Technology and Indigenous Language Revitalization: Analyzing the Experience of Hawai'i

Hawaiian educators have made ambitious attempts to use new on-line technologies in language revitalization programs. These efforts have included developing one of the first bulletin board systems in the world to operate completely in an indigenous language. This paper reports on two years of ethnographic research on the results of these efforts. Issues addressed include the role of the Internet in promoting or hindering linguistic diversity, the relationship of multimedia computing to non-Western patterns of communication, and the use of the Internet as a medium for exploring cultural and social identity. The results are consistent with a critical theory of technology which emphasizes that technology is neither culturally neutral nor determinist but rather a site of social struggle.