Presented by Central Applied Linguistics/TESOL Graduate Student Association, the John Lewis Institute for Social Justice, and Central Anthropology.
Language Revitalization at the Interfaces: Community, Linguistics and Heritage Language Acquisition by Jeremy Johns (Yale University)
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What does it mean to revitalize a language? What happens to languages when they become “dormant” or “extinct” and how is this process reversed? What is the value of language? In this talk I explore the convergence of language research and Indigenous epistemology in learning spaces for heritage language learners to attempt to answer these questions. Set against the backdrop of a case study of Native American language revitalization in southern Arizona, I discuss the broader societal impacts leading to language endangerment and how these impacts can further hinder revitalization efforts.
I delve into the processes by which language planning and policy are invoked to curb language loss and create new speakers as well as the place of formal academic linguistics in the description and analysis of language in this process. I also show how revitalization praxis is often based in and informed by western academic spaces which can at times be at odds with Indigenous epistemological, ontological and axiological approaches to endangered languages existing within colonial structures. The goal of this talk is to introduce the topic of language revitalization and its many facets to foster a discussion of the importance and meaning of language to the communities that speak them.
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For more information, contact Dr. Helen Koulidobrova at elena.koulidobrova@ccsu.edu (Coordinator, Applied Linguistics)