Integrating Culture

I, being the lone bachelor student in the CSD program here not enrolled in a clinic class (I am also the lone male and I think the lone American too), did not get invited to join the program to visit a Marae this week. So I ignorantly showed up to class with all of the master’s students and participated fully. I felt smart that day. However, I was encouraged to look up what a Marae is and what goes on there, as it is “quintessentially kiwi,” in my professor’s words.

A Marae is “a place where the culture can be celebrated, where the Māori language can be spoken, where intertribal obligations can be met, where customs can be explored and debated, where family occasions such as birthdays can be held, and where important ceremonies, such as welcoming visitors or farewelling the dead, can be performed,” according to Wikipedia. This isn’t an assignment, so I can use Wikipedia without shame. Joke’s on y’all. Initially when I heard the word I inferred that it was some sort of Māori place that housed or treated people with special needs, or something like that. If a program of CSD students went to visit, I thought it must have something to do with speech or language. However it does not (or at least not directly), and this brings me to one of the coolest parts about going to school in New Zealand: every opportunity is taken to connect the non-indigenous population to the Māori culture. I am an American citizen of European descent and I don’t know much about our own indigenous cultures. I will probably leave New Zealand knowing as much about the Māori people as I do about any other group of people here. In my opinion that is educationally priceless, especially in a shrinking world.

For my first project in Speech Sound Disorders, I have to perform a PVM (place-voice-manner) analysis on a speech sample. And that’s it. I still think I’m missing part of the project, but this is besides the point. Naturally, I would perform this analysis through my lens of American English. However this child very well might be kiwi, and his productions could be different than mine and still be accurate. For example, if he produces /ka/ for “car,” that would be acceptable here. At home I would note the lack of the production of postvocalic /r/. My professor in this class lived and taught for several years in the United States, so he makes a lot of references to his experiences there, which is nice so that I can easily pick up on snafus like this one. I haven’t cracked the issue yet; he hasn’t said anything about which dialect to look at this analysis through. Someone raised this question in class, and we spent 10 minutes talking about the differences between SLP’s in New Zealand and the United States, but never came to a conclusion. If I end up having to do it with reference to New Zealand English, it’s going to take me a lot longer. I’ll have to spend some time listening to Kiwi productions of speech sounds and make notes about what is acceptable. Honestly, I wouldn’t mind doing this – it would only help me in the long run. And being the phonetics nerd I am, the thought of taking personal notes on this actually sounds fun. 🙂

Things are really not moving very fast academically here, (I hesitate to say) yet. There are some significant tests coming up in these classes and the note-taking has been in-depth. There’s a lot of material and seemingly regular testing cycles, so I should be fine. And I know, I’m talking more to myself now than anyone else, but I couldn’t just end a blog post on “notes are fun :)”. That’d make me a dork.