ELAP in Focus

Former MA student: Takashi Nakagawa

I undertook the MA in Language Documentation and Description at SOAS in 2008-09, after having worked in various capacities in community radio in Japan and Indonesia. I personally consider that documentation, description and revitalization are primarily social work, and the contribution we can make to academic communities is rather a secondary objective. For this reason I believe that linguists working with endangered languages need to organize their activities considering the needs and desires of the language communities. Language shift and endangerment are complexly intertwined with many factors, such as social, economic, political, and environmental factors. Thus, for language maintenance and revitalization, more interdisciplinary and holistic approaches must be taken.

I have been interested in how to apply information and communication technologies (ICTs) for language documentation, description and revitalization. ICT is double-edged sword: it often causes issues related to language endangerment but it can be used as tool for language maintenance and revitalization.

I have been involved in community radio activism on and off since 2008. I started working as an intern at the station FMYY, which is a community radio station in Nagata Ward, Kobe City, Japan. FMYY focuses on multilingual and multicultural communication and community-based disaster management. Due to my association with FMYY, I have also worked with FMYY’s counterpart in Indonesia, COMBINE Resource Institution (CRI). CRI is an Indonesian NGO working to assist the development of community media and the utilization of information and communication technology.

In 2009, after I finished my MA, FMYY and CRI organized workshops in Central Java to teach production and utilization of disaster management audio materials. I attended the workshop as one of organizers and saw the potential of community radio for both language revitalization and documentation. Community radio (CR) activists are people working with the local voices using ICT. For a person like me, they are ideal people to work together with.  

Radio is an accessible medium for many people, since (1) radio receivers are relatively inexpensive, (2) radio receivers are easy to handle, and (3) literacy is not required. CR is suitable to cover relatively small geographical areas and to broadcast the vernacular. Establishment and maintenance of community radio is relatively inexpensive and not too difficult technically.

Many endangered language communities are vulnerable to disasters. Endangered languages tend to be spoken by a small number of people residing in a small area. Thus a serious disaster could be a life-or-death matter for the language. Information and communication play an integral part in disaster management; however, mainstream media are not able to provide relevant information relevant to disaster-affected communities. Even speakers of major languages have difficulties in accessing information. Thus development of community media working in disaster management is important, especially for minority language communities.

Right now I’m working at the CRI office in Yogyakarta, writing proposal for FMYY and CRI’s multi-year joint project to develop community-based disaster management systems and networks in some areas in Central Java and West Sumatra. This project is a relatively small scale pilot project, and it will include multilingualization and localization of disaster management audio materials. By engaging in such work, I hope I can make small contributions for alleviating information disparities among languages.