Indigenous Language Policy and Planning in Taiwan: Troku Seediq as an Example

This paper identifies ongoing indigenous language problems, reexamines the current orientation and implementation of the Indigenous-Language policy and planning (ILPP), and proposes an alternative ILPP in Taiwan. The current Language-in-Education policy and planning that supports simultaneous promotion of indigenization and internationalization fails to reach the goals for linguistic pluralism and bilingualism. In addition, if the language policy and planning of the country ignores linguistic diversity, indigenous children in dominant-language schools usually experience language and culture shocks, low achievement, and other social problems. This paper shows that (i) the orientation of ILPP must shift to viewing these languages as resources; (ii) ILPP should incorporate status planning, corpus planning, and acquisition planning into top-down and bottom-up strategies , and (iii) a systematic Indigenous-Language-in Education policy including immersion programs and two-way additive bilingual programs with curricula based on indigenous epistemology offers greater chance of achieving reversal of the current critical shift toward the dominant language.