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Painted Elk Hide, attributed to Cotsiogo, from the Brooklyn Museum. Text about the photo from the Brooklyn Museum's website reads : "By 1900, when this hide was painted, Cotsiogo’s Eastern Shoshone band was confined to the Wind River Reservation in Wyoming, and the artist turned to the tourist economy as a means of support. This nostalgic work harks back to pre-reservation times with scenes of the Wolf and Sun Dances, a buffalo hunt, women butchering buffalo, and warriors on horseback returning to camp.
Prior to the 1860s, when Native people were forced onto reservations by the U.S. government so white settlers could occupy tribal lands, the vast Shoshone territory encompassed what is now southeastern California, central and eastern Nevada, northwestern Utah, southern Idaho, and western Wyoming. " |
What happens when power structures create an imbalance in access, technology, and sharing of stories? The history of the United States embodies a compelling example for such an imbalance of power where belief systems and inherited stories of vast numbers of cultures were silenced and replaced by a different, dominant narrative. When the American frontier began to move westward in the early 19th century, little was known about the cultures who lived West of the Mississippi River. At this point, approximately five hundred languages existed in North America. Scattered French fur trappers and adventurers who found their way out West often interacted peacefully with the tribes they encountered. However, these individual settlers were soon to be replaced by large groups of European settlers driven by the institutional powers of a national government, its political decisions, laws, and military powers. Along with innovative technologies in communication and transportation, these cultures with their languages, traditions, and livelihood would be destroyed. Here, we can observe a complex example of rapid takeover where stories, whose language, inherent wisdom, values, and ways of thinking were erased by a government institution whose powers consisted of access, technology and efficient sharing of information, ideas, and new belief systems. In the end, a powerful dominant narrative grew to encompass all the United States. The stories of the ones conquered were silenced and fell out of consciousness of the general population. How does such an annihilation of cultural property take place? Aside from literal expulsion and takeover of land and resources, a powerful tool of the U.S. government was forced assimilation. With the goal to dismantle collective identity by suppressing the use of native languages, rituals and traditions, children were taken away from their families and placed in boarding schools in a different environment and culture. Driven by the belief that forced adoption of the English language, European values and behaviors would lead to less resistance and a successful integration of the Native Americans into the “new” culture of the intruders.
In this unit, you will study a text by one of the most outspoken proponents of forced assimilation, Captain Henry Pratt.
First, please read the text below about discourse and ideology.
Discourse – What is it and how does it work?
Discourse involves communication of language, either written or spoken, beyond a single sentence. In other words, it always involves language in use. Its meaning can only be processed when both the producer of discourse - speaker/ author - and a receiver, a listener or reader are considered. Since discourse has no meaning unless processed outside of a text or speech, discourse is always situated in time and place and depends on its producers and targeted audience. These factors are summarized as “context.” For example, the word “sheep” takes on a specific meaning when used by farmers. However, “sheep” in the urban context often represents weakness or cowardice. The meaning depends on the representations of the word as they are stored away in the minds of the language users. These mental representations can vary across cultures and time. We need to think of discourse as interwoven relationships: horizontally between parts of text, speech, or images on the one hand, and vertically between text/ speech and reader/listener, on the other.
Further, context is based on shared beliefs and knowledge within a group which is socially and culturally situated. Each culture knows the world from a different angle and is reflected in its representations. These can involve power, social conflict, gender roles, social/ ethnic groups etc. Each group further has different sociocultural practices and habits. These elements of context manifest themselves in the narratives of society, be it orally or written. Knowledge and beliefs are stored in what is called “episodic memory” which is like a container of shared experiences. So is the Civil War in the U.S. part of the episodic memory in most Americans since it represents a shared historical event or experience. Added to knowledge and shared beliefs in discourse is the concept of ideology. The word has its roots in “idea” - our mental perceptions of the world and its phenomena expressed as thoughts about the world. “Ideology” is then the way we think society should function based on shared values and interpretations of the world.
