Language and Literacy Planning and Local Contexts: The Case of a Rarámuri Community

Abstract

On the basis of a ten-month ethnography of a Rarámuri school and community, this article contributes to the understanding of the role of sociolinguistic and socioeconomic contexts in creating Indigenous-language maintenance programs. Employing concepts of micro-and macrolevel variables in language endangerment and language vitality scales, it provides an example of how these variables should inform language and literacy planning (LLP). It also discusses how LLP for Indigenous communities needs to embrace a biocultural diversity perspective. [Rarámuri, Tarahumara, language maintenance and shift, language policy and planning, bilingual education, indigenous education, Mexico] Local Contexts and Literacies for Endangered Language PlanningIn their review of the language planning research field, Liddicoat and Baldauf (2008) explain that this has traditionally centered on studying top-down government language

Italia linguistica and the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages

“…In Brittany local speech is valued, while the artificial standard taught in schools attracts little enthusiasm.Those who learn a standard Breton find themselves in a no-man’s land, speaking a colorless language which to many native speakers might as well be French for all the relation it bears to their own ‘real’ Breton. (Kuter, 1989: 85)Paciotto (2010) found similar attitudes among Tarahumara (Rarámuri) children and families when a standardized version of their immediate language family was introduced in schools in an effort to encourage language maintenance. With five varieties in use in the dispersed community in Mexico’s Copper Canyon, and the standard matching none, the single-standard model made no sense to either children or their families, and had to be abandoned.…”

Indigenous Knowledge and ICT: An Interdisciplinary Approach to Culturally Inclusive Education

“…The contemporary delivery of knowledge to these communities using western literacy models does not work, as there is no relevancy in the content for the learner. Additionally, there is reconceptualization that literacy is culturally and socially situated in a way that often intertwines oral and written tradition, and that literacy is utilized in different social and cultural contexts [7]. It may be said then that literacy is tied to local language (which includes for example oral stories as sources of knowledge) and local language provides relevancy in learning, which leads to the engagement of and between community members.…”

Communities of Practice in the Warlpiri Triangle: Four Decades of Crafting Ideological and Implementational Spaces for Teaching in and of Warlpiri Language

“…In viewing language preservation and renewal activities as sites for ideological struggles, Kroskrity (2009, p. 71) has argued for the importance of achieving "ideological clarification", aligning stated goals with less widely acknowledged but no less impactful beliefs, feelings and concerns. These struggles were first highlighted in seminal work of Hill, Jane, and Kenneth Hill (1986) in the context of Mexicano, and Dauenhauer and Dauenhauer (1998) in Tlingit, Haida and Tsimshian communities of Southeastern Alaska and more recently for Kaska (Meek 2007), White Mountain Apache (Nevins 2004), San Juan Paiute (Bunte 2009) and Rarámuri and Tarahumara (Paciotto 2004(Paciotto , 2010 among others.…”

“…Ricento and Hornberger (1996) introduced the metaphor of the language policy and planning onion to highlight the multiple layers comprised of agents, levels and processes and to describe how they "permeate and interact with each other in a variety of ways and to varying degrees" (Ricento and Horn-berger 1996, p. 402) Within the field of language policy and planning, there is an interest in understanding how both structural forces and individuals' agency mediate language policy activities and processes (Hult 2010;Ricento 2000). The importance of bottom-up language planning in relation to heritage language resources has gained attention, and in recent decades the key role of language teachers in navigating language policy and shaping diverse classroom language practices has been recognized (Hornberger 2005;Menken and García 2010;Paciotto 2004Paciotto , 2010Palmer 2011;Palmer and Martínez 2013;Varghese 2008). These classroom language practices are locally defined and enacted within individual and wider ideological dimensions both internal and imposed in a complex interplay which Kroskrity (2018) has described as "language ideological assemblages".…”