Reframing language reclamation programmes for everybody's empowerment
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1558/genl.v6i2.339Keywords:
cultural authenticity, gender, language reclamationAbstract
Although indigenous language reclamation programmes can empower their participants, they can also inhibit those who do not identify with the cultural values or practices that these programmes promote. I theorize that this occurs because ‘reclamation’ programmes evoke an essentialist notion of culture whereby participants feel pressure to act, think or speak in certain ways, particularly those that are deemed to be ‘traditional’. However, since participants have also been socialized into the norms of the dominant society, various identity conflicts can arise. This paper investigates this issue through the example of how gender roles are manifested, understood and promoted in the context of Miami language reclamation programmes. I demonstrate how inhibition can arise in the context of these efforts, locate this phenomenon in larger issues of identity and indigenous language reclamation, and conclude with proposals for how reclamation programmes can be framed differently so that they can empower the entire target community.
References
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Baldwin, d. and Olds, J. (2007) Miami Indian language and cultural research at Miami University. In d. M. Cobb and L. Fowler (eds) Beyond Red Power: American Indian Politics & Activism Since 1900 280–90. Santa Fe, NM: School of advanced Research Press.
Berry, K. a. and Rinehart, M. a. (2003) a legacy of forced migration: The removal of the Miami Tribe in 1846. International Journal of Population Geography 9: 93–112. http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/ijpg.281
Brown, R. and Gilman, a. (1960) The pronouns of power and solidarity. In T. a. Sebeok (ed.) Style in Language 253–76. Cambridge, Ma: MIT Press.
Bucholtz, M. (2003) Sociolinguistic nostalgia and the authentication of identity. Journal of Sociolinguistics 7(3): 398–416. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/1467-9481.00232
Bucholtz, M. and Hall, K. (2004) Theorizing identity in language and sexuality research. Language in Society 33(4): 469–515. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/S0047404504334020
Bucholtz, M. and Hall, K. (2005) Identity and interaction: a sociocultural linguistic approach. Discourse Studies 7(4-5): 585–614. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1461445605054407
Cameron, d. (2005) Language, gender, and sexuality: Current issues and new directions. Applied Linguistics 26(4): 482–502. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/applin/ami027
Dementi-Leonard, B. and Gilmore, P. (1999) Language revitalization and identity in social context: a community-based athabascan language preservation project in Western Interior alaska. Anthropology & Education Quarterly 30(1): 37–55. http://dx.doi.org/10.1525/aeq.1999.30.1.37
Dorian, N. C. (1994) Purism vs. compromise in language revitalization and language revival. Language in Society 23(4): 479–94. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/S0047404500018169
Eckert, P. and McConnell-Ginet, S. (1992) Think practically and look locally: Language and gender as community-based practice. Annual Review of Anthropology 21: 461–90. http://dx.doi.org/10.1146/annurev.an.21.100192.002333
Errington, J. (2008) Linguistics in a Colonial World: A Story of Language, Meaning, and Power. Malden: Blackwell.
Gardner, S. E. B. (2009) ‘Without our language we will cease to exist as a unique people.’ In W. y. Leonard and S. E. B. Gardner (eds) Language is Life: Proceedings of the 11th Annual Stabilizing Indigenous Languages Conference 60–81. Berkeley, Ca: Survey of California and Other Indian Languages.
Goodfellow, a. (2003) The development of ‘new’ languages in Native american communities. American Indian Culture and Research Journal 27(2): 41–59.
Grenoble, L. a. and Whaley, L. J. (2006) Saving Languages: An Introduction to Language Revitalization. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Hamill, J. (2000) Being Indian in northeast Oklahoma. Plains Anthropologist 45(173): 291–303.
