Language, Politics, and Social Interaction in an Inuit Community

by Patrick, Donna

• ISBN13: 9783110176520
• ISBN10: 3110176521
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2003-06-01
• Publisher: Mouton De Gruyter

Summary

Since the early 1970s, the Inuit of Arctic Quebec have struggled to survive economically and culturally in a rapidly changing northern environment. The promotion and maintenance of Inuktitut, their native language, through language policy and Inuit control over institutions, have played a major role in this struggle. Language, Politics, and Social Interaction in an Inuit Community is a study of indigenous language maintenance in an Arctic Quebec community where four languages - Inuktitut, Cree, French, and English - are spoken. It examines the role that dominant and minority languages play in the social life of this community, linking historical analysis with an ethnographic study of face-to-face interaction and attitudes towards learning and speaking second and third languages in everyday life.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements	vii
Language use in Arctic Quebec: Towards a political economic analysis	1	(20)
Introduction	1	(7)
Doing Aboriginal research	8	(4)
Collecting data	10	(1)
Historical data	11	(1)
The study of language choice: Theoretical assumptions	12	(9)
Investigating language choice	13	(4)
Social structure and social process	17	(3)
Language choice in Kuujjuarapik: From theory to practice	20	(1)
Contextualizing the research site	21	(32)
The research site	22	(11)
Geographical and social space in Great Whale River	24	(4)
Relations between the three communities	28	(2)
Material and symbolic resources in Arctic Quebec	30	(3)
Aboriginal politics in Canada: Nunavut, Nunavik, and land claims	33	(13)
The founding of Nunavut and Nunavik	34	(2)
The James Bay Agreement and Nunavik	36	(4)
Development of language policy and schooling in Northern Quebec and Nunavut	40	(6)
Setting the scene: Aboriginal politics in the 1990s	46	(4)
Conclusion	50	(3)
History and representation of the Hudson Bay Inuit, 1610--1975	53	(46)
History, contact, and representation	55	(21)
Early history: Explorers, traders, and the Inuit	56	(4)
The Hudson's Bay Company and the ``hostile Eskimo''	60	(6)
The fur trade and the formation of partnerships	66	(2)
Nineteenth century: The arrival of the missionaries	68	(1)
Missionary discourse	69	(3)
Shifting representations: The ``poor heathen Esquimeaux''	72	(4)
The twentieth century: The Inuit and Canada	76	(21)
The reality of hardship	78	(4)
Dispelling twentieth-century Western conceptions	82	(1)
Inuit-Cree relations	83	(5)
The early post-war period	88	(4)
Settlement, wage labour, and modernity: 1955--1975	92	(1)
Settlement in Kuujjuarapik	93	(4)
Conclusion	97	(2)
Language, power, and Inuit mobilization	99	(1)
Part 1: Linguistic markets	100	(11)
Language markets and linguistic capital	100	(2)
Dominant and alternative language markets	102	(9)
The dominant market	102	(3)
The alternative linguistic market	105	(2)
Overlap between dominant and alternative language markets	107	(3)
The alternative market and a linguistic paradox	110	(1)
Part 2: The dominant language market	111	(106)
Competition between English and French	111	(5)
Inuit mobilization and the rise of Inuktitut	116	(9)
Inuktitut and the dominant language market	118	(1)
Inuktitut language use: Education and standardization	119	(2)
Institutionalized practices and the symbolic importance of Inuktitut	121	(1)
Processes of Inuktitut standardization	122	(3)
Participating in the dominant market	125	(26)
Learning languages at work, home, and school	127	(2)
General perceptions of French	129	(4)
Access to French at home	133	(2)
French and schooling	135	(1)
French and the workplace	136	(3)
Language markets and job markets	139	(1)
Language learning and obtaining work	139	(7)
An overview of language requirements in the workplace	146	(5)
Conclusion	151	(2)
Ethnography of language use	153	(52)
Who speaks what: The distribution of linguistic resources	154	(2)
English and French	154	(1)
Inuktitut and Cree	155	(1)
Endangered languages and the ``survival'' of Inuktitut	156	(4)
Language survey data: Self-reports of language use	160	(14)
The language survey of Kuujjuarapik	166	(1)
Survey results	167	(1)
Language ability: Speaking, understanding, writing, and reading	167	(1)
Use of language in different contexts	168	(1)
Language and the media	169	(1)
Discussion of results	169	(1)
Inuktitut and English	170	(3)
Language choice in Nunavut	173	(1)
Ethnic boundaries and social space	174	(3)
Ethnicity, social groups, and boundaries in Great Whale River	175	(2)
Social networks in Great Whale River	177	(5)
Informal family and friendship networks	179	(3)
Language practices	182	(19)
Social networks and boundary maintenance	182	(1)
Boundary-defining language practices	182	(2)
Negotiating exclusionary boundaries	184	(3)
English and French, inclusion and exclusion	187	(3)
The politics of inclusion	190	(5)
Defining ``us'' and ``them'': The exclusionary use of Inuktitut and French	195	(6)
Negotiating power among Anglophones	201	(1)
Summary and conclusions	201	(4)
Summary and conclusions	205	(12)
Discussion of the study	205	(6)
Implications of the study	211	(6)
Notes	217	(8)
References	225	(18)
Appendix	243	(20)
Index	263