Here I review two articles focused on language attitudes and policies regarding te reo Māori: “The behaviours of non-Māori New Zealanders towards the Māori language” by Julia de Bres (2009), and “An old problem with new directions: Māori language revitalisation and the policy ideas of youth” by Nathan John Albury (2016).

1.1: De Bres (2009) - The behaviours of non-Māori New Zealanders towards the Māori language

De Bres (2009) aims to investigate the efficacy of the New Zealand government’s approach to te reo Māori revitalisation, an approach which she terms “planning for tolerability” - “language planning targeting the attitudes and behaviours of majority language speakers towards minority languages” (de Bres 2008a, cited in 2009:18) - by splitting the New Zealand population into Māori and non-Māori New Zealanders and focusing on the latter as the “majority language speakers”.

1.2: Method

De Bres’ sample group, a group of 80 non-Māori white-collar workers in Wellington between the ages of 20 and 50, supposedly represents all non-Māori New Zealanders (2009:27).

De Bres uses a selection of promotional materials - two “Into Te Reo” television advertisements, one Kōrero Māori phrase booklet, and the ‘Kōrero Māori’ website - as a representation of the government’s policies. All 80 participants took part in a questionnaire to ascertain what behaviour they believed the government expected from them in response to the promotional materials. 26 of the participants were interviewed to find out more about their potential behaviours towards te reo revitalisation (de Bres 2009:27).

1.3: Findings

Table 1: Behavioural messages perceived in all four promotional materials (% of participants) (de Bres 2009:30)

In Table 1, it can be seen that the most common behaviour that participants thought was being asked of them was to learn Māori, which conflicts with de Bres’ interpretation of government policies as excluding non-Māori from this expectation.

De Bres found that those participants who supported te reo Māori were more likely to propose the same behaviours regarding language learning or usage for non-Māori as for Māori New Zealanders, with some participants making direct references to a perceived lack of distinction between the roles that the two groups play in language revitalisation (2009:33).

Following these findings, De Bres claims that it is “worth at least considering whether the current ethnic distinction made by the Government in planning for tolerability could in some ways be counterproductive” and “whether Māori language learning should be more strongly promoted among non-Māori” (2009:37-38).

1.4: Critique

De Bres’ division between Māori/non-Māori and minority/majority language speakers gives the impression that all people who identify as Māori can speak te reo. For example, de Bres analyses some promotional materials for the revitalisation of te reo Māori and lists what she interprets as “behavioural messages targeted at non-Māori”, including “pronouncing Māori words correctly, knowing and using some basic Māori greetings, words and phrases, learning Māori” and “taking an interest in Māori language and culture” (de Bres 2008b, cited in 2009:26). The limiting of the target audience to “non-Māori” could imply that all Māori people are expected to already have such skills and interests, which is not the reality.

It would seem the intent on distinguishing between the ways that Māori and non-Māori are referred to in policies has affected de Bres’ interpretation of some references, such as when she quotes the first Māori Language Strategy document (Māori Land Court 1996:18, cited in 2009:23) which says “… it is necessary to promote positive attitudes to the language and its place in public activities among the general public. This does not mean that all New Zealanders will be expected to learn and use the Māori language…” and labels it as a way for non-Māori specifically to “‘opt out’ of Māori language learning and use” (2009:23), despite the source clearly stating “all New Zealanders” .

De Bres’ sample group is not representative of all non-Māori New Zealanders, particularly in terms of age, location and social class, as non-Māori New Zealanders in other circumstances (for example living in Southland, adolescent or elderly, working class) are likely to hold different views.

The promotional materials utilised for the questionnaire fail to capture the range of strategies that have been employed by the government, for example in the education sector or workplaces. De Bres claims that the data collected addresses the question “which behaviours did the participants think the Government was seeking from them in relation to the Māori language?”, but this is not an accurate rewording of what the participants were actually asked in the questionnaire, which was “what, if anything, they thought the creators of each of the promotional materials were asking them to do” (2009:29). It is unfair to assume that the participants’ reactions to the selected promotional materials would be representative of their reaction to a wider range of the government’s strategies.

A potential source of problems that both de Bres (2009) and Albury (2016) identified in their respective methods was the decision to record free, open-ended, qualitative answers and then attempt to assign them to a limited number of categories (2009:42, 2016:6). As de Bres admitted, this could be jeopardised by subjectivity. She also pointed out that the nature of open-ended questions meant that the level of openness and detail of answers (or lack there-of) would vary between participants (2009:42).

