We invite you to join us via Zoom this Saturday, May 29, from 1 – 2:30 p.m. Pacific time, for “
Articulating Trust,” a cross-disciplinary roundtable conversation about language rights and socio-linguistic justice in higher education, public health, and society. Zoom links will be emailed on the 29th to participants who sign up to receive them.
The right to one’s own linguistic variety marks an overdue departure from the deeply entrenched norm that would restrict the language of knowledge and thought to a so-called “standard” language. This norm has been incredibly destructive, restricting individuals’ access to knowledge, health, economic opportunity, and power. In this roundtable, we hope to begin to articulate a related and practical notion of Linguistic Trust, under which interlocutors in educational, leadership, or partnership roles invite other interlocutors to participate while using a non-standard variety of a language.
Our main question will be: How could an invitation to participate by using a “non-standard” variety be articulated? What are some of the strategies or cues which could be leveraged to invite our interlocutors to use non-standard varieties, especially in settings (such as classroom teaching, mentoring, researching, and public-facing communication) in which hegemonic norms would dictate the exclusive use of a standard variety? By bringing together scholars from different disciplines we hope to open up a conversation about what it means to build trust in sociolinguistic diversity and how hegemonic linguistic norms can be subverted — one interaction at a time.
For more information and to receive the Zoom link, please visit the Articulating Trust website.