Full Description
This incisive ethnographic analysis of indigenous language documentation, maintenance, and revitalization focuses on linguistic heritage issues on the Native American reservation at Fort Apache and explores the broader social, political and religious influences on changing language practices in indigenous communities. * Offers a focused ethnographic analysis of an indigenous community that also explores global issues of language endangerment and maintenance and their socio-historical contexts * Addresses the complexities and conflicts in language documentation and revitalization programs, and how they articulate with localized discourse genres, education practices, religious beliefs, and politics * Examines differing evaluations of language loss, and maintenance, among members of affected communities, and their creative responses to challenges posed by encompassing socio-cultural regimes, including university accredited language experts * Provides an ethnographic analysis of speech in indigenous communities that moves beyond narrowly conceived language documentation to consider changing linguistic and social identities
Contents
Acknowledgments viii 1. Introduction 1 2. Indigenous Languages and the Mediation of Communities 12 3. Learning to Listen: Coming to Terms with Conflicting Meanings of Language Loss 47 4. They Live in Lonesome Dove: English in Indigenous Places 79 5. Stories in the Moment of Encounter: Documentation Boundary Work 113 6. What No Coyote Story Means: The Borderland Genre of Traditional Storytelling 152 7. Some No No and Some Yes : Silence, Agency, and Traditionalist Words 186 8. Sustainability: Possible Socialities of Documentation and Maintenance 215 Appendix A: Lawrence Mithlo 229 Appendix B: Eva Lupe on Her Early Life 237 Index 250
