| NSF Org: |
BCS Division of Behavioral and Cognitive Sciences |
| Recipient: |
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| Initial Amendment Date: | January 17, 2017 |
| Latest Amendment Date: | January 17, 2017 |
| Award Number: | 1658333 |
| Award Instrument: | Standard Grant |
| Program Manager: |
Jeffrey Mantz
jmantz@nsf.gov (703)292-7783 BCS Division of Behavioral and Cognitive Sciences SBE Directorate for Social, Behavioral and Economic Sciences |
| Start Date: | January 15, 2017 |
| End Date: | June 30, 2019 (Estimated) |
| Total Intended Award Amount: | $15,949.00 |
| Total Awarded Amount to Date: | $15,949.00 |
| Funds Obligated to Date: |
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| History of Investigator: |
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| Recipient Sponsored Research Office: |
5801 S ELLIS AVE CHICAGO IL US 60637-5418 (773)702-8669 |
| Sponsor Congressional District: |
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| Primary Place of Performance: |
1126 E. 59th St Chicago IL US 60637-1587 |
| Primary Place of
Performance Congressional District: |
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| Unique Entity Identifier (UEI): |
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| Parent UEI: |
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| NSF Program(s): | Cult Anthro DDRI |
| Primary Program Source: |
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| Program Reference Code(s): |
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| Program Element Code(s): |
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| Award Agency Code: | 4900 |
| Fund Agency Code: | 4900 |
| Assistance Listing Number(s): | 47.075 |
ABSTRACT
The research funded by this award will investigate the potential for language preservation efforts to serve the needs of both scientists, who may lead the language documentation and revitalization efforts, and native speakers, whose cultures may mandate that they have sole control over their linguistic patrimony. Language preservation is scientifically important because it provides the raw materials for learning about the full range of human capacities. Languages also provide important clues to the history of humanity on earth. But individual languages are the knowledge-property of particular peoples whose own needs and goals may be quite different. Therefore, findings from this research will be important to scientists, language speakers, and language revitalization specialists throughout the United States and beyond.
The research will be undertaken by Hannah McElgunn, a doctoral student in the Departments of Anthropology and Linguistics at the University of Chicago, who is supervised by Dr. Justin Richland. McElgunn will focus on an important indigenous American language, that of the Hopi people, as a case study through which to explore how different claims to know, own, and control a language may converge or conflict as scholars, tribal staff, and language teachers and learners are drawn together in language revitalization efforts. The Hopi language provides a particularly apt locus for this study because most tribal members think of their language as their exclusive knowledge-property. With this knowledge-property comes the privilege and responsibility to pass it down. Further, revitalization activities on the Hopi reservation include not only classroom teaching and learning of the language, but negotiations with archival institutions about how to manage the circulation and availability of past language documentation work. What kinds of knowledge, property, and ways of relating to language are produced through language revitalization initiatives as a result of this convergence? Can these be extended with concomitant modification into new environments, encompassing new people and textual objects, rather than closing off access? These crucial questions will be explored through twelve months of ethnographic fieldwork, interviews, and participant observation on the Hopi reservation and at off-reservation archives.
PROJECT OUTCOMES REPORT
Disclaimer
This Project Outcomes Report for the General Public is displayed verbatim as submitted by the Principal Investigator (PI) for this award. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this Report are those of the PI and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation; NSF has not approved or endorsed its content.
Hannah McElgunn has completed research for her dissertation "Translating Hopi: Language Revitalization, Knowledge, and Property". During the funding period, she spent approximately 20 months in the Southwest US on Hopi ancestral territory and at surrounding archival institutions. This project set out to explore what "vitality" means to different stakeholders involved in Hopi language revitalization and how these stakeholders think about the Hopi language as a kind of knowledge and a kind of property.
The research activities accomplished under this grant took place primarily at Hopi. McElgunn volunteered at the Hopi Cultural Preservation Office; held interviews with Hopi language teachers; and conducted collaborative work with Hopi speakers to learn about how concepts of knowledge and relations of possession are grammatically encoded in the Hopi language. Through engaging with a wide variety of Hopi interlocutors, McElgunn's work shows that many Hopi people consider Hopi knowledge to be a privilege that is inherited and earned. Further, knowledge is distributed by clan (and along other dimensions) so that no individual tribal member has knowledge of the collective whole. Some tribal members feel that the Hopi language is a kind of knowledge that also follows this model of circulation. That is to say, it is not a resource freely available to anyone.
By contrast, McElgunn shows that archivists hold a different view of knowledge circulation. Drawing on interviews with a variety of archivists, visits to state, museum, and university archives, and attendance at an archival conference, McElgunn shows that for many archivists, preservation is based on the spread of knowledge as a public good, ideally accessible to all. When the Hopi language and other forms of cultural knowledge are the objects of preservation, this model can undermine Hopi modes of knowledge circulation and property transmission.
Ultimately, these findings indicate that keeping the Hopi language "vital" for tribal members means not only ensuring that future generations of Hopi people are able to speak the language to each other, but, crucially, that the language remains something that follows Hopi models of knowledge circulation.
Last Modified: 10/22/2019
Modified by: Hannah R Mcelgunn
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