Abstract:
In the past 30 years there has been considerable lexication work to support curricula development for Māorimedium schooling. Lexication of a language is a subdomain of corpus planning. Corpus, status and language-in education are considered the three major interconnected domains of language planning and policy. Traditionally, lexication was considered purely a technical exercise. It was argued that status planning dealt primarily with political matters. However, the reality for Indigenous languages such as te reo Māori, is that macro-level factors have impacted on micro-level lexication. The aim of this paper is to examine the sociolinguistic issues from language planning perspectives that have impacted on lexicon development as a result of the conflicting language goals of the various groups and agencies directly and indirectly involved in the process. For example, the development of new terminology, especially the issue of whether lexication follows the Indigenous origins (purism) versus the borrowing approach, is contentious. The impact of macro-level political imperatives on the lexicon for schooling is also examined. Our findings suggest that these imperatives, particularly economic, in the form of particular educational initiatives have acted as de facto language plans privileging certain curriculum areas over others. We examine the contrasting process of lexication for pāngarau (mathematics), a high status subject in national education with that of tikanga-a-iwi (social studies), a low status subject. We question whether pāngarau would have the same status if educational priorities were determined by the Māori-medium community. This paper highlights the tensions between the distinctive needs and priorities of Māori-medium developments and those of majority ‘national’ (English-medium) education. These include the ongoing tendency of education agencies in New Zealand to frame initiatives in terms of mainstream education which, in turn, impacts on language planning for Māori-medium schools.
