Browsing by Subject "Language policy"
Now showing 1 - 7 of 7
- Results Per Page
- Sort Options
Item A nation in transition : language policy and its impact on Russian-language education in Ukraine(2016-08-11) Chilstrom, Karen Lynne McCulloch; Garza, Thomas J.; Lutsyshyna, Oksana; Pesenson, Michael; Boas, Hans; Callahan, Rebecca; Liu, AmyIn its transition from a Soviet republic to an independent nation, Ukraine has struggled to bridge a centuries-old political, cultural, and linguistic divide that in the twentieth century alone has spawned deadly protests, two revolutions, the ousting of a president, the annexation of Crimea by Russia, and an ongoing war in eastern Ukraine. Current political tensions between Russia and Ukraine threaten to split the country in two, so questions of language policy and national unity have taken on even greater urgency since 2014. This dissertation examines the evolution of policy related to Russian-language education in Ukraine at the primary and secondary levels and explores the impact of changes in policy on the teaching of Russian in that country. Based on data collected through interviews with seventeen teachers of Russian in Ukraine, this study presents an ethnographic portrait of Russian-language education after Maidan and answers three broad questions: 1) How have policies related to the role and status of the Russian language in Ukraine evolved since Ukraine became an independent nation, and how has this evolution in language policy affected the teaching of Russian there?; 2) How do geography and political conditions in contemporary Ukraine affect language policy, attitudes toward the Russian language, and the teaching of Russian?; and 3) How has the geopolitical relationship between Ukraine and Russia affected the status of, and attitudes toward, the Russian language and the study of Russian in Ukraine? An analysis of the data leads to several major findings: 1) Modifications to language policy in post-Soviet Ukraine have resulted in sweeping changes in the role of the Russian language within the education system and led to an end to compulsory Russian language studies, a drop in the prestige of the Russian language within the education system, and increasingly negative attitudes toward the study of Russian. 2) Political conditions and the historic cultural and linguist divide between western and eastern Ukraine continue to influence attitudes toward the Russian language in predictable ways. 3) Attitudes toward the Russian language in Ukraine worsened considerably following Euromaidan and Russia’s annexation of Crimea, and negative attitudes persist due to Russia’s ongoing support of the war in Donbas. These findings suggest that language issues in Ukraine will continue to be of critical importance in the years to come and, if left unresolved, may lead to further division and conflict on a national and international scale.Item Built upon the Tower of Babel : language policy and the clergy in Bourbon Mexico(2016-05) Zakaib, Susan Blue; Deans-Smith, Susan, 1953-; Twinam, Ann; Butler, Matthew; Garrard-Burnett, Virginia; McDonough, KellyThis dissertation provides the first in-depth analysis of the “Bourbon language reforms”—a series of royal and ecclesiastical policies aimed at spreading the Spanish language in New Spain (now Mexico), enacted primarily between the 1750s and 1770s under the rule of the Bourbon dynasty. The limited scholarship on these reforms has assumed that a monolithic Bourbon state sought to mold a monolingual, Spanish-speaking empire. It has also suggested that creoles (American-born Spaniards), mendicants (Franciscan, Dominican and Augustinian friars), indigenous peoples, or some combination thereof responded by uniformly opposing the Bourbon state’s oppressive measures. I challenge both of these arguments by analyzing the central Mexican Catholic Church’s “language regime”—not only official policies, but also their historical context, and predominant ideologies about indigenous languages and their speakers—between 1700 and 1821. I demonstrate that indigenous languages were deeply integrated into the inner workings of the Church—not only its religious services, but also its bureaucracy and hierarchy. Native language competency helped to determine clerics’ career paths, forge socioeconomic hierarchies within the Church, and shape political disputes between warring royal and ecclesiastical factions. This key role of native languages in the Church helped induce the Bourbon language reforms. In spite of the reform effort, however, native languages continued to play a critical role in ecclesiastical administration through the end of the colonial period. This was due in large part to the fact that the Bourbon state did not seek uniformly to eradicate these languages; indeed, royal and ecclesiastical authorities could not even agree on precisely what their language policy should entail. Few priests (creole or not) felt the need to resist a reform effort that was contradictory, piecemeal, and of limited consequence for the Church. Contrary to many scholars’ assumptions, these findings indicate that modern Mexico’s linguistic inequality is not a persistent vestige of colonial policy. Instead, 18th-century language policy was only an early step in a centuries-long process leading to today’s particular brand of linguistic discrimination.Item Defining bilingualism : the language ideologies and linguistic practices of bilingual teachers from the U.S.