Session 1 Native American Linguistics Ballroom a Rachael Nez University
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
Session 1 Native American Linguistics Ballroom A Rachael Nez University of California, Davis Language Maintenance Thru Community Music: Unconventional Methods to Heritage Language Learning Music encourages language learning in children while simultaneously teaching stories of culture and tradition. Heritage language learning, often framed within a western educational framework, follows colonial language policies. As a result, language policy restricts language learning to a classroom and textbook based curriculum. This method emphasizes the importance of language learning, however, sends a message to youth that language learning only happens with in a school setting. This presentation looks at critiques into heritage language learning providing insight into Native American language policies and educational curriculum, identifying the absences of music. My intentions with this presentation is to demonstrate current methods utilized for heritage language learning and challenge communities to consider music as a tool for sharing language and culture, particular with preschool aged children. I ask, in what ways can music support heritage language learning? Can music aid in the protection and maintenance of our languages? Does heritage language need to be taught only in a classroom? These are the question to be considered. Sim Hay Kin Jack University of California, Davis How to do Language Research As/In/With My Community The Colville Confederated Tribes (CCT), located in Central Washington are composed of twelve tribes: the Chelan, Chief Joseph Band of Nez Perce, Colville, Entiat, Lakes, Palus, Methow, Moses-Columbia, Nespelem, Okanogan, San Poil, and Wenatchee. The 12 bands of the Colville Indian reservation traditionally spoke/speak four primary languages, Colville-Okanagan, Moses- Columbia, Nez Perce, and Sahaptin. During the summers of 2016 and 2017, I worked with the CCT to conduct research with tribal members. Having been away for some time, I felt it pertinent to return to my community to re- establish connections for my future dissertation work (A History of Language Policy and Practice on the Colville Indian Reservation). The research questions this presentation seeks to address are as follows: (1) How does the Colville Indian Reservation ascertain community member attitudes/ideologies in regard to research conducted on the reservation; (2) What is the best way for community researchers and allied scholars to gather traditional knowledge from the elders in order to benefit the community? This presentation seeks to inform the field of linguistics, and help heal those communities who often forgotten after “data” was harvested. Over the course of this presentation I will share what I learned during my time back home, and hope that allied scholars and other tribal researchers will find my project applicable to future language documentation and revitalization work. Researchers cannot conduct research with community members without being conscious of the communities history. My community remains apprehensive about research, having long since determined that researchers come to extract information without contributing projects of resources that benefit the community. Our fluent heritage language speakers were especially disinclined to share, operating under the assumption that we were only there to take. It took repeated visits before some chose to speak with us. Despite some reluctance, my community is supportive of research conducted by tribal members in consultation with the membership. During this presentation I will share the results of my community based research, and open new dialogues about changing language research paradigms for the benefit of Endangered Language communities. When we employ Indigenous re-search methodologies, “those re-search methods, practices and approaches that are guided by Indigenous worldviews, beliefs, values, principles, processes and contexts” allow Indigenous researchers and our projects and deliverables to move our communities forward in a better way. (Absolon, 2011, 22) Crystal Richardson University of California, Davis Linguistic Convention & Endangered Language Sovereignty: “To gloss, or to gloss over?” Decade after decade and across generations Karuk youth have discovered their language and pursued L1 Karuk language acquisition, and L2 fluency in their mother tongue. Despite this, the Karuk language is labeled by the Ethnologue as “moribund,” and Karuk has officially fallen into this category for fifty years. As a speaker and teacher of the Karuk language myself, and now also as a second year Linguistics PhD student, I embrace that my language is in the state of Keeping Vital. By returning to our Indigenous processes and definitions, rather than accepting the deficit-based definitions projected into and upon our extant language communities (by authorities like the Ethnologue), Karuk speakers are a part of the movement towards Endangered Language Sovereignty. “[Indigenous] knowledge need no longer be subsumed or assimilated into Western knowledge systems, but can stand side by side with other knowledge systems as a viable expression of spatial/temporal engagements” (Louis, 2017, 174). This presentation seeks to demonstrate how Keeping Vital has occurred in the Karuk language community by looking at: 1) How Karuk educators have used local research frameworks to guide the Indigenous linguistic study of Karuk in its spoken and written form(s); 2) Who defines the TERMS of Existence when it comes to Linguistic institutions and the labels imposed on today’s extant Karuk language community? The paper being presented explores these fundamental concepts using a variety of qualitative data including: interviews, survey information, field notes, and pedagogic materials. “As Indigenous Identities develop on a global scale and Indigenous engagements with [Academic Institutions and their representatives] continue, the role of language in maintaining local identities and in accessing and participating in discourses of power, social transformation and resistance becomes crucial” (Patrick, 2012). Psycholinguistics and Semantics Conference Room A Harvey Zhuang Qiu University of California, Davis A study on the epistemic strength of nested epistemic vocabulary Epistemic modality indicates speakers’ commitment to the truth value of the proposition expressed, and serves as an important means of modifying the strength of an utterance. Sometimes, more than one epistemic lexical items can be used in a single clause, such as “he may possibly have forgotten” in English. This phenomenon is referred to as the “nested epistemic vocabulary”. In English, the nested epistemic vocabulary is not uncommon, especially during informal oral communication. However, questions related to the processing of nested epistemic vocabulary remain largely unsolved. This study provides an initial attempt to understand the processing of nested epistemic vocabulary by focusing on the epistemic strength of different epistemic expressions. An online possibility judgment task is conducted, collecting data on native English speakers’ understanding of different categories of nested epistemic expressions. Data analysis based on dependent T-tests shows that the epistemic strength of the non-harmonic nested epistemic expression lies in between the epistemic strength of the component modals. In general, the order of the two nested epistemic modals does not have a significant effect on the overall epistemic strength. However, when the epistemic strength of the component modals contrasts sharply to each other, a change in word order may produce a change in the overall epistemic strength expressed by the nested epistemic expression. This result provides insights into questions related to the scope of the nested epistemic vocabulary. Shannon Grippando University of Arizona Equal but for the page: Effects from Orthographic Length on Speech Duration in a Novel Word Learning Task Recent research has found a correlation between the number orthographic units and speech duration. For example, the duration of clique’s coda /k/ is produced significantly longer than click’s coda /k/, independent of word frequency (Brewer, 2008). A similar effect was also found in Japanese, with two-character homophones produced significantly longer than one- character homophones (e.g. 海苔>糊, /nori/) (Grippando, 2018). However, the number of pen strokes in a single-character homophones did not have a significant effect on speech duration (e.g. 城, 9 strokes, and 白, 5 strokes, /ʃiro/). Thus, this effect is not limited to languages with alphabets, but, so far, effects have only been observed across whole-unit orthographic differences (e.g. letters/characters) and not among internal orthographic differences (strokes). The current study investigates whether any increase in whole orthographic units affects speech duration, even in unfamiliar orthographic systems. Preliminary data from 5 English- speaking participants has been collected, but more participants are being recruited. Participants learned pronunciations of 5 pairs of disyllabic novel homophones and picture associations. Participants then learned how to write each word in a novel logographic system: one homophone was written with a single character and its sister with two characters (e.g. ꈸ vs ꆳꈨ). Participants’ word productions were recorded, and whole-word durations were measured. Because current subject numbers, statistical analyses have not yet been conducted. However, a consistent pattern has emerged. Before orthographic