A few years ago, I was attending a conference run by L’Association canadienne des professionnels de l’immersion (ACPI). It was an excellent conference. The quality of the workshops was high, it was extremely well organized, and everyone had a great time at the events. I would recommend the ACPI conferences to any French immersion teacher or administrator, and I have great respect for all of the fantastic projects run by the hard-working people at ACPI. That conference also helped me to understand why I’ve never fully fit under that organization’s umbrella despite the fact that one of my main areas of research and work is immersion teacher education. The light bulb went off when, in one of the opening talks, the since-deceased historian, Serge Bouchard, greeted the ACPI crowd as ‘francophones et francophiles.’ I looked out at the room, and everyone smiled back at him, many nodding enthusiastically. But I couldn’t relate to either of those labels.

Ni Francophone, Ni Francophile

There has been a contemporary and resurgent interest in the language of Black America. Reports involving African American (Vernacular) English 1 (AAE) can be found today in globally syndicated media outlets. The Washington Post, for example, published an August
2022 article for which I and my colleague Jamaal Muwwakkil were interviewed, detailing contemporary appropriation of Black American language . Many are discovering for the first time that the linguistic features often heard in Hip-Hop music or in motion pictures are not simply “slang” or “broken English,” but rather belong to a complex and systematic language variety. Scholars of language, particularly in linguistics, have published copious research on the linguistic variety of Black America throughout the past 50 or so years, including technical descriptions, histories, and social implications of its use in such domains as housing, law, education, employment, healthcare, and beyond. The 2015 Oxford Handbook of African American Language contains an encyclopedic account of research on AAE. Scores of individuals—scholars, writers, artists, and so on—have contributed to the representation and study of AAE. In this regard, some of my recent research has focused on one early figure who is towering in some respects, yet underexamined in others: Zora Neale Hurston.

Zora Neale Hurston and the Linguistic Documentation of Black America

This is the journey of two racialized graduate students who met in the Spring of 2021 during a student support initiatives meeting. We instantly connected on the topic of intersectionality and our similar identities. With construction hats, tape measures, and a very large toolbox derived from our brilliant minds and creative ideas, we took steps towards BILD-ing a sense of belonging in academia at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education (OISE).

Steps towards (BILD-ing) a sense of belonging in Academia

...a willingness to use untranslated words from another language….This was the way we spoke English in Bombay, sprinkling it with Hindi, Urdu, Marathi, or Gujarati words. It was also the way we spoke Hindi, Urdu, Marathi, and Gujarati, sprinkling those languages with English words where they seemed appropriate….English, I understood, could be chutnified. That was a moment of real liberation. (Rushdie, Languages of Truth, 2021, p. 92)

Nearly fourteen months ago—on August 12, 2022—the author Salman Rushdie was rushed by a surprise attacker on the lecture stage in upstate New York where he was about to speak to an audience of about 2,500 people. Rushdie, then 75, was stabbed several times; fortunately, people on the scene and first responders were quick enough to make it possible for him to survive the attack, though the stab wounds were severe, and “resulted in damage to his liver, lost vision in one eye and a paralysed hand caused by nerve damage to his arm.”

Salman Rushdie and the chutnification of English language

In the past few years, I have been on a Gàidhlig (Scottish Gaelic) reclamation journey. Gàidhlig is an endangered Indigenous language in Alba (Scotland). The reclamation journey has not been easy and is marked by contradictions, tensions, and hopes. The causes of Gàidhlig endangerment—such as land dispossession, destructive policies, and classroom violence —have influenced the journey. Embodied memories, trauma, grieving, refusal, and healing have all been associated with the reclamation process (see Lane, 2023, for more on language reclamation as an emancipatory, yet sometimes painful and silencing experience). In this BILD blog post, I will share some of my experiences and what language and reclamation mean for me.

Tìr is teanga (Land and language): Language as sensory energy

Internet access in China can often seem contradictory. While smartphones allow people to scan QR codes in restaurants to order food, unlock shared bicycles and make cashless payments, China’s internet firewall blocks access to foreign websites or sites which might provide dissenting information (Economy, 2018). Social media posts can be removed, censored and monitored, and users can be blocked from posting text with certain keywords. Within this restrictive communicative landscape, however, internet users still find creative ways to express transgressive opinions, thoughts and information.

