Meet the Author: Linguist Dr. Amy Fountain

Good afternoon.

Hi, Prof. Daily, How are you?

Good. How are you doing Dr. Fountain?

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

You are welcome to call me Amy.

Our linguistics community is,

we just have this practice

where we're extremely first
namey with each other.

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

to being addressed that way.

Excellent. All right,
I like calling you Amy.

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

which is the students call me.

And so, can you tell me a little bit

about what you created,
I guess, chapter about

for "Humans R Social Media?"

Sure.

So I am a linguist and we linguists

are big fans of language.

And that means that some of us

are also big fans of languages.

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

is the linguistic diversity around us,

particularly that we find
in indigenous languages

here in Arizona, but also elsewhere.

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

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

But I got really interested
in indigenous languages

because their structural
properties are super interesting.

And in the process of
doing that, I met humans

who speak them, imagine a world, right?

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

around language use,
especially as that relates

to the indigenous languages around us.

So, here in Arizona, you might know

there's 22 federally recognized
tribes, native nations,

they're all sovereign nations.

And each of those
nations has at least one,

most of them have multiple
heritage languages.

And these languages are spoken
by people here on campus.

They're all living languages.

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

Outsiders aren't often aware of that.

And the languages are so
cool and so beautiful.

But they're just not represented online.

And so, and I know some younger speakers

who are working hard to bring
their heritage languages,

indigenous languages
into the digital world,

use them in social media and stuff.

But they just face a lot
of structural barriers.

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

maybe to share more broadly
with students in your class

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

because they're in that situation

and others might really not
have experience with it.

So that's what we'll discuss.

And I'm really excited to do it.

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

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

And is there a particular
moment in your background

that made you more aware of languages

in the world and their importance?

So yes, there have been multiple ones,

but I'll pick one key moment for me

with respect to the indigenous
languages of Arizona.

I did my PhD in linguistics
and anthropology,

and my language of study was Navajo,

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

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

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

who was a heritage speaker,

first language speaker of Navajo.

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

I learned about him that he was,

had among his first
languages, Navajo, Hopi,

Spanish and English.

DIANA: Wow.

And he is just a student.

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

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

where we could help each
other out on things.

And he helped me with my dissertation.

And it was such an eye
opening experience to me

thinking about the
richness that's right here.

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

and I was sort of raised in an environment

where we always talked about
native American languages

as though there was one
and it was called Indian,

and as though it was gone.

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

and he was really important.

And so that was a big moment for me

during and after the dissertation.

That's amazing.

And it really intersects
with our I Voices program,

that is a program that we teach,

it's a student media lab here,

and the "Humans R Social Media" textbook

does use some of the media
from the I Voices program

including student voices.

And one of the things that we base that on

is this concept of funds of knowledge,

this idea that students
come into our classrooms

with really, really important
knowledge in their lives.

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

which generally they
have in this generation

and upcoming generations,

their knowledge around these technologies,

the ways that they've used to work them,

the cultural moments where they've learned

how to navigate various things,

whether it's racism online

or learning how to use work
arounds or various things,

all of this knowledge is super important.

A lot of the times just their experiences

with understanding what a
platform really means culturally,

in a way that it would
never say explicitly.

This knowledge is so
important for students

to be able to have
recognized in a classroom

is important knowledge.

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

And this is a really good
example language wise

if you're coming in and you're learning

all about the internet

as though it includes
everything in the world,

and you know that you
have this entire rich body

of knowledge and
understandings and language

that's not included on it,

it is important to at
least have that recognized

as a gap, and ideally as a gap

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

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

And, anyway, this is a
really nice introduction

for students to do that.

And I appreciate you
ushering them through it

and us through it.

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

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

Thank you, Amy.

I was about to stop the recording.

I don't need to stop the recording.

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