Acceso usuarios
Anne Marie Guerrettaz
This study on Yucatec Maya language planning analyzes the linguistic standardization process over a six-year period. The primary research site was the programa, a mandatory Yucatec Maya course for 1,600 Indigenous Education teachers in Mexico. Alongside this acquisition planning effort, other government agencies simultaneously produced an official standard Maya. Programa administrators who oppose official standardization made their own model of Maya in widely distributed government textbooks. Neither model was the main target of programa language teaching; the Maya of classrooms is characterized by vast variation. Although the government promulgated an official standard in 2014, standardization of Maya has not been attained. The difficulties of creating a popular standard by and for Indigenous language speakers are analyzed. Social networks upholding different models of Maya are examined through an economy of language planning framework that views language as social capital and integrates knowledge and learning economy concepts. This research presents the notion of social-linguistic orders to understand how different models of a language coexist and/or compete in a language planning endeavor.
