Language Revival Movements: Second-Language Learning and Ethnic Identity

1. Handbook of Language & Ethnic Identity, ch. 13 Second-Language Learning Bernard Spolsky

2. Second-language learning and ethnicity • How have those asserting ethnicity (revival movements) become involved in language teaching? • How have revival movements influenced second-language learning?

3. Role of Language in Revival • Central role • Social, political, economic, cultural pressures may have drawn group members away from traditional language • Ethnic movement needs to make up for language loss • Some similarities to 19th c movements to revive & standardize national vernaculars

4. Role of Linguistics in Language Revival • Theoretical linguistics has often done little to stem language death, sometimes actually contributed to it • Ethnically inspired language teaching and sociolinguistic research may have a greater positive impact

5. 3 cases of SL learning and teaching in ethnic revival • Zionist program at end of 19th c to revitalize Hebrew • 20th c Irish program in Ireland • Recent revival of Maori in New Zealand

6. Problems for Revival of Hebrew • Hebrew not spoken for 1500 years • Young children had to be taught to speak a written literary language • Teachers had to work without precedent, and didn’t initially speak Hebrew themselves

7. So how did they revive Hebrew? • Started school one year earlier • Used Hebrew as language of instruction in classroom (immersion) • Ideological commitment on part of teachers and parents • Begun in 1890, twenty years later “miracle” was accomplished • Hebrew well established by 1920

8. Irish in Ireland • Most people spoke only English • Many different teaching approaches • Irish taught as a subject only to most students, with compulsory examinations • Irish failed to transfer to everyday use • Lack of public support and association of Irish with poverty

9. Maori in New Zealand • Early 19th c missionaries supported the language and literacy • Late 19th c pressure to use English • Early 20th c shift to English • Late 20th c Maori becomes endangered • 1980s Maori created successful preschool “language nests”, and later bilingual and immersion programs in schools

10. Conclusions from 3 cases • Best results achieved when programs start very early and are bilingual or immersion programs and have popular support

11. Language revival movements face two tasks: • Vernacularization & revitalization: restore lost normal intergenerational transmission, reestablish language as home language/mother tongue • Modernization & standardization: transform a spoken vernacular into a standard language that can be used for higher functions

12. How to teach the language? • Traditional focus on writing, grammar, vocabulary increases knowledge, but not use (Irish) • Direct method & immersion approaches are more successful • Support from wider community is essential; support from schools is a plus too

13. Additive or replacive? • Additive language teaching increases students’ overall repertoire • Replacive teaching has the goal of supplanting (and suppressing) the “lesser” language • Much second-language teaching for minorities has been replacive

14. The canon & goals • Ethnic revival movements have expanded the canon of languages taught in schools • Emphasis also shifted from written to spoken proficiency; this had effect on teaching methods, has also inspired inclusion of cultural awareness in curriculum • Drop in foreign languages in US blamed on conservatism of traditional literature-related programs and lack of outreach to ethnic communities