Linguistic Profiles of the Indigenous Students of the Universidad Tecnológica de Pereira

Abstract

This article builds the linguistic profile of students who belong to indigenous communities and are studying undergraduate courses at the Technological University of Pereira, through a qualitative paradigm and an intrinsic case study that used the survey as the main data collection instrument to determine the linguistic origin of 33 indigenous students, members of the university indigenous council. The results show that the majority of the study participants belong to indigenous communities that preserve the ancestral language, but that a little less than half of them know it or are learning it. Also, it was found that even knowing the indigenous language, Spanish and English, many of the participants do not recognize themselves as bilingual or do not account for English within the languages of their linguistic repertoire. It is concluded that the first step to offering opportunities for the preservation of the indigenous cultures and languages of the country is to recognize the sociocultural and linguistic baggage of these students. Likewise, a call is made to educational institutions to promote the linguistic awareness of indigenous students, adapting the university policy of second language training to the protection of indigenous cultural and linguistic heritage to reduce displacement, risk of extinction, or the precariousness of native languages.