will take more than simply promoting diversity in schools to make changes occur, as emphasising the role of micro planning involves approaching educational policies in different ways. The Government will have to channel more resources to open up a more diversified market to include other industries in addition to science and technology, research and multimedia industries. Maybe only then will the educational shift towards local needs be more successful. Such a change in government resourcing is extremely crucial for a country that adheres strongly to a top-down approach, as any initiatives, changes and implementations made by the Government will send a tidal wave effect across the rest of the country and alter the ways in which educational planning is done within schools.
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Much of Singapore’s social and economic positioning of itself since independence to fit an increasingly globalised world has depended on its being able to develop the language and literacy policies required to sustain these developments (Chua, 2004b). What this paper demonstrates is that having developed a strong world lingua franca through English-knowing bilingualism (Pakir, 2001), Singapore has been able to embark on the development of other more technological literacies needed for science and technology. However, while these economically oriented skills are clearly critical for Singapore’s economic survival, there appears to be a growing realisation by a Government adept at top-down fine-tuning that a nation needs not only to survive economically, but to look after its social, literary and cultural development. Thus, it will be interesting to see whether this micro educational focus begins to promote greater interest in areas like languages, literature and the arts. Will Singaporeans become economic and cultural nomads, doing whatever it takes to secure financial success, or will their planning also revalue Singaporean writing and poetry, Singlish, heritage languages, and other iconic values and symbols that mark their identity as Singaporeans. The history of migration to Australia suggests that for many immigrants a deep interest in their languages and cultures only re-emerges once they are financially secure (Baldauf, 2005). Have the efforts to secure Singapore’s financial well-being reached the point where issues of language and culture now matter enough for them to be included in the planning process? Correspondence Any correspondence should be directed to Catherine Chua, National Institute of Education. Nanyang Technological University, Singapore 637616 (
[email protected]). References Anglican High School (2005a) English: Activities & enrichment programmes. On WWW at http://www.anglicanhigh.moe.edu.sg/depts/english_activties.htm. Accessed 20.01.05. Anglican High School (2005b) Anglican high school – where talents soar: Science departments. On WWW at http://www.anglicanhigh.moe.edu.sg/departments/ science/activities.htm. Accessed 26.08.05. Baldauf, Jr, R.B. (1990) Language planning and education. In B. Richard and L. Allan (eds) Language Planning and Education in Australia and the South Pacific (pp. 14–24). Clevedon: Multilingual Matters. Baldauf, Jr, R.B. (2005) Coordinating government and community support for community language teaching in Australia: Overview with special attention to New South Wales. International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism 8, 132–44. Ball, S.J. (1994) Education Reform: A Critical and Post-structural Approach. Buckingham: Open University Press. Belanger, P. (1998) Learning societies in the making. Paper presented at the Education for the twenty-first century: Issues and prospects conference, France. Bertrand, O. (1998) Education and work. Paper presented at the Education for the twentyfirst century: issues and prospects conference, France. Chang, H.Y.J. (2002) Education. In C.K. Tong and K.F Lian (eds) The Making of Singapore Sociology: Society and State (vol. 2) (pp. 130–54). Singapore: Times Academic. Chia, S.A. (2005) First-class education for everyone: Polytechnics, ITEs to be improved, to develop every talent. Straits Times (22 August), 3.
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Chua, C.S.K. (2004a) Literary English in the Singaporean educational system: An interdisciplinary perspective. In J.A. Vadeboncoeur and P. Jervis-Tracey (eds) Crossing Boundaries (pp. 187–204). Brisbane: Australia Academic. Chua, C.S.K. (2004b) Singapore’s literacy policy and its conflicting ideologies. Current Issues in Language Planning 5 (1), 64–76. Chua, C.S.K. (2004c) The convergence and divergence effects of globalization on Singapore’s education system. A paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the Australian Council for Research in Education, Melbourne, 26 November – 2 December. Chua, M.H. and Ng, J. (2004) Teach less, learn more: The challenge for MOE. Straits Times (28 August), 16. CHIJ (2005a) Convent of the Holy Infant Jesus – Department of Information Technology: Computer Skills Acquisition Programme. On WWW at http://www.chijpritoapayoh. moe.edu.ag/compskills.htm. Accessed 25.08.05. CHIJ (2005b) Convent of the Holy Infant Jesus – book-related activities. On WWW at http://www.chijpritoapayoh.moe.edu.sg/bookacts.htm. Accessed 20.01.05. CHIJ (2005c) Convent of the Holy Infant Jesus – science department: Encounter with nature. On WWW at http://www.chijpritoapayoh.moe.edu.sg/nature.htm. Accessed 26.08.05. Fernandez, W. (2004) Repeat this new mantra after me. Straits Times (28 August), 17. Goh, C.T. (2004) Flying Singapore higher. Straits Times (9 August), 2. Graddol, D. (1997) The Future of English: A Guide to Forecasting the Popularity of the English Language in the 21st Century. London: British Council. Ho, W.K. and Wong, R.Y.L. (2000) Introduction: Language policies and language education in East Asia. In W.K. Ho and R.Y.L. Wong (eds) Language Planning and Education (pp. 1–40). Singapore: Times Academic. Kaplan, R.B. (1990) Introduction: Language planning in theory and practice. In B. Richard and A. Luke (eds) Language Planning and Education in Australia and the South Pacific (pp. 3–13). Clevedon: Multilingual Matters. Kaplan, R.B. and Baldauf, Jr, R.B. (1997) Language Planning: From Practice to Theory. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters. Koh, L. (2005) Two new growth engines to power the economy: Innovation and enterprise, and RandD will help Singapore stay ahead in global race. Straits Times (22 August), 3. Lee, H.L. (2004) A step forward, a level higher. Straits Times (24 August), 6. Lee, L. (2005) Engage N(Tech) students with elective courses. Straits Times (22 August), 4. Lim, L., Chia-Sueann, Nirmala, M. and Peh, S.H. (2004) Working hand in hand to write the Singapore story. Straits Times, 14. Lim, R. (2002) External challenges facing the economy. In D. da Cunha (ed.) Singapore in the New Millennium: Challenges Facing the City-State (pp. 26–49). Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies. Majid, H.A. (2005) Singapore needs to reinvent itself into vibrant global city: PM Lee. On WWW at http://www.channelnewsasia.com/stories/singaporelocalnews/ view/164299/1/.html. Accessed 28.08.05. Mauzy, D.K. and Milne, R.S. (2002) Singapore Politics under the People’s Action Party. London: Routledge. Ministry of Education (1999) Government accepts recommendations of the committee on university admission system. On WWW at http://www.moe.gov.sg/press/1999/ pr990712.htm. Accessed 03.09.05. Ministry of Education (2004) Ministry of Education – nurturing every child: Flexibility and diversity in Singapore schools. On WWW at http://www.moe.edu.gov.sg. Accessed 01.03.05. Ministry of Education (2004) Bluesky: Teach less, learn more. On WWW at http://www. moe.gov.sg/bluesky/tllm.htm. Accessed 23.08.05. Ministry of Education (2005a) Ministry of Education – innovation and enterprise. On WWW at http://www.moe.gov.sg/bluesky/ine.htm. Accessed 20.08.05. Ministry of Education (2005b) Ministry of Education – contact: Learning more as less
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‘Trajectories of Agency’ and Discursive Identities in Education: A Critical Site in Feminist Language Planning Jo Winter and Anne Pauwels The University of Western Australia, 32 Stirling Highway, Crawley, Western Australia 6009, Australia Viewing education as a complex site for endorsing and contesting knowledges and practices we explore its critical roles in feminist language planning. Many types of language planning have relied heavily on education for the implementation and spread of the particular reform agenda largely reliant on discourses of compulsory obligation (e.g. spelling reforms). The scenario of feminist language planning reveals that education is not a mere external agent of implementation but central to the raising of awareness or provoking an ‘Initiating Trajectory’ (Winter & Pauwels, 2003). However, the implementation of gender-inclusive practices (‘Trajectories of Practices’) in education highlights contexts of conflict (and confusion) about grammatical prescriptions and social reform (Pauwels & Winter, 2006). In this paper we probe the adoption, problematisation and invigoration of ‘Agency Trajectories’ in (language) educators’ narratives and classroom practices. Our investigation includes educators operating in diverse English-language communities (e.g. Australia, Singapore, Hong Kong).
Keywords: feminist language planning, language and education, language and gender, non-discriminatory language
Feminism and Language Planning Feminism constitutes one of the major sociopolitical movements and ideologies of the 20th century. In the ‘second-wave’, Western reiterations of feminism also embarked on a decisive linguistic reform campaign following exposure of discriminatory practices in the linguistic representation and recently, discursive construction of women and men. Early feminist approaches to language reform may now be characterised as programmatic and macro-oriented, paying limited attention to questions of process and trajectories of progress – initiating, adopting and spreading. Instead, the focus was (1) on exposing and documenting the extent of gender-bias in language use, (2) on identifying critical sites of such bias, (3) on formulating gender-inclusive alternatives and (4) most importantly, on identifying strategies for implementing and spreading these alternatives. This ‘programmatic’ approach outlining various strategies of planning was partly triggered by the need and/or desire of feminist language scholars to demonstrate that feminist linguistic activism was a genuine form of language planning. In fact, feminist language planning or reform did not feature in language planning journals or texts until the late 1980s (e.g. Cooper, 1989). Of particular concern to the language planning process were (2), (3) and (4) mentioned above. Locating the institutional sites in which linguistic sexism was anchored and legitimised was of pivotal importance as they would hold 199
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the key to linguistic transformation. Education, legislature, religion, the media and language reference texts were exposed as the most critical sites legitimising and reinforcing biased, gendered representations. The formulation and evaluation of alternatives was seen to constitute the heart of actual planning: it is this activity which was, and continues to be, seen as the most controversial across the range of supportive and resistant positions in relation to feminist linguistic reform. All voice concerns about specific alternatives: for example, ‘I don’t like “chair” as a replacement for “chairman”’. Furthermore, supporters of reform may also take issue with the ‘approach’ to reform (e.g. they may prefer a discursive rather than a lexical replacement approach). Opponents, on the other hand, tend to dismiss the need for reform altogether (for a discussion of these tensions see Blaubergs, 1980; Hellinger, 1990; Pauwels, 1998). Perhaps most challenging for feminist language planners was the identification of a range of strategies which would facilitate the adoption, and effective spread of language reform. The most publicised strategy is that of language guidelines. In some cases this strategy was supported by legislative reform for example, non-discriminatory language use in job advertisements. The foregrounding of the strategy of ‘guidelines’ was motivated in particular by a desire to educate the community, minimise linguistic ‘angst’ and facilitate efficient spread in critical sites. The guidelines were constructed around a discourse of ‘recommendation’ rather than one of ‘rules’ or ‘regulations’. Of course, the selection of ‘guidelines’ as the major means to spread gender-inclusive language reforms is also indicative of the highly politicised sensitivities towards the reform: it is reflective of the relative ‘powerlessness’ of feminist language reform as it had no access to enforcing rules with sanctions for non compliance. Recently, Mills (2001) contributed to this discourse of guidelines attributing a far greater sense of power to the ‘recommendation’ with suggestions that feminist language planning was (pro)prescribing norms of ‘good’ and ‘bad’ practice. The proliferation of ‘language-guideline’ publications across different languages and institutional settings may be said to indicate the popularity, and potentially usefulness, of this strategy of implementing feminist language planning. An alternative micro-based strategy can be characterised as the ‘role-model’ framework that effectively prioritises solidarity as the key to implementing and spreading reform. In this strategy feminist language planners adopt a discursive position of leading reform through encouraging mutual alignment by exemplification of reformed practices. This form of planning is frequently operationalised at the micro level – individual authors (e.g. Mary Daly), specialist feminist magazines (e.g. Ms, Emma (German)) – and is a ‘non-intrusive way of promoting language change’ (Pauwels, 1998: 142). ‘Role-model’ planning is not typically regulated, that is, no prescriptions for doing role-modelling, and spread is characterised by a ‘contact’ framework. Spread of feminist language planning moves from contact to contact rather like a ‘wave’ force or a ripple effect (Jacobs et al., 1996) through the community. To date this strategy of spread has not received the attention it deserves in the context of feminist language planning. Hence in this contribution we turn our focus to the discursive construction of the ‘role-model’ strategy. We investigate this strategy through the practices of educators. Education has proved to be a prominent institution in the initiation and spread
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of feminist language planning. Teachers, in particular language teachers, were among the pioneering activists against gender-bias in language often through their professional associations. Evidence of a ‘language-guideline’ strategy was adopted in organisations such as the National Council of the Teachers of English (US), The National Association for the Teaching of English (UK) and the Modern Language Association of America which played a major role in documenting gender bias in language as well as formulating guidelines for gender-inclusive language (e.g. Frank, 1989; Nilsen et al., 1977). The educational system is seen as a key agent in the spread of linguistic reform. An obvious example is orthographic reform whose success is largely dependent on its introduction and spread through the educational system. In turning our attention to the ‘role-model’ strategy in educators’ practices, we examine the ways in which gender-bias in language is being addressed, if at all, and the adoption of reform intrusions in the classroom and among (inter)national colleagues. We adopt a trajectories framework to map the multiple ways in which feminist language planning is spreading, or not, through the site of education.
A Trajectories Framework The reform of gender-biased or sexist language has been identified as a form of language planning (Cooper, 1989; Pauwels, 1998). However, the processes of reform and implementation construct scenarios more complex than a simple ‘problem-solution’ based language planning characterisation. A critical theoretical position on language planning (Ricento, 2002; Tollefson, 1991) has been central to the feminist agenda for reform. Our critical perspective on the processes and consequences for feminist language planning is captured in the ‘Trajectories Framework’ (Winter & Pauwels, 2003), a dynamic contextually evolving model that includes at its centre the idea of multiplicity and plurality. Three types of trajectories – initiating, practices and agency – form the heart of the framework. The definitions provided below are slightly elaborated from the description given in Winter and Pauwels (2003). • Initiating Trajectories: The discursive contexts and situated practices about the initiating contact and experiences of feminist language reforms, principles or arguments. For participants these trajectories occur first, in a temporal sense, of the three trajectories. • Trajectories of Practice: These trajectories trace the responses to and (preferred) implementations of the feminist language reforms as well as the discursive practices surrounding aspects of the reform agenda, linguistic variables or social contextualisations. • Trajectories of Agency: The discursive construction of agency and participation in feminist linguistic reform. These trajectories are largely dependent on evidence of the two prior trajectories for them to be enacted but may co-occur with trajectories of practice due to the social conditions of operationalisation. Diffusion and spread are the key underlying concepts of the trajectory framework. The trajectories provide a means to trace the key influences, struc-
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tures and concomitant conditions that facilitate, inform and/or constrain the diffusion and spread of gender-inclusive language. They permit identification and description of individuals and institutions prominent in the social changes but more importantly the mapping of the social conditions in which they operate and any evidence of appropriations or recontextualisations of feminist language planning. Adopting this framework allows us to explore the ways in which education, at least for the purposes of this discussion, has responded to, adapted, implemented and/or critiqued feminist language planning. The trajectories allow us to identify, as suggested by Labov (2001), ‘social locations and social types’ (p. 33) and understand the forces of social change in language. However, in contrast to much work on language change (mostly sound changes) this study focuses on ‘planned’ sociolinguistic reform. This is a type of social language planning that embraces both a public and a private face underscored by ideologies about gender equality, feminisms and discrimination and the power of language. Thus, the trajectories framework needs to be witness to the public and topdown diffusion as well as private and ‘bottom-up’ spread through alignments to sociocultural (linguistic) positionings for language. Limiting the discussion to the role-model strategy of feminist language planning narrows the lens to the spread alignments adopted by educators in their locales. The Agencies Trajectories focused on in this paper examine the various discursive positions Educators align to in respect of their classroom practices, and roles, and professional collegiality with regard to feminist language planning. We will show how the ‘problem’ of gender-exclusive language has become pluralised with varying agencies of reform being performed. These agencies are clearly linked to their habitus (Bourdieu, 1991) and professional membership of the institution of education, their relationship to colleagues, superiors and subordinates as well as to the grounded ideologies about the role of educators in a politicised context of feminist language reform. The dducation habitus is suggestive of constraints and the normative nature of practices and potentially rigid to influencing change. However, we probe the potential place of liberating discourses in education as part of the ‘social and cultural reproduction of schooling’. Our main analytic methodology will be the analysis of narratives occurring in research interviews on the topic of feminist language reforms. Research on narratives has extended far beyond the groundbreaking study by Labov and Waletzky (1967). Different approaches and frameworks of narrative analysis share several key understandings including the role of narratives, and their telling, in order to make sense of everyday life (Linde, 1993) and the multiple ways of telling or tellability depending on the degree of shared knowledge and intimacy (Ochs & Taylor, 1992). Our analysis of agencies narratives seeks to identify the alignments to discursive positions (Goffman, 1981) with respect to feminist language planning and the narrative function of making sense of being an Educator (Linde, 1993) and narrativisation of agency in a situation of social change and language reform. We focus on the role of Educator voices (Bakhtin, 1981) in animating their performativity of agency, or as outlined by Quasthoff and Becker (2005), their animation of narrative positions, as educators. Frequently the intertextuality of voices in the interview
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narratives reveals the contested nature of feminist language planning as well as the (re)iterative emphasis needed to ensure both agencies and reform (new initiating trajectories) continue.
Trajectories of Agencies in the Classroom We characterised feminist language planning as (re)iterative encompassing pluralised personal engagement and contextualised for locale and site. Against this background the classroom would appear to be a key focal point of engagement for educators and the instantiation of Trajectories of Agencies. If the classroom can be seen as a ‘community of practice’ (Wenger, 1998) characterised by mutual engagement, shared relationships and practices, then the Educator may develop over time a Trajectory of Agency resulting in the uptake and spread of feminist language change. The populations and locales of the classroom bring differing expectations and background knowledges about feminist language planning, social change and the role of educators in politicised contexts. In this analysis we probe the narrated construction of the discursive Educator as well as the Agent of social change in their classroom practices. We identify a number of trajectories performed in the classroom as educators voice their agencies in feminist language planning. Evidence has already established that education is the site of ‘Initiating’ trajectories for many people in raising their awareness of the issue and prompting them to change their linguistic practices (Pauwels, 1998; Winter & Pauwels, 2003). The ‘flip’ side of this evidence is the ways in which educators are agents in that process and how they discursively construct their agencies in initiating trajectories for their students (and colleagues) in their classrooms. In Extract 1, Brian, a teacher and minister of religion at a private single-sex boys’ school narrates his perspective on the issue of linguistic bias in his classroom. Extract 11 Brian: Their reaction to this was actually very good in one sense in that it provokes them to launch into a lot of their bigotry for lack of a better word. Because I think the thing is that most the students don’t actually think about inclusive language as they speak, they speak in terms of what they have learned culturally and then how they xx exclude women or just simply accept words like mankind and so then they tend to just argue for the things that they use anyway and so when you begin to open it up like this it is something they really haven’t thought about and as have many adults not thought about it before and so what you find is that they begin to defend their own position quite a bit which adds to a good discussion. And then you have to work quite hard sometimes to convince them that um what you are actually putting in front of them here is something they should take into account Brian introduces gender bias in language as an explicit topic for scrutiny. Within the setting of an exclusive boys’ school he finds it appropriate that they
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examine their linguistic representation and ‘how they xx exclude women’. For Brian, the local context is one of privilege and masculinity and he performs his agency through a voice of provocation or destabilisation, of getting the students to ‘open it up like this’ and create explicit discussion. He identifies that in his ‘provocateur’ role he needs to persuade the boys that the issue is not something limited to classroom discussion but ‘is something they should take into account’. His agency appears not to extend to intruding into their linguistic practices, but he does not merely model gender-inclusive representations: he performs the role of a discursive persuader but is bounded by parameters of obligation for the boys to ‘take [it] into account’. In Extract 2, Amy (a tertiary Educator in Singapore) voices her experiences with introducing, that is, initiating awareness, to students of the linguistic representation of gendered exclusion in their course materials. Extract 2 Amy: I asked my students/ ‘Ah you know when we go through articles and Anne: Mm Mm Amy: So on’ ‘Are you aware that the use?’ ‘I mean the the author used he::’ Anne: Mm Mm Mm Amy: ‘rather than to include everyone/’ You know And they say ‘no’ they don’t Anne: Mm Mm Mm Amy: you know They’re don’t they’re not as sensitised as American students would be Anne: Mm Mm Amy: Or Australian students And my students were not at all You know this university Anne: Mm Mm Mm Amy: Undergraduates They were not reacting passionately Anne: Mm Mm Mm Amy: At one word Or the other You know They said Anne: Mm Mm Mm Amy: ‘What is wrong with what we have?’ ‘At the moment’ Anne: Mm Amy in Extract 2, like Brian, raises the issue explicitly with her university students. She voices her own agency voice ‘Are you aware’ as a direct challenge to students about their recognition of gender-exclusive use of ‘he’ in their course materials. Evidence of explanation is absent from Amy’s narrative. She exemplifies the gender bias with reference to the structure of the reference text. She also animates the voices of her students and reveals their articulation of personal (dis)engagement and that they were not ‘passionate’ about the issue. Amy’s agency does in no way disrupt, for them, the status quo – ‘What is wrong with what we have now?’. Amy suggests that of central relevance is the localisation for the issue – Singapore – and that possibly students are not ‘as sensitised as American students would be’. For Amy, her agency goes beyond her own use of gender-inclusive language through her incorporation in the classroom of the topic initiated directly by a text in use. However, she makes
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no attempt to persuade or provoke, like Brian, but rather adopts a responsive position to texts as part of her classroom practice. ‘Responsive alignments’ reflect Educator positionings in taking up opportunities that emerge in the classroom to raise the issue and exemplify potential problems and ways of addressing them. Amy’s positioning is one of ‘responsive alignment’ to gender-inclusive language reform and she highlights the issue when opportunities present themselves but the responsibilities for reform or for taking up change lies with students’ own answers to their question ‘What is wrong with what we have?’ Determining or influencing others’ social linguistic reforms is not so pivotal to her Educator role. Responsibility for change resides with the individual. Amy’s agency is responsive to exigencies but is limited to awareness raising as part of her position as an Educator working in particular localised conditions. The two previous extracts highlighted differences in ways in which educators take up their agencies to raise awareness about gender-biased language use and representation. In Extract 3, Beth (a secondary IT teacher in a coeducational state-run high school) presents an alternative Agency Trajectory in her classroom practices. Extract 3 Beth:
In accounting my students they start the year and they’ll write essays [ . . . ] and they will assume that the manager of the company or someone like that is a he and the first things that they ever write for me I will correct it to he/she or they um and they actually pick up on that really fast and when they are speaking to me or talking about a person in charge of the shop or the business or the whatever as soon as the kid says he, I’ll go ‘or she’ and they think that they are really good at that because they go ‘oh yeah’
Like Amy, Beth adopts a ‘responsive alignment’. She takes up all opportunities that emerge in the classroom essays and speaking or talking to highlight the issue of gender exclusivity in linguistic representations and gendered stereotyping. In much the same way as Brian, she is interested in students and what ‘they assume [about] the manager of the company or someone like that’. However, in Extract 3 Beth assumes that her practices, that is, her intrusion into students’ classroom linguistic and discursive practices, will function to raise students’ awareness. She constructs her agency through directly changing the gender-exclusivity of generic ‘he’. Her quotative voice ‘or she’ reflects a concentration on modelling the linguistic possibilities of inclusion beyond the ‘he’ pronoun. Her agency certainly disturbs the general stereotyping of men in business reflected in the student talk but it does so through directly challenging the linguistic construction of the generic. She indicates that the students ‘pick up on that really fast’ and the importance placed on inclusivity seems paramount for this Educator in the classroom as her challenging commences at the ‘start’ of the year. It could be seen that there are resonances of the provocateur in her agency through her desire to (successfully) persuade students to amend their practices. Unlike Amy, Beth does not voice her agency as an informer about the issue, nor does she present arguments
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for consideration as Brian did. Rather, for Beth her agency is constructed through ‘intrusion and challenge’ discourses. She aligns herself to a ‘feminist language planning as norm alignment’ evidenced through her explicit articulation of the ‘absent or missing’ pronouns from the students’ voices. Such an alignment is imbued with underlying obligations to ensure feminist linguistic reform. Unlike the two previous educators, Beth is not involved directly with (English) language or linguistics or moral education. It may be that her normative alignment, but with omission of persuasion through explanation, is a function of her classroom practices and knowledges (which in some sense can be seen as an even more admirable agency). She focuses on the knowledges of IT and business education and takes for granted genderinclusivity in linguistic representation and appears to leave the agencies of language explanation to the teachers in the language classroom. In Extract 4, David, an ESL teacher in adult education in Australia, voices his agency in promoting ‘Ms’ the courtesy title for women promoted as a feature of feminist language planning, in conversation with the interviewer Holly. Extract 4 David: Yeah, it pretty much is no because sometimes unless you receive correspondence from someone who has actually signed Mrs or Miss . . . then you know, but if you don’t know then Holly: So do you actually teach that to students in class too? That is what you use for a generic title? Oh it is interesting because a lot of ESL teachers specifically had trouble with the questionnaire in that ‘well, gee I don’t want to confuse my students anymore so I don’t bring up these issues in class’ but you do? David: Um yeah, it is also the same in other languages so um for example in German they don’t use Fräulein anymore in business letters regardless of the age. Um and I guess because I lived in Europe I saw that there were similarities and I don’t agree with that. I don’t think it is confusing for the students. ‘I think if you use Ms it is safe.’ That’s what I tell them. ‘Then you can’t go wrong.’ In Extract 4, David voices his Trajectories of Agency as a direct instruction for students ‘if you use Ms it is safe’. He constructs the use of ‘Ms’ as a courtesy title as the correct usage to address women whose title preference is unknown; in his ESL classroom ‘you can’t go wrong’. The ESL classroom and its linguistic knowledges enable David to implement his agency in terms of right or wrong in line with the correct/incorrect usage dimensions often adopted in the language classroom. His agency is effectively facilitated by his locale, and the classroom practice of formulation of sociolinguistic or pragmatic ‘rules’ and ‘schemas’ for functional speakers. It would seem that he may be somewhat unique in his agency and response to feminist language planning as evidenced in the interviewer Holly’s voicing of other ESL teachers: ‘well, gee I don’t want to confuse my students anymore so I don’t bring up these issues in class’. David rejects the collegial voices ‘I don’t agree with that. I don’t think it is confusing for the students’ and demonstrates that feminist language planning has a place in the second language classroom. Akin to Amy and Beth, David adopts a respon-
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sive alignment to feminist language planning using classroom texts, naming and addressing women in business letters, to raise awareness about feminist language planning. Like Brian, David’s voice includes persuasion and explanation but like Beth he advocates a direct intrusion into linguistic practices. Finally, in this micro peep at Agency of Trajectories in the classroom we need to probe the modelling of practices and the ‘veneer’ a classroom may afford to disguise gender-biased perceptions about language and/or social relations. In Extract 5, Agatha, an ESL secondary teacher in a state-run high school, narrates her inclusion of feminist language planning in the ESL classroom. Extract 5 Agatha: Uhm and I just got the other day and I was teaching my students about meetings and I said ‘and then you have got the chairman or chairperson or chairwoman whatever you want to call it let’s just call it a chair’ and it was just really frustrating to have to, I found it like a real pain in the neck but I couldn’t just say chairmen. I had to pull myself up on saying because if I said chairman they might hear chairperson from someone else or chair or madam chair or whatever. In Extract 5 Agatha draws upon responsive alignments to highlight the multiple occupational naming practices available largely as a result of social change and feminist language planning, including the gender-neutral options ‘chair’ and ‘chairperson’ and the address option of ‘Madam Chair’. The linguistic naming of meeting participants provides the text for the Agency Trajectory. Agatha elaborates the full set of options for students but unlike David who prescribed the preferred feminist planning feature related to courtesy address titles, Agatha voices ‘whatever you want to call it’. Interestingly, she aligns herself with feminist language planning in the final version she adopts for the classroom reference ‘chair’. Her discursive rationale for choice is not one based on issues of gender-inclusivity alone but rather links to issues of, firstly, consistency for second language learning students – ‘they might hear chairperson from someone else or chair’ – and secondly, the dominant discourses of genderneutral language of education in general and her colleagues – ‘someone else’. Her classroom agencies overlap with Beth’s practices of intrusion into students’ language practices but at the same time diverge because her engagement with the topic is as an Educator with knowledges responsibilities, but her personal alignment is dismissive of the endeavour – ‘I found it like a real pain in the neck but I couldn’t just say chairmen’. Thus classroom practices and norms of prescription and language learning construct a Trajectory Agency that functions to make students aware of the issue but removes that alignment at a personal level with associated frustrations cohering with prevailing practice. This schism of practice reveals the classroom-based limitation for Agatha assuming committed Trajectory of Agency beyond the micro domain and into personal uses outside the classroom. The classroom affords various reflexes of agency, all of which comprise as a minimum, self-modelling of feminist language planning. By and large it is moments facilitated by responsive alignments to texts – spoken and
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written – that provide the catalyst of the trajectories. The critical responses to student practice ranges across opening up and providing access to information about the issue, persuasion to critically examine practices and understand potential reform of bias, and normative obligations to correct and intrude into gender-exclusivity. Classroom voices to students involved questioning about knowledge, directive correction of use as well as recommendations for preferred and promoted linguistic strategies of feminist language planning. This discussion of classroom practices highlights the relevance and constraints of the locale and site of the educators. In the next section we examine the micro conditions and relationships among educators that form part of their working, teaching and researching lives.
