scholarly journals Weighing on languages: Indonesian parents’ perspectives on bilingualism

2020 ◽  
Vol 15 (1) ◽  
pp. 47-63
Author(s):  
Arapa Efendi
Keyword(s):  
Language Policy ◽  
Heritage Language ◽  
Language Attitudes ◽  
Social Institutions ◽  
National Language ◽  
Community Relations ◽  
Small Scale ◽  
The Family ◽  
The Status ◽  
Close Relatives

The paper focuses on the micro-level language policy where parents are the primary ‘actors’ to socialize language(s) to their children in the family circle. This small-scale study aims to find out 1) parent’s language attitudes towards bilingualism; 2) how the attitudes contribute to the decision making on language policy in the family; 3) and what efforts or strategies for maintaining the heritage language (HL). Data were collected from questionnaires to 28 Indonesian parents (from diverse ethnic backgrounds). To gain deeper insights, interviews were also conducted to investigate individual perceptions, feelings, and experience over bilingualism. Based on the analysis, it is found that although most of the families are bilingual with 3-4 languages being spoken at home, there is a limited context where interaction is carried out in HLs. The majority of respondents reported that it is only used to close relatives. The maintenance of HL is symbolic rather than strategic; it is perceived as important because of the sense of family hood to the language. This is confirmed in the following finding that parents feel that national language is far more important (65%) than the heritage language (34.6%) which is slightly below parents' aspiration for the children to learn a foreign language (38.5%). Also, there is little evidence showing parents’ explicit language policy which may be affected by familiarity and the status of the language, social institutions, community relations, and family structure.

scholarly journals Legislative regulation of linguistic relationships in Ukraine

2019 ◽  
pp. 127-144
Author(s):  
Iuliya Makarets
Keyword(s):  
Language Policy ◽  
The State ◽  
Political Support ◽  
National Language ◽  
State Legislation ◽  
World Community ◽  
Linguistic Model ◽  
Legislative Regulation ◽  
The Status ◽  
State Language

The article focuses on the issue of legislative regulation of linguistic relationships in Ukraine. The ability of a national language to function as a means of consolidation and national identification depends to a large extent on state linguistic policy, political support that the language receives. The state legislation on language is indicative in this regard while it establishes the status of languages, the linguistic model and the linguistic regime. In accordance with the Constitution of Ukraine, the Ukrainian language is a state language in Ukraine. The dynamics of the Ukrainian legislation on languages illustrates the inconsistency of the implementation of this constitutional norm. The article analyzes the milestones of its formation. The content of the basic laws in the sphere of linguistic relationships (Law of the USSR ‘On Languages in the Ukrainian SSR’ (1989), the Law of Ukraine ‘On the Principles of the State Language Policy’ (2012), which is invalid now, and the new Law of Ukraine ‘On the Functioning of the Ukrainian Language as a State Language’ (2019)), the socio-political tendencies, that preceded their adoption, their evaluation by tpublic and world community as well as their consequences for linguistic situation in Ukraine are described. The possibility of official bilingualism approving is studied. The article analyzes historical, cultural and political preconditions for the adoption of official bi- or multilingualism by other states, acceptability of this linguistic model for Ukraine and possibility to overcome existing linguistic contradictions.

De Nederlandse taal als luxe-waar op de Surinaamse markt?

1979 ◽  
Vol 6 ◽  
pp. 137-154
Author(s):  
Hugo W. Campbell
Keyword(s):  
Language Policy ◽  
Intermediate Stage ◽  
European Population ◽  
National Language ◽  
Official Language ◽  
The Status ◽  
Dutch Language ◽  
The Government ◽  
Attitudinal Changes