Hanson, a. (1989) The making of the Maori: Culture invention and its logic. American Anthropologist 91(4): 809–902. http://dx.doi.org/10.1525/aa.1989.91.4.02a00050
Henze, R. and davis, K. a. (1999) authenticity and identity: Lessons from indigenous language education. Anthropology & Education Quarterly 30(1): 3–21. http://dx.doi.org/10.1525/aeq.1999.30.1.3
Hinton, L. (2001) Sleeping languages: Can they be awakened? In L. Hinton and K. Hale (eds) The Green Book of Language Revitalization in Practice 413–17. San diego: academic Press.
House, d. (2002) Language Shift among the Navajos: Identity Politics and Cultural Continuity. Tucson: University of arizona Press.
Irvine, J. T. and Gal, S. (2000) Language ideology and linguistic differentiation. In P. V. Kroskrity (ed.) Regimes of Language: Ideologies, Polities, and Identities 35–84. Santa Fe, NM: School of american Research Press.
Johnston, B. (2002) The rise and fall of a dako?a immersion pre-school. Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development 23(2): 195–213. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/01434630208666465
Kimball, G. (1987) Men’s and women’s speech in Koasati: a reappraisal. International Journal of American Linguistics 53(1): 30–38. http://dx.doi.org/10.1086/466041
Kipp, d. (2009) Encouragement, guidance and lessons learned: 21 years in the trenches of indigenous language revitalization. In J. Reyhner and L. Lockard (eds) Indigenous Language Revitalization: Encouragement, Guidance & Lessons Learned 1–9. Flagstaff, aZ: Northern arizona University.
Kroskrity, P. V. (2009) Language renewal as sites of language ideological struggle: The need for ‘ideological clarification’. In J. Reyhner and L. Lockard (eds) Indigenous Language Revitalization: Encouragement, Guidance & Lessons Learned 71–83. Flagstaff, aZ: Northern arizona University.
Kulick, d. (2000) Gay and lesbian language. Annual Review of Anthropology 29: 243–85. http://dx.doi.org/10.1146/annurev.anthro.29.1.243
Lang, S. (1997) Various kinds of two-spirit people: Gender variance and homosexuality in Native american communities. In S. Jacobs, W. Thomas and S. Lang (eds) Two-Spirit People: Native American Gender Identity, Sexuality, and Spirituality 100–18. Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press.
Leonard, W. y. (2007) Miami language reclamation in the home: a case study. Phd dissertation, University of California, Berkeley.
Leonard, W. y. (2008) When is an ‘extinct language’ not extinct?: Miami, a formerly sleeping language. In K. a. King, N. Schilling-Estes, L. Fogle, J. J. Lou and B. Soukup (eds) Sustaining Linguistic Diversity: Endangered and Minority Languages and Language Varieties 23–33. Washington: Georgetown University Press.
Leonard, W. y. (2011) Challenging extinction through modern Miami linguistic practices. American Indian Culture & Research Journal 35(2): 135–60.
Leonard, W. y. and Haynes, E. (2010) Making ‘collaboration’ collaborative: an examination of perspectives that frame linguistic field research. Language Documentation & Conservation 4: 268–93.
Leonard, W. y. and Shoemaker, S. M. (in press) ‘I heart this camp’: Participant perspectives on the role of Miami youth camps. In K. S. Hele and J. R. Valentine (eds) Papers of the 40th Annual Algonquian Conference 146–64. albany, Ny: SUNy Press.
Lipka, J. (1994) Language, power, and pedagogy: Whose school is it? Peabody Journal of Education 69(2): 71–93. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/01619569409538766
Luthin, H. W. (1991) Restoring the Voice in yanan Traditional Narrative: Prosody, Performance and Presentational Form. Phd dissertation, University of California, Berkeley.
Maltz, d. N. and Borker, R. a. (1982) a cultural approach to male-female miscommunication. In J. J. Gumperz (ed.) Language and Social Identity 196–216. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Matsumoto, y. (2002) Gender identity and the presentation of self in Japanese. In S. Benor, M. Rose, d. Sharma, J. Sweetland and Q. Zhang (eds) Gendered Practices in Language 339–54. Stanford, Ca: CSLI Publications.
