“I Am Not Punjabi, My Parents Are”: Degradation of the Language of Dominant Majority

Sham Haidar; Tehreem Wali; Tehreem Tahir; Mehwish Parveen

doi:10.4312/ala.11.2.101-127

Authors

Sham Haidar Air University Islamabad https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6024-4846
Tehreem Wali Riphah International University https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5547-847X
Tehreem Tahir Air University Islamabad https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9516-1071
Mehwish Parveen Air University Islamabad https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2131-2121

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.4312/ala.11.2.101-127

Keywords:

language ideology, linguistic identity, linguicide, ethnic identity, domain of use

Abstract

Due to social and geographical mobility and globalization, many minority languages in the world are pushed to the periphery. Reasons for such a trend differ among languages. In the case of the Punjabi language, despite being spoken by a major portion of the population, the speakers are gradually disowning it. Considering this gradual shift, the present study explores the predicament of the Punjabi language. The study uses phenomenological design and collects data from Punjabi ethnic students in four different universities in Islamabad. The study uses semi-structured interviews, TV shows, and natural conversations. Findings reveal that the Punjabi speakers themselves disown their language as well as Punjabi identity due to social, economic, religious, and political reasons. Especially women avoid the language more, they do not speak Punjabi with their children, and they reject their Punjabi identity.

Metrics

Metrics Loading ...

Downloads

Download data is not yet available.

References

Abbas, F., Chohan, M. N., Ahmed, M., & Kaleem, M. (2016). Punjabi language in Pakistan: past, present and future. Hamdard Islamicus, 39(3&4), 1-14.

Abley, M. (2003). Spoken here. Travels among threatened languages. Toronto, ON: Random House of Canada.

Anderson, B. (2006). Imagined communities: Reflections on the origin and spread of nationalism. London: Verso books.

Backus, A. (2005). Codeswitching and language change: One thing leads to another? International Journal of Bilingualism, 9(3-4), 307-340. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/13670069050090030101

Ben-Rafael, E. (1994). Language, identity and social division: The case of Israel. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Blommaert, J. (2007). Sociolinguistic scales. Intercultural Pragmatics, 4(1), 1-19. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/IP.2007.001

Blommaert, J. (2010). The Sociolinguistics of Globalization. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511845307

Blommaert, J. (2014). State ideology and language in Tanzania. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/9780748675814

Bourdieu, P. (1991). Language and Symbolic Power (trans. G. Raymond & M. Adamson). Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Brown, B. B. (1982). The extent and effects of peer pressure among high school students: A retrospective analysis. Journal of Youth and Adolescence, 11(2), 121-133. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01834708

Charmaz, K. (2006). Constructing grounded theory: A practical guide through qualitative analysis. US: Sage.

Charmaz, K. (2014). Constructing grounded theory. US: Sage.

Cheng, W., & Warren, M. (2005). Peer assessment of language proficiency. Language Testing, 22(1), 93-121. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1191/0265532205lt298oa

Clarke, V. & Braun, V. (2017) Thematic analysis. The Journal of Positive Psychology, 12 (3), 297-298, DOI: 10.1080/17439760.2016.1262613 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/17439760.2016.1262613

Cohen, Y., & Norst, M. J. (1989). Fear, dependence and loss of self-esteem: Affective barriers in second language learning among adults. RELC Journal, 20(2), 61-77. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/003368828902000206

Collins, J. (2012). Migration, sociolinguistic scale, and educational reproduction. Anthropology & Education Quarterly, 43(2), 192-213. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1548-1492.2012.01169.x

Constantinidou, E. (1994). The “death” of East Sutherland Gaelic: Death by women? In P. Burton, K. Dyson & S. Ardener (Eds.), Bilingual women. Anthropological approaches to second-language use (pp.111–127). Oxford/Providence: Berg. DOI: https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003135111-7

Coronel-Molina, S. M. (1999). Functional domains of the Quechua language in Peru: Issues of status planning. International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism, 2, 166–180. https://doi.org/10.1080/13670059908667687 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/13670059908667687

Creswell, J. (2012). Qualitative Inquiry and Research Design: Choosing among Five Approaches. London: Sage.

Crystal, D. (2000). Language death. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781139106856

Dalby, A. (2003). Language in danger. How language loss threatens our future. Harmonds-worth, UK: Penguin.

Dewey, J. (2007). Essays in experimental logics. New York: Dover Publications.

Din, M., & Ghani, M. (2017). A sociolinguistic study on the diminishing features of the Punjabi lexicon. International Journal of English Linguistics, 7(3), 152-160. DOI: https://doi.org/10.5539/ijel.v7n3p152

García, O. & Leiva, C. (2014). Theorizing and enacting translanguaging for social justice. In Heteroglossia as practice and pedagogy (pp. 199-216). Dordrecht: Springer. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-7856-6_11

Gibbs, W. (2002). Saving dying languages. Scientific American, 287, 78–86. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/scientificamerican0802-78

Gillani, M., & Mahmood, M. A. (2014). Punjabi: A tolerated language, young generations’ attitude. Research on Humanities and Social Sciences, 4(5), 129-137.

