Tongue -Tied: Sociocultural Change, Language, and Language Ideology Among the Oglala Lakota (Pine Ridge Sioux)

The number of languages spoken in the world declined considerably throughout the 20th century. In the last decade of that period, initiatives to revitalize endangered languages rose dramatically. However, in most cases revitalization initiatives did not halt or significantly slow language loss. In many Native American communities, Native languages were not being transmitted to subsequent generations despite significant local interest in doing so, even in communities that still had many adult Native language speakers. This study addresses this phenomenon by investigating how it came to be among the Oglala Lakota on Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota and what it meant to the people there at the end of the 20th century. Full-time ethnographic fieldwork was carried out principally in one school and its host community. Data from that fieldwork was combined with the rich historical and ethnographic record of the Lakota to reveal how both widespread contemporary interest in revitalizing the Lakota language and patterns of language use were inextricably tied to sociocultural change and to ideologies of language. The major theoretical contribution of this study is that it illuminates how language ideologies mediate between macro-level sociocultural forces and micro-level language practices in ways that are of consequence to language revitalization. Its main practical implication concerns language revitalization planning in minority language settings, specifically, the need for greater responsiveness to the social, cultural, and historical processes through which language revitalization interests are constructed.

Name thesis:degree_name

Ph.D.

Level thesis:degree_level

Dissertation

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Education

Grantor

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Year dc:date

2015

Author dc:creator

• Henne, Richard Brian

Contributors dc:contributor

• Anderson, Richard C.

• Anthropology, Cultural

Language dc:language

eng

Identifier

(MiAaPQ)AAI3086078

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:www.ideals.illinois.edu:2142/79725