SNP’s Community – Based Language Plan

We invite Six Nations language speakers, learners, and potential learners to come together at this forum to first listen to the draft and then brainstorm areas of further inclusion for the language plan!

Six Nations Polytechnic is in the process of creating a community-based language plan (CBLP). A CBLP is a community-driven strategy for language revitalization efforts for SNP to undertake over the next decade to achieve the ultimate goal of creating a minimum of 60 Cayuga and Mohawk language advanced-level speakers. CBLPs are informed by local practitioners (Lewis & Simons, 2016; McCarty, 2022). This special kind of work is new to the field of language revitalization as more focus of control over language revitalization efforts and policy aims are now on the communities themselves (McCarty, 2022; Hermes, 2012; McIvor & Anisman, 2018). This may be due to the findings that government-backed language planning often has inequitable consequences for Indigenous languages and the communities to which they belong (Tollefson, 1991; McCarty, 2022). However, community-based language planning is an iterative process where families, communities, and every member of that community define the strategy and can see themselves contributing to the common goal (McCarty, 2022).

Language planning is broken into three interconnected components: status planning, corpus planning, and acquisition planning. Status planning identifies areas of priority, such as deciding which languages will be prioritized, what are the goals, and what are the enablers. Corpus planning identifies the ways in which we enable language documentation and mobilization, such as the development of resources and language engineering new vocabulary. Acquisition planning identifies the target audience and the means to achieve language proficiency, such as program development (McCarty, 2022).

To create the CBLP, a working group was struck comprising educators, language practitioners, and members of the SNP leadership. One step in the process of building this plan is hearing from the community.

Language Forum Agenda: