25.4604, Diss: Itzá; Sociolinguistics: Cru: 'From Language Revalorisation to Language Revitalisation...'

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LINGUIST List: Vol-25-4604. Mon Nov 17 2014. ISSN: 1069 - 4875.

Subject: 25.4604, Diss: Itzá; Sociolinguistics: Cru: 'From Language Revalorisation to Language Revitalisation...'

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Date: Mon, 17 Nov 2014 21:50:31
From: josep cru [josep.cru at ncl.ac.uk]
Subject: From Language Revalorisation to Language Revitalisation? Discourses of Maya Language Promotion in Yucatán

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Institution: Newcastle University 
Program: School of Modern Languages 
Dissertation Status: Completed 
Degree Date: 2014 

Author: Josep F. Cru

Dissertation Title: From Language Revalorisation to Language Revitalisation?
Discourses of Maya Language Promotion in Yucatán 

Dissertation URL:  https://www.academia.edu/8415824/Ideologies_of_Language_Promotion_in_Yucatán_Mexico

Linguistic Field(s): Sociolinguistics

Subject Language(s): Itzá (itz)


Dissertation Director(s):
Rosaleen Howard
Peter G. Sercombe

Dissertation Abstract:

Against the background of worldwide processes of language abandonment that are
taking place at an unprecedented and rapid pace, in the last two decades
language revitalisation has become an ever more prominent area of academic
research. This thesis looks at the ideological underpinnings of Yucatec Maya
language promotion in the Yucatán Peninsula of Mexico, based on the discourses
of both official institutions and grassroots actors. After presenting the
historical processes that have led to the present sociolinguistic minorisation
of speakers of Maya in the Yucatán Peninsula, I analyse salient themes for
language policy and planning pointed out by activists and institutions. Both
official and grassroots discourses gathered in the field overwhelmingly
revolve around the key concepts of revalorisation and rescate. These notions
undergird the strategies that most participants consider as necessary for Maya
language promotion, namely, the drafting of specific language legislation; the
use of Maya in the education system; and an emphasis on the development of
literacy in Maya. While policies in these areas may have a positive impact on
raising the status and public profile of Maya and, therefore, lead to its
legitimation, I argue that they present considerable limitations for actual
revitalisation, which I believe should be part of a wider sociopolitical
movement coming from the grassroots. On the one hand, vertical language
policies that emanate from official institutions, the school being a prominent
one, have been central in the cultural and linguistic assimilation to Spanish
of indigenous peoples in Mexico. On the other hand, institutional policies
that replicate the essentialist tenets of hegemonic languages on minorised
languages, such as standardisation, actually devalue plurilingual and mixed
practices on the ground and raise the issue of purism, which in the case of
Yucatán may be contributing to language shift to Spanish and hindering the
revitalisation process. Seen as an alternative and complementary project that
comes above all from the ground up, I maintain that horizontal language
promotion beyond institutional settings and control is effectively working
towards the revitalisation of Maya. Along these lines, the use of this
language in social media and modern music genres by youths, as part of their
expanding linguistic repertoires and heteroglossic practices on the ground, is
opening up promising spaces for its maintenance and reproduction.







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