Orality, Literacy and Social Approach of Language
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
15e Congrès des Etudes Inuit, Oralité / 15th Inuit Studies Conference, Orality Résumé des communications, par sessions / Papers abstracts, sorted by sessions Orality and Literacy .................................................................................................................... 1 Inuit Culture and Literature - Echoing Inuit Voices? ................................................................ 11 Recollecting and Sharing Specific Experiences ........................................................................ 13 Arctic History: Tracking Words and People, and their Stories ................................................. 19 Narration in the Media and in Cyberspace .............................................................................. 21 Communicating through Play, Interacting through Games ..................................................... 26 Marcel Mauss' 100 years Later ................................................................................................ 28 Inuit Naming Practices ............................................................................................................. 30 Uumajuit: talking about and sharing the game ....................................................................... 32 Webs of Meaning: .................................................................................................................... 36 the Interconnectedness of Talk and Objects ........................................................................... 36 Webs of Meaning: Iñupiaq (and Yupik) Art .............................................................................. 42 Clothing as Language ............................................................................................................... 45 The Urban Arctic “Community” Revisited ............................................................................... 49 Knowing Places: Naming and Telling the Story ........................................................................ 54 Orality and G.I.S*. in Inuit Studies ........................................................................................... 56 Inuit Political Construction and Governance ........................................................................... 58 Computer Assisted Linguistics Applied .................................................................................... 63 to Inuit Language ..................................................................................................................... 63 Eskaleut Linguistics: Polysynthesis ........................................................................................... 64 Eskaleut Linguistics: Around the Verb ..................................................................................... 67 Eskaleut Linguistics: Contacts and Discourses ......................................................................... 71 Perspectives on Arctic Research in Human and Social Sciences ............................................. 74 1 15e Congrès des Etudes Inuit, Oralité / 15th Inuit Studies Conference, Orality Résumé des communications, par sessions / Papers abstracts, sorted by sessions ORALITY AND LITERACY « Yupiit Nakmiin Qaneryaraat » Oscar Alexie Assistant Professor, Kuskokwim Campus University of Alaska, Fairbanks. Sophie Alexie Instructor, Kuskokwim Campus University of Alaska, Fairbanks. Patrick Marlow Assistant Professor, Alaska Native Language Center & School of Education - University of Alaska, Fairbanks. This paper describes the authors’ experiences integrating elders as resources, tutors, and teachers into the Yupiit Nakmiin Qaneryaraat program offered by the Kuskokwim Campus of University of Alaska Fairbanks (U.S. Department of Education grant). The program’s purpose is to develop the language skills of would-be K-12 language teachers in Southwestern Alaska. In this paper we investigate how the author’s experiences/goals as program organizers and language teachers interact with, influence, and are influenced by the experiences and goals of the elders involved in the program. In this way we hope to better understand how to effectively work with elders in the program and provide guidance by example for other endangered language programs dependent on elder involvement. We conclude that barriers to elder integration arise when classroom based roles (teacher, student, visiting expert) come into conflict with the traditional role of elder and the status ascribed to this role. By overtly recognizing and addressing this tension, program faculty, elders and students jointly created a “third space” (MOJE et al. 2004; GUTIERREZ, BAQUEDANO-LOPEZ & TEJEDA 1999; LIPKA et al. 2005) in which the traditional role of elder, the learning goals of students, and the leadership role of the faculty were acknowledged and honored. « This is the way we were told: the Ulukhaktok Literacies Project » Helen Balanoff Director, NWT Literacy Council, Yellowknife, Northwest Territories (Canada) Emily Kudlak Independent Researcher, Inuvialuit Cultural Resource Centre, Ulukhaktok, Northwest Territories (Canada). General Delivery – Ulukhaktok – X0E 0S0 – NWT - Canada Cynthia Chambers Professor, Literacy Research Centre – Faculty of Education. University of Lethbridge, Alberta (Canada) For four years, the University of Lethbridge, the NWT Literacy Council and the community of Ulukhaktok have been investigating local Inuinnait literacies: what constituted traditional literacies and their texts, in which contexts they were used, and what aspects are still visible today. It is evident that although overall fluency in Inuinnaqtun has diminished, characteristics of Inuinnait literacies are highly 2 15e Congrès des Etudes Inuit, Oralité / 15th Inuit Studies Conference, Orality Résumé des communications, par sessions / Papers abstracts, sorted by sessions visible, even when people use English. This results in a hybrid discourse in which, for example, people insert English lexicon into Inuinnaqtun intonation, register, pragmatics and rhetorical conventions. Transfer from one language/literacy to the other is not without its difficulties. In spite of the dramatic loss of Inuinnaqtun as mother tongue (without the commensurate fluency in standard English language and literacies), initial analysis of the team’s research to-date suggests that Inuinnait literacies are highly complex and are based on the following principles: multi-modal (aural, oral and/or visual at the same time); storied (created and transmitted through narrative—historic, personal and specific); symbolic; holistic (integrated, with the literacies embedded in the knowledge and language); relational (based on relationships between narrator and his/her world); experiential (learned by observing, listening and doing, with limited intervention or direct instruction); subjective (narration from speaker’s perspective); recursive (going over the same details several times); relative/context-dependent (changing with the context); and mnemonic (serving as a memory aid). Despite today’s focus on the written word, orality – whether in English or Inuinnaqtun – is still the primary vehicle for language and literacy acquisition, and the means by which those narratives that form Inuinnait social identity continue to be (re)created and circulated. Thus, narrative, whether in English or Inuinnaqtun, is central to Inuinnait language/literacies, as is the case for other indigenous peoples. « The urgent need to strengthen Inuktitut instruction in Nunavut schools » Paul Berger Ph.D. Student, Faculty of Education - Lakehead University, Ontario Inuktitut is widely spoken in Nunavut communities and is thought to be one of the indigenous languages in Canada with the best chance of long-term survival and vitality. Still, this ethnographic study on schooling in one small community in the Qikiqtaaluk region of Nunavut raises serious concerns about language loss, and the 74 Inuit interviewed said almost unanimously that Inuktitut instruction in the schools should be strengthened to protect language and culture. In most Nunavut communities Inuit students learn in all-Inuktitut classrooms until grade 4 or 5, then switch into all-English classrooms where Inuktitut is taught only as a subject. Participants said that the current model provides too little Inuktitut for students to maintain competence in the language. They said that although children speak Inuktitut, it is a very shallow Inuktitut. Some said that young people create sentences as if they were speaking English, that one strong Inuktitut word is often replaced by many weaker words, and that many children and youth cannot understand the Inuktitut spoken by Elders. They lack the land experiences connected to the language. People said that the language is important to preserve culture, and “because we’re Inuit.” Many advocated for the formal inclusion of Elders in schools, the use of Inuktitut as a language of instruction into the higher grades, increased training and support for language specialists, and professional development for all Inuit teachers drawing on the language strength of Elders. There is no time for complacency. Many areas in the Canadian Arctic have lost the Inuit language, and English is pervasive. Some fear that the use of Inuktitut in the classroom is a barrier to learning English, and a non-Inuit community member said that Inuktitut is a dying language and should be abandoned immediately. Some Inuit parents reportedly speak only English with their children, and almost all participants