GRADUATE INSTITUTE OF APPLIED LINGUISTICSInsider

Volume IX, Issue 1

G I A L FA C U LT Y M E M B E R R E C E I V E S F E L L O W S H I P

In April of 2015, GIAL adjunct faculty member and SIL Special Consultant for Language and Culture Documentation, Dr. Brenda Boerger, received a Documenting Endangered Languages (DEL) fellowship. The US National Endowment for the Humanities and the National Science Foundation award

ten DEL fellowships each year. The award supports fieldwork related to recording, documenting, and archiving languages that are in danger of being lost. Dr. Boerger and a team of seven interns spent three months (Sept. - Nov. 2015) conducting fieldwork in the Solomon Islands, documenting the language and cultural arts of the Natügu-speaking people of Santa Cruz Island. This is Boerger’s second time to receive the award – a 2010 DEL fellowship enabled her to draft a grammar of Natügu. Dr. Boerger’s primary focus on this trip was adding to and refining the Natügu dictionary, which started with over 5,000 headwords. The team worked to double or triple that number in order to have a more thorough and comprehensive dictionary. The team will also be creating audio books in Natügu by using previous recordings of 15 older speakers born between 1912 and 1973 who answered the question, “Grandpa, what was it like when you were growing up?” These tape recordings have already been digitized and on this trip were transcribed into the local orthography and translated into English. The stories will become part of an English-Natügu reading book with a corresponding audio CD. The research materials will be made available to local schools for history lessons, English lessons, Natügu lessons, or any combination of the three. The cultural focus of the trip concentrated on making audio and visual recordings of the traditional nelâ dance of the area, noting the history, preparations, music, lyrics and steps of the dance as well as the dance ring and the endangered weaving technique for the special costumes. This dance is culturally important to the Natügu because it unifies them with their neighboring indigenous language groups: Nalögo and Engdewu. Part of the work also involved taking botanical samples of plants related to dance costumes, as well as those discovered in the dictionary work which still need identification. Dr. Boerger and her husband lived in the Solomon Islands and served as advisors to the Natügu Language Project for nearly twenty years. They worked with Natügu-speakers in language development efforts, such as Bible translation, mother-tongue literacy, teacher training, development of vernacular literature, and adjustments to the writing system to improve readability. GIAL is thankful for Dr. Boerger and all our faculty members who continue to use their expertise not only in equipping our students, but also to serve minority language communities.

The Graduate Institute of Applied Linguistics is accredited by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges to award baccalaureate and masters degrees. Contact the Commission on Colleges at 1866 Southern Lane, Decatur, Georgia 30033-4097 or call 404-679-4500 for questions about the accreditation of The Graduate Institute of Applied Linguistics.

7500 W. Camp Wisdom Rd., Dallas, TX 75236 972.708.7340 development@gial.edu www.gial.edu

L A N G U A G E D O C U M E N TAT I O N The role of Language and Culture Documentation is to preserve language and culture data in three key areas: linguistic vitality, cultural identity, and heritage resources. The team led by Dr. Boerger is seeking to impact each of these key areas by producing audio books, documenting a cultural dance, and substantially increasing the number of dictionary entries. The principal impact of a dictionary is that it can help increase language vitality (how much people actually speak, read and write their language). It can accomplish this increasing a people group’s willingness to write because of access to spelling help. A dictionary can also increase language vitality by improving a group’s self worth. “We have a dictionary in our language and I helped produce it!” Finally, better writers make better readers, and better readers are better able to understand the complex thoughts and sentences of the scriptures. Books with audio can have some of the same impact on language vitality as a dictionary. Students can use these books as models since they provide samples of well-constructed sentences and well-spelled words. They also provide the community with the opportunity to learn about what it was like when their great-grandparents were children. Having their history preserved is another way to increase self-worth and promote language vitality as well as cultural heritage. Readers who increase reading fluency using these books will also be better prepared to read scripture. The video documentation of cultural events such as a dance preserves examples of cultural identity for future generations, even if the dance itself ceases to be performed. It is a valuable part of cultural heritage and worthy of preservation. An outsider’s interest in such cultural aspects could also revive interest among the young speakers of the language.

Nelâ dancers of Santa Cruz Island: documenting this culturally significant dance was one focus of the team's fieldwork.