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The Japanese encounter with Navajo (Diné) “code talkers” in World War II 147
As we have just reviewed, the history of the Navajo and their language use
is part of a complex power struggle for cultural identity heavily associated with
their experience of “language contact” marked by the names The Long Walk
and Fort Sumner. Imbedded in my analysis is a specific discourse model that is
detailed in previous work (Lanigan 1988, 1992, 2009, 2010, 2011a, 2011b), but
for present purposes, we may look briefly at Figures 2 and 3. For linguists, I should
note that I tend to follow Michael Alexander Kirkwood Halliday’s approach to
discourse analysis (1999: 415; see “scale and category grammar” and “systemic
grammar” in Malmkjaer 1991: 384–388, 447–452).
Figure 3. Communicology discourse model
Using the discourse theories of Roman Jakobson, Maurice Merleau-Ponty,
and Michel Foucault (discussed in Lanigan 1984, 1988, 1992, 1996a, 1997,
2000, 2008), we will be able illustrate the hierarchies of discursive communication
that are at work in the code developed by the Navajo code talkers. We shall
come to this analysis momentarily, but first we need to understand some aspects
of the sociocentric group culture that defines the Navajo people (Lanigan 1995,
2009, 2010, 2011a, 2011b).