27 Flexible IT resources for community language reclamation: using culturally appropriate contexts
Cat Kutay, George W. Fisher, Richard F. Green · The Sydney eScholarship Repository (The University of Sydney) · 2010
This paper describes work utilising information technology developed by Cat Kutay and computing students at the University of New South Wales to support two different Aboriginal language programs in Sydney under the guidance of community tutors -George Fisher who teaches Wiradjuri and Richard Green who teaches Dharug.These languages are in the process of being reclaimed from archival resources, supported by the remaining speakers.Each language presents unique challenges.While the New South Wales Department of Education, Department of Aboriginal Affairs and Board of Studies have supported these languages in schools, it is also important to develop programs where the parents and community are involved in reclaiming the languages to ensure the process is ongoing.This work is located in both contexts.We discuss our experience using computing resources to promote the sharing of language, situating it in the field of research into computer-mediated human interaction.The aim of language reclamation is to provide the original speakers of a language with the opportunity to once again express themselves in their language.This requires more than knowledge of a word list or dictionary, or even the language structure.Without deep knowledge of their language it is difficult for Indigenous people today to express their culture and the related knowledge.This paper looks at a variety of fairly simple information technology (IT) resources that are being used or developed to increase the depth of language teaching and sharing within the Sydney community.