Bridging Language(s): Undergraduate Maya Students’ Language(s) Use(s)

Abstract

The goal of this study was to understand how Indigenous Maya current and former students of Language/Linguistics and Culture undergraduate programs in the Yucatan Peninsula conceptualize their lived experiences with their formal academic and informal community/family-based language(s) use(s). Specifically, I wanted to see if the concept of plurilingualism for the purposes of language learning and use could be applied to and resonate in the context of the study. Plurilingualism considers speakers as social agents who interact using their dynamic, non-linear, unbalanced, interdependent plurilingual and pluricultural skills to function in their environments (Piccardo, 2018). In turn, it requires investigating how language practices are negotiated in specific contexts (Ollerhead, Choi & French, 2018; Despagne & Grossi, 2011). Drawing from an empirical phenomenological approach (Aspers, 2009; Mortari et al., 2023; Moustakas, 1994), I took a bottom-up qualitative approach to centre the voices of the participants. A virtual survey and semi-structured interviews were conducted to gather my research data. I used Hycner´s (1985) and Mortari et al.´s (2023) guidelines to organize the interview data and in turn created narrative vignettes to illustrate my participants´ lived experiences (Ammann, 2018). The findings indicate that, at a macro level, participants are located in a liberal multicultural context (May & Sleeter, 2010) that fosters a monolingual disposition (Piccardo, 2014). At the micro level, individual language practices as embedded in networks of family and community linguistic interactions that are related to academic and professional language dynamics, which simultaneously reflect and challenge macro level language policies. In terms of a meso level analysis, the Language/Linguistic and Culture undergraduate programs contributed to strengthening, acknowledging, or including of Yucatec Maya in the participants´ linguistic repertoire, triggering a dynamic essence (Piccardo, 2014) where participants became motivated to learn, speak, and transmit culture with families. The research suggests that implementing a plurilingual approach could create heteroglossic opportunities for students to share experiences and integrate their professional goals with language revitalization efforts. In addition, it could further support existing educational and familial Indigenous language transmission processes at individual, collective and political levels.