Translanguaging and Phonological Features in Paiwan Indigenous Communities
Presenter(s)
Affiliation
Topic
Intersection of research, theory, and practice
Type
Papers
Abstract
This paper explores how translanguaging mediates family communication and linguistic features in Paiwan communities in Taiwan. Paiwan is one of the 16 Austronesian languages recognized by the government and spoken in Southern Taiwan. It has been noted that younger generations of the Paiwan residents do not always speak the Paiwan language in their communities, while the dominant language in Indigenous communities is Mandarin Chinese. In this study, the sociolinguistic variants and phonological features in micro-family interactions shaped and expressed through translanguaging were valorized within the experience-based model (Hay, Drager & Gibson, 2018) in the context of indigenous communities.
Drawing on micro analysis of linguistic practices of 12 Paiwan speakers in the communities, the paper examines the interplay between translanguaging activity and the distribution of phonological features. The dataset comprises spontaneous and elicited speech of three generations of Paiwan speakers from family interactions, from which 720 tokens of phonological variants are examined and categorized. The translanguaging activity was appraised with respect to maintaining the indigenous language and preserving the phonological features such as palatal and uvular stops of the Paiwan mothers in the communities. Specifically, translanguaging and the alignment of the phonological features in Paiwan in the indigenous families requires further attention as family language maintenance has social implications.
Findings suggest that translanguaging activities secure the children’s well-being and mother’s phonological features. The significance of this study lies in integrating translanguaging in family networks to explore the dynamics of phonological features of indigenous speakers to promote the use and maintenance of the Paiwan language. Phonological features were correlated with mothers’ linguistic identity and family networks. This study also provides insight into the nature of translanguaging in indigenous family interactions by demonstrating how mothers’ phonological features are valued as a new interactional reality.
