Perfecting the partnership: revitalising the Māori language in New Zealand education and society 1987–2014

Abstract

This paper looks at aspects of Māori language revitalisation since the passage of the Māori Language Act, 1987 which gave official status to the language. It is a sequel to an article on Māori language in education published in this journal the following year [Benton, R. A. (1988). The Maori language in New Zealand education. Language, Culture and Curriculum, 1(2), 75–83]. It traverses developments in the compulsory education sector, the strategies formulated by government agencies, public attitudes towards the language, and policies articulated by the major political parties. Particular attention is paid to the observations and recommendations made in relation to the Māori language in the Waitangi Tribunal's report Ko Aotearoa Tēnei [(2011). Wellington: Legislation Direct].

Keywords:

• Māori language
• language revitalisation
• policy issues
• linguistic ecology

Notes

1 This ‘withdrawal’ has not been absolute. Although the Ministry of Education and teacher groups have taken a major role in developing academic vocabulary, and media personalities a similar role in their sphere of influence, the Commission published a 1180-page monolingual dictionary, He Pataka Kupu (2008), and its Statement of Intent 2013–2016 makes corpus planning, by developing ‘new dictionaries, wordlists and glossaries’, a key outcome (2013, pp. 9–11).

2 New Zealand has a unicameral legislature, consisting of 70 geographic electorates, with boundaries determined on a population basis, and 50 list seats (allocated on the basis of votes received by the various parties). Persons of Māori descent are entitled to enrol for the Māori constituencies, and about half choose to do so; the number of these seats is determined on the same basis as the ‘general' ones. After the 2014 election, there were 120 Members of Parliament, including 26 of Māori descent. Of the seven Māori seats, one was held, along with one list seat, by the Māori Party; the remainder were held by members of the centre-left opposition Labour Party. Overall, the National Party had 60 seats, its coalition partners a total of 4 (Māori Party 2, Act (far right) 1, United Future (centrist) 1); the opposition parties 57 (Labour 32, Green 14, New Zealand First 11).