WEBVTT

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Good afternoon.

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Hi, Prof. Daily, How are you?

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Good. How are you doing Dr. Fountain?

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Or is it okay if I call you Amy for this?

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You are welcome to call me Amy.

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Our linguistics community is,

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we just have this practice

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where we're extremely first
namey with each other.

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So I'm just most used to
be addressing that way,

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to being addressed that way.

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Excellent. All right,
I like calling you Amy.

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And you are welcome to call
me Diana or Prof. Daily,

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which is the students call me.

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And so, can you tell me a little bit

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about what you created,
I guess, chapter about

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for "Humans R Social Media?"

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Sure.

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So I am a linguist and we linguists

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are big fans of language.

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And that means that some of us

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are also big fans of languages.

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So one of the things that I'm
really, really interested in

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is the linguistic diversity around us,

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particularly that we find
in indigenous languages

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here in Arizona, but also elsewhere.

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So over the years, I've
gotten very interested as,

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I am a white lady, I am
not an indigenous person.

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But I got really interested
in indigenous languages

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because their structural
properties are super interesting.

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And in the process of
doing that, I met humans

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who speak them, imagine a world, right?

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And they, so I got interested
also in issues of equity

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around language use,
especially as that relates

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to the indigenous languages around us.

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So, here in Arizona, you might know

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there's 22 federally recognized
tribes, native nations,

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they're all sovereign nations.

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And each of those
nations has at least one,

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most of them have multiple
heritage languages.

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And these languages are spoken
by people here on campus.

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They're all living languages.

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A lot of us, white people
aren't aware of that.

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Outsiders aren't often aware of that.

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And the languages are so
cool and so beautiful.

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But they're just not represented online.

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And so, and I know some younger speakers

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who are working hard to bring
their heritage languages,

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indigenous languages
into the digital world,

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use them in social media and stuff.

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But they just face a lot
of structural barriers.

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And so I thought that would
be a really interesting thing,

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maybe to share more broadly
with students in your class

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where I'm assuming some students
will know about this a lot,

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because they're in that situation

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and others might really not
have experience with it.

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So that's what we'll discuss.

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And I'm really excited to do it.

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I'm very, very excited that
your work is in the book

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and that I get to know you
and talk to you about it.

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And is there a particular
moment in your background

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that made you more aware of languages

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in the world and their importance?

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So yes, there have been multiple ones,

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but I'll pick one key moment for me

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with respect to the indigenous
languages of Arizona.

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I did my PhD in linguistics
and anthropology,

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and my language of study was Navajo,

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which I had studied in the
classroom, but did not speak.

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And I worked with a peer
who was, I actually,

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I think he was an undergraduate
student here at the UofA,

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who was a heritage speaker,

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first language speaker of Navajo.

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And as I got to know him
better, brilliant young man,

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I learned about him that he was,

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had among his first
languages, Navajo, Hopi,

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Spanish and English.

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DIANA: Wow.

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And he is just a student.

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Like, I met him in a class
and he was just a nice guy.

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And I found out he spoke
and then we arranged a deal

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where we could help each
other out on things.

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And he helped me with my dissertation.

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And it was such an eye
opening experience to me

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thinking about the
richness that's right here.

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And at the same time I had
heard from friends and family

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and I was sort of raised in an environment

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where we always talked about
native American languages

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as though there was one
and it was called Indian,

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and as though it was gone.

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And I'm like, oh no, no, no,
this is really important,

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and he was really important.

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And so that was a big moment for me

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during and after the dissertation.

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That's amazing.

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And it really intersects
with our I Voices program,

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that is a program that we teach,

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it's a student media lab here,

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and the "Humans R Social Media" textbook

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does use some of the media
from the I Voices program

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including student voices.

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And one of the things that we base that on

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is this concept of funds of knowledge,

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this idea that students
come into our classrooms

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with really, really important
knowledge in their lives.

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And when they've used
technologies a lot in their lives,

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which generally they
have in this generation

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and upcoming generations,

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their knowledge around these technologies,

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the ways that they've used to work them,

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the cultural moments where they've learned

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how to navigate various things,

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whether it's racism online

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or learning how to use work
arounds or various things,

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all of this knowledge is super important.

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A lot of the times just their experiences

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with understanding what a
platform really means culturally,

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in a way that it would
never say explicitly.

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This knowledge is so
important for students

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to be able to have
recognized in a classroom

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is important knowledge.

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They don't walk in as
blank slates or canvases.

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And this is a really good
example language wise

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if you're coming in and you're learning

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all about the internet

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as though it includes
everything in the world,

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and you know that you
have this entire rich body

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of knowledge and
understandings and language

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that's not included on it,

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it is important to at
least have that recognized

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as a gap, and ideally as a gap

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that can maybe be filled
in by you as you grow up,

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that you can make that knowledge
part of this online world.

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And, anyway, this is a
really nice introduction

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for students to do that.

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And I appreciate you
ushering them through it

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and us through it.

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And we're looking forward to
the chapter and to seeing you.

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I'm looking forward to it as
well. Thank you very much.

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Thank you, Amy.

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I was about to stop the recording.

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I don't need to stop the recording.

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I just have to stop, so let me do that.