Deathly narratives: Theorising “reo-rientation” for language revitalisation discourses

Death narratives are common in literature on the Māori language. While there is a place for language death, such a strong focus on death may be limiting our scholarship. Conclusions drawn from such approaches may risk overlooking key information about language health, and this could pull the scholarship further away from reliable language health conclusions. This article discusses the need to offer space to new language conversations in contemporary times. The most recent published scholarship in the Māori language discipline is examined to support a new discussion. Using the taxonomy of ethnolinguistic vitality (Giles, Bourhis, & Taylor, 1977) to collate recent research, it is posited that the death narrative might no longer be relevant in and of itself, and that a reorientation of the discourse may be needed. By removing the deficit and death lens from the conversation, alternative, and arguably more helpful, analyses of the state of the language might be obtained. This allows for a deeper understanding of our language revitalisation efforts.