By Barbara Monroe
Anecdotal proof, frequently dramatically recreated; sarcasm and humor; suspended or unspoken thesis; suspenseful association; intimacy with and admire for one’s viewers as co-authors of meaningthese are one of the privileged markers during this specific indigenous rhetorical culture. Such ideas of personalization, as Monroe phrases them, run precisely counter to Euro-American educational criteria that price secondary, far away assets; objective” facts; specific theses; logical” association. now not unusually, rankings for local scholars on mandated exams are one of the lowest within the nation.
whereas Monroe questions the development of this so-called success hole on a number of degrees, she argues that educators serving local scholars have to hunt down issues of cultural congruence, determining assignments and tests the place culturally marked norms converge, instead of collide. New media have unfolded many percentages for this sort of communicative inclusivity. yet seizing such possibilities is based on educators, first, spotting Plateau Indian scholars’ targeted rhetoric, after which honoring their sovereign correct to exploit it. This publication offers that first step.
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Additional info for Plateau Indian Ways with Words: The Rhetorical Tradition of the Tribes of the Inland Pacific Northwest
Sample text
2 Kaplan’s work specifically and cultural rhetorics generally are oft criticized for essentializing culture, insofar as that work portrays culture as a static object rather than a dynamic process that is both resilient and responsive to change. Isolating key features of any rhetoric always entails, to a certain degree, making it hold still for a moment in order to pinpoint and de20 Defining Principles of Plateau Indian Rhetoric • 21 scribe those features. A return to the sociolinguistic roots of cultural rhetorics aims to offset that problem, repositioning it more squarely within the history of new literacy studies (NLS).
2. Who has the authority to speak/write? Or: Who has the authority to write to whom under what circumstances? 3. What form(s) may the writing take? 4. What is evidence? 5. 5 In using these questions, albeit in different order, as my organizing framework, I am both respecting and updating the field of cultural rhetorics, implicitly recognizing how far it has evolved since its inception in the 1960s, while keeping true to Kaplan’s focus on educational consequences. Other more terrible consequences can result, however, regardless of how blended the discourse or powerfully poetic the language, even as adjudged by EuroAmerican standards.
21 Thus kinship was not restricted to blood relatives; Indian-ness was something someone did, not something a person was. Observable behaviors were identity markers because they indicated adoption of the group’s way of life: culturally marked practices like childrearing, food production, housing, clothing, music, cooking outside, and ceremonial rituals. The specific practices were always historically contingent and dynamic, not stable and inflexible. Most Indian groups were actually quite adaptive and responsive to change, but only insofar as that change sustained, or could be adapted to sustain, the group’s larger belief system.