Patterns of Formal Structure in Inuktitut Texts

Regions: Qikiqtaaluk Region, Nunavut

Tags: social sciences, knowledge transfer, linguistics, education, Inuktitut language

Principal Investigator: Ireland, Jeanette (3)
Licence Number: 9064
Organization: Baffin Divisional Board of Education; University of Birmingham
Licensed Year(s): 1990 1989 1988
Issued: Jan 01, 1989

Objective(s): to continue the work begun in 1988 to undertake comparative and contrastive analyses of Inuktitut texts, both oral and written, with their English translations, in order to discover patterns of linguistic organization in the source texts; to use the patterns to propose a model for texts analysis which will provide program planners, teachers and students with a practical foundation for detailed and critical study of existing literature; to interview linguists and translators to collect additional material for analysis

Project Description: Jeanette Ireland has been collecting oral Inuit stories from elders of various eastern Arctic communities and written Inuit textbooks. She wants to see how Inuit stories change when they are translated into English. By learning about this change, she can make recommendations to improve Inuit textbooks that are written for schools. In this way, the textbooks would reflect how Inuit think and feel about the world.