Language Recovery Paradigms
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Language Recovery Paradigms Oxford Handbooks Online Language Recovery Paradigms Alan R. King The Oxford Handbook of Endangered Languages Edited by Kenneth L. Rehg and Lyle Campbell Print Publication Date: Aug 2018 Subject: Linguistics, Sociolinguistics, Documentary Linguistics Online Publication Date: Aug 2018 DOI: 10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190610029.013.25 Abstract and Keywords This chapter argues that successful language recovery evolves over time through a series of stages characterized by distinct paradigms (sets of assumptions), each of which in turn challenges deep-rooted assumptions of the preceding stage. The exposition draws on the narratives of Basque and Nawat language recovery to illustrate this, focusing on paradigm transitions which question typical priorities of orthodox approaches, such as the language’s oral character, its purity, native speakers, descriptivism, teaching children, and bonds with the rural world and a traditional lifestyle. A successful recovery process should transcend these constraints. It should recognize the importance of writing, neologisms, new speakers, prescriptive proposals, adult learners, urban settings and ideological neutrality. This alternative paradigm justifies current developments in the Nawat movement powered by the internet, social media, incorporation of new adult speakers, and a new generation of young, university-educated language enthusiasts. Keywords: Basque, Nawat, language recovery, language revitalization, language recovery sequence, written language, social media, language purity, new speakers, adult language learning In memory of Txomin Aizagirre and Paula López 1. Introduction This chapter will review two experiences of revitalization of endangered languages which exemplify some common principles that I will claim are shared by successful processes of language recovery (LR).1 I will maintain the view that, for an LR process to achieve success, it must periodically question some of its assumptions and undergo conceptual transitions to reach the next “level” (i.e., stage). Identifiable major stages are (p. 532) Page 1 of 27 PRINTED FROM OXFORD HANDBOOKS ONLINE (www.oxfordhandbooks.com). © Oxford University Press, 2018. All Rights Reserved. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an individual user may print out a PDF of a single chapter of a title in Oxford Handbooks Online for personal use (for details see Privacy Policy and Legal Notice). Subscriber: OUP-Reference Gratis Access; date: 13 August 2018 Language Recovery Paradigms arranged on a five-stage, directional Language Recovery Sequence (LRS)2 ranging from complete absence of any LR awareness to the completion of recovery. Evidence will be presented for transitions in both case studies between two stages called I and II. This transition in Basque LR commenced after the middle of the twentieth century; in Nawat LR, a comparable transition is now taking place. The paradigms3 associated with each successive stage consist of distinctive clusters of doctrines (beliefs and value judgments), strategies (actions considered necessary), or focuses (emphasis on certain dimensions of the issue). At any given time, however, a LR process may be in a state of flux, where the main tension is normally between paradigms pertaining to two adjacent stages on the LRS. The following stages, each associated with a characteristic paradigm, are assumed: 0 (Pre-LR), I (Ineffective LR), II (Effective LR), III (Mainstream LR), IV (Post-LR).4 Therefore the transitions expected are 0/I, I/II, and so on. A short description of each stage now follows. At Stage 0 (Pre-LR) there is no effective social awareness of the need for language recovery. This is followed by an incipient stage of LR proper, Stage I, when a society (p. 533) becomes aware that its language is at risk, recognizes its importance, and becomes concerned about the survival of the language in the future. Stage I (Ineffective LR) begins with a social debate in which some members of the community will adopt a Stage 0 (pre- or anti-LR) position opposed to LR activity, perhaps denying that the language is at risk or arguing the language has no value and is not worth saving, while others adopt a Stage I (pro-LR) position. At this phase, LR success requires a “win” for arguments favoring steps toward language revitalization, so that a significant part of society adopts the Stage I paradigm (see section 4 below), recognizing that something should be done to save the language. Although this step is necessary it does not imply that effective ways to achieve LR have yet been found or implemented. For successful LR, Stage I must be followed by a second paradigmatic transition, in which part of the LR movement abandons some of the earlier premises and moves on to a Stage II (Effective LR) paradigm. This is the I/II transition, the phase with which this chapter will be chiefly concerned. Stage III (Mainstream LR) is assumed to be a stage at which the society at large takes on board the LR goal, declaring its support for the effort needed to recover the endangered language. This change may be manifested in a notable growth and expansion of institutions dedicated to supporting LR or in which LR goals are incorporated, effective legislation and assignment of significant resources in support of LR goals, official recognition of the language, official status and explicit declarations of the rights of members of the language community, as well as the flourishing of mass media in the target language, and so forth. Page 2 of 27 PRINTED FROM OXFORD HANDBOOKS ONLINE (www.oxfordhandbooks.com). © Oxford University Press, 2018. All Rights Reserved. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an individual user may print out a PDF of a single chapter of a title in Oxford Handbooks Online for personal use (for details see Privacy Policy and Legal Notice). Subscriber: OUP-Reference Gratis Access; date: 13 August 2018 Language Recovery Paradigms The last stage, Stage IV (Post-LR), is the attainment of a situation where full recovery will have been achieved and consequently the LR process is at an end. In this chapter we will look at the recovery movements of two endangered languages with which I have had prolonged and intensive involvement: Basque and Nawat. Although neither process is in any sense complete, both have achieved a certain degree of partial success within their own contexts. Section 2 of the chapter will venture a working definition of LR, after which section 3 sketches the progress of Basque LR in the twentieth century. In the light of the Basque experience, section 4 examines a set of conventional assumptions about endangered languages and language recovery which will then be challenged through counterarguments, drawing attention to the main themes of the I/II transition. This section echoes a major debate which took place within Basque LR during the second half of the twentieth century. Section 5 offers a sketch of the situation of the Nawat language in the period prior to the recently begun language recovery process. Section 6 outlines early steps in Nawat LR in the first years of the present century. Section 7 explains new developments in the second decade which challenge some conventional ideas. Section 8 re-examines this narrative, interpreting it in terms of the I/II transition on the LRS. The chapter ends with a brief summary in section 9. Page 3 of 27 PRINTED FROM OXFORD HANDBOOKS ONLINE (www.oxfordhandbooks.com). © Oxford University Press, 2018. All Rights Reserved. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an individual user may print out a PDF of a single chapter of a title in Oxford Handbooks Online for personal use (for details see Privacy Policy and Legal Notice). Subscriber: OUP-Reference Gratis Access; date: 13 August 2018 Language Recovery Paradigms (p. 534) 2. Retreat, renewal, or normalization? Language recovery is a reversal of language loss, undertaken by a group at risk of losing its language. At Stage I, “reversal” here is sometimes understood as a return to a real or supposed former stage of language health. At Stage II, however, it is understood that the object of language recovery is not to turn back the clock (an impossibility) but to change the vector of change in the language’s fortunes. Recovery is not a retreat to the past but a renewal and a forward movement toward a new stage for the language, different from both the present stage of language attrition and that of any earlier historical period. Stage I strategies tend to emphasize efforts to slow down the language’s decline, whereas Stage II is powered by a growing awareness that the only way to save the old is by making it new. The change of perspective means switching mind-sets from one which sees the language as a fragile link to the past, to a new mentality which dares to visualize the old language, revived, as a powerful new key to a different future (though rooted in the past). The language, while still endangered, becomes empowered, imbued with new social and cultural meaning, as a tool of renewed cultural and perhaps political identity. Stage II involves reconstructing the language as a vigorous, evolving medium of genuine communication and the enabler of new realities; a common possession of the whole language community (including those members who may have previously lost it—one of the meanings of recovery), and a valid instrument for doing all the things any of its members wish to do; a malleable and versatile instrument which may be adapted to diverse and changing media, channels, genres, styles, uses, domains, settings, fashions, technologies, registers, functions, and discourses. For the meaning of language recovery at Stage III, we may turn to current Basque LR discourse where a much used concept is normalization, expressing the idea that for language recovery to be complete one needs to go beyond mere precarious survival. The place of the language in society, both de jure and de facto, should resemble that assumed to apply to “normal” languages.