Transcript

Learning to live in multilingual worlds: Alison Phipps at TEDxUniversityofGlasgow

[Music] I'm presenting this talk to you in a single language the English I speak was given to me by my parents those who educated me passed down shifting and changing in accent in subtle ways over Generations in my family it came to me through butchers weav Factory workers Farmers generations of mothers and fathers as education became widely available it came to me through teachers and laterally universities English was an accident of birth which has meant I can assume a certain privilege in the world I can expect many to speak to me in my own language without needing to make any any effort myself there is a danger in the dominance of a single language the dominance of English in the world is held in place historically politically and economically it is no accident or god-given right and it is the language I use to speak to you now because of the histories of slavery of colonialism of trade of globalization because of pacts treaties and laws made by others which stick to me and to you like glue it is the language privileged by global education systems and English has become a tool in the UK for policing immigration and access for integration International students to higher education especially by requiring expensive language testing hospitality is a strong test of a language and of a people so to present a talk in English is to continue the structures of inequality and Injustice which have led to its dominance it is a strangely arrogant and partial thing to do arrogance and partiality are always dangerous they deny connectivity to speak in English without reflection on how this has come to be is concealing of the structures which place limitations on so many so what difference does it make that English that this language is the one I now use to speak to you in It's the End of the Road she shows me the form which contains the removal directions at the bottom it says this this has been explained to you in the English language an official has written English in the Gap she does not speak English the person sitting in front of me is awaiting imminent deportation from the UK she has come seeking refuge and has been in a refused in a language she does not understand she speaks four languages fluently and a fifth she speaks well I am sitting with her in the immigration removal Center a befriender there is nothing much to say to her as her situation is just desperately sad English the global language the language of Hope the language of business the language of Education the language of interrogation of the legal system the language of the law of the bureaucrat of the form of the guards in the center who will force her against her will to get onto a plane and go back to what she believes will be a dreadful future if there is a future at all English I speak to her in English in an attempt at friendship and she winces as if in pain it's too hard she's too tired of these words they have refused me I triy speaking a little French she softens recognizing something familiar rather than a language which she associated with hope and now experiences as the language of betrayal the language of clear unequivocal rejection I ask her about the other languages she speaks and if she might teach me a word or two she laughs and begins to tell me how to greet people in her mother tongue I Stumble and babble and struggle she fills out with presence and pride as she shows me exactly where to place my tongue on my teeth to make the right sound and it makes us both laugh when I do so for a moment in the dreary visits room of the removal Center dignity is restored and the world comes into balance for a moment she is the teacher now the one with the knowledge and control and I am learning from her how to live in multilingual worlds this is a modern day story of the Tower of Babel the story of Babel is a curious one the uses to which the Builders of the tower put their one language were not pleasing to their God who in the story intervened to stop the building of their Tower and to create a multilingual World there have been many different interpretations of this story and what it's trying to tell us about language languages in some readings this story is understood to tell of how confusion Came Upon the Earth in other readings it warms of arrogance of pride in Grand achievements it may be seen as a cautionary tale of what happens when human beings detach themselves through technology from the diversity of life down on Earth the destruction of the tower leads to the need for concentrated effort in learning and listening the suggest Chris is left hanging for us that learning to live in multilingual worlds is an ethical necessity for life to flourish one which might even give us the conditions for peace and there's a paradox here as there is in my story of learning words of greeting from someone about to be removed and sent away from safety and who I never seen again vulnerability is acute when there is one technological solution that is unequally shared temporary relief from this vulnerability comes here through language learning through attending to things we might fear to do and not readily understand in order to practice living with diversity and to get good at doing so by practicing temporary relief comes by allowing people time out in a language in which they can rest too do in sharing the burden of comprehension and communication temporary relief comes by having a go at letting languages be the connectors not barriers inhabiting multilingual worlds and their struggles together in this view there is no problem of translation no loss there is the endless possibility of mutuality the languages I have learned well are French and German they are the languages we favor in our school's curricula but these two are all