Meek, B. a. (2010) We Are Our Language: An Ethnography of Language Revitalization in a Northern Athabaskan Community. Tucson: University of arizona Press.
Memmi, a. (1965) The Colonizer and the Colonized. Trans H. Greenfeld. Boston: Orion Press.
Nagel, J. (1994) Constructing ethnicity: Creating and recreating ethnic identity and culture. Social Problems 41(1): 152–76. http://dx.doi.org/10.1525/sp.1994.41.1.03x0430n
Nagel, J. (1995) american Indian ethnic renewal: Politics and the resurgence of identity. American Sociological Review 60(6): 947–65. http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/2096434
Nevins, M. E. (2004) Learning to listen: Confronting two meanings of language loss in the contemporary White Mountain apache speech community. Journal of Linguistic Anthropology 14(2): 269–88. http://dx.doi.org/10.1525/jlin.2004.14.2.269
Nicholas, S. E. (2010) Language, epistemology, and cultural identity: ‘Hopiqatsit aw unangvakiwyungwa’ (‘They have their heart in the Hopi way of life’). American Indian Culture & Research Journal 34(2): 125–44.
Powers, W. K. (2009) Saving Lakota: Commentary on language revitalization. American Indian Culture & Research Journal 33(4): 139–49.
Rinehart, M. a. (2006) Miami Indian Language Shift and Recovery. Phd dissertation, Michigan State University.
Rinehart, M. a. (2011) The agency of language ideologies in Miami Indian recovery. In T. Granadillo and H. a. Orcutt-Gachiri (eds) Ethnographic Contributions to the Study of Endangered Languages 91–110. Tucson: University of arizona Press.
Safiyiddeen, S. (2008) Constructing gender identities in two languages. International Journal of the Sociology of Language 190: 183–218. http://dx.doi.org/10.1515/IJSL.2008.018
Shohamy, E. (2008) at what cost? Methods of language revival and protection. In K. King, N. Schilling-Estes, L. Fogle, J. J. Lou and B. Soukup (eds) Sustaining Linguistic Diversity: Endangered and Minority Languages and Language Varieties 205–218. Washington: Georgetown University Press.
Silverstein, M. (1985) Language and the culture of gender: at the intersection of structure, usage, and ideology. In E. Mertz and R. J. Parmentier (eds) Semiotic Mediation: Sociocultural and Psychological Perspectives 219–59. Orlando: academic Press.
Spivak, G. C. (1996) Subaltern studies: deconstructing historiography. In d. Landry and G. MacLean (eds) Selected Works of Gayantri Chakravorty Spivak 203–235. London: Routledge.
Spolsky, B. (2002) Norms, native speakers, and reversing language shift. In S. Gass, K. Bardovi-Harlig, S. S. Magnan and J. Walz (eds) Pedagogical Norms for Second and Foreign Language Learning and Teaching 41–58. amsterdam/ Philadelphia: John Benjamins.
Tannen, d. (1990) You Just Don’t Understand: Women and Men in Conversation. New york: Ballantine Books.
Trechter, S. (1999) Contextualizing the exotic few: Gender dichotomies in Lakhota. In M. Bucholtz, a. C. Liang and L. a. Sutton (eds) Reinventing Identities: The Gendered Self in Discourse 101–119. New york: Oxford University Press.
Tohe, L. (2000) There is no word for feminism in my language. Wicazo Sa Review 15(2): 103–110. http://dx.doi.org/10.1353/wic.2000.0014
Tveskov, M. a. (2007) Social identity and culture change on the southern northwest coast. American Anthropologist 109(3): 431–41. http://dx.doi.org/10.1525/aa.2007.109.3.431
Warner, M. S. and Baldwin, d. (2004) Building ties: The collaboration between the Miami Nation and archeology. In P. a. Shackel and E. J. Chambers (eds) Places in Mind: Public Archaeology as Applied Anthropology 137–51. New york: Routledge.
