You're kindly invited to our next virtual Plurilingual Lab Speaker Series event with Dr. Marcelyn Oostendorp of Stellenbosch University, South Africa.
Towards Surviving Mastery in Applied Linguistics
The discourse of mastery is prominent in Applied Linguistics. The idea of mastery, however, does not only remain on the discourse level- curricula and policies are meant to be implemented and therefore mastery and all that is associated with it (near perfection, dominance over something etc.) is also practiced. In this paper I offer a proposal, drawing on decolonial thought, of mastery as an inheritance 鈥渨e might (yet) survive鈥� (Singh 2018, p. 2) by recuperating other ways of being, thinking and learning. By drawing on examples from the South African higher educational contexts, I show glimpses of other ways of doing and thinking about language. Drawing inspiration from decolonial theory and queer and feminist thought, I extend the notion of linguistic citizenship (Stroud, 2015) to show that vulnerability, relationality, and failure can be just as important in the learning, teaching, and research of language as mastery.
Bio
Dr. Marcelyn Oostendorp is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of General Linguistics at Stellenbosch University, South Africa. Her research is primarily concerned with multilingual and multimodal forms of meaning-making in contexts such as education, the media, and the workplace. Her research has appeared in outlets such as Applied Linguistics, Text and Talk, Critical Discourse Studies, and Social Semiotics. Together with Judith Purkarthofer and Brigitta Busch, she is currently editing the very first Handbook of Language and Trauma for Routledge. Through her ongoing projects she seeks to theoretically contribute to multimodality, multilingualism and decolonial approaches to language.
When: February 23, 2023 (Thursday)
Time: 12pm-1:30pm (EST, Montreal)
Mode of delivery: synchronous via Zoom
All attendees must register by February 22, 2023. Register
This is a public event and all are welcome. This Speaker Series is sponsored by Concordia University's , and co-organized by the Research Group and McGill's Department of Integrated Studies in Education (DISE). At the request of the speaker, a recording will only be made available to those who register for the talk.