Beyond the Classroom: Conditions for Trajectories of Agency Examining the micro-aspects of Agency Trajectories for Educators necessarily means exploring the influences and contexts of their employment beyond the immediate relationship to students in the classroom. These contexts include institutional colleagues who share teaching/researching collaborations or obligations, administration personnel and administrative processes involved in pursuing their roles as educators as well as (inter)national colleagues and co-members of professional organisations. In these contexts ‘beyond’ the classroom, the educators frequently occupy less powerful roles in terms of determining contact with, and practices in, gender-inclusive language use and feminist language planning. The participation of the external colleagues and institutions in aspects of feminist language planning may in fact be quite different from the local classroom conditions. In this section we scrutinise the narratives of agency (in some cases it may actually be disagency) linked to the external conditions for educators. Collegial practice: Meeting our obligations Educators typically have reporting obligations (to authorities and other gatekeepers as well as parents, academic colleagues). Sometimes reporting is required as part of access to funding for professional activities such as attending meetings, conferences or undertaking study leave. These reporting procedures are typically indicative of the institutional requirements and their reflection of language and discursive practices. In Extract 6, Hanna (a university lecturer in Singapore) narrates her agency in an episode about reporting compliance. Extract 6 But there were two things I did as sort of acts of resistance One is a:: a Mm mm previous study leave form that we have um you know That kind of Mm research leave you apply for/ And there’s always this question Yeah yeah that’s always asked um .. is your dep is you your spouse or dependent going with you Audrey: Mm Hanna: On this trip And something in the question tells you that its asking
Hanna: Audrey: Hanna: Audrey: Hanna: Audrey: Hanna:
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Mm about a man His wife his partner Is going Along .. and Yeah Mm Mm of course as a woman Filling in that form Its never taken for Mm Mm Mm But erm I Decided one year that I’m going to say something Mm Mm Like you know Er ‘No/\ I don’t have a wife’ Something Mm Mm Mm Like that And it took a number of years before the form was changed to something neutral Audrey: Mm mm
Audrey: Hanna: Audrey: Hanna: Audrey: Hanna: Audrey: Hanna: Audrey: Hanna:
In Winter and Pauwels (2003) we reported on the narrative construction Trudi, an Educator working in adult education in Australia, adopts to challenge orthodoxy and assumptions when ‘she publicly stages herself as a committed activist cloaked in her role as the post-modern comedienne’ (pp. 33–34) in both formal meeting and informal friendship contexts. In a similar way Hanna articulates a voice of understatement or ‘obviousness’ and incongruity when she voices ‘er No’ complete with a rise fall intonation pattern, ‘I don’t have wife’. She explicitly positions herself as a heterosexual woman, conforming to the dominant, perhaps only, discursive alignment accorded women in Singaporean institutional settings. She demonstrates that taking up an agency to disturb the prevailing stereotype that academics are married/heterosexual men in the university setting may be risky. Gender neutralisation was the final outcome for the reporting document. Hanna engaged in a trajectory of risk that involved challenging orthodoxy of assumptions about presumed masculinity and in so doing aligned herself as ‘potentially’ a disruptor of contained, controlled administrative process. Furthermore, she voiced a noisy incredulous articulation possibly disturbing accepted and preferred femininities discourses. Internationalisation and localisation: Varying agencies A feature of contemporary university education is its increasing internationalisation – via movement of educators and students – of teaching, research and scholarship. As part of this internationalisation, or globalisation of education, texts (spoken, written, e-mail, web-based) are exchanged via various communication means. Clearly, language educators and (applied) linguists may engage in performing a Trajectory of Agency in influencing, creating or critiquing these texts for feminist language planning issues. In Extract 7, Georgina (a senior university academic in Hong Kong) is discussing the university response to her suggestions for reform of gender-exclusive language in written language. In earlier talk Georgina reported her frustrations with the university administration when they dismissed the need to consider the issue as English was not the primary language of this institution. Extract 7 Georgina:
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but then two or three years later handbooks
all of our personnel
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Audrey: Georgina: Audrey: Georgina: Audrey: Georgina: Audrey: Georgina: Audrey: Georgina: Audrey:
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mm mm regulations apparently were rewritte by the information depart ment on mm right campus and that division now has cleaned it all up and now you’ll find he she mm you find . It has all changed now whenever still in all the documents mm that come out from this regular committee and on campus that’s not put out by the information division there is man everywhere mm mm mnm mm mhm so it’s interesting that obviously that information department has picked it up from elsewhere/
The interaction in Extract 7 was a continuation of her narrative about formulating and lodging a recommendation about feminist language planning to the peak academic body at her university. Her agency revealed elements of risk in the response to her recommendation. The polite refusal entailed meanings of irrelevance, English not being the main language of the institution, as well as being imbued with discourses about appropriate behaviours and not provoking political agendas. Nevertheless, Extract 7 highlights the forces of internationalisation of feminist language planning in the information division actions in terms of publications that are scrutinised beyond the institution – ‘now has cleaned it all up and now you’ll find he she’. At the same time the locale is less sensitive to feminist language planning as Georgina receives internal documentation that contains ‘man everywhere’. Absent endorsement from above and constraining trajectories One consequence of the institutionalisation of feminist language planning has been the development of language guidelines available for adoption in the classroom or for other textual practices such as policy, administration, employment relations. In Extract 8, Phoebe (an Educator involved in preand post-qualification teacher training in Singapore and writer of textbooks) laments the absence of ‘endorsement from above’ that is restricting the agency of feminist language planning. Extract 8 Audrey: Phoebe: Audrey: Phoebe: Audrey:
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So Do you think its still in the schools that um that the teachers are aware of um? [this issue] [No] I think the majority of teachers are not aware because you see this talk was No? not held in NIE ww in which case would be directly officially sanctioned topic Mm Ah right yeah
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[intervening turns of talk ] And an so when you go NGO you kinda expect .. talks that are shall we say not <@mainstream@ See so .. so its not officially sanctioned Audrey: Mm mm Mm Phoebe: And I must say that’s a distance of Singapore usually they would prefer Audrey: Mm Phoebe: To come out open if they know . that this .. this topic is alright Audrey: Oh yes yes so so so there was no endorsement say from the Ministry of Education Phoebe: No no no
Phoebe:
Phoebe refers in Extract 8 to a ‘talk’ given by her former colleague that is seen as a landmark among Singaporean feminist language activists. The talk was given at AWARE2 and prompted student and academic research activity studies of the representation of women and men in Singaporean school textbooks funded by the Singapore Ministry of Education (Gupta & Lee 1990) as well as personal adoption of feminist language planning principles. The locale of the talk, an NGO office, is constructed by Phoebe as one of the reasons why the avoidance of gender-exclusive language is limited and that ‘the majority of teachers are not aware’ of the issue. Furthermore, Phoebe points to two core constraints that help explain the low rates of adoption of gender-inclusive language (Pauwels & Winter, 2004a, 2004b). First, she voices the remoteness or ‘distance of Singapore[ans]’ in terms of politicised discourses, in this case feminist language planning, and second, she confirms Audrey’s comment about the absence of ‘endorsement say from the Ministry of Education’. Linking these two discourses reveals a ‘top-down’ or macro condition that constrains wider ‘bottom-up’ or micro agencies. Similar constraints are voiced by many interviewees for example: Arabella (Hong Kong) ‘But um .. There’s not . Not much of a discussion going on here’ and Victor (Singapore) ‘erm .. I’m not sure that there is a guideline we should have one um we should have an explicit one um . . . z in Singapore’. These absences of the ‘guideline’ strategy are positioned as constraints for spread in localised contexts via ‘role-model’ strategy. Interestingly while the location of the original seminar on feminist language planning at AWARE is viewed as lacking official endorsement, another Singaporean Educator, see Extract 9, highlighted the public ‘power’ of the NGO in policing reform. Extract 9 Victor: Audrey: Victor: Audrey: Victor: Audrey:
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[so] yeah suppose when we do use sexist terms they rap us on the knuckles Oh Yes they do if it Oh do they? is a public forum and they get to know about it @@ Yes Yep Yes They’ll write to the papers or do they? Oh yes they will write to the papers I see I see
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Clearly the need for official endorsement is critical to increasing the spread of feminist language planning in these contexts. It would seem that a combination of strategies – ‘guideline’ or top-down endorsement and ‘role-model’ individual practices – would enhance Agency Trajectories in these locales. But we are wary of demonstrating a cultural relativity to say that this is an Asian phenomenon. The Australian scene has been identified as one that formally endorsed feminist influences in public bureaucracy (Eisenstein, 1996) including feminist language planning relatively quickly and guidelines were formalised and implemented across institutions (Pauwels, 1998). We can only speculate that without such actions, perhaps micro agencies would also be less prevalent in Australia (Pauwels & Winter, 2005; Winter & Pauwels, 2003). Nevertheless, the narratives in the research interviews conducted in Singapore and Hong Kong characterised the hierarchy in their institutions as being politely indifferent to, or not interested in, feminist language planning issues. Furthermore, changes in political leadership and government also affect or interfere with planned social language reforms. For example, during the past decade Australia has witnessed a decisive shift to a conservative government. In Extract 10, David, who has worked as an Educator but was employed as an Education Policy Development Officer at the time of the research interview, voices his observations about changing political trends and feminist language planning. Extract 10 David: Yeah that is frustrating isn’t it. What happens is government issues instructions from time to time saying whatever this government styles Holly: mm David: [ . . . ] Uh with the use of this Ms.. the trend that I observed was that everything was going towards Ms because it solves problems having to decide and when you have a lot of correspondence not everyone puts Miss, Mrs. They put Joan or Mazy and I .. but under Howard it is much more conservative agenda and he was really big on using Mrs and those titles and Miss David demonstrates the political and politicised nature of feminist language reform and the response to its promotion of ‘Ms’ as a courtesy title for women. Despite promotion and recommendation of the title in government publications (Pauwels, 1991), shifting positions in the national parliament impact on the spread of feminist language change, as David reports ‘but under Howard3 it is much more conservative agenda and he was really big on using Mrs. Educators operating in policy and administrative portfolios operationalise their agency of feminist language planning in contexts of the prevailing political climate. David as shown previously in Extract 4, is committed to a Trajectory Agency of directive with his ESL student, but in his policy portfolio he is observing naming practices that reaffirm discrimination in naming women – ‘big on using Mrs’ – and his co-workers’ avoidance of potential title conflict and their adoption of first names without titles – ‘they put Joan or Mazy’. The non-classroom-based contexts in which educators operate point to greater politicised conditions and regulations which seem to have more impact on the extent of their agencies than the classroom context. Agencies of disruption, for
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example, Hanna’s action about gender stereotyping and Georgina’s formulation of a university policy on gender-neutral language reform, carry far higher risk with potentially less success than similar actions in a classroom. Indeed, ‘muting’ of voices of agencies are often the result if macro-conditions are not conducive to feminist language planning. Sometimes these macro-conditions are not necessarily opposed to feminist language planning, merely uninterested and prioritising other linguistic issues of use. However, the politicised nature of feminist language planning cannot be overlooked as it appears to be a casualty in the shift to conservative politics in the Australian context.
Trajectories of Agencies in Micro Education Contexts Our analysis of educators in their workplace and professional sites reveals that classroom exigencies and opportunities are variously operationalised in their Agency Trajectories. Common to most classroom practices and the ‘rolemodel’ strategy is the responsive alignment for text-based and discourse moments. This might include, as we have seen, expanding the second/foreign language experience with inclusion of guidelines for gender-inclusive linguistic practices and norms. Other educators in the classroom adopt voices as metalinguistic commentators about authors’/writers’ language in terms of their (non)adoption of gender-inclusive language. However, it is this common membership as classroom educators that entails, for some, prescriptive behaviour about their own teachings and is likewise expressed as a discourse of conformity and alignment to the voices of their co-classroom colleagues. We have also shown that dducators differ in the manner of ‘reiterative’ positioning in the classroom Agency Trajectories. Perhaps the least expanded, or minimal alignment, is that of responsive informing of practice where dducators respond dutifully to highlight aspects of gender ex/inclusion in a classroom moment. Some teachers raise awareness of the issue as part of an informing function, others intrude into practice and set up normative expectations about required discursive practice (at least in their classrooms) while others progress to a persuasion and explanation trajectory that encourages critical thinking on the topic. A more developed Agency Trajectory is implied in the classroom alignments present in persuasion and negotiation tactics in the classroom. Seemingly, an alignment to compulsory and normative obligation to reiterate feminist language planning accords a greater intrusion in the classroom. Obligatory reform and its compulsory nature suggest the most ‘advanced’ trajectory for educators in the classroom. However, our interviews revealed that while the classroom, and its co-engagement with other classrooms in the locale, may afford role-model alignments, they may also construct a temporary mirage of sustained feminist language reform. For some educators, alignments of conforming in classroom sites mask individual practices outside the realm of the Educator role. It is these possible contradictions and ‘veneers’ that require constant reiteration for the success of the feminist language planning agenda. Considering the ‘role-model’ strategy in education beyond the classroom reveals two central alignments for educators: an alignment to risk discourses largely motivated by feelings of personal sense of injustice and gender inequity and an alignment to a positioning that balances local, national and international
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responses of feminist language planning. The institutional responses reflect localised political and policy priorities and the international ‘pressure’ brought to bear on the internationalising of Englishes, texts and discourses. This second alignment to a balancing of responses is strongly linked to internationalisation and as such the increasing globalisation of education voices is impelling some changes and resistances locally.
Feminist Language Planning: Reiterative Practices The most outstanding finding from this case study of ‘micro’ feminist language planning through an investigation of the role-model strategy is the evidence of intrusion and impact through the Agency Trajectories. Pauwels (1998) reported that the role-model strategy was far less intrusive, or constituted an example of planning at a remove, than the guideline strategy and its discourses of recommendation. In contrast, through our focus on education and in particular, the classroom, we have shown that intrusion is a key element of alignments through responsive use of text-based resources, direct challenge and comment as well as negotiation and ‘correction’. The educators intrude into assumptions, representations and constructions of gender-exclusive practices as part of their Agency Trajectories. The finding must be tempered by the absence of the impact on student practices beyond the classroom. Nevertheless, given the reported findings for the role of education in Initiating Trajectories (Pauwels & Winter, 2005, 2006; Winter & Pauwels, 2003) the ‘role-model’ strategy deserves re-evaluation in the spread of feminist language planning. The above finding points to the base-line requirement for spread of feminist language planning – (re)iteration – and the possibilities of role-modelling for ensuring dissemination of the reforms. However, the localised contexts of Singapore and Hong Kong fore-grounded the role of power and endorsement as co-extant for classroom and institutional agencies. In particular, the absence of the guideline strategy in (language) education policies, endorsement from ‘above’, is reflected in the ambivalence and trajectory constraints. Changing political arenas and concomitant ideological changes do impact on educators’ Agency Trajectories beyond the classroom setting, as has been demonstrated by a return to political conservatism in Australia. Correspondence Any correspondence should be directed to Jo Winter, The Faculty of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences, The University of Western Australia, 35 Stirling Highway, Crawley WA 6009, Australia (
[email protected]). Notes 1. Extracts have been transcribed with minimal representation of suprasegmental features. The participants have been accorded pseudonyms including the two researcher interviewers: Holly and Audrey.
Conventions Name / \
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Speaker (pseudonym) Rising intonation Falling intonation
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Questioning intonation Sound lengthening Untimed pause Omitted text and turns Linguistic features of feminist language planning focused on in talk laughter Enclosed scope of suprasegmental feature Quotative talk
2. AWARE (Association of Women for Action and Research) is an NGO dedicated to promoting gender equality and understanding in Singapore. 3. Mr John Howard, a Liberal Party politician (conservative, right wing), Australian Prime Minister since 1996.
References Bakhtin, M. (1981) The Dialogic Imagination (trans C. Emerson and M. Holquist). Austin, TX: University of Texas Press. Blaubergs, M. (1980) An analysis of classic arguments against changing sexist language. Women’s Studies International Quarterly 3, 135–47. Bourdieu, P. (1991) Language and Symbolic Power. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Cooper, R.L. (1989) Language Planning and Social Change. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Eisenstein, H. (1996) Inside Agitators: Australian Femocrats and the State. Philadelphia: Temple University Press. Frank, F.W. (1989) Language planning, language reform and language change: A review of guidelines for non-sexist usage. In F. Frank and P. Treichler (eds) Language, Gender and Professional Writing (pp. 105–36). New York: Modern Language Association of America. Goffman, E. (1981) Forms of Talk. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. Gupta, A. and Lee, S.Y.A. (1990) Gender representation in English language textbooks used in Singapore primary schools. Language and Education 4, 29–50. Hellinger, M. (1990) Kontrastive Feministische Linguistik. Ismaning: Hueber. Jacobs, G.M., Zhou, Q.Y., Jocson, P.C., Ong, C.W. and Austria, M.E.D. (1996) Asian secondlanguage educationists’ views on gender-inclusive English. TEFLIN 8, 86–103. Labov, W. (2001) Principles of Linguistic Change: Social Factors. Oxford: Blackwell. Labov, W. and Waletzky, J. (1967) Narrative analysis. In J. Helm (ed.) Essays on the Verbal and Visual Arts (pp. 12–44). Seattle: University of Washington Press. Linde, C. (1993) Life Stories: The Creation of Coherence. New York: Oxford University Press. Mills, S. (2001) Sexism, political correctness and feminism: Naming strategies. Discourse and Society 14, 87–110. Nilsen, A.P., Bosmajian, H., Gershuny, L. and Stanley, J.P. (eds) (1977) Sexism and Language. Urbana, IL.: National Council of Teachers of English. Ochs, E. and Taylor, C. (1992) Family narrative as political activity. Discourse and Society 3, 301–40. Pauwels, A. (1991) Non-discriminatory Language. Canberra: Australian Government Publishing Service. Pauwels, A. (1998) Women Changing Language. London: Longman. Pauwels, A. and Winter, J. (2004a) Gender-inclusive language reform in educational writing in Singapore and the Philippines: A corpus-based study. Asian Englishes 7, 4–21. Pauwels, A. and Winter, J. (2004b) Generic pronouns and gender-inclusive language reform in the English of Singapore and the Philippines. Australian Review of Applied Linguistics 27, 50–62. Pauwels, A. and Winter, J. (2005) Education and gender-inclusive language practices in English: Evidence from Singapore. Asian Journal of English Language Teaching 15, 1–24. Pauwels, A. and Winter, J. (2006) Gender inclusivity or ‘Grammar rules OK?’: Linguistic
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prescriptivism vs linguistic discrimination in the classroom. Language and Education 20, 128–140. Quasthoff, U. and Becker, T. (2005) Narrative Interaction. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Ricento, T. (2002) (ed.) Ideology, Politics and Language Policy. Amsterdam: Benjamins. Tollefson, J.W. (1991) Planning Language, Planning Inequality: Language Policy in the Community. London: Longman. Wenger, E. (1998) Communities of Practice: Learning, Meaning and Identity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Winter, J. and Pauwels, A. (2003) Mapping trajectories of change – women’s and men’s practices and experiences of feminist linguistic reform in Australia. Australian Review of Applied Linguistics 26, 19–37.
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University Students’ Attitudes Towards and Experiences of Bilingual Classrooms Christa van der Walt Department of Curriculum Studies, University of Stellenbosch, South Africa To improve throughput rates in higher education it is important to investigate ways in which instruction can be made more effective when students have to use language(s) that are not their home or primary language. At the University of Stellenbosch, as is the case elsewhere in South Africa, a language policy and implementation plan was formulated in 2002 to manage language in education issues. One of the options for language use in the class is bilingual teaching which is seen as one way of dealing with language diversity without complete duplication of classes and materials. Most students seem to get by with this kind of support but in this project the question is whether existing bilingual teaching practices at a South African university are efficient from the students’ perspective. This project describes specific stipulations in the language policy and evaluates some of the common practices and the insights they offer into the ways in which students deal with bilingual classes and use bilingual study techniques.