Wilson, W. a. (2005) defying colonization through language survival. In W. a. Wilson and M. yellow Bird (eds) For Indigenous Eyes Only 109–126. Santa Fe, NM: School of american Research Press.
Baldwin, d. (2003) Miami language reclamation: From ground zero. Retrieved on 19 december 2011 from http://writing.umn.edu/docs/speakerseries_pubs/ baldwin.pdf
Baldwin, d. and Olds, J. (2007) Miami Indian language and cultural research at Miami University. In d. M. Cobb and L. Fowler (eds) Beyond Red Power: American Indian Politics & Activism Since 1900 280–90. Santa Fe, NM: School of advanced Research Press.
Berry, K. a. and Rinehart, M. a. (2003) a legacy of forced migration: The removal of the Miami Tribe in 1846. International Journal of Population Geography 9: 93–112. http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/ijpg.281
Brown, R. and Gilman, a. (1960) The pronouns of power and solidarity. In T. a. Sebeok (ed.) Style in Language 253–76. Cambridge, Ma: MIT Press.
Bucholtz, M. (2003) Sociolinguistic nostalgia and the authentication of identity. Journal of Sociolinguistics 7(3): 398–416. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/1467-9481.00232
Bucholtz, M. and Hall, K. (2004) Theorizing identity in language and sexuality research. Language in Society 33(4): 469–515. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/S0047404504334020
Bucholtz, M. and Hall, K. (2005) Identity and interaction: a sociocultural linguistic approach. Discourse Studies 7(4-5): 585–614. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1461445605054407
Cameron, d. (2005) Language, gender, and sexuality: Current issues and new directions. Applied Linguistics 26(4): 482–502. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/applin/ami027
Dementi-Leonard, B. and Gilmore, P. (1999) Language revitalization and identity in social context: a community-based athabascan language preservation project in Western Interior alaska. Anthropology & Education Quarterly 30(1): 37–55. http://dx.doi.org/10.1525/aeq.1999.30.1.37
Dorian, N. C. (1994) Purism vs. compromise in language revitalization and language revival. Language in Society 23(4): 479–94. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/S0047404500018169
Eckert, P. and McConnell-Ginet, S. (1992) Think practically and look locally: Language and gender as community-based practice. Annual Review of Anthropology 21: 461–90. http://dx.doi.org/10.1146/annurev.an.21.100192.002333
Errington, J. (2008) Linguistics in a Colonial World: A Story of Language, Meaning, and Power. Malden: Blackwell.
Gardner, S. E. B. (2009) ‘Without our language we will cease to exist as a unique people.’ In W. y. Leonard and S. E. B. Gardner (eds) Language is Life: Proceedings of the 11th Annual Stabilizing Indigenous Languages Conference 60–81. Berkeley, Ca: Survey of California and Other Indian Languages.
Goodfellow, a. (2003) The development of ‘new’ languages in Native american communities. American Indian Culture and Research Journal 27(2): 41–59.
Grenoble, L. a. and Whaley, L. J. (2006) Saving Languages: An Introduction to Language Revitalization. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Hamill, J. (2000) Being Indian in northeast Oklahoma. Plains Anthropologist 45(173): 291–303.
Hanson, a. (1989) The making of the Maori: Culture invention and its logic. American Anthropologist 91(4): 809–902. http://dx.doi.org/10.1525/aa.1989.91.4.02a00050
Henze, R. and davis, K. a. (1999) authenticity and identity: Lessons from indigenous language education. Anthropology & Education Quarterly 30(1): 3–21. http://dx.doi.org/10.1525/aeq.1999.30.1.3
Hinton, L. (2001) Sleeping languages: Can they be awakened? In L. Hinton and K. Hale (eds) The Green Book of Language Revitalization in Practice 413–17. San diego: academic Press.
House, d. (2002) Language Shift among the Navajos: Identity Politics and Cultural Continuity. Tucson: University of arizona Press.
