16.3018, Review: Socioling/Austronesian Lang: Malone (2004)

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LINGUIST List: Vol-16-3018. Wed Oct 19 2005. ISSN: 1068 - 4875.

Subject: 16.3018, Review: Socioling/Austronesian Lang: Malone (2004)

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1)
Date: 18-Oct-2005
From: Timo Lothmann < myrkvid at aol.com >
Subject: The In-Between People 

	
-------------------------Message 1 ---------------------------------- 
Date: Wed, 19 Oct 2005 00:21:30
From: Timo Lothmann < myrkvid at aol.com >
Subject: The In-Between People 
 

AUTHOR: Malone, Dennis L.
TITLE: The In-Between People
SUBTITLE: Language and Culture Maintenance and Mother-Tongue 
Education in the Highlands of Papua New Guinea
PUBLISHER: SIL International
YEAR: 2004
Announced at http://linguistlist.org/issues/16/16-1241.html 

Timo Lothmann, Department of Synchronic English Linguistics, RWTH 
Aachen University.

Dennis L. Malone's book is a revised and updated version of his 
previously unpublished doctoral thesis. With "The In-Between People", 
he presents a remarkable study at the interface between sociology, 
ethnography, linguistics, and education. The author examines how the 
Kaugel-speaking people of the Highlands of Papua New Guinea 
witness and at the same time shape an ongoing process of social 
change. The massive, nationwide popularity of Western lifestyle, 
especially among the younger generation, as well as an increased 
mobility have affected all aspects of everyday life to a significant 
extent. Thus, traditional culture, including customs, moral values and, 
last but not least, the linguistic heritage are being eroded and tend to 
be superimposed by social achievements (and languages respectively) 
that are considered more prestigious, as it were. A crisis unparalleled 
in the history of the local communities, including the Kaugel community, 
evolves from this.

As regards the hot spots of existing social conflict, the author identifies 
the generation of parents as agents who play a vital role. It is this 
generation that have fallen between two stools -- they, i.e. the "in-
between people" as Malone calls them, are characterized by a 
traditional background and an open-minded orientation towards the 
future. Thus, they want to provide their children with the benefits of 
both the old (traditional) and the new (Western-influenced) cultures. 
During his long-term fieldwork on the spot, Malone was witness to the 
load of problems that are related to the cultural clash these parents 
are facing. However, the lively account of their increasingly becoming 
aware of their responsibility vis-à-vis the danger of loss of local 
culture, i.e. their ethnic identity, is only a side dish of the main course 
that the reader is served by the author.

Malone's study focuses on an examination of a mother-tongue pre-
primary education programme which has been established in the 
Kaugel area in 1985. In seven chapters plus appendices (248 pages 
in total), he aims at conveying an understanding how this programme 
has been expanded and kept alive by individuals. Moreover, in 
particular by taking the parents' attitudes towards education into 
account, the author describes how members of the community tackle 
the existing tension between mother tongue maintenance and their 
children's succeeding in secondary schools where the dominant 
language of teaching is English. In this respect, language contact and 
shift are topics that run like a thread through the study.

In chapters 1-2, the author sets the stage: He introduces the Kaugel 
setting as well as the key concepts and terminology that are relevant 
for the study. In making reference to selected secondary literature and 
theories related especially to language planning, language shift, and 
education in multicultural settings, the reader becomes acquainted 
with the research aims and the qualitative methodology used. In 
chapters 3-4, the various local and supra-regional contexts in which 
the Kaugel mother-tongue pre-school programme is embedded as well 
as the programme itself are described. In doing so, the author 
compares traditional and non-traditional means of education. In 
chapter 5, the topics bilingualism, culture, and identity are analysed in 
detail in order to gain an insight into the attitudes of the parents and 
the Kaugel community as a whole towards formal education in English. 
In chapter 6, the language use in a classroom of one of the mother-
tongue pre-schools is examined. With respect to this, the author 
identifies the primary literacy materials that are being used by the 
teachers as valuable instruments. Samples of these materials are 
included in the appendices. The study is concluded by a discussion of 
possibilities and responsibilities of the "in-between people" in order to 
resolve the existing tensions for the benefit of their children.

