ACTFL Research SIG 2022 Early Career Award Webinar

Gender-just language pedagogies: Unscripting normativities and centering possibilities, beyond the ethical impetus.

Cite as: Knisely, Kris Aric. (March, 2022). Gender-just language pedagogies: Unscripting normativities and centering possibilities, beyond the ethical impetus. American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages Research SIG. (Online).

Abstract: Language teaching and learning can be a site of expansive possibilities for identity (re)construction, despite the ways that gendered impossibilities and invisibilities have often been allowed to persist. In the context of scant attention to gender in the curriculum, textbooks, research, and pedagogy of language classrooms, this webinar offers trans-affirming queer inquiry-based pedagogies (TAQIBPs) as one path toward more critical, equitable, and gender-just language education. As a collection of pedagogical approaches, TAQIBPs respond to and continue past an ethical impetus for inclusion by offering a frame for teaching critical, contemporary literacy alongside the culturally-situated linguistic practices of trans and nonbinary language users. That is, as students learn to language differently, they develop new ways of thinking about, relating to, and engaging with language. In keeping, the relationship between TAQIBPs and the development of students' intersectional thinking and linguistic, intercultural, and symbolic competencies will be discussed, based on three years of classroom data. Open educational resources informed by this research will be provided.

Upcoming OER-focused webinar, free and open to the public: 11 May 2022 (4-5:30pm AZ, click here for other time zones). The Gender-Just Language Education Project: Benefits, Challenges, and Strategies for Engaging with Trans Knowledges. Click here for additional details.

Term Defintions:

Cisnormativity: The erroneous assumption that (almost) all people are cisgender, presenting such identification with the sex one was forcibly assigned at birth as the only valued, valid, or possible gender modality

Cisgender: A descriptor for individuals who identify with the gender (or sex) they were assumed to be at birth.

(Gender) Binary: A system that assumes two, distinct gender categories, which are assumed to align with binary categories of physical sex: male and female.

Gendered language attitudes: See language attitudes. Stereotypes and perceptions of language related to gender. The connections individuals make between the non-linguistic traits of masculinity or femininity and individual linguistic features or entire language varieties (Knisely, 2016, 2017; Knisely & Wind, 2015)

Genderqueer: A term used by some, but not all individuals who identify as gender nonbinary, which has queer politics and queer theory of the 1990s as its origin. May connote a central affiliation with the broader queer community and a politics of subversion (See Nonbinary). There are generational trends in its use or lack of use in the US. (Similar to être queer dans son genre in French.)

Grammatical Gender: The classification of objects into grammatical categories, masculine or feminine in French, including the ways in which agreement is reflected in noun-dependent parts of speech. (See Knisely, 2020 and Knisely, 2020)

Heteronormativity: The presentation of cisgender, White, monogamous, reproductive, able-bodied, straightness as natural, normal, and desirable.

Inclusive language: Linguistic forms that are not gender-specific, but which do not necessarily refer specifically to nonbinary individuals.

Intercultural competence: The ability and desire to communicate (or negotiate symbolic meaning) effectively, appropriately, and ethically with diverse individuals and groups whose cultures are other than one’s own. This deep engagement is based on one’s critical knowledge, skills and attitudes (both of themselves and of others), wherein culture is dynamic, heterogeneous, and multi-layered. (Knisely & McGregor, ICCC, Intercultural Competence: An Educator’s Verb, 2020)

Language attitudes: Culturally-bound and individualized stereotypes and perceptions of language, which may be applied to social groups, to individual linguistic features, or to entire language varieties. These positive or negative attitudes are typically drawn from stereotypes and perceptions of real or imagined speakers and the connections that all individuals readily make between linguistic traits and non-linguistic traits such as politeness and trustworthiness (see Tamasi & Antieau, 2014).