In the multilingual community of Surinam the official language is Dutch. This language has occupied the official status during almost three centuries of colonial government, the intermediate stage of self-government (as part of the kingdom of the Netherlands from 1954 through 1975) and after complete independence in 1975. Though the status of official language did not change, a different language policy had to be adopted with respect to different role components in each of four historical periods. The language policy adopted in each of these periods can be considered the result of social changes which took place, and of attitudinal changes with respect to the functioning of other languages in the community. The changing role of the Dutch language in the four periods is discussed in terms of its changing socio-linguistic profile. The first change was that from an ethnic group specific position (the European population only) to an obligatory position which concerned the whole population. In each of these two periods Dutch was used in relation to all main functions (communication* education., religion and literature). During the period in which Dutch played the ethnic specific role the language Sranan was used as a promoted language to perform the same functions for the slave population of the 17th, 18th and 19th century. This language was also used as language of communication between the Europeans and the slaves. The social change from a slavery society to a society of citizens only had forced the governement to discourage the use of Sranan and to consider Dutch the only language in the country. This obligatory position was eventually disregarded in favor of a partial role of the Dutch language in a multicultural society. The recognition by the government of a multitude of cultural ambitions has led it to accept the possibility of the sharing of functions among languages. Especially with respect to intergroupcoinmunication and literature, the recognition-of the role of Sranan as national language became the main feature of this period. However, the emergency of Surinam-Dutch, as a variety (xized language) of the Dutch language used by the majority of the Dutch speaking community in Surinam, has given the governement of the new republic of Surinam an opportunity to promote cultural integration by means of this language variety. Though this too will have to share functions with Sranan (inter-group communication, literature, etc.), it is suggested that a stan-dardized version might not only change its promoted language status into that of national official language but also give a better criterion to judge and to stimulate performances in education and literature.

Language Policy in South Asia

1981 ◽  
Vol 2 ◽  
pp. 60-85 ◽  
Author(s):  
Braj B. Kachru
Keyword(s):  
Language Policy ◽  
South Asia ◽  
Liberal Arts ◽  
National Language ◽  
Basic Knowledge ◽  
Literary Texts ◽  
The Political ◽  
Language Policies ◽  
The Status ◽  
Regional Languages

In the political divisions within South Asia there has traditionally been no organized effort for language policies.1 Language was essentially related to one's caste, village, district, and state. Beyond this, one identified with languages associated with religion (Sanskrit or Arabic), or learned and literary texts (mainly Sanskrit and Persian). At the time of Indian independence (1947), one task of the new government was to unravel the status and position of almost 560 sovereign states which were ruled by an array of mahārājās, nawābs, and lesser luminaries, depending on the size and the revenue of each state and subdivision. Each state state was a kindgom unto itself, and such political divisions did not foster a national language policy. In India, the largest country in South Asia, four languages were used for wider communication as bazār languages or languages of literature and intranational communication: Hindi (and its varieties, Hindustani and Urdu), Sanskrit, Persian, and later, English (cf., for Sanskrit, Kachru and Sridhar 1978; Sharma 1976; for English, Kachru 1969; 1982a). The Hindus tended to send their children to a pāṭhśālā (traditional Hindu school mainly for scriptural education) for the study of the scriptures and some basic knowledge of the śāastras (Sanskrit instructional texts, treatise), and the Muslims tended to send their children to a maktab (traditional school for Koranic instruction). The denominational schools (vidyāZaya) provided liberal arts instruction in Sanskrit, Persian, Hindi, Arabic, or in the regional languages.

The nationalization of Swahili in Kenya

1976 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 153-164 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lyndon Harries
Keyword(s):  
Language Policy ◽  
Social Stratification ◽  
National Level ◽  
Dar Es Salaam ◽  
National Language ◽  
Capital City ◽  
Capital Cities ◽  
Normal Expression ◽  
The Status ◽  
Linguistically Appropriate

ABSTRACTThe decree of 4 July, 1974, by President Kenyatta, proclaiming Swahili as the national language of Kenya is discussed with reference to questions of feasibility and expediency. The alternatives to the President's decree are considered, and reasons for the decision are suggested.Comparison of the status of Swahili in the capital cities of Kenya (Nairobi) and Tanzania (Dar es Salaam) is made to illustrate the special difficulties confronting the Kenya government in making the President's decree effective. The parliamentary response is crucial, but the dominance of English in Nairobi, the capital city, where Swahili has not always been much valued, indicates a wider gap between intention and the possibility of fulfilment than in Dar es Salaam.The need for proficiency in Swahili is viewed in the Kenya situation, and this is related to what is linguistically appropriate. The nationalization of Swahili results in secularization of a language that found its normal expression in the setting of Islam. What is linguistically appropriate in Swahili on the national level is often inappropriate to members of the Swahili coastal community. Kenyans are likely to opt for their own modifications of Standard Swahili, basing this on the Mombasa dialect, but up-country Swahili is the foundation upon which greater proficiency can be achieved. (Language planning, language policy, regional and social stratification of varieties, Swahili; Kenya, Tanzania.)

