Purism, Prescriptivism, and Privilege: Choctaw Language Ideologies and Their Impact on Teaching and Learning

Abstract

Oklahoma Choctaw, a Muskogean language originally spoken in the American southeast, is currently the focus of language revitalization efforts by the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma. The School of Choctaw Language, which has hosted community language classes since 1997 faces significant challenges in attempting to produce fluent speakers, chief among them language ideologies that may be impacting the teaching and learning context. Using a collaborative, community-based ethnographic design and discourse analysis, this research describes an interrelated set of three language ideologies affecting the Choctaw language teaching and learning community: purism, prescriptivism and valorization of literacy. Essentialist/purist linguistic and ethnic ideologies prevalent among Choctaw Language Community Class members, though rooted and fixed in an immediately post-contact era, frame contemporary linguistic performance, linguistic meta-discourse, and language revitalization work to alienate some Choctaws while simultaneously providing motivation for language learners. Two competing discourses, prescriptivism and pluralism, are strategically employed by Choctaw community class members to authenticate speaker’s status and to resist discourses and covert policies privileging one dialect. Ideologies of purism, correctness, and valorization of literacy, as well as valorization of expert linguistic knowledge further impact community classes by a) reducing class effectiveness through a focus on grammatical analysis and literacy and b) creating an atmosphere of ethno-linguistic risk which inhibits speaker performance. Teachers’ ideological awareness may enable mitigation of the potential negative effects of the purist and prescriptivist ideologies and strategic employment in motivating learners.