January 2019 – Page 2 – Educational Sociolinguistics

Multilingüismo e Identidad: The case of my teenage daughter

By: John Narvaez

“At home, I mostly speak Spanish, but once I walk out the door, I say to myself, I have to be English now.” Juliana, my daughter, on her multilingualism; a snapshot that portrays the duality that define her identity. The statement, although a bit radical, does not completely describe her dealings with English, French and Spanish. Something I love about Juli is that she has embraced a certain fluidity when it comes to using her three languages. However, a stronger voice emerges as her Hispanic background is always present in her daily interactions as if she didn’t want that part of herself to fade away in the vast ocean of “Englishness” of her days.

When Juliana wrote the poem “The Puzzle Pieces under the Stairs” for her ELA class, for example, she intentionally manipulated language to create effects, images and emotions. Such an appropriation of language denotes her awareness of discourse as a tool to also signal identity by letting the reader “visit” the inner world of her stories. By also drawing on people, artifacts, her multilingualism and the material and immaterial memories of her life in Colombia, Juli mirrors and constructs a current image of herself. Moving across sites, Juli’s multilingualism is dependent on Discourses (Gee, 2015). It serves her socially-situated language use and cultural practices because it works as a way to affirm her presence in social meaning-making and interactions in the different contexts that she crosses. Her interactions are infused by her having “a foot in both [the Canadian and Colombian] worlds” (evident in her impressive ability for code-switching!); they operate as semiotic catalysts of subjectivities in the meaning-making process that Juliana embarks as she reads, writes, jokes, or talks to friends.

Am I good enough to compete in the local ESL market (in the eyes of recruiters)?

Hector Alvarez

I’m a fresh-off -the-plane newcomer here in Canada, originally from Argentina. I’ve been here for five months, and I’ve been looking around for job opportunities on the side just to gather some English Language Teaching (ELT) experience Canada.

The question is not whether I, myself, believe I’m good enough to teach English within this ESL (as opposed to EFL) context, but whether local recruiters believe so. At the end of the day, they have the final word on whether I get hired or not.

The Ethics of Language Learning and Language Use (1 of 3)

By: JM

Having lived in Busan from 2008 – 2010, my Korean used to be at an intermediate level (B1). I felt like learning the language was a way to connect more with the culture and the people and, as such, took a number of language classes at a local university. Looking back, learning Korean was certainly an attempt to invite myself into the inner circle. And yea, was I ever unsuccessful. Nationalism game strong there!

When I moved back to Toronto, I’d often go for Korean food and would usually order in Korean with the servers. Eventually, this happened less and less. Something just felt off—like there was a vibe and I didn’t want to be ‘that’ person. You know, like the “Yea, I love Bar/θ/elona” type. I asked a Korean co-worker for his thoughts on the situation, like if he thought it was weird for a non-Korean person to be speaking Korean at a Korean restaurant. He agreed at first and said there definitely is some judgement happening, but later hedged to land on a criterion of efficiency. He said if the server addresses you in English and you switch to Korean, that’s a bit weird. He added that it shouldn’t be done if the speaker’s Korean proficiency is such that it will take more time than necessary to complete the order. That makes sense to me, I get it, people need to turn tables. But this had me thinking whether other people had felt a reluctance to speak a language outside of its nation-state context. And with that, two questions: (1) what, if any, are the ethical components involved in using an additional language? And (2) if any exist, are the ethical standards or expectations asymmetrical across various contexts (e.g. (settler)colonialism, imperialism)? The following is an example (much different from mine!) which I think is a useful point of departure.

Thoughts on Accessibility and Tooting My Own Horn

Max Jack-Monroe

Over the past several months, I’ve thought a lot about the idea of accessibility to knowledge. As a student at a renowned university with a plethora of resources at my disposal, I have privilege that most don’t. Especially as someone studying topics such as language and gender and sexuality, which are of worldwide importance, it often makes me feel uneasy to know and talk about things that don’t have the resources and/or space to.

Last semester, I was presented with concrete examples as to how to make knowledge more accessible to people outside of the academia bubble. In my Women’s Studies class, my professor, Dr. Alex Ketchum, an alum of McGill who is now a course lecturer at the school, brought our attention to some of the work she has done throughout the past several years in order to bring her dissertation topic to the masses. She has created websites and twitter accounts that are easy to find, easy to read, updated often. Now anyone, regardless of background, who is interested in learning more about feminist cafés, coffeehouses, and restaurants has access to that information at their fingertips. Dr. Ketchum continues to work hard to make knowledge accessible, which is the theme of one of her latest undertakings, The Feminist and Accessible Publishing, Communications, and Technologies Practices Speaker and Workshop Series.