The Transgressive Potential of Stickers

What is in a recipe?
Few of us dwell over this ubiquitous form of literature, yet recipes are behind almost every meal we have, and forming the foundation of our eating habits.
Those of us fortunate enough to have friends or relatives who know their kitchens like the back of their hands may have had the chance to receive some of their prized recipes. Perhaps great-aunt Flores’ renowned soufflé, whose vague measurements requiring “some eggs” and “flour as needed”, eluded you; just as your friend Minh’s “2.5 g of cinnamon” tested the limits of your kitchen scale. It may well be that trying to reproduce your grandmother’s recipe, you find that your version simply does not taste the same as when she used to make it.

A Recipe for Success: How Women Have Kept Their Heritage Alive Through Cookbooks

J’entretiens un rapport conflictuel avec l’évaluation.
 
J’ai choisi d’offrir à mes enfants un milieu scolaire alternatif, qui propose un mode d’évaluation appréciative, continue et tripartite (parent, enfant, enseignant). En tant que parent, je crois qu’il est avant tout essentiel d’apprendre à reconnaitre ses propres forces et défis et à identifier les stratégies à mettre en œuvre pour favoriser son apprentissage. Cependant, je suis aussi chargée de cours de français langue seconde à l’université, un milieu où l’évaluation occupe une place prépondérante et où la note accordée à une personne étudiante peut avoir des conséquences déterminantes sur son avenir. Mais dans un monde en constante évolution, peut-on toujours considérer que les méthodes conventionnelles d’évaluation répondent aux besoins des personnes apprenantes, ou même des milieux éducatifs ?

Au-delà des notes : une exploration de l’évaluation alternative en enseignement des langues secondes

Come gather around children and hear this true-to-life language-learning fairy tale.
Once upon a time, a person could pack their worldly goods in a small bag and with no more than 20 dollars in their pocket and a spirit of adventure, set out and see the world.
Perhaps, to begin with, one might need more than 20 dollars, as the airfare on a Virgin Atlantic flight to London, England was $100. However, once across the ocean, the entire world was at one’s doorstep.
As we continue this fabulous story, we discover a world that was wide but welcoming at the same time. Everywhere opportunity bloomed.

A True Turkish Fairy Tale

A comment on my teacher evaluation haunted me. While other students praised my patience or provided simple feedback like, “he’s good”, one student wrote that I “did not have enough experience” but “has potential”. I felt like I was a teenager being scolded by well-intentioned parents. The latter comment was particularly devastating because this student noticed that I was not teaching to my full potential. And they were right.
For the past three years, I have taught EFL in universities in Shanghai, China through a company which provides lesson materials and placements for international teachers. Though we are provided with materials, I have always modified them to better suit my students.

Embodied Creative Multimodalities for Practicing EFL Pronunciation

Do you ever get that feeling where you know you’ve done something wrong, but you can’t for the life of you tell what it is or how you’re supposed to know? I’ve felt that way a lot as I move through different places and different communities within them. For instance, I’ve noticed that when I run up against a social norm in Canada, people generally won’t tell me directly like they might back home. Instead, I’ve learned to notice what I call the “Canadian huff”—an almost imperceptible sigh that shows that a boundary has been crossed but is not worth addressing. That’s how I learned not to ride my bike across a crosswalk in Nova Scotia and how I learned not to wear my shoes indoors in Québec.

Avec votre permission

http://bild-lida.ca/blog/
*Belonging, Identity, Language, Diversity Research Group (BILD) 
*Groupe de Recherche Langage, Identité, Diversité, Appartenance (LIDA)

We want to start conversations about local happenings and experiences in and outside of Montreal. We consider and write about the world around us from a critical sociolinguistic perspective. We welcome you to join the conversation and share your own local perspective(s).

Ni Francophone, Ni Francophile

BILD / LIDA

Related tracks