'You're So Fat!': Exploring Ojibwe Discourse

John Steckley teaches in the Human Studies Program at Humber College in
Toronto.

Roger Spielmann, a linguist and professor of Native Studies at the
University of Sudbury, recounts in this book what he learned while
living in the Algonquin communities of Pikogan and Winneway in
northwestern Quebec from 1979 to 1990. He also provides supplementary
material from his subsequent research in the Odawa community of
Wikwemikong. Particularly important is the material he obtained from
monolingual Algonquin speakers in Pikogan, especially from elder Okinawe
(Albert Mowatt). Spielmann’s primary objective is to create “bridges
of understanding” between Natives and non-Natives through analysis of
naturally occurring conversational interaction and traditional stories
in Ojibwa (the term for the language that includes the dialects of
Algonquin and Odawa).

The book has many strong points. One is Spielmann’s insightful look
at cultural differences of rudeness and politeness, from which springs
the title of the book. (His wife, on returning from her father’s
funeral, was greeted with this remark by an Algonquin who was commenting
positively on the fact that she was not wasting away in mourning.)
Another is the way he debunks the stereotype of the “humorless
Indian.”

One weakness is essentially a sin of omission. Ojibwa morphology is a
potentially rich area of research. Spielmann reveals something of this
richness in his short, seductive allusions to the nonsexist nature of
the third-person pronouns (i.e., no he–she distinction), to hierarchy
of person, and to the key distinction between proximate and obviative in
third-person reference. Much could be learned in a more detailed
analysis of these features.

A more serious complaint relates to the theoretical areas Spielmann
investigates. Based on this book’s presentation of theory, it would
appear that the fields of conversation and discourse analysis are too
undeveloped, too dry, and perhaps even too closely tied to the English
language to do justice to the dynamism and uniqueness of Ojibwa-language
material and to the keenness of Spielmann’s insights into the language
and the people.