Social representations and language ideologies about the native speaker in the teaching and learning of Mapudungun

Abstract

The present investigation analyses, from Linguistic Anthropology’s perspective (Ottenheimer, 2015), some social representations from teachers’ and learners’ common sense in their discourse in relation to the native speaker term in the teaching and learning of Mapudungun. The objectives of this research study are: a) to characterise the cultural models about the native speaker in the teaching and learning of Mapudungun in self-sufficient workshops; b) to describe Mapudungun teachers’ social representations about the native speaker; c) to describe Mapudungun learners’ social representations about the native speaker; d) to describe the disciplinary, pedagogical, and political implications this term involves in the teaching of Mapudungun. For this purpose, 2 teachers and 10 learners from self-sufficient workshops in Santiago de Chile were interviewed. Semi-structured interviews were employed via Zoom. Social representations theory as well as language ideologies will be used as instruments of data analysis. The results are expected to show the historical and political nature of these constructions about the native speaker as a goal applied to indigenous languages. Likewise, its apparently linguistic bases are rather political and historical, and therefore arbitrary.