How is this bundle of ideology, language and social behaviors expressed in discourse? As we said earlier, discourse is like a tapestry of words, sentences, and expressions organized in a way we can understand depending on our mental representations of the world we are situated in. These components are chosen and organized depending on WHAT we want to express and HOW we express it. Discourse therefore carries elements of attitude, tone and stance and often implies a form of action, such as argument, warning, or persuasion. Here are the key aspects of discourse you will use in the next activities:
Context: Which are the contexts of author, recipients embedded in the text? In- group/ out-group?
Knowledge and beliefs: Which shared knowledge and beliefs does the author appeal to in the text?
Topic: Which topic dominates in the text? This is the global meaning of the text.
What does it say ABOUT the topic?
Local meaning/ details: HOW does the author present his/her thinking?
Negative versus positive spin? Us and them?
Polarization: addressing in-group and out-group.
Disclaimer: “We only want the best for… but...”
Language tools and rhetorical strategies: Word choice, repetition, metaphors.
Argumentation strategy: fallacies leading to false generalizations and conclusions.
Modality: should/ must etc.
Evidentiality: the truth versus misguided “truth”/ lies.
Stance and attitude: Which expressions represent the author’s stance toward topic and/or in-group/out-group and other actors.
Sources:
Blommaert, Jan, and Chris Bulcaen. “CRITICAL DISCOURSE ANALYSIS.” Annual Review of Anthropology, vol. 29, no. 1, 2000, pp. 447–66, https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev.anthro.29.1.447.
VAN DIJK, TEUN A. “Ideology and Discourse Analysis.” Journal of Political Ideologies, vol. 11, no. 2, 2006, pp. 115–40, https://doi.org/10.1080/13569310600687908.
Week 8:
Watch the video above from the New York Times. Samuel Habib, 21, tells his story about living with his disability. In the video he interviews other people who are living with disabilities. In the video, comedian/actor Maysoon Zayid talks about how it's important for people with disabilities to be able to disseminate their stories. She says, "We have to tell our own stories because when non disabled people tell our stories, we only get to have three stories: ‘Help me, I’m disabled', 'cure me' or 'kill me.’ And when you have more disabled people behind the camera, writing, shooting, editing, directing, creating docs like you are, telling our own stories, then it won’t be the endless pity party."
This week we'll continue discussing groups whose narratives have been told by dominant groups, rather than through their own words. Why is it important to hear their stories? After watching this video, what do you think about advocacy? What is an advocate?
Week 9:
“When we lose a language, we lose a worldview, a unique identity, and a storehouse of knowledge.” (Akira. Y. Yamamoto, 2009: 34).
In the past weeks you have traced the imbalances of access, technology, and distribution of stories, knowledge, and information as they play out within the frameworks of power structures. In the case of the Native Americans, their cultural experiences, and traditions as they were preserved in stories and rituals, were in most cases forcefully replaced by a new dominant narrative. Above all, the breakdown of identity and language made it impossible to maintain their inherited stories.
Today, other parts of the world are experiencing different forms of language loss for similar and varied reasons. Trade, commerce and exchange of valuable information and ideas require forms of communication to benefit its participants. Therefore, in history as well as today, commerce, science, but also diplomats and politicians need efficient tools of communicating. A language used to facilitate communication across cultures and languages is called lingua franca. The term originated in the Mediterranean Sea where traders needed a common language to exchange goods and merchandise. Today, English has become the most frequently used language in global trade and politics. A second example of lingua franca is Kiswahili, a language used across East Africa in both trade and education. While Kiswahili is an original African language of the Swahili people, it is heavily influenced by Arabic and has been used in trading along the East-African coast for hundreds of years.
Another essential, worldwide development is the avalanche of mass entertainment and social media which has a global impact on lifestyle and language use. The world today is inundated with “stories” which “go viral” in seconds and spread like fire across continents. In this new world of the internet, English has become a dominant language. What do we gain from this development, and what do we lose? What are some of the benefits of a lingua franca and what are the drawbacks when it comes to sharing stories across cultures and borders?
Read the article “Is English a Killer Language or an International Auxiliary? Its Use and Function in a Globalised World”. Scan the article for three arguments against English as a lingua franca and three arguments in favor of English as a global language.
Week 10: