‘Resisting arrest’ in status planning: Structural and covert impediments to status change

Schiffman, Harold F.

doi:10.1016/0271-5309(92)90008-w

Cited by 13 publications

(5 citation statements)

References 14 publications

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“…It is evident from these apparent inconsistencies that the government's ability to draw up or hail educational policies emanating from the grassroots is not matched by the courage to implement them. However, such vacillation and hesitation by most governments could be a result of structural impediments (Schiffman, 1992;Davis, 1999) that have been built into language policy itself. Structural impediments refer to the deliberate ways in which a language policy is crafted to equip it to safeguard the status of specific languages from being "overthrown" by other languages competing for that status.…”

Section: Language Marginalisation and Endangerment In Zimbabwementioning

confidence: 99%

Harnessing Digital Technology in the Revitalisation of the Linguistic Heritage of Zimbabwe: Possibilities and Challenges

Marungudzi¹,

Chiwewe²,

Mhute³

2014

GJSETR

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Indigenous Zimbabwean languages have through history endured marginalisation in terms of functional status in government administration, law, education, business, the media, science and technology. Though such marginalisation may be traced back to the colonial 'inheritance situation' (Bambgbose 1991), a solution to it may lie to some extent in the use of digital technology. It is argued that digitisation provides a propitious window to reverse language marginalisation or to intensify language revitalisation efforts where they have already been initiated. This can be realised through digitising all literary and non-literary works in the indigenous languages, building corpora of indigenous languages, using databases of indigenous languages to write dictionaries, filing other art work such as theatre and drama, music, poetry and film all in digital format. Notwithstanding the potential of digital technology, it was found out from interviews and web analyses that efforts to harness the technology in language revitalisation remain stunted. This paper also argues that the expense of the gadgetry needed to run the digital technology, negative attitudes towards indigenous languages, lack of resources to carry out language documentation field trips, lack of innovative intellectuals and personnel skilled in digital technology stand in the way of efforts to restore and expand the status of the indigenous languages of Zimbabwe.

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Section: Language Marginalisation and Endangerment In Zimbabwementioning

confidence: 99%

Harnessing Digital Technology in the Revitalisation of the Linguistic Heritage of Zimbabwe: Possibilities and Challenges

Marungudzi¹,

Chiwewe²,

Mhute³

2014

GJSETR

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“…Lastly, the form-first approach is inappropriate because for a language to be used in modern domains, for instance, academic purposes, as in the context under review, it requires not only word-lists or terminology glossaries but registers too. As Schiffman (1992) observed, registers are not developed in isolation from the language or translated from another language; instead, they are developed through language use and thus are developed primarily by a community of language users employing them interactively to solve particular communication problems or to perform particular tasks. Academic registers in African languages cannot be developed by bureaucrats or outsiders to the register.…”

Section: The Nationalistic Perspectivementioning

confidence: 99%

“…A good contemporary example of this is the evolution and development of a register for computer science. The English version of this register has developed along with the evolution and development of computing hardware, software, and computer science generally (Schiffman, 1992).…”

Section: The Nationalistic Perspectivementioning

confidence: 99%

Language and academic achievement: Perspectives on the potential role of indigenous African languages as a lingua academica

Madiba¹

2013

Per Ling.

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Although research literature abounds with studies that show the importance of language for academic achievement, the potential role of indigenous African languages in the educational sector in South Africa has not been adequately appraised or appreciated. Accordingly, ambivalence is still rife among parents, teachers, learners and government about the use of these languages for academic purposes. This ambivalence is evident from the existing national language education policies, school language policies, language curricula and language practices in schools. Thus, the purpose of this article is to discuss the perspectives on the potential role of indigenous African languages for academic purposes in South Africa. The focus is mainly on the use of these languages to provide a scaffold for academic language proficiency which is critical to academic success. To this end, a complementary language-use framework or model for using indigenous African languages to support the development of academic language in multilingual schools and universities is proposed.

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“…Active language planning seeks to preserve the "critical mass" of speakers, often as a reaction to perceived language arrest or decline (Schiffman 1992), the problem being that such arrest or decline is usually recognized after the fact. Cobarrubias and Fishman (1983) and Eastman (1983) provide overviews of such language planning efforts and their background theories.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Language Maintenance and Revival

Marshall¹

1994

Ann Rev Appl Ling

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Johann Gottfreid Herder illustrated how problematic language maintenance predictions can be with his prediction in his essay, On the Origin of Languages, stating that Hungarian would briefly disappear from the surface of the earth as if it had never existed. With over 10 million speakers today in Hungary, another 4 million outside the nation, and a growing population (Hungarians in the Outside World 1993), Herder's prediction remains hyperbolic, yet it illustrates how dangerous such predictions about language maintenance can be. Hungarian, as with other languages, has been maintained because of forces operating in the unique history of the nation.

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‘Resisting arrest’ in status planning: Structural and covert impediments to status change

Cited by 13 publications

References 14 publications

Harnessing Digital Technology in the Revitalisation of the Linguistic Heritage of Zimbabwe: Possibilities and Challenges

Harnessing Digital Technology in the Revitalisation of the Linguistic Heritage of Zimbabwe: Possibilities and Challenges

Language and academic achievement: Perspectives on the potential role of indigenous African languages as a lingua academica

Language Maintenance and Revival

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