Conference Agenda

Building on the ground-breaking work on the revitalization of Indigenous laws ongoing over the past decade, Professor Metallic will discuss her work on identifying and elaborating five different linguistic methods for Indigenous law revitalization, giving examples of their use and implementation. These are: 1) the 'Meta-principle' method; 2) the 'Grammar as revealing worldview' method; 3) the 'Word-part' method; 4) the 'Word-clusters' method; and 5) the 'Place names' method. The presentation will underscore that one does not necessarily need to be a fluent, first-language speaker to engage with linguistic methods for Indigenous law revitalization, given the various resources on Indigenous languages that are publically accessible. What is needed to draw out law from language is commitment and patience to learn and work with all resources available. Becoming a second-language speaker can go hand-in-hand with work to uncover the law that is coded in the language.