TED Talks Daily Who counts as a speaker of a language? | Anna Babel
Dec 16, 2020
In this engaging talk, Anna Babel, a Spanish professor at Ohio State University, dives into the complex ties between language and social identity. She challenges listeners to rethink who counts as a language speaker, using personal anecdotes and research. Babel highlights how ethnic backgrounds can skew perceptions of language proficiency and discusses the biases faced by bilingual children in education. With insights into the socio-economic factors affecting language assessment, she prompts a reevaluation of our assumptions about language skills.
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Hesitant Students
- Anna Babel's advanced Spanish students hesitated to call themselves Spanish speakers.
- Despite engaging with the language extensively in her class, they lacked self-identification as speakers.
Fluency vs. Identity
- Fluency doesn't equate to speaker identity.
- Other factors influence self-perception as a language speaker.
Languagelessness
- Children using Spanish at home and English elsewhere feel inadequate in both.
- This "languagelessness" arises from not feeling fully comfortable in either context.