dissertation on language revitalization

Tools and Resources
Customer Services
Applied Linguistics
Biology of Language
Cognitive Science
Computational Linguistics
Historical Linguistics
History of Linguistics
Language Families/Areas/Contact
Linguistic Theories
Neurolinguistics
Phonetics/Phonology
Psycholinguistics
Sign Languages
Sociolinguistics
Share This Facebook LinkedIn Twitter

Article contents

Language revitalization.

Aidan Pine Aidan Pine University of British Columbia
and Mark Turin Mark Turin University of British Columbia
https://doi.org/10.1093/acrefore/9780199384655.013.8
Published online: 29 March 2017

The world is home to an extraordinary level of linguistic diversity, with roughly 7,000 languages currently spoken and signed. Yet this diversity is highly unstable and is being rapidly eroded through a series of complex and interrelated processes that result in or lead to language loss. The combination of monolingualism and networks of global trade languages that are increasingly technologized have led to over half of the world’s population speaking one of only 13 languages. Such linguistic homogenization leaves in its wake a linguistic landscape that is increasingly endangered.

A wide range of factors contribute to language loss and attrition. While some—such as natural disasters—are unique to particular language communities and specific geographical regions, many have similar origins and are common across endangered language communities around the globe. The harmful legacy of colonization and the enduring impact of disenfranchising policies relating to Indigenous and minority languages are at the heart of language attrition from New Zealand to Hawai’i, and from Canada to Nepal.

Language loss does not occur in isolation, nor is it inevitable or in any way “natural.” The process also has wide-ranging social and economic repercussions for the language communities in question. Language is so heavily intertwined with cultural knowledge and political identity that speech forms often serve as meaningful indicators of a community’s vitality and social well-being. More than ever before, there are vigorous and collaborative efforts underway to reverse the trend of language loss and to reclaim and revitalize endangered languages. Such approaches vary significantly, from making use of digital technologies in order to engage individual and younger learners to community-oriented language nests and immersion programs. Drawing on diverse techniques and communities, the question of measuring the success of language revitalization programs has driven research forward in the areas of statistical assessments of linguistic diversity, endangerment, and vulnerability. Current efforts are re-evaluating the established triad of documentation-conservation-revitalization in favor of more unified, holistic, and community-led approaches.

revitalization
colonization
globalization
British Columbia

1 Introduction

To make sense of the many varied paths that language revitalization is taking across the globe, it is necessary to first contextualize the root causes of language endangerment. The very use of the prefix ‘re’ in words such as revitalization, rejuvenation, revival, and resurgence points to the undoing of some past action or deed (Glass, 2004 ). Namely, if the world’s linguistic diversity had not been “devitalized” to begin with—through colonization, imperial adventure, war, and forced migration—there would be less need for historically marginalized languages with ever-dwindling numbers of speakers to be “revitalized” today. The work of language revitalization is inherently multidisciplinary and very often political, with long-range cultural and social goals that extend beyond the immediate task of generating more speakers. Through illustrative examples and case studies from British Columbia, Hawai’i, and Aotearoa (New Zealand), this contribution demonstrates that language revitalization programs are as much focused on decolonizing education and plotting a path toward self-determination as they are directed at reclaiming grammar and speech forms.

More nuanced techniques for evaluating progress and success in language revitalization efforts have emerged from a deeper understanding of the distinct goals of individual revitalization projects. Methods include quantitative scales backed by international non-governmental organizations, tracking and status reports on linguistic vitality and speaker numbers from governmental organizations as well as broader social scientific investigations into correlations between community health, well-being, and language vitality. The next steps will involve developing evaluative criteria that are grounded in local understandings of impact and success, rooted in the lived experiences and aspirations of Indigenous communities. Language revitalization, driven by the crisis of language endangerment, is a dynamic subfield experiencing rapid growth, with the roles and responsibilities of the various stakeholders in considerable flux. Through an inclusive understanding of the sociopolitical, historical, Indigenous, 1 and academic contexts that shape language revitalization projects, collaborative and productive relationships between language communities, governments, and academics are emerging, breathing renewed life into historically marginalized languages across the globe.

2 Marginalization and Devitalization of Language

2.1 sociopolitical context and colonial policy.

Statistics and enumeration aside, endangered languages and the communities that speak them are under extreme stress. Even conservative estimates paint a picture of near-catastrophic endangerment levels, with half of the world’s remaining speech forms ceasing to be used as everyday vernaculars by the end of the 21st century (Krauss, 1992 ). The pressures facing endangered languages are as severe as those recorded by conservation biologists for flora and fauna, and in many cases more acute (Sutherland, 2003 ). Yet linguistic endangerment is by no means a natural or inevitable process, the unfortunate by-product of modernization. Rather, the marginalization and erosion of local and Indigenous languages is the direct result of colonization and the racist policies that accompanied it. Across the world and through a variety of efforts that have included education initiatives, punitive legislation, and intentional neglect, colonial authorities have instituted language policies that sought to weaken traditional cultural ways, assimilate Indigenous populations, and gain access to their land and resources.

Conscious that “language is the perfect instrument of empire” (Morris, 2003 , p. 103), the architects of colonial advancement were highly effective in using language to underwrite the success of their imperial ventures. Although Indian residential schools in Canada, American Indian boarding schools in the United States, native schools for Māori in New Zealand, and Christian missionary schools in Hawai’i were governed and shaped by diverse motivations, they were united by a prejudiced belief that Indigenous languages were backward, primitive, and incompatible with modernity and Western values. Richard Henry Pratt ( 1840–1924 ), founder and long-time superintendent of the influential Carlisle Indian Industrial School in Pennsylvania, summed up this prevailing sentiment when he pugnaciously proposed that the government must “kill the Indian … to save the man.” In such schools, the goal was for English (or another colonizing language such as French, Spanish, or Portuguese) to overwrite local languages and for Western Christianity to supplant Indigenous belief systems and traditional ways, thus forcing the dislocation of Indigenous peoples from their land, territories, and systems of traditional knowledge and governance. Colonization did not always come from the outside or lead to permanent settlement; some nations were internally colonized and then subjugated by their own elites, who then advanced, as in the case of Nepal, a single state-sponsored language and religion in the name of unification and nation building (Turin, 2006 ).

Colonial authorities used the power of language and the language of power to further their own strategic ends. In some cases, and seemingly paradoxically, this involved supporting Indigenous languages; in most cases, however, they sought to erode them. In the first instance, believing in the inherent superiority of Christian theology, many missionary linguists focused on translating scripture into Indigenous languages. In Papua New Guinea and other regions of the Asia Pacific, scholars and administrators actively strengthened Indigenous languages through standardization programs that involved grammatical descriptions and the compilation of dictionaries and other pedagogical tools (Wurm, Muehlheausler, & Laycock, 1977 ). The goal—in many cases—was for local languages to be harnessed to transmit and disseminate an imagined Christian modernity. In other instances, as in Canada, settler-colonial authorities observed the unique relationship that existed between a language and the land on which it was spoken and focused their attention on breaking this apart by destroying the language and forcibly relocating communities far away from their traditional territories.

To this day, Indigenous communities around the world make use of traditional place names to ascribe current or historical meaning to places and spaces that are locally resonant and historically important. Such toponyms often encode lived experience and traditional ecological knowledge in an ancestral language in a way that is almost impossible to translate into a more dominant national or international language. By disconnecting the language traditionally used to refer to a specific site, and by introducing new place names in a colonial language (the terms “New Zealand” and “British Columbia” serve as enduring examples), the relationship that local peoples have with their land was rendered more opaque and attenuated. Having weakened this connection to land, the colonial goal of relocating communities in order to extract resources from their territories became more achievable.

In the 1800s, a range of legislative provisions were introduced throughout the colonized world that sought to justify colonial expansion through the advancement of colonial languages. Passed in 1835 , the English Education Act required that all government funding for education and literature in British India be dedicated to the development of the English language, diverting resources away from critical and widely used languages such as Sanskrit, Persian, and Arabic, which had been previously supported. The tabling of this Act reflects a wider imperial linguistic agenda that would have long-lasting implications across the world. Politician and historian Thomas Babington Macaulay ( 1800–1859 ) lent his name to the now infamous “Macaulay Minute” in which he asserted that it was “no exaggeration to say that all the historical information which has been collected from all the books written in the Sanskrit language is less valuable than what may be found in the most paltry abridgement used at preparatory schools in England” (Macaulay, 1835 ). By the middle of the 19th century , the educational goals of the British empire had solidified: an education administered in English was understood to be inherently superior to any training, understanding or knowledge that could be derived from another language, particularly languages spoken beyond the boundaries of Western Europe. The formalization of this formulation had an immediate and devastating impact on Indigenous languages across the colonized globe: the Canadian residential school system was established soon after, in the 1840s, while in New Zealand, the Native Schools Act mandated an English-only approach to education starting in 1867 (Simon & Smith, 2001 ). Beneath the thin veil of education and “civilization,” such schools were a means to eliminate Indigenous communities as obstacles to land acquisition, resource extraction, and nation building (Woolford, 2015 ).

Yet, for as long as efforts have existed to impose colonial languages on Indigenous peoples as a means of reshaping their identity, these same processes have been vigorously opposed by speakers of these languages. Anti-colonial opposition to externally imposed language policy takes many forms, from active resistance to passive non-compliance. Everyday forms of resistance have included the direct avoidance of colonial education programs by concealing children and evading census enumerators to more contemporary and structured efforts at language revitalization and reclamation. The emergence of the Caribbean linguistic mosaic can be seen as an anti-colonial response predicated on “the need to speak and not be understood by the downpressors (slave masters, elite of society)” (Barcant, 2013 , p. 51). Viewed in this light, the creation of a patois/patwah or creole/kweyol can be read as a linguistic manifestation of a moral objection to the imposition of a hegemonic identity advanced by an imperial state, a perspective further substantiated by the Métis of Canada, who “moulded the aboriginal and settler languages into coherent patterns which reflected their own cultural and historical circumstances” (Michif Languages Conference, 1985 ).

The long march toward decolonization continues. In 2015 , the Truth & Reconciliation Commission of Canada (TRC) released its report detailing the history of Indigenous peoples’ lived experiences through the nation’s residential school period that lasted from 1883 to the late 1990s. The TRC heard over 6,000 testimonies and affirmed that “[t]hese residential schools were created for the purpose of separating Aboriginal children from their families, in order to minimize and weaken family ties and cultural linkages” (Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada, 2015 ). Noting the many brutal and dehumanizing mechanisms that supported, funded, and sanctioned the institutionalized neglect of Aboriginal children, the TRC proposed a list of recommendations and calls to action that would set Canada on a path to reconciliation for the terrible wrongs committed during this period. Relevant to language revitalization are clear suggestions and proposals on how to shape a national language policy in a manner that would address the impact of over 100 years of language policy that prohibited and punished the use of Indigenous languages in residential schools. The TRC report offers five tangible recommendations that include the creation of an Aboriginal Languages Act, the introduction of an Aboriginal Languages Commissioner at the federal level of government, and an acknowledgment that Aboriginal rights include rights to speak and preserve Indigenous languages. Under the leadership of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, the government of Canada has pledged to implement each point in the TRC’s Calls to Action (Statement by Prime Minister, 2015 ). While Canada is internationally celebrated for its official language policy in which French and English—both languages introduced by colonial settlers—are placed on an equal footing, it is worth noting that not a single language Indigenous to Canada has “received” national recognition.