-Mexico border(2015-05) Zúñiga, Christian Ellen; Palmer, Deborah K., 1969-; Callahan, Rebecca M; Maloch, Anna E; Martínez, Ramón A; Martínez-Roldan, Carmen MThis study examines how three heritage bilingual teachers from the Texas U.S.-Mexico border articulate their understanding of bilingualism and how they embody those understandings in their classroom language practices and policies. All three teachers were assigned to a “one way” dual language classroom in first or third grade. I draw on theoretical frameworks related to language policy, language ideology, and borderland and postcolonial perspectives of languaging. Key findings suggest that the teachers defined bilingualism around ideas of adequacy that ranged across contexts, interpretation of second language acquisition theories, and an ability to meet the demands of academic language. Additionally, the teachers’ articulated and embodied ideologies drew on a spectrum of language practices and language ideologies that co-existed in the same classroom. Finally, the teachers’ practices and policies were situated within larger, pervasive schooling structures, like standardized assessment. The findings have implications for how bilingualism is understood and supported for language minority students, particularly in the areas of teacher education, language and assessment policy, and theory describing the relationship between language and identity.Item Dual language bilingual education program implementation : teacher language ideologies and local language policy(2015-05) Henderson, Kathryn Isabel; Palmer, Deborah K., 1969-; Callahan, Rebecca M.; Martínez, Ramón; Dukerich, Janet; Fitzsimmons-Doolan, ShannonIn this dissertation, I investigated the top-down implementation process of a dual language bilingual education (DLBE) program in over 60 schools in a large urban school district in Texas to identify language ideologies and issues of language policy and policy implementation according to local participating educators. Drawing on a language policy framework and research in linguistic anthropology to define language ideologies, I employed a multi-method approach (survey (n=323 educators), interview (n=20 DLBE teachers) and observation (n=3 DLBE teachers)) to measure and better understand language ideology and its significance for local language policy. Analysis revealed ideological tension and multiplicity, within and across educators, within single statements and overtime. For example, during interviews most teachers expressed additive views towards bilingualism, but subtractive views towards non-standard variations of each language. Similarly, several teachers articulated additive ideologies towards bilingualism while articulating the relative greater importance of English language acquisition. These ideological tensions operated in distinct ways at the classroom level. One teacher strictly followed the DLBE policy in her classroom to support bilingual/biliteracy development, but she also discouraged certain students and families from participating in the program because of their non-standard language practices. This dissertation complicates traditional understandings of the role of language ideologies within language policy implementation. Much research in our field discusses bilingual programs and program implementation in dichotomous terms (i.e. subtractive/additive). In contrast, I demonstrate how the multiplicity and complexity of language ideologies must be considered when trying to discuss the ideological struggle involved in implementing pluralist bilingual programs within an English dominant society. I present four potential models to conceptualize and analyze ideological tension as well as a discussion on the relationship between language ideologies and local language policy. Implications for teacher education, DLBE policy and future research are considered.Item Interactive read alouds : developing literacy in bilingual second grade classrooms(2017-05) Leija Lara, María Guadalupe; Salinas, Cinthia; Fránquiz, María E.The qualitative case study investigated how a Latino bilingual teacher incorporated students' linguistic, cultural, and experiences of the Latina/o community through interactive read alouds during an Immigration Project and a Día de los Muertos Project. Given the large and growing demographics of this nation and the challenge of recruiting and retaining teachers of color in bilingual education, the significance of this study lies in the depth examination of the contributions of a Latino teacher in his bilingual second grade classroom. The theoretical framework guiding this study drew from CRT and LatCrit (Solórzano & Delgado, 2001) theories, and the continua of biliteracy (Hornberger & Link, 2012). The theoretical framework focuses on the lived experiences of Communities of Color and positions them as having valuable linguistic and cultural knowledge that educators can draw from to further develop students' bilingualism, biliteracy, and biculturalism. Qualitative research methods included classroom observations, field notes, semistructured