Nonbinary/ Non-binaire: A term used to describe individuals who neither identify as exclusively male nor exclusively female. The English term was introduced in the 21st century to call for the respect and for the dignity of trans people who do not identify as solely woman or man, as opposed to a politics of subversion (See Genderqueer) and may connote a primary affiliation with the trans community. May be considered an umbrella term under which genderqueer may be included, depending on the individual (Non-binaire is the French term for nonbinary and is the most frequently used identity term of its type.)

Non-binary language: Linguistic forms that are gender neutral and which are specifically used to refer to nonbinary individuals (related: gender neutral linguistic forms).

Symbolic competence: The ability to position oneself as a multilingual subject and to manipulate the three dimensions of language as a symbolic system: symbolic representation, symbolic action, symbolic power. This implies the ability to understand the cultural memories evoked by symbolic systems, to perform and create alternative realities, and to reframe and shape the multilingual game in which one invests (Kramsch, 2011; Kramsch & Whiteside, 2008).

Trans/Transgender: An umbrella term for people who flout cisnormative ways of thinking and being. (Discussed in Knisely, 2021 and in Knisely, forthcoming, 2023, Redoing Linguistic Worlds)

Transnormativity: The presentation of only certain trans embodiments as valid (i.e. The assumption that trans people should fit a cissexist idea of what is “normal”).

Resources:

Please see the publications page to view and request copies of my written work for your personal, private use. This includes the following readings, which I particularly recommend for anyone interested in continuing with the topics and themes of this talk.

Knisely, K. and Paiz, J.M. (2021) Bringing Trans, Non-binary, and Queer Understandings to Bear in Language Education. Critical Multilingualism Studies. 9. Available open-access at: https://cms.arizona.edu/index.php/multilingual/article/view/237

This piece provides an introduction to trans-affirming queer inquiry-based pedagogies and illustrates how they offer one possible path toward increasingly just and equitable sites of language teaching and learning.

Knisely, K. (2021). L/G/B and T: Queer Excisions, Entailments, and Intersections. In J. Paiz & J. Coda (Eds.) Intersectional Perspectives on LGBTQ+ Issues in Language Teaching and Learning. Palgrave Macmillan.

This piece explores the relationships that exist between gender and sexuality, particularly as they have and continue to play out in the field of applied linguistics and advocates for an intersectional approach to understanding the positionalities of language users, learners, and teachers.

Knisely, K. (2021). Teaching trans: The Impetus for trans, non-binary, and gender non-conforming inclusivity in L2 classrooms. In K. Davidson, S. Johnson, & L. Randolph (Eds.) How We Take Action: Social Justice in K-16 Language Classrooms. Information Age.

This chapter is perhaps my most general piece, offering an introduction to thinking about queer inquiry-based pedagogies and a series of reflection questions for educators to think about where they are beginning with their knowledge of trans people, lives, and concerns and where they are beginning with thinking about what that means for their specific language classroom.

Knisely, K. (2021). A Starter Kit for Rethinking TGNC Representation and Inclusion in French L2 Classrooms. In N. Meyer & E. Hoft-March (Eds.) Teaching Diversity and Inclusion: Examples from a French-Speaking Classroom. Routledge.

This chapter is a broad introduction to working with trans knowledges and language forms in the French language classroom.

Knisely, K. (2020). Le français non-binaire: linguistic forms used by non-binary speakers of French. Foreign Language Annals. 53(4), 850-876. doi: 10.1111/flan.12500

This article addresses the actual linguistic aspects of form creation, selection, and propagation of non-binary forms. It simultaneously considers the implications of these linguistic realities (including nascency, resistance, and plurality) for the teaching and learning of French and other languages with so-termed grammatically binary gender.

Knisely, K. (2020). Subverting the culturally unreadable: Understanding the self-positioning of non-binary speakers of French. The French Review. 94(2), 149-168.

This article considers how nonbinary speakers of French self-position in specific linguistic and cultural landscapes and what that might mean for how we think about and understand various nonbinary communities as (linguistic) co-cultures.

Please see the resources for educators page and the partners & colleagues page for numerous other resources, including but not limited to recommended publications, authors, and organizations as well as infographics such as the below: