Indigenous people of the world fight to maintain our lifeways, culture, and more specifically our languages. Speakers have endured waves of violence and persecution and in the face of that still fought to preserve and bring back languages. Language loss has been observed by communities and linguists and each figures out ways to document and…

In the face of colonial efforts to extinguish Indigenous language and culture, Kanien'keha:ka (Mohawk people) have been working to revitalize Kanien'keha (the Mohawk language) since the 1970s. However, Kanien'keha continues to experience greater speaker loss than gain. Through a comprehensive vitality assessment, this dissertation examines the…

Meaning construction is a complex concept that encapsulates language and thought as a whole system in which sense and meaning have a unique relationship highly marked by the social and cultural environment of the reader. Hence, Kichwa-Spanish bilinguals' reading practices in the Southern Andes of Ecuador cannot be discussed as two separate…

Purpose and Method of Study: The purpose of this study was to review a Cherokee language immersion school's effort to revitalize the Cherokee language and contribute to the knowledge base of native language immersion school leaders regarding the revival of Native American languages. The research design for this study was a qualitative evaluative…

"How do you feel when you speak Zapotec?" According to some children who are learning Zapotec, an Indigenous language spoken in Teotitlan del Valle, Mexico, speaking Zapotec invokes feelings of pride. But not all learners feel this way, and children's feelings often vary depending on the specifics of a particular interaction. In this…

Tikal, notably conservative in culture among its peer polities, maintains that tendency in the case of monumental texts. In this dissertation I draw on a corpus of Late Classic monuments (ca. AD 600-900) to argue, through analysis of morphological forms, that scribal tradition at Tikal was not only conservative but intentionally so. Literacy…

This dissertation argues that indigenous language revitalization and reclamation projects are best understood as multigenerational and multi-participant conversations, which I will frame as language conversations. Language revitalization and reclamation relies on relationships, access, and accountability within indigenous frameworks. This model of…

There is a significant diaspora of Mixtec people residing along California's Central Coast, mostly working in the agricultural sector. The new realities in the diaspora have brought Mixtec varieties in contact in new contexts where they co-exist with other Mexican Indigenous languages, as well as with Spanish and English. We urgently need more…

This dissertation centers on the study of Kaqchikel word associations and the social variation that exists within them. Theoretical and methodological considerations for this project stem from the fields of psycholinguistics, variationist sociolinguistics, and cognitive linguistics. Together, these form an approach that fits within a blossoming…

Narrative practices are essential for the speakers of the Arapaho language. While traditional oral narratives play a crucial role in transmitting knowledge and the support of culture, conversational stories help speakers connect to their interlocutors, entertain, and create solidarity. Interactional techniques and linguistic mechanisms of Arapaho…

Increasingly, speakers of minoritized languages around the world are becoming uprooted due to economic pressures, political forces, and environmental destabilization. As communities leave their traditional homelands, they often experience accelerated language shift. Although youth are in a critical position to further transmit their languages to…

An Indigenous research paradigm collectively described by Wilson (2008), Archibald (2008), and Kovach (2009) has yet to be applied to research in undergraduate math education, and specifically at a Tribally Controlled College/University (TCU). Research at TCUs does not require the use of an Indigenous research paradigm, however at the outset, this…

The Dena'ina language is a well-documented Northern Dene Alaska Native language in south-central Alaska. The Dena'ina language is on the brink of going to sleep. The Dena'ina community strongly desires for the Dena'ina language to once again thrive in the community. Language-use within the community is a contributing factor to the health of the…

Nawat, the highly endangered indigenous language of El Salvador, is undergoing a revitalization process. This dissertation, conceived within this context, focuses on the second-language (L2) acquisition of features of Nawat pronunciation by learners who have Salvadoran Spanish as their first language (L1). Specifically, I assess the acquisition of…

Study 1: The present work examined the connection between language and conceptual development, investigating whether false-belief reasoning (FBR) and source-monitoring ability (SMA) abilities within the theory of mind (ToM) framework constrained the comprehension of semantic and pragmatic knowledge (evidential scalar implicatures) encoded in the…