Malone's study represents an important contribution to the current 
post-colonial discourse. It is a snap-shot of attitudes and efforts of 
individuals witnessing the rapid social change (or rather: revolution) of 
their traditional living together within a multicultural Papua New 
Guinea. The "in-between people" are portrayed as negotiators of the 
exchanges between two cultural entities. In bringing out the concerns 
of the Kaugel parent generation, the author reaches to let the reader 
partake in the social life of the village, as it were. This is achieved 
especially by providing detailed information on the background and 
everyday activities of certain individuals who have been involved in 
maintaining the mother-tongue pre-schools in the Kaugel area. 
Occasional anecdotes, episodes and interviews support this 
perspective. Further, the author wants to share his special affinity for 
the pre-school programme with the reader. With respect to this, he 
points out the critical importance of culturally relevant teaching 
materials. By reporting his classroom observations (that fail to 
consider adequately the well-known observer's paradox) with the help 
of indigenous collaborators, he reveals the potential for improvement, 
in particular as regards the consistency of language use vs. code-
switching, the meaningful treatment of traditional vs. new cultural 
elements, as well as teacher payment and funding in general. The 
qualitative analysis of recorded speech data serves as basis and 
support of the author's argumentation throughout the study.

By and large, Malone judges the maintenance of the community-
based mother-tongue pre-school programme as an important factor 
that, on the one hand, can effectively function as a building block of 
the Kaugel children's identity. On the other hand, the programme 
raises the communal awareness of the advantages of careful 
language (and thus culture) planning. As the schools have become 
esteemed institutions (at least locally), recent research supports the 
author's findings: Early education in the locally restricted mother 
tongues of Papua New Guinea does not hinder the children's success 
in secondary schools where formal instruction, due to national policy, 
is done in English. On the contrary: The prior acquisition of literacy in 
such a local language may even contribute to positive results in later 
educational stages.

In the Kaugel area (as in many areas of the post-colonial world), 
language has always been a crucial marker of the cultural identity of 
the local community. With linguistic/cultural traditions shifting, social 
continuity is being endangered. In this regard, many factors form a 
fragile mosaic of preferences and prestige. Church activity and the 
usage of the lingua franca Tok Pisin, for instance, are highly influential 
nowadays and contribute to what has occasionally been termed a 
newly emerging "Melanesian identity". Unfortunately, Malone refrains 
from stressing these topics in more detail. Nevertheless, the author 
convincingly shows how the "in-between people" are on the horns of a 
dilemma: How to reconcile the best of both worlds, i.e. tradition and 
modernity, for the benefit of their children and, thereby, of the 
community as a whole? English education is still more or less 
unanimously perceived as the ideal and unavoidable road to (material) 
success -- but, at the same time, an increasing urbanization and 
striving for imported goods deprives the traditional communities of 
their social cohesion. Of course, reliable predictions for the future are 
hard, if not impossible, to make. In an undeniably idealistic way, 
however, Malone sets himself up as an expatriate spokesman for 
these "in-between people". On a macro-level, his interdisciplinary 
study is intended to serve as an optimistic exhortation. 
Correspondingly, on a micro-level, it is intended as a tool for the 
Kaugel community itself so that the generations constituting it may 
interact, negotiate and thus actively face the threats that have been 
identified by them -- against all the odds. 

ABOUT THE REVIEWER

Timo Lothmann, born in 1976, studied English Linguistics, History, and 
Economics at the RWTH Aachen University, Germany. After having 
received his MA grade, he took up the work on his PhD thesis dealing 
with sociolinguistic factors of Tok Pisin with special reference to 
existing religious literature in Papua New Guinea. The thesis will be 
submitted in October 2005. He is lecturer and academic assistant at 
the Department of Synchronic English Linguistics of his Alma Mater. 
His research interests include especially Pacific pidgin and creole 
languages, translation, and Biblical studies. He is author of 
communications in international conferences and (forthcoming) 
contributions to scientific journals and other publications.





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