Keywords: language planning, language policy, bilingual education, codeswitching, bilingual note making
Introduction At Stellenbosch University a language policy and implementation plan was approved by the University Council in December 2002. As its main purpose the policy states that it ‘is committed to the use and sustained development of Afrikaans as an academic language in a multilingual context’ (Stellenbosch University Language Policy, 2002). The University also undertakes to develop the third official language of the Western Cape, isiXhosa, as an academic language, but such efforts are currently restricted to corpus planning. (See www.sun.ac.za/taal for the language policy and implementation plan.) In the Western Cape, where Stellenbosch University is situated, there are three universities: two English-speaking (University of the Western Cape and University of Cape Town) and one mainly Afrikaans-speaking (Stellenbosch University). Since the student population at Stellenbosch comprises approximately 60% Afrikaans and 40% English-speaking students, the implementation plan prescribes specific ‘language options’ for different student groups and lecturers can choose among them depending on the demographics of a specific module. These language options are Afrikaans only (which is the default option), English only (for modules or programmes that are offered at this University only) and the so-called T-option (for Tweetalig, meaning bilingual). The latter option expects lecturers to use both English and Afrikaans in the classroom by codeswitching and providing lecture notes and reading material in both languages. In practice it often means that the textbook is in English and lecturers provide 217
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Afrikaans summaries of the important sections of the textbook. Lecturers would use bilingual transparencies for the overhead projector or bilingual PowerPoint presentations. This T-option has become controversial recently, because it is seen as encroaching on the spirit of the language policy and as a gradual erosion of Afrikaans as a language of learning and teaching. (See Brink & Van der Walt, 2006 for more discussion on the different agendas that complicate language policy making in higher education.) The language policy itself is a two-page document in the form of declarations of intent and statements about the use of English, Afrikaans and isiXhosa. It refers to the language plan as an accompaniment to the policy. The Language Plan, as it has come to be known, is far more detailed and prescriptive. In its introduction the Language Plan is said to operationalise the policy by ensuring that one specific aspect of the policy is realised, i.e. ‘that a favourable teaching and learning environment is created where the promotion of Afrikaans as an academic language and the development of multilingualism can get the necessary attention’.1 The specific relationship between the policy and the plan has not been studied in any detail and debates around the T-option have now raised questions about the degree to which the plan can support or erode the policy. The language policy and its implementation plan were implemented with first-year students in 2004 but lecturers have been developing bilingual teaching practices long before this to accommodate English-speaking students and to help Afrikaans-speaking students with English academic material. Moreover, the implementation plan of the language policy details arrangements for students who struggle with Afrikaans or English in the Afrikaans-only or English-only language options (respectively) and lecturers are requested to accommodate students’ language abilities by, for example, answering their questions in their preferred language and providing support should they struggle with the main language of instruction. The upshot of this state of affairs is that most classes, with the exception of those modules where Afrikaans or English is taught as a subject, will be bilingual to some extent. This paper studies these bilingual contexts by reporting on a survey that attempts to gauge students’ experiences of bilingual practices. This project is one of several conducted since the implementation of the language policy because, despite lecturers’ convictions about the usefulness of bilingual transparencies and PowerPoint presentations, there is very little empirical evidence that these practices actually benefit students. The data obtained in this and other surveys are meant to provide information that may prove useful for the implementation of the policy or, if necessary, support changes to the policy and its implementation plan. This is part of the process described in Section 5 of the policy, called Language policy formation as a dynamic process, which requires that the policy be tested against changing circumstances by means of research and consultation which may, eventually, lead to revisions of the policy.
The Teaching and Learning Context In South Africa, as in most post-colonial countries, it is extremely important to investigate ways in which instruction can be made more effective when
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students encounter language(s) that are not their home or primary language in formal instructional settings. There is more than enough evidence that inadequate development of cognitive academic language skills restricts academic performance to a significant extent (Weideman & Van Rensburg, 2002) and all South African universities are investing huge sums of money in academic support programmes, particularly the development of academic literacy in the first year of study. However, it is self-evident that general academic (language) support in the first year will not address the problems that students may encounter with discipline-specific, academic texts in later years. Language proficiency in the discourse of the discipline requires specific reading and writing skills, including the ability to recognise appropriate forms and organise appropriate and relevant responses (Bhatia, 1999: 32). This ‘situated’ language proficiency (after Gee, 1999) is crucial for success at higher levels. From a teaching and learning perspective the common perception among students and lecturers seems to be that a complete duplication of study material in both languages and/or the translation of textbooks into Afrikaans is the only solution to comprehension and study problems (Van der Walt & Steyn, 2004). Such a strategy obviously requires enormous energy from lecturers and creates an expectation for the next step, which is to present separate classes in English and Afrikaans. Since this step would mean doubling lecturers’ teaching load, universities are loath to go down this road. Higher education institutions that adopted some kind of bilingual teaching model (mostly historically Afrikaans ones) try to keep measures like these to a minimum. The judicious use of two languages (usually English and Afrikaans) in one classroom and the provision of interpreters (see Brink & Van der Walt, 2006) or frameworks and ‘notes’ in both languages are seen as ways of dealing with language diversity without complete duplication of classes and materials. Most students seem to get by with this kind of support although there is increasing pressure to teach in English only. As indicated above, it was common practice for many lecturers to use English and Afrikaans interchangeably even before the current language policy and plan were developed and implemented. The use of English textbooks and Afrikaans notes was and is widespread, as is the practice of putting key words or the structure of a lecture on a transparency in English while lecturing in Afrikaans. Some lecturers, for example, repeat something in English/Afrikaans upon request, or, if they are lecturing in Afrikaans, switch to English when students ask a question in English. Examination and test papers have been set in English and Afrikaans since the 1990s. One should keep in mind that in multilingual communities classrooms are usually bi- and multilingual, whether there is a language policy or not. The point of this paper is not whether the language policy or plan is being adhered to, but rather whether the space created by the policy and plan for bi- and multilingual teaching and learning can provide pointers for language planning in multilingual, educational settings in general. The question that is addressed in this paper relates to the efficiency of existing bilingual teaching practices and the degree to which certain practices are regarded as ‘good’ or unremarkable and others as ‘bad’ in the sense that they interfere with
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teaching and learning. Some of the common practices and their efficiency on campus are evaluated from third-year students’ perspective and in their experience.
The Use of More than One Language in the Classroom In South Africa and particularly at historically Afrikaans and Black universities, one would encounter classroom codeswitching by both lecturer and students, but it is not the kind of codeswitching we find in ordinary, everyday conversations. There is a much more conscious and intentional switch to paraphrase texts (both oral and written), to elaborate on cognitively challenging content or to simply repeat something in another language. Codeswitching, which is dealt with exhaustively in Sociolinguistics, is not normally discussed in the context of formal instruction in higher education classrooms. ‘Codeswitching’ by lecturers is quite different from everyday conversational analysis which forms the staple of scholarly discussions on codeswitching and borrowing. In the field of Educational Linguistics research has focused mainly on codeswitching by students inside and outside the classroom (Hussein, 1999; Liebscher & Dailey-O’Cain, 2005) and the problems of bilingual teachers and teaching (Macaro, 2001; Waldschmidt, 2002). Articles on communication in bilingual classrooms focus mainly on primary and secondary school levels. The kind of codeswitching that occurs in the context of historically Afrikaans and Black universities in South Africa does not fit comfortably into current categories of codeswitching, whether one follows Rational Choice models (e.g. Myers-Scotton’s Markedness Model) or the Conversation Analysis approach (as pioneered by Gumperz). These models and approaches explain codeswitching as conversational interaction between at least two participants, attempting to describe the language decisions that individuals make on the basis of their interpretation of the situation, the topic and the participants. Although a lecture is, of course, a type of conversation, the speech event that is known as a lecture can move from what lay people would see as an ordinary conversation (greeting individual students, talking to them) to semi-planned speech (like a question-answer session to re-cap work done previously) to a planned speech which approximates written communication. The degree to which the lecturer would react to conversational cues would diminish as s/he moves into a planned speech. In many lecture hall situations, particularly when the groups are big, the purpose is (unfortunately) not to interact but to transfer knowledge and insights. Whereas codeswitching is usually informal and marked or unmarked, codeswitching by the lecturer when lecturing is always formal and always marked. Although it is, of course, possible to have informal and unmarked codeswitching between lecturers and students in the lecture hall, this will mostly be on an individual basis for organisational tasks. When codeswitching takes place in this situation, lecturers’ decision to codeswitch may not fall as comfortably in the categories of situational or metaphorical codeswitching either. They may not necessarily react to signals from their audience or the topic of conversation (situational codeswitching), nor may
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they want to signal something about themselves (metaphorical codeswitching). However, there may be situations where this distinction can be observed. Based purely on anecdotal evidence and from own experience, the decision to switch at a specific point may be triggered by frowning or fidgeting students, especially if the lecturer knows that they struggle or that the work is particularly difficult. This could be classified as situational codeswitching. Similarly the lecturer may want to appear accommodating or knowledgeable, which could be interpreted as metaphorical codeswitching. Experienced lecturers, however, probably do not make these decisions while they lecture. For them their codeswitching habits are based on experience, in the sense that they habitually switch for parts of the work they know to be problematical or when they issue instructions or even as a kind of disciplining measure, i.e. to get students to pay attention again. In the light of these problems with the conventional understanding of codeswitching, and for the purposes of this paper it is more appropriate to distinguish between codeswitching (in the everyday, conversational sense of the word) and the use of two codes in the classroom (in the sense described above). In an instructional setting there is an additional burden on the lecturer to decide on the appropriate code in terms of the usefulness of the switch for learning purposes; a responsibility to use different codes with the specific intention of clarifying or ‘fixing’ concepts or terminology. (See Van der Walt et al., 2001 for a discussion of responsible codeswitching.)
Subjects and Methodology This project limited its subjects to third-year students for reasons that will be discussed below. The questionnaire was piloted in 2003 with 80 students from first to third-year level. The final version (see Appendix) is a one-page questionnaire that starts with two questions; one about students’ perception of their academic performance and the second about their preferred study language. The rest of the questionnaire consists of Likert-scale statements to determine students’ agreement and/or disagreement with 13 statements about lectures, teaching materials (like overhead transparencies and PowerPoint) and lecturer-generated study materials (like study notes and glossaries). The last four statements require an indication of the frequency with which students make use of certain study techniques. These four statements function partially as a check on the first 13 statements and they also provide more detail about certain note- and test-taking techniques. Based on student feedback on the pilot questionnaire and a general feeling of ‘questionnaire fatigue’ among students, it was necessary to keep the questionnaire as short as possible. The questionnaire was distributed by fieldworkers who are third-year students themselves. Volunteers were recruited from the faculties of Arts and Education. Each student received R120 (about $20) for attending an initial training session, distributing the questionnaire and providing feedback on their experience. There were 12 fieldworkers who received a lecture on the nature of research, the research question in this particular case and on the use of purposive sampling. They were asked to ensure representativity in terms of gender, language background, ethnic grouping and faculty. After six weeks they returned 122 questionnaires from across the campus. The demographic
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Table 1 Faculty representation Faculties
Ranking for sample
Ranking for population
Economic and Management Sciences
30% (1st)
1st
Arts
22% (2nd)
2nd
Science
14% (3rd)
4th
Education
12% (4th)
7th
Engineering
7% (5th)
5th
Law
7% (5th)
8th
Agriculture
5% (6th)
6th
Theology
2% (7th)
9th
Health Sciences
1% (8th)
3rd
distribution, with the exception of the faculty of Health Sciences, roughly represents the distribution of the population on the main campus. Table 1 compares the number of students in this study to those enrolled at the various faculties from the biggest faculty (1st) to the smallest (9th). The students from the faculties of Education and Law are over-represented, probably because the majority of the fieldworkers were Education students and the Law Faculty is just across the road from them. In contrast, the faculty of Health Sciences is not located in Stellenbosch, but 50 km away. Despite efforts in the training phase to determine which students had contact with this faculty and repeated encouragement to focus on such students, it seems that the distance and lack of contact proved to be too much for the fieldworkers. The study focused on third-year students because one can assume that, since they have progressed to this level, they are generally successful students who would at some stage have encountered and efficiently dealt with bilingual classrooms. As a check on this assumption the questionnaire required an indication of students’ academic success (see What kind of student are you? in the questionnaire). Although it can be argued that students may want to present themselves in a more favourable light, case studies (Oscarson, 1997; Saito, 2003) indicate that the reliability of this kind of self-assessment is generally high (i.e. students are generally honest about their own abilities) provided that the reason for the questionnaire is not a high-stakes situation, which was patently not the case here. The University of Stellenbosch Language Survey in 2002 (www.sun.ac.za/ taal) also indicated that students’ assessment of their own abilities agreed to a large extent with that of lecturers. The third-year students polled in this study were successful students (see Table 2). The questionnaire did not require students to fill in their home languages but focused rather on their preferred study language. Since the language survey of 2002 indicated that only 5% of all students prefer to study in a language other than their home language, it seemed safer to focus on their preferred study language, particularly since they had to report on study strategies. In compari-
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University Bilingual Classrooms in South Africa Table 2 Students’ responses to the question ‘What kind of student are you?’ I usually get good marks (65% plus).
30%
I usually get quite average marks (between 55% and 65%).
43%
The effort that I put into my studies bears little relation to the marks that I get.
12%
I fail some subjects but I know that I’m not putting in enough effort.
7%
I work really hard but I still struggle to pass.
1%
Students who marked more than one category.
7%
Table 3 Undergraduates’ language preferences Preferred study language % in this study
Home language % on whole campus
Afrikaans
44
59
English
28
28
Afrikaans-and- English
15
1.6
Other
13
12.4
son to the 2004 statistics for the campus as a whole the percentage of students who indicate English as their home language is the same as those who indicate English as their preferred study language. However, the percentage of students who indicate Afrikaans as their preferred study language (in this study) is smaller than the home language numbers campuswide. Those who indicate both Afrikaans and English as their preferred study languages form a substantially higher percentage than the numbers for the campus as a whole. When one compares the decrease in students who prefer Afrikaans to the increase in those who prefer Afrikaans and English it seems safe to say that the ‘missing’ number of Afrikaans-speaking students can probably be found in the Afrikaans-andEnglish group. In other words, it seems that 15% of those students who are Afrikaans-speaking prefer both Afrikaans-and-English as a study language (see Table 3). Despite the slight over-representation of students from the faculties of Education and Law, this study can claim a high degree of representativity for third-year students on the main campus.
Results There are three broad areas of investigation in the questionnaire: codeswitching by the lecturer (statements 1–3, 5, 7 and 8), the provision of material by the lecturer in the form of transparencies, subject glossaries and study notes (statements 4, 6, 11) and actions taken by the students themselves when they listen to lectures and deal with textbooks and assignments (statements 9, 10, 12–17). In the discussion below the responses to the questionnaire will be dealt with under these three headings with reference to the frequency counts as indicated on the questionnaire in the Appendix. However, the discussion will not focus as much on where the majority opinions lie, because these are obvious, but rather on the size of the ‘minority’ counts and on those responses where there is no clear
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majority. The minority opinions, especially in as far as they can be correlated with students’ self-assessment of their performance and with other items, are illuminating in terms of possible solutions to teaching and learning issues in bilingual classrooms. Language use by the lecturer It is clear from the student responses that the majority feel they benefit when the lecturer uses English and Afrikaans in lectures. Furthermore, they feel that their language proficiency is at such a level that they do not become confused when this happens (statements 1 and 2). It is also clear that a substantial percentage of students, namely 35%, think that this practice is a waste of time (statement 3) but, of more concern is the 25% in statement 1 and 2 who feel that this practice is not helping them and that, in fact, it confuses them. The biggest correlation (r = –0.56) for this data set was found for statements 1 and 2 which showed a tendency for students who felt that this practice did not help them and also to indicate that it confused them. The responses to statement 5 (I find it easier to understand lectures when they are in the same language as the textbook) provided quite a different result from the first version of the questionnaire. The pilot questionnaire showed that students definitely prefer a monolingual environment because they find it easier to take notes and do assignments if the lectures, textbooks and assignments are all in the same language. In the final questionnaire there is no clear majority preference. An attempt was made to link statement 5 to students’ academic performance (as indicated in Question 2) but there was no correlation. The preference for the language of lectures being the same as that of the textbook is probably a personal study preference that does not necessarily have anything to do with academic success or failure. The responses to statement 7 (I would prefer it if the lecturer explained difficult concepts in the language with which s/he (the lecturer) is most comfortable) show the majority agreeing that the lecturer should use the language that s/he is most comfortable with when they explain difficult concepts. This statement was included because of the findings of a previous study (Van der Walt & Steyn, 2004) where students expressed their frustration when non-home language speakers of Afrikaans or English struggled to express themselves. They commented that they would prefer an explanation in the lecturer’s home language rather than ‘broken’ English or Afrikaans. The interesting question in this case is, which students constitute the 28% who disagreed, 11% of them strongly, with the statement that the lecturers should use the language with which they are most comfortable? These results were correlated with students’ preferred study language and their academic performance (Questions 1 and 2) with the following results: • There is a statistically significant difference between good students and those who do not fare as well (the first and second categories for the questionnaire): the good students do not mind the lecturer explaining difficult concepts in the language with which s/he (the lecturer) is most comfortable. • A statistically significant difference was also found between those students
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Figure 1 Differences in the response to Question 7 between the different language groups
with English mainly or Afrikaans to a lesser extent as their preferred study language and those who indicated Afrikaans-and-English as preferred study languages: the former expected lecturers to explain in either English or in Afrikaans, rather than in the language with which the lecturer would feel most comfortable as seen in Figure 1. Finally, as far as lecturing is concerned, the responses to Question 8 show that at least 50% of the students are very much aware of the language that the lecturers use. The majority is small here, with 39% agreeing that they do not notice the lecturers’ language use. It is interesting that this statement (with statement 2) elicited the highest number of Disagree strongly responses. Students felt very strongly that they were not confused when lecturers used both English and Afrikaans but they definitely noticed the lecturer’s language use. There were no significant correlations with students’ preferred study language for these items. Provision of study material by the lecturer The responses to statements 4 (It helps me when the lecturer uses bilingual transparencies or PowerPoint presentations) and 6 (I will derive more benefit from bilingual classes if the lecturer provides a bilingual subject glossary beforehand) show huge support for bilingual teaching materials in the form of PowerPoint, OHP and subject glossaries. There is a tendency for students who disagree with statement 4 (in other words, it does not help them when the lecturer uses bilingual
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teaching material) to also disagree with statement 6 – clearly they do not think that bilingual teaching materials are useful. Statements 9 (I find it easier to do assignments/ tests in the language of the textbook) and 10 (I find it easier to do assignments/ tests in my preferred study language) were contrasted deliberately to test for a common assumption on campus that students prefer writing in English, even if they are not very good at it, because it is easier to write in the language of the textbook. The results, however, do not agree with this assumption. The biggest number of responses in a single category on the questionnaire is the 58% of students who agree strongly that they find it easier to do assignments and tests in their preferred study language (statement 10). In fact, this is the only one of the first 13 statements with a clear majority that agrees with the statement and the smallest number of responses disagreeing with the statement. To some extent the overwhelming agreement in statement 10 (I find it easier to do assignments/ tests in my preferred study language) places a condition upon statement 9, perhaps saying that students find it easier to do assignments and tests in the language of the textbook, as long as that language is also their preferred study language. This perspective also explains the small majority agreement (57%) with statement 9 (there is 32% disagreement). A comparison with students’ preferred study language showed that the students who disagree with statement 9, i.e. the 32% who do not find it easier to do assignments in the language of the textbook, were roughly 50% who indicated that Afrikaans is their preferred study language. Figure 2 shows this by indicating their ambivalence regarding statement 9. Students who prefer English or Englishand-Afrikaans show clear agreement which makes sense when one considers that most textbooks are in English. This would make writing assignments and tests more difficult for those students who prefer to study in Afrikaans. Further analysis of the responses to statement 9 shows that there is no correlation between agreement with this statement and Question 2 (academic self-assessment); in other words, academic performance cannot be linked to a preference for doing assignments in the same language as the textbook. A further comparison between those students who agreed with statement 9 and those who agreed with statements 11 and 12 (dependence on translations and lecturer-generated notes) resulted in a negative correlation, which means that students who found it easier to write in the language of the textbook did not depend on lecturer-generated notes or translations. The conclusion could be that, since many students who prefer Afrikaans (52%) did not find it easier to work in the language of the textbook, they would have been more dependent upon lecturer-generated notes and translations. On the basis of the results above a closer look at statements 11 and 12 seemed warranted. A correlation with Question 2 showed tendencies, but not statistically significant ones. As far as statement 11 is concerned, the weaker students, predictably, were more dependent on lecturer-generated notes. In statement 12 the good students tended to translate the least, whereas the average students and those who indicated that they had failed some subjects, tended to translate more. In the light of the tendency that we found above (which is that Afrikaans and weaker students were more dependent on lecturer generated notes and transla-
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Figure 2 Relationship between preferred study language and whether respondents agreed with statement 9
tions), does this mean that 52% of the students who prefer Afrikaans are also weaker students? This question will be discussed below. Note taking and note making in bilingual classes Statements 13 to 17 are all concerned with students’ ability to make sense of lectures and the questionnaire attempted to find out whether students used their bilingual abilities when the lecturer used more than one language. Statement 13 (I see in my class notes that I’ve switched from English to Afrikaans (or vice versa) without noticing) originated from focus group interviews, where senior students indicated that they had become so accustomed to hearing and using Afrikaans and English that they used the languages interchangeably and without noticing the switches. This perception is not supported unequivocally in the final questionnaire. In fact, there was a 44% disagreement with the statement and a 43% agreement. When this result was correlated with students’ preferred study language, it appeared that those who agreed that they didn’t notice language changes were mainly from the group who indicated that Afrikaans-and-English are their preferred study languages. The group that tended to disagree most were students who prefer Afrikaans as their study language. Students who prefer English as their study language were equally divided between agree and disagree. When the results in statement 13 were compared to the responses to Question 15 (Do you make notes in English and Afrikaans, depending on the language used by the lecturer at that stage?), 74% of those who disagreed with the statement in 13
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(i.e. they would never switch between languages without noticing when taking notes) indicated that they would not consciously switch between languages either. They obviously stuck to one language in their note taking and note making. Of those who agreed that they sometimes switched between English and Afrikaans without noticing, 60% would also switch consciously or deliberately when they made notes. Since statement 15 is intended as a check on statement 13, these two results show that bilingual note taking is probably a deliberate note-making strategy.
Discussion The data can be interpreted from (at least) two perspectives: from a teaching perspective, with a view to finding out what would be the best teaching strategies in bilingual/ multilingual settings and from a learning perspective, with a view to identifying indicators of bilinguality that enhance learning. Of the two, the latter is more difficult to do in the light of the kind of data provided by the questionnaire. However, the results provide a number of strong pointers which allow consideration of effective bilingual learning practices. Bilingual learning practices It is interesting that, relative to the distribution in official University statistics, so many students should indicate Afrikaans-and-English as preferred languages of learning. Given the choice between English or Afrikaans, it seems clear that students feel confident enough about their language abilities to choose both. Statements 7, 8, 13, 15 and 17 relate specifically to bilingual learning strategies and the frequency counts as well as the correlations with preferred study language (as discussed above) provide evidence of the ease with which these students handle Afrikaans and English. The conclusion was drawn above that the weaker students are mainly those who prefer Afrikaans as their study language and that they are dependent upon teacher-generated notes and translations. This, in turn, can be linked to the fact that most textbooks and academic articles are in English. However, this inference does not take into account those students who said that Afrikaansand-English are their preferred study languages. As mentioned before, items 8 (students do not notice lecturers’ language use) and 13 (they switch without noticing) were included to determine students’ facility with English and Afrikaans, or at least an indication that students used both languages without thinking about it. These results were correlated with items 11 (heavy dependence on lecturer-generated notes) and 12 (translation of materials), which identified the weaker students. The result was that students who agreed with statement 8 (they do not notice the lecturer’s language use any more) and with statement 13 (they subconsciously switch from one language to the other) seemed not to be as dependent on lecturer’s notes (statement 11) or translations (statement 12). The responses to these four statements by students who prefer Afrikaansand-English showed significant and positive correlations between this group and statement 8 (these students do not notice lecturers’ language use) and statements 11 and 12 (they are not dependent on notes and translations). Similarly, such
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students are the ones who switch languages without noticing (statement 13) and who are not dependent upon notes. When one takes into account that the weaker students were those who made more use of notes and translations, and that they were the students who preferred Afrikaans only as a study language, it would seem that Afrikaansand-English bilinguals benefit from their facility with language: • They are so comfortable with both languages that they do not mind the lecturer explaining in the language with which s/he is most comfortable. • They find it easier to write assignments in the language of the textbook, and are therefore less dependent upon lecturer-generated notes. • Using two languages had become so commonplace that they do not notice switching between them. Item 7 shows that a substantial majority of good students, particularly the ones who said that they prefer Afrikaans-and-English as study languages, were prepared to accept a lecturer using either when discussing difficult concepts. Is it possible to draw the conclusion that bilinguality creates a more tolerant environment? Since they control both languages these students are at ease in both and obviously willing to allow for the problems that lecturers might have in their second or third languages. Although the majority of students were aware of the lecturers’ language use (item 8), 40% actually agreed that they did not notice: this is not a negligible percentage. In statement 13 students were equally divided between agreeing (43%) and disagreeing (44%) that they switched between Afrikaans and English without noticing, which shows that even students who do not prefer both for study purposes, felt that they were fluent enough to handle both languages almost without thinking about it. A correlation of statement 13 (students switch between languages without noticing) with preferred study language shows that those who agreed were mainly from the group that indicated Afrikaans-andEnglish as their preferred study languages. This correlation provides evidence that the choice for Afrikaans-and-English was not made lightly: students felt that they used both languages with ease. Even students whose preference was for Afrikaans or English only seemed equally at ease in both languages, at least as far as their note making was concerned. Teaching practices It is possible to infer teaching practices from the data because statements 1 and 2 indicate that average to poor students felt impeded by the use of English and Afrikaans in lectures. There are clear preferences for bilingual transparencies and PowerPoint presentations, but one needs to treat these preferences with caution. Support for additional teaching material may not necessarily mean support for bilingual teaching: generally speaking students seem inordinately dependent upon OHP and PowerPoint materials, which they then expect to be uploaded to their study materials on the University website (by means of the software package WebCT). There seems to be a general problem in monolingual and bilingual classes with the distinction between making notes and taking notes (taking down the lec-
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turer’s every word); the latter being the method of choice. There seems to be a widespread belief in the value of ‘notes’ that have been generated electronically. In academic support programmes the process of note making is regarded as crucial for the integration of knowledge. The responses to item 15 can be an indication of bilingual competence or a sign of note taking rather than note making. If it is accepted that students who make notes in their preferred study language only, will use more time to make sense of the lecture, then they will probably be making rather than taking notes, since there is not enough time to write down the lecturer’s every word. However, this may be what the students who use Afrikaans-and-English may be doing: copying the lecturer’s words, taking notes in whatever language s/he may be using. In this case facility with both languages may support bad learning strategies. Since the responses to item 6 show the need for a bilingual word list and not merely a subject glossary, the lecturer should perhaps focus on strengthening the equivalency of terminology so that students know it in both languages and need not copy down everything that is said. The importance of the preferred study language is beyond dispute in items 10 and 14 and the dependence of students on lecturer-generated notes in their preferred study language is a clear indication of the burden that lecturers may have to shoulder. The importance of teaching note making skills is again evident here: students should not be learning the lecturer’s notes, but their own. The way in which teaching is structured can aid that process. One could even argue that the translation activities that are so evident in item 12 are excellent for internalising study material – on a limited scale, of course. In fact student translations could even help the lecturer to develop word lists.
