Leanne Hinton Melbourne seminar

Prof. Leanne Hinton gave a public talk in Melbourne on Wednesday, 7 March, 2012. Prof. Hinton is a consulting member of the board of the Advocates for Indigenous California Language Survival and is Professor emerita at the University of California at Berkeley, USA. Leanne Hinton, Nancy Steele and Stan Rodriguez were in Australia in March to facilitate two intensive Master-Apprentice train-the-trainer workshops.

Topic Two Models of Language Revitalization from California

Abstract This paper will focus on two models that have been developed in California for revitalization of moribund languages – the Master-Apprentice Language Learning Program, and the Breath of Life Workshops for languages without speakers. Both these programs were developed by a Native-run organization, the Advocates for Indigenous California Language Survival. In the Master-Apprentice Program, the elderly speakers team up with younger learners, and the teams are taught how to transmit the language from elder to younger through immersion while living their daily lives together. For Breath of Life workshops, Native participants explore the massive language archives at the University of California and learn the fundamentals of linguistics with the goal of utilizing the materials they find their for purposes of language teaching, learning and revitalization. Both these programs have spread both nationally and internationally and found to be highly effective in communities that put them to use.

Click here to see a YouTube video of Leanne Hinton's public lecture at the University of Melbourne.

Photos of the talk courtesy of Mary-Anne Gale

When — 6.00 - 7.30pm Wednesday, 7 March, 2012

Where — Old Arts-239 Theatre (North Theatre), University of Melbourne

This event was co-sponsored by the Resource Network for Linguistic Diversity and the University of Melbourne, School of Languages and Linguistics.