Ainu language use and display in the National Ainu Museum
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Saana Santalahti [1]
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[1] University of Helsinki
University of Helsinki
Helsinki, Finlandia
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- Localización: International journal of the sociology of language, ISSN 0165-2516, Nº. 291, 2025 (Ejemplar dedicado a: Negotiating Sociolinguistic Justice: Turning Spaces of Inequality into Spaces of Conscientization), págs. 177-202
- Idioma: inglés
- Texto completo no disponible (Saber más ...)
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Resumen
Based on a critical analysis of the museum’s linguistic landscape and a discourse analysis of the museum texts, this paper explores how the Indigenous Ainu language is both used and displayed in the National Ainu Museum and discusses how these observations relate to the museum’s overt language policy and potential role as a site for Ainu language revitalisation. Though Ainu has been announced as the official first language of the museum, this study suggests that there is incongruity between overt policy and practice. While Ainu is clearly the symbolic first language, in practice Japanese and English are the museum’s two main languages, echoing the different functions and values associated with these languages. Although the museum is participating in concrete language maintenance initiatives, the exhibition texts discuss language revitalisation as a purely linguistic campaign, detaching it from broader contemporary society and Indigenous rights issues. These findings show how language use and display in museums are connected to the surrounding ideologies and policies, but do not necessarily need to be confined by them.
