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Saving a Language with Computers, Tape Recorders, and Radio.
| Content Provider | Semantic Scholar |
|---|---|
| Author | Bennett, Ruth |
| Copyright Year | 2003 |
| Abstract | In California, efforts to save indigenous languages have a century long history. The use of technology in ever-new ways is a part of that history. The earliest technology to encounter an indigenous language was the wax cylinder. This instrument was used for recording the sounds of the languages from native speakers’ voices. The newest technology involves new media uses, new recording equipment, and new multi-media software among other innovations. Teachers, students, and others communicate in their native languages through e-mail messages, faxes, and web pages. Web pages exist for the Hupa, Karuk, and Kumeyaay languages of California. A Yurok language teacher sends language audiotapes to her grandson in college in Oregon (Hinton, 2001a). In the Hoopa tribe’s Aht’ine Ch’o:yalts’it Education Department, the Hupa Language, Culture, and Education program records language classes with a digital tape recorder and burns CD recordings. Attitudes toward technology within indigenous language programs range from the belief that technological is significant in language survival to the view that technology is unnecessary. It is useful to look at research covering the entire range of attitudes since the success of technology in a language program depends upon who uses it. Advocates (see e.g., Arthurs, 2001; Reyhner, 1999) for the benefits of technology for the language classroom cover areas ranging from individual learning styles to strategies for teacher training and materials development. Most recently, educators have advocated the use of technology for community education in the form of newsletters, newspapers, radio, and television. Studies, such as Adley-SantaMaria’s (1997), discussing positions unfavorable to technology have generally concerned native people’s attitudes and beliefs toward documenting their languages. These attitudes do not seem to be toward technology, per se, but rather toward any sort of recording. Some native speakers have objected to having their languages written down in the apparent belief that writing weakens a language meant for speaking. Others do not want their languages written because they do not want to provide access to non-indigenous peoples. Still others feel that there are things in this world best left uninvestigated, unsaid, and not revealed (Adley-SantaMaria,1997). My own experience has shown that disadvantages of technology are unrelated to the potential of the technology as tools, but rather owing to the fact that having technology involves expenditures of funds, which can generate conflicts. Because of the value in pursuing instructional issues rather than political issues, I discuss technology from an instructional point of view. I first describe some of the studies involving the use of technology in Indigenous language preserva- |
| File Format | PDF HTM / HTML |
| Alternate Webpage(s) | https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED482035.pdf |
| Alternate Webpage(s) | http://jan.ucc.nau.edu/~jar/NNL/NNL_5.pdf |
| Language | English |
| Access Restriction | Open |
| Content Type | Text |
| Resource Type | Article |
