“Hou liekt t?”
An investigation into the current position of the regional language Gronings in education
Anna Huiting
S2309246
MA Thesis
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List of contents
List of maps, figures, tables 3
0. Abstract 4
1. Introduction 5
2. Language shift and language attitudes 7
2.1 The European Charter for Regional and Minority Languages 7
2.1.1 What is a regional language? 7
2.1.2 Recognition of Lower Saxon 9
2.2 Language shift and language revitalization 10
2.2.1 Language shift 10
2.2.2 Language revitalization 11
2.2.3 Language planning 13
2.3 The importance of regional languages in education 14
2.4 Language attitudes 16
2.4.1 Attitudes within the speech community 16
2.4.2 Attitudes within society 17
2.5 The position of Gronings in the province 18
2.5.1 The use of Gronings 18
2.5.2 Gronings in education 21 2.6 Research question 21 3. Methodology 24 3.1 Procedure 24 3.2 Participants 24 3.3 The interview 26 3.4 Analysis 28 3.5 Limitations 29 4. Results 30
4.1 Quantitative data on the self reported ability of Gronings 30
4.2 Qualitative data on attitudes 31
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5.1 Quantitative data 33
5.2 Qualitative data 34
5.2.1 Attitudes towards Gronings 34
5.2.2 Attitudes towards Dutch 37
5.2.3 Attitudes towards English 39
5.2.4 Attitudes towards other languages 39 5.2.5 Attitudes towards identity and Gronings as a language 40 5.2.6 Attitudes towards having Gronings in education 42
6. Conclusion 43
7. Appendices 46
Appendix A – Interview principals 46
Appendix B – Interview teachers 48
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List of maps, figures and tables
Maps
Map 1: The dialect area of Lower Saxon in the Netherlands 19
Tables
Table 1: The nine principles of Part II of the European Charter for Regional or
Minority Languages 9
Table 2: UNESCO’s nine factors that affect language revitalization 13 Table 3: The extent to which children speak Dutch with others instead of the
regional language according to Driessen 21
Table 4: Background information on the participants 25
Table 5: Table on self reported language ability of Gronings 30 Table 6: An overview on the attitudes towards Gronings, Dutch, English and
other languages in relation to education 31
Table 7: An overview of the attitudes towards identity and Gronings as a
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0. Abstract
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1. Introduction
After the establishment of the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages in 1992 governments and regional authorities have been emphasizing the promotion and protection of regional and minority languages. The European Charter addresses concerns about the state and vitality of regional languages such as Lower Saxon and its varieties, such as Gronings. Driessen has shown with the replication of a previous study that the use of regional varieties has gone down drastically from 12% to 4% (2016, p. 10). As Herweijer and Jans (2009) mention, the regional languages are in danger of being replaced by the standard language.
Furthermore, languages are of great importance to our identity. As put forward by Crystal (2000), it is of great importance to the vitality of one identity and culture to keep languages vital themselves. Moreover, the decline of regional varieties might be since the varieties might be underestimated as playing a part in the regional culture and identity (Herweijer and Jans, 2009).
There are several factors that have an influence on the vitality of a regional language. UNESCO has made a list of 9 of these factors. One of them is the availability of educational materials and literature in the regional language (2003, p. 7). The European Charter for protecting minority and regional languages also underscores, under Article 7, 1.f. the importance of materials for education on and in the regional language by emphasizing that there should be provided appropriate forms and materials in order to teach on and in a regional or minority language at all appropriate stages (Raad van Europa, 2001, p. 3).
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attitudes begin to form, education is a field where one could have a great influence on attitudes (Baker and Jones, 1998; Münstermann, 1988).
Since education is such an influential place regarding language attitudes and language maintenance, it would be relevant to investigate the extent to which the regional language Gronings is still present and valued in education. Currently, there exists a gap of knowledge in this field. There are no recent numbers on the use of Gronings in education, nor data on the attitudes and needs in education concerning Gronings. The aim of this master thesis is to fill this gap partially by answering the following research question: What is the current position of Gronings in education, taking into account the ability to use Gronings and attitudes towards Gronings, according to teachers and school principals? Especially when asking the teachers and school principals, since they work in the field and have to deal with the linguistic reality of their classrooms every day, which might include having Gronings in class. Their responses might also indicate whether economic terms or other factors such as personal and integrative values, social norms and own abilities play a role when addressing not only the position of Gronings, but also the position of the standard national language Dutch, and the foreign language English.
The expectation regarding other languages such as Dutch and English, is that they might often be seen as more functional useful languages with prestige and power, and an international perspective, as claimed by Baker (2011). Whereas the regional language, Gronings, can be seen as a marker of the Groninger identity. Therefore, the expectation is that Gronings still beholds a symbolic position within education.
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2. Language shift and language attitudes
2.1 The European Charter for Regional and Minority Languages
2.1.1. What is a regional language?
After the establishment of the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages in 1992 governments and regional authorities have been emphasizing the promotion and protection of regional and minority languages. Regional and minority languages have been defined as following:
“i) traditionally used within a given territory of a State by nationals of that State who form a group numerically smaller than the rest of the State’s population; ii) and different from the official language(s) of that State; it does not include either dialects of the official language(s) of the State of the languages of migrants” (Raad van Europa, 2001, p. 2).
With this definition it becomes clear that dialects are varieties of the standard language and are therefore part of the standard language and are not counted as separate regional or minority languages. However, in the Netherlands, Lower Saxon and Limburgs both have strived to have their language recognized as regional languages. Arguments made by linguists in that time were that both Lower Saxon and Limburgs have not been aiding the development of the standard language and can therefore be seen as separate languages of the State (Belemans, 2009, p. 112). This is not entirely true, it is more that these languages did not have prestige which led to a relatively small contribution to the standard language (Van der Wal & Van Bree, 2004, p. 203)
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Whether one would call a these varieties a separate language might be a political matter. Some might want to stick to the term ‘dialect’ and others might feel more comfortable with ‘regional language’.