Overall, to make sense of contemporary efforts to revitalize Indigenous languages, it is essential to understand the political and historical context that has shaped their marginalization. Revitalization would not be needed had these languages not been asphyxiated to begin with. The growing recognition of the legacy of colonial oppression of Indigenous languages has also motivated a realignment of the discourse around language endangerment. The majority of languages spoken across the world have endured punitive policies that actively sought to eradicate them. Their continued use to this day—even if only by a handful of speakers in some cases—is indicative of the resilience of communities in the face of continued oppression. Commonly used terms that highlight the “endangered-ness” of a language—we may think of words such as “weak,” “loss,” and even the word “endangered” itself—overrepresent diminishment and underrepresent the resurgent strength of communities of speakers who have never stopped using their ancestral languages. Furthermore, the currency of terms such as “vanishing” and “disappearing” not only forecloses the possibility of revival and renewal but communicates an apparently agentless process in which language loss is both inevitable and naturally occurring. Such terminology both effaces the intentionality of colonial policies that legislated marginalization and undermines the efforts of those working to reclaim their languages. When speaking and writing of “endangered languages,” then, it is crucial to remain attentive to the words that are used and to seek balance in highlighting ongoing community revitalization efforts on the one hand, while historically contextualizing the increasingly vulnerable state of most Indigenous languages on the other.

2.2 Measuring Language Endangerment, Revitalization, and the Effects of Language Loss

As strategies for language revitalization deepen and widen, the techniques used to evaluate success and impact must become both more grounded in community goals and better informed by analytical rigor. The urgency of the work of language revitalization further requires that communities be expedient and efficient in their application and choices, a process that can be aided through robust and comparative data. Language communities are in the best position to identify the language revitalization-related questions that they need research to answer, and care must be taken to avoid positioning them as competitors with universities for funding resources and visibility.

A widely used and highly regarded method for gauging the status and prospects of a language is the UNESCO Language Vitality Assessment (Figure 1 ; Brenzinger et al., 2003 ). This tool advances a holistic approach for measuring linguistic vitality that draws on multiple elements, since “no single factor alone can be used to assess a language’s vitality or its need for documentation” (Brenzinger et al., 2003 , p. 7).

Figure 1. A visual representation based on the UNESCO Language Vitality Assessment (from Brenzinger et al., 2003 ).

In this assessment, nine factors are evaluated on a 5-point scale, with the exception of the second component, which records the absolute number of speakers. The UNESCO approach does not advocate an even weighting across all indicators and rather proposes that elements should be weighted according to local community norms. While this assessment tool provides an accurate snapshot of the overall health of a language, its adjustable framework makes it harder to compare vitality—and in turn language revitalization programs—cross-linguistically.

The 13-stage Expanded Graded Intergenerational Disruption Scale (EGIDS) (Lewis & Simons, 2010 ), used by the popular if historically problematic Ethnologue (Dobrin, 2009 ), offers a standardized approach for evaluating the vitality of a language that allows for simple comparisons with other languages spoken and signed around the world. The scale ranges from 0 (International) to 10 (Extinct) and is often portrayed as in Figure 2 , where the x -axis represents the EGIDS level, the y -axis represents native speaker population, and the plotted points represent individual languages. Through a search function on the Ethnologue website, individual languages can be highlighted on the graph.

Figure 2. An EGIDS graph with the yellow dot showing Gitksan (Tsimshianic) (from Lewis, Simons, & Fennig, 2016 ).

Too often, however, metrics such as the EGIDS are used to represent the absolute success (or failure) of a revitalization program, failing to capture the significance of the additional cultural goals that such an intervention might carry. While the primary aim of most language revitalization programs is to increase the number of fluent speakers, as well as the proportion of semi- or partial speakers within the greater population, these are not the only goals of community-led language reclamation programs. Bearing in mind the historical context described in section 2.1, and recalling the central relevance of language to many other aspects of community well-being, the transformative healing nature and holistic benefits of language revitalization have much wider impact and relevance than linguistic vitality alone (Whalen, Moss, & Baldwin, 2016 ). Underscoring the interrelatedness of language and community well-being, a recent Canadian study showed a compelling correlation between Indigenous language use and a decrease in Aboriginal youth suicide rates in British Columbia (Hallet, Chandler, & Lalonde, 2007 ). Such statistical research helps to highlight the multidimensional nature of language revitalization and its cross-sector impact on the lives and livelihoods of Indigenous communities.

Accordingly, the question of what constitutes “successful” language revitalization may need to be re-evaluated (Hinton, 2015 ). Conventionally, the absolute number of fluent speakers of a language remains the most discernible factor that is tracked and measured, but language revitalization projects that focus on creating a cultural context for more semi-speakers can have equally important and lasting impact. Community-led language revitalization projects that prioritize youth engagement with traditional cultural and environmental knowledge may be as much focussed on sustainable well-being as they are on grammar, words, and orthographies.

Honesty about what counts as success and how it can be measured is an important aspect of planning a language revitalization project and can also help to guide curricular decisions in the classroom. The structure of any language revitalization program must be driven by the goals of the language community in question. Only once these are discussed and articulated, through a process of community-directed planning and consultation, can appropriate evaluative metrics be developed. The Mentor-Apprentice program focuses on bringing dedicated individual learners to a high level of fluency through intensive exposure to their ancestral language in whatever way is most culturally salient and appropriate. This effective and intentionally small-scale, personalized, and grassroots approach embodies the belief that language revitalization happens one speaker at a time (Hinton, 2001b ). Since its inception in 1992 by the Native California Network (Hinton, 2001b , p. 219), the Master-Apprentice (and later Mentor-Apprentice) program has spread across the United States as well as internationally in Australia (Olawsky, 2013 ) and Finland (Olthuis, Kivelä, & Skutnabb-Kangas, 2013 ).

Inspired by the Mentor-Apprentice program and by accessible handbooks such as Bringing Our Languages Home: Language Revitalization for Families (Hinton, 2013 ), written for a community audience, speakers and learners have felt empowered to bring ancestral languages back into their lives. Organizations such as the First People’s Cultural Council (FPCC) in British Columbia provide funding and administrative support for Mentor-Apprentice partnerships, helping to alleviate some of the financial burden associated with the substantial commitment of time and resources that such partnerships require. Whether highly structured and systematic, or informal and community-directed, Mentor-Apprentice programs assume a definition of success that is predicated on an individual learner’s ability to become proficient and ultimately fluent in a language. It should be noted that resource intensive Mentor-Apprentice programs focussed on individual partnerships can be antithetical to the mandates of policy makers and governmental granting bodies, whose funding modalities are usually driven by a conviction that impact can be maximized by ensuring the widest possible access.

With language revitalization increasingly situated as an expression of self-determination and political empowerment, some language communities are developing a terminology for discussing endangerment and revitalization that is in itself empowering. One example is a movement to refer to languages without any current L1 (native or first-language) speakers as “sleeping” rather than “extinct” (Hinton, 2001a ). While the distinction might appear unnecessary or even naively aspirational to researchers not closely involved in such work, all terminology has both symbolic value and political impact. The biological extinction of a species has a mono-directional finality that linguistic “extinction” does not. As Indigenous linguist Wesley Leonard poignantly notes, “the paradox of speaking an extinct language is not imaginary” ( 2008 , p. 28). The designation “sleeping” rather than “extinct” points to the potential of a language to be reclaimed and revived after it has lost its remaining L1 speakers—an opportunity that is not available to the dodo or a dinosaur. While bringing a language back from sleeping to having a community of fluent speakers is a phenomenon that has been uncommon in human history, there are recent examples, such as the remarkable and compelling case of the Wampanoag (Algonquin) language, which was sleeping from the late 19th century until revitalization efforts resulted in fluent child speakers of the language in the 21st century (Makepeace, 2010 ).

When active language planning and restoration is effective, as in the case of the development of modern spoken Hebrew following the establishment of the state of Israel, it is often the result of a combination of historical motivation, political self-determination, cultural revival, and community mobilization. Even so, there are notable characteristics that appear unique to languages that undergo a successful transition from sleeping to awake. This is certainly the case with modern spoken Hebrew, which “is based simultaneously on ‘sleeping beauty’ / ‘walking dead’ Hebrew and ‘máme lóshn’ (mother tongue) Yiddish, which are both primary contributors to Israeli, and a plethora of other tongues spoken by Jewish pioneers in Palestine in the 1880s–1930s, e.g. Russian, Polish, Arabic, Ladino (Judeo-Spanish), Turkish, German, French and English” (Zuckermann & Walsh, 2011 , p. 114). Even in the event that a language is effectively revitalized, the resulting speech form will inevitably have been shaped by language contact and by the mother tongue of the revitalizers themselves. In some cases there is resistance to such adaptation within speech communities: elders may find it hard to accept a new and changed linguistic reality, perceiving the revived language to be a hybrid amalgam or simply incorrect. Linguistic authenticity remains a pervasive notion in which “the supposed ideal is intergenerational transmission of the language with all its original structural complexity retained, thus creating unrealistic expectations among the Aboriginal community” (Zuckermann & Walsh, 2011 , p. 113). While the achievement of establishing modern Hebrew is beyond doubt (Spolsky, 1995 ), it is by no means the only effective language revitalization effort. For peoples like the Myaamia (Algonquin), who have no first language speakers left, “the ultimate goal of this work is to eventually be able to raise our children with the beliefs and values that draw from our traditional foundation and to utilize our language as a means of preserving and expressing these elements” (Baldwin, 2003 , p. 28). Rather than some ideal, end-state fluency, it is the sustained effort of communities that shape and determine the goal and success of any language revitalization project. As all who are engaged in language revitalization can attest, the work is never complete: success starts when revitalization efforts begin and doesn’t end until efforts themselves cease (Hinton, 2015 ).

3 Language Revitalization: Goals and Examples

As a practice, language revitalization takes many shapes. Some of the earliest language activists were the children and students who, risking corporal or psychological punishment, continued to speak their languages in residential and boarding schools and at home with their families. Since the retraction of explicit bans on speaking Indigenous languages in public in many countries, some of which have only been lifted within the last few decades (Anchimbe, 2006 ; Bulcha, 1997 ), language revitalization has become noticeably less subversive. Many language revitalization programs now receive support from band councils, non-governmental organizations, philanthropic foundations, and even governmental bodies and programs.

Much of the language activism witnessed in the mid-to-late 20th century in Anglo settler-colonial contexts such as Canada, the United States, and Australia focused on the development of orthographies (writing systems) and lexicography (dictionary compilation) projects. While the latter continues, the former—at least in Canada and the United States—is now mostly complete, although substantial disagreements exist within speech communities who may be divided by competing writing systems (see Hinton, 2014 ). There are notable exceptions to the historical trajectory outlined above. The Māori have made good use of a practical orthography since the early 19th century ; the Canadian syllabary for Algonquian, Inuit, and Athabaskan languages was in active use from the mid- 18th century ; and the Cherokee syllabary developed by Sequoyah (ca. 1770–1843 ) has been used from the very early 19th century . Developing and standardizing practical writing systems continues to be a central focus for many recent language revitalization projects across South Asia, Africa, and Oceania, where a vast number of Indigenous languages are still spoken and the structures and patterns of colonial government were quite different from North America and Australia, leading to distinct post-colonial legacies.

In continental North America, following the development of orthographies, beginner dictionaries became the focus for many language revitalization initiatives, alongside the introduction of teaching curriculum for a number of languages including Gitksan (Tsimshianic), Kwak’wala (Wakashan), Inuktitut (Inuit), and Cree (Algonquin) (Barnett, Seymour, & Raine, 1975 ; Cree Productions, 1973 ; Jensen & Powell, 1979 ; Kativik School Board, 1979 ; Powell, Cook, Cranmer, & Jensen, 1981 ). In parallel, immersion schools and language nests were becoming the focus of Indigenous revitalization movements elsewhere, including the pūnana leo in Hawai’i (Watson-Gegeo, 1989 ) and kōhanga reo in Aotearoa (also known as New Zealand) (Hohepa, 1984 ), from which the English term “language nest” derives. Since the 1980s, the visibility and impact of the Hawaiian and Māori initiatives have inspired other language nest–style immersive language programs around the world.

