DOCTORAL DISSERTATION RESEARCH: Language Ideologies, Youth Culture and Socialization in a Central Alaskan Yup'ik Eskimo Village

Stanford University, Stanford CA

Investigators

Abstract

Indigenous languages now disappear at an increasing rate. Activists and educators in a Yup'ik Eskimo village in southwestern Alaska motivate language revitalization efforts by emphasizing the importance of preserving Central Alaskan Yup'ik as part of a rich cultural heritage. Yet resulting ideological notions of linguistic purism stigmatize current youth language practices, creating linguistic insecurity in speakers crucial to the language's future. This dissertation focuses on effects of this contradiction by identifying how youth perceive, enact and/or reconfigure language ideologies in daily language practices, and how they influence younger children's language use through socialization networks. Ethnographic and sociolinguistic methods will 1) examine assumptions about bilingualism and language revitalization underlying educational and legal policies; 2) demonstrate how these policies constrain definitions of language ability and learn-ability locally and 3) document linguistic practices of 12 bilingual youth (ages 7-20) from four nuclear families as they interact in family and peer clusters over a year. Findings contribute to language ideology research by describing in detail how youth culture affects linguistic norms and ideology's enactment in bilingual communities. Language planners will find useful this case study of how language ideologies are interpreted and deployed by the young people on whom language revitalization efforts depend.