While past research in the highland Kaqchikel Maya communities of the Quinizilapa Valley foresaw a language death scenario for this valley among the current youth generation, my research defies these predictions through the observed use and increasingly robust forecast for Kaqchikel among succeeding generations. This research articulates the relationship between the growth of positive language affect and the appearance of an age-grade language model in the Quinizilapa Valley. Positive affect stems from individual language ideologies, economic incentive for learning Kaqchikel, the influence of pan-Maya ideologies on language, and generational shifts in the beliefs about language in relation to changes in the larger social system of Guatemala. By connecting these variables with quantitative data on language use, this research goes beyond past work on language ideology and linguistic affect, demonstrating language use is increasingly interconnected with specific social domains, economic spheres of interaction, and personal beliefs about Kaqchikel language and culture. The apparent increase in fluency over time among older generations in the Quinizilapa Valley is a generational change in the process of language learning in the valley, leading to the establishment of a new pattern of age-graded transmission of Kaqchikel, thereby promoting language maintenance and revitalization in these communities. While children are not necessarily learning Kaqchikel as their first language in the household, interaction in institutional and community-specific domains such as education, traditional religious lay organizations, emblematic usage of Kaqchikel in town festivals, and the active promotion of language by individuals, the state, and NGOs in the communities are contributing to increasing fluency in Kaqchikel, creating an alternative means to past generational transmission. It is probable that a portion of the population will continue to vary in the use and transmission of Kaqchikel; however, a significant segment of the population is gradually reversing this trend. This research encompasses the complexities of research through an analysis of the emergence of a new, integrative model of linguistic and cultural maintenance and revitalization in these communities / acase@tulane.edu
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:TULANE/oai:http://digitallibrary.tulane.edu/:tulane_23884 |
| Date | January 2010 |
| Contributors | Maddox, Marc C (Author), Maxwell, Judith Marie (Thesis advisor) |
| Publisher | Tulane University |
| Source Sets | Tulane University |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Rights | Access requires a license to the Dissertations and Theses (ProQuest) database., Copyright is in accordance with U.S. Copyright law |
Page generated in 0.0015 seconds