Codeswitching Avoidance as a Strategy for Mam (Maya) Linguistic Revitalization

Since 1991, Fishman has carved out a new area of focus for research and linguistic activism—the Reversal of Language Shift (RLS)—within the general field of the Sociology of Language. In this article, I discuss a strategy of RLS employed by speakers of Mam (Maya), an endangered language of Guatemala. Less‐educated Mam routinely codeswitch to Spanish, which I present within Myers‐Scotton’s Markedness Model of codeswitching (1993), while educated speakers categorically do not. Communication Accommodation Theory (Giles and Powesland 1975) offers a framework for accounting for this contrastive behavior through consideration of convergence and divergence strategies aimed at constructing positive social identities (Tajfel 1974). I briefly illustrate this codeswitching behavior in four abridged narrative texts and compare speakers’ attitudes toward codeswitching in relation to how many years of formal education they have had. I suggest that the initiative of Mam teachers in “purifying the language” is supportive of their general goal of RLS and Mam linguistic and cultural revitalization.