Higgins 2019 dynamics of Hawaiian speakerhood.pdf (original) (raw)
Related papers
The dynamics of Hawaiian speakerhood in the family
International Journal of the Sociology of Language, 2019
While the majority of studies onnew speakersfocuses on language use in educational and community contexts, the family is becoming an increasingly relevant site since new speakers are now incorporating their languages into their home life. This article reports on how people of Native Hawaiian ancestry express their speakerhood with regard to their use of ʻŌlelo Hawaiʻi, or the Hawaiian language, in the context of the family. It explores Hawaiians’ stances towards different ways of speaking Hawaiian with regard to authenticity, an issue which has been found to be central among new speakers of minority languages in other contexts. Drawing on interview data with six Hawaiians, this article investigates Hawaiian speakerhood by focusing on how the participants view linguistic authority andtranslanguagingin family settings. The article offers insights into the range of linguistic practices and sociolinguistic authenticities in families that may enhance continued language revitalization eff...
Journal of Linguistic Anthropology, 2017
This study employs tape-recorded data from interviews with elder speakers of Hawaiian conducted in the year 1970 to describe how a specific feature of the Hawaiian language, the first-person inclusive plural pronoun k akou, may be used in discourse as a resource for making claims of ownership on behalf of Hawaiians. To do so, the analysis first invokes Hanks's (2005) notions of deixis and deictic field to show how k akou can create a sense of community among speakers of Hawaiian. Insights from membership category analysis (Sacks 1992; Sacks and Schegloff 1979; Schegloff 2007) are then drawn on to demonstrate how k akou can be interpreted in interaction as a reference to the category of "Native Hawaiian" and how that category can be used to construe specific natural resources, activities, and forms of language as part of a Hawaiian identity. Discussion of the analysis centers on the status of Hawaiian as an endangered language in the midst of a revitalization movement where language and culture have been points of contestation. Usage of k akou to claim ownership is seen as a resource that can allow speakers of Hawaiian to work through the language itself to negotiate what it means to be "Native Hawaiian." [Documentary linguistics, Endangered languages, Deixis, Membership categorization analysis, Hawaiian]
Pu'a i ka 'Olelo, Ola ka 'Ohana: Three Generations of Hawaiian Language Revitalization
Online Submission, 2007
In the early 1980s, the Hawaiian language had reached its low point with fewer than 50 native speakers of Hawaiian under the age of 18. Outside of the Niÿihau community, a small group of families in Honolulu and Hilo were raising their children through Hawaiian. This article shares the perspectives of three pioneering families of the Hawaiian language revitalization movement over one generation of growth, change, and transformation. Our living case study stands as a testament for other Hawaiian language families who have endured the challenges of revitalizing the Hawaiian language as the living language of the home, school, and community. The article also celebrates the legacy of the Hawaiian language movement upon the 20th-year anniversary of Hawaiian-medium education within the public sector.
University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa , 2023
(Video Link) https://vimeo.com/manage/videos/852475315/analytics This master’s thesis explores the troubling concept of being “Hawaiian enough” within the contemporary Native Hawaiian community as a pervasive form of Native Hawaiian Lateral Violence that negatively impacts contemporary Hawaiian language acquisition by Kānaka Maoli. “Hawaiian enough” refers to the set of stereotypical, legal and social expectations placed upon Native Hawaiian people that are primarily foreign in origin and function in a way that attempts to undermine and invalidate Native Hawaiian people and their claim to their ʻŌiwi identities. Using a mix of ethnographic and autoethnographic methods to understand this particular type of social violence, this thesis examines how the internal and external perception of “not being Hawaiian enough” negatively affects Hawaiian Language learning and engagement, community relationships, cultural self-efficacy, and the worth and worthiness of many Hawaiians today. This thesis features primary data collected from 50 Native Hawaiian community members gathered through a series of Hawaiian Language Acquisition and Engagement surveys that detailed personal experiences with learning, attempting to learn, or avoiding altogether, Hawaiian language and its related acquisition opportunities as well as their reasons and perspectives while doing so. Survey responses were analyzed for expressions of shame and shaming, peer judgement, defensive failure, the Hawaiian Language Hierarchy, and the fear or avoidance of speaking Hawaiian, especially with peers, each rooted in some way in Native Hawaiian Lateral Violence. Three social phenomena unique to the Native Hawaiian community that are significant contributing factors to Native Hawaiian Lateral Violence will also be introduced, those being Reactive Skepticism, Aloha Fatigue, and Triggering Whiteness. By documenting the psychosocial challenges to Hawaiian language reclamation experienced by Kānaka today, a currently under-researched topic in academic literature, this project hopes to serve as a catalyst for future investigations into this community issue so that Hawaiian language acquisition might be more accessible and equitable for all Kānaka ʻŌiwi.
