34 research outputs found
Rejecting abyssal thinking in the language and education of racialized bilinguals: A manifesto
Following Boaventura de Sousa Santos, the authors of this article reject the type of âabyssal thinkingâ that erases the existence of counter-hegemonic knowledges and lifeways, adopting instead the âfrom the inside outâ perspective that is required for thinking constructively about the language and education of racialized bilinguals. On the basis of deep personal experience and extensive field-work research, we challenge prevailing assumptions about language, bilingualism, and education that are based on raciolinguistic ideologies with roots in colonialism. Adopting a translanguaging perspective that rejects rigid colonial boundaries of named languages, we argue that racialized bilingual learners, like all students, draw from linguistic-semiotic, cultural, and historical repertoires. The decolonial approach that guides our work reveals these students making a world by means of cultural and linguistic practices derived from their own knowledge systems. We propose that in order to attain justice and success, a decolonial education must center non-hegemonic modes of âotherwise thinkingâ by attending to racialized bilingualsâ knowledges and abilities that have always existed yet have continually been distorted and erased through abyssal thinking
State recognition for âcontested languagesâ: a comparative study of Sardinian and Asturian, 1992â2010
While the idea of a named language as a separate and discrete identity is a political and social construct, in the cases of Sardinian and Asturian doubts over their respective âlanguagenessâ have real material consequences, particularly in relation to language policy decisions at the state level. The Asturian example highlights how its lack of official status means that it is either ignored or subjected to repeated challenges to its status as a language variety deserving of recognition and support, reflecting how âofficial languageâ in the Spanish context is often understood in practice as synonymous with the theoretically broader category of âlanguageâ. In contrast, the recent state recognition of Sardinian speakers as a linguistic minority in Italy (Law 482/1999) illustrates how legal recognition served to overcome existing obstacles to the implementation of regional language policy measures. At the same time, the limited subsequent effects of this Law, particularly in the sphere of education, are a reminder of the shortcomings of top-down policies which fail to engage with the local language practices and attitudes of the communities of speakers recognized. The contrastive focus of this article thus acknowledges the continued material consequences of top-down language classification, while highlighting its inadequacies as a language policy mechanism which reinforces artificial distinctions between speech varieties and speakers deserving of recognition
Making it your own by adapting it to whatâs important to youâ: Plurilingual Critical Literacies to promote L2 Japanese usersâ sense of ownership of Japanese
The dichotomy between native speaker (NS) and non-native speaker (NNS) remains ubiquitous across different language-learning contexts despite increasing mobility and multilingualism of society. L2 Japanese learners in particular may find themselves positioned as subordinate to NSs because of the myth of Japan being a homogeneous nation of one race and one language. To help L2 Japanese students counter such positioning and gain a sense of ownership, we implemented âplurilingual critical literaciesâ in a Japanese language course in the U.S. Critical literacy aims to cultivate studentsâ awareness that power relationships are at play in language use, and plurilingual pedagogy valorizes studentsâ multilingual resources. Eleven high-intermediate-level Japanese students mobilized their linguistic and cultural resources to read and discuss authentic texts by transcultural or âculturally mobileâ writers (Dagnino 2015). These writers expressed resistance to the status quo and made meaning creatively, as mediators between two languages and cultures. Reading, analyzing, and discussing texts by transcultural writers motivated students to counter ideologies of NS superiority, and to own Japanese in the ways that best suited their transcultural identities