Bridging Generations: Addressing Sociological Challenges and Policy Considerations for Heritage Learners in Revitalization Contexts 

This talk examines the complex sociological dynamics affecting heritage learners in language revitalization efforts, with particular focus on adult learners who serve as crucial intergenerational bridges. Heritage learners encounter unique sociological challenges in language acquisition, including navigation of cultural identity, community expectations, and varying levels of passive versus active language competence (McIvor 2015). I explore sociological barriers faced by O’odham heritage learners in language acquisition within revitalization contexts, examining how these challenges create distinct obstacles to language development.

Building on this foundation, this presentation argues for fundamental expansion of pedagogical planning frameworks to meaningfully incorporate heritage learners as central rather than peripheral participants. I demonstrate that language program models should address the distinct needs, motivations, and learning profiles of heritage speakers, necessitating pedagogical approaches that recognize their existing cultural and linguistic foundations while supporting skill development in domains of use previously disrupted by language shift.

This discussion also addresses the critical need for language policy development that authentically integrates heritage learner perspectives, language attitudes, and diverse language goals(Meighan 2023). Through O'odham case studies, I demonstrate how heritage learners' distinct attitudes toward language use, transmission priorities, and community engagement create unique policy needs. I argue that understanding these varied perspectives is essential for developing effective language policies that can accommodate multiple pathways to fluency and diverse forms of community participation in revitalization efforts.

This talk shows that effective language planning and policy must account for heritage learners' complex relationships with language ownership and their unique positioning as both learners and cultural stakeholders. By repositioning heritage learners as collaborative partners in program design, curriculum development, and policy formation rather than passive beneficiaries, this framework establishes more responsive and sustainable pathways to language maintenance and revitalization that honor both individual learner agency and collective community goals.

McIvor, Onowa. 2015. Adult Indigenous language learning in Western Canada: What is holding us back? In Kathryn A. Michel, Patrick D. Walton, Emma Bourassa & Jack Miller (eds.), Living our languages: Papers from the 19th Stabilizing Indigenous Languages Symposium, 37–49. Ronkonkoma, NY: Linus Learning.

Meighan, Paul J. 2023. “What is language for us?”: Community-based Anishinaabemowin language planning using TEK-nology. Language Policy 22(2). 223–253. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10993-023-09656-5.

"What happens when language won't work: A call to arm(chair)s" 

The increasing demand for experimentalists may seem like there’s no place for theorists anymore; but what we really need is robust collaboration between theorists, experimentalists, and clinicians. This talk will draw from translational research and personal experiences with stroke survivors to argue that the three-stage pipeline (armchair—bench-side—bedside) is insufficient for clinical populations. This linear pipeline assumes theory must be validated experimentally before reaching clinicians, creating bottlenecks and missed opportunities. More concretely, our neurobiological models of speech and language are not robust enough to support the increasing gradience that clinicians are describing about their patients, shifting away from using traditional labels (e.g., Broca’s Aphasia) and toward using scales of severity for specific deficits (e.g., agrammatism). If theorists, experimentalists, and clinicians formed direct interconnections between each other (forming a triangle rather than a linear pipeline), everyone (especially clinical populations) would benefit. 

"Language ideology and linguistic documentation: The case of Iranian languages"

This talk addresses some of the challenges and best practices in language documentation and elicitation, with a focus on Iranian languages. It draws on our team’s experience working with Persian, Pashto, Kurdish, Ossetian, Balochi, Mazandarani, and several other Iranian languages, spoken across a geographic area stretching from Central Asia to northern Iraq. I begin by discussing the effects of language ideology in the region, most prominently those related to modern nationalist agendas, and how these shape consultants’ reports. Next, I give an overview of the diglossic situation in Persian, the ideology that treats formal and colloquial Persian as a single language variety contrary to expert analyses, and how this confusion has even influenced the methodologies used in certain areas of research. As a case study, I focus on the status of research on Persian vowel length. I conclude with a brief discussion of languages in which research on Iranian languages is published, highlighting works in Persian and Russian scholarship and how they are often neglected in research produced in the West.