Cover not available

Article published In: Pragmatics
Vol. 16:4 (2006) ► pp.535–549

Get fulltext from our e-platform
JBE logo with link
PDF logo with download linkDownload PDF

From Hóyéé to Hajinei

On some implications of feelingful iconicity and orthography in Navajo poetry

Open Access logo
Available under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial (CC BY-NC) 4.0 license.
Published online: 1 December 2006
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/prag.16.4.06web
This paper examines the use of co-switching in Navajo written poetry. I look specifically at the use of code-switching from English dominant poems to Navajo. I outline three general semantic domains that are most commonly code-switched from English to Navajo: 1) emotions; 2) mythic characters; and 3) traditional place-names. I suggest that this has to do with a general linguistic ideology that understands these domains as incommensurate with English. I argue that such code-switches are “emblematic identity displays.” I conclude by discussing the relationship between “folk” orthographies and “standard” orthographies. I argue that an over-reliance on “the standard” and a diminishing of “folk” orthographies limits the potential for creativity and subtly undermines notions of incommensurability when Navajo poets are limited to “the standard”, a standard that many Navajos do not know.
References (57)
Ashley, Rutherford (2001) Heart Vision 2000. Window Rock: Cool Runnings.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Bakhtin, Mikhail (1986) Speech Genres and Other Late Essays. Austin: Texas University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Basso, Keith (1996) Wisdom Sits In Places. Albuquerque: New Mexico University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Bauman, Richard (2004) A World of Others’ Words. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Bauman, Richard, and Charles Briggs (2003) Voices of Modernity: Language Ideologies and the Politics of Inequality. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.  BoPGoogle Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Begay, Shonto (1995) Navajo Visions and Voices Across the Mesa. New York: Scholastic, Inc.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Blueeyes, George (1995) “Sacred Mountains.” In Home Places. Tucson: Arizona University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Briggs, Charles, and Richard Bauman (1992) Genre, intertextuality, and social power. Journal of Linguistic Anthropology 2.2: 131-172.  BoPGoogle Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Browne, Vee (2000) Ravens Dancing. Bloomington: AuthorHouse.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Chee, Norla (2001) Cedar Smoke on Abalone Mountain. Los Angeles: University of California at Los Angeles.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Collins, James, and Richard Blot (2003) Literacy and Literacies: Text, Power, and Identity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Cruikshank, Julie, in collaboration with Angela Sidney, Kitty Smith, and Annie Ned (1990) Life Lived like a Story. Lincoln: Nebraska University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
David, Richard (1971) Hosteen Race Track was shi cheeh. Arrow III1. 9-10.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Deloria, Philip (2004) Indians in Unexpected Places. Lawrence: Kansas University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Feld, Steven (1988) Aesthetics as iconicity of style (Uptown title); or (Downtown title) Lift-up-over sounding: Getting into the Kaluli Groove. Yearbook for Traditional Music 201: 74-113. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Field, Margaret, and Taft Blackhorse Jr (2002) The dual role of metonymy in Navajo prayer. Anthropological Linguistics 44.3: 217-230.  MetBibGoogle Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Frawley, William, Kenneth Hill, and Pamela Munro (2002) Making Dictionaries: Preserving Indigenous Languages of the Americas. Berkeley: California University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Friedrich, Paul (1986) The language parallax. Austin: Texas University Press.  BoPGoogle Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
(2006) Maximizing ethnopoetics: Fine-tuning anthropological experience. In Language, Culture, and Society. (eds. Christine Jourdan, and Kevin Tuite).Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 207-228. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Gill, Sam (1977) Prayer as person: The performative force in Navajo prayer acts. History of Religion 17.2: 143-157. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Haile, Fr. Berard (1984) Navajo Coyote Tales. Lincoln: Nebraska University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
House, Deborah (2002) Language Shift among the Navajos. Tucson: Arizona University Press.  BoPGoogle Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Jett, Stephen (2001) Navajo Placenames and Trails of the Canyon de Chelly System, Arizona. New York: Peter Lang.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Jim, Rex Lee (1998) Dúchas Táá Kóó Diné. Beal Feirste, Ireland: Au Clochan.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Johnstone, Barbara (1996) The Linguistic Individual. Oxford: Oxford University Press.  BoPGoogle Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Kluckhohn, Clyde (1960) Navaho categories. In Culture in History. (ed. Stanley Diamond). New York: Columbia University Press, pp. 65-98.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Landar, Herbert (1961) A note on the Navaho word for coyote. IJAL 27.1: 86-88.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Lee, Tiffany, and Daniel McLaughlin (2001) Reversing Navajo language shift. In Can Threatened Languages Be Saved? (ed. Joshua Fishman). Tonawanda, NY: Multilingual Matters Ltd., pp. 23-43. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Luckert, Karl (1979) Coyoteway. Tucson: Arizona University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
McAllester, David (1980) Coyote’s Song. Parabola. 5.2: 47-54.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
McLaughlin, Daniel (1992) When Literacy Empowers: Navajo Language in Print. Albuquerque: New Mexico University Press.  BoPGoogle Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Mendieta-Lombrado, Eva, and Zaida Cintron (1995) Marked and unmarked choices of code-switching in bilingual poetry. Hispania 78.3: 565-772. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Moore, Robert (1988) Lexicalization versus lexical loss in Wasco-Wishram language obsolescence. IJAL 54.4: 453-468.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Murray, David (1989) Transposing symbolic forms: Actor awareness of language structures in Navajo ritual. Anthropological Linguistics 311: 195-208.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Neundorf, Alyse (1983) Áłchíní Bi Naaltsoostsoh: A Navajo/English Bilingual Dictionary. Albuquerque: Native American Materials Development Center.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
(1999) Diné Hosiidlíí’gi. Red Mesa Review 61: 1-4.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Rushforth, Scott, and James Chisholm (1991) Cultural Persistence. Tucson: Arizona University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Samuels, David (2004) Putting a Song on Top of It. Tucson: Arizona University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Sapir, Edward (1921) Language. New York: Harcourt, Brace.  BoPGoogle Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Sherzer, Joel (1987) A discourse-centered approach to language and culture. American Anthropologist 891: 295-309. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
(2002) Speech Play and Verbal Art. Austin: Texas University Press.  BoPGoogle Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Silverstein, Michael (2003) The whens and wheres - as well as hows - of ethnolinguistic recognition. Public Culture 15.3: 531-557. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
(2005) Axes of evils: Token versus type interdiscursivity. Journal of Linguistic Anthropology 15.1: 6-22. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Spolsky, Bernard (2002) Prospects for the survival of the Navajo language: A reconsideration. Anthropology & Education Quarterly 33.2: 139-162. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Tapahonso, Luci (1993) Sáanii Dahataał: The Women are Singing. Sun Tracks vol. 23. Tucson: Arizona University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Toelken, Barre (1987) Life and death in Navajo Coyote tales. In Recovering the Word. (Eds. Brian Swann, and Arnold Krupat).Berkeley: California University Press, pp. 388-401.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Tohe, Laura (1999) No Parole Today. Albuquerque: West End Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Tohe Laura (2002) In Dinétah.” In Sister Nations. St. Paul: Minnesota Historical Society Press, pp. 100-104.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Tohe, Laura (2005) Tséyi’: Deep in the Rock. Tucson: Arizona University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Webster, Anthony (2004) Coyote poems: Navajo poetry, intertextuality, and language choice. American Indian Culture and Research Journal 28.4: 69-91. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
(2006a) Keeping the word: On orality and literacy (with a sideways glance at Navajo). Oral Tradition 21.2. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
(2006b) ‘Ałk’idáá’ Mą’ii Jooldlosh, Jiní: Poetic devices in Navajo oral and written poetry. Anthropological Linguistics 481.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Wilson, Alan (1995) Navajo Place Names. Guilford, CT: Jeffery Norton Publishers.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Witherspoon, Gary (1977) Language and Art in the Navajo Universe. Ann Arbor: Michigan University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Young, Robert (1993) The evolution of written Navajo. Journal of Navajo Education. 10.3: 46-55.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Young, Robert, and William Morgan (1987) The Navajo Language. Albuquerque: New Mexico University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Cited by (7)