Conclusion It is important to realise that South African classrooms, at whatever level, are multilingual. Even if teaching is in one language, students are from different language backgrounds and are probably not proficient enough in the language of the textbook and/or the lecture. Irrespective of the language policy that is in place, lecturers will have to deal with this situation. Since most programmes are not really willing to sacrifice more than a few credits in the first year to develop academic literacy, the subject lecturers will be faced with the burden of dealing with subject-specific language problems and with student criticism about lecturers not explaining well, not explaining in their preferred study language, not providing enough ‘notes’, and so on. Whatever our language policy, students will have to deal with instruction and instructional materials that are not in their preferred study language. Lecturers can choose to ignore this and hope it will go away or they can develop specific strategies that will help students in the course of their studies. Continued support for lecturers in this area is dependent upon the type of institutional research undertaken in this study. More importantly, however, is the information that is becoming available about bilingual learning practices, specifically the way in which students deal with bilingual lectures and assignments. The Stellenbosch University Language Policy and its implementation plan try to manage multilingualism by prescribing specific strategies in class. Lecturers often complain about the prescriptive nature of the language plan because they
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develop their own ways of dealing with student requests and the demands of their own subjects in a multilingual environment. The question remains whether it was necessary to formalise such practices in the implementation plan of the language policy, but it seems as if the aims of the policy as far as the development of multilingualism is concerned, are being served by the language plan in as much as it requires the accommodation of different languages in the classroom. South African society is multilingual and its government has committed itself to multilingualism by means of language policies. If it can be shown, as this study has started to do, that bi- and multilingual students thrive in such an environment, there will be a powerful argument for the incorporation of ‘good’ bilingual strategies in language policy and planning strategies. Correspondence Any correspondence should be directed to Prof Christa van der Walt, Department of Curriculum Studies, University of Stellenbosch, Private Bag X1, Stellenbosch 7602, South Africa (
[email protected]). Notes 1. This is my translation of the Afrikaans which states: ‘Die Taalplan is die operasionalisering van die Taalbeleid in verskillende taalgebruikskontekste van die Universiteit, en moet die volgende ideaal van die Taalbeleid verseker: dat ‘n gunstige leer- en onderrigomgewing geskep word waarbinne die bevordering van Afrikaans as ‘n akademiese taal en die ontwikkeling van meertaligheid as ‘n bate die nodige aandag kry.’ (http://www.sun. ac.za/university/Taal/Taalplan)
References Bhatia, V.K. (1999) Integrating products, processes, purposes and participants in professional writing. In C.N. Candlin and K. Hyland (eds) Writing: Texts, Processes and Practices (pp. 21–39). London: Longman. Brink, C. and Van der Walt, C. (2006) Multilingual universities: A national and international overview. South African Journal for Higher Education 19 (4), 822–52. Hussein, R.F. (1999) Code-alteration among Arab college students. World Englishes 18, 281–9. Gee, J.P. (1999) An Introduction to Discourse Analysis: Theory and Method. London: Routledge. Liebscher, G and Dailey-O’Cain, J. (2005) Learner code-switching in the content-based foreign language classroom. Modern Language Journal 89, 234–47. Macaro, E. (2001) Analysing student teachers’ codeswitching in foreign language classrooms: Theories and decision making. Modern Language Journal 85, 531–48. Oscarson, M. (1997) Self-assessment of foreign and second language proficiency. In C. Clapham and D. Corson (eds) The Encyclopedia of Language and Education (vol. 7) (pp. 175–87). Dordrecht: Kluwer. Saito, Y. (2003) The use of self-assessment in second language assessment. TESOL Web Journal. On WWW at http://www.TC.Columbia.edu/academic/TESOL/Webjournal/Saito_Forum.pdf. Accessed 09.09.03. Stellenbosch University Language Policy (2002) On WWW at http://www.sun.ac.za/ university/Taal/LangPolFinal2002.doc. Accessed 20.09.05. Van der Walt, C., Mabule, R. and De Beer, J.J. (2001) Letting the L1 in by the back door: Codeswitching and translation in science, mathematics and biology classes. SAALT Journal 35, 123–34. Van der Walt, C. and Steyn, M. (2004) Student perceptions and frustrations with bilingual education at Stellenbosch University, South Africa. In R. Wilkinson (ed.) Integrating
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Content and Language: Meeting the Challenge of Multilingual Higher Education (pp. 493– 507). Maastricht: Universitaire Pers Maastricht. Waldschmidt, E.D. (2002) Bilingual interns’ barriers to becoming teachers: At what cost do we diversify the teaching force? Bilingual Research Journal 26, 537–61. Weideman, A. and Van Rensburg, C. (2002) Language proficiency: Current strategies, future remedies. Journal for Language Teaching 36, 152–64.
Appendix: Questionnaire Results Your preferred study language: Afrikaans 44%
English 28%
Afrikaans-and-English isiXhosa 15% 1%
Other 12%
What kind of student are you? I usually get I usually get good marks quite average (65% plus). marks (between 55% and 65%). 30%
43%
The effort that I put into my studies bears little relation to the marks that I get.
I fail some subjects but I know that I’m not putting in enough effort.
12%
7%
I work really hard but I still struggle to pass. 1%
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Disagree strongly
Disagree
Agree
Agree strongly
Neutral
Say to what extent you agree or disagree with the following statements. Put a cross in the relevant square.
1.
It helps me when the lecturer speaks English and Afrikaans in lectures.
7 5%
24 20%
51 42%
13 11%
27 22%
2.
It confuses me when the lecturer switches from Afrikaans to English (or vice versa) in lectures.
22 18%
54 44%
13 11%
17 14%
16 13%
3.
It wastes a lot of time when the lecturer switches from one language to another.
18 15%
47 39%
34 28%
9 7%
14 11%
4.
It helps me when the lecturer uses bilingual transparencies or PowerPoint presentations.
8 7%
18 15%
56 46%
25 20%
15 12%
5.
I find it easier to understand lectures when they are in the same language as the textbook.
13 11%
29 24%
37 30%
24 20%
19 15%
6.
I will derive more benefit from bilingual classes if the lecturer provides a bilingual subject glossary beforehand.
4 3%
16 13%
54 44%
28 23%
20 17%
7.
I would prefer it if the lecturer explained difficult concepts in the language with which s/he (the lecturer) is most comfortable.
14 11%
21 17%
45 37%
34 28%
8 7%
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Disagree strongly
Disagree
Agree
Agree strongly
Neutral
University Bilingual Classrooms in South Africa
8.
I don’t really notice what language the lecturers use anymore.
22 18%
39 32%
39 32%
9 7%
13 11%
9.
I find it easier to do assignments/tests in the language of the textbook.
13 11%
26 21%
37 30%
33 27%
13 11%
10. I find it easier to do assignments/tests in my preferred study language.
0
6 5%
35 29%
71 59%
9 7%
11. I depend heavily on lecturer-generated study notes (in my preferred study language) when the textbook is in another language.
6 5%
23 19%
37 30%
38 31%
18 15%
12. I translate the study material if it is not in my preferred study language.
15 13%
20 16%
43 35%
35 29%
9 7%
13. I see in my class notes that I’ve switched from English to Afrikaans (or vice versa) without noticing.
21 17%
33 27%
38 31%
14 12%
16 13%
14. Do you make notes in your preferred Always study language irrespective of the 57 language used by the lecturer or 47% used on the transparencies?
Often 31 26%
Sometimes Hardly ever 26 7 21% 6%
15. Do you make notes in English Always and Afrikaans, depending on the 13 language used by the lecturer at that 11% stage?
Often 36 29%
Sometimes Hardly ever 27 46 22% 38%
16. Do you answer questions in assign- Always ments/tests in your preferred study 93 language? 76%
Often 17 14%
Sometimes Hardly ever 8 4 7% 3%
17. Would you read questions in assign- Always ments/tests in both languages 24 (where available)? 20%
Often 30 25%
Sometimes Hardly ever 30 38 24% 31%
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Pacific Languages at the University of the South Pacific John Lynch Pacific Languages Unit, University of the South Pacific, PMB 072, Port Vila, Vanuatu
France Mugler Department of Literature and Language, University of the South Pacific, Suva, Fiji Islands The University of the South Pacific (USP) is a regional university owned by and serving twelve Pacific countries, in which about two hundred vernacular languages are spoken. English is the major medium of instruction at USP, and is also the major language of post-primary teaching in all twelve countries. However, some use is made of some vernaculars in primary education, and also in media and government, though the amount varies from country to country. English was USP’s main focus for the first 15 years of the University’s existence, until the Pacific Languages Unit was established in 1983. USP then began offering short intensive courses on and in Bislama and later Fijian, and has since approved a Pacific Vernaculars Programme, which can be taken as a major in a degree programme. Fijian and Hindi Studies are now relatively well established within this programme, with plans for other languages to be brought into the programme in the near future. Major problems include the need for metalinguistic terminology in many Pacific languages, development of vernacular literature and, in some cases, establishment of standard orthographies.
Introduction The University of the South Pacific (USP), established in 1968, is owned and operated by 12 regional governments: Cook Islands, Fiji Islands, Kiribati, Marshall Islands, Nauru, Niue, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Tokelau, Tonga, Tuvalu and Vanuatu. Its main campus is in Suva (Fiji), and it has two smaller campuses in Apia (Samoa) and Port Vila (Vanuatu). USP is also heavily involved in delivering courses through the distance mode, with Centres (which facilitate course-delivery) in all 12 capitals, and Sub-Centres in other locations in some countries. Spoken within this area are about 200 indigenous languages (all but a handful belonging to the Oceanic branch of Austronesian), two varieties of Melanesian Pidgin/Creole, a koineised variety of Hindi, English, French, and a number of minority languages. Table 1 outlines the linguistic demography of the USP countries.1 English was introduced into the Pacific in colonial times and, as can be seen from Table 1, it has retained official status in all 12 countries – alongside French in Vanuatu, which was an Anglo-French condominium. The University has five Schools: Agriculture, Humanities, Law, Pure and Applied Sciences, and Social and Economic Development. Within the School of Humanities, the Department of Literature and Language runs a wide range of courses, including courses in English language and literature and general linguistics. The Department has two linguistics sections: one in Suva, concerned mainly with face-to-face teaching of courses in general linguistics and linguistics applied to English; and the other in Port Vila (the Pacific 234 Pacific Languages at the USP
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Table 1 Linguistic profile of the 12 USP countries (after Lynch, 1998) Country
Approximate population
Cook Is.
20,000
Fiji Is.
800,000
No. of vernaculars 3
National/Official language(s) Rarotongan ( = Cook Is. Ma-ori), English
4 Fijian, Hindi, English (incl. Hindi)
Kiribati
80,000
1
Kiribati, English
Marshall Is.
60,000
1
Marshallese, English
Nauru
12,000
1
Nauruan, English
2,000
1
Niuean, English Samoan, English
Niue Samoa
175,000
1
Solomon Is.
400,000
60+
Tokelau Tonga Tuvalu Vanuatu
Pijin, English
1,500
1
Tokelauan, English
100,000
2
Tongan, English
10,000
1
Tuvaluan, English
200,000
c. 100
Bislama, English, French
Languages Unit), teaching mainly by distance education and concerned more with general and applied linguistics with a Pacific focus. There is considerable overlap between the two programmes, which have a common first year platform. Due to the multilingual nature of the student body, these courses are taught in the official medium, English,2 although a couple of courses on translation techniques and second language acquisition have also been taught in French. Given the large number of languages in the region, it is impossible for every single one to be taught, and difficult to choose some languages as subjects and ignore others. No Pacific language is taught as a credit course to non-speakers of the language (or as a ‘foreign language’), though French and Japanese are.3 However, the University has started offering courses in particular Pacific languages and literatures to native or fluent speakers, many of whom intend to teach those languages in the school system; and it is these courses which form the focus of this paper.
Summer Schools in the Early Years In the first 15 years or so of the University’s existence, the language (and literature) focus in the School of Humanities was almost exclusively on English indeed, ‘English’ was a discipline within the then School of Education until the mid-1980s. In 1985, the School was renamed the School of Humanities, and the ‘English discipline’ became the Department of Literature and Language, with the focus broadening to include general linguistics (and Pacific literature in English). The Pacific Languages Unit (PLU) was created in 1983 to provide a Pacificfocused linguistics curriculum and to conduct research into the languages of the Pacific. In a regional University like USP, it was logical to locate the PLU in Vanuatu, the most multilingual of all member countries (see Table 1). The unit
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started with just one staff member (Terry Crowley), but now has an establishment of three. As well as providing courses in general and applied linguistics to a variety of clienteles (mostly at vocational or pre-degree level and mainly through the distance mode), Crowley and his successors decided to experiment with running courses on Pacific languages in those languages. Though these courses were to be taught later through the distance mode, they were initially offered in a face-to-face mode in what USP calls Summer Schools – intensive courses taught over a four or five week period during summer vacations, when schoolteachers especially are able to attend. The first such course to be offered, in 1985, was Introdaksen long Stadi blong Bislama (Introduction to Bislama Studies), and dealt with the nature and history of Bislama, its current status, its phonology and lexicon, and its grammar (Crowley, 1996: 262–3). This course was an option within a diploma in Pacific Language Studies. It was offered a few times, but difficulties with enrolments (a minimum of 15 students is required before a course can be offered at a Summer School) meant that it stopped being taught from the beginning of the 1990s, when in any case a new degree structure was approved. Bislama was a logical choice in many ways. It is spoken fluently by almost all ni-Vanuatu over the age of 10. Crowley himself went on to write a major history of the language and two editions of a dictionary, and so he was well placed to write course materials. Nevertheless, virtually everything had to be produced from scratch since, apart from some religious materials and newspaper articles (the latter very poor orthographically), almost nothing existed in print in Bislama. In order to be able to mount the course, Crowley wrote a reference grammar of Bislama in Bislama, compiled a two-volume study guide, as well as a set of supplementary reading materials, which he commissioned or wrote. (For details on the genesis of the course, see Crowley, 1996: 262). On the other hand, Bislama was – and still is – looked down upon by many ni-Vanuatu because of its origins as a pidgin. Although it is the national language and one of three official languages, it had no status in the education system (Lynch, 1996), and one of the aims of the course was to attempt to raise its status in the eyes of its speakers. Bislama was followed by Fijian. In 1983, the PLU asked Paul Geraghty, Director of the Institute of Fijian Language and Culture, to run a similar course on Fijian studies (Vakadidike Vosavakaviti), which included similar topics to those in the Bislama course. For this course, there was a much bigger pool of students to draw from; unlike Bislama, Fijian was both a subject and a medium of instruction in some Fijian schools (Mugler, 1996) and there was an existing body of writing in Fijian. Thus the preparation of course materials was less onerous, and substantial enrolments more likely. The course has in fact blossomed into a minor in the degree programme (see below).
Consolidation: Fijian and Hindi Studies In the early 1990s, the Department of Literature and Language decided to promote the languages of the USP region by offering courses on and in some of those languages. The idea was to start with two minors – a minor at USP
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normally consisting of four or five courses in a 20-course degree. The two languages selected, Fijian and Hindi, have the highest numbers of speakers among students on the main campus of the University since Fiji, the largest of the member countries, contributes between 75% and 80% of the student population, with roughly equal numbers of speakers of Fijian and of Hindi. A preliminary step towards the establishment of these minors was the development of a course on The Teaching of Pacific Languages, which was first offered in 1993. The course sought to provide a general background about the languages of the region, their history and structure, status and use in society - particularly in education - along with basic concepts about language learning and teaching. The word ‘Pacific’ was chosen because unlike, say, ‘Austronesian’ it is a non-technical term which could include not only the traditional indigenous languages of the countries of the region, but also more recently developed languages such as the pidgins and/or creoles Bislama and Solomons Pijin, and the koine Fiji Hindi. As a generic course taught in English, it could be taken by all students interested, regardless of their first language. It was classified as a first year course with no prerequisites, open to any University student. In 1995 minors in Fijian and in Hindi were established. Each minor was to consist of five courses. Besides the English-medium course on Teaching Pacific Languages, four courses were designed in which the language studied was also used as the medium of instruction: two on language and two on orature/literature. The first year courses were offered for the first time that year: Fijian Language Studies I, Fijian Orature/Literature I; Introduction to Hindi, and Introduction to Hindi Literature. The only prerequisite for the initial course in each programme is a working knowledge of the language and, in the case of Hindi, of the Devanagari script. This means that the courses (indeed, the minor programmes) are not restricted to native speakers, and several Indo-Fijians have taken Fijian courses, while a few Fijians have taken Hindi. Since Fiji Hindi is not written, the requirement of a knowledge of Devanagari implies some familiarity with Standard Hindi, the only variety which is taught as a subject in schools quite different from Indo-Fijians’ native language. Similarly, Fijian materials are written in Standard Fijian, also a school subject and the lingua franca among speakers of different varieties of Fijian (see Mugler, 1996). The following year the remaining - second year - courses were offered: Fijian Language Studies II, Fijian Orature/Literature II, Varieties of Hindi, and Hindi Prose Fiction. The Fijian courses also acquired (or reclaimed) their Fijian names: Vakadidike Vosavakaviti I & II for the language courses, and Umavosa Maroroi Vakaviti I & II for those on orature/literature. At the same time, The Teaching of Pacific Languages was reclassified as a second year course, with a prerequisite of either the first Fijian or Hindi language course or an introductory linguistics course. A further step was taken towards putting a full major in place in 1999 with the development of two final year courses, Orality, Literacy and Fijian Culture, and Culture, Literature and Language (for Hindi).
The Future: The Pacific Vernaculars Programme The Department’s long-term objective had always been to establish majors in a number of Pacific languages. In 2000, a major in Pacific Vernacular
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Languages (PVL) was approved by the University Council. The major is a generic template consisting of eight courses: First year:
Language Studies I Orature/Literature I One elective
Second year:
Language Studies II Orature/Literature II One elective
Third year:
Language and Culture One elective
Electives are chosen from a number of approved courses in Pacific Linguistics or Literature. Most of these are taught in English, but four existing courses, The Teaching of Pacific Languages, Cultural Studies, and two courses in Creative Writing, can now also be taught through the medium of the appropriate Pacific language. At the time of writing, the PVL major is available in Fijian and Hindi, with the template providing a framework for the development of majors in other languages. Enrolments in Fijian are quite small but are expected to increase, while enrolments in Hindi are quite healthy. With the number of languages spoken in the region, it is difficult to see a time when there will be a major in each of the ‘mother-tongues’ of all the students who attend the University. It should be noted also that official recognition of indigenous languages varies considerably from country to country, with vernaculars having a far greater place in education in Polynesia and to some extent Micronesia and much less in Melanesia, where neither indigenous languages nor pidgins/creoles have any official place (although this is beginning to change in Vanuatu). Currently, work is progressing on the development of course materials in Bislama, and it is hoped that a curriculum can eventually be produced which will cater for speakers of both Bislama and Pijin. Increasingly also, the University is collaborating with other tertiary institutions in the region, particularly teacher training colleges. In the case of many of the countries of Polynesia, where the national language is used extensively in education, both in primary and up to the end of secondary and where it is an examinable subject, the teacher training curriculum includes, say, Tongan or Samoan studies. USP is trying to arrange for accrediting (parts of) these programmes towards the PVL majors. One advantage of working in partnership with these institutions is that it avoids duplication. Another is that students can take those programmes while in their country rather than when/if they come to Suva, which is both more practical and pedagogically more appropriate. Similar arrangements could be made with universities abroad, particularly in countries with substantial populations of Pacific Islanders – e.g. New Zealand, Australia, and the United States. Correspondence Any correspondence should be directed to John Lynch, Pacific Languages Unit, University of the South Pacific, PMB 072, Port Vila, Vanuatu (
[email protected]).
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Notes 1. Pacific constitutions vary as to whether they specifically promulgate national and/or official languages or whether this status is more a de facto one. In this latter situation, the ‘national language’ is the one used in normal daily communication by citizens of the country, and the ‘official language’ is the one used in most government business. 2. We say ‘official medium’ since we are aware that some tutors, particularly in the Extension Centres away from the main Campus, sometimes use the local language in tutorials when all students can speak and understand it. Students often use their - or one of their – other languages to discuss things together, both in and out of class. 3. In individual countries, some Extension Centres offer courses in a local language as a non-credit course - e.g. to recently arrived volunteers and other expatriates.
References Crowley, T. (1996) Yumi toktok Bislama mo yumi tokbaot Bislama: Teaching Bislama in Bislama. In F. Mugler and J. Lynch (eds) Pacific Languages in Education. Suva: Institute of Pacific Studies (University of the South Pacific). Lynch, J. (1996) The banned national language: Bislama and formal education in Vanuatu. In F. Mugler and J. Lynch (eds) Pacific Languages in Education. Suva: Institute of Pacific Studies (University of the South Pacific). Lynch, J. (1998) Pacific Languages: An Introduction. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press. Mugler, F. (1996) ‘Vernacular’ language teaching in Fiji. In F. Mugler and J. Lynch (eds) Pacific Languages in Education (pp. 273–86). Suva: Institute of Pacific Studies (University of the South Pacific).
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CILP No: 101
Micro Language Planning for Student Support in a Pharmacy Faculty Helen Marriott School of Languages, Cultures and Linguistics, Monash University, Victoria, Australia This paper reports on a case study of organised support for students who experience problems with language or academic study skills at a pharmacy faculty of an Australian university. Employing the Language Management Theory (LMT), this study exemplifies organised management and explores the various processes involved, such as the noting of students’ problems, and the design and implementation of adjust support programmes. The reiterative nature of the process and the involvement of multiple participants are two of the features indicative of the complex nature of the organised management system.
