Indigenous Linguistics and Land Claims: The Semiotic Projection of Athabaskan Directionals in Elijah Smith's Radio Work

Abstract

In recent decades, land claims and language revitalization have emerged as prominent forms of indigenous activism in many parts of the world. Activists' indigenous language performances merit special attention since they commonly foreground the semiotic resources of their languages and reference the social structures in which they are embedded. This article examines a co‐performance by Yukon native leader Elijah Smith and Southern Tutchone elder Solomon Charlie that epitomizes the use of indigenous linguistic resources to assert native rights and identity in innovative contexts. In particular, Charlie's account exemplifies the essential roles of deictic terms as bridges between micro‐level narrative processes and the macro‐level social fields of contemporary society in which indigenous identity is projected.