Seeing Dr. Ketchum’s work and reflecting on my own experience, I decided to make a website related to my research interest of queer language and sociolinguistics. Especially as queer people have long depended on the internet as a safe haven and a knowledge hub, a website seemed like the inherent way to get information out to the masses, queer and otherwise. Queerlanguage.com is still very much in its early stages, but it truly is a labour of love, and, I see it as much more than a simple class project. The website includes information that would otherwise only be available to someone with access to a university database and/or sufficient amounts of time and effort, as well as the words of everyday queer people and their own experiences with queer language and sociolinguistics.

I was born, lucky me / In a land that I love / Though I am poor, I am free

“Welcome to Nagamori Minami Junior High School. What’s your name?”

“My name is Victoria Tothill-Brown.”

“Can the students call you ビクトリア (bi-ku-to-ri-a)? It’s the same thing, right?”

“Why don’t we try it together with them? They can pretend they’re imitating a cell phone buzzing on a table. V-v-v-v…”

“It’s too hard. They can’t do it. Let’s just call you ビクトリア.”

—

“ブラウン (bu-ra-u-n)-san…”

“トッヒルブラウン (to-hhi-ru-bu-ra-u-n), please.”

“Your gym membership payment was rejected by your bank again this month.”

“Did you bill me under トッヒルブラウン? That’s my name at the bank.”

“Your name is too long to fit in the boxes allotted on the form.”

“Then you’ll have to find a way.”

“Can’t we file you under ブラウン?”

“That’s my father’s surname, my mother’s is Tothill. I was named after both of them, so no, you may not because that’s not my name.”

“But it would make your life here easier.”

Sociolinguistics Goes to the Movies

Beatrice Cale

Two excellent films that I have enjoyed recently have expressly demonstrated sociolinguistic themes and theories we have touched in class. BlacKkKlansman and Arrival.

The first is the (mostly) true tale of a black police agent, who, in the 1970s, infiltrated the local branch of the KKK (the Ku Klux Klan, a violent, hate group which espouses white superiority), in Colorado, U.S.A.

The second film, is a thoughtful science-fiction fantasy, recounting the arrival of strange-looking extraterrestrial aliens to planet earth (directed by a Quebecer). In both films, the hero or heroine is the person who is most able to harness the power of language and communication to reach out to the other side for the betterment of humanity.

Weird language and culture attitude from the social context in Taiwan

Chingheng Chang

Are you proud of your languages, identities, and cultures? How would you think of the crystallization of wisdom and brilliant civilization from your ancestors? I believe most of you are so proud of yourselves because the invaluable assets passed from generation to generation have made what you are today. However, negative attitude toward local Taiwanese dialect and self-identity can be obviously reflected through the social contexts, and I think many of my compatriots are not even aware of it from what they say and think.

People in Taiwan once experienced a forced visible language planning, which is a plan by Kuomintang (Chinese Nationalist government) that all local Taiwanese people were forced to learn Mandarin and abandon Taiwanese dialect. The reason for the state to implement such “cultural purification” is to “de-Japanize¹” and “make the once colonized Taiwanese people great citizens with Chinese culture²” (Hsiau, 1997, p.305).

How many styles of English do you speak?

Mengting H.

Do you speak the same English when you talk with your partners, peers, parents, co-workers, and supervisors? At least, I do not. More importantly, I find many people change their styles of language too.

I have an African friend here in Montreal. He has been living here for almost 8 years and he can speak English and French with almost no accent. I remember one day I heard him talking over the phone with his closest friends who were back in hometown. Surprisingly, I could not fully understand his English! He pronounced words differently and he used very different vocabulary and expressions.

After his call, I asked, “Do you know you were speaking a different English?”

“Yeah, I did that on purpose. That’s my friend. I don’t want him to feel that I changed.” he replied.

Bad bi(lingual)s, bad bi(lingual)s, whatcha gonna do? Whatcha gonna do when they come for you?

Victoria Tothill-Brown

“Are you bilingual?”

“Yes.”

“When did you start learning French?”

“I don’t speak French.”

“But you said you were bilingual.”

I have had the above conversation more times than I care to acknowledge. I will never forget the time my high school counsellor, after I told her I wanted to forego the standard French classes to take Japanese, called me a “bad Canadian”. More than 10 years of studying and seven years of my life spent in Japan, I sometimes wonder if there’s space in the Canadian identity for “bad” bilinguals like me who struggle with a lack of national identity.

I will admit that I am a bilingual in the purest sense of the word. I speak two languages: English and Japanese (save for some sacres and enough French to stutter my way through buying a sandwich). I’m also a “bad” language speaker.