Into the sensory world (original) (raw)
Les perspectives critiques de la notion d'ambiance
2012
This paper questions the potential criticism offered by the concept of ambiances. By defending three postures of research (to articulate the sensitive and politics, to defend an ethics of the commitment, to translate and share the common), it puts the foundations of a sensitive criticism of the urbanity.
2014
For Vuolteenaho et al, (2012, p. 2) they consider the power of linguistic landscapes, language in cities (spaces): roles of narratives, advertising texts, translations, place names and street signage as agents of planning and governance, promotion and branding, heritage production and museum exhibitions, ultimately urban transformation at large. This research investigates into the linguistic landscape study (also known as LLs); basically its analysis, and the claim to how it can very much inform spatial transformation. This study compares various linguistic tokens found on two major streets, Juta and Smit in Braamfontein. This scholarship attempts to conceptualize the power of transformation embedded in the LLs analysis; language and spaces, and by so doing reveal the linguistic landscape (makeup) of both spaces under study. Very notably, this study takes into account 'users' of space, and how they interact with these spaces. Shohamy and Gorter (2009) find it relevant to always consider the 'people' (users), as they are the ones who design, produce and hang various signs for displays in the public spaces (p. 1). The authors also argue that it is again 'people' who read, attend, decipher and interpret these language displays, or even in other cases choose to ignore, overlook or even erase them. In agreement, De Certeau (1984, p. 93) suggests that the urban city has its visibility centred on users, and therefore refers to users of space as 'practitioners of the city' as from them emerge 'the experience of the city'.
A Sensory Experiment into Languages as (R)evolution
Vol 14, No 1 (2016) Canadian Curriculum Studies: A Métissage of Polyphonic Textualities
How are we informed and transformed by tuning into our relationships to land, emotions, relations, and bodies within our academic pathways into languages? In this paper, we tell a story of our journey, as scholars, into how languages relate to land, historicity, bodies, and the ecosophical concept of ubuntu. Our discussion brings in the temporal and spatial multidisciplinary lineage of languages, as an open space to re-envision, re-experience, and re-engage with our academic writing in new and ancient ways. We use multimodal layers of language ontology—from ecological, physical, historical, and intercultural perspectives—as a decolonizing, pedagogical process of (re)covering humanness. We use the particular example of academic writing and reading as a sensory experience to dive into languages as ontological ways of becoming human. And because we are academics (or failed magicians) we try to provide insights into theoretical and practical ways to transform this conversation into pedagogy.
The senses in language and culture
Multiple social science disciplines have converged on the senses in recent years, where formerly the domain of perception was the preserve of psychology. Linguistics, or Language, however, seems to have an ambivalent role in this undertaking. On the one hand, Language with a capital L (language as a general human capacity) is part of the problem. It was the prior focus on language (text) that led to the disregard of the senses. On the other hand, it is language (with a small “l,” a particular tongue) that offers key insights into how other peoples conceptualize the senses. In this article, we argue that a systematic cross-cultural approach can reveal fundamental truths about the precise connections between language and the senses. Recurring failures to adequately describe the sensorium across specific languages reveal the intrinsic limits of Language. But the converse does not hold. Failures of expressibility in one language need not hold any implications for the Language faculty per se, and indeed can enlighten us about the possible experiential worlds available to human experience.
Public urban space: The linguistic turn
Urban public open space is a myriad between the physical and the social. Their relationship has been conceived in various terms; the focus shifting between one and the other; nevertheless, in most cases, the language of criticism has so far been lacking, and descriptions have tended towards a more generic, non-nuanced language of criticism. Taking advantage of developments in the field of criticism of language, based, as they were, on methods of Structuralist and Post-structural linguistic analysis, in this case, namely, the work of Rosalind Krauss, and, Manfredo Tafuri, an attempt is made to link up the language of criticism developed individually , by Krauss, for Sculpture, and by Tafuri, for Architecture, for the purpose of advancing a similarly informed language of criticism, to urban design practice; taking, for the purposes of this effort, four relatively recent urban design projects for the creation of urban public open space in Amman, completed, 2005–2011.
Making sense of sensory perceptions across languages and cultures
Functions of Language, 2015
This article has two aims: (i) to give an overview of research on sensory perceptions in different disciplines with different aims, and on the basis of that (ii) to encourage new research based on a balanced socio-sensory-cognitive approach. It emphasizes the need to study sensory meanings in human communication, both in Language with a capital L, focusing on universal phenomena, and across different languages, and within Culture with a capital C, such as parts of the world and political regions, and across different cultures, such as markets, production areas and aesthetic activities, in order to stimulate work resulting in more sophisticated, theoretically informed analyses of language use in general, and meaning-making of sensory perceptions in particular. Keywords: semantics, discourse, evidentiality, conceptual preference hierarchy, socio-sensory-cognitive triad, metaphor, metonymy, vision, sight, smell, taste, touch, texture, olfactory, gustatory.
TOPIC Social inequality is at the very heart of the challenges of our late modern times. In our contribution, the term of social inequality refers to unequal chances of school success in German-speaking countries like Austria. In the Austrian education system, success and failure largely depend on a student's 'origin', that is: a family's migration history, education and language biography. The reasons are found in the education system's shortcomings in coping with growing diversity in the classroom. Traditional segregation processes are maintained to this day, for example, thereby systematically disadvantaging students with a migration history, economic poverty or illiteracy in the family, and with family languages other than German. PROBLEM And while these facts are well-covered in research, there is a still persisting gap in our understanding of the problem: little is known about migrant groups that have been exposed to migration, poverty and illiteracy, and whose languages have been subject to far-reaching discrimination not only in Europe but already in their countries of 'origin'. We illustrate the complex inequalities on the example of Kurdish families in Austria. This includes such issues as forced migration, economic poverty, educational deprivation, and highly stigmatized multilingualism with up to five laguages spoken in everyday life (e.g. in Turkey), accumulating with above-named disadvantages after migration (to Austria). The complex history of these migrant groups leads to highly multilingual students facing the risk of never successfully participating in education and society. In other words: in our globalized and multilingual times, the most vulnerable or 'unheard' voices are paradoxically also the most multilingual ones. METHODS We positioned 'unheard', vulnerable 'voices' and their biographies at the heart of our study - i.e., students from groups who are both underrepresented in higher education and yet a blind spot in scientific research. Unlike classic data collection, our conversations with families and teachers are intended to provide a stage for expressing, reflecting and discussing experiences in multiple languages. The subsequent analyses ties in upon three different autobiographies and languages (German, Turkish, Kurdish) and three linguistic approaches (educational, interactional and discourse linguistics). In this way, we proceed from individual 'voices' to collective experiences of being 'unheard', and ultimately approach the larger picture of 'polyphonies' in the education system - i.e., conflicting discourses and resulting inequalities. FINDINGS Our findings illustrate, first, how societal macro structures are translated into serious individual disadvantages. Second, our findings show how multilingual, socially disadvantaged students express particularly strong ambitions, and how their ambitions, in turn, fall victim to particularly problematic interpretations by their teachers - teachers who have never been trained to 'hear' vulnerable 'voices'. And third, our findings reveal how this process may lead to the loss of common ground between teachers, parents and beyond. Nevertheless, we also take a look at academic research and its problematic impact whenever scientific studies remain unaware of their power in reproducing inequalities. CONCLUSIONS And yet, we also intend to present ways of breaking this vicious circle. We envision our work to not only reach out to the education system but to extend the critical debate to research as well. In consequence, we envision a linguistics that is aware of the tremendous impact of its methods, and deals with these methods in a responsible, transdiscipliary way.
Language is also a place of struggle
Cultural Studies of Science Education, 2011
This paper is written in response to a paper by Maria Rivera on issues of language and identity. I give an autobiographical account of my own experiences in relation to language identity and colonialism. I relate language and issues of alienation during the colonial time and I reflect on how that past is still currently distorting the way we look at our local language. I depict some episodes that, although they cannot be generalized, show how colonialism still deforms our cultural liberty. I conclude that only with cultural emancipation can we teach in a truly contextualized manner and do research based on our context. Only with cultural liberty we can be emancipated in the context of globalisation. Keywords Language Á Culture Á Identity Á Colonialism Á Science teacher education Sumário executivo Este artigo é escrito em resposta ao artigo de Maria Riviera, no qual ela fazendo uso de escrita narrativa conta episódios de Elena uma emigrante dos Republica Dominicana aos Estados Unidos da América frequentando uma escola bilingue. No meu artigo faço uso de narrativa autobiográfica para contar a minha própria experiência com línguas e ensino. Sendo eu de Moçambique uma ex-colónia de Portugal, eu começo por narrar como a politica colonialista de assimilação numa única cultura portuguesa agiu como fonte de humilhação e de vergonha para muitos nativos e particularmente para mim, uma Moçambicana Chope (tambem escrito 'Copi', povos oriundos do Sul da provinia de Inhambane). Durante o tempo colonial, os alunos que não falavam a língua portuguesa eram considerados perdedores e de baixa classe intelectual. Os que falassem português, que era o meu caso podiam se comunicar razoavelmente bem com a professora, mas a minha luta não se tornava mais fácil por isso. O artigo faz referencia de como eu senti This review essay addresses issues raised in Maria Rivera's paper entitled: Language experience narratives and the role of autobiographical reasoning in becoming an urban science teacher.