Mapudungún linguistic revitalization in urban and non-urban areas in Chile: the impact of Bilingual Intercultural Education Program (BIEP)

Authors

  • Cristián Lagos Universidad de Chile, Facultad de Filosofía y Humanidades, Departamento de Lingüística, Av. Cap. Ignacio Carrera Pinto 1025, Ñuñoa, Santiago

Abstract

The article presents the results of an analysis on the impact of Intercultural Bilingual Education Program in the Mapuche language situation in Chile. In previous studies by us about the reality of Mapuche people living in cities and rural communities we have identified as one of the main causes of the problem of mapudungún, the breakdown of traditional circuits of production and reproduction of the language, which, in principle, ought to be corrected, according to the speech of public officials, intellectuals and indigenous groups, through Intercultural Bilingual Education Program (PEIB). The current study examines the linguistic and anthropological foundations of this program and the impact of its implementation in schools in communities with a high proportion of Mapuche population in language revitalization processes of Mapudungun and re ethnification proper to urban Mapuche people and are also present in rural communities in regions VIII and IX. We obtain a critical assessment regarding the character of “intercultural” and “bilingual” of the experiences and the very real possibility of such a condition, given the structural determinants (socio-political and economic) in which the Mapuche claim is inserted to restore their linguistic and cultural heritage.

Keywords:

anthropological linguistics, mapudungún, Bilingual Intercultural Education, language planning