citation/quotation conventions for list?

Thu Apr 24 22:27:19 UTC 2014

Dear all,

I am wondering about the social conventions (stated or unstated) for citing
and/or quoting material from the Siouan Listserv. On the one hand, the List
is archived for anyone to view here (
http://listserv.linguistlist.org/cgi-bin/wa?A0=SIOUAN), so it is in some
sense a public text. On the other hand, there is a strong sense of
community among members of the List, and I have a feeling that we sometimes
forget that we’re talking to each other in what is essentially a public
forum (in the sense that the public can listen in on our conversation; one
has to be a member to contribute, of course). I would be interested to hear
general thoughts or thoughts related to the specific case described below.

For example, I am currently working on an article/dissertation chapter
about how the relationship between “language” and “culture” is changing for
many American Indians who no longer speak their heritage languages.
Specifically, I am trying point out the irony that while many people
support language revitalization because they believe that “the language” is
essential for “the culture,” revitalization efforts themselves often remove
heritage languages from their traditional cultural contexts in an effort to
make them more relevant to learners—for example, by coming up with Siouan
calques for English idioms. After discussing some examples from the
literature and my own experiences working with Jimm’s Ioway, Otoe-Missouria
Language Project, I wanted to mention some of the reactions on the List to
the recent request to translate “curiouser and curiouser” from *Alice in
Wonderland*; specifically, I wanted to quote parts of Bryan’s, Jimm’s, and
Willem’s responses. I am including an excerpt from the draft of the paper
below to give some context, but the paragraph that includes information
from the Siouan Listserv is the second to last one.

Has a convention for citation and/or quotation already been established for
the List? Are posts assumed to be citable and/or quotable unless otherwise
stated? Do we expect someone wanting to cite and/or quote a post to contact
the poster off-list to request permission before doing so? Etc....

All best,

Saul

Ironically, while efforts to revitalize heritage languages are often
motivated by a belief that “the language” is an essential part of “the
culture,” language revitalization itself often ends up separating codes
from their traditionally associated cultural settings. David Samuels
(2006), for example, discusses how conflicts between Apache
traditionalists, who believe the language is too powerful for young
speakers, and Christians, who believe the language is too un-Christian for
their children, have narrowed the kind of language that can be taught in
the community to object identification—in other words, children are
learning a version of the language stripped of its indexical associations
with traditional culture practices. But, as an Apache bilingual teacher
wonders, if children are only learning how to use Apache to order a
cheeseburger, what’s the point? (2006:551). M. Eleanor Nevins (2004) finds
language classes are controversial in another Apache community because they
fail to teach communicative competence, that is, social conventions for
interaction that make particular codes culturally significant means of
communication.

Meeks reports similar developments in the Yukon, where educational routines
used to teach Kaska in school settings conflict with Dene interactional
conventions and language socialization ideologies. Furthermore, these
educational routines “emphasiz[e] the referential aspect of language while
downplaying all other indexical dimensions, and thereby diminish their
sustainability as complex systems of and for communication” (2010:126).

In their research on Pueblo groups in the Southwest, Debenport (xxxx) and
Whiteley (xxxx) also found conflicts between language revitalization and
cultural priorities. Many Tewas and Hopis believe that outsiders should not
have access to their languages and thus oppose revitalization efforts that
decontextualize codes from community-internal interpersonal interactions
and recontextualize them in forms that can circulate beyond the community
(e.g., online, in books, in schools attended by Navajo or other non-Pueblo
children, etc.). By refusing to support such language revitalization
efforts, community members are saying in effect that keeping their language
private is more important to them than maintaining the code.

Jocelyn Ahlers provides another example of how languages can become
separated from their traditionally associated cultures in her description
of how moribund languages are used to perform Native identities through
memorized texts, a speech style she calls “Native Language as Identity
Marker” (2006:62). She concludes that “this speech style adds to the body
of evidence that language use is not indexical with cultural . . .
identity, but rather performative of it” (2006:72). By this I understand
her to mean that, unlike other kinds of code-switching, in this case a
speaker sends a message about their identity by their code choice
alone—what they are saying in the code refers to nothing outside itself
(denotatively, indexically, or otherwise) because it is “code-switching, by
a nonfluent speaker, to a noncomprehending audience” (2006:69). In the case
of these memorized speeches, a code performs an identity without referring
to anything cultural. Whiteley (2003:715) offers a similar interpretation
of speeches by younger generations at Haida memorial potlatches, and the
Dauenhauers note an analogous development in written Tlingit when those who
have no or little knowledge of the language “use literacy for its
decorative and symbolic effect or impression: for example, ‘Merry
Christmas’ in Tlingit on corporate windows or Christmas cards” (1998:89).