Cited by seven other publications

Dickinson, Jennifer A.
2022. Introduction. Pragmatics. Quarterly Publication of the International Pragmatics Association (IPrA) ► pp. 507 ff. DOI logo
Dingemanse, Mark
2018. Redrawing the margins of language: Lessons from research on ideophones. Glossa: a journal of general linguistics 3:1 DOI logo
Webster, Anthony K.
2008. ‘To give an imagination to the listeners’: The neglected poetics of Navajo ideophony. Semiotica 2008:171 DOI logo
Webster, Anthony K.
2010. Imagining Navajo in the Boarding School: Laura Tohe'sNo Parole Todayand the Intimacy of Language Ideologies. Journal of Linguistic Anthropology 20:1 ► pp. 39 ff. DOI logo
Webster, Anthony k.
2010. “Tséyi' first, because Navajo language was here before contact”: On intercultural performances, metasemiotic stereotypes, and the dynamics of place. Semiotica 2010:181 DOI logo
Webster, Anthony K.
2012. Who reads Navajo poetry and what are they reading? Exploring the semiotic functions of contemporary written Navajo. Social Semiotics 22:4 ► pp. 375 ff. DOI logo
Webster, Anthony K.
2022. “Plaza ‘góó and before he can respond…”. Pragmatics. Quarterly Publication of the International Pragmatics Association (IPrA) ► pp. 511 ff. DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 29 november 2025. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.

Mobile Menu Logo with link to supplementary files background Layer 1 prag Twitter_Logo_Blue