It is important to realise that the evidence that de Bres’ claims are based on could have affected their plausibility. While it is nice to think that non-Māori New Zealanders could be largely accepting of learning te reo, the use of a sample group which is not fully representative and questionnaire materials which do not fully reflect government policies may have contributed to this image. Including older participants or those from more conservative areas could skew it back the other way, as could including examples of strategies that are not so obviously based on self-motivated learning, such as the goal for public servants to “’speak’ the language” (Te Puni Kōkiri 2018:19).

2.1: Albury (2016) – An old problem with new directions: Māori language revitalisation and the policy ideas of youth

The more recent work by Albury (2016) complements de Bres (2009) by aiming to predict which direction the government’s te reo policies should go in according to New Zealand youth.

While de Bres claimed that the government’s approach was one of “planning for tolerability” (de Bres 2008a, cited in 2009:18), Albury argues that the responsibility for te reo revitalisation should be handed over to Māori themselves (2016:1). In contrast to de Bres’ highlighting of the role that majority language speakers play in language revitalisation, Albury instead describes a shift to neotraditionalism, a shift which “constructs New Zealanders of Māori descent as the primary audience of revitalisation” (2016:3).

2.2: Method

The sample group was 1297 students at the University of Otago, aged 18 to 24, who identified as either Māori, Pākehā, or both Māori/Pākehā (Albury 2016:5).

The participants were asked two free-text, qualitative questions in an online survey: “1: In your view, how will we know when Māori language has been revitalised? 2: If you became Prime Minister of New Zealand tomorrow, what is the first thing you would do about te reo Māori?” (2016:5). Albury claims that “the questions would solicit what linguistic future they believe language revitalisation should bring and what policy priorities they hold to achieve that” (2016:5).

Their answers were then assigned to one or more of the three types of language planning proposed by Hornberger (2006, cited in Albury 2016:6) – language status planning, corpus planning, and acquisition planning.

2.3: Findings

The findings here tend to agree with those of de Bres (2009). Participants across ethnic categories suggested aspects such as daily communal use of te reo and an increase in te reo speakers as signs of revitalisation (2016:7). Most Māori participants suggested a certain number or group of New Zealanders gaining “at least a basic proficiency” in te reo; this group of learners was specified to include both Māori and non-Māori by more than half of the Māori/Pākehā participants, and was never said to be exclusive to Māori people (2016:7). Language acquisition was portrayed as “an interethnic matter” by all but one Māori participant (2016:7).

From this data, Albury claims that “Māori, Māori/Pākeha, and Pākeha strongly endorse language revitalisation” (2016:13). He goes on to say, “The folk linguistic commentary of all cohorts is almost entirely absent of proposals or sociolinguistic descriptions that would to reduce or remove societal bilingualism, with only very small minorities… proposing negative change from the status quo” (2016:13).

2.4: Critique

Albury’s sample size is considerably larger than that of de Bres (2009), however it must be noted that by limiting his focus to New Zealand youth, Albury had an easier task finding a representative sample group than de Bres did when focusing on all non-Māori New Zealanders. There is still the issue of a lack of representation across geographical areas of New Zealand, and possibly an issue of social class by only including youth who are attending university and not those pursuing other pathways.

The way that Albury’s questions are worded may be biased towards getting the participants to answer in a positive way about te reo – for example, how would they answer the first question if they do not see revitalisation as important? How would they answer the second question if they would not take any action regarding te reo? The second question in particular has the potential to be problematic. In his findings, Albury notes that this question received 64% more answers from Māori/Pākeha and 11% more from Pākehā than the first one did (2016:10). He claims that this is because “the respondents had already formulated clearer folk linguistic perspectives about policy interventions than about a final sociolinguistic product”, but perhaps it is simply due to this question being worded in a more approachable and appealing manner.

While Albury’s findings paint an ideal picture for future te reo revitalisation efforts, it is important to consider that the wording of the survey questions may have impacted the way in which participants were inclined to answer, discouraging them from presenting negative or neutral attitudes towards te reo. It seems logical that the participants would “strongly endorse language revitalisation” if they were only being asked how they would go about it, not why or even if they would attempt language revitalisation in the first place (Albury 2016:13).

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