ALA 2024: Language Awareness, Education & Power

Prof. Dr. Sinfree Makoni

The primary objective of this keynote address is to frame language research in AfricaS and and its diasporaS through the political and analytical lenses of Theories of the South and Southern Theories. Such theories seek to ground themselves in the impact of subjugated peoples on the formulation of linguistic theory. Theories of the South and Southern Theories  should not only provide raw materials for theories framed in the Global North but also supply insight to the rest of the globe through the deployment of analytical heuristics, such as inventions/disinventions, accommodations, and hybrids, to develop other "waves of knowing". For example, for Santos and Meneses (2020), the ideal informants for Theories of the South and Southern Theories are the indigenous, peasants, and landless, such as the Brazilian quilombos (Severo and Makoni, 2021). Mignolo (2011) uses "border thinking" to describe the "thinking and doing" that originates from the South that confronts Western ways of thinking, Eurocentrism, capitalism, and communism. Connell (2019) regards these activities as "ontoformative", meaning that they produce new structures, realities, and agencies that differentiate the Southern landscape from the Euro-American one.

Theories of the South and Southern Theories are grounded in a political commitment that assumes that there is always something to learn from different ways of knowing, expressing, and living and that the world is so plurilingually diverse that it cannot be explained in western linguistic theories. Linguistics is hubristically Eurocentric, and we propose to rectify the weaknesses of linguistics by developing a conceptual vocabulary and political grammar founded on innovation, animation, and transgression (Nair and de Souza, 2020), which will enable us to challenge the white, and heteronormative foundations which dominate the field of language studies by proposing watery orientationsto language studies. We seek to go beyond a critique of linguistics and applied linguistics by un-bokking publishing processes. In un-booking we are reimagining, recreating and decreating how knowledges are disseminated. In un-booking we align writing practices and blur distinctions between writing, speech and performance to reflect and to act on Southern and decolonial perspectives. In un-booking we create divergent and emergent approaches to publishing because we believe current book publishing cannot contain and carry the demands of innovative and radical scholarship.

Prof. Dr. Simone Pfenninger

Our entire life is characterized by different and inevitable changes, such as life transitions, critical life events, or age-related psychological and physiological changes. Such changes also affect what and how much we learn. The learning environments evolve throughout the lifespan, adapting to our changing preferences, ideas, and aspirations as we age; we also tend to select environments that align with our established knowledge and skills. For instance, in SLA and multilingualism research, change of language preferences throughout the lifetime and their differential use in specific contexts (e.g. family/ friends versus school/ work) are well documented. At the same time as our relationship with language and with learning shifts and changes, it remains significant. To give an example from later stages of life, first results of intervention studies suggest that as a cognitively challenging activity, language learning may, under certain circumstances and in certain phases of the second language (L2) learning process, have a positive effect on cognitive functions, metalinguistic awareness and awareness of language as a whole, prevent isolation and foster linguistic flexibility, self-esteem, autonomy, social interaction and individual mobility in older adults. In this talk, I am taking a lifespan approach to SLA, which seeks to understand continuities and discontinuities in growth and change over the whole of life and promises to make a contribution toward raising ageism  awareness. To what extent is 'age' as a construct of itself of relevance in SLA in the light of huge and increasing spread of individual abilities and skills as age progresses? How does access to various resources impact on success and continuation with the endeavor of L2 learning over one's life course and the events, transitions, and experiences that shape it? How far are adult L2 learners the same regardless of age and to what extent does L2 learning in later life have its own distinctive qualities?

Drawing on my own research on L2 learning in later life, I argue that chronological age does not determine the positioning of L2 learners across the lifespan: age is part of a complex web of social distinctions such as psychological and individual factors as well as major life events that intersect in the construction of a learner’s relative status and opportunities.

Prof. Dr. Rahat Zaidi

In today’s dynamic educational landscape, students and educators find themselves learning and teaching in a post-multilingual era. Through language, culture, religion, and other factors, educational communities  are growing more complex and interconnected, as are the challenges faced by newcomer students. These individuals, often placed in unfamiliar and confusing language and cultural contexts, feel overwhelmed. Meanwhile, educators are grappling with curricula that, for the most part, reflect the dominant culture and language, thereby perpetuating inequities and marginalizing other cultural identities. Rather than viewing language, culture, and identity as isolated silos, I encourage education systems to view these complexities through an intersectional lens. By acknowledging the convergence of race, culture, language, and religion, we can gain deeper insights into the intricate web of marginalization and privilege. This intersectional perspective allows for an improved support mechanism that helps education systems highlight the inherent value of newcomer students’ languages and develops critical language awareness while helping to foster greater academic success. I call on scholars to begin the process of rethinking the approaches traditionally used in a multilingual classroom; approaches that tend to polarize and leave newcomer students on the periphery. Drawing on my research carried out collaboratively with teachers, community partners, and newcomer student participants, I document how the use of critically engaged language and literacy workshops (CELLWs) can empower students to make sense of their experiences as newcomers in a variety of ways. This methodology represents a linguistic and cultural collaboration that incorporate arts-based, critical, creative, and collaborative initiatives that are both multilingual and multimodal. These include walking narratives, film forums, sharing stories, and arts-based methods that frequently incorporate generative artificial intelligence as forms of inquiry and exploration. Each provides an opportunity for participants to explore meanings and map their trajectories and enables educators and researchers to better understand the needs of this demographic. Within this context I highlight a transformational process in language/literacy education and language awareness perspectives.