Irvine, J. T. and Gal, S. (2000) Language ideology and linguistic differentiation. In P. V. Kroskrity (ed.) Regimes of Language: Ideologies, Polities, and Identities 35–84. Santa Fe, NM: School of american Research Press.
Johnston, B. (2002) The rise and fall of a dako?a immersion pre-school. Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development 23(2): 195–213. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/01434630208666465
Kimball, G. (1987) Men’s and women’s speech in Koasati: a reappraisal. International Journal of American Linguistics 53(1): 30–38. http://dx.doi.org/10.1086/466041
Kipp, d. (2009) Encouragement, guidance and lessons learned: 21 years in the trenches of indigenous language revitalization. In J. Reyhner and L. Lockard (eds) Indigenous Language Revitalization: Encouragement, Guidance & Lessons Learned 1–9. Flagstaff, aZ: Northern arizona University.
Kroskrity, P. V. (2009) Language renewal as sites of language ideological struggle: The need for ‘ideological clarification’. In J. Reyhner and L. Lockard (eds) Indigenous Language Revitalization: Encouragement, Guidance & Lessons Learned 71–83. Flagstaff, aZ: Northern arizona University.
Kulick, d. (2000) Gay and lesbian language. Annual Review of Anthropology 29: 243–85. http://dx.doi.org/10.1146/annurev.anthro.29.1.243
Lang, S. (1997) Various kinds of two-spirit people: Gender variance and homosexuality in Native american communities. In S. Jacobs, W. Thomas and S. Lang (eds) Two-Spirit People: Native American Gender Identity, Sexuality, and Spirituality 100–18. Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press.
Leonard, W. y. (2007) Miami language reclamation in the home: a case study. Phd dissertation, University of California, Berkeley.
Leonard, W. y. (2008) When is an ‘extinct language’ not extinct?: Miami, a formerly sleeping language. In K. a. King, N. Schilling-Estes, L. Fogle, J. J. Lou and B. Soukup (eds) Sustaining Linguistic Diversity: Endangered and Minority Languages and Language Varieties 23–33. Washington: Georgetown University Press.
Leonard, W. y. (2011) Challenging extinction through modern Miami linguistic practices. American Indian Culture & Research Journal 35(2): 135–60.
Leonard, W. y. and Haynes, E. (2010) Making ‘collaboration’ collaborative: an examination of perspectives that frame linguistic field research. Language Documentation & Conservation 4: 268–93.
Leonard, W. y. and Shoemaker, S. M. (in press) ‘I heart this camp’: Participant perspectives on the role of Miami youth camps. In K. S. Hele and J. R. Valentine (eds) Papers of the 40th Annual Algonquian Conference 146–64. albany, Ny: SUNy Press.
Lipka, J. (1994) Language, power, and pedagogy: Whose school is it? Peabody Journal of Education 69(2): 71–93. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/01619569409538766
Luthin, H. W. (1991) Restoring the Voice in yanan Traditional Narrative: Prosody, Performance and Presentational Form. Phd dissertation, University of California, Berkeley.
Maltz, d. N. and Borker, R. a. (1982) a cultural approach to male-female miscommunication. In J. J. Gumperz (ed.) Language and Social Identity 196–216. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Matsumoto, y. (2002) Gender identity and the presentation of self in Japanese. In S. Benor, M. Rose, d. Sharma, J. Sweetland and Q. Zhang (eds) Gendered Practices in Language 339–54. Stanford, Ca: CSLI Publications.
Meek, B. a. (2010) We Are Our Language: An Ethnography of Language Revitalization in a Northern Athabaskan Community. Tucson: University of arizona Press.
Memmi, a. (1965) The Colonizer and the Colonized. Trans H. Greenfeld. Boston: Orion Press.