Keywords: micro language planning, Language Management Theory
Introduction There are many kinds of student participants in Australian universities who deserve language policies to support their needs, such as indigenous, matureage, and deaf and blind students, in addition to those from culturally and linguistically different backgrounds, not to mention graduates from secondary schools (Kaplan & Baldauf, 1997: 258–9). Nevertheless, a lot of the language and academic skills support that is available to students at Australian universities tends to be utilised by non-English-speaking background (NESB) students, whose proportion has exhibited significant growth over the past two to three decades. Accordingly, it is not surprising that in planning the needs of these students receive the most attention. Employing categories used within the university system itself, students are classified as either local or international, and while the majority of international students are simultaneously of NESB origin, a minority of local students are also NESB students. Given the linguistic and cultural diversity among the student population, most Australian universities have established specialised units within them that typically support students’ language and academic study skills (LASS). These units generally offer support to all students, irrespective of the students’ linguistic or cultural background, and advisers employed by such units may operate on a university-wide basis, the most typical pattern, or be located within individual faculties. The establishment of such support units within universities or faculties constitutes an overt instance of language planning, and, in turn, requires the development of more detailed policies and implementation practices. In addition to the concepts of macro and micro language planning, in recent years reference to meso-level planning is also found and is applied at some intermediate level on the macro to micro continuum (Kaplan & Baldauf, 1997). 240
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The kind of language planning undertaken by universities or faculties would probably constitute meso-level planning. However, as will be argued in this paper, despite being a university-wide phenomenon, the actual planning of language and academic skills support and its implementation often tends to be very much a local-level faculty phenomenon – as is much other academic and administrative planning as well – and as such will be treated here as an illustration of micro language planning. From its inception, LMT was devised to cover all kinds of interaction, with interaction constituting the overarching component. Interaction was conceived as consisting of communicative and (non-communicative) sociocultural (sometimes referred to as socioeconomic) competence. In turn, communicative competence was made up of linguistic as well as non-grammatical/nonlinguistic communicative (formerly known as sociolinguistic) competence. The development of the important communicative competence component built upon the broad Hymesian framework of communication (e.g. Hymes, 1972) and alongside sociocultural behaviour it has provided a valuable framework for analysing intercultural contact. Recent work has seen its application extended to the educational domain (Marriott, 2004; Neustupný, 2004). Many of the topics commonly covered by LASS advisers in university support centres, such as structuring texts or citing sources, belong to the non-grammatical component of communication, whereas other matters such as pronunciation and academic lexicon fit within the linguistic component. LMT proposes that the process of management proceeds through certain stages (which also constitute processes within themselves), with the presence of a deviation or deviations from the base norm (or expectation) of an encounter providing the starting point for the ensuing stages (Neustupný, 1985, 1994, 2003, 2004). The model proposes that these deviations may either be noted or else remain unnoted. Where these deviations are noted, they can be evaluated positively, neutrally, or, as is often the case, negatively. The next stage is the decision to make an adjustment, usually of a negatively-evaluated feature, or, alternatively, there may be a decision to take no action. Finally, the implementation of an adjustment strategy may occur. The management process can be interrupted or stopped at any stage and, furthermore, new deviations may arise which, in turn, require treatment. In this paper I will mostly pay attention to the stages of noting and the planning of adjustment designs, in conjunction with their implementation. Noting will cover what is frequently identified as problem identification in other language planning analyses, while adjustment designs are often referred to elsewhere as implementation strategies (Kaplan & Baldauf, 1997). Another basic feature of LMT is a distinction between simple language management and organised language management, where the former typically refers to management in discourse (Neustupný, 2004: 26), more recently explained as the ‘management of problems as they appear in individual communication acts’ (Neustupný & Nekvapil, 2003: 185). Organised language management, on the other hand, is directed and more systematic (Nekvapil & Nekula, this volume). Organised management occurs at a different level; more than one person participates in the management process; discourse about management occurs; and, thought and ideology are involved (Neustupný &
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Nekvapil, 2003: 185). A problem with the spelling of a particular word is an illustration of simple management, whereas a language course constitutes an example of organised management. Nekvapil and Nekula (this volume) discuss the important relationship between simple and organised language management, arguing that one may influence the other. In this paper I will also demonstrate some of the complexity and layers involved in organised management. In relation to implementation, LMT also categorises management according to when it is executed (Neustupný, 2004: 26). Pre-management occurs before a deviation appears, while in-management refers to management occurring after the generation of a string has commenced, and post-management, after a deviation appears. We can imagine that students or other writers pre-manage extensively when writing texts; attendance at a course on oral presentations is another instance of pre-management when the oral presentation has not yet been delivered. The aim of this paper is to examine some of the important processes of organised language and academic study skills management in a faculty of pharmacy and also to identify some of the characteristics of that management. The primary data used in this case study come from semi-structured interviews undertaken in 2005 with two principal participants. One was the LASS adviser, referred to here as Rita (a pseudonym), at a pharmacy faculty of an Australian university. Rita has been employed by this faculty since August 2003 and spends an average of two days per week at the campus site. Like many LASS advisers in the university, Rita has been trained in linguistics. A second main interview was undertaken with a senior disciplinary staff member (SO) who is also the departmental head of the degree course with the largest enrolment of international students in the faculty. Various written resources were collected, including sections from the faculty’s website, and programme outlines and materials produced by Rita. Two planning meetings between Rita and two other disciplinary lecturers were also audiotape-recorded and will be briefly referred to as secondary data. Interviews with students are planned for the subsequent stage of the research project. In 2004 the pharmacy faculty, which offers three undergraduate degree courses (plus double degrees, honours degrees and postgraduate programmes), had a student load of approximately 1000 EFTSU,1 of which about 130 were international students. The student body, however, has included a considerable number of NESB students for some time, many of whom belong to the local category of students. For instance, a 2004 survey revealed that in one pharmacy degree course, 55% of students were born outside of Australia and that 53% spoke a language other than English at home (Gilbert et al., forthcoming). What has changed recently is that in addition to this large contingent of local NESB students, there has been a marked growth of international NESB students, with the first noticeable increase occurring in 2004. About 21% of the enrolment in one main course now comes from international students, with the percentage in the first two years of the course rising to 24% (Gilbert et al., forthcoming). This recent change is one of the factors that have triggered increased attention to language planning activities.
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Organised Management Processes As outlined above, this section will examine the processes of language management, focusing primarily upon the stages of noting, and adjustment design and implementation in relation to the organised language planning (used here in the broad sense to encompass all communicative, including linguistic, and sociocultural aspects) that is undertaken to support the students – primarily NESB students – in the pharmacy faculty. Based on LMT, the planning for student support commences with the noting of deviations from the norm. It seems reasonable to assume that a norm deviation also includes the absence of an appropriate norm. Students may note or notice their own individual problems, whether of a singular or plural nature, and seek out assistance from the language adviser, or undertake some other adjustment design. Alternatively, others, such as academic staff, may note the problems experienced by students and refer them to the adviser or assist in other ways. In order to help students with problems with language or academic skills, a highly organised system of support exists and is one which continues to develop. Rita was appointed as a LASS adviser in August 2003 in the pharmacy faculty, replacing another adviser who had worked there one day a week prior to this time. Her actual appointment is with LASS, as the university-wide unit, although her work site is the faculty of pharmacy. Rita claims that at the time of her appointment, the faculty had not anticipated a considerable increase in the proportion of international students, in addition to the high number of NESB students already enrolled, and that her appointment ‘was just continuing on with what was being done’. In other words, there was already a policy being implemented in the faculty of utilising a specialist adviser, on a part-time basis, to provide support to students. One of Rita’s earliest tasks was to begin identifying students’ problems and devising ways to help them. She described the early period of her appointment as follows: (1)
. . . I landed here half-way through a semester and had to work out what’s going on, and what do students need, so basically, I just worked with students then, and tried to work out what were the issues, at that time . . . [I just basically] went along to the lecture theatres, and said, hi, ‘I’m from LASS if you want to make an appointment to come and see me, feel free’ . . . I don’t think I saw huge numbers, that year, but I saw them, and spent time with them, . . . and also, the faculty was keen to get some more formalised classes happening,
Extract (1) above reveals that there were two major sources of input into the planning processes undertaken by the LASS adviser. Firstly, Rita needed to meet with students in order to start to diagnose their problems as the first step to planning adjustment programmes. Secondly, some senior managers in the faculty had indicated they would like a new format of support to be developed, in the form of adjunct classes for students with language or academic skills
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problems. Accordingly, in the latter part of 2003 Rita organised some study skills classes to help students prepare for their examinations. The further development of the adviser’s support work, commencing with the diagnosis of students’ problems, is also contained in Extract (2) below: (2)
then it was just a case of going by what the students seemed to need in that semester, and then designing some classes for the next semester and in the following year, so that’s just basically how it’s developed, so the sorts of things haven’t changed tremendously much . . . but things like, the year three and four students are particularly interested in communication skills, classes that focus on the issue, like counselling issues, you know, when people come into the pharmacy, or they’re in hospital and they have to see a patient about their pharmacy needs, so similar to Medicine, history-taking, and counselling the patient on what they need, and their medication, and then they’re also interested in doctor–pharmacist interactions, so they can liaise with other professions, but that’s generally the communication-skills-type issues, some of the students here, I’ve noticed have more pronunciation- like, there are pronunciation issues, so I’ve run, I’ve run a couple of those-type pronunciation-type classes, just using material from LASS that the people there have developed . . .
What emerges from the above report is not only the adviser’s noting of student problems, such as pronunciation, but also her interactions with students who are able to identify their own problems, including their need to be able to interact competently in certain professional situations. Accordingly, the adviser’s design of support programmes has been undertaken on the basis both of her own noting as well as of students’ noting, and these have formed the basis of her adjustment planning. Other evidence also indicates the importance of the presence of deviations and their noting, either by the participants themselves, in this case the students, or by other participants in the situation. LMT suggests that without noting, the management process cannot proceed. We can thus argue that the lack of student participants at a writing skills workshop planned and conducted by Rita in semester one, 2005, that was targeted at first-year students but which was only attended by one student, was due to the non-commencement of the management process. At that stage students had not been required to complete any written assignment tasks in that semester (for the particular course concerned), so they obviously had not noted any deficiencies in this regard and hence did not take advantage of the support that was made available. One of the difficulties reported by the LASS adviser in fulfilling her role is insufficient access to students’ written texts and hence to their written deviations. For instance, students will sometimes report to her that they did not do sufficiently well in their examination and upon seeking the reason from their lecturer, are sometimes told by the latter that their expression is poor, or else that they have just regurgitated information. Claiming to be unable to assess students’ writing without seeing it, Rita comments that this problem of lack of access to examination material is a common problem for advisers: ‘it’s hard for us to work out exactly what they (that is, lecturers) mean’. Rita is now trying to
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plan to obtain some sample exam questions and answers from the lecturers to help her devise appropriate support for such students. Both adjunct course planning as well as implementation planning involves timing considerations. Since the daily schedule of students in the pharmacy faculty is full with regular, compulsory classes, Rita has reached the evaluation that it is preferable for her to maximise her offering of courses and group sessions rather than offer mainly individual sessions for students, although she will still work on a one-to-one basis with students as a follow-up to their participation in a group session. In other words, time efficiency is an important input factor in the planning process: (3)
I haven’t had anywhere near the enquiries I got last year on referencing, because I put together some notes, based upon the enquiries I got last year, and that’s how I ran the session this year, and it’s been great, so if you can handle those key issues at a session, I personally think the students are smart enough, they take these issues on board, and they’ll go away and do it, so I think that’s a good approach, to be honest, with LASS, if there are students who are still struggling after a session, they’re the ones who probably need to come and see you . . .
The above instance relating to academic referencing rules shows that attendance at a special course where explicit teaching is given in advance of students being required to undertake writing tasks, in other words, pre-management, can minimise the number of students with subsequent problems, thus reducing their need to seek post-management help on an individual basis. The involvement of multi participants in the management process is also evident, with Rita engaging in planning discussions with academic lecturers. For instance, in one of the audiotape-recorded meetings Rita and a lecturer discussed how they both could mutually support students to undertake a clinical case presentation that was required in the lecturer’s third-year subject, with Rita offering an adjunct workshop and the lecturer seeking advice from Rita on how best to incorporate more support for students within that subject. As a preliminary to this topic, Rita explained that it took time for her to develop links with many of the instructors in the faculty, which assisted her in developing materials, for example, case presentations that involve the structuring of arguments or coming to a diagnosis. From the start, Rita began making contact with key academic personnel and as these connections extend further, she is able to incorporate more of the lecturers’ input into her support programmes, as shown in (4) below: (4)
I’m getting the links now, it takes a while, to get these so, you can start to develop materials that are more in-tie with the units, rather than being too general . . .
As revealed in the above extract, noting can be undertaken by one or more participants but taken together, may contribute to the construction of support plans that, in turn, can be implemented by one or more language managers, in this case, with the adviser and the academic lecturer implementing separate but complementary support programmes. In relation to case presentations, Rita’s interactions with students had led her to notice the basic importance of
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correct tense when students narrate a patient’s history, and accordingly, she has incorporated particular attention to this linguistic feature in her adjustment designs. A second instance of collaboration between the adviser and a disciplinary lecturer also encompassed discourse about the development of materials on communication issues relevant to students’ fourth-year work placement experiences in pharmacies but which could be introduced to students in earlier years. Given the difficulty of actually offering support to students during their four three-week blocks of work experience (commencing at the end of year three and continuing into their fourth year), the language adviser and the lecturer agreed on the importance of identifying students with problems at an earlier stage and then giving them appropriate pre-management support. As one strategy towards this goal, Rita had already been requested by this lecturer, who is also in charge of student work experience placements, to provide a lecture on communication-learning and professional contexts in conjunction with his or her subject that is related to the students’ placement. Additionally, the collaborative discussion with the lecturer described above aimed to discuss the kind of support design that Rita could offer students who are required to undertake an oral test of their communication skills at the end of their fourth year. In this examination, students are given a topic, such as interviewing a patient, and are allotted 20 minutes in which to prepare. Using a text prepared by the Pharmaceutical Society of Australia, Rita has already organised some role-play training sessions for fourth-year students in groups of three. On these occasions, she selected some incidents for students to read in advance and invited them to select the incident that they would like to practise. Making contact with students by actually delivering a lecture on communication skills within the lecturer’s subject (relating to placements, as described above) and then inviting students to contact her if they felt they needed support is an important strategy that Rita has developed as a part of the overall management process: (5)
. . . this is a really good way to get to know the students, so you do a lecture, and you make contact with them, and then you inform them that if they have problems on their placement, and they feel they need some improvement on communication skills- and they actually receive feedback, from their preceptors- they call them preceptors, the person, the qualified pharmacist who looks after them, sometimes they’ll receive feedback that their communication skills are poor, so then quite often they come to me, towards the end of the year, or after that first placement . . . and say, I want to practise, I need to practise, so then I’ll practise with them, some of those students too, so year three, year four. But predominantly year four. So I just want to develop- now, it’s a bit dull- not realistic when you sit there and, I sit here, and we say ‘let’s do some role play’, so I want to make it a bit more- ((laughs)) last year, I did, actually, coz this room’s bigger, I’ve got students to organise themselves into groups of three to make a booking, so one plays the pharmacist, one plays the student, the other is the observer, so in that, you can get- encourage them
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to give feedback, it teaches them how to give feedback, coz the idea is, you can see me, but obviously I’ve got limited time, there’s not much- so now they can go out and practise on their own, this is a great book, which is quite often what they do, I think, so, they go away and they practise themselves . . . The adjustment plan described above and its implementation reveal that it is strongly grounded in theories that emphasise the importance of context in training, among other ideologies. The adviser believes that this kind of training exercise is a valuable one and in 2005, as further development of this design, she videotape-recorded some of these role plays and then gave immediate feedback to the students on their performances while replaying the interaction to them on her laptop. This innovative adjunct programme which has been developed to link in with the assessment task that the fourth-year students must complete at the end of the year, also illustrates the complexity of some adjustment designs in the management process and how such designs can serve multiple purposes, in this case, providing students with training on giving feedback to others and also establishing a basis for them to continue self-learning. It also illustrates the way in which strong ideology can influence the management design in significant ways. An attempt to diagnose students with communication problems early led to the introduction in the faculty in 2005 of a Health Sciences Screening Test, a test prepared at another university, which was administered to all students at the commencement of their first year. Approximately 32% of students who sat the test did not meet the pre-determined threshold standard and thus took part in further diagnostic testing (Gilbert et al., forthcoming). It has been argued that such a test not only serves the function of identifying students with problems that require treatment, but that the diagnosis of students’ problems informs the design of adjunct support courses as well as raising awareness of the importance of communication skills among the disciplinary teaching staff (Gilbert et al., forthcoming). It was mainly international students who were identified as having the most serious problems, and feedback was provided to those students who were seen as needing attention, with a series of conversation hours also organised for them to attend. The important role played by academic staff in noting students with communication problems was described by the LASS adviser in the following way: (6)
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the key message, the message that we’re trying to send through to tutors is that they are the ones who are going to be the most important in identifying students, the test is really just a process that will detect many, but there will be people who slip through, so I’m sure there will be some who slip through that Health Sciences Screening Test, who still need to be protected, so there are ways- either they fail their exam, they do badly on their exams mid-year, or, the tutors notice them. But this, interestingly enough though, the results of these tests, too, correlate with some of the feedback, and this semester, I got much more feedback from the tutors, because we had those communication skills sessions, we were trying to push the staff to identify students and let LASS know, contacting me, to say so-and-so, so-and-so, and so-and-so, I think, needs to see you, and I- and they tied in with the
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students here, they tied in with the results, so that was reassuring, so there was some consistency there, which is, I think that’s great, but ah- interestingly, all these international students are very, very keen to not only, you know, realise what they, I mean, they were keen to find out, and, selfimprove, but even to do programmes if they were offered . . . In addition to improving the level of lecturers’ awareness of student-related communication issues, the adviser also hopes that the staff will increasingly incorporate in their feedback to students (for example, on assessment items) not only content-based matters but also feedback about their students’ communication problems. This objective is also being pursued through Staff Development Workshops where lecturers are encouraged to increase communication skills teaching in their own programmes, and also to identify students in their classes who might have communication skills problems, referred to in (6) above. Rita explains her role in these workshops for academic staff as follows: (7)
my role in that is really to inform staff of a process they may go through, like, for identifying, you know, at their level, in the classroom, they can identify students at risk of communication skills problems, because it may be that these students are performing very well on their written exams, which are multiple-choice based content-focused assessment, but they’re hitting year three, and suddenly they’re getting a tip from their preceptors that their communication skills are poor, and they’re struggling then, to actually do their practical experience, so, these tutors need to realise that in first year, they need to, you know, they- they’re the ones who can actually say, look, there’s a student here who’s got problems with pronunciation, or, you can’t understand what they’re saying when they’re doing their presentations, so they can refer them to- so that’s how we- the sessions, we give them strategies that they may use to identify students.
It was not only the LASS adviser but also certain academic staff in the faculty who were very conscious of the importance of appropriate management processes as a means of supporting students. In an interview, the departmental head (SO) of the major pharmacy course emphasised the importance of communication for students in the course from the outset, not only in preparation for their placements in pharmacies that they will undertake in years three and four, but also because upon graduation, the students will take part in a pre-registration year that is run by the Pharmacy Board which concludes with an examination where communication skills are important. When asked about the extent to which students identify their own problems and seek solutions, SO confirmed that sometimes they do, but also outlined how he and others in the department aim to identify students with problems early, shown in (8) below, and refer them to the LASS adviser: (8)
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SO:
. . . one of the things that we talk about a lot in our department is the need to identify these people as early as possible . . . and one of the things that I would quite often throw into the first lecture, for first-year students, is a comment about communica-tion skills, and I’ll quite often say to them, amongst many other things, that the importance of communication (which) you know, it’s important
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to help you get through the programme as quickly as possible, and in your learning, in other words, that’s important, um, to develop those skills for Pharmacy Board reasons, and that please, if you make use of Rita, So you’ve sent students to her? Yeah. To get help? Not only myself, but other people, other staff in this department, you know, you might come across a student who, as part of a requirement in a subject is doing an oral presentation, it may be up in the prac lab, upstairs, it becomes obvious that there is some language problem, and so, you know, most of the staff in this department would be well aware of the need to identify that student, and have a chat to them, and encourage them to see Rita, I usually say to the student after the discussion, ‘please think about going to see Rita, would you like me to make contact with Rita on your behalf’, coz I can’t really do that, for privacy reasons, unless I’ve got their approval, and some of them do, I’ve actually sat here and sent an e-mail to Rita, saying, ‘I’d be grateful if you’d have a chat to Mary’, or you know, whatever the name of the student is, ‘he or she is with me at the moment, and I’d be grateful if you would catch up with them’, so, yes, so that’s usually the way it’s done.
In the above Extract (8), SO refers to students’ language or communication problems. Note firstly that there is no specification of the actual kind or kinds of problems experienced by the students. Furthermore, we can guess that at times academic skills are also likely to be problems and sometimes these are subsumed under the category of language or communication. The accurate diagnosis of student problems can at times be problematic. For instance, one student was sent to the LASS adviser because of poor performance in an examination. Upon interviewing this student who was repeating a year and who felt under pressure from her parents to continue, the adviser confirmed that it was not poor English expression that led to the unsatisfactory result but rather an attitudinal problem, as reflected in the student’s failure to attend her regular classes. When asked whether there is mutual cooperation with the adviser on the content of the adjustment design, SO outlined his policy of leaving the design of support programmes to the adviser, as shown in Extract (9): (9)
Int: SO:
Do you have any input with Rita, about what she should be doing, overall, to help the students, or-? Um, no, because I take the view that I’m not- I’m not an expert in language and communication, so one of the things that I say to students is, you know, when I’ve had this gentle chat with them, is, ‘please go and see Rita, she can assess you and see what sort of assistance she thinks you need’ . . .
However, SO also explained his practice of recommending another type of
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adjustment strategy to students with communication problems, whether these be international students or those who use a language other than English at home. His advice to students was explained as follows: (10) . . . the other thing that I usually suggest to students, when I have that gentle chat, is I talk to them a little bit about the language that they use at home, and amongst their friends . . . but it’s actually really important for them to practise their English language communication skills as much as possible, and it’s really best to practise that, and this is over and above seeing Rita, it’s actually really important to practise their communication skills, English communication and language skills with someone who is very proficient in speaking the English language, and I usually give an example .. In conjunction with this advice to students about a suitable course of action, SO also recommends students to listen to a good radio or TV station, such as the ABC radio or television, particularly the news, ‘because that will quite often show them the way that words are pronounced, and the colloquial use of language, I don’t know whether that’s good advice or bad advice’. Clearly, SO had a high level of consciousness of the importance of students’ communication skills and of the need to identify them early and have them obtain support from the adviser, although there is no indication of his own attempt to include any adjustment support within his own subject. However, this example in (10) above reveals that SO also suggests broader out-of-university communication designs that he feels might be helpful to students in improving their spoken English.
Concluding Discussion No analysis could be undertaken at this stage on students’ own noting of problems, but whether they note their own problems, a component of simple management, or whether their problems are noted by others such as their lecturers, they may then seek a solution to their communicative or academic skills problems by attending an organised support workshop or seminar or else seek a private consultation with the adviser, or employ other adjustment design. Even though students may sometimes be able to design and implement their own adjustment design, for instance, by asking a peer for assistance, in many situations they will draw upon the organised management system that is available within the university. This case study provides evidence of the complexity of organised management for language and study skills support, with layers of personnel involved in the planning and implementation of an adjustment design, together with a range of activities involved. Not only does the adviser confer with disciplinary staff from time to time about the support she and they offer the students, she sometimes attends their staff meetings to introduce new programmes that she will offer, or she provides advice to staff members or collaborates with them in other ways, as described above. Some involvement of the upper management level in the language management process was also identified. Instances of pre-management were identified in the data where, for instance, the adviser and academic staff collaborated on how they could both offer support programmes, either in an
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adjunct format or within the regular subject. Also, through her participation in a regular subject as an invited lecturer on a communications-related topic, the adviser was able to actually contribute to the content teaching and at the same time, raise her own status within the faculty to the students who, in turn, would be better able to contextualise her support in that setting. This study has highlighted the reiterative nature of the planning process. Clearly, the cyclical nature of the noting of problems and the design of adjustment programmes emerges strongly from this study. For instance, recognising that the types of student problems that occur in an actual pharmacy location will vary from those found in university learning contexts, the LASS adviser is now in the process of gathering data on students’ communication problems as revealed in the assessments of their external placements to feed into the preparatory support courses that will be offered in the future in students’ earlier years, prior to their work experience placement (Gilbert et al., forthcoming). The distinction which the language management model includes between adjustment planning and implementation is useful, given that not all adjustments are subsequently implemented. In fact, various factors may impede implementation. For instance, although Rita had planned a range of adjunct support courses in 2005 and these were included in the semester schedule, not all were actually offered. For example, sometimes lack of student interest in a course that was planned led to its cancellation. Furthermore, if an adjustment design was offered once but the adviser evaluated it as not very useful, discontinuation of that particular programme sometimes occurred. This study has also shown that noting at one period of time can lead to support being prepared and then offered in a more time-efficient manner or to other students at an earlier time as a means of alleviating future problems. In this way, pre-management can be said to occur. In fact, there appears to be an increasing emphasis upon pre-management as Rita and others increase their language management expertise. Furthermore, in contrast to the design of generalist adjunct programmes, increasingly the adviser has designed ‘subjectintegrated’ support courses, which are built around tasks that the students undertake in regular classes (Gilbert et al., forthcoming). The importance of organised language management within universities cannot be over-emphasised. The case study here presented a context that in many ways appears to be exemplary, with much attention consciously being paid by the specialist adviser to the noting of students’ problems and to the design of appropriate support programmes that are integrated with tasks that students will undertake within their regular courses. She and others are also aware of the importance of other personnel, including academic lecturers, playing important roles in the management processes, including their early identification of students’ problems and their increasing integration of adjustment designs within their own subjects. Correspondence Any correspondence should be directed to Helen Marriott, School of Languages, Cultures and Linguistics, Monash University, Victoria 3800, Australia (
[email protected]).
