Language Attitude Task: Article Summary
Lanoue, G. (1991). Language loss, language gain: Cultural camouflage and social change among the Sekani of Northern British Columbia.” Language in Society (2) 87-115.
This article describes an ethnographic study of the Sekani Indians of north-central British Columbia, whose way of life had been changed dramatically in the late 1960s by the construction of a man-made lake and the resulting flooding of a large part of the tribe’s homeland, which forced their resettlement. Lanoue, who had originally come to study the traditional way of life of the Sekani, changed his focus quickly after recognizing, and becoming troubled by, the “high level of violence, drinking and stress in the community” (1991, p.88). The author, who did his field research in the late 1970s, became particularly interested in why the Sekani seemed to favor English over their native tongue when in fact they had little contact with English speakers and no real advantages, economic or otherwise, for doing so; he found, for example, that English was generally the preferred language in interactions among fluent Sekani speakers even in situations where it was not required. Lanoue concluded that the preference lay in the cultivation of a universalist, “pan-Indian” sociopolitical philosophy that had arisen among the Sekani partly as a result of the flooding and subsequent social displacement. The researcher found that the Sekani favored English because it allows for a type of “indirection” in discourse that, unlike Sekani, leaves ambiguous certain identifying social markers and positions, and which therefore gives rise to a “precarious egalitarianism” (1991, p.111) among people made necessary because of the social upheaval. While this pan-Indian philosophy supported a feeling of solidarity with other native American groups, Lanoue asserts that one of its unfortunate side effects was the increasing disappearance of the Sekani language, which even at the time of Lanoue’s research was spoken by only
This article describes an ethnographic study of the Sekani Indians of north-central British Columbia, whose way of life had been changed dramatically in the late 1960s by the construction of a man-made lake and the resulting flooding of a large part of the tribe’s homeland, which forced their resettlement. Lanoue, who had originally come to study the traditional way of life of the Sekani, changed his focus quickly after recognizing, and becoming troubled by, the “high level of violence, drinking and stress in the community” (1991, p.88). The author, who did his field research in the late 1970s, became particularly interested in why the Sekani seemed to favor English over their native tongue when in fact they had little contact with English speakers and no real advantages, economic or otherwise, for doing so; he found, for example, that English was generally the preferred language in interactions among fluent Sekani speakers even in situations where it was not required. Lanoue concluded that the preference lay in the cultivation of a universalist, “pan-Indian” sociopolitical philosophy that had arisen among the Sekani partly as a result of the flooding and subsequent social displacement. The researcher found that the Sekani favored English because it allows for a type of “indirection” in discourse that, unlike Sekani, leaves ambiguous certain identifying social markers and positions, and which therefore gives rise to a “precarious egalitarianism” (1991, p.111) among people made necessary because of the social upheaval. While this pan-Indian philosophy supported a feeling of solidarity with other native American groups, Lanoue asserts that one of its unfortunate side effects was the increasing disappearance of the Sekani language, which even at the time of Lanoue’s research was spoken by only