The Wheel of Vitality: an Approach to Rapid Vitality Assessment in New Britain

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The Wheel of Vitality: an Approach to Rapid Vitality Assessment in New Britain DigitalResources Electronic Survey Report 2014-010 The Wheel of Vitality An Approach to Rapid Vitality Assessment in New Britain John Grummitt The Wheel of Vitality: An approach to rapid vitality assessment in New Britain John Grummitt SIL International® 2014 SIL Electronic Survey Report 2014-010, November 2014 © 2014 SIL International® All rights reserved Abstract In a recent survey, sub-goals determined by stakeholders’ needs were dependent on the main goal of assessing an agreed minimum vitality level. This vitality level was the determining factor for the inclusion of five language communities in a proposed multi-language development project. This dependence created a need for an in situ rapid vitality assessment to determine whether pursuit of sub- goals was necessary. This report describes the development of a tool based on the Expanded Graded Intergenerational Disruption Scale vitality scale and used to rapidly assess vitality in an environment where logistical constraints made traditional and more detailed vitality assessment unfeasible. Contents Abstract 1 Introduction 1.1 Survey Need 1.2 Survey Purpose and Goals 2 Methodology 2.1 Initial Approaches to Tool Design 2.2 Tool Description and Administration 3 Critique 4 Conclusion Appendix A Original Rubric for the Wheel of Vitality Tool Appendix B Original Wheel of Vitality Data Collection Sheet Appendix C Observation Schedule References iii 1 Introduction 1.1 Survey Need In the planning of a multi-language project aiming to “ensure that all the language communities on New Britain have access to adequate…materials in the languages that serve them well” (Wiebe and Wiebe 2009:1), the SIL Papua New Guinea (PNG) survey team was asked to assess five language communities which had no established language development programs. At the time of the survey, Ethnologue (Lewis 2009) listed these as shown in Table 1. Table 1. Information on languages surveyed Name ISO code 2012 Population Language Classification Bilur (Minigir)a [bxf]b 4,000 Austronesian Minigir (Lungalunga) [vmg] c. 1,000 of c. 3,000c Austronesian Kairak [ckr] c. 900 Non-Austronesian, Baining Simbali [smg] 450 Non-Austronesian, Baining Taulil [tuh] c. 3,000 Non-Austronesian isolate a Changes to these names were recommended by the survey as shown in parentheses and displayed in bold blue font in Map 1. b ISO codes for languages are given at the first mention in the text only. c This is the speaking population estimate from an ethnic population estimate of 3,000. Map 1 shows the location of the five language communities on the Gazelle Peninsula of East New Britain Province, PNG. Kokopo, the regional capital, is the nearest urban centre and was the base for the survey team. Geographically, the Baining Mountains run across the centre of the peninsula and divide Simbali from the much more densely populated north east. Both the western Lungalunga-speaking community and the Simbali language area are inaccessible by road from Kokopo and are therefore reached by boat. All the other communities are easily accessible by road and, with the exception of Minigir, these roads are paved and in relatively good condition. The entire northern area is very uncharacteristic of much of the rest of PNG with a dense, widely scattered collection of indistinct population centres supplied by an extensive and relatively developed infrastructure. 1 2 Map 1. Location of the five language communities involved in this assessment 1.2 Survey Purpose and Goals The purpose of the survey was to determine to what extent the five language communities could participate in the proposed multi-language project. In order to achieve this, a number of goals were agreed with stakeholders. However, during pre-survey discussions, it became clear that the overriding concern was for each language to have a level of vitality that would not potentially undermine involvement in the project. Vitality was seen to be central because if threatened in any way, resources invested in language development may not subsequently benefit the community. In addition, there was a need to identify communities with minimum vitality which may need additional support at the initial stage of their involvement. Vitality was the deciding criterion for involvement because even if other factors of interest to stakeholders were present, questionable vitality would undermine the impact of language development on the community in any case. Thus, a clear goal hierarchy developed with the primary goal, and the focus on this report, being vitality: all other goals were dependent on this being at an agreed minimum. An assessment of vitality in situ required a tool that would elicit data simple enough to analyse while it was being administered to inform an instant decision about whether to pursue other dependent goals. It was not only research needs that determined that a rapid assessment of vitality was necessary. Logistical factors that are usually not encountered in PNG also constrained tool design. Typically, the SIL–PNG survey team has employed a range of lengthy questionnaires to assess vitality. These focus on culture and society, church, education, contact patterns and language use. While these are time- consuming to administer and produce data which is complex to analyse, survey teams in PNG typically find themselves working in an environment which is much more clearly defined than was the case on this survey. Typically, these are homogenous language communities living in distinct population centres and in concentrated geographical areas just a few miles across. As Section 1.1 described, this survey involved populations that were not homogenous with communities consisting of residents from a number 3 of ethnolinguistic backgrounds. Thus, employing a traditional approach to survey in PNG and administering a large range of qualitative tools would both be overly time-consuming and provide more data than was appropriate, consequently requiring complex analysis. This was particularly the case for the four northern languages where, because of the ease of contact with the politically and economically dominant Kuanua-speaking community, vitality was most in question. This survey therefore called for the production of a new tool which provided enough detail to make a vitality assessment in situ while the tool was being administered, not during data analysis after the survey as is typical. 2 Methodology 2.1 Initial Approaches to Tool Design At first, the design of a tool foundered on the complexity involved in making an assessment of vitality. Studying approaches described by various theorists revealed the vast array of factors that influence ethnolinguistic vitality: status, demographics and institutional support (Giles, Bourhis, and Taylor 1977), ethnicity and nationalism (Bratt Paulston 2000), motivation (Karan 2000) as well as a whole host of other factors described by Edwards (2010:100–101). A rapid assessment would not be able to consider all of these. Attempts were made to reduce these to those most relevant to the PNG context and to explore tools, such as Landweer’s Indicators of Ethnolinguistic Vitality (IEV) (2009), which had been applied before. Under closer scrutiny however, because the IEV had been developed for the more common and ethnolinguistically simpler environments typically encountered in PNG, it proved inadequate to assess vitality in the suburban heterogeneous complexity faced by the survey team. The top down approach to tool design was not successful. Not only did it present an unmanageable array of factors, it also failed to isolate any simple enough to assess as rapidly as required. At this point therefore, the team decided to try another approach. Rather than think of what influences vitality in general, the team thought specifically of what the bare minimum level of vitality would be to satisfy stakeholders’ requirements for participation in the proposed multi-language project. As vitality is a scalable feature of language communities and the product of a combination of factors, a description of distinguishing factors defines a graded scale to guide assessment. One such scale is known as the Expanded Graded Intergenerational Disruption Scale or EGIDS (Lewis and Simons 2010). Background research indicated that all of the five languages on this survey were likely to fall into one of the EGIDS levels described in Table 2. 4 Table 2. EGIDS values relevant to this survey EGIDS level Description 5 Written The language is used orally by all generations and is effectively used in written form in parts of the community. 6a Vigorous The language is used orally by all generations and is being learned by children as their first language. 6b Threatened The language is used orally by all generations but only some of the child-bearing generation are transmitting it to their children. 7 Shifting The child-bearing generation knows the language well enough to use it among themselves but none are transmitting it to their children. 8a Moribund The only remaining active speakers of the language are members of the grandparent generation. 8b Nearly Extinct The only remaining speakers of the language are members of the grandparent generation or older who have little opportunity to use the language. 9 Dormant The language serves as a reminder of heritage identity for an ethnic community. No one has more than symbolic proficiency. This is the level of sustainable identity. This is the state where no fully proficient speakers remain but the language is still closely associated with the community
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