PLENARY - Race Matters in Intercultural Communication and Language Learning: The Case of African Americans Speaking Blackness in Brazil
Presentation Summary
This talk questions the notion that language studies programs and language learning inquiry are safe havens of intercultural communication and exchange free from racism and ethnic bias. It examines how the systemic exclusion of African Americans in second language acquisition (SLA) research and their inequitable access, treatment, and experiences in traditional classrooms, dual immersion, study abroad, and other language learning contexts challenge our color-evasive myths of race neutrality and multiculturalism. The talk includes an overview of the participation of African Americans in SLA and their experience in language education, motivated by concern with the dearth of inquiry on this population and their underrepresentation as linguistic scholars and as students in language, cultural studies, and international travel programs. It features cases of Black students engaged in world language study to illustrate how their race, gender, sexual, and social class identities are enacted and challenged in intercultural communication and language learning. The experience of one group of African Americans learning Portuguese in Brazil is highlighted to illustrate ways Black students learn to speak their material, ideological, and symbolic selves in a new language. Additionally, how linguistic action functions to reproduce or resist power and inequity is described, and lessons we can learn from their experiences in personal transformation through language learning are discussed. Ultimately, this presentation addresses how African Americans can more actively and meaningfully participate in language programs to show that identities and investments in diverse communities within and outside classrooms greatly influence Black students’ success in our field.
Primary Presenter
Uju Anya, Carnegie Mellon University
State (if in the U.S.)
Pennsylvania
Country
USA
Professional Biography
Dr. Uju Anya is Associate Professor of second language acquisition in the Department of Modern Languages at Carnegie Mellon University. She specializes in applied linguistics, sociolinguistics, and language teacher education with particular focus on race, gender, sexual, and social class identities in the language classroom. Dr. Anya’s research is published in journal articles and in her book Racialized identities in second language learning: Speaking blackness in Brazil (Routledge 2017), winner of the 2019 American Association for Applied Linguistics First Book Award recognizing a scholar whose first book represents outstanding work that makes an exceptional contribution to the field. Her other main areas of inquiry include intercultural communication, service-learning and community engagement approaches to language instruction, applied linguistics as a practice of social justice, and strategic translanguaging in world language pedagogy.