In recent years, materials use scholarship has expanded beyond creation and evaluation concerns to include research examining the relationships between language learners’ development and their interactions with the material world (Guerrettaz et al., 2018; Guerrettaz & Johnston, 2013; Toohey, 2015). As centers of inquiry have shifted so have methods, particularly toward approaches that allow for greater attention to situated action. Yet, relying on methodologies that were developed for the purpose of examining human-human interaction to instead examine human-nonhuman relationships can present numerous challenges.
This paper presents one example of the methodological challenges associated with transcription and analysis of Indigenous multilingual language learners interacting with the natural and material world of the forest. Using point of view cameras to capture line-of-sight and movement through space, we videorecorded small groups of multilingual Ojibwe Elders and youth as they walked and talked together in the woods in order to better understand the relationships between Indigenous language reclamation and land-based pedagogy with land-as-materials.
We show how centralizing Indigenous ontologies (Deloria, Jr., 1999; Hermes, 2005) restructures the relationships between humans and nonhumans, revealing unforeseen limitations to a microinteractional approach to materials use research. We then illustrate how Goodwin’s (2000) theory of action, particularly his notion of substrate, can be leveraged to support Ojibwe relational perspectives (Simpson, 2014), to better understand how Indigenous Ways of Knowing (IWOK) (Bang & Marin, 2015; Kawagley, 1993) are generated in intergenerational Ojibwe conversations on and with the land. This research contributes to current conversations in the field of applied linguistics surrounding multimodality, Indigeneity, and materialism.
Presenters: Mel M Engman is a Lecturer in the School of Social Science, Education, & Social Work at Queen's University Belfast (QUB). Mel's research focuses language and sign in education, especially Indigenous and heritage language reclamation/maintenance contexts.
Mary Hermes is Professor in Second Language Education at the University of Minnesota. Her research focuses on language revitalization and how it can connect people to the land and the planet. …...more
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