Narratives of family language transmission: Linguistic family trees in Hawai`i (ongoing)
​(with Gavin Lamb and Mónica Vidal)

This is the linguistic family tree of Andrew Choy, who speaks English, Pidgin, and Spanish. Andrew's tree illustrates the process of language shift, as he doesn't speak Cantonese or Ilokano, the languages of his father and mother. He and his brother have added languages to their repertoires, however. His brother lives in China and has learned Mandarin, and Andrew learned Spanish while studying at UH-Manoa.

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Drawing on interviews from over 100 individuals across the state of Hawai`i, this project explores how people talk about their family language histories to better understand why and how languages are maintained or lost across generations. 

​Through sketching a linguistic family tree in the course of an interview, participants find opportunities to tell stories about themselves and their relatives that are intertwined with the larger historical and political contexts shaping language learning and use. We use stance analysis and appraisal theory to examine how people talk about their linguistic heritage in these contexts, paying particular attention to how they take oppositional stances toward discourses that lead to language shift. We view stance as the central locus for constructing and embodying favorable dispositions toward language and cultural maintenance.

An interesting comparison is emerging among individuals who have maintained (to varying degrees) Hawaiian and Japanese. Given the decline of these languages among multiple generations due to colonization, oppression, and fear of being seen as "unAmerican," it is fascinating to see how young people in Hawai`i are (re)learning these languages (in whole or in part) and how they are fitting them into their identities.