Revised Topic Draft and Citations!

Research Question:

How can museums use language to end visitor alienation and increase engagement?

In this project, I will be looking at how language use in society creates inside groups and establishes a social hierarchy and how this is reflected in museums. Many other types of organizations are already doing this, museums can too. AAM's LGBTQ+ Alliance is already making efforts to make museum language more inclusive for all people, this could be a great case-study on expanded language use in the museum[1]. It is my belief that changing or evolving language use in museums can help to stop alienation of visitors. It is important to create a broader insider group through the way we speak to our visitors. Currently there is a major gap in how museums communicate with their visitors and how visitors and the general public communicate with each other. This includes the languages that are prominent in the museum, as well as the different words that we use regularly, i.e. the slang you use with your friends. Can museums seize upon an opportunity to majorly impact language use and preservation in America today?

Recently, the International Council of Museums held a contentious vote on changing the definition of the museum; some important parts of this proposed definition for my project, “Museums are democratizing, inclusive and polyphonic spaces for critical dialogue about the pasts and the futures…safeguard diverse memories for future generations and guarantee equal rights and equal access to heritage for all people… and work in active partnership with and for diverse communities to collection, preserve, research, interpret, exhibit, and enhance understandings of the world.”[2]  Although this definition was not adopted at the 2019 conference, I think it is worthwhile to see how the language we use can help shift meaning for the visitors in this context.

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[1] Anshel, Nancy, Erin Bailey, Johanna Blume, James Burns, Wesley Chenault, Barbara Cohenstratyner, Heather Doggett, et al. 2016. “LGBTQ Alliance Welcoming Guidelines for Museums.” American Alliance of Museums.

[2] “ICOM Announces the Alternative Museum Definition That Will Be Subject to a Vote,” ICOM, accessed October 1, 2019, https://icom.museum/en/news/icom-announces-the-alternative-museum-definition-that-will-be-subject-to-a-vote/.

Resources:

1.     1. Anshel, Nancy, Erin Bailey, Johanna Blume, James Burns, Wesley Chenault, Barbara Cohenstratyner, Heather Doggett, et al. 2016. “LGBTQ Alliance Welcoming Guidelines for Museums.” American Alliance of Museums.

a.       This source is a great example of a museum language guide. It explains its target groups and goes in depth on word usage and how to respectfully address specific people. It provides no harsh judgement of the people it is targeted towards and tries to act as educationally as possible. 10/10 love this one.

2.     2. Eastaugh, Erik. “The Concept of a Linguistic Community.” University of Toronto Law Journal 69, no. 1 (Winter 2019): 117–58.

a.       This source is more on the legal side of language and tries to address how to define a linguistic community in reference to language-based laws and language preservation. One important aspect of this article is how it attempts to define the relationship between language and culture. Eastaugh emphasizes that just because you share a language with someone does not mean that you are participants in a shared “mono-culture”. This article got me thinking about language laws and rights in America; I’m not sure how helpful that will be for my project, but it’ll be interesting to learn about.

3.     3. Huong, Le Pham Hoai. “The More Knowledgeable Peer, Target Language Use, and Group Participation.” The Canadian Modern Language Review 64, no. 2 (December 2007): 333–54.

a.       This source was really great and will be really helpful for me. It talked a lot about educational concepts as they relate to language acquisition. This made me think about language development and progression in children. If museums already act as a secondary source for educational development for children, what are they doing and what more could they do for language acquisition? This doesn’t just apply to children, it is also useful to think about adults, especially adults learning a new language! The concept of the “zone of Proximal development” which deals with your language development and problem solving is interesting for language acquisition regardless of age.

4.    4.  “ICOM Announces the Alternative Museum Definition That Will Be Subject to a Vote.” n.d. ICOM. Accessed October 1, 2019. https://icom.museum/en/news/icom-announces-the-alternative-museum-definition-that-will-be-subject-to-a-vote/.

5.     5. Lee, Thomas, and Linh Cao. “Language Use in Family and Society.” English Journal 89, no. 1 (September 1999): 107–13. https://doi.org/10.2307/821364.

a.       This source is an ethnographic look at a Vietnamese family in America that takes a look at the role of language in families and how that affects their interactions with society. This article got me thinking about translation sources in museum’s because the family in the article speaks 4 languages at varying levels of proficiency that leads to a major communication gap between the older members and the younger members of the family. Is this something that the museum can address? Is it even something museum’s should care about?

6.     6. Reid, Robin. “Philology and Language Studies: Tolkien’s Use of English.” Tolkien Studies 13 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1353/tks.2016.0026.

a.       This source wasn’t all that helpful, it spoke about the specific aspects of Tolkien’s use of language and their literary impact which isn’t very useful for my purposes. Very interesting read if you’re interested in learning about the impact of Tolkien’s naming conventions though!