JYU English seminars 2023-24

Series convenor: Dave Sayers. Please send any queries to dave.j.sayers@jyu.fi.

Shareable short link for this page: https://r.jyu.fi/engseminars23-24

CLICK HERE to register for any of the talks above

ABSTRACTS

Warda Farah, Biopolitics, colonialism and racism in Speech & Language Therapy: insights from the UK

The Speech & Language Therapy profession cannot move to the future without confronting and acknowledging its racist and colonial knowledge base. We know that children from Black backgrounds are overrepresented as having Speech & Language Impairments, due to biased assessment protocols. We know that our current models, practice base & service delivery is not good enough to bring about equitable change for these children/families. This will be a personal talk based on lived experience in England, sharing my journey in trying to address issues of biopolitics, colonialism and racism in the SLT profession.

Mie Hiramoto & Wes Robertson, Framing masculinity and cultural norms: A case study of male VIO hair removal in Japan
 

This study investigates the language and culture surrounding a relatively recent phenomenon in Japan, namely the removal of male body hair in intimate areas, commonly referred to as VIO datsumō ‘VIO hair removal’. Historically targeting mainly women, the personal care industry has shifted its focus in recent years to attract male clientele.

Drawing on the perspectives of gender ideologies and cultural sensemaking frameworks, we examine the patterns of persuasive discourse evident in mainstream advertisements promoting male VIO datsumō. Notably, the reasons put forth to encourage male participation in this practice are deeply embedded in cultural contexts.

The analysis reveals the significant role of cultural framing in promoting male VIO datsumō. These advertisements often stress the importance of preventing future burdens on caregivers, suggesting that hair removal contributes to personal hygiene and facilitates care during one's later years. Furthermore, the discourse surrounding male VIO datsumō intertwines with notions of male integrity, positioning the practice as a means to uphold dignity during the latter stages of life. Ultimately, VIO datsumō is portrayed as a means of aligning with cultural sensemaking frameworks in Japan.

By closely examining the (attempts of) persuasive discourse, this study sheds light on the intricate interplay between language, culture, and practices in contemporary Japan. The findings enhance our understanding of how cultural values both shape and are shaped by emerging sociocultural ideologies. Furthermore, this study emphasizes the importance of critically analyzing the cultural implications embedded within advertising discourses surrounding male VIO hair removal.

Marcelyn Oostendorp, Cracks and fissures in the master’s house through poetic inquiry: Towards a decolonial sociolinguistics
 

Audrey Lorde argues in her essay, Poetry is not a luxury, that the value of poetry does not necessarily lie in the manipulation of language but rather in the fact that poetry provides a form for ideas which are not yet formed but felt (Lorde 1984/2007: 25). The not yet, is also an important aspect of current theorizations of linguistic citizenship, a decolonial theory of language, focusing on how people leverage their semiotic resources to exercise voice and agency and create new participatory spaces (Stroud 2015). These spaces are often utopic in the sense of not yet being realized, but possible. This paper views multimodal poetry from the perspective of linguistic citizenship as a space in which the possibilities of thinking language otherwise is briefly, and temporarily realized. The poetry I refer to in this talk were produced by students in a postgraduate course designed and presented by Stellenbosch University (SU) and the University of the Western Cape (UWC), both in the Western Cape Province of South Africa. The course attempted to ‘re-imagine’ multilingualism(s) both in terms of the content offered and in the pedagogies which were used to teach the module (Bock et al. 2019; Bock and Stroud 2021; Oostendorp et al. 2021; Oostendorp 2023). The poetry created in this course through processes of resemiotization (Iedema 2003) and regenring (English 2012), point to spaces where students and lecturers break through the coloniality of language (Veronelli 2015). However, these spaces are transient and fleeting. I argue that perhaps the master’s house cannot be dismantled but that windows, cracks, and fissures can be created from where ideas are felt differently, and new relationalities can be seen and imagined. I discuss these findings in relation to the broader discussion on what a decolonial sociolinguistics might look like.

Irene Gotera, Linguistic Justice Principles: Best Practices for Multilingual Zoom Events

In this presentation, Irene will discuss the principles for creating language justice and the best practices for organizing multilingual Zoom events. She will focus on intentionality and relationship-building, equitable distribution of power via language, as well as the active role of interpreters in creating a linguistically inclusive environment. She will highlight the importance of establishing meaningful connections with collaborators, setting clear expectations, and addressing challenges proactively, emphasizing the need for language justice announcements at the beginning of events to ensure equitable language access. She will also cover considerations for interpreters, including their active role, sound quality, and screen setup. Recommendations and advice for speakers will be covered, including moderating their speaking pace, allowing for turn-taking, and avoiding reading content. Additionally, this presentation will touch on the importance of smart and inclusive outreach, the use of plain language, and the representation of different languages during the event. The presentation will conclude by emphasizing the significance of equitable language access as an inclusion practice and the need to actively counteract bias in multilingual events.

Trine Dahl & Kjersti Fløttum, Citizens’ preferences for motivating language and argumentation on lifestyle issues in a climate context

What can motivate people to change (or not change) their lifestyle in order to contribute to reducing the serious effects of climate change? This is the overarching topic we will address in our presentation. While there is broad agreement on the urgency of the climate situation, people must also go on living their daily lives, attending to their own needs and interests, as well as those of their familiy and community. 