Initiated as a response to concerns that Māori youth had inadequate exposure to their language through the growing dominance of English, the kōhanga reo program sought to provide an immersive environment for Māori children to gain early exposure to, and receive education in, Māori. Over 450 kōhanga reo programs have been established throughout Aotearoa serving children from birth to age six. There has been a significant drop in enrollment since a peak in the 1990s. In 1996 , 46.3% of Maori children were enrolled in kōhanga reo as compared to only 20.4% in 2009 (Statistics New Zealand “Maori : Growth in early childhood education,” 1996 ; New Zealand Childcare Survey, 2010 ). While this drop is of concern to many language activists in Aotearoa and beyond, it still represents an unparalleled level of access that Māori children have to immersive Māori language early childhood education as compared with the opportunities available for speakers of other endangered languages.

Building on the success of the pre-school kōhanga reo programs, primary ( kura kaupapa Māori) , secondary ( kura tuarua ), and post-secondary ( wananga ) Māori immersion school programs were developed, all of which support Māori community members in accessing a comprehensive education shaped by Indigenous Māori cultural and linguistic values (Hingangaroa Smith, 2003 ). Part of the success in implementing this integrated program for so many students across all ages, aside from the unflagging dedication and commitment of the Māori people themselves, can be attributed to the wider geographical and linguistic landscape of the region in which Māori is spoken. Māori is the principal Indigenous language of Aotearoa (a number of other languages are spoken outside of the main islands, such as Penrhyn [Tahitic]), and standardization occurred relatively early. The result is that curricula and legislative efforts have been concentrated in a way that is hard to imagine in linguistically diverse regions like California or British Columbia, let alone resource-strapped Nepal or Papua New Guinea. The reduced linguistic diversity that is more common in island-states appears to provide a strategic advantage for revitalization efforts in terms of resource allocation and perceived impact.

In some language communities where orthographies have either not been standardized or remain in dispute, revitalization strategies prioritize spoken competence and oral transmission over classroom instruction that focuses on writing and texts. The Accelerated Second Language Acquisition (ASLA) method, developed by Dr. Stephen Greymorning, encourages learners to rely on visual and pragmatic cues to learn language and is particularly popular among Indigenous communities in North America. Similarly, the Where Are Your Keys (WAYK) method has been used widely and combines various gestures and techniques to keep learners communicative without relying on using English or their mother tongue. The WAYK technique has been used by Indigenous language communities across Canada and the United States, including Unangam Tunuu (Aleut), and even for spoken Latin.

Influenced by the success of kōhanga reo in Aotearoa, the Secwepmec (Salish) community of Adams Lake founded the Chief Atahm Immersion School in 1991 . The school offers immersion programs for children (birth to age five), part-time language classes for grades four to nine, and community language classes for adults. The Chief Atahm Immersion School makes use of a technique known as Total Physical Response (TPR), which relies heavily on somatosensory stimulation to promote language learning. Chief Atahm Immersion School is the first Indigenous language immersion school in British Columbia, but not the first in Canada, with the Mohawk (Iroquoian) language immersion program in Kahnawake, Quebec, dating to 1979 . The Mohawk program took its cue from French language immersion programs which were gaining momentum in the 1970s as a part of Quebec’s assertion of a Francophone identity. While impressive and certainly effective, immersion programs are not one-way tickets to native levels of fluency. Immersion programs operate best when there are sufficient extracurricular environments in which students can interact in and use the language during play and everyday communication. The dominance of English in the wider environment that surrounds many immersion programs often affects a learner’s ability and desire to speak the language outside of the immersion setting and can even influence a learner’s acquisition of the immersion language. Preliminary research demonstrated that a learner at Chief Atahm School was overregularizing her use of independent pronouns in Secwepemctsin (a polysynthetic language) under the influence of her extracurricular exposure to English (Lai & Ignace, 1998 ).

Other grassroots language reclamation programs have few resources and no formal support. Every day, across the world, informal classes and gatherings at homes, community halls, churches, and schools bring together people who are interested in learning or relearning their languages. Sometimes these programs are taught by L1 speakers, while other times they are led by very committed student learners or semi-fluent speakers. Combining a mixture of curriculum developed by the Paul Creek Language Association and Darrell Kipp’s controversial advice about language revitalization, 2 language activist and educator Michelle K. Johnson, together with four dedicated students, created their own immersion class. For five months, located at a remote site along the Canada/U.S. border, they spent a strict eight hours per day immersed in the Nsylxcin language (Salish), including 20 hours a week of active curriculum learning (Johnson, 2012 ). According to levels set by the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages, after emerging from this intense and intensive form of immersion, each of the learners had progressed from being a complete non-speaker to attaining a low-intermediate conversational level. While the Nsylxcin immersion program was intentionally more vigorous than most grassroots community language revitalization initiatives can afford to be, it represents what can be achieved with little formal or institutional support.

Increasingly, universities and colleges are offering courses in Indigenous languages, often in collaboration with the Indigenous communities on whose territory the institution is located. Across North America, language activists and teachers are developing curricula that adhere to the second-language requirements of their respective school districts. By developing curricula within these guidelines, courses may be eligible for second-language accreditation toward high school students’ graduation language requirements. A case in point is the long-standing partnership between the Musqueam Indian Band and the First Nations and Endangered Languages Program (formerly the First Nations Languages Program) at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver. Initiated in 1997 as part of the university’s commitment to community-based collaboration with First Nations peoples, the primary purpose of the partnership has been to promote the development and use of hən̓q̓əmin̓əm̓, the Musqueam Central Coast Salish language, through collaborative research and teaching initiatives. In the nearly two decades since it began, this collaboration has produced several formal research papers, a series of elementary resource books, and a full complement of text and interactive online materials that support four levels of hən̓q̓əmin̓əm̓ language courses for post-secondary credit. These courses are open to both university and Musqueam students and serve as a powerful model for reconciliation. Another example is Six Nations Polytechnic, an Aboriginal-owned and -controlled post-secondary institution at Six Nations of the Grand River First Nation. The Polytechnic offers a three-year Bachelor of Arts in Ogwehoweh Languages in which Mohawk or Cayuga language and grammar are the core area of study, supplemented by courses in Indigenous history, culture and tradition, translation, ethno-astronomy, and ethno-botany. The strategic goal of the Bachelor of Arts in Ogwehoweh Languages is one of decolonization and self-determination: to further the continued development of Ogwehoweh cultural understanding within an Ogwehoweh language context.

In the United States, the first Indigenous language immersion school was founded in Hawai’i in 1983 by the non-profit ‘Aha Pūnana Leo. The program offers early childhood education in Hawaiian and is the result of a sustained collaboration between the University of Hawai’i and the wider community. The University of Hawai’i also offers graduate degree programs for students that are entirely in Hawaiian, and Hawaiian language theses are increasing in popularity in disciplines ranging from linguistics to history and literature. The impressive range of kindergarten to post-secondary graduate instruction makes the Hawaiian language revitalization effort one of the most comprehensive programs in the world and also ensures that the alumni of pūnana leo early childhood education programs have more advanced programs through which they can further scaffold their education in Hawaiian should they choose to do so. The lack of such laddering plagues many other language revitalization programs: while there are often many resources available for beginner-level language learning, there is a dearth of material to engage more advanced speakers and adults. Ulukau , the Hawaiian Electronic Library, offers a creative solution. The online database and archive serves as a repository for a wide variety of materials designed for Hawaiian speakers of all levels, from beginner to advanced language competency. Along with dictionaries, curricula, and a collection of fiction and non-fiction literature, the site also hosts a compendium of Hawaiian-language newspapers published between 1834 and 1948 . This remarkable online resource has many uses: it functions as a memory bank for over a century of Indigenous Hawaiian intellectual work and artistic creation, a way of supporting advanced speakers of Hawaiian who wish to further hone their reading skills, and a platform for engaging the now sizable Hawaiian diaspora who are looking for opportunities to connect with content in the Hawaiian language.

Initiatives like Ulukau fuse language revitalization with language documentation and cultural preservation. Documentation and revitalization have traditionally been thought of as quite separate and distinct endeavors, each with distinct goals that only occasionally intersect. Revitalization projects are usually defined as seeking to (re-)create fluency within a language community through the kinds of initiatives outlined above. Documentation, however, aims to describe a language in as much detail as possible for any number of different reasons, including future revitalization, curriculum development, cross-linguistic analysis, or simply for generating more complete scientific knowledge of humanity’s linguistic diversity. A key element that helps to blur the line and bridge the divide between documentation and revitalization is the notion of access. Making documentation available via the Internet ensures that living speakers are afforded a way of engaging with the material that contributes to the goals of language revitalization. This blending of revitalization and documentation through digital availability is evidenced in many endangered language dictionary projects which make lexicographic materials available online or through mobile devices.

Mobile device applications have experienced massive growth in popularity over the past decade in tandem with the increasing ubiquity of smartphones. Apps vary considerably in terms of their functionality, accessibility, and stability. There are many bare-bones mobile phone apps offering minimal functionality (simply the option to browse through various words, for example), while others serve primarily as prestige tools—platforms without significant practical language learning or reference functionality that have been developed to engage younger people in the community and combat damaging stereotypes of Indigenous languages being “antiquated” or incompatible with modern technology. There are also, however, many apps that make use of audio, video, and sophisticated search algorithms to deliver a powerful and portable learning environment for language reclamation (Littell, Pine, & Davis, 2017 ). While some apps are created as isolated projects by a specific language community, the Miromaa Aboriginal Language & Technology Centre (MALTC) in Australia and the First People’s Cultural Council (FPCC) in Canada are organizations committed to developing and maintaining apps for many different language communities around a common code base and shared technical infrastructure.

The FPCC, which also supports Mentor-Apprentice partnerships and produces regular reports on the status of First Nations languages in the province of British Columbia, released a keyboard app in May 2016 that supports unique language-specific characters to be typed on smartphones for over 100 languages, providing users with a way to text and search the web using their own orthography. Funded by the FPCC since 2000 , a project entitled FirstVoices has developed a suite of web-based tools and services to support Aboriginal people engaged in language archiving, language teaching, and culture revitalization. The FirstVoices Language Archive contains thousands of text entries in many diverse Aboriginal writing systems, enhanced with sounds, pictures, and videos. A companion set of interactive online games was designed to present the archived FirstVoices language data in creative learning activities, and dictionary language apps have been developed for 13 First Nations language communities across the province of British Columbia. New platforms for digital dissemination such as these can help to enhance the quality and scope of more traditional language documentation work. For example, rather than situating the responsibility for adding missing words, making corrections and checking dialectal variation with the technical (and often non-Indigenous) “creators” of a dictionary, the community’s involvement with and immediate use of digital resources for purposes of revitalization provides essential user feedback and community perspectives that improve both the accuracy and the utility of a lexicography project. Overall, new digital technologies are helping to foster increasingly collaborative forms of research that have the potential to be less hierarchical, more democratic, and better positioned to mobilize language resources within communities in multimodal ways that engage youth and elders alike.

While new technology has been leveraged to disseminate and democratize access to archives and collections, other efforts seek to achieve a similar impact in contexts where archival materials and historical collections are not so easily mobilized or transcoded. The U.S.-based National Breath of Life initiative facilitates informed community access to important documentary and archival resources. The project pairs community members with trained linguists who come together in Washington, D.C., to investigate and explore collections related to specific languages in some of the capital’s most extensive libraries, including the Smithsonian Institution and the Library of Congress. Alongside promoting physical access to these unique collections, the involvement of a linguist as a partner can expedite the deciphering of heritage collections and support capacity development within the Indigenous research community. Based on the success of the National Breath of Life, a number of regional workshops across North America have been organized to help endangered language communities locate and mobilize language resources held in local archives and libraries.

The role of linguists in language documentation and revitalization projects has become more complex, contested, and political over time. Increasingly, partnerships between linguists and communities are founded and maintained on notions of mutual benefit, ethical engagement, respect, reciprocity, and trust. Yet there are also examples of partnerships that are far more controversial. Disagreements over the goals of the partnership (whether academic or community focussed, for example), intellectual property rights, authorship, accreditation, and compensation have resulted in strained and occasionally broken relationships between outside scholars and language communities. This tension has led to the suggestion that “sometimes no fieldwork on an endangered language is better than some” (Grinevald, 2003 , p. 9), a statement that is antithetical to the established and conventional wisdom of standard documentary (what some scholars unapologetically refer to as “salvage”) linguistics.

