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A Psycholinguistic Assessment of Language Shift, L1 Proficiency, And FROM DIAGNOSIS TO REMEDIAL PLAN: A PSYCHOLINGUISTIC ASSESSMENT OF LANGUAGE SHIFT, L1 PROFICIENCY, AND LANGUAGE PLANNING IN TRUKU SEEDIQ A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED TO THE GRADUATE DIVISION OF THE UNIVERSITY OF HAWAI‗I IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY IN LINGUISTICS DEC 2011 By Apay (Ai-yu) Tang Dissertation Committee: Robert A. Blust, Chairperson William O‘Grady Yuko Otsuka Kenneth L. Rehg Amy J. Schafer Michael Salzman i ACKNOWLEDGMENTS This dissertation would not have been possible without the valued support of several groups of people. First, I owe my deepest gratitude to all committee members. I especially express my sincere gratitude to Dr. Robert Blust, my advisor, who has shown patience, great support, and wonderful mentorship during the process. Without his inspiring and invaluable guidance, this study would not have been completed. I am truly indebted and thankful to Dr. Amy Schafer who provided me with critical and motivating ideas, especially in methodological issues. The goals of this project could not have been achieved without her constant guidance and advice. And I cannot forget the constructive suggestions of Dr. Kenneth Rehg and his valuable assistance in the work of the Language Documentation Training Center. I am truly thankful to Dr. William O‘Grady for his inspiring and profound thoughts as well as his deep care for students‘ needs. I owe sincere thanks to Dr. Yuko Otsuka, who provided me with valuable feedback on different tasks including working papers and the dissertation project. It is an honor for me to express my earnest gratitude to the University Representative, Dr. Michael Salzman, whose great support and profound thoughts inspired me to dedicate myself more to indigenous work. I am very grateful to Drs. Luca Onnis, Kathryn Davis, and Elizabeth Zeitoun, whose profound knowledge shaped my understanding of indigenous language assessment, language loss, and language maintenance. Second, it is a great pleasure to thank my friends who helped and encouraged me throughout the process; they are Manami Sato, Soyoung Kim, Man-chiu Lin, Tsai-hsiu Liu, Hsiu-chuan Liao, Jonathan Kuo, Karen Huang, Hye-Young Kwak, On-Soon Lee, and Yu-hua Su. I would not have accomplished this task without their humor, constant support, and encouragement. I cannot forget Laurie Durand who has wonderfully, faithfully, and diligently edited my entire ii work during this long journey. I am also indebted to our department staff, Jennifer Kanda and Nora Lum, for their administrative assistance in the completion of my graduate program. Their professionalism and kindness have been always appreciated. Next, my deep gratitude toward my family is beyond description. I am indebted and thankful to my beloved grandfather, Yudaw Pisaw, who faithfully prays for and with me each and every day from eastern Taiwan. This whole journey would not have been possible without the full support of my family members, including my parents (Yuki Kumus and Reykong Yudaw), siblings (Mohung Yuki and Ubing Yuki), and my relatives (Iciang Yudaw, Mey-hua Uking, Kimi Yudaw, and Hani Yudaw). I am obliged to all participants in Qowgan village who faithfully took part in this project with great enthusiasm. Finally, I owe my deep gratitude to all my brothers and sisters in my spiritual family here in Honolulu at New Life International Christian Fellowship; they are Pastor Mei-Li Teller, Ben and Sandra Hung, Brian and Yuka Nakatsuka, Rosa Chiang, John Wu, Will Chen, Dongi Ou, and others. They have made available their support in a number of ways. They provided me with not only abundant resources both in physical and spiritual senses, but also sincere friendship, wonderful memories, and encouragement throughout the entire journey in this unforgettable island. Last and foremost, I am sincerely and heartily grateful to my savior, counselor, provider, and best friend, Jesus Christ, who has made this long journey possible, endurable, and enjoyable. iii ABSTRACT Will Truku, an endangered dialect of the Seediq language spoken in eastern Taiwan, be commonly spoken again in Truku villages? Since the younger generations do not speak Truku, this project intends to diagnose the relative language strength of Truku (vs. Mandarin), assess Truku proficiency, and propose a conservation plan for Truku speech communities. Hence, the purposes of this study are to (i) further assess the Hawai‗i Assessment of Language Access (HALA) approach, (ii) assess the relative strength of Truku, (iii) assess Truku linguistic proficiency across age groups, (iv) provide quantitative data for community and government programs, (v) establish baseline data, as a starting point for conservation programs, and (vi) propose a micro-level language planning for language maintenance. Two approaches will be employed, and the preliminary results show an overt intergenerational decline that suggests the need for urgent remedial action if Truku is to survive for another generation. First, HALA experiments comprised of body-part naming, nature-term naming, and phrase-building tasks will be analyzed to investigate Truku‘s current linguistic vitality. A total of sixty-eight participants in four age cohorts from Qowgan village have been tested (ages: 10-15, 16-25, 26-40, and 41-65). As predicted, Truku (non-dominant language) produced longer response times and lower accuracy than Mandarin (dominant language) across all speakers, suggesting a cross-generational decline of Truku. Second, on the basis of four elicitation tasks including repetition, picture naming, act-out task, and picture-based storytelling, knowledge of certain phonological and morphosyntactic properties will be assessed across the age groups. iv It is predicted that young Truku who are 10-25 years of age will exhibit overall changes or incompetence in the use of phonological and morphosyntactic properties compared with the older generations who are 26-65 years of age. Second, all participants from 10 to 65 years of age will show incompetence in the use of morphosyntactic properties compared with a speaker widely recognized as competent, an 86-year-old linguistically-competent individual. Based on the concepts of micro-level language planning, a modified two-way immersion program and Integrative Community-Based planning will be designed and proposed to stem further Truku erosion and to attempt reversal of a critical shift toward Mandarin. v TABLE OF CONTENTS Chapter 1 Introduction ................................................................................................................1 1.1 Background…..............................................................................................................1 1.2 An analogy For Truku language shift and attrition .......................................................4 1.3 Significance of the study ..............................................................................................5 1.4 Rationale…….. ............................................................................................................8 1.4.1 Language shift .........................................................................................................8 1.4.2 Language attrition ....................................................................................................9 1.4.3 Language maintenance ........................................................................................... 10 1.5 Objectives and organization ....................................................................................... 11 1.6 Conclusion…… ......................................................................................................... 12 Chapter 2 Theoretical orientation .............................................................................................. 14 2.1 Introduction…. .......................................................................................................... 14 2.2 Theory of language death ........................................................................................... 16 2.3 Theoretical issues in L1 attrition ................................................................................ 20 2.3.1 Age ........................................................................................................................ 21 2.3.2 Loss vs. accessibility .............................................................................................. 23 2.3.3 Activation and inhibition........................................................................................ 25 2.4 The Question of language maintenance ...................................................................... 27 2.4.1 Sasse‘s question of revitalization............................................................................ 27 2.4.2 Tools to reduce language attrition from psycholinguistic perspectives .................... 29 2.4.2.1 Psycholinguistic factors: Literacy ................................................................... 30 2.4.2.2 Interface of psycholinguistic and sociolinguistic factors: Language use .......... 30 2.4.2.3 Affective factors: Motivation and attitude ...................................................... 32 2.4.2.4 Community factors: Identity and ethnicity ...................................................... 33 2.5 Language policy and planning ................................................................................... 35 2.5.1 The Neoclassical approach ....................................................................................
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