Doctoral student Elizabeth Kickham, under the guidance of Dr. Sean O'Neill (University of Oklahoma), will investigate the relationship between language ideologies, learner motivation, and pedagogical method within the Choctaw Language Program, university class, and community class participants. As part of cultural and linguistic revitalization efforts, the Choctaw language is being taught in several secondary schools, universities, and communities, throughout central and southeastern Oklahoma, using both traditional classroom facilities and online technologies. The research seeks to understand the relationships among different forms of language training, fluency levels and attitudes about language use. It will examine the paradox that despite good levels of demonstrated classroom fluency, students rarely use the language in other contexts even with elder fluent speakers. The methods used to understand student ideas about the importance, utility, and identity functions of the language will involve an iterative process of ethnographic observation of virtual and actual classroom interactions, interviews with participants, and collaboration with community members to interpret data. By bridging the concepts of linguistic performance, cultural performance and language ideology, this research will further understanding of the complexities influencing language learning motivation, language choice, and teaching methods in indigenous language education.
This research will contribute to an understanding of the complex interactions within and the impact of the Choctaw Language Program's language preservation and education efforts and thereby assist them in programmatic development. It will also contribute to a wider understanding of heritage and indigenous language education practices and outcomes within the context of language ideologies. In addition, the research will frame language teaching and learning as modes of linguistic performance, reviving the idea that performance occurs not just in formal or artistic forms, but in everyday interactions in which ideas, values, and identity are presented and community values created and recreated.
Research Context, Questions, and Methods Administrators of the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma’s (CNO) language program, in existence since 1997 and created to respond to increasing language loss pressures, have begun to assess the effectiveness of their diverse efforts, including formal education efforts. This research supports that evaluation by investigating the questions: Why hasn’t the language program produced any fluent speakers? Why do fluent speakers, specifically younger speakers, choose not to speak in Choctaw? How can we support and train our 2nd Language Status Teachers to teach effectively? To research language ideologies in relation to these questions, I visited 5 university classes, 4 high school classes, and 12 community classes for a month each. I interviewed 16 teachers, 30 students and visited community language planning events and conferences, and surveyed students to assess language ability perceptions and motivations. The research also aims to develop the theories of language ideology and performance related to language choice and identity, discourse norms, student motivation, and instructional choice, and informs other indigenous language programs’ evaluation of effectiveness and purposes. The research also supports reevaluation of the language learning motivation model for non-dominant indigenous/heritage language instruction. Findings and Implications Silverstein (1979) defines language ideology as "conceptualization of language value, use, and function" which in turn affects or justifies linguistic behavior. Kroskrity (2001) states language revitalization efforts often magnify language ideology differences. This is the case for CNO language activities. Though there is a plurality of ideologies within the CNO community, several dominant ideologies appear to impact teacher method choice, student and elder linguistic performance, and language learning effectiveness. Community class students include non-Choctaws and fluent-speaker Choctaws. Many fluent elders participate to gain literacy or promote language-learning activities. Teachers generally use literacy-based methods though a few do engage in communicative activities. Much class discussion is meta-linguistic rather than communicative. The overwhelmingly prevalent discourses indicate ideologies of language as cultural identity marker, language as biological identity component, purism and perfectionism. These ideologies, situationally employed to authenticate and de-authenticate ethno-linguistic identities through challenges to pronunciation and/or right to speak/teach, often conflate blood quantum and linguistic competence into essentialized linguistic identity perceived as deriving from and reflecting ‘Choctaw-ness’. Ideologies of purism negate the validity of code-switching or mixing, termed ‘Choclish’ or fossilize the language to reflect the time of the first dictionary, circa 1865. This inhibits youth usage, given no domain for technical talk. These ideologies and the ways they are used to de-authenticate speakers impact instructional methods choice learner speech behavior, often reducing a learner’s willingness to perform or demonstrate developing linguistic competence. Though teachers often promote multiple dialects/orthographic conventions, efforts may actually entrench ideologies of purism and perfection related to dialect, as many learners, rather than acknowledging the long-standing plurality of Choctaws, believe that the dialects new to them are new forms altogether. Teachers, especially second-language-learner-teachers, often employ ideologies concerning non-standard or ‘imperfect’ orthography and pronunciation in de-authenticating their own linguistic ability as sub-standard. This may reflect a strategic deflection of authority by passively bilingual, mixed blood teachers teaching fluent elders, non-competition and elder respect being core Choctaw values identified by Haag (2001), Mould (2003). Teachers focus primarily on literacy-based classroom activities rather than methods requiring communication in the target language primarily because the non-competition norms of traditional Choctaw culture coupled with the likelihood of challenge regarding dialect, pronunciation, and authenticity of Choctaw identity make speaking publicly, even in a learning environment, a risky behavior. Teachers choose safer literacy activities, workbook, vocabulary, grammar exercises and translation, rather than more communicative methods, such as conversation and greetings practice, image and activity description, and creative narrative, to avoid requiring an elder speaker or a younger learner to publicly perform linguistic competence, which would subject them to potential judgment. Choctaw Nation’s New Direction In 2013, CNO’s Language administrators began several new projects aimed at strengthening the community class instructional effectiveness, including creating a new standardized curriculum and creating new- and continuing-teacher trainings. These efforts may have actually entrenched prevalent ideologies, however, reifying. the language as equivalent to identity ideology, in what may be a strategic essentialism employed to support the Choctaw Nation’s cultural revival movement. Further, though there is no formally standardized Choctaw orthography or pronunciation, the new ‘standardized curriculum’ is meeting with some resistance to spellings/word choices and challenging some speakers’ perception of their own competence. Measuring CNO’s language program through numbers of speakers produced will prove disappointing; however, evaluating socio-linguistic program goals indicates success. Many fluent and beginning learners engage in learning as a statement of identity/ language value, supporting with departmental goals of raising awareness/supporting learner development. Learners are increasingly aware of Choctaw’s importance to identity. Essentialized linguistic identity supports the program’s awareness goals. De-authenticate learners, though, may impede learner success. Addressing ideologies may prove a challenging, but necessary, task.
