The Isan Culture Maintenance and Revitalisation Programme's multilingual signage attitude survey

Abstract

This article reviews part of the progress of the first year of the Isan Culture Maintenance and Revitalisation Programme (ICMRP), a four-year 540,000 euro series of pilot studies co-funded by the European Union and based in Thailand. The ICMRP is based in four semi-autonomous municipalities in Khon Kaen Province, viz. Ban Phai, Chum Phae, Khon Kaen and Meuang Phon, and facilitated by the College of Local Administration at Khon Kaen University. Its main actions are introducing multilingual Thai–Isan (Thai Lao)–English signage and an atmosphere of multilingualism, revitalising cloth weaving by using traditional methods to supply student uniforms, maintaining and revitalising cultural performances through training schoolchildren and the community and then creating a multimedia educational database complete with lesson plans, and introducing first oral Isan, then written Isan, as part of a mandatory Isan school subject. After providing a brief overview of the ICMRP, this article focuses in detail on the Chum Phae Municipality action that is the introduction of multilingual signage, by focusing on the results of information provision and attitude surveying from the perspectives of language shift, ethnolinguistic vitality, language policy planning and the linguistic landscape.

Keywords:

• multilingualism
• mother tongue education
• sociolinguistics
• Northeast Thailand
• Thai Lao
• signage

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to acknowledge EU Grant EuropeAid/131209/C/ACT/T, which made the ICMRP possible. A previous version of this article was presented at the 4th International Conference on Lao Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison on Saturday 20 April 2013, and the authors would like to thank those who commented on the paper presented.

Notes

1. Interested readers are directed to five pertinent articles which help frame the present article, three of which cover related preliminary research: Draper (2010), which also provides some background on the Isan/Thai Lao; Draper (forthcoming), with greater expansion on the history and development of Tai Noi, Draper and Nilaiyaka (2012), with greater expansion on historical and ethnic issues. Draper (2012) provides a general description of the ICMRP, and Draper (2013) addresses language policy and planning in Thailand generally, including coverage of the policy and educational background to the ICMRP.

2. Available from the corresponding author on request in both the original Thai and in English.