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Notes 1. EFTSU (equivalent full-time student unit) is the Australian university unit employed to count student enrolments. Each student who is enrolled for a full programme in any one academic year is counted as one.
References Baldauf, Jr, R.B. (2005) Micro language planning. In P. Bruthiaux, D. Atkinson, W.G. Eggington, W. Grabe and V. Ramanathan (eds) Directions in Applied Linguistics: Essays in Honor of Robert B. Kaplan (pp. 227–39). Clevedon: Multilingual Matters. Gilbert, K., Brack, C. and Roller, L. (forthcoming) Communication skills for global contexts: Accommodating diversity in curriculum design. Hymes, D.H. (1972) Models of interaction of language and social life. In J.J. Gumperz and D.H. Hymes (eds) Directions in Sociolinguistics (pp. 35–71). New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston. Jernudd, B.H. and Neustupný, J.V. (1987) Language planning: For whom? In L. LaForge (ed.) Proceedings of the International Colloquium on Language Planning (pp. 69–84). Quebec: Les Presses de l’Université Laval. Jernudd, B.H. and Neustupný, J.V. (1991) Multi-disciplined language planning. In D.F. Marshall (ed.) Language Planning: Focusschrift in Honour of Joshua A. Fishman on the Occasion of his 65th Birthday (vol. 3) (pp. 29–36). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Kaplan, R.B. and Baldauf, Jr, R.B. (eds) (1997) Language Planning: From Practice to Theory. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters. Kaplan, R.B. and Baldauf, Jr, R.B. (2005) Editing contribute scholarly articles from a language management perspective. Journal of Second Language Writing 14, 47–62. Marriott, H.E. (2000) Japanese students’ management processes and their acquisition of English academic competence during study abroad. Journal of Asian Pacific Communication 10 (2), 270–96. Marriott, H.E. (2004) A programmatic exploration of issues in the academic interaction of Japanese students overseas. Journal of Asian Pacific Communication 14 (1), 33–54. Marriott, H.E. (2005) Micro language planning for the support of international students in health science faculties at an Australian university. Unpublished paper presented at the conference on Discourses of Learning and Learning Discourses, Monash University, 8 & 9 December. Nekvapil, J. and Nekula, M. (this volume) On language management in multilingual companies in the Czech Republic. Neustupný, J.V. (1978) Post-structural Approaches to Language. Tokyo: University of Tokyo Press. Neustupný, J.V. (1985) Problems in Australian-Japanese contact situations. In J.B. Pride (ed.) Cross-cultural Encounters: Communication and Mis-communication (pp. 161–70). Melbourne: River Seine. Neustupný, J.V. (1994) Problems in English contact discourse and language planning. In T. Kandiah and J. Kwan-Terry (eds) English and Language Planning: A Southeast Asian Contribution (pp. 50–69). Singapore: Times Academic. Neustupný, J.V. (2003) Japanese students in Prague: Problems of communication and interaction. International Journal of Sociology of Language 162, 125–43. Neustupný, J.V. (2004) A theory of contact situations and the study of academic interaction. Journal of Asian Pacific Communication 14 (1), 3–31. Neustupný, J.V. and Nekvapil, J. (2003) Language management in the Czech Republic. Current Issues in Language Planning 4 (3&4), 181–366.
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Negotiable Acceptability: Reflections on the Interactions between Language Professionals in Europe and NNS1 Scientists Wishing to Publish in English 1
Joy Burrough-Boenisch 5 Meadow Close, Goring-on-Thames, Reading RG8 0AP, UK Prior to submitting a paper to a science journal, many European scientists employ language professionals to check that the English is acceptable. What influences these language professionals’ criteria of acceptability? How do they interact with the authors for whom they work? And how do journals’ criteria of acceptability affect their work? In this paper, a language professional formerly based in the Netherlands considers these issues, giving examples of the editing approaches of several experienced colleagues. She argues that language planners could contribute to securing better guidance from science journals on matters linguistic and also to developing appropriate training for language professionals.
Keywords: academic communication, English for science and technology, editing
Introduction In 2001 a Spanish professor of immunology and cell biology was invited by the American editor of Human Immunology (also a professor), to edit a theme issue of that journal, to be published late that year. The Spanish professor accepted the invitation and wrote a keynote article, in which he discussed the immunogenetics of Jews and Palestinians – a politically sensitive issue at the best of times, but particularly post 9/11. Even though he and most other contributors to that theme issue were non-native speakers (NNS), the journal did not check the English. After publication, however, the keynote article elicited so many complaints from readers offended by certain politically infelicitous words and phrases that in October 2001 the publishers not only retracted it but also removed the online version and instructed librarians to tear out the appropriate pages from library copies (Smith, 2003). Analysing the circumstances that probably triggered the adverse reactions to the Human Immunology article, Shashok (2003) identified several linguistic shortcomings in the text. One was a politically loaded false cognate: cólonos had been translated literally as ‘colonists’ rather than as ‘settlers’. Another translation error yielded a bald statement that appeared to blame Israel for the outbreak of war in 1948. The contentious phrase was ‘and started a war’ (rather than ‘and a war started’). Shashok argued that because the English had not been edited competently, the journal, not the author, was at fault. The Human Immunology case illustrates that the repercussions of publishing English that seems acceptable to the NNS author but is deemed unacceptable by the target readers can be dramatic. Shashok’s analysis was based on her experience as an American native speaker (NS), who has lived in Spain for many years and provides translation and editorial services to Spanish biomedi255 Negotiable Acceptability
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cal scientists wishing to publish in English. Her work revolves around producing acceptable English. In this paper, I wish to reflect on what influences the decisions about linguistic acceptability that Shashok and her colleagues in Europe routinely make when processing NNS English. I shall do so from the perspective of one of the most Englished countries in mainland Europe, the Netherlands, where almost 80% of the population claim to speak English (Graddol, 2004, Figure 2). I will embed the discussion in the socio-economic context in which language professionals like Shashok and myself operate. First, however, I will briefly explain why European scientists turn to language professionals for help with their written English. Please note that throughout this paper I shall use the terms ‘science’ and ‘scientist’ in the traditional narrow sense to mean the hard sciences only (i.e. excluding the humanities). This definition is in line with the paradigm of ‘scientific English’ discussed in books written to help scientists write effectively (e.g. Day, 1995; Gustavii, 2003; Matthews et al., 1996).
Why NNS Scientists use Language Professionals Like their colleagues in Anglophone countries, scientists in mainland Europe are keen to publish in refereed international journals (and therefore almost invariably in English), for reasons of prestige and career advancement. A desire to avoid adverse reaction from critical readers2 and thereby to improve the probability of being published in international English-language journals has created a demand for competent people to correct NNS scientists’ manuscripts. The NNS authors may be doctoral candidates, tenured faculty, or career scientists in research institutes. In the Netherlands, such authors can turn to various language professionals for language editing: teachers, translators, and editors. These professionals (most of whom combine at least two of these three roles) may be in-house or freelance. Those who are English-language teachers are generally employed by university language centres who run courses on writing scientific English and offer English correction services.3 Some research institutes employ in-house translators and editors. In addition, however, there is a large pool of freelance translators and editors who offer correction and editing services.
Authors’ Editors and their Criteria for Judging Linguistic Acceptability A language professional working with (and, commonly, for) an author rather than for a publisher is known as an authors’ editor. The prime aim of authors’ editors is (to paraphrase Kerans: see Shashok, 2001: 116) to ensure that when a paper is submitted to a particular journal, its English is acceptable to the gatekeepers of publication. When an authors’ editor is assigned the task of checking the English of a scientific paper, what guides her4 judgement about what is acceptable English? A Swedish gynaecologist and journal editor who also teaches scientific writing to graduate students has described the ideal authors’ editor as being someone who is a native speaker, lives in the author’s country and speaks the language, refreshes their English by annual visits to the home country, and has ‘a knowledge of scientific writing’ (Gustavii, 2003: 4).
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Though Gustavii does not elaborate on these attributes, I would argue each shapes the editor’s criteria for judging linguistic acceptability. If she is an NS, her default editing mode will be based on a particular English linguistic tradition absorbed at home or in her home country, or both. So, unlike many NNS scientists, she will be able to distinguish between the two major global varieties of English – British and American – used in scientific publications, instead of mixing the two (which many journals find unacceptable). Furthermore, her NS status implies that her English will be free from learner errors, that she will notice and correct any such errors in manuscripts, and that she will apply NS standards of linguistic acceptability. By frequently revisiting her home country she will guard against attrition of her English and will be better able to decide whether to recalibrate her views on acceptability in light of trends in mainstream English.5 Having knowledge of scientific writing implies she will judge acceptability in terms of the conventions of scientific English in general and of specific scientific genres (the research article, for example). However, because she lives in the author’s country and speaks the author’s language, she will be aware of intercultural differences in linguistic appropriateness (and therefore of acceptability). Her bilingualism and biculturalism will help her identify subtle NNS errors and infelicities, which, if left uncorrected could lead to miscommunication – as demonstrated by the case of the Human Immunology article described above. Her own experience of having to communicate in a second (or foreign) language enables her to empathise with her authors and strengthens her negotiating stance. Good authors’ editors need not be NSs, nor do they have to meet all Gustavii’s criteria. Nonetheless, Gustavii is right to highlight the desirability of knowledge of the author’s language and culture, as such knowledge should make for more perceptive and sympathetic editing. Elsewhere (Burrough-Boenisch, 2003a) I used a diagram to illustrate the stages of editing a research paper, positioning the people doing the editing along a spiral that originates at the author’s screen and ends on the virtual or paper published page. Except for the author and the journal’s copy editor, all the actors on the spiral – the research supervisor, the authors’ editor, the journal reviewers, and the journal editor – are linguistic gatekeepers. Operating as surrogate target readers, they screen the text for its scientific integrity or its genre acceptability – or both. When considering genre acceptability, they assess a manuscript’s stylistic and linguistic acceptability and on the basis of this make changes to the text either directly, or via instructions or recommendations to the author. Though the authors’ editor brings to every editing assignment her basic template of linguistic and genre acceptability, her status as the least powerful of all the linguistic gatekeepers on the editing spiral (she can neither deny publication nor stipulate mandatory changes), means she cannot be inflexible. She must be prepared to adapt to other notions of acceptability, either because these improve her author’s chances of publication, or to avoid the negative financial and emotional implications of a stand-off with the author or another actor on the editing spiral. The first source she consults to see whether she needs to realign her template of acceptability is usually the journal’s ‘Instructions for Authors’, which are nowadays easily accessible via Internet. Unfortunately, as Kirkman
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(2001) discovered after surveying 500 sets of such instructions for science journals, though nearly all stipulate the spelling style (British or American), they are usually vague about other linguistic requirements. Of his sample, 82% gave no helpful guidance on the preferred style for writing, with many journals merely urging authors to write ‘good English’, or ‘idiomatic English’, or ‘standard English’, or ‘grammatical English’, or English ‘in accordance with acceptable standards of usage’ or even ‘letter-perfect English’. Though vague, such injunctions imply that English showing NNS traits is not acceptable; this may be expressed more explicitly by exhortations to have NNS English checked by an NS before submitting an article to the journal. Though Kirkman does not specifically mention the prestigious Nature research journals, the Nature home page makes clear that NNS errors or traits are unacceptable. All scientific research papers they accept for publication are rigorously copy edited, in order · to make the paper more comprehensible to those not in the immediate field; · to ensure that scientific terms and concepts are accurate; · to make the paper read well, and in correct English; · to improve the clarity of papers whose authors are not native English writers or who are not able with language (http://www.nature.com/nature/ authors/get_published/why_subedit.doc). From the above it is clear that the Nature journals have NS standards of linguistic acceptability, based on readability. Kirkman’s main motive for analysing journal instructions was to find out whether one of the key stylistic devices for achieving readability – writing in the active voice (using the personal pronoun if necessary) – was advocated or discouraged by science journals. His conclusion, that the vast majority ‘do not specify an impersonal, passive style of writing for their journals’, was based more on the absence of any such advice, rather than on explicit instructions to use the active voice. In common with other gurus of scientific English, such as Day (1995), Kirkman is in no doubt that using active constructions and personal pronouns is acceptable in scientific English (see Kirkman, 1992: 70–72 for the 72 science journals out of a total of 82 in his university library in which he found instances of the personal pronoun). Nature articles contain personal pronouns, and Science (the other prestigious journal most scientists can only dream of publishing in) even encourages the usage: Use active voice when suitable, particularly when necessary for correct syntax (e.g., ‘To address this possibility, we constructed a lZap library . . . ,’ not ‘To address this possibility, a lZap library was constructed . . . ’). (http:/ /www.sciencemag.org/feature/contribinfo/prep/res/style.shtml) Yet to many scientists, the usage is contentious and therefore the authors’ editor must be prepared to encounter powerful linguistic gatekeepers on the editing spiral who firmly believe that using the active voice and personal pronouns is unacceptable scientific English. Box 1, for example, shows some of the annotations a reviewer made to a Dutch-authored paper that had not undergone language correction prior to submission. Throughout the paper the reviewer had
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Box 1 Part of a page of a Dutch-authored manuscript showing the changes made by a journal reviewer. Note the ambiguity introduced by changing the personal pronoun in line 23.
consistently substituted impersonal, passive constructions (see the changes made in lines 16, 17, and 23). Faced with reviewer hostility to the personal pronoun, negotiation is not an option; the authors’ editor must act in the author’s interests and defer to the journal reviewer’s notion of acceptability, though she may advise that when resubmitting the manuscript, the author points out that all the reviewer’s changes of active to passive voice have been accepted except when they introduced ambiguity. Reviewers themselves have divergent ideas on linguistic acceptability, as I have demonstrated elsewhere by describing the different reactions of reviewers (NS and NNS) to verb tense use in three Dutch-authored science texts (Burrough-Boenisch, 2003b). I showed that some reviewers reacted mildly or not at all to the present tense being used to report the author’s findings. Others, however, reacted strongly, finding it unacceptable to deviate from the convention of reporting one’s own findings in the past tense. The same study also elicited examples of apparently arbitrary textual changes: for example, of ‘seem’ to ‘appear’, and vice versa (Burrough-Boenisch, 2005: 30–31). Reactions like these serve as a reminder that acceptability can be idiosyncratic, a point Alley (2000) raises when discussing the grey areas of editing. For an example of how powerful actors on the editing spiral conflate their ‘pet peeves’ with acceptability, consider the case of the journal Estuarine and Coastal Shelf Science. Prospective authors and authors’ editors who consult the journal’s home page for guidance on style will find the following:
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Please write your text in good English (American or British usage is accepted, but not a mixture of these). Authors whose native language is not English are recommended to seek the advice of a colleague who has English as their mother tongue. Articles must be written in good English. (http:// authors.elsevier.com/GuideForAuthors.html) However, if a submitted article is reviewed favourably, the journal editor returns the manuscript to the author together with a one-page document called ‘Notes for Estuarine Coastal and Shelf Science’. The author is told to follow the instructions in these notes when revising the article in light of the reviewers’ comments. Most of the specifications are technical (to do with units of measurement, punctuation of references, style for quotations, etc.), but three are stylistic: · Try to avoid starting sentences with ‘however’, or ‘but’, or ‘and’. These are all conjunctions (or joining words). · Always avoid split infinitives. Do not say ‘To boldly go’, it must be ‘To go boldly’. · Do not use personal words such as ‘I’ or ‘we’. The paper should be written throughout in the passive voice. ‘A study was done’, not ‘We did a study’. Keen to be published, the author is anxious to comply with these requirements. The authors’ editor may be berated if she had changed the passive constructions of the draft manuscript into active constructions, assuming that the journal would view this as good, readable English! Once again, negotiation is not an option. In her defence, the authors’ editor can produce evidence of personal pronouns being used in other, more prestigious, science journals, and cite Kirkman (2001) who pointed out how nonsensical and unrealistic it is to stipulate that the paper should be written throughout in the passive voice. However, in order to serve the author’s interests, that is, to secure the paper’s publication in the journal, she must abandon her notion of acceptability and accede to the journal editor’s idiosyncratic requirements.6
Authors’ Editors’ Strategies for Dealing with Confrontations about Linguistic Acceptability Experienced authors’ editors have evolved strategies to cope with conflicting notions of acceptability they encounter in their work. I referred to one such strategy, in relation to Box 1: it was to accede to stipulation from a more powerful linguistic gatekeeper, but to point out that this has been done only where it does not compromise the text’s meaning. Above, I noted that authors’ editors may also find their notions of acceptability being challenged by the NNS authors they work for. The latter phenomenon is becoming more widespread as English becomes more dominant in Europe; it has already been reported by translators working in the European Commission (Wagner et al., 2002: 78–80). When I recently surveyed colleagues to ascertain their views on the assertiveness of NNS authors, I elicited the following telling comment from the Finnish editor of a Finnish scientific journal: When I started working in a bilingual (Finnish and English) journal about fifteen years ago, Finnish writers sent their manuscripts in as Finnish. We
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had to translate the texts either ourselves or send them out. When we sent back the translations, we rarely got any comment. Now, Finnish people write their manuscripts in English, and give profuse comments on the revised texts. . . . The Finnish authors are certainly becoming more assertive! Like I said before, they send in manuscripts in English and are eager to comment the revised texts. This has certainly made my work more interesting – I have to be sure of the changes I’ve made and be ready to justify them. The problem is that the writers are not fluent in English and have trouble realising that we really are dealing with two different languages. Word for word translations (that I often receive) are out of the question, so are sentence for sentence translations since the structures of the languages are so different. And unfortunately, many writers use the language they find on the web (written by another non-native). All this has made me more sensitive to the differences of the languages, and I try to find the nuances of the texts more readily, so as not to hurt the writers so much. (It seems to be easier for them to handle grammar corrections than changes in the ‘spirit of the text’.) (Leena Jukka, e-mail 28 February 2005) One strategy open to authors’ editors is to pre-empt challenges from the author by justifying possibly contentious editorial changes, rather than merely returning a corrected text with no explanations. Authors’ editors used to write their comments directly on the manuscript, or on a separate page, but now most work on-screen (Burrough-Boenisch, 2001) and have devised various ways of communicating with the author about their changes. My own approach is to use Word’s ‘track changes’ option when editing (but set to the strikethrough variant) and to use the ‘comments’ option for explaining the reasons for certain changes. I try to emphasise the constructive nature of the editing and point out that technically correct English is not necessarily acceptable scientific English. Other authors’ editors use variants of this approach, as shown below, in a series of text boxes (Boxes 2–5) that illustrate the working methods of four colleagues who kindly responded to my request for illustrative material for this paper. In all cases, struck-through text is deleted text, and underlining indicates inserted text. Other devices I have used to reproduce the editors’ colour highlighting are explained under the text boxes in question. Each text box is preceded by the editor’s own descriptions of his or her working techniques (in italics). Box 2 Authors’ editor (Dutch native speaker) living and working in the Netherlands
‘I do indeed work in exactly the same way, using Track Changes and Comments, but I write my comments in Dutch. But after editing the whole text on screen, using Track Changes, I then make a print-out in such a way that the changes appear accepted, and check this again; this alleviates the problem that the text becomes very hard to read with all the changes visible. The only other difference is that your comments seem to be a bit more ‘didactic’, although I occasionally also try to teach my clients ‘the rules’ in my comments.’
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LThe life expectancy of persons with spina bifida has increased and a lot ofmany patients now live well into adulthood, become adults with all associatedwhich leads to new challenges. Most young adults with spina bifida encounter differentface various impairments and activity limitations due to their conditionspina bifida (Verhoef et al., 2004),. These impairments and disabilitieswhich may have eaffect on their quality of life of young adults with spina bifida. Quality of life is a broad concept, covering aspects of health, participation, satisfaction with functioning and general well-being (Post et al. 1999). Perceived health, also called (self reported) [K1] health status or health-related quality of life, covers symptoms of a disease or condition and the physical, mental and social problems resulting from these symptoms.
Grey shading indicates the yellow highlight of the comment. [K1] is the comment marker. The translation of the comment (which was in Dutch): ‘What do your brackets mean? If you mean the self-reported status only, I’d leave out the brackets. If you mean not only self-reported status but also another measured status, you must mention both, separately (e.g. “also called health status or self-reported health status”), because in English, brackets are not used to indicate alternatives’.
Boxes 3a and 3b Authors’ editor (UK NS) living and working in Austria
‘I do not use the editing tracking programme because often I have found that it creates its own errors. You miss spacing and punctuation and it is very difficult to read and see as a whole. I make changes and highlight these changes [see Box 3a]. Sometimes I make comments or ask questions in the text using a different colour highlighting. Otherwise I explain any changes I think need explaining or make comments in a covering e-mail. I write my comments in English [see Box 3b] but I might discuss them by telephone or in person in German.’ Box 3a Original NNS sentence and the corrected sentence, with the corrections highlighted by the authors’ editor so that the author can see them Cross pathological lesions in this acutely dead animals were hydroperitoneum, cardiac dilatation, enlarged and swollen lever and spleen. The gross pathological lesions in the animals that died immediately were hydroperitoneum, cardiac dilation, and an enlarged liver and spleen.
Grey shading Grey shading indicates yellow highlighting added by editor.
Box 3b NNS sentence followed by the authors’ editor’s comment Usually conditions are applied during the nanofiltration that retain viruses by mechanism largely based on size exclusion (Why so complicated? Why not ‘Nanofiltration largely retains viruses by size exclusion’?).
Black shading Black shading indicates blue highlighting used by the editor to highlight her comment to the author.
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Box 4 Authors’ editor (US NS) living and working in Spain
‘The queries to the author are all marked with an easily visible and searchable string of characters (??Au in boldface; if there are more than 3 or 4 queries then I number them??Au1,??Au2, etc.) as part of the running text. Authors who are not comfortable handing over control for the final editing do want documentation of every change I’ve made, and it’s their content so they have the right to see all my versions and drafts. But it’s naturally the “clean” version of the file that is used as the working version. In the “clean” version of the file, in which I’ve executed “Accept all changes” and cleaned up the missing or extra word spaces, the queries remain in the running text, in bold. When the authors are ready to start revising, they use Word’s Search function to search the text for??Au, so they can jump from query to query quickly without having to scroll through screens of text that needs no further editing. . . . All my queries to the authors, whether it’s a small technical style point or an extensive writing point, are in Spanish. I want them to understand why I am asking them for clarification or suggesting a substantial edit in some places, and this sometimes means I need to provide them with a few lines of reasoning about readers and texts or about the specific content. In these cases it is important for them to understand why I think the text needs editing, because this will motivate them to think about what they are trying to say, produce a better piece of text, and perhaps remember the point when they write their next paper.’
Ever since the end of the XIX century ??Au, si dice “man” solo, se quejarán los feministasa humans havse developed a series of machines and apparatus that have brought about and enhanced increasing comfort to our??Au, ok? Es una cosa sociológica; si no la matizas, los antibiotec se quejarán del imperialismo y tecnocentrismo de tus opinionsb industrialized societiesy.
??Au is the editor’s signal to the author that a comment (which she types in bold) follows. Translation of comments: a If you say ‘man’ the feminists will complain b OK? This is a sociological thing; if you don’t choose your words carefully, anti-biotech people will complain about how imperialistic and technocentric your opinions are
Box 5 Authors’ editor (UK NS) living and working in Denmark
‘I skip through the text to see if there is anything I am unsure of that goes right the way through. If so, I contact the author straightaway to check it out. (I have spent many happy hours changing an entire text back and forth.) I make obvious corrections using “track changes”, but I find this feature quite difficult to use in some ways. If the manuscript ends up looking like the dog’s dinner it can be hard to see what is what. Colour seems much more useful. I usually mark in yellow [shown as pale grey shading in box] changes I am pretty sure of but that I’d like the author to check to be on the safe side. And then use another colour [in box shown as dark grey shading when green and black shading when blue] if I am not at all sure what he means. Not completely
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consistent, I’m afraid, but it works pretty well and the author can come back with their own colour/comments if they don’t agree. I much prefer to sit with the author or phone them to go through the changes if at all possible. Haven’t used the comments feature here but I do use it with other authors. Always in English, but I sometimes write e-mails in Danish.’ Thus, it is equallysimilarly straightforward logical to concludeinterpret, that in a situation where, an as an example, all islets are doubling their volume while keeping the same shape, the number of islets seen in a section per area of pancreas is increasing even though, in this example, the real number of islets is the same in the two situations.