2.1.2. Recognition of Lower Saxon
Lower Saxon is a regional language that consists of various varieties which are intelligible to all speakers of one or another variety. These varieties, or dialects of Lower Saxon, are Drents, Twents, Stellingwerfs, Veluws, Sallands, Achterhoeks, IJssellands, Urks and Gronings (Herweijer & Jans, 2009, p. 2).
Lower Saxon has been recognized to get protection by the European Charter in 1998 and Limburgs followed a few years later. The Charter exists of two different levels on which regional and minority languages can be protected and promoted. When a language has been recognized under Part II of the Charter, the government is obliged to protect and promote this language according to 9 basic principles. These principles are focused on the protection and honoring of the regional languages as we can see in table 1.
Table 1. The nine principles of Part II of the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages (Raad van Europa, 2001)
Principle 1 The recognition of the regional or minority languages as an expression of cultural richness;
Principle 2 The respect of the geographical area of the regional or minority languages in that there might not be an obstacle when there are new administrative divisions; Principle 3 The need for promotion and action of the regional or minority languages in order
to protect them;
Principle 4 To facilitate and encourage the speaking and writing in the regional or minority language in public and private life;
Principle 5 The maintenance and development of links between groups using a regional or minority language within the State of identical or similar form, as well as groups who use different languages in the State;
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Principle 7 To provide the means for non-speakers by which they can learn the regional or minority language if they want to;
Principle 8 The encouragement of study and research on the regional or minority languages at institutions and universities;
Principle 9 The encouragement of appropriate types of transnational exchanges for regional or minority languages who are being used in an identical or similar way in two or more States
Part III is a more elaborate version of Part II which obliges governments to fulfill 35 measures out of at least six domains of public life (Mercator, 2009, p. 14). Within the Netherlands Frisian has been acknowledged under Part III, whereas Lower Saxon and Limburgs have been acknowledged under Part II (Herweijer & Jans, 2009, p. 2).
2.2 Language shift and language revitalization
2.2.1 Language shift
The need for the European Charter is because there are concerns about the state and vitality of regional languages, such as Lower Saxon and its dialects, such as Gronings. Driessen has shown with the replication of a previous study that the use of regional varieties has gone down drastically from 12% in 1994 to 4% in 2014 (2016, p. 10). This language shift shows that it is important to promote and protect these varieties in order for them to have a greater vitality. Language shift generally refers to a decline of use of a language. This entails fewer speakers of a language, a loss in language proficiency and fewer domains in which the language is being used (Baker, 2011, p. 72). As Herweijer and Jans (2009) mention that, the regional language might be in danger of being replaced by the standard language, or might be underestimated as playing a part in the regional culture and identity (Herweijer and Jans, 2009, p. 1).
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1. A language indexes its culture. Language and culture have always been linked to each other throughout the history of that culture, and this language connected to this culture is therefore the best language to express that particular culture.
2. A language symbolizes its culture. A language stands for the people that use it and the culture that uses it. To speak English in South Africa might be seen as inappropriate in certain situations because it was the language of the oppressor during colonial times. Language symbolizes that history and culture.
3. Culture is partly created from its language. Certain sayings, expressions, forms and registers are traditionally used in the language of that culture. Saying those things in a different language might require a long explanation which leads to the loss of a certain meaning and cultural trait, which is part of the original language.
Apart from the relationship between language and culture, Crystal (2000) argues that language diversity is important and should be retained. His arguments are following:
1. Retaining ecological, linguistic diversity is essential. Diversity might lead to situations of adaption. Adaption means stability and leads to survival, as evolution has shown. 2. Languages express identity. Identity is about security and a feeling of sharing
characteristics. Language is one of these and can be seen as a symbol and marker of this identity.
3. Languages are repositories of history. Language has been the form of expression of a culture for many years and therefore stores the history of that culture.
4. Language contribute to the sum knowledge. Language contains history, culture and identity and are therefore contributors to the vision of the past, present and future. With the loss of a language, these visions are also lost, as is the knowledge.
5. Languages are interesting themselves. Languages are subjects of many studies of linguists and might give insight into the wonder of humans and language in itself.
2.2.2. Language revitalization
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(2001) and Abrams et al. (2009) in order to revitalize a language. This model consists of three factors: status factors, demographic factors and institutional support factors. The first, status factors, are based on the amount of prestige a certain language variety has and where it falls in the language at the hierarchy, superordinate or subordinate to the other languages. This prestige depends on the economic status of the language. A minority language community might be experiencing bad economic situations such as high unemployment or low income and shifting towards the majority language might improve the economic situation. Also, in certain jobs it might be a disadvantage when speaking the minority language since the majority language is used only. Or in certain jobs it might be an advantage to speak an additional language for international or regional communication which might be needed for the job.
This power measurement of the languages is not only based on economics, but also on social status. This is a powerful factor for language revitalization. When a majority language is seen as the language that gives more social appreciation, more political power and more means to communicate, one might switch towards this variety. Especially when a minority language is being associated with low income, unemployment, social deprivation and a lower social prestige, this language might be shifted away from (Giles, 2001).
The last status factor is symbolic status. As mentioned by Fishman (1991) and Crystal (2000), a language is a symbol of its culture and a symbol of identification for the people who speak it. The standard language of a nation is often a symbol of unity and solidarity for all inhabitants of the nation, whereas a big foreign language such as English is often seen as the means to communicate internationally in a globalized world. English is a world language that has prestige and power, whereas a minority language is often the symbol of the attendant culture (Baker, 2011).
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Another important factor within the model is institutional support. When a wide variety of institutions within a certain region use and promote a language, it would improve the vitality of this language. These institutions are such as mass media, religion, administrative services and education. Especially education is important for maintaining a language on long-term in modern society (Baker, 2011, p. 57).
2.2.3. Language planning
In order to aim for this long-term survival and to reverse language shift one needs to start revitalizing a language through language planning. Language planning, also called language management, has three inter-dependent manners of tackling language shift. These are status planning (for example raising the status via institutions within society), corpus planning (for example standardizing grammar and spelling) and acquisition planning (increasing the number of speakers by for example language learning in school or language class for adults) (Baker, 2011, p. 49). Language revitalization is a way to put priorities on language planning in order to improve the language vitality of a language. A model that has been suggested by UNSECO has put forward nine factors that affect language revitalization.
