The Team

Nogiata Tukimata

Lakepa, Makefu, Alofi – Niue; Iles du Vent - Tahiti

Contact Details:

Phone: +64 9 921 999 extn 30935
Email: nogiata.tukimata@aut.ac.nz
Postdoctoral Fellow

Qualifications:

CELTA, BA, PgDipArts, MA(Hons), PhD

Research Areas:

Language Revitalisation, Vagahau Niue, Bilingualism (receptive), Indigenous methods and methodologies, language documentation, Pacific languages, Tau Aga Fakamotu (Niue cultural practices), Indigenous storytelling, language and identity

Overview

Nogiata is a Postdoctoral Fellow in Te Ipukarea Research Institute, Auckland University of Technology. Nogiata has a background in Language Revitalisation with a passion for language revitalisation efforts for her native Vagahau Niue, a language of one of the three nations under the realm of New Zealand. Her research in language revitalisation of Vagahau Niue is the first of its kind in academia, in which her PhD has closely looked at receptive bilingualism of first-generation New Zealand-born Niue living in Aotearoa as carriers of the language.

Nogiata has grown up in the Niue community with strong ties to the Mangere PIPC church that has shaped her passion for Tau Aga Fakamotu, Vagahau Niue, and increasing education and indigenous success across the Pacific.

Current research projects

Project 1: Te Kōhanga o te Tūī: artificial intelligence (AI) in early Māori language acquisition

This is a MBIE-rebid Endeavour Research Programme. Only 1 in 6 Māori and less than 4% of people in Aotearoa speak te reo Māori fluently. At least 80% of Māori tamariki are born into homes not supporting effective te reo Māori acquisition. This lack of fluent speakers and access to tailored resources to teach te reo Māori is severely hindering language revitalisation, government targets for te reo Māori fluency and associated social and economic benefits. We need a simple, efficient, and cost-effective solution to support whānau to teach their pre-school children te reo Māori as a primary language in their formative years. 

Our solution will be a new framework, a whānau-centered learning approach in combination with a culturally aligned and sensitive Artificial Intelligence (AI) assistant. It will be designed to support whānau/early childhood educators to ‘stay in te reo Māori’; to keep using te reo in dialogue with tamariki, passing on language/culture inspired by mātauranga Māori and traditional learning tools/frameworks.  Our research team is led by renowned Māori academics and comprises AI experts and Māori researchers with a track record of undertaking kaupapa Māori research over many years.  Easier and improved access and uptake of te reo Māori has multiple social and economic benefits, supporting government targets for te reo Māori uptake, cultural preservation, art, culture, education, whānau health & wellbeing, and novel AI-based language products and services which NZ companies can export.  We have co-designed our proposal and will collaborate with key stakeholders, including iwi and whānau-led organisations, government departments, education providers, and NZ IT and AI companies. This will lay the groundwork for widespread uptake and roll-out of our outputs, supporting the revitalisation of te reo Māori and creating widespread economic and societal benefits in Aotearoa.

Project 2: The language of the environment 

Funded by Catalyst, this project is led by Associate Professor Isaac Warbrick, Faculty of Health & Environmental Sciences, AUT in collaboration with Te Ipukarea Research Institute.

Selected publications

Tukimata, N. (2017). Tia E Lili Ke Mau. Regeneration of Vagahau Niue: A Case Study of Niue Youth Through the Ekalesia in Niue and in Auckland, New Zealand. https://hdl.handle.net/10292/11238

Ka’ai, T., Tukimata, N. & Smith-Henderson, T. (2021). Literature Review: Pacific Languages revitalisation. Auckland, New Zealand: Ministry for Pacific Peoples.