Language Conservation

1 March 1987

journal article
research article
Published by SAGE Publications in The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science

Vol. 490 (1) , 177-185
https://doi.org/10.1177/0002716287490001013

Abstract

Competencies in a large number of languages brought to our schools by representatives of linguistic minority groups are, through an unspoken policy of subtractive language education, irrevocably lost as national foreign language resources. This occurs in spite of repeated declarations of national leaders in commerce, defense, education, and international affairs that our foreign language resources are in a “scandalous” state. There are promising ways in which our schools can conserve the extraordinarily valuable language resources that are currently being squandered. A description of a model of two-way bilingual education is described that has the potential of providing opportunities for linguistic minority children to develop mature, adult literacy skills in their ancestral language.

Keywords

This publication has 5 references indexed in Scilit:

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