Explicitly addressing the skillset that a particular linguist brings to a community and what communities stand to gain from such a relationship are central to avoiding future conflict. Importantly, “good intentions are not sufficient to give good and useful results, and we must be self-reflective and self-critical about the sort of practices we engage in that unwittingly exacerbate rather than alleviate the problem” (Wilkins, 2000 , p. 63). In some cases, communities have felt that their knowledge and voices have been used to advance the career of an outsider and caution others against inviting a linguist into their community. It has been poignantly noted that that there is a good chance an “outside linguist will learn your language, but your children won’t.” If language revitalization is to be a positive experience for all involved in the work—scholars from the outside and Indigenous scholars and knowledge keepers within language communities—deliberate and sometimes difficult discussions must be had which address the specific sociohistorical context that has resulted in the marginalization and endangerment of the language, the desired outcomes and tools for measuring success in revitalization, and the expectations that each party has of the other’s involvement. Candor in such matters, as well as transparency in budgeting, remuneration, and ownership of resulting data, can help to establish a more equitable and ethical baseline for collaborative work in language revitalization.

While the alarms bells have sounded and the threat of languages ceasing to be spoken remains a reality for increasing numbers of communities, the indomitable human spirit in the face of adversity should not be underestimated. Language communities across the globe have proven throughout history that the odds can be beaten and that the effects of colonization are surmountable. Indigenous communities must be supported and resourced to design and implement their own research agendas, funding needs, and success criteria for language revitalization and reclamation work. Through engaging in collaborative linguistic and cultural revitalization work, building partnerships, communities of practice and resources at academic, governmental, and grassroots levels, the tide can be turned and more languages will join the ranks of Hawaiian, Māori, Myaamia, and Wampanoag.

Designing Archival Collections to Support Language Revitalization: Case Study of the Boro Language Resource

PDF Version Also Available for Download.

Description

Creation Information

Burke, Mary May 2023.

This dissertation is part of the collection entitled: UNT Theses and Dissertations and was provided by the UNT Libraries to the UNT Digital Library , a digital repository hosted by the UNT Libraries . It has been viewed 83 times, with 13 in the last month. More information about this dissertation can be viewed below.

People and organizations associated with either the creation of this dissertation or its content.

Burke, Mary
Chelliah, Shobhana Lakshmi
Zavalina, Oksana

Committee Member

Phillips, Mark
University of North Texas Place of Publication: Denton, Texas

Rights Holder

For guidance see Citations, Rights, Re-Use .

Provided By

Unt libraries.

The UNT Libraries serve the university and community by providing access to physical and online collections, fostering information literacy, supporting academic research, and much, much more.

Descriptive information to help identify this dissertation. Follow the links below to find similar items on the Digital Library.

Degree Information

Name: Doctor of Philosophy
Level: Doctoral
Department: Department of Information Science
College: College of Information
Discipline: Information Science
PublicationType: Doctoral Dissertation
Grantor: University of North Texas

Indigenous communities around the world are losing their languages at accelerating rates to the effects of the climate crisis and global capitalism. To preserve samples of these languages facing endangerment and extinction, samples of language use (e.g., audio-video recordings, photographs, textual transcriptions, translations, and analyses) are created and stored in language archives: repositories intended to provide long-term preservation of and access to language materials. In recent years, archives of all kinds are considering their origins and audiences. With the emergence of the community paradigm of archiving framework, the roles of archivists, communities, and institutions are under re-examination. Language archives too are reflecting this trend, as it becomes more common for speakers of Indigenous languages (also known as language communities) to document and archive their own languages and histories. As the landscape of language archiving expands, we now see increased emphasis on the re-use of archival material, particularly to support language revitalization—efforts to increase and maintain the use of the language. There are calls for language documentation (and, by extension, language archiving) to prioritize revitalization efforts. This dissertation is a case study of one language archive collection: the Boro Language Resource in the Computational Resource for South Asian Languages (CoRSAL) archive. The Boro Language Resource was created by Boro community members who are both experienced in linguistics and pedagogy and active in language revitalization efforts including research, educational, and cultural initiatives. This case study explores how the collection was designed, and how the material will be used in future language revitalization activities. Because this collection exemplifies the view of language documentation and archiving as revitalization-driven practices, the findings of this case study stand to inform future community archiving efforts aiming to support language revitalization.

Information Science
Language archives
Language revitalization
Language, Linguistics
Thesis or Dissertation

Unique identifying numbers for this dissertation in the Digital Library or other systems.

Accession or Local Control No : submission_3309
Digital Object Identifier : https://doi.org/10.12794/metadc2137570
Archival Resource Key : ark:/67531/metadc2137570

Collections

This dissertation is part of the following collection of related materials.

UNT Theses and Dissertations

Theses and dissertations represent a wealth of scholarly and artistic content created by masters and doctoral students in the degree-seeking process. Some ETDs in this collection are restricted to use by the UNT community .

What responsibilities do I have when using this dissertation?

Digital Files

163 image files available in multiple sizes
1 file (.pdf)
2 files (.wacz)
Metadata API: descriptive and downloadable metadata available in other formats

Dates and time periods associated with this dissertation.

Creation Date

Added to the unt digital library.

July 8, 2023, 10:29 p.m.

Description Last Updated

Dec. 8, 2023, 11:20 a.m.

Usage Statistics

When was this dissertation last used?

Interact With This Dissertation

Here are some suggestions for what to do next.

Search Inside

or search this site for other thesis or dissertations

Start Reading

All Formats

Citations, Rights, Re-Use

Citing this Dissertation
Responsibilities of Use
Licensing and Permissions
Linking and Embedding
Copies and Reproductions

International Image Interoperability Framework

We support the IIIF Presentation API

Print / Share

Links for robots.

Helpful links in machine-readable formats.

Archival Resource Key (ARK)

ERC Record: /ark:/67531/metadc2137570/?
Persistence Statement: /ark:/67531/metadc2137570/??

International Image Interoperability Framework (IIIF)

IIIF Manifest: /ark:/67531/metadc2137570/manifest/

Metadata Formats

UNTL Format: /ark:/67531/metadc2137570/metadata.untl.xml
DC RDF: /ark:/67531/metadc2137570/metadata.dc.rdf
DC XML: /ark:/67531/metadc2137570/metadata.dc.xml
OAI_DC : /oai/?verb=GetRecord&metadataPrefix=oai_dc&identifier=info:ark/67531/metadc2137570
METS : /ark:/67531/metadc2137570/metadata.mets.xml
OpenSearch Document: /ark:/67531/metadc2137570/opensearch.xml
Thumbnail: /ark:/67531/metadc2137570/thumbnail/
Small Image: /ark:/67531/metadc2137570/small/
In-text: /ark:/67531/metadc2137570/urls.txt
Usage Stats: /stats/stats.json?ark=ark:/67531/metadc2137570

Burke, Mary. Designing Archival Collections to Support Language Revitalization: Case Study of the Boro Language Resource , dissertation , May 2023; Denton, Texas . ( https://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc2137570/ : accessed July 23, 2024 ), University of North Texas Libraries, UNT Digital Library, https://digital.library.unt.edu ; .

Researching Language Loss and Revitalization

Reference work entry
First Online: 28 May 2017
Cite this reference work entry

Leena Huss 5

Part of the book series: Encyclopedia of Language and Education ((ELE))

4200 Accesses

2 Citations

Language loss refers to a societal or individual loss in the use or in the ability to use a language, implying that another language is replacing it. Revitalization, in turn, is commonly understood as giving new life and vigor to a language that has been decreasing in use and is today a rapidly growing field of study. Both fields are highly multidisciplinary, drawing from linguistics, sociology, education, psychology, anthropology, political science, and other disciplines.

Since the 1990s, the research interest in endangered languages and consciousness of the need to contribute to their survival have grown among researchers, and numerous studies have been undertaken to present what has been done to curb language decline and to explain why some languages survive and others do not. Researchers have also tried to pinpoint the most relevant factors and the ways in which they interact. Still, to establish language revitalization more firmly as an independent field of study, more research and theorization are needed.

Many revitalization efforts are connected with ethnic revival movements as revitalization of the language is often seen as a crucial part of the overall ethnic revival. As a reaction to former forced assimilation and oppression, revitalization movements are often seen as ways to healing, redress, and empowerment. Therefore, a growing part of revitalization research is today being done by, or in close collaboration with, researchers and other members coming from the language communities themselves.

The chapter deals with research approaches in the field of language loss and revitalization, as well as challenges faced by scholars in this area.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Subscribe and save.

Get 10 units per month
Download Article/Chapter or eBook
1 Unit = 1 Article or 1 Chapter
Cancel anytime
Available as PDF
Read on any device
Instant download
Own it forever
Available as EPUB and PDF
Durable hardcover edition
Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

Ryukyuan Language Reclamation: Individual Struggle and Social Change

Language Endangerment: Diversity and Specificities of Native American Languages of Oklahoma

Aikio, M. (1988). Saamelaiset kielenvaihdon kierteessä. Kielisosiologinen tutkimus viiden saamelaiskylän kielenvaihdosta 1910–1980 [The Saami in the process of language shift. A sociolinguistic study on language shift in five Sámi villages during 1910–1980] . Helsinki: Suomalaisen Kirjallisuuden Seura.

Google Scholar

Amery, R. (2000). Warrabarna Kaurna! Reclaiming an Australian language . Lisse: Swets and Zeitlinger.

Crawford, J. (2000). At war with diversity: U.S. language policy in an age of anxiety . Clevedon: Multilingual Matters.

Cruz, E., & Woodbury, A. C. (2014). Collaboration in the context of teaching, scholarship, and language revitalization: Experience from the Chatino. Language Documentation, 8 , 262–286.

Crystal, D. (2000). Language death . Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Book Google Scholar

Dorian, N. (1981). Language death: The life cycle of a Scottish Gaelic dialect . Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.

Dorian, N. (1993). Discussion note, a response to Ladefoged’s other view of endangered languages. Language, 69 (3), 575–579.

Article Google Scholar

Dorian, N. (1998). Western language ideologies and small‐language prospects. In L. A. Grenoble & L. Whaley (Eds.), Endangered languages, language loss and community response (pp. 3–21). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Chapter Google Scholar

Dorian, N. C. (2014). Small-language fates and prospects. Lesson of persistence and change from endangered languages [Collected Essays] . Boston: Brill.

Edwards, J. (1991). Multilingualism . Oxford: Routledge.

Edwards, J. (2002). Forlorn hope? In L. Wei, J.‐. M. Dewaele, & A. Housen (Eds.), Opportunities and challenges of bilingualism . Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.

Eisenlohr, P. (2004). Language revitalization and new technologies: Cultures of electronic mediation and the refiguring of communities. Annual Review of Anthropology, 33 , 21–45.

Fillmore, L. W. (1991). When learning a second language means losing the first. Early Childhood Research Quarterly, 6 , 323–346.

Fishman, J. (1966). Language loyalty in the United States; the maintenance and perpetuation of non‐English mother tongues by American ethnic and religious groups . The Hague: Mouton.

Fishman, J. (1991). Reversing language shift: Theoretical and empirical foundations of assistance to threatened languages . Clevedon: Multilingual Matters Ltd.

Fishman, J., & García, O. (Eds.). (2011). Handbook of language and ethnic identity. The success-failure continuum and ethnic identity efforts (Vol. 2). New York: Oxford University Press.

Gal, S. (1979). Language shift: Social determinants of linguistic change in bilingual Austria . New York: Academic.

Granadillo, T., & Orcutt-Gachiri, H. A. (2011). Introduction. In T. Granadillo & H. A. Orcutt-Gachiri (Eds.), Ethnographic contributions to the study of endangered languages (pp. 1–12). Arizona: University of Arizona Press.

