Abstract
Prior to colonisation, Australia was home to at least 250 Indigenous languages. Today, many are no longer spoken and all are under threat. Indigenous communities are showing their resilience by implementing language revitalisation programs to strengthen their ancestral languages and combat language shift. Language revitalisation may take the form of immersion programs, Master-Apprentice programs, school classes, community language groups, and language nests, often leaving communities with an overwhelming number of program choices. As many have observed, these programs are not necessarily achieving what local communities desire, even when well-resourced. Thus, there is a need to understand how and why language revitalisation programs produce their outcomes, for whom, and in which circumstances. Evaluation of these programs is rare. When programs are evaluated, it is often primarily to report one externally imposed metrics rather than to gain a detailed understanding of how and why programs benefit local communities. Through the academic literature, language revitalisation success is measured in terms of increases in language proficiency, increases in speaker numbers, and increases in language awareness. Rarely is success viewed through the extralinguistic benefits of language programs. In Australia, Indigenous people have stated that increases in language proficiency are less of apriority than alternative outcomes such as increased community health and wellbeing.This research explores how language revitalisation programs work through a realist synthesis and a realist evaluation. I seek to understand how programs align with local community aspirations and how academic research can help local communities advance their goals.
I come to this space as a non-Indigenous researcher. Prior to embarking on this research, I worked at the Mirima Dawang Woorlab-gerring Language and Culture Centre(MDWg) in Kununurra, Western Australia. My time at MDWg motivated me to explore what outcomes the language centre’s revitalisation efforts were producing and if those outcomes align with the aspirations of MDWg language workers. In the early stages of this research, I noticed a lack of explanatory theory on language revitalisation programs. I conducted a realist synthesis of language revitalisation programs to develop an initial understanding of how revitalisation efforts are intended to work, focusing on efforts in Australia. This synthesis proposed two necessary yet under-theorised components of language revitalisation programs: strengthening communities and promoting commitment. Next, using the program theory from the synthesis, I conducted a realist evaluation. While realist evaluations generally use the realist interview technique to elicit thoughts and experiences from program participants, this did not yield the explanatory data needed to refine program theory. The realist interview technique seemed to conflict with Indigenous research methods. Instead, I adapted an Indigenous research method called yarning in order to exchange stories and share program theory, which encouraged language worker engagement, and contributed to decolonising realist evaluation. When using this storytelling method with the Miriwoong language workers, the data collection sessions were more effective and more culturally appropriate. The realist evaluation sheds light on how the language workers theorise language revitalisation, how they conceptualise language, and how we might improve language revitalisation programs. The language workers consistently related the process of strengthening their language to feeling good, which includes self-confidence, pride, wellbeing, and feeling connected to the community. The language workers do not see language defined in the narrow sense of bounded lexico-grammatical code, but instead view language as a holistic concept which includes family, culture, traditional knowledge, connection to country, and identity. According to the language workers, one must ‘feel good’ before learning language, which suggests that language programs may need to strengthen communities alongside or even prior to more structured language learning activities. Whereas prior research has suggested that language vitality leads to increased wellbeing, the experience of the Miriwoong community reveals a cyclical relationship between strengthening language and increasing wellbeing. This finding suggests a new shape for language revitalisation programs, encompassing their design, implementation, and evaluation. Instead of merely reversing language shift, this conceptualisation of language revitalisation paves a new path forward which not only aims to strengthen language, but strengthen communities as well.
| Date of Award | Jan 2024 |
|---|---|
| Original language | English |
| Supervisor | Steven Bird (Supervisor) & Rebecca Hardwick (Supervisor) |