Policy and Planning for Ancestral language literacy in Inuvialuit and Gwich'in communities.
Principal Investigator: Bourcier, Andre (1)
Licence Number: 12948
Organization: Universite Laval
Licensed Year(s): 1997
Issued: Oct 15, 1997
Project Team: self

Objective(s): Many factors can influence the implementation of ancestral language literacy classes. The most obvious are related to the language itself but these are usually easily overcome by trained linguists. Other difficulties relate to the status given to the ancestral language by a given community, the age group seen as the focus of the intervention, the means given by the provincial governments, local authorities or school boards to implement the programs, the feelings of the ancestral language teachers towards their role and implication in the survival of the language, their capacity to use the descriptions of the language made by the linguist to create teaching material and the nature of the program. The first part of this study will be an assessment of the means made available to the communities by the authorities. The researcher will then try to determine how each community is using those means. The Inuvialuit started their ancestral language program in the mid-80's with the COPE project. The researcher is currently working on a new version of the Inuvialuktun Dictionary with Prof. Lowe. The Gwich'in are just starting their language program. The goal of this project to discuss with the communities what their respective linguistic needs are and to propose a series of recommendations for linguists and cultural officers regarding their linguistic intervention in these communities.

Project Description: The goal of this project to discuss with the communities what their respective linguistic needs are and to propose a series of recommendations for linguists and cultural officers regarding their linguistic intervention in these communities. The first part of this study will be an assessment of the means made available to the communities by the authorities. The researcher will then try to determine how each community is using those means. The researcher intends to visit as many communities as possible. Transport will be mostly by plane. Data collection will involve the use of an audio recorder and a laptop computer. All participants will be fully informed of the study and the researcher will obtain informed consent.