Table 2. UNESCO’s nine factors that affect language revitalization (2003) Factor 1 Intergenerational language transmission
Factor 2 Absolute number of speakers
Factor 3 Proportion of speakers within the total population Factor 4 Shifts in domains of language use
Factor 5 Response to new domains and media
Factor 6 Materials for language education and literacy
Factor 7 Governmental and institutional language attitudes and policies, including official status and use
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All these factors are inter-dependent and demonstrate why having regional languages in education is an important manner to revitalize a language. Since the use of the regional language within families is sometimes declining (factors 1, 2, 3), for different reasons (factors 7 and 8), the supply line ‘family’ for the regional language has been lost, and “bilingual education has to attempt to make up the shortfall” (factors 4 and 6) (Baker, 2011, p. 49).
2.3 The importance of regional languages in education
The importance for education to revitalize a language has also been put forward in the European Charter. The European Charter underscores under Article 7, 1.f. the importance of materials for education on and in the regional language: “the provision of appropriate forms and means for the teaching and study of regional or minority languages at all appropriate stages” (Raad van Europa, 2001, p. 3).
Education gives a language a certain place in society, and the usage and learning of a language help to maintain the language and this place in society. As C.H. Williams (2000) puts forward, (minority) language revitalization consists of various stages of which institutionalization is one. This entails that the presence of the language gets secured in key components of the state, such as public administration, law, but also education. Parallelism is mentioned by Williams (2000) as another stage, which means that the language is present in as many domains as possible, education being one of them.
As has been mentioned before, where there is a shortfall in generational transmission in families, education becomes the place where a language can be taught in order to produce more speakers (Hornberger, 2008).
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(Baker, 2011, p. 279). ‘Weak’ bilingual education, in which the minority language is replaced by the standard language for educational purposes, does not have the same effectiveness (Baker, 2011, p. 280).
Nevertheless, it is of great importance to speakers of the regional language that their home language has a certain place at school and thus in society. Having the regional language, the home language, at school is creating greater chances of empowerment for a child. A report from the UNESCO from 1953 also states the following:
“It is axiomatic that the best medium for teaching a child is his mother tongue. Psychologically, it is the system of meaningful signs that in his mind works automatically for expression and understanding. Sociologically, it is a means of identification among the members of the community to which he belongs. Educationally, he learns more quickly thought it than through an unfamiliar linguistic medium” (1853, p. 11).
This statements shows that incorporating, encouraging and giving status to the regional language may have positive effects on the self-esteem of the child, attitudes of the child and others, and the social and emotional well being of the child (Baker, 2001, p. 406). Not having the regional language and culture included in school or minimizing the role of them in school, might lead to academically ‘disabled’ children, since they are not able to use their home language as a resource for learning. Furthermore, not having the home language in class, or having teachers who confront the child with a negative attitude towards it, might lead to a lower self-esteem and a more silent child in the classroom. The child might not feel as free to talk in a group discussion since it is being forced to talk in their second language, the standard language (Vallen, 2010, p. 29). Giving attention to, and having appreciation for, the regional language contributes to having tolerance (Kruimink et al., 2010, p.16). Not only the child who speaks the regional language benefits from a bilingual educational situation, also non-speakers learn and grow a greater level of tolerance.
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about the effect of language revitalization through education (1991). The belief that when children do not learn the regional language from their parents and family, school is the place where they can make up for the gap in their knowledge of the regional language, is not being supported fully by Fishman. He argues that school learned languages are often not used throughout life, especially not when these school learners raise their children. Two things that might have an influence on this is whether there is enough support in the community and economy outside of school. The school learned language might become a school only language, unless the person affiliates with the language community, while still in school (Baker, 2011, p. 82). There needs to be a context of use outside of school in which the language has a certain place and use in this community in order for a person to start using it outside the classroom environment. This has for a great deal to do with the attitudes of this person which have an influence on his or her willingness to use this language outside of school. Baker and Jones (1998) have put forward the same argument, saying that it is no guarantee that a language will survive solely because of education. Attitude and willingness mostly determine whether a language is still used, promoted, protected and transmitted. However, school is the place where most attitudes begin to form. That is why education is a field where one could have a great influence on attitudes (Baker and Jones, 1998; Münstermann, 1988).
2.4 Language attitudes
2.4.1 Attitudes within the speech community
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important, since they might ease the pressure, and in the end might contribute to having more speakers of a certain language.
2.4.2 Attitudes within society
With regard to language attitudes and expectations within society, Trudgill (1975) has been emphasizing the importance of having tolerance, suggesting that the reason for existing problems were negative attitudes and expectations concerning language and its speakers. Goodman & Goodman (1981) investigated the reading and writing skills of non-standard speaking children. They claimed that the only disadvantage of these children was the fact their school rejected the dialects and held a strong attitude that speakers of these dialects have difficulty in learning to read. A negative attitude and expectation might thus result in a negative approach towards non-standard speaking children. This might result in a lower self esteem, a silent period or negative behavior of these non-standard speaking children, which will only confirm and strengthen the negative attitude and expectations of others. Also within the speech community certain expectations might begin to build. This downward spiral is often hard to change, but not impossible to change. A study by Münstermann (1988) showed that language attitudes can be changed. In order to change language attitudes persuasive information and active participation are needed to generate more tolerance towards non-standard varieties (Münstermann, 1988, p. 82). Still, a change in attitude does not necessarily mean a change in behavior. Nevertheless, as Münstermann himself states as well, all small changes are improvements with respect to educational opportunities (1988, p. 83).
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However, there were still 165 second language speakers of Manx which have been recorded. As in time a desire rose for an own identity, the number of speakers of Manx started to grow thanks to these recorded speakers and in 2001 there were 1689 speakers of Manx Gaelic. This shows that language attitudes can both have negative and positive effects, from banning Manx from schools, to renewing the own identity by reviving the language. Above all, it shows that language revitalization relies on the attitudes of institutions such as governments and schools, and the attitudes of community members.
