Siraya petition

Thu Apr 2 23:06:34 UTC 2009

Hi Jimmy,
Thanks for your excellent email and I'm glad this discussion is occurring.
My post was perhaps deliberately vague in order to get a feel for the range
of opinions out there.

Just to clarify a few specifics, I don't believe linguists should avoid
politics – quite the contrary – and I readily agree that language work is
necessarily political from the outset. Whether a linguist desires this or
not, the political reality must at the very least be acknowledged. Nor do I
accept the argument that political engagement undermines the "objective"
scientific worth of a study. (For an eloquent refutation of this idea, see
Cameron, Deborah et al. *Researching language: issues of power and
method.*London; New York: Routledge, 1992.)

Every language exists in a different political context, and a strategy that
is effective in Taiwan (such as a petition) may not be suitable elsewhere.
This, for me, is not contentious.

Thinking beyond the specifics of the Taiwan situation, what I suppose I was
really getting at was the question of strategy generally. My observation is
that environmentalists have become very clever and pragmatic campaigners
over the past few decades. Far from publicly quibbling over the most
effective ways to measure threats to biodiversity, environmental scientists
have succeeded in "stepping back" to create a public space in which
non-scientists can actively and positively participate. Rarely if ever are
"paid lobbyists" necessary for a successful environmental campaign. Nor do
environmental scientists have to stand in front of bulldozers wherever a
dynamic collaboration with activists already exists.

Another linguist has pointed out to me the problems with invoking an
environmentalist analogy in the context of living cultures. If you yourself
are not a custodian of an endangered language then the extent to which you
can advocate on behalf of that language is automatically limited. Unlike a
rainforest, speakers of rare languages can and do represent their own agenda
and articulate their own needs. This is a crucial distinction, but it
doesn't obviate the need to think carefully about strategy. It simply means
that language activism is more complex.

By and large, I don't believe linguists are crowding out indigenous voices,
though I don't deny the possibility of this occurring. Maybe, then, the
discussion ought to be reoriented to outlining what the specific goal of a
language endangerment situation is, what we as linguists can and can't do
for endangered languages, and how speakers of rare languages might
collaborate successfully with scientists, non-scientists and the public to
achieve this goal.

Or more simply:*
*If revitalisation is the goal of a speech community, how do we define
successful language revitalisation (as opposed to, say, successful
description)?
How do we divide tasks to achieve this most efficiently?

The answers will be different for each language and my feeling is that
linguists cannot and should not do everything. Ditto speakers. How to
proceed? Are there any fundamentals we all agree on?

Piers.

On Fri, Apr 3, 2009 at 3:11 AM, Chun Jimmy Huang <huangc20 at ufl.edu> wrote:

> Hi all,
>
> My name is Chun (Jimmy) Huang. I am the person who created the English
> version of Siraya petition (based on a Chinese version designed by the
> Tainan Pingpu Siraya Culture Association).
>
> I would like to first thank Dr. Florey for introducing me to this list. I
> just subscribed to the list yesterday and have read in the archive
> discussions about the Siraya petition. I want to thank everyone who has
> contributed. Your opinions are all valid. And I really appreciate Dr.
> Poser's summary of the situation in Taiwan. His interpretation is indeed
> quite correct.
>
> Here are some of my thoughts concerning linguistic activism. Basically, I
> believe that everything is politics. Especially, since most of us here,
> through our experiences doing anthropological or descriptive linguistics in
> the real world, could perceive language/culture (instead of "language, and
> culture"), and politics is part of human culture, it seems to me a strange
> idea to separate "linguistic work" from "political work". My feeling is that
> many linguists have shunned away from (talking about/ participating in)
> politics, even though they do encounter politics when they carry out their
> work, because of the Western scientific idea of objectivism.
>
> For example, my task in the Siraya association started out concerning
> "language proper" only. I participated in re-constructing our sleeping
> ancestral language through researching existing texts and academic writing.
> Then I helped design some language teaching materials. I taught them in a
> few summer camps. And I worked with the language committee on a Siraya
> dictionary that was published last year. But, before long I was unavoidably
> involved in politics. For publishing the dictionary, we needed money.
> Funding to my personal research was not sufficient. So we needed to ask for
> funds from various sources. The central government has the most to offer.
> But they would not fund a people that "do not exist." (Eventually we were
> supported by the county government.) Besides, we are constantly subjected to
> censorship and evaluation by the govt (yep despite not recognizing us, they
> do feel that they have the right to decide how worthy our work is), who have
> organized several public hearings and/or workshops where we have to present
> our work formally. In those meetings there are politicians, governmental
> officials, and there are always "linguistic experts" who argue that the
> Siraya language has already gone "extinct" and reclamation would not work
> because whatever we reconstruct would not be "authentic" *_* Given the
> situation, I have actually received duel positions from the association: I
> am posted as a linguistic consultant in the language committee, but I am
> also a Special Assistant to the Chair, Uma Talavan. Whenever I am in Taiwan,
> Uma would bring me along to the political meetings she is asked to attend.
> Also, to counter the negative attitude in Taiwan's domestic politics, my
> people ask me to "reach out to the international community." So, while I am
> working on my dissertation here in Florida, I frequently get emails from
> Taiwan that ask me to translate this or that material into English and
> spread the messages out. The petition is just one of the most recent
> examples.
>
> Last but not least, I would like to thank Piers Kelly and Jessica Denniss
> for their valuable comments. I, too, am not sure how effective online
> petitions are to reach the political goals. They do seem to create a "good
> feeling" for the people more than anything else. But this good feeling, we
> do need it. I have observed a stronger bond and solidarity among the Siraya
> people in the past few weeks in the process of signing the petition and
> preparing for taking the street on 5/2. A couple of my Siraya friends told
> me that they were so moved by the messages left by the signatories that they
> cried. I hence see "empowerment" as a core value in petition signing. And I
> appreciate Kelly and Denniss's suggestion that "the descriptive linguists
> step back a bit to encourage other skilled people to enter the space." I
> believe that this suggestion came from their utmost sincerity and respect
> towards the native people. So I'd just like to point out that sometimes
> there aren't "other skilled people" though... if "skilled people" refers to
> those who are adept politicians, or political activists. All of us in the
> Siraya movement are new to Realpolitik. The most experienced with politics
> would be Uma, and her experience is about 10 years young. We all feel
> stupid, na??ve, and frustrated from time to time when we confront
> Realpolitik. But we are learning as we are acting... (and yes I do heed the
> danger of some people getting corrupted or carried away, but that would be a
> different topic). Oh and I don't think indigenous peoples would enjoy the
> idea of hiring a professional lobbyist from outside, either (issue of trust
> and money).
>
>
> And yes I will keep you updated in terms of how our fight for recognition
> goes.
>
> Sincerely,
> Chun (Jimmy) Huang
> PhD candidate,
> Linguistics, University of Florida
> Linguistic consultant,
>
> Tainan Ping-pu Siraya Culture Association
>
>
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