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From language maintenance and intergenerational transmission to language survivance: will “heritage language” education help or hinder?

Abstract In much of his work on reversing language shift, Fishman cautioned those devoted to improving the sociolinguistic circumstances of regional, ethnic, and religious languages against a premature dependence on schools, especially schools controlled by speakers of the dominant societal language. He argued that efforts on behalf of minoritized languages that seek such recognition before intergenerational transmission has been established within the group frequently leads to intergroup conflict and to disillusionment. In this article, I draw from Fishman’s stated concern about the limitations of school effectiveness in connection with mother tongue transmission as put forth in his discussions of reversing language shift, but I problematize the notion of language maintenance and intergenerational transmission from the perspective of current theoretical shifts in the fields of sociolinguistics and applied linguistics. I focus on the dilemmas facing the implementation and design of heritage language teaching and assessment programs given the various mechanisms involved in curricularizing language: that is, in the process of treating language as if were an ordinary academic subject.