Grenoble, L. A., & Whaley, L. J. (Eds.). (1998). Endangered languages: Current issues and future prospects . Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Haugen, E. (1953). The Norwegian language in America: A study in bilingual behavior I–II . Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.

Henderson, J. (2013). Language documentation and community interests. In M. C. Jones & S. Ogilvie (Eds.), Keeping languages alive. Documentation, pedagogy, and revitalization (pp. 56–68). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Hinton, L. (Ed.). (2013). Bringing our languages home. Revitalization for families . Berkeley: Heyday Books.

Hinton, L., & Hale, K. (Eds.). (2001). The green book of language revitalization in practice . San Diego: Academic.

Holton, G. (2011). The role of information technology in supporting minority and endangered languages. In P. K. Austin & J. Sallabank (Eds.), The Cambridge handbook of endangered languages . Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Hornberger, N. (Ed.). (2007). Can schools save indigenous languages? Policy and practice on four continents . Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan.

Huss, L., & Lindgren, A.-R. (2011). Introduction: Defining language emancipation. In L. Huss & S. Nolan (Eds.), The many faces of language emancipation [Special Issue]. International Journal of the Sociology of Language , 209 , 1–15.

Huss, L., Camilleri Grima, A., & King, K. (2003). Transcending monolingualism. Linguistic revitalization in education . Lisse: Swets and Zeitlinger.

Jaakkola, M. (1973). Språkgränsen: en studie i tvåspråkighetens sociologi [Language border: A study in the sociology of bilingualism] . Stockholm: Aldus/Bonnier.

King, K. (2001). Language revitalization processes and prospects: Quichua in the Ecuadorian Andes . Clevedon: Multilingual Matters Ltd.

King, K. A., & Hermes, M. (2014). Why is it so hard?: Ideologies of endangerment, passive language learning approaches, and Ojibwe in the United States. Journal of Language, Identity & Education, 13 (4), 269–282.

Krauss, M. (1992). The world’s languages in crisis. Language, 68 (1), 4–10.

Kulick, D. (1992). Language shift and cultural reproduction: Socialization, self, and syncretism in a Papua New Guinea Village . Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Lambert, W. E. (1974). Culture and language as factors in learning and education. In F. E. Aboud & R. D. Mead (Eds.), Cultural factors in learning and education . 5th Western Washington Symposium on Learning, Bellingham.

Makoni, S., & Pennycook, S. (Eds.). (2007). Disinventing and reconstituting languages . Clevedon: Multilingual Matters.

May, S. (2014). Contesting metronormativity; exploring indigenous language dynamism across the urban-rural divide. Journal of Language Identity & Education, 13 (4), 229–235.

McCarty, T. L. (2002). A place to be Navajo: Rough rock and the struggle for self‐determination in indigenous schooling . Mahwah: Erlbaum.

Norberg, M. (1996). Sprachwechselprozess in der Niederlausitz. Soziolinguistische Fallstudie der deutsch ‐ sorbischen Gemeinde Drachhausen/Hochoza [Language shift process in Niederlausitz: A sociolinguistic case study on the German ‐ Sorbian community Drachhausen/Hochoza] (Doctoral dissertation). Retrieved from ProQuest. (C503412).

Olthuis, M.-L., Kivelä, S., & Skutnabb-Kangas, T. (2013). Revitalising indigenous languages: How to recreate a lost generation . Bristol: Multilingual Matters.

Reyhner, J. (1999). Introduction: Some basics of indigenous language revitalization. In J. Reyhner, G. Cantoni, R. N. St. Clair, & E. P. Yazzie (Eds.), Revitalizing indigenous languages . Flagstaff: Northern Arizona University.

Roche, G., Ban+de mkhar, Bkra shis bzang po, G.yu lha, Snying dkar skyid, Tshe ring rnam gyal, Zla ba sgrol ma, Charles Kevin Stuart (2010). Participatory culture documentation on the Tibetan Plateau. In I. Gunn & M. Turin (Eds.), Language documentation and description: Vol. 8. Special issue on oral literature and language endangerment (pp. 140–158). London: SOAS.

Sicoli, M. (2011). Agency and ideology in language shift and language maintenance. In T. Granadillo & H. A. O. Gachiri (Eds.), Ethnographic contributions to the study of endangered languages , (pp. 161–176). Tucson: University of Arizona Press.

Skutnabb‐Kangas, T. (2000). Linguistic genocide in education or worldwide diversity and human rights? Mahwah: Erlbaum.

Stiles, D. B. (1997). Four successful indigenous language programs. In J. Reyhner (Ed.), Teaching indigenous languages (pp. 148–262). Flagstaff: Northern Arizona University.

Stordahl, V. (1996). Same i den moderne verden. Endring og kontinuitet i et samisk lokalsamfun [To be Sámi in the modern world: Change and continuity in a Sámi community] (Unpublished doctoral dissertation). University of Tromsø, Norway.

Todal, J. (2002). “-jos fal gáhttet gollegielat”: vitalisering av samisk språk i Noreg på 1990-talet [“‐if only you safeguard your golden language”: Vitalization of the Sámi language in Norway in the 1990s . Tromsø: University of Tromsø.

Weinreich, U. (1953). Languages in contact . The Hague: Mouton.

Download references

Author information

Authors and affiliations.

The Hugo Valentin Centre, Uppsala University, SE-751 20, Uppsala, Sweden

You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Leena Huss .

Editor information

Editors and affiliations.

University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA

Kendall A. King

Faculty of Education and Social Work, The University of Auckland, Auckland, New Zealand

Stephen May

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

About this entry

Cite this entry.

Huss, L. (2017). Researching Language Loss and Revitalization. In: King, K., Lai, YJ., May, S. (eds) Research Methods in Language and Education. Encyclopedia of Language and Education. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-02249-9_7

Download citation

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-02249-9_7

Published : 28 May 2017

Publisher Name : Springer, Cham

Print ISBN : 978-3-319-02248-2

Online ISBN : 978-3-319-02249-9

eBook Packages : Education Reference Module Humanities and Social Sciences Reference Module Education

Share this entry

Anyone you share the following link with will be able to read this content:

Sorry, a shareable link is not currently available for this article.

Provided by the Springer Nature SharedIt content-sharing initiative

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Find a journal
Track your research

< Previous

Home > THESES > 10140

When Linguistics and Heritage Intersect: Language Preservation and Revitalization in Cultural Institutions

Katharine MacLaren Follow

This work explores the ways in which cultural institutions, namely museums, libraries, and archives, can help save dying languages. It first introduces language preservation and revitalization as a field and then evaluates current efforts, including those outside the museum sphere. The question guiding this research is: Given the missions of cultural institutions, their collections, and their relationships with surrounding communities, how can these institutions successfully contribute to the preservation and revitalization of endangered languages in the long-term, and how might success be evaluated? The preservation of Scottish Gaelic will be considered as a specific case study by looking at several approaches, such as language policy, school and education, cultural institutions, and technology. While these efforts are making great strides, there will be anticipated gaps that museums can fill, for which suggestions will be discussed. To lose languages is also to lose the unique cultural insights of diverse communities, but with museums extending their reach beyond artifact preservation to language preservation, connection to those communities will strengthen.

Publication Date

Document type, student type.

Undergraduate

Degree Name

Museum Studies (BS)

Rebecca DeRoo

Advisor/Committee Member

Cecilia Ovesdotter Alm

Recommended Citation

MacLaren, Katharine, "When Linguistics and Heritage Intersect: Language Preservation and Revitalization in Cultural Institutions" (2019). Thesis. Rochester Institute of Technology. Accessed from https://repository.rit.edu/theses/10140

RIT – Main Campus

Since August 16, 2019

Advanced Search

Notify me via email or RSS
Colleges and Departments
Student Scholarship
Faculty & Staff Scholarship
RIT Open Access Journals
RIT Open Access Books
RIT Conferences

Author Corner

RIT Open Access Publishing
RIT Libraries

Home | About | FAQ | My Account | Accessibility Statement

Privacy Copyright

You are using an outdated browser. This website is best viewed in IE 9 and above. You may continue using the site in this browser. However, the site may not display properly and some features may not be supported. For a better experience using this site, we recommend upgrading your version of Internet Explorer or using another browser to view this website.

- Download the latest Internet Explorer - No thanks (close this window)

Penn GSE Environmental Justice Statement
Philadelphia Impact
Global Initiatives
Diversity & Inclusion
Catalyst @ Penn GSE
Penn GSE Leadership
Program Finder
Academic Divisions & Programs
Professional Development & Continuing Education
Teacher Programs & Certifications
Undergraduates
Dual and Joint Degrees
Faculty Directory
Research Centers, Projects & Initiatives
Lectures & Colloquia
Books & Publications
Academic Journals
Application Requirements & Deadlines
Tuition & Financial Aid
Campus Visits & Events
International Students
Options for Undergraduates
Non-Degree Studies
Contact Admissions / Request Information
Life at Penn GSE
Penn GSE Career Paths
Living in Philadelphia
DE&I Resources for Students
Student Organizations
Career & Professional Development
News Archive
Events Calendar
The Educator's Playbook
Find an Expert
Race, Equity & Inclusion
Counseling & Psychology
Education Innovation & Entrepreneurship
Education Policy & Analysis
Higher Education
Language, Literacy & Culture
Teaching & Learning
Support Penn GSE
Contact Development & Alumni Relations
Find a Program
Request Info
Make a Gift
Current Students
Staff & Faculty

Search form

You are here, nancy h. hornberger.

Member, Anthropology Graduate Group , Penn School of Arts & Sciences

Media Inquiries: Contact Penn GSE Communications.

Ph.D. (Educational Policy Studies; minor in Linguistics) University of Wisconsin-Madison, 1985
M.A. (Education, specializing in Bilingual Education) New York University, 1973
B.A. cum laude (Hispanic-American History and Literature) Harvard University, 1972
Educational linguistics and sociolinguistics
Educational ethnography and anthropology
Bilingualism and biliteracy
Multilingualism and language education policy
Ethnography of language policy
Indigenous education and language revitalization
Educational Linguistics Ph.D.
Educational Linguistics Ed.D.
Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL) M.S.Ed.
Language, Globalization, and Intercultural Studies M.S.Ed.
Education, Culture, and Society Ph.D.
Education, Culture, and Society M.S.Ed.
International Educational Development M.S.Ed.

Dr. Hornberger’s publications on Scholarly Commons

Dr. Hornberger talks about her work on bilingualism, biliteracy, and Indigenous language revitalization at classroom, community, and policy levels.

Professional Biography

Dr. Hornberger is internationally known for her work in bilingualism and biliteracy, ethnography and language policy, and Indigenous language revitalization. She researches, lectures, teaches, and consults regularly on multilingual education policy and practice in the United States and the Andes (Peru, Bolivia, and Ecuador) and has also worked in Brazil, China, Mexico, Singapore, South Africa, Sweden and other parts of the world.

After graduating with a B.A. cum laude from Harvard and M.A. from New York University, Dr. Hornberger lived and worked in Quechua-speaking areas of the Andes for over a decade, where she later also carried out her doctoral dissertation research on bilingual education and Indigenous language revitalization. Dr. Hornberger received her Ph.D. in educational policy studies from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1985 and joined the faculty at Penn's Graduate School of Education the same year, later also joining Penn’s Anthropology Graduate Group. She served as acting and interim dean of Penn GSE from 1993–1995, held the Goldie Anna chair from 1993–1998, and directed/chaired Educational Linguistics for more than 20 years, also convening the annual Nessa Wolfson Colloquium . From 2000–2015, she served as convener of Penn GSE's annual international Ethnography in Education Research Forum , now entering its fifth decade.

Dr. Hornberger is a former editor of the international Anthropology and Education Quarterly and of the ten-volume Encyclopedia of Language and Education (2nd edition, Springer, 2008). Since 1995, she has served as co-editor of the international book series on Bilingual Education and Bilingualism (Multilingual Matters), which has surpassed 100 published books. She serves on the editorial boards of numerous other book series and scholarly journals.

A three-time recipient of the Fulbright Senior Specialist Award — to Paraguay (2001), New Zealand (2002), and South Africa (2008) — Dr. Hornberger has also been recognized with the Distinguished Scholarship and Service Award from the American Association for Applied Linguistics (2008), the University of Pennsylvania Provost’s Award for Distinguished Ph.D. Teaching and Mentoring (2008), Fellow of the American Educational Research Association (2010), and the George and Louise Spindler Award for Distinguished, Exemplary, and Inspirational Contributions to Educational Anthropology (2014). Professor Hornberger received an honorary doctorate from the Faculty of Arts at Umeå University in Sweden (2018) and the Charles A. Ferguson Award for Outstanding Scholarship (2019). She has recently been elected member of the National Academy of Education (2021) .

Research Interests and Current Projects

Dr. Hornberger investigates language and education in culturally and linguistically diverse settings, combining methods and perspectives from educational anthropology, linguistic anthropology, and sociolinguistics. She gives special attention to educational policy and practice for Indigenous and immigrant language groups, compared across national contexts. Currently, Dr. Hornberger is working on Multilingual Language Policy and Classroom Practice: Comparative Perspectives on Indigenous Language Revitalization , a series of case studies based on ethnographic research in Bolivia and short-term ethnographic monitoring consultancies and classroom observations in Brazil, Mexico, New Zealand , Norway, Paraguay, Peru, Singapore, South Africa , Sweden , China , and elsewhere.

Additional long-term research projects include Literacy in Two Languages , an ethnographic school/community study in the Puerto Rican and Cambodian communities of Philadelphia, carried out with participation of Penn GSE students across several decades, and Quechua Language and Literacy in the Urban Andean Highlands , an ethnography of communication in urban contexts of the Andes.

Honoring Richard Ruiz and his Work on Language Planning and Bilingual Education Cover

Selected Publications

Hornberger, N. H. (2022). Educational linguistics. In M. Aronoff (Ed.), Oxford bibliographies in linguistics . Oxford University Press.

Hornberger, N. H. (2022). Espacios ideológicos/de implementación en la planificación y política lingüística de la era-Covid: Perspectivas desde comunidades Indígenas del Sur Global. Runa: Archivos para las Ciencias , 43 (1), 15–36.

Hornberger, N. H. (2022). Imagining multilingualism with Ofelia: Translanguaging and the continua of biliteracy. In B. Otçu-Grillman & M. Gorjian (Eds.), Re-making multilingualism: A translanguaging approach (pp. 19–31). Multilingual Matters.

Hornberger, N. H. (2022). Researching and teaching (with) the continua of biliteracy. Educational Linguistics 1 (1).

Hornberger, N. H. (2022). “Si nosotros no usamos la lengua, ¿quién lo va a hacer?”: La trayectoria de una educadora intercultural bilingüe en la revitalización de la lengua indígena. Bellaterra Journal of Teaching & Learning Language & Literature/Revista electrònica de recerca en Didàctica de la Llengua i la Literatura , 15 (1).

Hornberger, N. H. (2021). Foreword: Teaching and researching in linguistically and culturally diverse classrooms. In P. Juvonen & M. Källkvist (Eds.), Pedagogical translanguaging: Theoretical, methodological and empirical perspectives (pp. xi–xxi). Multilingual Matters.

Hornberger, N. H. (2021). Ideological and implementational spaces in Covid-era language policy and planning: Perspectives from Indigenous communities in the Global South. Journal of Multilingual Theories and Practices , 2 (1), 71–97.

Zahra, F., & Hornberger, N. H. (2021). Closing the education gap: Time to step up for refugee children. Child & Family Blog .

Hornberger, N. H. (2019). Things I’ve learned about Indigenous education and language revitalization . ReVista : Harvard Review of Latin America.

Hornberger, N. H. , & Kvietok Dueñas, F. (2019). Mapeando la enseñanza de biliteracidad en contextos indígenas: Desde la timidez hacia la voz . Revista de Investigación Educativa Peruana , 11, 99-125.

Hornberger, N. H. , & Kvietok Dueñas, F. (2019). Mapping biliteracy teaching in Indigenous contexts: From student shyness to student voice . Anthropology and Education Quarterly, 50 (1).

Hornberger, N. H. , & Limerick, N. (2019). Teachers, textbooks, and orthographic choices in Quechua: Bilingual intercultural education in Peru and Ecuador. In C. Cocq & K. P. H. Sullivan (Eds.), Perspectives on Indigenous Writing and Literacies . Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill Publishers.

Hornberger, N. H. (2018). Afterword: Policies, identities, trajectories and practices of multilingual Brazil. In M. C. Cavalcanti & T. M. Maher (Eds.), Multilingual Brazil: Language Resources, Identities and Ideologies in a Globalized World (pp. 241-248). New York: Routledge.

Hornberger, N. H. , Anzures Tapia, A., Hanks, D. H., Kvietok Dueñas, F., & Lee, S. S. (2018). Ethnography of language planning and policy . Language Teaching, 51 (2), 152-186.

Hornberger, N. H. (Ed.), (2017). Honoring Richard Ruiz and his work on language planning and bilingual education . Bristol, UK: Multilingual Matters.

Hornberger, N. H. (2017). Joshua A. Fishman: a scholar of unfathomable influence . International Journal of the Sociology of Language, 243 , 17-28.

De Korne, H. & Hornberger, N. H . (2017). Countering unequal multilingualism through ethnographic monitoring. In M. Martin-Jones & D. Martin (Eds.), Researching Multilingualism: Critical and Ethnographic Approaches (pp. 247-258). New York/London: Routledge.

Gallo, S. & Hornberger, N. H. (2017). Immigration policy as family language policy: Mexican immigrant children and families in search of biliteracy . International Journal of Bilingualism , 1-14.

Hornberger, N. H. (2016). Researching the continua of biliteracy. In K. King, Y. Lai, & S. A. May (Eds.), Research Methods in Language and Education , Vol. 10, Encyclopedia of Language and Education , 3rd ed. (pp. 1-18). Springer International Publishing.

Hornberger, N. H. (2016). Language and voice . Bilingual Research Journal, 39 (3-4), 355-356.

Hult, F. & Hornberger, N. H. (2016). Revisiting orientations in language planning: problem, right, and resource as an analytical heuristic . Bilingual Review/Revista Bilingüe, 33 (3), 30-49.

Hornberger, N. H., & Outakoski, H. (2015). Sámi time, space, and place: Exploring teachers' metapragmatic statements on Sámi language use, teaching, and revitalization in Sápmi . Confero: Essays on Education, Philosophy and Politics, 3 (1), 1–46.

Hornberger, N. H. (2014). “Until I became a professional, I was not, consciously, Indigenous”: One intercultural bilingual educator’s trajectory in Indigenous language revitalization . Journal of Language, Identity, and Education, 13 (4), 283–299.

Hornberger, N. H. (2014). On not taking language inequality for granted: Hymesian traces in ethnographic monitoring of South Africa’s multilingual language policy . Multilingua, 33 (5/6), 625–647.

Hornberger, N. H. (2013). Negotiating methodological rich points in the ethnography of language policy . International Journal of the Sociology of Language, 219 , 101–122.

Hornberger, N. H. (Ed.) (2012). Educational linguistics: Critical concepts in linguistics (Vols. 1–6). London, England and New York, NY: Routledge.

Hornberger, N. H. (2011). Dell H. Hymes: His scholarship and legacy in anthropology and education . Anthropology and Education Quarterly, 42 (4), 310–318.

Hornberger, N. H. (2009). Multilingual education policy and practice: Ten certainties (grounded in Indigenous experience) . Language Teaching , 42 (2), 197–211.

Hornberger, N. H. (2009). Hymes's linguistics and ethnography in education . Text & Talk: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Language, Discourse & Communication Studies , 29 (3), 347–358.

Hornberger, N. H. (2009). La educación multilingüe, política y práctica: Diez certezas . Revista Guatemalteca de Educación, 1 (1), 1–44.

Hornberger, N. H. , & Vaish, V. (2009). Multilingual language policy and school linguistic practice: Globalization and English-language teaching in India, Singapore, and South Africa . Compare: A Journal of Comparative and International Education , 39 (3), 305–320.

Hornberger, N. H. (Ed.). (2008). Can schools save Indigenous languages? Policy and practice on four continents . Hampshire, UK: Palgrave Macmillan.

King, K. A., & Hornberger, N. H. (2006). Quechua as a lingua franca . Annual Review of Applied Linguistics , 26 , 177–194.

Hornberger, N. H. (2006). Voice and biliteracy in indigenous language revitalization: Contentious educational practices in Quechua, Guarani, and Maori contexts . Journal of Language, Identity, and Education , 5 (4), 277–292.

Hornberger, N. H. (2005). Opening and filling up implementational and ideological spaces in heritage language education . Modern Language Journal , 89 , 605–612.

Hornberger, N. H. (1996). Indigenous literacies in the Americas: Language planning from the bottom up . In N. H. Hornberger (Ed.), Contributions to the sociology of language . Berlin, Germany: Mouton de Gruyter.

McKay, S. L., & Hornberger, N. H. (1996). Sociolinguistics and language teaching . Cambridge, MA: Cambridge University Press.

For additional publications by Nancy Hornberger, visit the Scholarly Commons .

Indigenous Education and Language Revitalization
Language Diversity and Education
Research Seminar: Language Planning and Policy in Education
Dissertation Seminar: Ethnographic Research Methods in Language and Education. Emphasis is on methods of data collection, data analysis, and writing, within the paradigm of ethnographic research in language and education. Students present their own work to the seminar for discussion, critique, and advice.

Penn GSE News

Penn GSE’s Howard Stevenson and Nancy Hornberger will be inducted at the National Academy of Education (NAEd) at November’s NAEd Annual Meeting.

Awards & Honors

Nancy Hornberger has been recognized with the 2019 Charles A. Ferguson Award for Outstanding Scholarship from the Center for Applied Linguistics on the occasion of its 60th anniversary. The award honors visionaries in applied linguistics for outstanding scholarship, superior leadership skills, and the ability to foster collaborations among a wide range of people to enrich the world around them.

Nancy Hornberger has been awarded an honorary doctorate by Umeå University in Sweden. Since 2012, Dr. Hornberger has served as Visiting Professor to Umeå University's Department of Language Studies, consulting and collaborating on the development of Sámi language teaching, teacher education, and research in support of Sámi Indigenous language revitalization.

Journal Editorial Boards

Identifying and Serving the Unique Needs of the Immigrant and Refugee Populations in the US and throughout the World , Virtual Panel with Shirley Brice Heath, Martha Bigelow, Nancy Hornberger, Fatima Zahra and Roberta Miceli, Panel Host , Center for Applied Linguistics, Washington DC, September 17, 2020.
Things I've Learned About Indigenous Education and Language Revitalization. Global Engagement Seminar, Graduate School of Education, University of Pennsylvania, September 2019.
Multilingüismo, una propuesta para no olvidar otras lenguas : Interview, published by Agencia de Noticias Univalle, Universidad del Valle, Cali, Colombia, October 2018
Monolingualism and the continua of biliteracy: Whence and wherefore? : Lecture given at the Institute of Multilingualism, University of Fribourg, Switzerland, November 2018.
Meet IEDP Faculty Edition - Dr. Nancy Hornberger. Interview posted by International Educational Development Program, Graduate School of Education, University of Pennsylvania, May 26, 2017.
Researching and Teaching (with) the Continua of Biliteracy : Lecture given in Language and Literacy Education Division, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, July 2017.
Thoughts on Indigenous Language Revitalization . International Educational Development Program Lecture Series, Graduate School of Education, University of Pennsylvania, March 16, 2016.
The Spirit of Social Justice : Interview, as Visiting Professor, Department of Language Studies, University of Umeå, Sweden, 2014.
Where we are: Struggles and Challenges. Conference on the Future of Anthropology in Schools of Education, Teachers College, Columbia University, 2013 (minutes 5-21).
Revista Argia . Interview in Bilbao, Spain, 2013 (published in euskera ).
Radio Euskadi - La Mecánica del Caracol . Interview in Bilbao, Spain, 06/09/2013 (in Spanish, minutes 13:00 to 39:20).