Talking the Language to Death: Observing Hawaiian Language Classes
International Journal of Critical Indigenous Studies, 2017
In the late 19th century, when the United States began its illegal occupation of the Hawaiian Kingdom, the teaching of languages was dominated by an approach—grammar translation—that has been associated with élitism and cultural dominance. Since then, there have been major developments in language teaching. Among these has been the development of “communicative language teaching” (CLT), an approach intended to encourage learners to use the target language for genuine communication in culturally appropriate contexts. However, analysis of a sample of Hawaiian language lessons taught in the second decade of the 20th century revealed little evidence of any of these. Instead, an approach reminiscent of aspects of grammar translation was very much in evidence, with teacher talk, often in English, occupying over half of the lesson in each case, and with considerable evidence of confusion, frustration and minimal participation on the part of many of the students. What this suggests is the need for a comprehensive review of all those factors that have an impact on the teaching and learning of Hawaiian, including, in particular, curriculum design and teacher training. It is no longer possible to accept that while language teachers talk, often in the language/s of colonisers, language death continues to stalk those indigenous languages that have so far failed to succumb.
Tūtū's Hawaiian and the Emergence of a Neo Hawaiian Language
unpublished version, with revisions, of the article of the same name published in ‘Ōiwi: A Native Hawaiian Journal, 2005
Since the release of Keao NeSmith’s Masters paper (University of Hawaii at Manoa, 2002) of the same title, a seminal work discussing the rise of classroom 2nd-language speakers of Hawaiian and the decline of intergenerational native speakers, similar papers on neo language as a result of language revitalization in various parts of the world have emerged, from Masashi Sakihara’s Emergence of a Neo Okinawan and Extinction of Ancestral Languages (2015) to Oliver Mayeux’s Rethinking Decreolization: Language Contact and Change in Louisiana Creole (2019), to Steve Hewett’s The Problem of Neo Speakers in Language Revitalization: The Example of Breton (2020). More specifically, NeSmith’s proposition of neo Hawaiian and examples from Tūtū’s Hawaiian are referenced in Albert Schütz's book, Hawaiian Language Past, Present, Future (2020) and Ghil’ad Zuckermann’s book, Revivalistics (2020). NeSmith’s subsequent PhD thesis, The Teaching and Learning of Hawaiian in Mainstream Contexts: Time for Change? (University of Waikato, New Zealand, 2012), explored how neo language in the Hawaiian context emerges in classroom settings, and his paper, Take My Word: Mahalo no i To’u Matua Tane (2019) discusses the juxtaposition of 2nd-language speaker dominant domains and the Niihau community of Hawaiian speakers. Tūtū’s Hawaiian raises questions and issues that merit further research from all angles of scholarship regarding how today’s generation can come to terms with the loss of native speaker role models and acceptance of reifications of severely endangered languages like Hawaiian, with authors such as Laiana Wong and his paper, Authenticity and the Revitalization of Hawaiian (1999), leading such inquiries. Tūtū’s Hawaiian is offered as a memorial to the mother tongue of native speakers of Hawaiian in the traditional sense and applause to the forward movement of the modern, reified Hawaiian deriving from classrooms among 2nd-language speakers. Together we are writing the future history of the Hawaiian people.
Language, Identity, and Non-Binary Gender in Hawai'i
This dissertation provides a close examination of the linguistic stylings of three individuals in Hawai‘i who were assigned female sex at birth but identify as masculine: one as māhū, one as a transman, and one as a masculine lesbian who considers herself ‘one of the guys.’ These three individuals use linguistic resources to construct and project their identities, and through their interaction, they build and communicate their gendered selves. The dissertation uses a combination of methodological approaches in order to thoroughly investigate how language is used in the three speakers’ interactions to do identity work. I spent almost two years getting to know the participants in order to better understand their experiences and motivations. I asked them to collect data in environments that were typical of their daily interactions with their friends and loved ones. I used discourse analysis together with phonetic analysis to examine how linguistic resources were being deployed to make meaning in particular contexts and therefore working in that specific moment to construct each individual’s unique identity. The three individuals use resources that index characteristics and behaviors associated with masculine, feminine, and māhū identity, and in doing so, construct and project an identity that feels authentic to their experience and their conception of self. Because their experiences and identities are different from one another, they use a wide variety of linguistic resources in this pursuit. Furthermore, each individual’s use of linguistic resources changes as his or her motivations and targets change, showing that identity is not a single inherent property but an everchanging, evergrowing thing made up of the many different facets and experiences of the individual.