Besides language revitalization it is important to keep in mind that language and culture are strongly connected, since language is the form of expression of the attendant culture, as stated by Fishman (1991) and Crystal (2000). Therefore, it is important that this attendant culture also is being fostered in order to promote the minority language, as Baker has claimed (2011, p. 292). Presenting the attendant culture in the classroom by giving it a place in a strong or weak manner, is making the pupils acquainted with the culture. Indirectly the pupils are encouraged to explore the heritage culture, which incorporates the language of that culture. However, the problem with minority languages is that they are often being associated with heritage, home, history and ritual. As Baker has put it, they “may fail to attain the status and prestige of modern, high-prestige and high-profile international languages” (2011, p. 418). One of these languages is English, as Van de Sijs stated it to be a world language that has a high status (1998).
2.5 The position of Gronings in the province
Concerning this study of attitudinal research into a regional language, a background on the current position of Gronings is needed in order to understand what the circumstances of this regional language, Gronings, are.
2.5.1. The use of Gronings
As mentioned before, Lower Saxon has been recognized under the European Charter for
Regional and Minority Languages in 1998. The different areas that make up Lower Saxon
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Map 1. The dialect area of Lower Saxon in the Netherlands (Bloemhoff et al., 2008, p. 300).
Gronings is a variety of the regional language Lower Saxon. It is mostly spoken in the province of Groningen, though there might be some speakers that have resided in other parts of the country that continue to speak it.
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in a standardized form being used by some though this is not yet widespread or sustainable” (Ethnologue, 2017).
Current numbers on speakers of Gronings have been put forward in the study by Bloemhoff of 2003 (Bloemhoff, 2008). This study showed that Lower Saxon in the province of Groningen, which is the dialect Gronings, was being spoken by 78% of the population of the province. A percentage of 34% of the speakers claim to speak only Gronings at home, whereas 46% state that they speak Gronings in combination with some Dutch (Bloemhoff, 2008). Bloemhoff also investigated that 73% of the inhabitants of the province of Groningen can read Gronings and 46% of the inhabitants read Gronings frequently, though it has not been stated what Bloemhoff considers to be frequent or not (Bloemhoff, 2008).
A more recent study has been presented by the Sociaal Planbureau Groningen and dates from 2015. The Sociaal Planbureau Groningen investigated with a panel study of 1426 participants to what extent Gronings is still being used within the province. The study has shown that 73% of the participants can understand Gronings, whereas 38% can speak it. A percentage of 33% of the participants can read Gronings and 21% can write Gronings (Sociaal Planbureau Groningen, 2015). However, we have to keep in mind that these numbers of the study carried out by the Sociaal Planbureau Groningen might not be representative since we do not know on what characteristics they elected their sample.
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Table 3. The extent to which children speak Dutch with others instead of the regional language according to Driessen (2016).
With mother With father With siblings With friends
Gronings 1994 86 % 2014 100 % 1994 86 % 2014 95 % 1994 87 % 2014 100 % 1994 92 % 2014 97 % 2.5.2. Gronings in education
Unfortunately, there are no numbers on the usage of Gronings in education. There is no indication on how often, how long and in what manner Gronings is being used in education. In the book ‘Dialect, van schoot tot school?’ (Dialect, from the lap to school), different educational materials have been mentioned that do exist for Gronings (Hout et al., 2009). These consist of a books for adult education, courses, Toverbalen (an online teaching method), Klunderloa ( a free accessible Gronings website with educational materials) and the
Grunneger Leskist. This latter is a box full with different books that dates from 2008 which
contains stories and poems, different games, teaching methods, a musical, cds with songs, theme- and season-based materials and puppets with which one could do a role play, all in Gronings. This Grunneger Leskist has recently put to the test by a thorough evaluation by the author of this thesis and by the teachers who have been working with the Grunneger Leskist. This happened so the Leskist would be improved according to the standards and wishes of teachers nowadays. This also indicates that the existing materials for Gronings do not correspond with current day teaching methods and wishes.
2.6 Research question
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language variation and change, and school is the place where these come together (p. 139). Also for the future of improving Gronings in education it would be interesting to see the current point of status of Gronings in education.
Though it would be interesting to see to what extent Gronings is being used by children in school, this will not be investigated in this research. The focus of this study is on teachers and principals of primary schools, since they are the people who work in the field and have to deal with Gronings when speaking with children, or when having Gronings as a teaching subject. Furthermore, this study will only investigate the current position of Gronings in primary education, since the time does not allow for a more elaborate investigation including secondary schools. Moreover, there are several existing educational materials available for primary schools and this research will indicate whether there is need for more or other materials in the future.
Therefore, there are several questions accompanying the main research question. These are following:
- How are attitudes towards Gronings and (self-reported) ability related? - Does there exist a difference in attitudes depending on generation?
- What are the attitudes towards a non regional language such as English, and how do they stay vis a vis Gronings?
- Does there exist a need for having Gronings in education?
Based on the current knowledge we have on Gronings and how many speakers it has, it is to be expected that the participants will have a higher level on understanding Gronings in comparison to the ability they have to speak it. For the literacy abilities of the participants the expectation follows the same pattern. The passive skill of reading Gronings might be higher than the productive skill of writing Gronings.
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involvement in dialect and dialect attitudes as they themselves use more dialect” (1988, p. 187) .
The expectation regarding the attitudes of different generations is that the younger generation will often be less in favor of having or maintaining Gronings than the older generation, as Driessen (2016) has also shown in his study of regional languages.
The expectation regarding other languages such as Dutch and English is that Gronings will often be seen as a symbol of the Groninger culture, whereas Dutch and English might often be seen as more functional useful languages with prestige and power, and an international perspective, as claimed by Baker (2011). Therefore, it is to be expected that the needs for Gronings in education might be less on the language Gronings itself, but more on the attendant culture.