International Advisory Boards

Cambridge Research in Community Language Education Network , International Advisor
Alliance for the Advancement of Heritage Languages, Center for Applied Linguistics , Advisor, 2008-2011
National Heritage Language Resource Center, UCLA , National Advisory Board member
Language Policy Research Network (LPReN) of the International Association of Applied Linguistics (AILA) , International Advisory Committee member
Babylon Center for the Study of Superdiversity, University of Tilburg, the Netherlands , TRAnsformations of the Public Sphere affiliated member

Library Home
General (Summon)
Books & Media (Catalogue)
Indexes, Databases & Articles
Research Guides
UBC Research
UBC Open Collections
UBC Vancouver
Asian Library
Biomedical Branch Library
Chapman Learning Commons Help Desk
The Chung | Lind Gallery
David Lam Management Research Library
Education Library
Irving K. Barber Learning Centre
Koerner Library
Law Library
Music, Art and Architecture Library
Rare Books and Special Collections
Research Commons
University Archives
Woodward Library
X wi7 x wa Library
UBC Okanagan
The Commons (Okanagan)
Okanagan Library
Special Collections & Archives
UBC Virtual
AskAway Chat Services
Borrowing Services
My Library Account
How to Get Library Access
See More...
Electronic Access
Connect to Library Resources
OpenAthens Login Overview
Computers & Technology
Print, Copy, Scan
Public Computers & Software
Group & Silent Study Spaces
Technology Spaces
Guides for Library Users
Undergraduate Students
Faculty & Instructors
Planning Your Research
Getting Started on Your Research
Finding Resources
Journal Articles
Evaluating & Citing Sources
Evaluating Information Sources
How to Cite
Publishing Research
Getting Started with cIRcle
Building Your Academic Profile
Collections
Policies, Procedures and Guidelines
Work with Us
Accessing Library Resources?
OpenAthens Login
Add Browser Extension for Access
Managing Your Account?
My Library Account Login
Need Citation Management?
Citation Management Tools

JavaScript is disabled: Site features and functionality may be limited.

Library Home /
Search Collections /
Open Collections /
Browse Collections /
UBC Theses and Dissertations /
Ḵ̓a̱ngex̱tola sewn-on-top : Kwak'wala revitalization...

Open Collections

Ubc theses and dissertations, ḵ̓a̱ngex̱tola sewn-on-top : kwak'wala revitalization and being indigenous rosborough, patricia christine --> -->.

Kwak’wala, the language of the Kwakwa̱ka̱’wakw, like the languages of all Indigenous peoples of British Columbia, is considered endangered. Documentation and research on Kwak’wala began more than a century ago, and efforts to revitalize Kwak’wala have been under way for more than three decades. For Indigenous peoples in colonizing societies, language revitalization is a complex endeavour. Within the fields of language revitalization and Indigenous studies, the practices and policies of colonization have been identified as key factors in Indigenous language decline. This study deepens the understanding of the supports for and barriers to Kwak’wala revitalization. Emphasizing Indigenization as a key aspect of decolonization, the study explored the relationship between Kwak’wala learning and being Indigenous. The study was conducted through a Ḵ̓a̱ngex̱tola framework, an Indigenous methodology based on the metaphor of creating a button blanket, the ceremonial regalia of the Kwaka̱ka̱’wakw. The research has built understanding through the author’s experience as a Kwak’wala learner and the use of various approaches to language learning, including two years with the Master-Apprentice approach. The research employs the researcher’s journals and personal stories, as well as interviews with six individuals who are engaged in Kwak’wala revitalization. The study’s conclusion is that the complexity of the task of Kwak’wala revitalization requires a multifaceted approach by applying Indigenous principles to teaching and learning and must take into account the impacts of colonization. Further, it is important to sustain the spirit of the language by maintaining the literal and symbolic meanings and constructs of Kwak’wala that are important in the transmission and maintenance of Kwakwa̱ka̱’wakw culture. In addition, encouragement, safe environments and relationships for language work through explicit agreements and commitment, and clear language-acquisitions goals are identified as important supports for Kwak’wala learning and speaking. This research has led to an understanding of what supports the learning and speaking of Kwak’wala, which will assist others in their own language learning and the development of Indigenizing language revitalization programs.

Item Metadata

Title
Creator
Publisher
Date Issued
Description
Genre
Type
Language
Date Available
Provider
Rights
DOI
URI
Degree
Program
Affiliation	;
Degree Grantor
Graduation Date
Campus
Scholarly Level
Rights URI
Aggregated Source Repository

ubc_2012_fall_rosborough_patricia.pdf -- 7.51MB

Item Citations and Data

Permanent URL: https://dx.doi.org/10.14288/1.0073018

Download Metadata

Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported

Scholars' Bank

Linguistics theses and dissertations.

By Issue Date

Search within this collection:

Recent Submissions

Automatic Analysis of Epistemic Stance-Taking in Academic English Writing: A Systemic Functional Approach Eguchi, Masaki ( University of Oregon , 2024-01-10 ) Existing linguistic textual measures that investigate features of academic writing often focus on lexis, syntax, and cohesion, despite writing skills being considered more complex and multifaceted (e.g., Sparks et al., ...
Empirical Foundations of Socio-Indexical Structure: Inquiries in Corpus Sociophonetics and Perceptual Learning Gunter, Kaylynn ( University of Oregon , 2024-01-09 ) Speech is highly variable and systematic, governed by the internal linguistic system and socio-indexical factors. The systematic relationship of socio-indexical factors and variable phonetic forms, referred to here as ...
Information Management in Isaan Storytelling Raksachat, Milntra ( University of Oregon , 2024-01-09 ) This study is an investigation of information packaging or information structure properties associated with selected productive morphosyntactic constructions in Isaan narrative texts. The description and analysis of ...
Case and Gender Loss in Germanic, Romance, and Balkan Sprachbund Languages Alhazmi, Mofareh ( University of Oregon , 2023-03-24 ) My dissertation investigates the loss of morphological case and grammatical gender in the Germanic, Romance, and Balkan Sprachbund languages. Crucial language-internal and language-external motivations are considered. To ...
Influences on Expert Intelligibility Judgments of School-age Children's Speech Potratz, Jill ( University of Oregon , 2023-03-24 ) Speech-language pathologists (SLPs) make impressionistic intelligibility judgments as part of an evaluation of children for speech sound disorders. Despite the lack of formalization, it is an important measure of choice ...
Factors that affect generalization of adaptation Lee, Dae-yong ( University of Oregon , 2023-03-24 ) As there is a growing population of non-native speakers worldwide, facilitating communication involving native and non-native speakers has become increasingly important. While one way to help communication involving native ...
The Chepang language: Phonology, Nominal and Verbal morphology - synchrony and diachrony of the varieties of the Lothar and Manahari Rivers Pons, Marie-Caroline ( University of Oregon , 2022-10-26 ) N/A
L2 Motivation in Language Revitalization Practice Taylor-Adams, Allison ( University of Oregon , 2022-10-26 ) This dissertation investigates the initial and ongoing motivations of language revitalization practitioners. This study extends our understandings of language revitalization from the programmatic and sociological levels ...
Indigenous Methodologies in Linguistics: A Case Study of Nuu-wee-ya' Language Revitalization Hall, Jaeci ( University of Oregon , 2021-11-23 ) Doing linguistic research for the purpose of language revitalization, academic inclusion, and social justice fundamentally changes the perspective, questions, and goals of the work. Framing this research in a traditional ...
Factors affecting the incidental formation of novel suprasegmental categories Wright, Jonathan ( University of Oregon , 2021-11-23 ) Humans constantly use their senses to categorize stimuli in their environment. They develop categories for stimuli when they are young and constantly add to existing categories and learn novel categories throughout their ...
Production and Perception of Native and Non-native Speech Enhancements Kato, Misaki ( University of Oregon , 2020-12-08 ) One important factor that contributes to successful speech communication is an individual’s ability to speak more clearly when their listeners do not understand their speech. Though native talkers are able to implement ...
Contingency, Contiguity, and Capacity: On the Meaning of the Instrumental Case Marking in Copular Predicative Constructions in Russian Tretiak, Valeriia ( University of Oregon , 2020-12-08 ) This study investigates the use of the Instrumental case marking in copular predicative constructions in Russian. The study endeavors to explain why the case marking whose prototypical meaning cross-linguistically is that ...
Towards Modelling Pausing Patterns in Adult Narrative Speech Kallay, Jeffrey ( University of Oregon , 2020-12-08 ) The study that is the focus of this dissertation had 2 primary goals: 1) quantify systematic physiological, linguistic and cognitive effects on pausing in narrative speech; 2) formalize a preliminary model of pausing ...
Teaching Papa to Cha-Cha: How Change Magnitude, Temporal Contiguity, and Task Affect Alternation Learning Smolek, Amy ( University of Oregon , 2020-02-27 ) In this dissertation, we investigate how speakers produce wordforms they may not have heard before. Paradigm Uniformity (PU) is the cross-linguistic bias against stem changes, particularly large changes. We propose the ...
Verbal Morphology of Amdo Tibetan Tribur, Zoe ( University of Oregon , 2020-02-27 ) This dissertation describes the functional and structural properties of the Amdo Tibetan verb system. Amdo Tibetan (Tibetic, Trans-Himalayan) is a verb-final language, characterized by an elaborate system of post-verbal ...
Investigating differential case marking in Sümi, a language of Nagaland, using language documentation and experimental methods Teo, Amos ( University of Oregon , 2020-02-27 ) One goal in linguistics is to model how speakers use natural language to convey different kinds of information. In theories of grammar, two kinds of information: “who is doing what (and to whom)”, the technical term for ...
Nominalization and Predication in Ut-Ma'in Paterson, Rebecca ( University of Oregon , 2020-02-27 ) U̠t-Ma'in is a Kainji, East Benue-Congo language, spoken in northwestern Nigeria (ISO 639-3 code [gel]). This study contributes to our understanding of Benue-Congo languages by offering the first indepth look at nominalization ...
Prosodic Prominence Perception, Regional Background, Ethnicity and Experience: Naive Perception of African American English and European American English McLarty, Jason ( University of Oregon , 2020-02-27 ) Although much work has investigated various aspects of African American English (AAE), prosodic features of AAE have remained relatively underexamined (e.g. McLarty 2018; Thomas 2015). Studies have, however, identified ...
A Historical Reconstruction of the Koman Language Family Otero, Manuel ( University of Oregon , 2020-02-27 ) This dissertation is a historical-comparative reconstruction of the Koman family, a small group of languages spoken in what now constitutes the borderlands of Ethiopia, Sudan and South Sudan. Koman is comprised five living ...
Accessibility, Language Production, and Language Change Harmon, Zara ( University of Oregon , 2019-09-18 ) This dissertation explores the effects of frequency on the learning and use of linguistic constructions. The work examines the influence of frequency on form choice in production and meaning inference in comprehension and ...

View more submissions

Search Scholars' Bank

All of scholars' bank, this collection.

Ahland, Michael (2)
Konnerth, Linda (2)
Ahland, Colleen (1)
Alhazmi, Mofareh (1)
Barth, Danielle (1)
Beavert, Virginia (1)
Boro, Krishna (1)
Butler, Brian (1)
Chen, Ying (1)
Choe, Wook Kyung (1)
... View More
Linguistics (11)
Tibeto-Burman languages (6)
Grammar (4)
Historical linguistics (4)
Prosody (4)
Speech production (4)
Cognitive linguistics (3)
Morphosyntax (3)
Nilo-Saharan (3)
Phonetics (3)

Date Issued

2020 - 2024 (19)
2010 - 2019 (37)
2000 - 2009 (7)
1991 - 1999 (2)

Has File(s)

Most Popular Items
Statistics by Country
Most Popular Authors

Liberty University
Jerry Falwell Library
Special Collections
< Previous

Home > ETD > Doctoral > 5813

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

A phenomenological study of church revitalization in coastal north carolina.

