{"id":13974,"date":"2020-12-07T10:16:30","date_gmt":"2020-12-07T15:16:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/whamit.mit.edu\/?p=13974"},"modified":"2023-07-19T13:07:24","modified_gmt":"2023-07-19T17:07:24","slug":"degraff-offering-online-workshop-on-decolonising-the-linguistics-curriculum","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ling-phil.mit.edu\/whamit\/2020\/12\/07\/degraff-offering-online-workshop-on-decolonising-the-linguistics-curriculum\/","title":{"rendered":"DeGraff offering online workshop on Decolonising the Linguistics Curriculum"},"content":{"rendered":"

December 10 is\u00a0Human Rights Day<\/a>\u0097to celebrate the day in 1948 when the United Nations adopted the\u00a0Universal Declaration on Human Rights<\/a>. \u00a0On that date, Thursday, December 10 2020,10:30AM EST,\u00a0Michel DeGraff<\/a>\u00a0is offering a workshop online at the University of Sheffield, UK, on “Decolonising the Linguistics Curriculum.” The workshop will start with a talk titled:<\/p>\n

\u0093Language as the invisible \u0091canary in the mine\u0092 in the minefield of human-rights violations\u0094<\/p>\n

Please find the abstract and additional information below.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Abstract:<\/p>\n

My case study is my native country, Haiti, where Francophonie and francophilia are linguistic \u0093bluest eyes\u0094 (in Toni Morrison’s sense) as they are weaponized for “\u00e9lite closure” (cf. Carol Myers-Scotton) and for\u00a0neo-colonial violence against equity and human rights<\/a>\u00a0(cf. Yves Dejean). In contradistinction, Haiti’s national language (Krey\u00f2l) is the one language that can serve as the linguistic foundation for the democratization of education and development.\u00a0 Yet, most state and academic institutions and NGOs in Haiti, including world-famous institutions whose stated mission is to promote human rights, linguistic diversity, etc., routinely devalue Krey\u00f2l in favor of French, and they thus exclude the participation of most Haitians\u0097who are typically fluent in Krey\u00f2l only.\u00a0 Through such linguistic (mis-)practices, these institutions participate in upholding\u00a0Haiti\u0092s linguistic apartheid<\/a>\u00a0 We find such brutally exclusionary practices even at the Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Justice, even in organizations that proudly boast \u0093human rights\u0094, \u0093knowledge\u0094, \u0093liberty\u0094 and so on in their titles or mission statements. These organizations will be celebrating “Human Rights Day” on December 10 even as they violate human rights every day of the year. Often times, these organizations are, paradoxically, engaged in producing Krey\u00f2l materials for literacy and human-rights campaigns, for primary education, etc. We’ll look at \u00a0UNESCO in Haiti\u00a0<\/a>as\u00a0one spectacular case of such ambivalence vis-\u00e0-vis Krey\u00f2l: since the late 1940s, UNESCO has been producing groundbreaking scientific research and educational materials based on the importance of\u00a0vernacular languages for access to quality education<\/a> and for human rights and development; yet UNESCO’s leadership in Haiti, more often than not, excludes Krey\u00f2l in its formal proceedings which are typically, with some relatively rare exceptions, conducted and published in French only. \u00a0One recent exchange in the “Amis de l’UNESCO” WhatsApp group illustrates the depth of these anti-Krey\u00f2l attitudes: when one inquires about Krey\u00f2l translation\u0097alongside the French, English and Spanish simultaneous interpretation being offered at a forthcoming conference by the Agence Universitaire de la Francophonie (“AUF”) in the context of Caribbean studies\u0097this inquiry is considered, by UNESCO personnel in Haiti, as “diffamation against AUF.” \u00a0Yet there are more Krey\u00f2l speakers in the Caribbean than French speakers; besides, Haiti, where Krey\u00f2l is the single national language, is the 3rd\u00a0largest Caribbean country. Taken together, linguistic choices, practices and attitudes in most national and international institutions in Haiti have, for the past two centuries, brutally devalued the capital of Krey\u00f2l on Haiti’s linguistic market (in Pierre Bourdieu’s sense), making Krey\u00f2l, in effect, much less attractive than French as a medium and subject matter for teaching and learning.\u00a0 In a related vein, linguists themselves, from Saint-Quentin in the 19th century to Bickerton and McWhorter in the 21st century, have often mis-represented the history and structures of Creole languages as a class, even mis-classifying them as the world’s “simplest” (read: “most primitive”) languages.\u00a0 This is what I’ve called\u00a0“Creole Exceptionalism”.<\/a>\u00a0 It is within this complex and ambiguous hegemonic context (social, geopolitical, academic and scientific) that the \u00a0MIT-Haiti Initiative<\/a>\u00a0engages linguists, educators, policy makers, artists, civil society, etc.,\u00a0near and far<\/a>\u00a0 in a\u00a0historic struggle<\/a>\u00a0to open up access to knowledge (and power) for all Haitians through the systematic use of\u00a0Krey\u00f2l coupled with interactive pedagogy and technology writ large<\/a>\u00a0 This Initiative is a model for opening up access to quality education worldwide, especially\u00a0in the Global South<\/a>\u00a0where non-colonial languages are, by and large, still excluded in schools and other formal venues.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

More references at:<\/p>\n

http:\/\/mit.edu\/degraff<\/a><\/p>\n

https:\/\/linguistics.mit.edu\/linguistics_haiti\/<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The announcement from the University of Sheffield:<\/p>\n

https:\/\/www.sheffield.ac.uk\/english\/news\/online-workshop-decolonising-linguistics-curriculum<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Questions: g.t.williams@sheffield.ac.uk<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

December 10 is\u00a0Human Rights Day\u0097to celebrate the day in 1948 when the United Nations adopted the\u00a0Universal Declaration on Human Rights. \u00a0On that date, Thursday, December 10 2020,10:30AM EST,\u00a0Michel DeGraff\u00a0is offering a workshop online at the University of Sheffield, UK, on “Decolonising the Linguistics Curriculum.” The workshop will start with a talk titled: \u0093Language as the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":30,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13974","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-announcements"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ling-phil.mit.edu\/whamit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13974","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ling-phil.mit.edu\/whamit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ling-phil.mit.edu\/whamit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ling-phil.mit.edu\/whamit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/30"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ling-phil.mit.edu\/whamit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13974"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/ling-phil.mit.edu\/whamit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13974\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15724,"href":"https:\/\/ling-phil.mit.edu\/whamit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13974\/revisions\/15724"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ling-phil.mit.edu\/whamit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13974"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ling-phil.mit.edu\/whamit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13974"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ling-phil.mit.edu\/whamit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13974"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}