Elders’ Conversations: Perspectives on Leveraging Digital Technology in Language Revival (original) (raw)
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Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development, 2022
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Decolonizing the digital landscape: the role of technology in Indigenous language revitalization
AlterNative, 2021
Due to colonization and imperialism, Indigenous languages continue to be threatened and endangered. Resources to learn Indigenous languages are often severely limited, such as a lack of trained or proficient teachers. Materials which follow external standards or Western pedagogies may not meet the needs of the local community. One common goal for Indigenous language revitalization initiatives is to promote intergenerational language transmission and use in multiple social domains, such as the home. Could the use of technology assist in Indigenous language revitalization? And what would be its role? This article, emerging from ongoing research, aims to synthesize some key takeaways on the role of digital and online technologies in Indigenous language revitalization over the past three decades since the foundation of the World Wide Web in 1989. The article highlights how Indigenous communities, content creators, scholars and visionaries have contributed to an ongoing decolonization of the digital landscape.
Ojibwe Language Revitalization, Multimedia Technology, and Family Language Learning
2013
Although Indigenous language loss and revitalization are not new topics of academic work nor new areas of community activism (e.g., King, 2001; Grenoble & Whaley, 2006), increased attention has been paid in recent years to the ways that new technology can support efforts to teach and renew endangered languages such as Ojibwe. However, much of the work with Indigenous languages and technology thus far has been aimed at adults rather than children or families (e.g., Coronel-Molina, 2005). Addressing this gap, the current project examined how urban Ojibwe participants utilized computer-based language learning technology with their families at home. Specifically, we investigated how a particular multimedia tool might jumpstart communication in the Ojibwe language at home. During the two-month study, families were regularly video-taped using the software and participated in weekly audio-video recorded interviews regarding their language use and learning. Presented here is a fine-grained, qualitative analysis of two families' language and technology use. Findings suggest that technology-based language learning was incorporated into existing family dynamics and was helpful in providing a starting point for learning and language use within established extended networks.
Technology and Indigenous Language Revitalization
Indigenous or minority languages around the world have been making use of computer technology for over twenty years now (Zimmerman, Zimmerman, Bruguier, 2000; Warschauer, 1997). Computers have provided improvements upon earlier technologies in efforts to revitalize these languages not only because of the way they can combine audio, text, video and hyperlinks, but also because they release these languages from the notion that they belong in a hermetically sealed past and bring them into a modern context (Warschauer, 1998; McHenry, 2002; Galla, 2009). It is this motivational force that is perhaps the strongest feature of computers in Indigenous Language Revitalization (ILR) efforts, because while technology can help, a living language requires face-to-face communication happening between people (Villa, 2002; Hermes and King, 2013). This paper will discuss how computer technology is being employed in ILR and the conditions that need to be in place for technology to help revitalize not only dying languages, but those already extinct.
McGill University, 2023
This manuscript-based thesis explores the role and impact of relational technology, strength-based language education, and community-led language planning and policy research in a pilot project to support Indigenous language revitalization and reclamation processes. Following an Indigenous research paradigm and decolonizing methodologies, this thesis introduces an immersive, community-led Indigenous language acquisition approach—TEK-nology (Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK) and technology)—to support Anishinaabemowin language revitalization and reclamation in the Canadian context. The purpose of the TEK-nology pilot project is to explore the practical application of a self-determined, technology-enabled language and knowledge acquisition approach rooted in Indigenous worldviews. This thesis offers three primary original contributions to the field of language education and language planning and policy at three interconnected and interdisciplinary levels of analysis and praxis: (1) TEK-nology as a language acquisition and knowledge transmission approach; (2) Dùthchas, a Scottish Gaelic kincentric methodology for community-led research in-relation praxis; and (3) TEK-nology as online community-based language planning. The research demonstrates: (1) the potential and impact of grounding language acquisition and knowledge transmission in Indigenous worldviews, relational technology use, and strength-based language acquisition indicators; (2) ways in which researchers who are not Indigenous to the lands on which they work can collaborate in a more ethical and mutually beneficial manner with Indigenous Peoples and communities; and (3) ways in which federal and provincial language education planning and policy could be improved to address inequities and marginalization of Indigenous Peoples in the educational system. The community-led TEK-nology pilot project has implications for more equitable and self-determined language education, language planning and policy research, and community-led methods and methodologies. The TEK-nology approach and pilot project demonstrates that community-led, relational technology and immersive, strength-based Indigenous language acquisition can support Anishinaabemowin language revitalization and reclamation and foster more equitable multicultural and multilingual education practice and policy in the Canadian context. The research also illustrates how TEK-nology, as an online self-determined site of praxis and community-based language planning model, can inform more community-led, technology-enabled Indigenous language revitalization and reclamation initiatives worldwide and more equitable language policies and legislation at a territorial, provincial, and federal level. Finally, the implications of Dùthchas as in-relation methodology and kincentric praxis can inform ways in which researchers can foster, improve, and uphold emplaced ethical and mutually respectful Indigenous—non-Indigenous to Turtle Island (research) relations.