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3. Methodology
To investigate the research questions and hypotheses stated above, an interview on the ability to use Gronings and the attitudes towards Gronings was held with a sample of seven participants. In the following sections this investigation will be explained by providing more details on the procedure of the investigation, the participants and the interview itself. Also, insight will be provided on the analysis of the interview and the limitations for this study.
3.1 Procedure
The procedure for this investigation was by having in depth interviews with teachers and school principals. The interviews were recorded on camera, a FUJIFILM FinePix Z300. Beforehand participants were asked whether they agreed to being recorded. Though this recording was primarily for the sound and not for the image of the interviewees, they were assured that these recordings were for research purposes only and completely anonymous. The first part of the interview consisted of some demographic background questions: age, location of the school, years working as teacher/school principal. In case it was an interview with a school principal the questions about the number of teachers and number of pupils in 2017 were asked. When it was an interview with a teacher they were asked which groups they were teaching. The results of these questions have partly been put into table 4, in section 3.2.
The background questions were followed up by the in depth questions of the interview. During the interview the interviewer sometimes went further in to the topic with questions that were not scripted. This was to engage in a conversational setting and to get more in depth attitudinal responses. Some questions were answered very concisely after which the interviewer asked the participants to elaborate.
3.2 Participants
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attitude and language choice are not one on one related. Social factors have an influence which is why it is important to take into account generational differences and the different positions of the participants at school.
Some of the participants claimed not to use Gronings at their school (3), whereas some others (4) said that they had used Gronings in their classes and/or used the Grunneger
Leskist.
The participants came from different regions within the province of Groningen. This has been done in order to get a broader view on the topic from the entire province. The different regions that have been represented can be found in table 4.
Table 4. Background information on the participants
Participant Function Region Age Years practicing profession
P1 Teacher Hoogeland 43 20
P2 School principal Hoogeland 61 27
P3 School principal Veenkoloniën 43 8
P4 Teacher Veenkoloniën 50 10
P5 School principal Westerkwartier 60 22
P6 Teacher Oldambt 23 3
P7 Teacher Veenkoloniën 25 5
The participants were emailed whether they wanted to participate in an interview regarding Gronings in education. This email was being send to 20 schools that have been working with the Grunneger Leskist. The Huis van de Groninger Cultuur provided the addresses of all the schools that have once had the Grunneger Leskist.
Also, schools (52) that didn’t have the Grunneger Leskist were approached by email and asked whether they wanted to participate in an interview. This was because it would be interesting to see whether teachers and school principals who have not been working with Gronings have different opinions on the use and position of Gronings in education than teachers and school principals who have been working with Gronings.
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themselves. Also, teachers are the people that deal with the multilingual reality of the classroom, which might entail Gronings, Dutch, English but also other languages such as Arabic or Turkish. Furthermore, teachers are the people who need to work with materials for Gronings and, as mentioned, some already have worked with these materials. Therefore, their opinions on the use and position of Gronings, and the need or wish to have Gronings, is very useful to this investigation.
The same holds for school principals of primary schools. School principals are the people who decide on the language policy for the school: whether some languages are included or excluded, whether some subjects are being taught in school and whether some project weeks on certain topics are welcome or not. Their attitude towards Gronings might have an influence on whether other teachers try to incorporate it into their classes or not, and whether an entire team should invest in Gronings, one teacher should invest or no one at all. This is why their opinion on the use and position of Gronings are very interesting for this investigation.
3.3 The interview
The interviewer tried in all questions not to steer the participants too much in a certain direction. The questions had an open character, without adjectives put into them that might prejudice the participants, with the exception of the statement questions. For example, questions 20 to 23, were first formulated as in example (a). Since this was directing the participants too much towards the value ‘appropriate’, the question was changed so the participant was the one who can fill in the adjective, as in example (b).
(a) Do you consider it appropriate for children to speak Gronings in the classroom? (b) If children speak Gronings in the classroom, how do you feel about that?
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is able to use Gronings, in order to relate these answers to the answers on the attitudinal questions. The questions were expressed per skill with a Likert-type scale from 1 to 5 on which 5 is very good and 1 very bad. Then the school principal was being asked about the school language policy and the place of Gronings, English and other home language in this school policy. Also, the languages of instruction of the school have been asked.
This section on the ability to use Gronings is slightly different in the interviews with teachers. There are no questions about a school policy, but more questions on encountering Gronings in class among pupils and how the teacher reacts to this. Furthermore, the teachers have been asked whether they have used Gronings in their classes, in what manner and how frequent. This is of interest to the investigation because the expectation is that there is a relation between the usage of Gronings in class by a teacher and their attitudes towards Gronings.
The second section is about the attitudes towards Gronings and Gronings in education. In the school principal version of the interview the school principal was asked how he would respond when a teacher approached him/her telling they would like to do a class or project on Gronings.
The other questions of this second section were the same for the teachers and school principals, starting off with the question about their motivation to provide or not provide Gronings at school/in their class. After that, a few other questions followed, aimed to find out how the participant would feel when addressing children in Gronings or Dutch, or when being addressed in Gronings or Dutch by the children. This is to find out whether there are different attitudes towards Dutch and Gronings. Furthermore, there was a question about whether the participant saw it as a compliment or insult when a stranger commented he could tell where the participant was from because he had a Gronings accent. This question has been put forward to find out whether the participants feel proud or ashamed of their Gronings dialect or accent1.
Also, the participants were confronted with a statement such as “When you lose your Gronings, you lose a part of your identity” after which they were asked whether they agreed or not. This questions was followed by questions on how the participants would feel were
1
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Gronings to disappear and how they would feel were Gronings to be a course at their school. The answers to these questions are interesting to see whether they would give Gronings a visible, obligatory position at school.
The last question of the section was on how they would like to improve the position of Gronings in their school. This was done so because it could be possible that in their answers it would show to what extent the teachers and school principals are willing to put an effort to the cause of having Gronings.