Fishman, J. A. (1991). Reversing language shift: Theoretical and empirical foundations of assistance to threatened languages (Vol. 76). Bristol, UK: Multilingual Matters. DOI: https://doi.org/10.2307/330061

Haidar, S. (2016). Passport to privilege: access to English in different school systems in Pakistan. University of Rochester.

Haidar, S. (2019). The role of English in developing countries: English is a passport to privilege and needed for survival in Pakistan. English Today, 35(3), 42-48. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S0266078418000469

Holmes, J. (1993). Immigrant women and language maintenance in Australia and New Zealand. International Journal of Applied Linguistics, 3, 159–179. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1473-4192.1993.tb00048.x

Jaffrelot, C. (Ed.). (2002). A History of Pakistan and its Origins. Cambridge: Anthem Press.

Jalal, A. (1995). Conjuring Pakistan: History as official imagining. International Journal of Middle East Studies, 27(1), 73-89. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S0020743800061596

Janse, M. (2003). Language death and language maintenance: Problems and prospects. In Language Death and Language Maintenance: Theoretical, practical and descriptive approaches (pp. 9-17). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1075/cilt.240.02jan

Javid, H., & Martin, N. (2020). Democracy and discrimination: Comparing caste-based politics in Indian and Pakistani Punjab. South Asia: Journal of South Asian Studies, 43(1), 136-151. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/00856401.2020.1691831

Kanno, Y., & Norton, B. (2003). Imagined communities and educational possibilities: Introduction. Journal of language, identity, and education, 2(4), 241-249. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1207/S15327701JLIE0204_1

Khan, A. (2018). Wither mother-tongue (in) education? An ethnographic study of language policy in rural primary schools in Pakistan. In J. Crandall & K. Bailey (Eds.), Global perspectives on language education policies. (pp. 23-33). New York, NY: Routledge. DOI: https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315108421-2

Khokhlova, L. V. (2014). Majority language death. In H. C. Cardoso (Ed.), Language Endangerment and Preservation in South Asia. Hawaii, US: University of Hawai'i Press.

Kisselev, P., Brown, M. A., & Brown, J. D. (2010). Gender differences in language acculturation predict marital satisfaction: A dyadic analysis of Russian-speaking immigrant couples in the United States. Journal of Comparative Family Studies, 41(5), 767-782. DOI: https://doi.org/10.3138/jcfs.41.5.767

Lefkowitz, N., & Hedgcock, J. (2002). Sound barriers: Influences of social prestige, peer pressure and teacher (dis)approval on FL oral performance. Language Teaching Research, 6(3), 223-244. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1191/1362168802lr107oa

Liyanage, I., & Canagarajah, S. (2019). Shame in English language teaching: Desirable pedagogical possibilities for Kiribati in Neoliberal Times. TESOL Quarterly, 53(2), 430-455. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1002/tesq.494

Manan, S. A., & David, M. K. (2013). Mapping ecology of literacies in educational setting: The case of local mother tongues Vis-à-Vis Urdu and English languages in Pakistan. Language and Education, 28(3), 203-222. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/09500782.2013.800550

Manan, S. A., David, M. K., & Dumanig, F. P. (2015). Disjunction between language policy and children's sociocultural ecology–an analysis of English-medium education policy in Pakistan. Language and Education, 29(5), 453-473. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/09500782.2015.1046882

Mansoor, S. (2004). The status and role of regional languages in higher education in Pakistan. Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development, 25(4), 333-353. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/01434630408666536

Mascarenhas-Keyes, S. (1994). Language and diaspora: The use of Portuguese, English and Konkani by Catholic Goan women. In P. Burton, K. Dyson & S. Ardener (Eds.), Bilingual women. Anthropological approaches to second-language use (pp.149–166). Oxford/Providence: Berg. DOI: https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003135111-9

McCarty, T. L., Romero-Little, M. E., & Zepeda, O. (2006). Native American youth discourses on language shift and retention: Ideological cross-currents and their implications for language planning. International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism, 9(5), 659-677. DOI: https://doi.org/10.2167/beb386.0

McDonald, M. (1994). Women and linguistic innovation in Brittany. In P. Burton, K. Dyson & S. Ardener (Eds.), Bilingual women. Anthropological approaches to second-language use (pp. 85–110). Oxford/Providence: Berg. DOI: https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003135111-6

Murphy, A. (2018). Writing Punjabi across borders. South Asian history and culture, 9(1), 68-91. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/19472498.2017.1411049

Myers-Scotton, C. (1992). Codeswitching as a mechanism of deep borrowing, language shift, and language death. In M Brenzinger (ed.), Language death: Factual and theoretical exploration with special reference to East Africa (pp. 31-58). New York: Mouton de Gruyter. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110870602.31

Nazir, B., Aftab, U., & Saeed, A. (2013). Language shift–The case of Punjabi in Sargodha region of Pakistan. Acta Linguistica Asiatica, 3(2), 41-60. DOI: https://doi.org/10.4312/ala.3.2.41-60

Nettle, D., & Romaine, S. (2000). Vanishing voices. The extinction of the world’s languages. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.