Paolo Engle Santos , Liberty University Follow

Rawlings School of Divinity

Doctor of Education in Christian Leadership (EdD)

Melody Smith

church growth, church revitalization, Christian leadership

Disciplines

Christianity | Leadership Studies

Recommended Citation

Santos, Paolo Engle, "A Phenomenological Study of Church Revitalization in Coastal North Carolina" (2024). Doctoral Dissertations and Projects . 5813. https://digitalcommons.liberty.edu/doctoral/5813

Pastors and ministry leaders share the important responsibilities of church growth and revitalization. This research focused on overcoming decline and moving towards a season of strength and multiplication. The purpose of this phenomenological study was to explore church growth and revitalization within Southern Baptist churches in coastal North Carolina. The theory guiding this study was Rainer's (2020) central thesis about revived churches, which suggests that churches must adapt to cultural shifts and actively engage with the changing world. The study sought to gain insights into the perspectives and mindsets of full-time pastors and ministry leaders regarding numerical expansion, spiritual awakening, leadership, digital technologies, the Holy Spirit, and their lived experiences regarding church health. This study aimed to enhance the understanding of experiences within the wider community by complementing the existing research conducted on the general population. This research emphasized the significance of maintaining a healthy church by supplementing the current investigations with research on a more local context. A qualitative research design utilizing phenomenological methods was used to achieve this. The research involved interviews with a selected sample of pastors and ministry leaders. Qualitative data analysis was conducted on the collected data to obtain insights into the lived experiences of pastors and ministry leaders regarding how they sustain a healthy and revitalized church.

Since July 15, 2024

Included in

Christianity Commons , Leadership Studies Commons

Collections
Faculty Expert Gallery
Theses and Dissertations
Conferences and Events
Open Educational Resources (OER)
Explore Disciplines

Advanced Search

Notify me via email or RSS .

Faculty Authors

Submit Research
Expert Gallery Login

Student Authors

Undergraduate Submissions
Graduate Submissions
Honors Submissions

Home | About | FAQ | My Account | Accessibility Statement

Privacy Copyright

IMAGES

(PDF) The Linguistics of Language Revitalization: Problems of
(PDF) What is language revitalization about? Some insights from
(PDF) The Lightening Veil: Language Revitalization in Wales
Language revitalization
Language research and revitalization through a community
(PDF) Collaborative Approach Towards Language Preservation and

VIDEO

Strategies for language revitalization
Reinders, H. Research agenda: Language learning beyond the classroom
Revitalization Meaning
LearnMichif: Greetings
Second Language (L2) Incidental Vocabulary Aquisition Through Reading
How to get into language documentation and revitalization

COMMENTS

Full article: What does language revitalisation in the twenty-first
Language Revitalization as a Growing Field of Study and Practice." In The Routledge Handbook of Language Revitalization, edited by L. Hinton, L. Huss, and G. Roche, xxi-xxx. New York: Routledge. Google Scholar. ... Unpublished doctoral thesis, University of Wales, Bangor. Google Scholar. Wroblewski, M. Forthcoming in February 2021.
PDF Language Revitalization Practices in Indigenous Communities of the u.s
language revitalization there are three prominent motivations for continuing the work of language revitalization. Of the three arguments the first revolves around academic necessity. Preserving or revitalizing linguistic diversity provides the data needed for linguists to do their research (Hinton & Hale 2001, 5). Continuous loss of the ...
PDF L2 MOTIVATION IN LANGUAGE REVITALIZATION PRACTICE
Title: L2 Motivation in Language Revitalization Practice . This dissertation investigates the initial and ongoing motivations of language revitalization practitioners. This study extends our understandings of language revitalization from the programmatic and sociological levels to the level of the individual practitioner. It also
Full article: Understanding how language revitalisation works: a
Master's thesis, University of Alaska. In ProQuest Dissertations and Theses. Google Scholar. Bell, J. 2013. "Language Attitudes and Language Revival/Survival." ... In The Routledge Handbook of Language Revitalization, edited by L. Hinton, L. Huss, and G. Roche, xxi-xxx. New York: Routledge. Google Scholar. Hornsby, M. 2019. "Positions ...
Influences on Native Language Revitalization in the U.S.: Ideology and
to believe that Native language loss cannot be stopped, is a hopeless effort against a natural phenomenon, and that revitalization efforts have been ineffective throughout recent years. 1.2 History of Revitalization Indigenous language revitalization has been a concern for linguists and members of Native communities for many generations.
PDF Designing Archival Collections to Support Language Revitalization: Case
archival material, particularly to support language revitalization—efforts to increase and maintain the use of the language. There are calls for language documentation (and, by extension, language archiving) to prioritize revitalization efforts. This dissertation is a case study of one
Language Revitalization
The role of linguists in language documentation and revitalization projects has become more complex, contested, and political over time. Increasingly, partnerships between linguists and communities are founded and maintained on notions of mutual benefit, ethical engagement, respect, reciprocity, and trust.
Linguistics: Community-based Language Revitalization
Abstract. This chapter explores ethical aspects of research in a field within linguistics that has developed in just the last several decades: "Language Maintenance and Revitalization.". According to Austin and Sallabank (Cambridge handbook of endangered languages. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2011), currently, about 7000 ...
PDF Revitalizing Indigenous Languages in Toronto: The Responsibilities and
iii Acknowledgements I would like to begin by acknowledging and thanking those who took the time to speak with me. It was your work and your passion for the languages that inspired me to do this research
Designing Archival Collections to Support Language Revitalization: Case
There are calls for language documentation (and, by extension, language archiving) to prioritize revitalization efforts. This dissertation is a case study of one language archive collection: the Boro Language Resource in the Computational Resource for South Asian Languages (CoRSAL) archive.
PDF Matukar-Panau: A case study in language revitalization*
Harrison and the Matukar language community for making this project possible. I am solely responsible for all linguistic and stylistic errors. Matukar-Panau: A case study in language revitalization* Theresa Sepulveda Senior Linguistics Thesis Swarthmore College 2010
PDF A Dissertation Submitted to the Faculty of the DEPARTMENT OF LINGUISTICS
is dissertation provides the stra. gies that will lay the foundation forQuinault language revit. analyze previous documentation, selecting Revitalization methods best suited for a community. ensuring Revitalization documentation meets the community's goals, and.
Researching Language Loss and Revitalization
Abstract. Language loss refers to a societal or individual loss in the use or in the ability to use a language, implying that another language is replacing it. Revitalization, in turn, is commonly understood as giving new life and vigor to a language that has been decreasing in use and is today a rapidly growing field of study.
"When Linguistics and Heritage Intersect: Language Preservation and Rev
This work explores the ways in which cultural institutions, namely museums, libraries, and archives, can help save dying languages. It first introduces language preservation and revitalization as a field and then evaluates current efforts, including those outside the museum sphere. The question guiding this research is: Given the missions of cultural institutions, their collections, and their ...
L2 Motivation in Language Revitalization Practice
Abstract: This dissertation investigates the initial and ongoing motivations of language revitalization practitioners. This study extends our understandings of language revitalization from the programmatic and sociological levels to the level of the individual practitioner. It also extends theory in L2 motivation into a largely unstudied ...
PDF HAA DACHX̱ÁNXʼI SÁANI KAGÉIYI YÍS: FOR OUR ...
LANGUAGE REVITALIZATION AMONG THE TLINGIT by X̲ʼunei Lance Twitchell B.A., University of Minnesota, 2007 M.F.A., University of Alaska Fairbanks, 2010 A Dissertation Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Ph.D. in Hawaiian and Indigenous Language and Culture Revitalization. Kōmike Pepa Puka: Dr. William Wilson, Luna Kōmike
Language warriors: leaders in the Ojibwe language revitalization movement
This dissertation sought to find out about the Ojibwe language revitalization movement and its leaders. Twenty-one language warriors were asked to participate in this dissertation study and were interviewed twice more for an hour each. I gave them tobacco according to Ojibwe tradition, explained the purpose of my study and asked them to help me.
Nancy H. Hornberger
Dr. Hornberger is internationally known for her work in bilingualism and biliteracy, ethnography and language policy, and Indigenous language revitalization. She researches, lectures, teaches, and consults regularly on multilingual education policy and practice in the United States and the Andes (Peru, Bolivia, and Ecuador) and has also worked in Brazil, China, Mexico,
Kumeyaay Language Loss and Revitalization
Abstract of the Dissertation Kumeyaay Language Loss and Revitalization by Stanley Rodriguez Doctor of Education in Educational Leadership University of California San Diego, 2020 California State University, San Marcos, 2020 Professor Patricia Stall, Chair Indigenous populations around the world face the culturally devastating prospect of
PDF 08-16-16a Final Repurposing the Comparative Method for Pawnee Language
language revitalization. Traditionally, the comparative method is used in linguistics to establish genetic relationships and reconstruct proto-forms. In this thesis, the author uses the comparative method to establish sound correspondences between two Pawnee dialects, Skiri and South Band, and Arikara, a closely related language.
Ḵ̓a̱ngex̱tola sewn-on-top : Kwak'wala revitalization and being
UBC Theses and Dissertations. Featured Collection. UBC Theses and Dissertations. Ḵ̓a̱ngex̱tola sewn-on-top : Kwak'wala revitalization and being indigenous Rosborough, Patricia Christine ... Within the fields of language revitalization and Indigenous studies, the practices and policies of colonization have been identified as key factors in ...
Linguistics Theses and Dissertations
My dissertation investigates the loss of morphological case and grammatical gender in the Germanic, Romance, and Balkan Sprachbund languages. ... Doing linguistic research for the purpose of language revitalization, academic inclusion, and social justice fundamentally changes the perspective, questions, and goals of the work. Framing this ...
"A Phenomenological Study of Church Revitalization in Coastal North Car
The purpose of this phenomenological study was to explore church growth and revitalization within Southern Baptist churches in coastal North Carolina. The theory guiding this study was Rainer's (2020) central thesis about revived churches, which suggests that churches must adapt to cultural shifts and actively engage with the changing world.

Article contents

1 Introduction

2 Marginalization and Devitalization of Language

2.2 Measuring Language Endangerment, Revitalization, and the Effects of Language Loss

3 Language Revitalization: Goals and Examples

Further Reading

Related Articles

Designing Archival Collections to Support Language Revitalization: Case Study of the Boro Language Resource

Description

Creation Information

Committee Member

Rights Holder

Provided By

Degree Information

Collections

UNT Theses and Dissertations

Digital Files

Creation Date

Description Last Updated

Usage Statistics

Interact With This Dissertation

Search Inside

Start Reading

Citations, Rights, Re-Use

International Image Interoperability Framework

Print / Share

Archival Resource Key (ARK)

International Image Interoperability Framework (IIIF)

Metadata Formats

Researching Language Loss and Revitalization

Access this chapter

Similar content being viewed by others

Ryukyuan Language Reclamation: Individual Struggle and Social Change

Language Endangerment: Diversity and Specificities of Native American Languages of Oklahoma

Author information

Corresponding author

Editor information

Rights and permissions

Copyright information

About this entry

Download citation

Share this entry

When Linguistics and Heritage Intersect: Language Preservation and Revitalization in Cultural Institutions

Publication Date

Degree Name

Advisor/Committee Member

Recommended Citation

Author Corner

Search form

Professional Biography

Research Interests and Current Projects

Selected Publications

Penn GSE News

Awards & Honors

Journal Editorial Boards

International Advisory Boards

Open Collections

Item Metadata

Item Citations and Data

Download Metadata

Scholars' Bank

Recent Submissions

Search Scholars' Bank

Date Issued

Has File(s)

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

Disciplines

Recommended Citation

Included in

Faculty Authors

Student Authors

IMAGES

VIDEO

COMMENTS