The climate change debate focuses on a wide range of topics, which is not surprising given the complexity of the issue. Since the beginning of the 2000s, we have also observed a particular interest in climate communication in general and language use in particular. Such discussions of climate language use in public debates, on social media, but also in national representative studies has been undertaken by the CLIMLIFE project, which we have led (Fløttum) and participated in (Dahl). 

The public debate has focused much on the words ‘shame’ and ‘blame’. From our recent studies among young people and seniors, we have found that the majority in both groups express a clearly negative opinion on the use of such words. But what kind of words do people think would motivate climate action, and what arguments do they find most convincing? 

In our presentation we will answer these questions, based on a lexical-semantic analysis of the results of a national survey fielded in Norway in February 2023 through the Norwegian Citizen Panel. In this survey we used an open-ended question where respondents could answer freely in their own words. The question was formulated in this hypothetical way: Imagine that you were given the task of motivating people to live in a climate-friendly way. Which words or arguments would you use? 

We think the results will be relevant to anyone interested in climate change communication and of particular importance to the profession of climate communicators.

Anna Solin, Writing practices in the multilingual workplace: A case study of language brokering
Guest chair: Judit Hahn

In the talk, I will present a study of workplace writing, which focuses on administrative work in multilingual universities. While there is a wealth of research into institutional multilingualism, most studies on higher education have looked at teaching and research, and relatively little is known about the often invisible work of administrators.

The study explores the collaborative writing practices of eight administrators who work at a Finnish university, drawing on interviews, meeting recordings and text histories. The analysis tracks the production of a genre which is central to local decision-making: the meeting agenda. Data collection took place during a period when a decision had just been made to begin publishing agendas in two languages (Finnish and English), in order to support the inclusion of international staff. The shift from monolingual to multilingual texts resulted in negotiation over both language choice and what kind of English is “appropriate” or “good enough” in meeting agendas.

I will describe this negotiation from the perspective of language brokering, and particularly how different participants intervened in the writing process and the drafts being produced. The analysis focuses on questions such as who/what takes on or is given the role of broker, what kind of language features become targets of negotiation and what normative orientations are displayed in the administrators’ talk.

Sender Dovchin, Translanguaging: Playfulness & Precarity
 

A current prominent “translanguaging” strand in applied linguistics has started receiving increasing attention, as it has been discussed in the form of different trans- perspectives such as “translingual practice”, “transidioma”, “transglossia” and terms with similar ethos such as “polylingualism”, “metrolingualism” and “linguascapes”. The central tenet of this “translanguaging” trend reiterates the troublesomeness of delineating linguistic topographies through language categories, while advocating for the fluid transitioning between and across languages. The common approach in translanguaging trend commends the linguistic “playfulness”: that is, when second language (L2) users and learners are involved with translanguaging practices, they may often be identified through their interactions and dialogues of “playfulness” (commonly as a euphemism for creativity, innovativeness and fluidity), where one’s repertoire is deeply connected with forms of creative and playful exchanges to create alternative linguistic, cultural and identity versions. Yet, this extensive spectacle of “playfulness” seems to dwell more on conviviality than potential “precarity”, overlooking the fact that translanguaging precarity has arguably always been a generalized condition of human life and norm for most L2 users, who are deeply embedded in local economies of disparity. Not only do we need to understand the precarious forms of labor that constitute an instrument of unequal governance and subjectification among L2 users, but also the fact that precarity directly emerges from the concepts such as “linguistic racism”, “unequal Englishes”, “raciolinguistics’”, “linguicism”, “translingual discrimination” and “accentism”. Precarity in translanguaging is the intersectionality of linguistic, cultural, racial and national ideologies and practices that are utilised to conform and normalise an unequal linguistic power between language users. Based on longitudinal ethnographic study conducted among L2 students and L2 users from the Global South, I re-visit two key notions that are core to translanguaging trend: “precarity” and “playfulness”, as they need to be treated with caution, so as not to assume we understand too easily what it is “precarious” or “playful” for whom. The key implication is that the next generation of applied linguists needs to focus more on the precarity of the translanguaging trend, not just the playfulness. People do the playfulness because they are in a precarious position and this needs to be the focus of future research. The future research direction urges us, as applied linguists, to pragmatically apply our research into real pedagogical actions by revealing the sociolinguistic realities of L2 users to address broader issues of racism, social injustice, language activism, and other human rights issues beyond the classroom practices.

Dovchin, S. (2021). Translanguaging, emotionality, and English as a second language immigrants: Mongolian background women in Australia. TESOL Quarterly, 55(3), 839-865.

Megan Figueroa, Racism in the Field of Language Development: Evidence from the US
Guest chair: Joe McVeigh

The field of language development has a linguistic racism problem. Linguistic racism is when acts of racism occur based on language use. I argue that the field of child language development is rife with micro and macro examples of linguistic racism. Most egregiously, linguistic input - a necessary component of developing language - is conceptualized as “quality” (or not) based on a white, middle- and upper-class English speaking norm. “Quality” is a value judgment and not a characteristic of any language. Importantly, “quality” favors white linguistic practices while positioning non-white linguistic practices as deficient. This has consequences inside and outside of the field because this conceptualization reproduces, regulates, and legitimizes unequal divisions of power. Although the field as a whole struggles with this issue, this talk will focus on the US context.

Figueroa, M. (2024). Language development, linguistic input, and linguistic racism. WIREs Cognitive Science, e1673.