In this project, students learn and apply strategies for promoting "Language Solidarity" to combat language discrimination, both in public spaces and online, while exploring the broader concept of language justice.Authors: Jhonni Carr & Román Luján, Lecturers in Spanish & Portuguese DepartmentGrant Type: Lecturer Teaching Fellows Program (LTF)Project Details: "Developing a Linguistic Solidarity Curriculum in the Language Classroom" |
 |
From the authors:
In recent years, linguistic discrimination—along with racial discrimination—has led to increased attacks on individuals who speak a language other than English in public. These discriminatory events are often filmed and shared online where they “go viral.” Despite their pervasiveness, there is very little discussion on how to prevent the occurrence of these episodes in the future; as a society, we remain without a coherent response. To address this, we propose the concept of “Language Solidarity,” which entails concrete strategies that linguistic allies can implement to engage in preventative measures to protect speakers of languages besides English and their freedom of language choice (Carr & Luján, 2020). For our collaborative Lecturer Teaching Fellows project, we seek to further develop the concept of Language Solidarity and create instructional materials and assignments that allow us (and other language educators) to help our students achieve the following objectives:
1. Learn about the concepts of language justice and language solidarity in their academic endeavors and daily lives.
2. Discover and put in practice strategies to address language discrimination through preventative measures in the public space.
3. Propose new strategies to promote language solidarity outside of the classroom, including through the use of social media.