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• 1. [Article] Motivation in the Portland Chinuk Wawa language community

  Throughout the world, languages are becoming extinct at an alarming rate. Perhaps half of the 6,000-7,000 languages worldwide will go extinct in the next 50-100 years. One of these dying languages, Chinook ...

  Citation × Citation Citation Abstract Copy Title: Motivation in the Portland Chinuk Wawa language community Author: Pecore, Abigail Elaina Year: 2012 Throughout the world, languages are becoming extinct at an alarming rate. Perhaps half of the 6,000-7,000 languages worldwide will go extinct in the next 50-100 years. One of these dying languages, Chinook Jargon or Chinuk Wawa, a language found in the Pacific Northwest of the United States, is in the process of being revitalized through the concerted efforts of the Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde (CTGR). Reasons to revitalize endangered languages often seem irrelevant to our modern daily lives, and revitalizing these languages is a difficult process requiring much dedication, commitment, and persistence. In light of this significant struggle, understanding people's motivations could contribute to a better understanding of how to involve more people in language revitalization. Ideally, such an understanding would contribute to strengthening a community's efforts to revitalize their language. This exploratory, ethnographic case study explores the motivations of eight participants in the Portland Chinuk Wawa language community involved in revitalizing Chinuk Wawa over a nine-month period in 2011. The results of the study showed that seven major themes of motivation were prevalent for the participants: connections made through Chinuk Wawa, preservation of Chinuk Wawa, relationships, instrumental motivation, affective motivation, identity motivation, and demotivation. Title: Motivation in the Portland Chinuk Wawa language community Author: Pecore, Abigail Elaina Year: 2012 Throughout the world, languages are becoming extinct at an alarming rate. Perhaps half of the 6,000-7,000 languages worldwide will go extinct in the next 50-100 years. One of these dying languages, Chinook Jargon or Chinuk Wawa, a language found in the Pacific Northwest of the United States, is in the process of being revitalized through the concerted efforts of the Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde (CTGR). Reasons to revitalize endangered languages often seem irrelevant to our modern daily lives, and revitalizing these languages is a difficult process requiring much dedication, commitment, and persistence. In light of this significant struggle, understanding people's motivations could contribute to a better understanding of how to involve more people in language revitalization. Ideally, such an understanding would contribute to strengthening a community's efforts to revitalize their language. This exploratory, ethnographic case study explores the motivations of eight participants in the Portland Chinuk Wawa language community involved in revitalizing Chinuk Wawa over a nine-month period in 2011. The results of the study showed that seven major themes of motivation were prevalent for the participants: connections made through Chinuk Wawa, preservation of Chinuk Wawa, relationships, instrumental motivation, affective motivation, identity motivation, and demotivation. Close

• 2. [Article] Writing Chinuk Wawa: A Materials Development Case Study

  This study explored the development of new texts by fluent non-native speakers of Chinuk Wawa, an endangered indigenous contact language of the Pacific Northwest United States. The texts were developed ...

  Citation × Citation Citation Abstract Copy Title: Writing Chinuk Wawa: A Materials Development Case Study Author: Hamilton, Sarah A. Braun Year: 2010 This study explored the development of new texts by fluent non-native speakers of Chinuk Wawa, an endangered indigenous contact language of the Pacific Northwest United States. The texts were developed as part of the language and culture program of the Confederated Tribes of the Grand Ronde Community of Oregon for use in university-sponsored language classes. The collaborative process of developing 12 texts was explored through detailed revision analysis and interviews with the materials developers and other stakeholders. Fluent non-native speakers relied on collaboration, historical documentation, reference materials, grammatical models, and their own intuitions and cultural sensibilities to develop texts that would be both faithful to the speech of previous generations and effective for instruction. The texts studied were stories and cultural information developed through research-based composition, translation from interlinear and narrative English in ethnographic sources, and editing of transcribed oral narrative. The revision analysis identified points of discussion in the lexical development and grammatical standardization of the language. The preferred strategy for developing new vocabulary was use of language-internal resources such as compounding although borrowing and loan translation from other local Native languages were also sometimes considered appropriate. The multifunctionality of the lexicon and evidence of dialectal and idiolectal usage problematicized the description of an “ideal” language for pedagogical purposes. Concerns were also expressed about detailed grammatical modeling due to potential influence on non-native speaker intuitions and the non-utility of such models for revitalization goals. Decisions made in the process of developing texts contributed to the development of a written form of Chinuk Wawa that would honor and perpetuate the oral language while adapting it for the requirements of inscription. The repeated inclusion of discourse markers and the frequent removal of nominal reference brought final versions of texts closer to oral style, while inclusion of background information and the avoidance of shortened pronouns and auxiliaries customized the presentation for a reading audience. The results of this study comprise a sketch of one aspect of the daily work of language revitalization, in which non-native speakers shoulder responsibility for the growth of a language and its transfer to new generations of speakers. Title: Writing Chinuk Wawa: A Materials Development Case Study Author: Hamilton, Sarah A. Braun Year: 2010 This study explored the development of new texts by fluent non-native speakers of Chinuk Wawa, an endangered indigenous contact language of the Pacific Northwest United States. The texts were developed as part of the language and culture program of the Confederated Tribes of the Grand Ronde Community of Oregon for use in university-sponsored language classes. The collaborative process of developing 12 texts was explored through detailed revision analysis and interviews with the materials developers and other stakeholders. Fluent non-native speakers relied on collaboration, historical documentation, reference materials, grammatical models, and their own intuitions and cultural sensibilities to develop texts that would be both faithful to the speech of previous generations and effective for instruction. The texts studied were stories and cultural information developed through research-based composition, translation from interlinear and narrative English in ethnographic sources, and editing of transcribed oral narrative. The revision analysis identified points of discussion in the lexical development and grammatical standardization of the language. The preferred strategy for developing new vocabulary was use of language-internal resources such as compounding although borrowing and loan translation from other local Native languages were also sometimes considered appropriate. The multifunctionality of the lexicon and evidence of dialectal and idiolectal usage problematicized the description of an “ideal” language for pedagogical purposes. Concerns were also expressed about detailed grammatical modeling due to potential influence on non-native speaker intuitions and the non-utility of such models for revitalization goals. Decisions made in the process of developing texts contributed to the development of a written form of Chinuk Wawa that would honor and perpetuate the oral language while adapting it for the requirements of inscription. The repeated inclusion of discourse markers and the frequent removal of nominal reference brought final versions of texts closer to oral style, while inclusion of background information and the avoidance of shortened pronouns and auxiliaries customized the presentation for a reading audience. The results of this study comprise a sketch of one aspect of the daily work of language revitalization, in which non-native speakers shoulder responsibility for the growth of a language and its transfer to new generations of speakers. Close