Pavlenko, A. (2001). Bilingualism, gender, and ideology. International Journal of Bilingualism, 5(2), 117-151. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/13670069010050020101

Phillipson, R., & Skutnabb-Kangas, T. (1995). Linguicide and linguicism. In Hans Goebl, Peter H. Nelde, Zdenek Stary, Wolfgang Wölck (Eds.), Kontaktlinguistik. Contact Linguistics. Linguistique de contact. Ein Internationales Handbuch zeitgenössiger Forschung. An International Handbook of Contemporary Research. Manuel international des recherches contemporaines. (pp. 667-675). Berlin, Germany: Walter de Gruyter.

Piller, I. (2016). Linguistic diversity and social justice: An introduction to applied sociolinguistics. Oxford: Oxford University Press. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199937240.001.0001

Polkinghorne, D. E. (1989). Phenomenological research methods. In Valle, R. S., & Halling, S. E. (Eds.), Existential-phenomenological perspectives in psychology (pp. 41-60). Boston, MA: Springer. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4615-6989-3_3

Qadeer, M. A. (2006). Pakistan: Social and cultural transformations in a Muslim Nation. New York: Routledge. DOI: https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203099681

Rahman, T. (1996). British language policies and imperialism in India. Language Problems and Language Planning, 20(2), 91-115. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1075/lplp.20.2.01rah

Rahman, T. (1997). Language and Ethnicity in Pakistan. Asian Survey, 37(9), 833-839. doi:10.2307/2645700 DOI: https://doi.org/10.2307/2645700

Rahman, T. (2005). The Muslim response to English in South Asia: With special reference to inequality, intolerance, and militancy in Pakistan. Journal of Language, Identity and Education, 4(2), 119–135. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1207/s15327701jlie0402_4

Rahman, T. (2010). The medium of instruction controversy in Pakistan. Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development, 18(2), 145-154. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/01434639708666310

Rammah, S. (2006). West Punjabi Poetry: From Ustad Daman to Najm Hosain Syed. JPS, 13(1&2), 216.

Reagan, T. (2019). Why Language Endangerment and Language Death Matter: ‘Took away our native tongue… And taught their English to our young’. In Linguistic legitimacy and social justice (pp. 285-314). Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-10967-7_9

Romaine, S. (1995). Bilingualism. New York: Wiley-Blackwell.

Saldaña, J. (2010). The coding manual for qualitative researchers. London: Sage.

Sandberg, J. (2000). Understanding human competence at work: An interpretative approach. Academy of Management Journal, 43(1), 9-25. DOI: https://doi.org/10.2307/1556383

Saxena, M., & Omoniyi, T. (Eds.). (2010). Contending with globalization in world Englishes. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters. DOI: https://doi.org/10.21832/9781847692764

Schubert, J. D. (2014). Suffering/symbolic violence. In M. Grenfell (Ed). Pierre Bourdieu: Key concepts (pp. 179-194). London: Routledge.

Skutnabb-Kangas, T. (1988). Multilingualism and the education of minority children. In T. Skutnabb-Kangas & J. Cummins (Eds), Minority education: From shame to struggle, (pp. 9-44). Clevedon: Multilingual Matters.

Skutnabb-Kangas, T. (1999). Language attrition, language death and language murder: different facts or different ideologies. Strong' and' weak' languages in the European Union: Aspects of linguistic hegemonism, 59-73.

Shafi, A. (2013). Punjabi parents’ perception of Punjabi as their children’s mother tongue. Editorial Board, 39.

Simons, G., & Fennig, C. (Eds.). (2018). Ethnologue: Languages of the world (21st ed.). Dallas, TX: SIL International. Retrieved May 6, 2018, from http://www.ethnologue.com

Viswanathan, G. (2014). Masks of conquest: Literary study and British rule in India. New York: Columbia University Press. DOI: https://doi.org/10.7312/columbia/9780231171694.001.0001

Walqui, A. (2000). Contextual Factors in Second Language Acquisition. ERIC Digest.

Woodrow, L. (2006). Anxiety and speaking English as a second language. RELC Journal, 37(3), 308-328. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/0033688206071315

Zaidi, A. (2010). A postcolonial sociolinguistics of Punjabi in Pakistan. Journal of Postcolonial Cultures and Societies, 1(3-4), 22-55.