With this understood, it is no longer sufficient to view the question of African speaking European languages as a function of cognitive skills, physical age, approximation to whites relationship to specific tasks and so forth. Admittedly, these are issues to consider, but none go to the heart of the matter. The real question is not how difficult was it for Africans to learn English words? Rather the truly important queries are, what did it mean to the African to hear and at some point repeat words associated with this captures? What did it signify to the African to be expected to learn an embrace concepts which further concretized his condition of social death? What was it like to have the world renamed, redefined and reimagined for him? Sober reflection leads to the conclusion that the African understood the political nature of his predicament. And in that setting, he also understood that this new language was profoundly political. It stands to reason that he would respond in kind. (Gomez, 1998, p.171)

may my contribution to research always be encouraging folks to ask better questions. #LanguageEd #WorldLanguages #TeacherEd #BlackLinguisticReparations #EdLinguistics #Multilingualism #SLA #Academic

University of Wisconsin Madison: 18th Annual Second Language Acquisition Student Symposium Keynote Speaker: Dr. Tasha Austin Labor, Leisure and Language: Towards world languages for Black linguistic reparations The present climate of U.S. public education has placed the access to a general course of study in the public discourse at levels unseen in recent decades. This discourse centers on the privatization of K-12 schooling, the policing of federal funds with regard to education research, and the place of nationalism in compliance measures tied to federal resources. World language (WL) education access, however, has not been prevalent in these discourses at the same levels unless attention is directed to the years preceding the 2025 presidential election. The replacement of liberal arts with vocational-oriented programming, WLs with computer science or artificial intelligence-driven instruction, and the elimination of full departments of WLs have steadily taken place prior to the larger sweeping changes of the past months. How has the steady divestment from WL study and the diminishing expectation of a liberal arts education set the stage for the present attempt at overhauling U.S. public education? This talk will explore the genealogical implications of those discursively framed as worthy of language study since the colonial era (e.g. propertied white men) of the formation of the U.S. It will trace the framing of those suited for leisure as opposed to those suited for labor (e.g. enslaved/liberated African[s] Americans) and the ways in which both public and private funding has been distributed along racialized lines. Further, it will trace these discourses to the current era of executive orders and normalized elitist conceptions of WL study. Finally, it will conclude with recommendations for WLs as a site for Black Linguistic Reparations (Austin & Anya, 2024) through ...

#LanguageEd #TeacherEd #WorldLanguages #EdLinguistics #TeacherPreparation #BlackWorldLanguaging #Raciolinguistics #Genealogies

Grateful for this opportunity and looking forward to communing with the good folks at UW Madison!