All Intimate Grammars Leak: Reflections on "Indian Languages in Unexpected Places"

Abstract

In this discussion of a set of studies that fits the trope of "Indian Languages in Unexpected Places," I explore the obvious necessity of developing a relevant notion of linguistic "leakage" following a famous image from the writings of the linguistic anthropologist Edward Sapir. Though in its original use, the concept applied more to the order of linguistic form, my recontextualized application here explores it as a sensitizing image that can assist in developing a relevant notion of leakage both to the practices of speakers involving both their linguistic repertoires and their repertoires of identity. In order to appreciate the interplay of structure and agency in representations of Native American language use, I suggest the utility of recognizing the potency of concepts like DuBois (1903) "double consciousness" but also emphasize the need to interrogate "expectation" as the result of massive social inequality. Seeing expectations of Native failure, deficiency, and inadequacy as tied to the historical use of oppressive "force" in a Gramscian sense, and the more recent product of hegemonic institutions like BIA and boarding schools as well as the mass media allows us to understand the political economic basis for linguistic domination. The impact of dominant language ideologies of "contempt" for minority languages, of ideologies that condemn linguistic hybridity and denigrate multilingual adaptations is also explored through a discussion of case studies.

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