By Tara Jackson
Anyone who has ever sent a text message would likely agree that technology is changing the way we use language. It might seem ironic then that the same technology that has contributed to language disappearance by imposing English as the de-facto language of communication is now proving to be an important tool for documenting and helping to save endangered languages.
Marie-Odile Junker, a professor in the School of Linguistics and Applied Language Studies, studies Canadian Aboriginal languages that are in danger of dying out. Junker admits that some language loss is inevitable, but this extinction poses problems for Aboriginal communities and society as a whole.
“Language loss is for culture what losing biodiversity is for nature,” Junker explains. “It really is impoverishing for all of us, conceptually and culturally, especially for future generations.”
Junker is particularly interested in the connection between language and healing as it relates to the Aboriginal experience in Canada.
Her research uses something called participatory action research: a method that involves teachers and speakers and focuses on the process rather than results. “Most linguistic research is concerned with theoretical questions with little regard for the speakers of those languages,” she says. “My work involves questions like, how can my intervention as a linguist in these communities have a positive impact and create healing, rather than alienate people even more?”
Junker’s past endeavours include the East Cree language documentation project that created free, largely accessible resources designed with and for speakers. Part of the project involved capturing oral stories that can be downloaded to an iPod.
“Many people who went to residential schools did not even know these legends and stories,” Junker says. “Today they are relearning them and passing them on to their children.” Junker’s latest project is a linguistic atlas that creates second-language resources for Cree-Innu populations across Canada.
Without a standardized, national education system for Aboriginal youth in this country, many students from the same language family are often isolated in their studies with access to limited resources. Junker’s work will help turn that negative into a positive learning experience. “By building the linguistic atlas together with these communities, we hope to connect and empower language teachers, and create an exciting resource for the youth of these cultures,” she says.