Negotiating Sociolinguistic Borderlands—Native Youth Language Practices in Space, Time, and Place

Abstract

Drawing on the work of Philip Deloria (2004) and recent explorations of “American Indian languages in unexpected places” (Webster & Peterson, 2011a), this article challenges received expectations of Native American languages and language users as “rural” and physically distant and of “urban” Indigenous language practices as anomalous. With a focus on Native American youth, I develop the notion of sociolinguistic borderlands—spatial, temporal, and ideological spaces of sociolinguistic hybridity and diversity—as a lens into the grounded realities of language in the lives of contemporary Native youth. The article first contextualizes the current situation of Native American languages and language users within dynamic linguistic ecologies, then presents 4 ethnographic vignettes that illustrate the ways in which youth use their knowledge and claims to heritage languages to negotiate, cross, and occupy sociolinguistic borderlands. I conclude by suggesting the ways in which language planners and educators can reorganize received expectations about youth language practices and ideologies, thereby opening new possibilities for Indigenous language reclamation and youth self-empowerment.