The foregoing examples show the authors’ editors’ desire to engage their authors in the editing process. Whether their motive is to prevent authors feeling that their texts have been wrested from their control, or to educate authors, by involving the author in the editing process, their pursuit of linguistic acceptability becomes more transparent to the author. If the author accepts all the editor’s suggestions, mutual acceptability has been achieved. But, as noted earlier by the Finnish editor Leena Jukka, assertive authors do challenge editors when they do not understand a change, or the reason for it, or when they feel a change is unacceptable. (Or they may decide not to challenge the authors’ editor, but merely to ignore the suggested changes – which, as authors, they are entitled to do.) A challenge from the author forces the editor to re-examine the acceptability of the editorial change and to consider a compromise solution. Perhaps the change was superfluous; perhaps there is an even better alternative; or perhaps the editor should accede to a solution that the author feels more comfortable with (for example, using the passive voice, instead of the personal pronoun).
Benchmarking Acceptability As well as relying on traditional authorities such as reference books and dictionaries to justify their decisions, authors’ editors are increasingly exploiting the resources available on the web. They check linguistic acceptability (terminology and usage) not only by using on-line specialist dictionaries and general search engines, but also by accessing corpora such as the Bank of English (http://www.collins.co.uk/Corpus/CorpusSearch.aspx) or using free concordancers (such as AntConc: http://www.antlab.sci.waseda.ac.jp/software.html). Aware that search engines also throw up English of dubious quality, they doublecheck acceptability by consulting expert colleagues on email forums for editors and translators. In this way they benchmark their judgement not only against the author’s discourse community but also against the international community of language professionals. A common reason for posting a question to an e-mail forum is concern not to propagate an NNS usage. For example, in June 2005 a medical authors’ editor familiar with the term ‘anamnesis’ and aware that it is uncommon in English medical documents, asked fellow editors on the Society of English-Native-Speaking Editors in the Netherlands email forum:7
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Can anyone enlighten me as to exactly what an anamnestic questionnaire is? I know it gets 3000+ hits on Google but not many appear to be from English-speaking countries. The consensus of opinion was that ‘anamnesic questionnaire’ was a literal translation from Dutch and that a more acceptable term is ‘medical history’. The exchanges on email forums often reveal the range in opinions about issues of linguistic acceptability, reflecting the variation in the style guides and reference sources used by different English-speaking communities, different fields of science, and different publishers.8 Knowledge of this diversity helps the authors’ editor to (re)calibrate her notions of acceptability.
Opportunities for Language Planners The foregoing reflections suggest openings for a constructive exchange of views between journal editors, language professionals, journal publishers and language planners about issues of linguistic acceptability. One goal could be to work with science publishers to formulate guidelines on acceptable English that are truly helpful to NNS and NS authors, reviewers, and language professionals. Another could be to develop programmes for training language professionals to edit NNS science texts effectively and tactfully (currently, most learn by doing). It would be sensible to involve long-established organisations for language professionals, and to take account of regional initiatives, such as the Mediterranean Editors’ and Translators’ Meetings (http://www.metmeetings.org/index. htm) whose mission is ‘to provide a forum where language consultants in our geographic area can exchange information in the interest of improving our ability to meet clients’ needs in a variety of disciplines’. Acknowledgements I thank Jan Klerkx, Elise Langon-Neuner, Christine Moller, and Karen Shashok for revealing their editorial approaches. Correspondence Any correspondence should be directed to Joy Burrough-Boenisch, 5 Meadow Close, Goring-on-Thames, RG8 0AP, UK (
[email protected]). Notes 1. NNS refers to non-native speaker of English, NS to native speaker of English. 2. English-language science journals (especially those based in the US) are perceived to be biased against NNS authors. For example, Montgomery (2004: 334) writes that scientists with ‘little or only moderate command of English’ will find it difficult to be published. Pagel et al. (2002) report on the views and experiences of NS and NNS scientists at the University of Texas Cancer Center, noting among other things that the Center’s principal investigators seem to believe that the NNS scientists ‘cannot write’. Iverson (2002), summarising the conclusions of a panel discussion at a Council of Science Editors’ meeting, mentions that one of the reasons for the biomedical science community’s bias against NNS authors was the cost of helping NNS authors and correcting their ‘serious writing problems’. 3. This contrasts with Helsinki University’s policy of employing English-nativespeaking graduate students as revisers, as described by Ventola and Mauranen (1991).
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4. From the membership of professional organisations such as SENSE (Society of English-Native-Speaking Editors in the Netherlands), EASE (European Association of Science Editors) and CSE (Council of Science Editors), it is clear that most authors’ editors are female. 5. I would argue, however, that the advent of Internet and satellite TV has made it possible for the backwater language professionals living and working outside the Anglophone countries that are in the mainstream of English to keep abreast with trends in English. When dealing with an NNS author who has copied a particular usage from a published NS text (for example, ‘data is’, ‘less samples’) it is essential to be aware of mainstream NSs’ views on the acceptability of a particular usage, in order to be able to advise the author on its appropriateness (i.e. acceptability). 6. Contrast the uncompromising opinions on unacceptable English expressed by the editor of Estuarine and Coastal Shelf Science with the more enlightened, balanced, and tactful approach of the editors of Current Issues of Language Planning (Kaplan & Baldauf, 2005). They suggest improvements to authors. It is testimony to their powerful status vis-à-vis authors that they note that their suggestions have so far always been followed, and that in the event of ‘irresolvable conflict’, their judgement would be final. 7. SENSE has over 200 members (not all are NSs); about one-third take on science/social science assignments. 8. Recently (Spring 2005), members of the European Association of Science Editors hotly debated the acceptability of %, per cent, or per cent, producing a raft of authorities to back up their widely diverging opinions (Langdon-Neuner, 2005). In response, one senior editor commented ‘[This debate] certainly backs up my belief that if you have enough style guides you can find published support for just about anything you want to do in a manuscript’.
References Alley, M. (2000) The Craft of Editing: A Guide for Managers, Scientists and Engineers. New York: Springer. Burrough-Boenisch, J. (2001) Authors’editors: Their procedures and interaction with authors. European Science Editing 27 (4), 90–91. Burrough-Boenisch, J. (2002) Journal articles as chapters in doctoral theses. European Science Editing 28 (1), 7–9. Burrough-Boenisch, J. (2003a) Shapers of published NNS research articles. Journal of Second Language Writing, 12 (3), 223–43. Burrough-Boenisch, J. (2003b) Examining present tense conventions in scientific writing in the light of reader reactions to three Dutch-authored Discussions. English for Specific Purposes 22 (1), 5–24. Burrough-Boenisch, J. (2005) NS and NNS scientists’ amendments of Dutch scientific English and their impact of hedging. English for Specific Purposes 24 (1), 25–39. Day, R.A. (1995) Scientific English: A Guide for Scientists and Other Professionals. Phoenix, AZ: Oryx. Graddol, D. (2004) The future of language. Science 303, 1329–31. Gustavii, B. (2003) How to Write and Illustrate a Scientific Paper. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Iverson, C. (2002) US medical journal editors’ attitudes towards submissions from other countries. Science Editor 25 (3), 75–8. Kaplan, R.B. and Baldauf, R.B. (2005) Editing contributed scholarly articles from a language management perspective. Journal of Second Language Writing 14 (1), 47–62. Kirkman, J. (1992) Good Style: Writing for Science and Technology. London: Spon. Kirkman, J. (2001) Third person, past tense, passive voice for scientific writing. Who says? European Science Editing 27 (1), 4–5. Langdon-Neuner, E. (2005) EASE-Forum digest: March–June 2005. European Science Editing 31 (3), 88–90.
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Matthews, J.R., Bowen, J.M. and Matthews, R.W. (1996) Successful Scientific Writing: A Step-by-step Guide for the Biological and Medical Sciences. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Montgomery, S. (2004) Of towers, walls, and fields: Perspectives on language in science. Science 203, 1333–5. Pagel, W.J., Kendall, F.E. and Gibbs, H.R. (2002) Self-identified publishing needs of nonnative English-speaking faculty and fellows at an academic medical institution. Science Editor 25 (4), 111–14. Shashok, K. (2001) Author’s editors: Facilitators of science information transfer. Learned Publishing 14 (2), 113–21. Shashok, K. (2003) Pitfalls of editorial miscommunication. British Medical Journal 326, 1262–4. Smith, R. (2003) Editorial misconduct. British Medical Journal 326, 1224–5. Ventola, E. and Mauranen, A. (1991) Non-native writing and native revising of scientific articles. In E. Ventola (ed.) Functional and Systemic Linguistics: Approaches and Uses (pp. 457–92). Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. Wagner, E., Bech, S. and Martinez, J.M. (2002) Translating for the European Union Institutions. Manchester: St Jerome.
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CILP No: 100 Language Planning in Local Contexts
On Language Management in Multinational Companies in the Czech Republic JiĜí Nekvapil Department of Linguistics, Charles University, Prague, Czech Republic Marek Nekula Bohemicum, University of Regensburg, Germany In this paper, we demonstrate the dialectical relationship between micro and macro language planning: macro planning influences micro planning and yet macro planning results (or should result) from micro planning. The relation between the two planning perspectives is illustrated within the framework of Language Management Theory (Jernudd & Neustupný, 1987; Neustupný & Nekvapil, 2003). We deal with the relations between various levels of ‘organised management’, and with the role of the ‘simple, i.e. discourse-based management’ in organised language management. Attention is also given to the impact of organised language management on naturally occurring discourses and discourse-based management. The paper is empirically based on research carried out during the past two years in branches of multinational companies or corporations founded in the Czech Republic by German, Austrian or Swiss owners. We focus primarily on the situation in a subsidiary of a Siemens corporation. The languages which have become the subject of management activities here are German, English, and Czech. The data we work with were obtained using various types of interviews (semi-structured, follow-up) as well as audio-recordings and participant observation.
Keywords: language management, micro language planning, multinational corporations, Siemens, Czech, German, English
The Macro Micro Issue in Language Planning The best-known theories of language planning developed after the decline of the colonial system in the early 1960s as a reaction to the linguistic and social problems of the developing countries. Language planning taking place at the level of the state or language planning performed by state/governmental institutions may be referred to as macro planning. However, it is evident that language is also planned by less complex social systems, which is why the term micro planning has come to be used. For example, Nahir (1998) noticed that the revival of spoken Hebrew was not in full agreement with the regular definitions of language planning since it was not a central agency but rather a number of local institutions and people active in them that proved to play a decisive role in the revival of the language. The author therefore suggested considering the revival of spoken Hebrew a case of micro language planning. Kaplan and Baldauf (1997) use the term micro planning in relation to the activities of such institutions as individual banks, companies, libraries, schools, shops, hospitals, courts or services; a single city constitutes a micro planning unit for them as well. It is beyond doubt that much may be learned 268
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by studying the planning activities in such less complex social systems; the findings which will clarify the relations between macro- and microplanning being of particular importance. On the other hand, we should not ignore the fact that both macro and micro language planning are conceptualised here on the same basis – they merely operate within social structures of different complexity. ‘Macro’ and ‘micro’ represent extreme limits of social space (‘continuum’), which could be further subdivided into ‘macros’ or ‘micros’ of various complexities. Following this line of thought, it is not surprising that a number of authors also mention meso-level planning (cf. Kaplan & Baldauf, 1997). However, the relation between the dimensions of macro and micro may be conceptualised in yet another way, which is well known in sociology and also sporadically reflected in sociolinguistics. Generally speaking, the approach may be characterised as the contrast of social structure (macro) vs. interaction (micro) (cf. e.g. Boden & Zimmerman, 1991). The relationship between macro and micro within this conceptualisation has been a permanent topic of discussion in sociology. Various points of view exist, delimiting the respective research agendas. Two of these may be considered extreme positions: (1) macro and micro are two discrete areas of social phenomena and it is therefore legitimate to deal exclusively with one of them; (2) there is no fundamental difference between macro and micro, since micro is also a social structure. These two points of view, whether on the level of declaration or in research practice, are also sure to occur in sociolinguistics. Position (1) is in fact reflected in the two-part division of the popular textbook by Fasold (1984, 1990); the autonomous micro is close to the definitional inclinations of the so-called interactional sociolinguistics, the autonomous macro to the classical theory of language planning mentioned above. Position (2) has been held by some representatives of conversation analysis. Let us focus now on a third position, which is of particular importance to the present study. It comprises the views based on the idea that the relation between macro and micro is dialectical; in other words, these two dimensions of social phenomena elaborate on one another. What this means is firstly that in particular interactions the participants recognisably orient themselves towards social structures and thereby reproduce them, and secondly, that in particular interactions the participants contribute to the transformation of these structures; Giddens (1993: 165) formulates this as follows: ‘structure appears as both condition and consequence of the production of interaction’. These general facts are hard to translate into particular sociological or sociolinguistic research programmes. The empirical research pertaining to position (3) seems to be directed solely towards the question of how social structures are reflected in particular interactions. For instance, Heller (2001) demonstrates how the regulations issued by the Ontario Ministry of Education (distal circumstances) influence the language-planning documents of a particular French-speaking minority school (proximal circumstances), and how the contents of these documents are reflected in the types of correction activities performed by the teachers of the school in particular interactions (immediate circumstances) (cf. also Mehan, 1991). Certainly, a complementary process may also be imagined where language problems occurring in particular
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interactions are reflected by a local institution or institutions, which results in a regulation being issued at the level of a ministry or even in the establishment of a ministry language-planning organisation. In this paper we would like to introduce a sociolinguistic theory constructed in such a way that it could fully integrate the social dimensions of micro and macro from the point of view (3). Basic information about the theory, that is, Language Management Theory, will be given in the section below, and in the following sections the language-planning situation in a multinational company operating in the Czech Republic will be discussed from the viewpoint of the theory.
Language Management Theory The term ‘language management theory’ is used here to refer to the theory developed mainly by J.V. Neustupný and B.H. Jernudd (cf. e.g. Jernudd & Neustupný, 1987), and later by others. To avoid elementary misunderstanding, the self-evident fact should be emphasised that the identity of the theory is based on the set of its theoretical claims rather than by the term language management. We mention this here for two reasons: firstly, certain fundamental features of the theory were published under different labels, especially ‘the theory of language correction’ (this version is dealt with by Cooper, 1989: 40f.); secondly, some authors use the term language management without referring to the theoretical propositions of Neustupný, Jernudd and their colleagues and followers: they use the term more or less synonymously with the expression language planning, thereby further increasing the theoretical confusion (cf. the recent Spolsky, 2004). Language Management Theory (LM) originated alongside the classical theory of language planning (cf. in particular Jernudd’s references to Neustupný in the collections Rubin & Jernudd, 1971 and Rubin et al., 1977; cf. also Jernudd, 1983); however, it has gradually grown so far apart from it that it represents an independent alternative. What seems to have been decisive was Neustupný’s effort to base macro language planning firmly on the theory of language problems (cf. in particular Neustupný, 1978). At the theoretical level, particular interactions (discourses) were recognised as the primary source of language problems, which shifted the focus of theoretical thought concerning language planning towards the micro dimension. The ideal model of language planning activity was found in a process, which may be described as follows: the identification of a language problem in individual interactions l the adoption of measures by the particular language planning institution l the implementation of these measures in individual interactions. Neustupný (1994: 50) formulates it as follows: I shall claim that any act of language planning should start with the consideration of language problems as they appear in discourse, and the planning process should not be considered complete until the removal of the problems is implemented in discourse. The most comprehensive treatment of the theory is presented in the monograph by Neustupný and Nekvapil (2003), in Neustupný (2002), and its
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earlier version in the collection of lectures published as Jernudd (1991). Here we shall focus merely on those components of the theory relevant for our paper. What is language management? The theory is based on discriminating between two processes which characterise language use: (1) the production and reception of discourse, (2) the activities aimed at the production and reception of discourse, that is, metalinguistic activities. The latter process is called language management. It is to be noted here that Neustupný, echoing Fishman’s wording, often says that the theory of language management deals with ‘behaviour-toward-language’. Language management may be illustrated by a situation where speaker X repeats with careful pronunciation a word which his interlocutor Y failed to understand, or the standardisation of the pronunciation of foreign words carried out by an academic institution and authorised by the ministry. Simple and organised management The speaker can manage individual features or aspects of his or her own or of his or her interlocuter’s discourse here and now, that is, in a particular interaction. Such management is simple or discourse-based. It may be illustrated by Example 1, where a Czech television presenter uses the non-standard form of the pronoun který (who), and having realised this he adds the standard form kteìí (who); in other words, he corrects himself. Example 1 (from Nekvapil, 2000: 174) Presenter:
témata, o kterých bude dnes ìe², možná poznáte už podle jmen pánþ, který kteìí pìijali dnešní pozvání [the topics which will be discussed today you may recognise even from the names of the gentlemen who (non-standard) who (standard) accepted today’s invitation]
Organised language management no longer has an ad hoc character; it is directed and systematic. The organisation of language management involves several layers. The growing complexity of social networks is accompanied by the increasing degree of organisation of language management. In very complex networks the organised management often becomes the subject of public or semi-public discussion among a large number of participants (including specialists, institutions), many of them referring to various theories or ideologies. This may be illustrated by the decision of the Czech Government to suspend the obligatory teaching of Russian after 1989 and to promote the teaching of ‘Western’ languages. The classical theory of language planning specialised merely in organised management; nevertheless, by stressing the analysis of the initial sociolinguistic situation, it implicitly acknowledged the existence of simple management, and its evaluation stage in particular (cf. Ferguson, 1977). Language Management Theory requires the organised management to rely on simple management as much as possible. Due to their high frequency of occurrence, examples of type 1 (morphological vacillation between standard and common Czech) have indeed become the subject of organised management in the Czech Republic, which, however, has not resulted in specific language-
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political measures. The suspension of the teaching of Russian was based on the fact that Russian was generally considered a useless language, moreover symbolising the communist regime (on both examples, in more detail, cf. Neustupný & Nekvapil, 2003). It is clear that simple as well as organised management are closely linked with the factor of power, that is, with the capability to push certain interests through (Jernudd & Neustupný, 1987; Nekvapil, 2007). The language management theory is based on the assumption that, as a rule, the interests of different participants and social groups in language planning situations are not identical, and the distribution of power among them is uneven. Management networks Language management takes place within social networks of various scopes. It does not occur only in various state organisations, with a scope of activities comprising the whole society – these were the major focus of the classical theory of language planning – but also in individual companies, schools, media, associations, families as well as individual speakers in particular interactions. The theory of language management therefore deals not only with the macro-social dimension, but also with the micro-social one, however the conceptualisation of the latter dimension might appear. The management process Language management involves several stages. The stability and certainty of the production and reception of discourse is based on the existence of norms. Language Management Theory assumes that the speaker notes the discourse at the moment it deviates from the norm. The speaker may then evaluate the deviation either positively or negatively. The speaker may further plan an adjustment, and finally implement the adjustment. These four stages (noting, evaluation, planning of adjustment, implementation) constitute different stages of language management. It is significant that all these stages need not be carried out, the management may end after any of the stages: the speaker may, for example, merely note a certain phenomenon but refrain from evaluating it, or he or she may evaluate it without planning the adjustment, or plan the adjustment but withdraw from its implementation. In Example 1 we can see that the management process was terminated after the stage of implementation. It is therefore evident that the Language Management Theory comprises a level of micro language planning which could hardly be ‘more micro’. However, the above four stages may also be distinguished at the level of organised management. Ideally, noting is based on research or expert reports concerning language situations of various scopes, which should actually mean that the simple management of a particular phenomenon (e.g. the pronunciation of foreign words in language X, or the communication between local and foreign employees in company Y) is thoroughly researched. This stage may be followed by evaluation of various aspects of these situations, planning and preparation of linguistic and political adjustments and their implementation. It is certainly of particular importance for organised language management to identify language problems, that is, such deviations from the norm which are
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not only noted by individual speakers in particular interactions but also receive negative evaluation. Linguistic, communicative and sociocultural management The term language management as well as the above examples seem to suggest that the Language Management Theory deals mostly with language phenomena in the narrow sense of the word, the phenomena of linguistic competence. However, this is not the case. It is possible to manage also communicative phenomena (cf., for instance, the special forms of address required among the members of certain social groups, e.g. political parties) as well as sociocultural phenomena. The following example comes from Heller’s (2001) ethnographic research carried out in a French minority school located in a big English-speaking city in the territory of Ontario, Canada: Example 2 (from Heller, 2001: 225) 1. Teacher: pourquoi lit-on? [why do we read?] 2. Michael: pour relaxer [to relax] 3. Teacher: pour se détendre, ‘relaxer’ c’est anglais [to ‘se détendre’ (relax), ‘relax’ is English] Evidently, we can witness language management in line 3. The teacher has noted that student Michael used an English word in his French discourse, he evaluated this negatively and implemented an adjustment. Both the teacher’s and the student’s linguistic competence must have been at play, since both were able to recognise the French and the English words. Nevertheless, there was also communicative competence involved. They were both oriented towards the norm that French is used consistently during teaching despite the fact that they are both bilingual. However, as pointed out by Heller, there is also sociocultural management involved – the teacher was oriented towards the ideological maxim ‘form good Franco-Ontarians’, which receives political and economic support. As far as organised management is concerned, Neustupný and Nekvapil (2003) claim that linguistic, communicative and sociocultural (socioeconomic) management are ordered hierarchically. Successful language management (e.g. teaching Czech to the Roma) is conditioned by successful communicative management (the establishment of common Czech-Roma social networks), which in turn is conditioned by successful socioeconomic management (providing jobs which could lead to the establishment of the Czech-Roma networks). Methodology The essential requirement of the methodology used in the analysis of language management is that the measures devised at the level of organised management be based on the analysis of simple management. Therefore, those methods which make it possible to analyse individual interactions are emphasised. Since its origin, Language Management Theory has developed some of the findings of conversation analysis (particularly in the area of the analysis of correction sequences) as well as its methods. Ideally, both the auditory and visual aspects of naturally occurring interactions should be captured (Marriott, 1991a; R. Neustupný, 1996)
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and detailed transcripts of these interactions analysed. However, since all stages of the management process are to be described (without being confined to the stage of implementation in the way conversation analysis is), the investigation of language management employs methods which make it possible to deal also with noting, evaluation and the planning of adjustments, that is, with phenomena from the mental field. In this respect, the method used most frequently is the socalled follow-up interview (Neustupný, 1999). Since in a number of social settings the analysts are denied direct access to the actual interactions (e.g. for ethical or professional reasons), Language Management Theory relies also on methods which enable the analysts at least to approach these interactions in a relevant manner. Besides the so-called interaction interview (Muraoka, 2000; Neustupný, 2003), these methods also include focus groups, systematic (self) observation (To & Jernudd, 2001) as well as other types of interviews (narrative, semi-structured). Obviously, summarising language management which accompanies the application of these methods represents a methodological problem which must receive due attention (Nekvapil, 2004). Previous research This paper is not the first to link Language Management Theory with the problems of macro-micro in language planning. This approach is represented in particular by Kuo and Jernudd (1993), who recommend that analysts as well as national language planners employ the macro- and micro-perspectives in a balanced manner. Marriott (1991b) arrives at a similar conclusion based on the analysis of interactions in Japanese-Australian shopping situations and of documents concerning tourism issued by governmental, industrial and corporate agencies.