scholarly journals Language policy and multilingual practices in the family

2020 ◽  
Vol 1 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dipak Tamang
Keyword(s):  
Language Policy ◽  
Heritage Language ◽  
Language Ideologies ◽  
Structured Interview ◽  
Vital Role ◽  
Language Practices ◽  
Language Background ◽  
Qualitative Research Design ◽  
The Family ◽  
Family Language

This paper discusses on how language policy, language ideologies, parental language planning and children’s role in the shaping of family language practices are associated in the multilingual practice context. The objective of this study was to explore the language policies focus on heritage language maintenance by negotiating and instantiating in parents-children interactions and contribution of children’s language practices to shape the family multilingualism in the process of socialization. I have used qualitative research design to collect the data in this study. Three participants from different language background were selected. The research participants were interviewed using a semi-structured interview technique to collect the data. The study concluded that family members’ contribution to the shaping of family language practices and policies in daily life interactions is the most important and language ideologies play a vital role in language policy and language acquisition in the family of multilingual practice.

English in Swiss higher education

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Patrick Studer ◽  
Aisha Siddiqa
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
Language Policy ◽  
National Language ◽  
Policy Planning ◽  
Pragmatic Approach ◽  
Policy Documents ◽  
The Status ◽  
National Languages ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Language Question

This chapter reviews the current discourses surrounding English in higher education, focusing on the impact Englishization has had on education and language policy-planning in Switzerland. While English is in direct competition with national languages at the obligatory school levels, and the debate about the status of English is evident in national language policymaking, higher education institutes (henceforth HEIs) have taken a pragmatic approach, broadening their educational offerings to include English-medium courses and programmes at all levels. Taking legal, strategy and policy documents as its basis, this chapter discusses themes that impact thinking about language in higher education in a small multilingual nation and reviews how the language question has been addressed by policymakers at the national and institutional levels.

Markup Fragment in the RuTuBiC Linguistic Corpus. Code-Switching or Lexical Borrowing?

2021 ◽  
pp. 91-104
Author(s):  
Zoya I. Rezanova ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Mother Tongue ◽  
Code Switching ◽  
National Language ◽  
Speech Corpus ◽  
Lexical Borrowing ◽  
The Family ◽  
The Status ◽  
Error Annotation ◽  
Turkic Languages ◽  
The Right

The article presents a solution to one of the problems of special linguistic markup in the RuTuBiC corpus – the Russian Speech Corpus of Russian-Turkic Bilinguals, asso-ciated with error annotation at the lexical level. The corpus includes three subcorpuses representing materials of the Russian speech of Shor-Russian, Tatar-Russian and Khakass-Russian bilinguals. The article presents solutions developed on the basis of all subcorpuses; the illustrative contexts are drawn from the Shor-Russian subcorpus, recordings of interviews with 14 respondents, about 20 hours of sound. The recordings were made during expeditions to Shoria in 2017–2019. Bilingualism of the respondents is defined as early natural bilingualism with the dominance of the second Russian lan-guage, mother tongues are languages of the family heritage. The theoretical basis of the research was works on linguistic contact at the lexical level. Solutions based on the differentiation of lexemes fully mastered by the system of standard Russian and units with the status of borrowings from other subsystems of the national language and other languages are proposed. In the latter case, linguistic and contextual features are distin-guished that oppose lexical borrowing and code-switching. The typical errors singled out at the lexical level are: [LexId] – idiomatic expressions that are not fixed in the standard language (dialectal and vernacular, slang, etc.), they can also be Turkic calques; [LexSem] – general Russian words used in meanings different from those fixed in the normative sources; [LexSemAgr] – violations of the lexical and semantic agreement norms. The units borrowed from the mother tongue of the respondents are located on the scale of transitions from nuclear to borderline. The nuclear units marked with the [Lex] tag are dialectal units, common words, other word usage cases that are outside the standard, as well as borrowings from the Turkic languages that are not included in the dictionaries of standard Russian. On the border “to the left” are borrowings assimilated to different degrees. On the border “to the right” are non-assimilated borrowings and code-switches. The [CodeSw] marks code-switching, insertion of mother tongue elements into Russian speech. The author considers the inclusion of statements as nuclear cases of code-switching, and single lexical inclusions as transitional cases. Code-switching is evidenced by metatext and linguistic proper, primarily phonetic, indicators. There is an insignificant number of both lexical borrowings and cases of code-switching in the speech of the respondents of the RuTuBiC corpus, which depends on the type of bilingualism. The typicality of metatext marking of borrowings and code-switches is determined by the discursive, genre and thematic limitations of the corpus.

