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Part of
Language Endangerment: Disappearing metaphors and shifting conceptualizations
Edited by Elisabeth Piirainen and Ari Sherris
[Cognitive Linguistic Studies in Cultural Contexts 7] 2015
► pp. 111–136

6. Literacy and language instruction

Flathead Salish metaphor and a task-based pedagogy for its revitalization

| Texas A&M University-Kingsville
| Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes
| American Institutes for Research
Flathead Salish, a critically endangered language spoken by dwindling numbers of first language speakers from the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes in Montana, USA, is the object of collaborative efforts at language revitalization. Often such efforts rely on traditional categories of language from which to base dictionaries, pedagogical grammars, and language textbooks for heritage learners, both children and adults. Missing from most revitalization efforts is the analysis of conceptual metaphors that could support language and literacy revitalization by supporting the semantic and pragmatic underpinnings of the language and potentially reducing calquing by heritage learners, or at the very least, alerting learns to its occurrences. Consequently, this study fills a gap by describing 19 metaphors, comparing them to English, and illustrating possible task-based language teaching approaches for their use.
Keywords: Conceptual Metaphor Theory, Flathead Salish, language revitalization, Montana Salish, task-based language teaching
Published online: 14 October 2015
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/clscc.7.05she
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Bisilki, Abraham Kwesi & Kofi Yakpo
2021. ‘The heart has caught me’. Sociolinguistic Studies 15:1 DOI logo

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