languages that bear the marks of violence and refugees wash up on our shores as a historical and political consequence my experiences of befriending those awaiting deportation together with my experience of researching language learning led me to a crunch point in 2007 I took the decision with my family to open our home to destitute Asylum Seekers and refugees in a very real sense we were refusing to live in an englishon world it's one thing to share different food habits of sleep and waking it is quite another to relinquish easy understanding and to have to slow down rhythms of speech to create new linguistic normalities to explain in many and creative ways things not readily grasped I'm under No Illusion that this small insignificant decision will change the overwhelming structures of linguistic inequality but I do know that it has had a profound and important effect on me and changed who I am many of those who came to live with us spoke languages I'm ashamed to say I did not even know existed in the world one of those who came has joined our family a young belan and tigrinus speaker persecuted in our homeland who fled to the UK aged 14 and so it was I had to change my understanding of what it meant to have a mother tongue when the tongue spoken by my foster daughter was not that of this mother I labor still at the edges of her language managing a few root Lane sentences of greeting meeting and eating but little more the materials and opportunities to learn her languages are all but Out Of Reach to me they barely exist in the world painfully slowly I'm using my pen to trace the shapes of the gz script as I begin to learn to greenia one of the mother tongues of my foster daughter the irony is intense a daughter tongue it curves beautifully as I trace out the Contours that would make the pointing of her name and I'm hoping lessly bad at this it's a physical struggle to voice the consonants and vowels that are so remote from my phonetic experience and practice I realize I know the words for peace for Mercy For Hope but not for war death torture or the hell of her former life she teaches me to chant the script my foster daughter is teaching me her mother tongue a tongue to foster a daughter tongue at such moments of connection and intimacy moments when I cannot speak the language of those who live with me I'm brought down from my rhetorically sophisticated English Tower into a multilingual place of humility I have to slow down take time be dependent full of erots daily experience changes me and changes how I research it begins to engender empathy as I experience what others experience all the time I begin to consider where and how languages are part of all the research I undertake researching in just one language May speed things up but it's partial marked by ignorance and absence too Crossing in and out of languages allows questions and experiences to be seen from different angles connections to be made in new ways it places us when we hesitate or lack understanding in a place of listening observing rather than controlling the connections it levels us it quietens us means we too may experience what it is not to understand it allows us also to receive from gracious others who slow down work at making sure we all understand enabling us to share in the language effort as a hard common task I'm often asked to advise people on which language their children should learn and what use it is to learn a language when English is spoken by everyone worldwide my reply is this English is not spoken by everyone worldwide access to structured ways of learning English as a foreign language are expensive and exclusive it's another place in the world where inequalities are increasing I say learn the languages which will illuminate languages which will help you understand your history languages which will create connection through trade or Aid or travel languages which will mean you better connect with the neighbors in the street and the neighboring countries languages spoken in your community I say work for structural change in education monitor who is in and who is rejected by language structures learn other languages as an act of poetic activism but never believe that this will in itself be a root to emancipation there is no pure place to speak from but this still means that there's important work to do with words when this fails work for a change in the language laws and finally learning languages will increase your capacity to be human to love to empathize with others don't retreat into a language bunker but come out have a go it is disarming for those used to having to struggle on in English to hear words spoken which demonstrate palpably bodily that they are welcome rather than assuming that they will have to do all the work of coming towards us we need languages to make us human the danger in a single is that a single language will diminish our Humanity all the more so when we insist on it learn languages not because they are functionally useful in a superficial way but because languaging learning to live in multilingual worlds will give you a new chance at connecting as a human being through humility it is a risk to be in a world of unknowingness to step out from what's familiar and the languages which formed us from small it's a risk to step into other language worlds but perhaps this is the ethical necessity of the bab Story one language can never explain the whole world so I will make myself in this world with strangers I will change my habits of language learned from birth I have given this talk in English this talk remains incomplete it does not need to be this way it needs the gift of those who cross into English bearing other languages inviting by their presence ways of of learning how to live which are tender even kind I have given this talk in English thank you [Applause] [Music]