Nagel, J. (1994) Constructing ethnicity: Creating and recreating ethnic identity and culture. Social Problems 41(1): 152–76. http://dx.doi.org/10.1525/sp.1994.41.1.03x0430n
Nagel, J. (1995) american Indian ethnic renewal: Politics and the resurgence of identity. American Sociological Review 60(6): 947–65. http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/2096434
Nevins, M. E. (2004) Learning to listen: Confronting two meanings of language loss in the contemporary White Mountain apache speech community. Journal of Linguistic Anthropology 14(2): 269–88. http://dx.doi.org/10.1525/jlin.2004.14.2.269
Nicholas, S. E. (2010) Language, epistemology, and cultural identity: ‘Hopiqatsit aw unangvakiwyungwa’ (‘They have their heart in the Hopi way of life’). American Indian Culture & Research Journal 34(2): 125–44.
Powers, W. K. (2009) Saving Lakota: Commentary on language revitalization. American Indian Culture & Research Journal 33(4): 139–49.
Rinehart, M. a. (2006) Miami Indian Language Shift and Recovery. Phd dissertation, Michigan State University.
Rinehart, M. a. (2011) The agency of language ideologies in Miami Indian recovery. In T. Granadillo and H. a. Orcutt-Gachiri (eds) Ethnographic Contributions to the Study of Endangered Languages 91–110. Tucson: University of arizona Press.
Safiyiddeen, S. (2008) Constructing gender identities in two languages. International Journal of the Sociology of Language 190: 183–218. http://dx.doi.org/10.1515/IJSL.2008.018
Shohamy, E. (2008) at what cost? Methods of language revival and protection. In K. King, N. Schilling-Estes, L. Fogle, J. J. Lou and B. Soukup (eds) Sustaining Linguistic Diversity: Endangered and Minority Languages and Language Varieties 205–218. Washington: Georgetown University Press.
Silverstein, M. (1985) Language and the culture of gender: at the intersection of structure, usage, and ideology. In E. Mertz and R. J. Parmentier (eds) Semiotic Mediation: Sociocultural and Psychological Perspectives 219–59. Orlando: academic Press.
Spivak, G. C. (1996) Subaltern studies: deconstructing historiography. In d. Landry and G. MacLean (eds) Selected Works of Gayantri Chakravorty Spivak 203–235. London: Routledge.
Spolsky, B. (2002) Norms, native speakers, and reversing language shift. In S. Gass, K. Bardovi-Harlig, S. S. Magnan and J. Walz (eds) Pedagogical Norms for Second and Foreign Language Learning and Teaching 41–58. amsterdam/ Philadelphia: John Benjamins.
Tannen, d. (1990) You Just Don’t Understand: Women and Men in Conversation. New york: Ballantine Books.
Trechter, S. (1999) Contextualizing the exotic few: Gender dichotomies in Lakhota. In M. Bucholtz, a. C. Liang and L. a. Sutton (eds) Reinventing Identities: The Gendered Self in Discourse 101–119. New york: Oxford University Press.
Tohe, L. (2000) There is no word for feminism in my language. Wicazo Sa Review 15(2): 103–110. http://dx.doi.org/10.1353/wic.2000.0014
Tveskov, M. a. (2007) Social identity and culture change on the southern northwest coast. American Anthropologist 109(3): 431–41. http://dx.doi.org/10.1525/aa.2007.109.3.431
Warner, M. S. and Baldwin, d. (2004) Building ties: The collaboration between the Miami Nation and archeology. In P. a. Shackel and E. J. Chambers (eds) Places in Mind: Public Archaeology as Applied Anthropology 137–51. New york: Routledge.
Wilson, W. a. (2005) defying colonization through language survival. In W. a. Wilson and M. yellow Bird (eds) For Indigenous Eyes Only 109–126. Santa Fe, NM: School of american Research Press.
Published
2012-09-10
Issue
Section
Special Issue Articles
How to Cite
Leonard, W. Y. (2012). Reframing language reclamation programmes for everybody’s empowerment. Gender and Language, 6(2), 339-367. https://doi.org/10.1558/genl.v6i2.339