The third and last section of questions was about world orientation and other languages, which was the same for both teachers and school principals. These questions aimed at making a comparison between Gronings, English and other languages so it would become clear what the position of Gronings is within schools/classes in relation to the other languages. The first question of the section was about world orientation which is part of the curriculum nowadays, and whether the participants thought it was important to incorporate local orientation and local identity into this framework. Following this question the participants were asked about which languages they also taught at their school/in their classes, after which they were asked about the importance of having English in class. The last question of the section was on whether the participants pay attention to other languages, such as different home languages of the pupils (e.g. Arabic or Turkish).
3.4 Analysis
The way in which the analysis has been carried out for the first questions on the ability to use Gronings is via the Likert scale. The scores from 1 till 5 have been compared according to literacy (reading, writing) and oral skills (understanding, speaking). Also, passive skills (reading, understanding) and productive skills (writing, speaking) have been compared to each other in order to find out whether there is an indication on which skill is the strongest, which might indicate information on the current position of Gronings.
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chapter 4 on the results. The elaboration on these topics and statements are being provided in the discussion, chapter 5.
3.5 Limitations
Even though the procedure of this study has been set up carefully, there are some limitations to this research. The first limitation is self-selection of the participants. There were many e-mails were send to many schools of which some had experience with teaching in Gronings and some didn’t. The people who responded were often the ones who had been teaching in Gronings and are probably more into Gronings than others.
The second limitation to this study is that the direct way of asking about attitudes might not reflect the real attitude a participant has towards a subject. More likely, it might show an attitude that might be acceptable to the interviewer or acceptable to the participant’s own eyes. Kerkhoff, van Hout and Vallen (1988) indicate that this is often the case when the majority language is the language of instruction and communication, and the language of the teachers and researchers. This might also apply the other way around, when the researcher and teachers are representing the minority group, though the majority language is a different one. It might give favorable answers that are being viewed as acceptable.
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4. Results
4.1 Quantitative data on the self reported ability of Gronings
The results of this study show for every participant their self reported ability of using Gronings. This indicates whether they consider themselves able to read, write, understand or speak Gronings. The results per participant have been presented in table 5.
Table 5. Table on self reported language ability of Gronings (Likert-scale where 1 = very bad, 2 = bad, 3 = average, 4 = good, 5 = very good).
Participant Read Write Understand Speak
P1 5 1 5 3 P2 3 1 4 1 P3 4 1 4 2 P4 1 1 5 3 P5 5 1 5 1 P6 2 1 5 1 P7 1 1 2 1
The results on the self-reported ability to use Gronings show that reading Gronings does not improve the ability to write Gronings. This can be seen when looking at participant 6 who shows to have a bad ability to read Gronings and also a very bad ability to write Gronings. Participant 1 claims to have a very good ability to read Gronings. Nevertheless this does not mean participant 1 has a good ability to write Gronings.
The same holds for understanding and speaking. Participant 7, for instance, has a bad ability to understand Gronings and a very bad ability to speak it. However, having a very good ability to understand Gronings, as participant 5, does not lead to a greater ability to speak it, since participant 5 has a very bad ability to speak it.
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When looking at spoken skills, almost all participants are able to understand Gronings, with the exception of participant 7. For the production of Gronings we see somewhat lower abilities to speak Gronings and some participants who are not able to speak Gronings at all.
4.2 Qualitative data on attitudes
While doing the analysis of the qualitative data six main themes were detected regarding Gronings in relation with education. These themes contribute to answering the research question. The main results of these themes are presented in this section.
The first four themes are being shown in table 6 and are on the attitudes of the participants towards different languages; Gronings, Dutch, English and other languages.
Table 6. An overview on the attitudes towards Gronings, Dutch, English and other languages in relation to education
Gronings Dutch English Other languages
It is more symbolic It is more functional, instrumental
It is functional (world language)
Dutch should be learned first It has different levels of
appropriateness
It is ‘correct’ It is useful for the future Compare cultures, not languages It is the responsibility of the parents Dialect is sometimes a disadvantage Dialect is subordinate
In table 7 the other two detected themes are being presented. One theme is concerning the attitudes of the participants towards how identity and Gronings as a language are related. The other theme is about the attitudes that the participants have towards having Gronings in education.
Table 7. An overview of the attitudes towards identity and Gronings as a language, and on Gronings in education
Identity and Gronings as a language Gronings in education
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The language is part of the Groninger identity It could be done as a project Children need to learn about where they come from It should cost minimal efforts
A general result that shows in the attitudinal responses is that there are generational differences that can be detected. As we can see in table 5, the last two participants (P6 & P7), said to have lower abilities to use Gronings. Also in their attitudinal responses they showed to be less in favor of Gronings. These two participants are 23 and 25, whereas the other participants are all above 40 years old.
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5. Discussion
5.1 Quantitative data
The results presented in the previous chapter on the abilities of the participants to use Gronings indicate that people have good passive abilities (reading and understanding), whereas their productive abilities are most of the time bad (writing and speaking). When looking at previous data on the use of Gronings in such a study as by the Sociaal Planbureau Groningen, it shows that this tendency is not uncommon. A percentage of 73% of these participants has the ability to understand Gronings, and a percentage of 33% of these participants is able to read Gronings. The skills regarding producing Gronings are lower among these participants, only 38% of the participants can speak Gronings and only 21% of the participants can write Gronings (Sociaal Planbureau Groningen, 2015).
One would expect that when one is good at reading Gronings, one would be able to write some Gronings as well. But this connection does not show in the results. A possible explanation might be that the reading of Gronings happens based on decoding. Decoding entails that a person reconstructs the intended meaning of a sentence by trying to recognizing the letters and words (f. ex. by using their L1 vocabulary), and building up a meaning for the entire text by small pieces that have been interpreted (Carrell, 1991, p.2). Reading by decoding is a well-known second language reading phenomenon, but in writing this second language strategy is not known (Carrell, 1991).
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the speaker. This means that the label for speaking or writing ‘correctly’ might only be attributed to a form of writing or speaking of a high standard, with prestige. This is why most participants judge themselves to be average or low, since they feel insecure whether they reach this high standard. When talking about teaching Gronings, participant 2 also mentioned the following about himself:
P2: I think that when you want to teach a language you have to master it well yourself, for example the pronunciation, expressions, and it needs to be familiar if you want to teach it in a natural manner. I myself do not speak Gronings and my pronunciation would not be perfect enough to teach the children Gronings.