To draw from my own experience, the Ioway, Otoe-Missouria Language Project
(IOMLP) makes a special effort to embed language in culturally significant
contexts that are also applicable to modern day life. For example, the
IOMLP designed and printed a tee shirt that includes a traditional floral
design, a diagram representing the shared histories of the Iowa,
Otoe-Missouria, and closely related Winnebago peoples (all labeled by their
Chiwere endo- or exo-nyms), an image of an elder and a child wearing
traditional ceremonial dance clothes, and a sentence in Chiwere that
translates, ‘The language honors our elders and teaches our
children.’Similarly, the IOMLP designed mugs that include the Chiwere
phrase for ‘I
love my coffee’ with the image of an Oneota-style ceramic vessel
superimposed over a medicine wheel.

While the IOMLP makes a special effort to embed language in culturally rich
contexts, the Project is all too familiar with the opposite possibility:
that traditional language can be used in contexts far removed from
traditional cultural practices and values. The director of the Project
often receives requests to calque English idioms, for example, “Go green!”
(for a tribal environmental awareness program) or “I [heart icon] boobies!”
(for breast cancer awareness bracelets). He has also been asked to provide
Chiwere equivalents for terms from the video game *Halo*. These requests
are met with ambivalence since they have no connection to traditional
cultural practices or can even seem antithetical to them. For example, the
request for “I [heart icon] boobies!” provoked a lesson on traditional
attitudes toward body parts, body functions, and sexuality. And when I
explained to the IOMLP what *Halo* is (a first-person shooter, i.e., rather
violent, video game), the director expressed reservations that Chiwere
language be associated with it at all. In some cases, then, indigenous
languages can be used not just for cultural practices that are seen as
untraditional (ordering a cheeseburger) but also anti-traditional (ones
that promote dominant society attitudes toward sex, violence, etc.).

This phenomenon is not limited to Chiwere, however, and many people
involved in Siouan language documentation and revitalization receive
similar requests. John Koontz, for example, received so many requests to
translate stock English phrases as well as names for children and pets into
Omaha-Ponca that he posted his general response to such questions on the
FAQ section of his website. Once, he was even asked (presumably as a joke)
for a Native American name for an RV; he responded in kind with *Hotanke*,
an Anglicized spelling of the Dakotan word for ‘Winnebago’ (Winnebago is a
popular brand of RV in the United States, much to the chagrin of the
Winnebago Indians).

Recently, a request appeared on the Siouan Listserv to translate a line
from *Alice in Wonderland* (“curiouser and curiouser, cried Alice”) into
various Siouan languages for some kind of polyglot compilation. While some
found the intellectual challenge of translating a Victorian neologism into
Siouan languages intriguing, others were less receptive to the request
because of its perceived triviality and irrelevance to Native communities:
“It’s a more distinguished request than pet names and such, but it’s not
the kind of translation work I would prefer to spend my time on. Why don’t
people ask us to translate Microsoft Word or a K-12 curriculum or something
important?” and “I have other priorities and am unclear on the need for [a
translation of] the particular quote from a story which has nothing in
common with Native American culture. . . . To spend time on the translation
of materials that have no immediate application to the language communities
is nonsensical and, for my part, a waste of time.” One linguist shared his
general guidelines for responding to such requests: “One has to pick and
choose. If it is short and culturally appropriate, I generally agree to it.
. . . Then other requests have to be nixed, like the set of ‘Spring Break’
phrases I once was asked to translate, things like ‘I am so drunk,’ and
‘Where is the bathroom?’”

In short, while language revitalization seeks to expand opportunities for
the continued use of heritage languages by making them seem more applicable
to current social conditions, there is a danger that the codes may become
disassociated from the traditional cultures that motivate their
revitalization in the first place. If what we care about is not only
preserving linguistic diversity (in the sense of grammatical structures)
but also preserving distinctive *cultural* worldviews and lifeways by
maintaining heritage languages, then we have won the battle while losing
the war if people are only learning and using heritage languages to
participate in the practices of the dominant society.

--
Manage your subscription at  http://listserv.unl.edu.
Due to Yahoo's DMARC policy: listserv.unl.edu lists do not accept incoming email from Yahoo.com
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://listserv.linguistlist.org/pipermail/siouan/attachments/20140424/28d1ab2a/attachment.htm>