interviews, audio and video recordings, and collection of student and teacher produced artifacts. Findings suggest that the Latino teacher negotiated conflicting language ideologies about the use of code switching in oral and written form during the teaching of language arts. In addition, through the Immigration Project, students and the teacher were able to make text-to-life connections that drew from their personal and community’s linguistic, cultural, and experiential knowledge. During the Día de los Muertos Project, findings revealed that Latinos are a diverse ethnic group with dynamic cultural practices. It’s important to note that when literacy intersects with national origins, religion, and cultural experiences, students and families respond in varied ways.Item Reimagining linguistic landscape : online discourses of Israeli human rights organizations(2019-05-09) Broome, Amy Evangeline; Mohammad, Mohammad A.Language Policy and Linguistic Landscape methodologies, which have become popular in the field of sociolinguistics over the past few decades, examine the symbolic usage of language in public multilingual space as it relates to existing social structures and hierarchies. While a number of scholars have applied LL to the physical cityscape in towns and cities across Israel, this research seeks to broaden the scope of LL in two key ways. It first pushes the conception of public space to include virtual space, examining the “netscape” as opposed to a physical location. It also expands the notion of language to include broader understandings of discourse as a form of language in and of itself. Accordingly, this research assesses the online symbolism and language use of Israeli human rights organizations to gain further insight to not only the linguistic market of Israel, but that of human rights discourse as well. Through analysis of logos and mission statements of several Israeli advocating for Palestinian human rights, this paper investigates the ways in which these organizations navigate the challenges of translating Palestinian human rights violations into the global human rights discourse palatable to the Israeli public. The relationships represented through conflict between Arabic and Hebrew play out differently in the physical space than they do in the top-down representations of Israeli human rights organizations, but these language choices are yet made within the contexts of the human rights discourse surrounding the Israel-Palestine conflict. The nature of the conflict inherently suggests the use of Hebrew and Arabic, but the discourse itself requires the use of English as a means for accessing global resources. This research notes the intensified impact of globalization due to the English required for involvement in the human rights discourse and explores the ways in which this confluence of languages and language relations serves to both perform and constitute a unique human rights discourse space for left-leaning Israeli organizations.Item Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan : migration, language politics and their relations with Russia(2015-05) Miles, Steven Andrew; Garza, Thomas J.; Jordan, Bella BThis report compares and contrasts Uzbekistan's and Kazakhstan's relations with Russia and how domestic politics influences those relations. This report will analyze how these relations are conducted in three themes: language policy, migrant labor from these countries to Russia, and the international relations of Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan vis-à-vis Russia. The first chapter provides an overview of the Soviet nationalities policy. First, the chapter will summarize the ethnogenesis of the Uzbeks and the Kazakhs. Second, it will explore Kazakh and Uzbek nationalist movements that were active in Central Asia before the formation of the Soviet Union. Finally, the chapter will explore process of the formation of the Soviet republics of Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan. The second chapter is concerned with the language policies of Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan. The chapter will show how the Soviet authorities promoted the use of the Uzbek and Kazakh languages. It will show how codification, standardization and orthographic reforms were not only components of Soviet language policy, but also language of polices of these modern, independent Central Asian states. The third chapter explores the international relations of Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan in vis-à-vis Russia. Using a theoretical framework, It will compare and contrast the approaches of the governments of these states towards Russia and how domestic policies concerning national security are connected with foreign policy. The fourth and final chapter examines labor migration from Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan to Russia. Using data from the Russian government, World Bank and other organization, It will look at how labor migrants from these countries contribute to their respective economies though remittances. Additionally, this chapter will examine how the government of Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan view migrant labor originating from their respective countries.