Language Identity and Ownership through Code-Switching among Bilingual Maya-Spanish Undergraduate Students at an Intercultural-Bilingual-Education Bachelor’s Program
Document Type
Paper Presentation
Presenter Language
English
Research Area
linguistic anthropology, linguistic human rights, sociolinguistics
Location
MBSC Council Room 306
Start Date
17-10-2024 3:30 PM
End Date
17-10-2024 4:00 PM
Abstract
Intercultural Bilingual Education (IBE) is a paramount advancement for the cultural and linguistic rights for indigenous peoples across Latin America, including Mexico. Nonetheless, in this country, IBE in higher education has faced arduous challenges in its implementation. The minoritization of indigenous languages (ILs) in the educational model for intercultural universities and programs makes IBE a contested educational battlefield throughout Mexico regarding the relevance of ILs. This paper explains the sociolinguistic negotiation processes among Maya-Spanish bilingual students at the Maya Linguistics and Culture (MLC) program at the Universidad de Oriente. These negotiations provide the necessary data to understand students’ language ideologies regarding the role of Maya and Spanish and their preferred use by students.
Using Myers-Scotton and Bolonyai’s (2001) Rational Choice Theory (RCT) model and Poole’s (1999) Language Regime Theory (LRG) as theoretical frameworks, I analyze code-switching behavioral choices among students and professors during class interactions. I perform such analysis based on ethnographic data I gathered while conducting participant observation and informal interviews within the program during 2023 (January-November). Regarding the frameworks, The RCT model postulates that, in an interaction of speakers speaking multiple languages, the speaker makes a choice in the variation of their speech use with their interlocutors based on the potential maximization of benefits and the minimization of costs in the interaction (Myers-Scotton & Bolonyai 2001). Likewise, language regimes are de-facto social agreements in which a community of speakers tacitly understands and agrees upon the different function that dialects of a language, or different languages will have in a social context and space. These diglossic arrangements are indeed motivated by language ideologies supporting these established regimes (Poole 1996).
By analyzing students’ code-switching behaviors in formal and informal contexts, I demonstrate that they are continuously exerting language identity and ownership over their local linguistic ecology as they negotiate the alternate use of Maya and Spanish to maximize their interactions with faculty in seeking to obtain benefits while minimizing costs. Therefore, students take control of their educational experience in Maya and Spanish despite acute disadvantages, such as a currently insufficient Maya language-based educational model and the language’s institutional minoritization.
Language Identity and Ownership through Code-Switching among Bilingual Maya-Spanish Undergraduate Students at an Intercultural-Bilingual-Education Bachelor’s Program
MBSC Council Room 306
Intercultural Bilingual Education (IBE) is a paramount advancement for the cultural and linguistic rights for indigenous peoples across Latin America, including Mexico. Nonetheless, in this country, IBE in higher education has faced arduous challenges in its implementation. The minoritization of indigenous languages (ILs) in the educational model for intercultural universities and programs makes IBE a contested educational battlefield throughout Mexico regarding the relevance of ILs. This paper explains the sociolinguistic negotiation processes among Maya-Spanish bilingual students at the Maya Linguistics and Culture (MLC) program at the Universidad de Oriente. These negotiations provide the necessary data to understand students’ language ideologies regarding the role of Maya and Spanish and their preferred use by students.
Using Myers-Scotton and Bolonyai’s (2001) Rational Choice Theory (RCT) model and Poole’s (1999) Language Regime Theory (LRG) as theoretical frameworks, I analyze code-switching behavioral choices among students and professors during class interactions. I perform such analysis based on ethnographic data I gathered while conducting participant observation and informal interviews within the program during 2023 (January-November). Regarding the frameworks, The RCT model postulates that, in an interaction of speakers speaking multiple languages, the speaker makes a choice in the variation of their speech use with their interlocutors based on the potential maximization of benefits and the minimization of costs in the interaction (Myers-Scotton & Bolonyai 2001). Likewise, language regimes are de-facto social agreements in which a community of speakers tacitly understands and agrees upon the different function that dialects of a language, or different languages will have in a social context and space. These diglossic arrangements are indeed motivated by language ideologies supporting these established regimes (Poole 1996).
By analyzing students’ code-switching behaviors in formal and informal contexts, I demonstrate that they are continuously exerting language identity and ownership over their local linguistic ecology as they negotiate the alternate use of Maya and Spanish to maximize their interactions with faculty in seeking to obtain benefits while minimizing costs. Therefore, students take control of their educational experience in Maya and Spanish despite acute disadvantages, such as a currently insufficient Maya language-based educational model and the language’s institutional minoritization.