Language Management in a Subsidiary of Siemens VDO Automotive (‘The PLANT’) We shall now analyse language management in a subsidiary of the Siemens VDO Automotive Corporation. The plant deals with the manufacture of electronic modules for the automobile industry, most to be exported. It has approximately 2000 employees, and it was founded in 1995 in a relatively small city in the Czech Republic; its parent company (the ‘headquarters’) is in Regensburg, Germany. Since the research could only be carried out provided the information obtained was kept anonymous to a certain extent, we shall not further localise the subsidiary, referring to it below only as the PLANT.1 We carried out 11 interviews in the PLANT (both with local and foreign managers), performed participant observations in the administrative as well as manufacturing sections of the factory, collected and analysed a number of written documents and were even able to record a conference call.2 The choice of the company was not motivated by our aiming at the analysis (and presentation) of a peculiar linguistic, communicative or sociocultural situation; on the contrary, the objective we pursued when selecting it was to give our attention to a ‘regular’, ‘usual’, or ‘typical’ Czech-German multinational company.3 In order to fully understand both the simple and organised management processes in the PLANT, some information concerning the sociocultural and language planning
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situation in the Czech Republic should be provided, as well as the corresponding data concerning Siemens. Language management in the Czech Republic The sociocultural and language planning situation in the Czech Republic has undergone a profound change after the fall of the communist regime in 1989 (cf. a detailed account in Neustupný & Nekvapil, 2003). As far as the economic sphere is concerned, foreign capital (mostly German, American, Austrian, Swiss, Belgian, etc.) started entering the open Czech economy, giving rise to a number of companies which may be considered multinational to different extents (they currently number in the thousands). It was not only a new economic situation which developed in these companies, but also a new sociocultural situation: the local Czech employees have to deal with the foreign cultural standards pervading their professional and personal activities, adopt the new styles of management and communication or at least get used to them. In these companies, a specific language situation also evolved: certain language functions, previously performed by Czech, are now taken over by foreign languages, English and German in particular. Foreign as well as Czech employees consider foreign languages (English, German) to be prestigious media which bring in the knowhow from technologically more advanced countries with stronger capital. Consequently, the management activities (during conferences, meetings or workshops) are often conducted in English or German, while the manufacturing sections are dominated by Czech. The political changes in 1989 have also had considerable impact on the teaching of foreign languages. Obligatory teaching of Russian having been suspended, English and German started being taught en masse at all types of schools. Of course, these languages had been taught before 1989, but now they also occupied the space freed up by Russian. As far as English is concerned, this is not surprising, while the popularity of German deserves comment. First of all, it should be pointed out that by far the longest part of the Czech border is with the German-speaking countries, Germany and Austria. Communication with the German world has always been important for the Czechs throughout their history, and therefore the knowledge of German has been relatively widespread. This is not only because it is generally useful to know the language of one’s neighbour, but also because German economic life and culture were actually held in high prestige in the Czech lands. While this does not obviously apply to certain periods, such as Hitler’s occupation of the Czech lands during World War II, there has been no doubt about it in the 1990s and the present day. Siemens The origin of Siemens dates back to 1847, when Werner von Siemens founded the Telegraph Manufacturing Company in Berlin. Today the Siemens group is a well-known manufacturer in the field of transportation, power generation and supply, industry, communication systems, information technologies, health care, home appliances, lighting etc. The number of Siemens employees amounts to approximately 430,000. The majority of the Siemens production is still carried out in Germany, but the remainder is divided among more than
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40 countries all over the world and Siemens is being further internationalised. Siemens is divided into 14 business groups, or corporations, under the umbrella of Siemens AG based in Germany (Munich). We shall be interested in one of these corporations, Siemens VDO Automotive, which came into existence in 2001 as a result of the merger of the German Mannesmann VDO Concern and Siemens Automotive (AT). The newly founded corporation, operating under the name Siemens VDO Automotive, has about 50,000 employees; it is based in Regensburg and Schwalbach in Germany, and its subsidiaries are also spread all over the world (besides European countries, such as Germany, Czech Republic, France, Great Britain, Italy, Spain, Switzerland, they are also in Mexico, Canada, USA, Brazil, Australia, Malaysia, China, Korea and others). The PLANT that we shall deal with is a part of this corporation. As far as language planning at the level of Siemens AG is concerned, the conclusions of Vollstedt (2002, esp. pp. 51–6) based on research aimed at multinational companies operating in Germany seem to apply: in the context of other activities, language planning constitutes a more or less marginal matter in the corporation, it is ‘unplanned planning’ rather than an elaborate conception. Based on the information available, there does not appear to exist an official corporate language in Siemens AG, and according to the Public Relations representative ‘this matter is handled according to practical considerations, which means that in regional companies the local language is spoken and written. Also for practical reasons, circulars from the headquarters are published in German and English’ (quoted from an e-mail from June 2005). As the individual divisions, or corporations, of the Siemens group are autonomous to a large extent, the language management in the PLANT investigated here relies more on language planning of the Siemens VDO Automotive Corporation. It is of fundamental importance that there was a corporate language, English, introduced officially in the corporation. The PR representative informed us that ‘the decision on the corporate language was made by the board in 2002 shortly after the merger of Mannesmann VDO and Siemens AT and communicated to the employees via internal media’ (quoted from the e-mail from 6 June 2005). Also worthy of mention is a regulation according to which the employees of the corporation sent abroad as delegates are entitled to free lessons in the local language (i.e. they are not obliged to learn the local language, but if they wish to, the tuition is covered by the company). The organisational structure of the PLANT and its ethnic composition The management processes in the PLANT under investigation are not determined only by the existence of the official corporate language, but also by the organisational structure of the company and its ethnic composition. The introduction of a corporate language does not mean that all employees of the company must on all occasions use that language, but rather that certain ‘functional positions’ in the structure of the company are required to use a particular language in certain situations when communicating with certain functional positions within the company or outside it. For example, the employees in workers’ positions are not expected to communicate with the headquarters or with foreign customers, and therefore they need not master either the corporate language or other foreign languages. On the other hand, the ethnic composition of the organisational
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structure determines which speakers at which levels of the organisation of the company may use their first language quite naturally, having an advantage over those who do not use their first language in communication (with them). As mentioned above, there are about 2000 employees in the PLANT – of these, 10 are foreigners (with more than a half of them being German). Naturally, such a big company is a complex system which cannot be described in detail here. In accordance with qualitative social research (Lamnek, 2005; Silverman, 2001), the description of the organisational structure of the PLANT relies on the categories used by the informants themselves, that is, the categories which they found relevant for the characteristics of the linguistic, communicative and sociocultural situation in the PLANT. The structure of the PLANT, which has a clearly manufacturing character, may be described in their terms as follows: two directors, heads of various departments (e.g. personnel, marketing), various departments (e.g. personnel, marketing), specialists working on individual projects, foremen and workers. An important category is the top management, which involves primarily the directors and the heads of departments (altogether about 20 people), and the discrimination between blue collar workers (about 1500 employees) and white collar workers (about 500 employees). As far as the positions of the foreign employees (delegates) are concerned, half of them rank among the top management, the second half working as project specialists or directors of projects. The representation of foreign employees in the top management is about one quarter. One of the directors is German (CFO), the other is Czech (CEO). The everyday operation of the PLANT and the languages used In the everyday activities of the PLANT the following languages are used: Czech, German, and English. The large group of blue collar workers uses Czech only. Generally, the foreign employees use only German or English. German or English is used, or should be used, alongside Czech, by the Czech white collar workers. German or English is used as the medium of communication between the Czech white collar workers and the foreign employees, between the subsidiary PLANT and the parent company (the headquarters), as well as in contact with foreign customers. Our research has shown that frequently the communication does not proceed ‘naturally’; on the contrary, it is managed. In other words, the speakers note the way they themselves, or their interlocutors, communicate, they often evaluate it negatively (i.e. they are aware of the problems), they consider the possibilities of eliminating the problems, and finally, they are often able to eliminate them. The problems can be observed in particular interactions, but they are (or were) so fundamental, or frequent, that even the speakers themselves are able to report on them in the research (e.g. follow-up) interview. The conference call The problems occurring in individual interaction events may be illustrated by a conference call, which was recorded in the PLANT in March 2005. The conference call is a routine type of communication which takes place every two weeks at a time determined in advance, between the representatives of a manufacturing unit of the PLANT and the representatives of the headquarters in Regensburg. If necessary, it is joined by representatives of other companies
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of the corporation (e.g. in Austria). Two representatives of the PLANT and five representatives of the headquarters took part in the recorded conference call, with one representative from a subsidiary in Great Britain joining in. The PLANT was represented by a Czech manager (C) and a French manager (F). It is important to realise that C and F are not in the relation of superiority, or subordination. The representatives of the headquarters were German (G). The language used was English, which is not automatic; it could also have been German. During our observation we have found that in regular routine communications the language preferences are often negotiated, then they become fixed and are no longer discussed – this was also the case in the recorded conference call, which started quite naturally in English. The following fragment occurred about 15 minutes after the beginning of the conference call. Example 3 (Conference call)4 1. 2. 3. 4. 5.
G1: F: G1: F: C:
6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12.
G1: C: G1: F: C: G1:
13. 14.
F:
15. 16.
G1: G3:
so that’s it from my side from S 41 side. mm hmm okay. if there are problems from Rychnov due to S 41 products? (..) ((two unclear syllables)) only this this uh you mentioned uh this is uh low parts for the four key. and now we have the fifteen thousand backlog uh: with the customer. (.) [sorry?] [becau-] fifteen thousand backlog (..) OK that that’s what I already mentioned yeah? [yeah] [yes] yes yes. OK? But we don’t ex- at the moment we do not know is it a real problem or is the Ford delivery ordered to stop yeah? (..) OK. we we will have to check that with logistics what has ( ) the concern plant. OK wonderful yeah ( . . . ) so so just hold on please I’ll try to get in touch with ( )
Let us note that C, in comparison with the other participants, has the biggest problems producing his turns (cf. lines 5, 6). This does not involve only the repetition of individual expressions (this, this) but also problems with formulations, signalled by the non-verbal expression uh, which seems to provide C with the time he needs to find and use adequate word forms (it occurred four times in this turn). His English pronunciation is also highly influenced by Czech (which, obviously, is not evident from the transcript). On line 7 we can see that speaker G1 did not understand C’s turn, and he initiates correction. On line 8 C provides a correction. In the following turn speaker G1 evidently verifies his interpretation of the correction (cf. line 9). Thus we can see that the topic of this part of the conference call is not really the manufacture problems in the PLANT but rather linguistic and communication problems – in other words, we witness a case of verbally manifested simple language management.
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During the follow-up interview that took place the day after the conference call Mr C told the researcher (I) that this had been a ‘completely regular’ conference call, where ‘simply nothing had been unexpected in any way’. Although he evaluated its course and his participation in it as in principle satisfactory, he also appeared to be aware of the limitations in his knowledge of English. He also offered a detailed explanation, which documents the existence of extensive linguistic and communication problems in the PLANT in the past, and possibly even today (see Example 4). Example 4 (from the follow-up interview with Mr C, translated from Czech, transcription simplified) C: I: C:
I: C: I: C:
. . . I started learning English ten years ago, quite late, so that so that uh At what age did you start learning English? well earlier. at 40 at 42 years I started learning English. then I didn’t use it for five years, then three years I uh as I learned it then I used it, then I didn’t use for five years, or very sporadically, well and when I came here, so uh the condition was, when I started, English or German. so I again practised the English, I started in the year 99, before I started I also took a month’s course of English, uh sort of privately. in order to a little – as I didn’t use it there for five years ( ). to improve it. well and I came here, and (here) English was spoken very sporadically. mostly German. so I sort of couldn’t do anything but hire a private teacher of German, and get into that German a bit, so that I didn’t leave a meeting totally frustrated because I didn’t know what had been discussed there. and roughly in a year’s time I started using German, . . . and at that time was the di- at that time were both the Ge- ee eee directors German, and Mister Kohler ee quite refused to communicate in English. he simply started in English, and after ten minutes he changed to German no matter if anybody liked it or not. well and it was quite frustrating when one left the meeting and didn’t know what had been discussed. well but then you had to solve that somehow. anyway. right? [(it was ne-)] [(or) you] personally had to solve it. well personally I solved it so, that I then found my colleagues and inasked ee about – what I didn’t understand I asked, ee what what we were actually required to do, what am I to do, and so on. right? so ee since at that meeting there was always sitting a larger half of Czechs, so it was not a problem here ee this in some way to get the information. and but when Mister Boczan came (( = the new Czech director)), and ee it was started in English, so I think that and I would say that also strictly Mister Boczan requires at a meeting when there is one single foreigner, so there must e must be ee foreign language used, so that the foreigner did not feel the same as we did, once, right? When he leaves the meeting and he doesn’t know what uh what was discussed, . . .
Let us add that Mr C is a member of the PLANT’s top management (he directs several hundred employees), and also that he considers his present knowledge of English better than his knowledge of German (the same is claimed by Mr F).
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We shall return to Example 4 in another context, but now let us deal with Example 3 again. It contains also another feature symptomatic of the analysed conference call, namely the different socioculturally-based communicative role of speakers C and F, who both, as mentioned above, represent the PLANT. Let us note that in reaction to the request by speaker G1 (line 3), speaker C refers to a manufacturing problem (lines 5, 6). However, it is not speaker C who expresses his opinion on how to handle the problem, but speaker F (line 14), and his suggestion is welcomed by the representative of the headquarters (line 15). What we may witness here is what speaker F mentions in the follow-up interview, which took place the day after the conference call, and what is noted also by a number of foreign employees in our research: it is hard for Czech employees to assert themselves in communication (with representatives of the parent companies), which renders the presence of foreign employees at meetings essential. Example 5 (from a follow-up interview with Mr F, translated from German, transcription simplified) I: F:
I: F: I: F:
uh do you experience any phenomena, which uh complicate the local collaboration? uh one thing is this. that here people in Czechia are not willing to make decisions. so many things may be somehow pushed in the background, they are a bit afraid to make decisions. uh the majority have problems a bit with the ability to advocate their views. when there is a problem when something comes from Germany, ehm they are also the same, when it is spoken from Germany. ((and they proceed like)) let’s do it that way then. exactly. OK and and even if they do not want to do it, in most cases they don’t trust themselves enough to say that themselves, they come to me and say what shall we do? . . .
However, what F does not mention in the interview is that the foreign employees have considerable power in the subsidiary PLANT, which is based not only on the fact that they hold the positions of bosses, but also on their being the delegates of the parent company and, consequently, entering the PLANT with significant social capital. Generally, the foreign employees further reinforce their status by communicating in their first language (if they are German) or in a language they have mastered much better than the local employees due to their extensive international experience (i.e. English). Obviously, Example 3 cannot demonstrate all the linguistic, communicative and sociocultural problems occurring during the conference call, which lasted more than an hour. It may merely serve as a brief example. What we find important is that even such a short fragment of an interaction could, using follow-up interviews, illustrate the existence of simple management – in particular, the existence of cases of noting, which are evaluated negatively by the employees of the PLANT, and regarded as fundamental problems.
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Simple and organised management in the PLANT The optimum way towards a systematic description of simple management is an analysis of a large number of individual interaction events in the PLANT, similar to the above conference call. We have not been able to perform such research yet. Therefore, we rely on semi-structured interviews. To be sure, these interviews could not have covered all the simple management processes in the PLANT, but they have at least recorded those which the speakers are able to provide information on, in particular the processes which they found significant for them in some respects, and which they can therefore remember them. In principle, semi-structured interviews are a sufficient source for a systematic description of organised management in the PLANT. We complemented them with an analysis of the PLANT’s documents and participant observation. Simple management: Foreign employees As far as Czech is concerned, the basic communication strategy (pre-interaction management strategy) of foreign employees is to avoid using Czech in the professional domain. Their assumption is that the production problems are solved in English or German, Czech being suitable merely to establish a good working atmosphere and to enhance social contact. It is therefore advisable to master at least the rudiments of Czech, which is manifested in professional communication by the use of Czech greeting formulas or, as the case may be, attempts at small talk. It is also good to know Czech because it is a key which opens the way to the non-professional social networks, and because it facilitates the performance of activities in the everyday domain (shopping, restaurants). This is why foreign employees feel that not knowing Czech is a problem, while even minimum knowledge of the language may ‘gratify’ them. It is because of such evaluation that the individuals decide to enrol in organised courses of Czech. As far as German (but also English) is concerned, the foreign employees presume that it should not be used in communication with the local employees in the same way as in communication with native speakers of the language. On the one hand, the German director (D) praised his Czech colleagues’ knowledge of languages in the interview, but on the other hand, he added immediately: Example 6 (‘foreigner talk’ at meetings; translated from German, transcription simplified) D:
well then, of course there still are I would say some meetings, where it is necessary I would say a little bit ( . . . ) I would say also in English, a little bit proceed carefully, formulate if possible in a simple manner, not in a very complicated way so that everybody everybody understood it. yeah,
Moreover, the important information must be repeated several times. Simple management: Local employees Czech employees evaluate the attempts of foreign employees at communication (or rudiments of communication) in Czech very positively.
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As far as the use of German and English is concerned, avoidance strategies are widespread among Czech employees. These strategies are employed mostly in spoken communication (this tendency used to be even more prominent in the past). A Czech informant described the panic which broke out among the young employees of one of the departments of the PLANT when a German code of the incoming call appeared on the telephone’s display (who should pick up the phone?). A foreign employee stressed the fact that Czechs keep writing him huge numbers of e-mails – so as to avoid face-to-face communication. However, avoidance strategies cannot be a permanent solution because performing certain functions in the PLANT involves communication in German or English. As we have seen in Example 4, Czech employees regard insufficient knowledge of foreign languages as a big problem which cannot be perpetually solved using post-interaction management strategies such as ‘asking the colleagues what had been discussed’. Czech employees, namely all white collar workers, are economically motivated to improve their command of foreign languages. They seek a prospective solution to their communicative problems in organised language courses. Organised management Organised management in the PLANT clearly ensues from the linguistic and communicative problems which the employees encounter in individual interactions. Organised management aims at preventing these problems. For instance, recently the Czech director decreed that the heads of manufacturing departments (i.e. big workrooms) must learn a foreign language within three years so that they could communicate with foreign customers who would like to observe the manufacture of the product they ordered. Organised management in the PLANT has several distinct forms. The most formal of these is the organisation and promotion of language courses. These include the organised simulated use of languages, and finally, translating and interpreting. Sociocultural problems do not constitute a subject of organised management in the PLANT (nor do they in the parent company). The question arises as to whether this is a temporary drawback or a deliberate policy. In another multinational company we encountered the idea that, to use our terminology, the company is not interested in the organised management of sociocultural problems in which the problems of power can hardly be avoided. It is worth mentioning here that the term ‘intercultural training’ was not even understood by the majority of informants participating in our research. Language courses: Foreign employees Generally, all foreign employees are enrolled in some Czech course. The fee is paid by the PLANT. Typically, the courses are individual, with one-hour lessons taking place several times a week on the premises of the PLANT during working hours. The results of organised management (language courses), however, are not really manifested in particular natural interactions. The low efficiency of the tuition is due to three main factors: first, the lessons are often cancelled (the reason given by the participants is ‘being overburdened with work’), secondly, the courses actually start from the level of complete beginners, with the duration of the course limited to three years, which is the average
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time the employee is delegated to work abroad, and finally, the results of the courses are not evaluated. It should be noted that the former management of the PLANT, the two German directors (cf. Example 4), did not consider learning Czech relevant, and did not promote Czech lessons. Language courses: Czech employees English and German courses are organised on the premises of the PLANT. At present they are attended by more than 200 employees. The individual courses have about 10 participants, the maximum duration of the course (which lasts one hour twice a week) being three years. If necessary, more intensive courses are also organised. Besides Czech teachers, native speakers also teach the courses. At the moment, the English courses outnumber the German ones; they are held at more suitable times, yet still after working hours. The progress reached during the courses is evaluated regularly and if the employees fail to reach the expected level they have to pay the fee themselves. Informal evaluation is also performed by foreign employees, who are in everyday professional contact with the participants of the courses. The participants fall into two groups: those whose language tuition is presently of particular importance to the PLANT, and those whose command of the language could be utilised by the PLANT in a several years’ time. The employees from the latter group tend to attend courses in the town rather than in the PLANT, and they also receive financial support. Simulated use of languages The PLANT adheres to the principle that at meetings attended by foreign employees the Czech employees may speak either English or German – the idea is that they use the language which they can speak better (‘so that they are not strained’). However, in connection with introducing English as the corporate language, some meetings attended by a majority of Czech employees who prefer German are held entirely in English in order to practise the language (‘let us try’). Marginally, the foreign employees may be encouraged to communicate in Czech in certain circumstances – during a limited period of time (e.g. two hours) the foreign and Czech employees are allowed to communicate only in Czech. Translating and interpreting Translating and interpreting are organised forms of management aimed at eliminating fundamental communicative problems. The very existence of translating and interpreting in the PLANT prove that the results of the above forms of organised management (language courses and simulated use of languages) are not adequately discernible in individual natural interactions. In everyday professional communication, interpreting is also used at the level of the top management (in particular for the Czech employees who are fluent in German but have insufficient command of English). In spite of this fact, the PLANT does not employ language specialists (interpreters, translators, language assistants). Interpreting is performed – in particular at the meetings – by the employees of the PLANT themselves, that is, by the Czech employees with a good command of English (or German). Sometimes interpreting, or rather translating, is performed by the assistants to the foreign employees. However, since
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this also involves handling specific technical matters linguistically, they cannot fully cope with the task. An external firm is employed to translate longer texts, particularly various regulations and directives concerning the production or organisation, as well as texts where the form and accuracy (of a contract) are vital (these constitute approximately 10% of all the foreign texts which have to be translated). Semiotic appearance of the PLANT: English or German? As we have seen above, organised management in the PLANT was incited by the fact that English was declared the corporate language of the Siemens VDO Automotive Corporation. This management act performed at the level of the corporation was reflected not only in the forms of organised management at the level of the PLANT, as presented above, but also in the overall appearance of the administrative and manufacturing sections of the factory. What we have in mind are various orientation plans and billboards (signs used to designate each room, orientation plans of the individual buildings, the site plan of the whole factory, the information board with the history of the PLANT and its organisational structure, the charts describing the individual segments of the assembly lines, warning signs etc.). The signs shaping the appearance of the administrative and manufacturing areas of the factory are obviously a matter of organised language management. A number of people were involved in introducing these signs: the Public Relations Manager, the Human Resources Manager, a foreign employee with a talent for art, the employees of the department responsible for the maintenance of the factory buildings, as well as the directors of the PLANT, who not only discussed and approved the proposed artefacts, but also initiated some of them. All the plans, signs and billboards are bilingual, with one of the languages always being Czech. If these signs are not trilingual (we saw only one of this type), obviously, the other foreign language is English or German. At present, both German-Czech/Czech-German and English-Czech/Czech-English forms may be encountered in the PLANT. However, it is striking that they date from different periods in the history of the PLANT. Older signs use German, newer ones English. (The language biography of the PLANT may be viewed as corresponding with the language biography of Mr C in Example 4.) The Czech employees consider the prevalence of English over German in the semiotic appearance of the interior of the plant not only as a manifestation of the advancing internationalisation of the corporation but also a symptom of the fact that the PLANT has become a real partner for the parent company. It is also striking that Czech occurs as the first language at the new signs more often than at the old ones (the size of the inscriptions is the same). The question may be asked why the German-Czech signs were not replaced by the Czech-English ones systematically. At a symbolic level, the three flags: Czech, German and the flag of the Corporation in front of the central administrative building of the PLANT may be quite significant in this respect. Moreover, leaving aside the economic aspect of replacing the signs, it is to be taken into account that the position of German in the PLANT remains strong indeed (the second priority): (1) a considerable number of the customers of the PLANT, who come from the neighbouring German-speaking countries, require commu-
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nication in German, irrespective of the fact that the declared corporate language is English; (2) the PLANT is frequently visited by the corporation’s employees from Regensburg and a significant amount of information passed between the PLANT and the headquarters is still formulated in German (the PLANT sends about 30% of texts to Regensburg in German, and receives about 10% of German texts from there, the rest being in English). In this situation, the linguistic diversity of the semiotic appearance of the interior of the PLANT may suit all people, social and ethnic groups involved in the operation of the PLANT or coming into contact with it. The linguistic diversity may strike the accidental visitor as haphazard, a result of ad hoc decisions. Nevertheless, a more profound analysis shows that elaborate management of the communicative as well as symbolic function of language is involved.
Conclusion Using a specific language planning situation in a multinational company, this paper has demonstrated the relation between micro and macro language planning. We employed Language Management Theory, which covers both these planning perspectives. Within the framework of the theory, micro language planning is identified with simple (discourse-based) management, and macro language planning with organised language management. We have shown that the two types of language management may be intertwined with one another dialectically: organised management influences simple management, and yet organised management results from simple management. Such language planning situations may be considered optimal. However, there certainly exist other situations, where organised and simple management do not influence one another by any means. These involve in particular the situations where the language planners underestimate or even deliberately ignore the language problems of the speakers in individual interactions. It proceeds from the theory of language management that such situations are to be criticised.5 Correspondence Any correspondence should be directed to Jiìí Nekvapil, Department of Linguistics, Charles University, nám. Jana Palacha 2, CZ–11638 Prague, Czech Republic (
[email protected]) or to Marek Nekula, University of Bohemicum, Universitätssr. 31, D-93053 Regensburg, Germany (marek-nekula@ sprachlit.uni-regensburg.de). Notes 1. In 2004 the Siemens group in the Czech Republic was constituted by 23 companies. 2. The research was carried out within the framework of the project ‘East-European languages as a factor in economic integration’ (2003–2005) and it dealt with the language planning situation in multinational companies founded in the Czech Republic by German, Austrian or Swiss owners. The project was supported by FOROST (Forschungsverbund Ost- und Südosteuropa) of the Bavarian Ministry of Science, Research and Art. The grant was awarded to Centrum Bohemicum der Universität Regensburg. Besides the company dealt with in the present article, the project analysed the information from questionnaires obtained in 283 multinational companies and the information from semi-structured interviews carried out in nine such companies (cf. Nekula et al., 2005a, 2005b; Nekvapil & Nekula, 2006).
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3. It was only subsequently that we found out that Siemens companies have become the focus of scientific interest close to ours (cf. Arndt & Slate, 1997; Conradi, 1995). 4. We follow the following transcription conventions: ? rising intonation . falling intonation , continuing intonation (.) a very short, still audible pause (..) a longer pause (...) a long pause a cut-off of the preceding word or syllable (but) items enclosed within single parentheses are in doubt () no words could be distinguished in the talk enclosed within single parentheses ((cough)) in double parentheses there is a comment by the transcriber out underlining indicates emphasis [] the onset and the ending of simultaneous talk of two speakers (overlap) ... the utterance continues but this part is omitted in the presented extract from the transcript. 5. Thanks are due to Tamah Sherman and Marián Sloboda for helpful comments at various stages in the development of this paper.
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