Changing language policies and attitudes in autonomous Catalonia

1990 ◽  
Vol 19 (3) ◽  
pp. 311-330 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kathryn A. Woolard ◽  
Tae-Joong Gahng
Keyword(s):  
Language Policy ◽  
Social Relations ◽  
Language Attitudes ◽  
Nonnative Speakers ◽  
Language Choice ◽  
Language Policies ◽  
Public Language ◽  
Political Autonomy ◽  
The Status ◽  
Symbolic Value

ABSTRACTThe effects of language policies on the symbolic value of the linguistic repertoire merit consideration in needed studies of the consequences of language status planning. Since achieving political autonomy within Spain in 1979, Catalonia has instituted a number of policies, particularly in education, to enhance the status and use of Catalan. A matched guise test was conducted among students in Barcelona in 1980 and again in 1987 to gauge changes in attitudes toward Catalan and Castilian. Conflict between positive status and negative solidarity values of Catalan for nonnative speakers found in 1980 appears to be resolved in 1987. Three aspects of public language policy have attenuated ethnic constraints against nonnative use of Catalan, but further changes in social relations may be necessary to alter patterns of language choice. (Language attitudes, language policy, Catalonia)

scholarly journals Parental Perspectives and Practices in Maintaining the Heritage Language (A Case Study of Preserving Ambonese Malay)

2021 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 34-41
Author(s):  
Felicia M Lekatompessy
Keyword(s):  
Family Communication ◽  
Heritage Language ◽  
Language Attitudes ◽  
Electronic System ◽  
School Curriculum ◽  
Foreign Languages ◽  
Heritage Languages ◽  
Parental Perspectives ◽  
The Family

Intensity of using national and foreign languages ​​in various sectors indirectly changes people's views on the importance of learning or even maintaining the heritage languages. Consequently, the heritage language may experience a transition because it is rare or even no longer used in daily communication, particularly in the family context. This current study aims to analyze parents’ perspectives about the maintenance of the native language, including their practical ways to preserve the cultural heritage, namely Ambonese Malay. Twenty two parents were randomly selected to participate in this study by filling in the questionnaire that was distributed by electronic system through Google Form. Findings of this research showed that parents have positive language attitudes towards Ambonese Malay and its maintenance as heritage language. Their attitude was revealed in their willingness to teach the Ambonese Malay to their children, use the language in their family communication and at traditional ceremonial and family events, including their expectation of having Ambonese Malay in the school curriculum. Moreover, practical ways of using Ambonese Malay as the dominant language in discussing daily topics at home with the family members were the indications of parents’ persistence ways in preserving the Ambonese Malay in the family domain.

scholarly journals A Policy Proposal for Heritage Language Conservation: A Case for Indonesia and Sarawak

2017 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Bambang Suwarno
Keyword(s):  
Language Policy ◽  
Heritage Language ◽  
National Language ◽  
Conservation Areas ◽  
Heritage Languages ◽  
Policy Proposal ◽  
The Public ◽  
Official Languages ◽  
Regional Languages

Heritage languages are declining in Indonesia and Sarawak. They need conservation due to their situations as endemic languages. Their decline could be attributed to the fact that they often do not possess significant roles in the public domains. As a result, their speakers see little rewards or prestige for maintaining them. In Indonesian and Malaysian constitutions there is a spirit for protecting heritage languages. However, their executions, through national laws, might not have provided adequate protection for the heritage languages. As heritage languages keep declining, a policy revision needs to be given consideration. A heritage language may better survive if it has some functions in the public domains. Thus, to conserve the heritage languages, there is a need for the revision of language policy, so that these languages may have roles in the public domains, with varying scope, depending on their size. Large regional languages may be given maximum roles in the public domains, while smaller regional languages may be given smaller roles. Language conservation areas could be developed, where heritage languages serve as co-official languages, besides the national language. These areas may range from a district to a province or a state.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document