This article will trace the rare sociolinguistic triumph of what the French Cajuns in Louisiana have done to reverse the decline of their minority language and to resist the typical trend of linguistic assimilation by the monster ‘language killer’ – American English.
3. Continuing to express respect for the value of all languages as records of their cultures and methods of maintaining group identify.
4. Supporting a double set of linguistic rights – the right to learn the standard language, and the right to maintain the home or community or ethnic language. (Items 1 – 4 are suggested by Spolsky).
5. ESOL teachers must admit that we all have linguistics biases and we must seek an understanding of what they are, where they come from, and how we can overcome the prejudices they might create.
6. ESOL teachers must come to value and appreciate every means of cultural expression in their lives and classrooms.
7. ESOL teachers must understand the relationship between what ELLs intend to say and the effect it might have on their listeners both, as perceived, in reality and through interpretation.
8. ESOL teachers must strengthen, not degrade, ELL learners with multicultural opportunities to find success academically, socially, economically, and culturally.Works Cited<br /> Bernard, Shane K. “The Cajuns: Americanization of a People.” Jackson, MS: University Press of Mississippi, 2003.<br />“By Any Means Necessary.” Tourism, Economics, and the Preservation of Language. Web.<br />18 September 2009. <http://www.culturalsurvival.org/ourpublications/csq/<br />Article/by-any-means-necessary.htm>.<br />“The Cajun Bayou.” Web. 09 September 2009. <http://freewebs.com/thecajunbayou<br />/howtospeakcajun.htm>.<br />“The Cajun Country.” Web. 19 September 2009. <http://www.economicexpert.com/a/ Cajun:Country.html>.<br />“The Cajun French.” Web. 15 September 2009. <http://www.absoluteastronomy.com<br />/topics/Cajun_French>.<br />Canagarajah, Suresh, ed. “Reclaiming the Local in Language Policy and Practice.” Web.<br />>http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o$se=gg/sc&d=104851691>.<br />Carlsen, Charles. “World: UN’s Mother Language Day Focuses on Conserving World’s Linguistic Heritage.” Web. 20 September 2009. > http://74.125.113.132/search?q=cache:PLTNXVDj6twJ>.<br />Crystal, David. Language Death. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2000.<br />Dartez, Whitney and Flavic. “The Cajuns and Some of the Many Misconceptions About Them.” Web. 10 September 2009. <http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/<br />~dartez/CAJUN.HTM>.<br />Daigle, B. A. Personal interview. September 05, 2009.<br />Dubois, Sylkvie and Sibylle Noetzel. “Intergenerational Pattern of Interference and Internally-Motivated Changes in Cajun French.” Web. 18 September 2009. <http://journals.cambridge.org/action<br />/display/Abstract?fromPage=online&aid=318719>.<br />Emoff, Ron. “A Cajun Poetics of Loss and Longing.” Ethnomusicology. 42, 2 (Spring 1998): 283-301.<br />“Enduring Voices – Disappearing Languages – Documenting the Planets Endangered Languages.”<br />Web. 22 August 2009. <http://www.nationalgeographic.com/mission/enduring<br />voices>.<br />Marchand, Philip. “Ghost Empire: How the French Almost Conquered North America.” Toronto,<br />Ontario: McClelland and Stewart Publishers, 2005.<br />“Profile of Selected Social Characteristics 2000.” Quick Tables – Ancestry – U. S. Census . Web. 20 September 2009. <http://www.factfinder.census.gov/servlet/QTTable?_bm=y&- geo_id=0400US22&-qr_name>.<br />Ryon, Dominique. “Cajun French, Sociolinguistic Knowledge, and Language Loss in Louisiana.”<br />Journal of Language, Identify, and Education, I (4). (2002): 279-293.<br />Sexton, Rocky L. “Cajun French Language Management and Shift: A Southwest Louisiana Case Study to 1970.” Journal of American Ethnic History. 19 (4). (Summer 2000): 90. <br />Spolsky, Bernard. “Summary of Banned Languages Discussion, Language, and Law.” Web. 05 September 2009. <http://linguistlist.org/issues/2/2-230.html. <br />Turin, Mark. “Living Languages and Troubles Tongues: Linguistic Diversity and Endangerment<br />in the Himalayas.” Web. 09 September 2009. <http://www.digitalhimalaya.com/<br />projectteam/turin/downloads/Jetwork_languages.pdf>.<br />Valdman, Albert, ed. French and Creole in Louisiana. New York: Plenum Press, 1997. <br />Voegelin, C. F. and F. M. Voegelin. “Language in Society.” Oxford: Cambridge University Press, 1977.<br />