As a qualitative approach, CELLWs contribute to a holistic sense of belonging, providing opportunities for newcomer students to express  themselves in both their first and second languages. Here, they find space to exercise their multilingual identities, and reflect on their participation within the school and broader communities. They begin to  understand how their experiences represent the sum of different localities, feelings, identity (re)shaping, and both physical and imaginary memories. Culturally diverse school practices ought to include ongoing re-assessment of community needs, social demographics, and actions in place, and the incorporation of CELLWs helps to increase language awareness among educators and students while helping them be more cognizant of newcomers’ positions in the world and the actions that can be taken to support them. It encourages educational stakeholders to address the pushback against marginalized communities, even as they think they are promoting diversity. It is through this process that CELLWs become transformative spaces where participants can actively learn language while engaging with issues of equity, racism, and inclusion, ultimately fostering a deeper intersectional understanding of themselves, their language/culture, and the world around them.

The Eric Hawkins Lecture 2024 celebrates the 30th anniversary of the Association for Language Awareness (ALA). In this talk we will reflect on the past and the present, and try to predict the future of Language Awareness (LA). We will briefly review the history of LA, including some milestones and founding members, the creation of ALA, and its activities and achievements so far. The LA movement emerged, 30 years ago, in response to social and educational issues such as low literacy, intolerance, and a low level of interest in language study. These concerns remain, and have been added to. The five LA domains posited by James and Garret (1991) – affective, cognitive, social, power, and performance, will be referred to.

We will argue that the holistic view of language, encapsulated in LA, has an important part to play in addressing the original concerns, which still remain. Hawkins (1999, 2005) suggested that the first stage of language study should take the form of a Language Apprenticeship. Its aim would be knowledge about language, an enhanced interest in language, and the acquisition of language learning skills. In the current situation, this could prepare students not only to learn a foreign language at school, but to study a language/languages of their choice online. This will be discussed in some detail, as will LA in the language classroom. The talk will also touch on the desirability of a fairly high level of LA in the population generally, in order for citizens to understand language issues and make well-informed choices and decisions, for example in the work place, or regarding language rights, and education. Finally, we will discuss the role of prompt-engineering in creating adequate AI generated text, and illustrate with examples. It will become clear that for good prompt-engineering, and understanding the prompt-writers’ intentions, training in Critical LA would be invaluable.

Decolonising Applied Linguistics posits a shift from existing normativity towards decategorisation of binaries that established Northern epistemes as unilateral in knowledge production and dissemination. This entails the recognition of Southern epistemes in the global knowledge economy, paying attention to race, gender, and identity as mediated by language. The possibility that this will happen anytime soon is critically regulated by openness to Southernising theories and horizontal openness to pluriversal ways of knowing in a world with systemic structures based on a mono-directional perception of the knowledge economy.

The value attached to knowledges produced in the South and how Southern epistemes struggle on the aggressive knowledge highway is critically shaped today by capitalist neo-liberal trends. Language plays a fundamental role in this, and a language balance moving from systemic paradigms to ecolingual orientation to knowledge production and dissemination seems crucial.

The following questions arise:

Why would I/you shift to other forms of knowledges in my establishment, and how would this place the other forms within knowledge praxis in the grand narrative? Who else would consider this as relevant in the grand narrative and on which basis? (How) does Artificial Intelligence integrate other expressive forms of knowledges in its systems? How does Higher Education reconstruct its language curriculum that so far has perpetuated Northern normativity, and how does this link with economic capital in this fast-changing global economy? Who takes charge of this, on which basis, and for whose interest?

The gradual shifts towards pluriversal forms on knowledges open richer possibilities in language education for horizontal platforms of identity reconstruction and (self-)imaging in the existing monodirectional cosmovision. Yet this is challenged by the demand and supply chain and begs a number of questions in the decoloniality enterprise as sketched above.