Though this response by participant 2 is partly on teaching Gronings in school, it indicates that a certain standard of speaking Gronings needs to be met in order to claim it to be ‘good’ Gronings2. Participant 2 continues by mentioning that the same accounts for English, which is why they have chosen a method at school that uses instructions via the DigiBoard given by a native speaker of English.
Participant 6 also reflects that she is open towards having Gronings in education, “but I’m not really good at it myself”, which implies an insecurity that might hold her back for teaching Gronings.
In all, the ability of the participants to use Gronings is related to second language strategies and social factors that set a bar for using Gronings or not. Furthermore, when teachers are not able to use Gronings themselves, this might send an implicit message to the children. This will also be reflected upon in the following section regarding the attitudes of the participants towards Gronings.
5.2 Qualitative data
5.2.1 Attitudes towards Gronings
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During the interviews participants were asked questions about Gronings in itself. The responses to these questions showed a clear opinion on Gronings itself and Gronings in relation to education.
The first main attitude that shows in the responses of the participants is that Gronings is often being seen as a symbolic language that represents the culture and the identity of the province, but is not so much for functional use. Participant 3 elaborates on the fact that children hear the language, though they don’t use it, but that it’s part of the region and that the language “is almost cultural heritage”. All other participants make similar statements about the position of Gronings as being part of Groningen. Still, they express that Dutch is the language of use. As put into words by participant 7:
P7: I think children should learn Dutch, that’s the main language, the language of instruction. Gronings at home is fine.
This is in line with the theory of power measurement by Giles (2001) claiming that people often switch towards a majority language with more means to communicate and social appreciation, and people switch less to a minority language with a lower social appreciation. The quote above by participant 7 also shows that there is a certain conflict of appropriateness between the languages Dutch and Gronings.
On the question “If a pupil spoke Gronings to you in class, how would you feel about that?”, some said to respond in Gronings, some in Dutch (since they don’t speak Gronings) and they said to approach it positively. However, some said that the children were only allowed to use Gronings in free activities, but not in classroom assignments. Participant 7 responded that she would correct the children if they spoke Gronings in class, considering it to be a matter of appropriateness. It has become clear that Dutch is often seen as appropriate, whereas Gronings has certain limits to when it is appropriate and when not. The following expression by participant 5 indicates this difference very well:
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Dutch is a language and Gronings is a dialect of Dutch. Are you going to teach a dialect in language education? I don’t think that is the goal.
Also participant 7 mentions that there is a certain division between when to use and not to use both languages, Dutch and Gronings:
P7: In this area you should keep it [Gronings] alive, but I think the boundary has to be clear between when it is appropriate and when not.
Both participants have been expressing that Dutch is more favorable in most situations and Gronings is sometimes not. As Fishman (1991) and Crystal (2000) indicated, a language is a symbol of identification for the people who speak it. Participants 5 and 7 do not speak Gronings. Though they live in the province of Groningen, they don’t use Gronings. Though participant 5 is able to read it well, participant 7 is not. This might also indicate why they are more in favor of Dutch, since they might identify more strongly with that language and culture, since it’s their first language and the national language.
The difference in levels of appropriateness between Dutch and Gronings indicate that Gronings is a language that should be spoken at home, if at all. This division between Dutch being the language at school and Gronings the language at home also shows in the reactions of the participants towards having Gronings at school. When answering the question whether the participants feel sorry that the regional language is diminishing and slightly disappearing, they all agree that it is a shame. However, most responses show very clearly that it is the responsibility of the parents to transmit the language in order to maintain it. As participant 2 puts it:
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This is also being supported by participant 6 who says: “I think it’s the part of the parents whether you speak it or not”. This shows that although Baker had put it that education should make up for the shortfall of the parents, teachers and schools principals regard the family as the first ones to be held responsible for maintaining the regional language. Also, it assigns no value on school supporting home languages. This does not only account for Gronings, but also for other languages, as we will see further on.
Still, not all participants agree. As participant 3 puts it: “It is cultural heritage that you do not want to lose and this is where you need to start, in primary education, and not later on, that won’t work”. Also, participant 1 expresses herself clear on this matter: “It shouldn’t disappear or stay with the parents, and to prevent this from happening this is my biggest reason [to teach Gronings].”
A possible explanation for this division in opinions is that it is related to the self-reported ability to use Gronings. Whereas participant 3 is slightly better at speaking Gronings, all other participants that showed a more favorable attitude towards having Dutch (P5 and P7) or having the opinion that it is a secondary responsibility to maintain Gronings via education (P2 and P6), are not able to speak Gronings. This difference in attitudes might therefore be explained by their language background, which is primarily Dutch. As Münstermann has put it: “It is obvious that subjects will in general have a greater emotional involvement in dialect and dialect attitudes as they themselves use more dialect” (1988, p.187).
All in all, the reactions on questions on Gronings itself show that Gronings is not being viewed as a school language. Dutch is the language of instruction, of communication and of the nation. The position of Gronings in education is additional, or merely as a home language of some of the children.
5.2.2 Attitudes towards Dutch
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The responses also showed that Dutch is being viewed as the national language that is strongly connected to the Dutch culture and way of life. This has also been expressed by participant 4:
P4: “They’re attending a Dutch school who represents Dutch identity so they have to be able to use Dutch”.
As seen in the previous section, when talking about having Gronings in class, participant 7 addresses the matter of appropriateness, indicating that Gronings is not being viewed appropriate in certain situations, whereas Dutch is never being mentioned in terms of appropriateness. This indicates that Dutch does not need to meet certain levels of appropriateness since it is always appropriate. As participant 5 also argued, Dutch is a language is therefore an appropriate variety to be taught, whereas Gronings is a dialect and therefore is not.
Next to Dutch being an appropriate language, it is also the language of use within education. All participants expressed that Dutch is correct and the language of use within school.
P7: I think children should learn Dutch, that’s the main language, the language of instruction.