The Teaching and Learning of Hawaiian in Mainstream Educational Contexts: Time for Change?
A thesis submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the Degree of PhD at the University of Waikato, 2012
There are estimated to be fewer than 1,000 native speakers of Hawaiian language (ka ‘ōlelo Hawai‘i) in Hawai‘i. The majority of those who now learn Hawaiian do so in mainstream educational contexts and the majority of teachers of Hawaiian have learned the language as a second language in mainstream educational contexts. It is therefore important to determine what is being taught in these contexts and how it is being taught. At the core of this research project is an exploration of the attitudes and practices of a sample of teachers of Hawaiian in mainstream educational contexts. Following an introduction to the research (Chapter 1) and to the historical background against which the teaching and learning of Hawaiian takes place (Chapter 2), selected literature on language teacher cognition is critically reviewed (Chapter 3). This is followed by a report on a survey of the backgrounds, attitudes and practices of a sample of teachers of Hawaiian (Chapter 4) and a sample of students of Hawaiian (Chapter 5). Also included are analyses of a sample of widely used textbooks (Chapter 6) and a sample of Hawaiian language lessons (Chapter 7). Overall, the research suggests that major changes and developments that have taken place in the teaching and learning of additional languages since the beginning of the 20th century have had little impact on the teaching and learning of Hawaiian in mainstream educational contexts in Hawai‘i. The vast majority of the teachers surveyed had little or no training in language teaching, appeared to have little awareness of literature on language teaching and learning, and had little contact with native speakers. The textbooks analyzed, which were generally unaccompanied by teacher guides or supplementary resources, were found to be largely behaviorist in orientation, their design and methodology reflecting a curious mixture of aspects of both grammar translation and audiolingual approaches. Although most of the teachers surveyed appeared to be committed to including Hawaiian culture in their teaching, the textbooks examined were found to have very little cultural content. The lessons observed, which mainly adhered closely to the content of textbooks, relied heavily on translation and were generally absent of any clearly detectable lesson staging or any effective concept introduction or concept checking strategies. Activities were largely grammatically-focused, repetitive and non-communicative and the students were frequently observed to be confused and/ or off-task. It is concluded that the teaching and learning of Hawaiian in mainstream educational institutions in Hawai‘i is fraught with problems, problems that are evident at every stage in the process, from the lack of effective teacher education, through materials design and development to lesson planning and delivery. It would appear to be time for change. However, the survival of the Hawaiian language is by no means assured and there may be little time left in which to bring about change. For this reason, the thesis ends not only with recommendations for addressing the problems identified in the long-term and medium-term, but also with recommendations for change that could be effected the short-term (Chapter 8).
Drager & Grama (2014) - de tawk dakain ova dea: Mapping language ideologies in Oahu
Katie#DRAGER#&#James#GRAMA# University#of#Hawai'i#at#Mānoa# kdrager@hawaii.edu;#jgrama@hawaii.edu# # ! Abstract## This#study#provides#the#first#examination#of#perceptual#dialectology#within#Hawaiʻi.##While#previous# work#investigated#Hawaiʻi#Locals'#beliefs#about#language#use,#it#located#Hawaiʻi#within#the#context#of#the# United# States.# In# contrast,# respondents# in# this# study# focus# on# the# island# of# Oʻahu.# Using# a# blank# map,# respondents#mark#boundaries#where#they#believe#language#is#used#differently#on#the#island,#specifying#the# ways#in#which#they#feel#the#speech#differs.#The#results#demonstrate#that#respondents#associate#particular# regions#with#the#use#of#either#Pidgin#or#English,#and#that#the#areas#most#closely#associated#with#Pidgin#are# the#same#areas#as#those#where#people#are#said#to#speak#the#"heaviest"#Pidgin.#Some#subjects#also#include# other#languages#on#the#maps,#while#other#subjects#focus#on#differences#in#speakers'#ethnicities,#suggesting# that# beliefs# about# language# use# and# region# may# be# at# least# partially# due# to# each# of# their# respective# associations#with#ethnicity.# ! Keywords# perceptual#dialectology,#Hawaiʻi,#Pidgin/Hawaiʻi#Creole,#multilingualism,#diversity#