The responses of the participants show that Dutch has a high social appreciation, and is being viewed as the main language to communicate. Both participants 4 and 7 even called the regional language to be a disadvantage for learning to read Dutch in group 3. They said it made the children sometimes confused about pronunciation and spelling, since they had a Gronings pronunciation or vocabulary, which made it harder for them to use the correct Dutch words that were needed in certain activities or situations.
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All in all, the responses show that using Dutch is correct, according to the standard, whereas the regional language is sometimes not favorable.
5.2.3 Attitudes towards English
As said, the position of Dutch is functional whereas Gronings seems to be more symbolic or additional. Looking at the responses of the participants on questions regarding English it shows that English is being viewed as a functional language as well. The participants mention the position of English within a broader perspective: “It is a world language; “it is the lingua franca”, “it is for the future”. Especially participant 2 indicates a certain hierarchy when it comes to the languages:
P2: We are part of the European Union and it makes it a first priority to be able to find your way in the future in this globalization, in this expansion of your surroundings, and in that Gronings, Frisian or other dialects play a subordinate role.
As put in the model by Giles et al. (1997), status factors are of great importance to the position and revitalization of a language. The position of a language in the hierarchy, being superordinate or subordinate, depends on social and economic status. In the interviews it shows that English and Dutch are regarded to be majority languages that give social appreciation, political power and means to communicate. English does this latter especially in an international manner. Gronings is being viewed as more subordinate, as literally put into words like that by participant 2. These interviews do not show whether Gronings is being associated with low income, unemployment, social deprivation and a lower social prestige, which might lead to people shifting away from this language towards the language with more status (Giles, 2001). However, these interviews do show that English and Dutch enjoy a higher status than Gronings in means of communication and functional purposes within school and society.
5.2.4 Attitudes towards other languages
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participants show in their responses that regarding other languages in school, the most important language is the national language, Dutch. This means that the participants often say that Dutch should be learned in order to participate well in primary education. As participant 3 puts it:
P3: We don’t have many migrant children here, but when they come to school the focus is on letting them master Dutch so they can continue their primary education.
When asked about an activity in which the children make comparisons between languages so they might use their home language a little in class and other children might learn from it, the participants responded that it was often not possible to pay a lot of extra attention to these things since there were few foreign students. “So for language education you’re not able to work with that,” said participant 5. Most of the time, some comparisons are being done in a broader perspective, by talking about their culture and sometimes asking how they would say certain words in their own language, but all participants said that this did not happen a lot.
5.2.5 Attitudes towards identity and Gronings as a language
As we’ve seen, Gronings is often viewed as merely a home language, without a position at school, since Dutch and English are regarded to be more functional and useful. Nevertheless, it has been mentioned a few times that Gronings has a certain symbolic value. This section therefore explores the relation between identity of the participants, and identity of the province, with Gronings as a language.
The participants were asked questions about identity and Gronings being part of that. Some were really clear on Gronings being a part of who you are as a person, and expressed that losing Gronings would be a shame since one would lose a piece of themselves in a way. As participant 4 expressed herself:
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Also, regarding Gronings within the province, almost all participants mentioned that the language is part of the cultural heritage of the province. As participant 5 has put it:
P5: Knowing your own culture, your background, your surroundings, cultural heritage, it’s part of that and it’s important.
The participants agree that getting the children to explore the language is good, but that it should be done from a broader perspective. A full language class would not be suited, but it is being put forward that having a broader approach would be more successful. This has also been put into words by participant 3.
P3: To really teach the children to speak the language is a little bit hard, I don’t think that is the job of education. But make children aware that they live in an area where both regarding history and language there is a beautiful cultural heritage, let me put it that way, that you can use it. You make them aware, you give them a piece of identity, at least for the children who were born and raised here, which can be very valuable and that would be definitely something that I would like to pass on to the children. I would really put things together, such as the food in the region or the habits, that the children learn about history and identity.
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5.2.6 Attitudes towards having Gronings in education
This leads to the last section on the needs and wishes towards having Gronings in education. In the responses of the participants it shows that they do not feel for a obligatory class on Gronings. As participant 2 puts it:
P2: I don’t think it should be an obligation for people who don’t speak it, just like me. So it has to be transmitted at home and the school can be an addition to that.
Also, when talking about a possible class on Gronings the participants all make it very clear that it should not be a language class, but more a class on “our surroundings, area and culture” (P3) , as we have seen in the previous section as well.
Most reactions on Gronings in education indicate that it would be a welcome subject when it would be offered as a project for a day or a week. That way the school does not have a structural class on Gronings, and it could cost less effort to offer Gronings as a language and as a part of cultural education.
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6. Conclusion
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region, local identity of which the language Gronings is one of the pillars. This broad perspective is what all participants agree on, since they do consider it to be important that the children learn more about their local surroundings and local identity. However, they consider learning the language Gronings to be the first responsibility of the parents and not of education.
Though this research has been able to answer most questions accompanying the main question, some issues remain unclear which need to be investigated further in the future. One of these is that it should be investigated to what extent these findings for education are in coherence or not with other domains in society. Especially when looking at the abilities to use Gronings it would be interesting to see whether there is a possible different explanation for the high passive abilities and low productive abilities of the participants. Furthermore, a larger sample is needed to draw more general conclusions on generational differences and the relation between the ability to use Gronings and the attitudes. Moreover, it would be of great importance to learn more about the abilities of the children in school to use Gronings and their attitudes towards the regional language, since they are the future. This means that their attitudes might reflect what the future holds for regional languages such as Gronings. Also, some limitations to this study were the self-selection of the participants and the direct way of asking the participants in the interview. These two might have resulted in tainted reactions, by first, people who automatically have a strong opinion on the matter and second, opinions that might have been given in coherence with a certain social expectation. For future research it would be interesting to see the results on attitudinal questions with a Matched Guise Technique, which is a way of asking the participants about their attitudes in a more indirect manner. All in all, it shows that more research needs to be done to fill the gap of knowledge in the field of the attitudes towards Gronings within and outside of the field of education.
