Language Tensions Intro

Welcome to Language Tensions - Where the messiness of language meets a good conversation! In this introductory episode, Ian and Clara chat about what motivated the creation of Language Tensions by discussing the aims of the podcast conversations, what "language tensions" are for us and what they are not, what we expect listeners to gain from the podcast, and some of the unique features of the dialogic encounters.  

This podcast season was generously sponsored by the Spencer Foundation in partnership with the Adelphi Faculty Center of Professional Excellence.

Transcript

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SPEAKER_00 0:05

Language tensions where the messiness of language meets a good conversation. This podcast season was generously sponsored by the Spencer Foundation in partnership with the Adelphi Faculty Center for Professional Excellence. Welcome to the first episode of Language Tensions, where we are going to grapple with some language thoughts and messiness. And we are so excited that you will be joining us in these conversations. So, what are the aims of this podcast for us and what do we expect from it?

SPEAKER_01 0:44

Well, so we had this very generous funding from the Spencer Foundation to whom we thank. And we created this podcast series because we wanted to do something a little bit different that challenged the kind of quite normal way that academics produced outputs. Normally they write journal articles or books or whatever. But we wanted to do a podcast that did something a little bit different. And um for me, the aims of the podcast were really not to come up with any definitive answers about the types of questions that we were asking about language, but just to probe people's thinking, to maybe set people's thoughts off in different directions from ways that they might not have gone before, and to really unpick um what we meant by language tensions through a range of different topics and guests and histories and transnational contexts, etc.

SPEAKER_00 1:44

Yes, exactly. I feel that it's so hard to have a conversation that is outside of our bubbles. And this podcast allowed us to create a community, a dialog community around language and what language tensions might be in different contexts and the implications for education. I would also want to emphasize the um that for me the uh the asynchronous aspect of this podcast in the sense that I can connect with people outside of the time zones that uh might constrain our conversations or encounters is really important for us. And uh we really want to encourage dialogue across disciplines, across borders with these uh these the conversations that we have. And do we want to talk about what language tensions are for us and what they are not? The fact that we chose language tensions for the uh title of our podcast is really important because we think that it's a broad concept. We want it to be flexible and get people to think and reflect critically about language in a way that will include uh the knots and the challenges, but also the affordances of language, right? That uh we all have. So all of these complexities are captured in tensions, but we we don't want to define it as something that limits the uh the guests, but that opens possibilities for them to grapple with the language tensions that they encounter in their lives. I think that what they are not is a limited perspective.

SPEAKER_01 3:37

Uh totally. Yeah, I totally agree. Because, you know, like language is a really complex thing, and language is something that is so complex and so messy and so beautiful. It is something that just evades a single definition. Yet in a lot of educational contexts, people like to try and take a single, often quite narrow definition of language and apply that to that specific context. And that ends up having quite a big impact, often quite a negative impact, on things like pedagogy and practice and policy, etc. So the aim of the podcast was to bring together a group of amazing people from around the world to, like you say, like try and unnot um the complexity of language and try to like reject and critically engage with the idea of um language tensions, and just to try and emphasize the complexity of language and push back against some of those narrow definitions and understandings of language which are often get taken up in different contexts.

SPEAKER_00 4:49

I like that. And we think we expected the listeners will that's exactly what we expect the listeners to gain from it, right? To an expanded and nuanced uh understanding that language is messy and and there are many knots, but that's that's not um a barrier, but in fact it's what life is and being human is.

SPEAKER_01 5:15

Absolutely, yeah. I really like that. It was trying to not just reject narrow understandings of language, but trying to recast language in a way which reflects like the complexities of everyday life and tries to reflect the complexities and of complex sociolinguistic uh and political realities that we know exist in places like schools.

SPEAKER_00 5:40

For sure. And I wanted to uh give a big shout out to Ian, my partner in this project. We have worked together for four years, and you're a big part of why this is such a nice dialogic uh project, because I couldn't have wished for a better partner to talk with and grapple with things. And many times we were wondering what should we do? How can we build this community? And you were so open, your stance was so open to trying new things, and um, yeah, and you continue to be. So I think that's a big part of what this podcast is about. Uh, meeting wonderful people like you, like Warda, Farah, like JPB Gerald, that are also hosts for this podcast, and creating this community and the guests that we encountered, so they add to your perspectives, and they were so thoughtful and amazing. So I hope that the listeners will really benefit from these conversations that aren't finished.

SPEAKER_01 6:48

Uh thanks, Clara. And yeah, 100% I totally agree with what you say about our amazing collaborators, but also a big shout out to you. You know, you've got such a creative approach in a way that I just have not. Um, I think the podcast was originally something that was your idea and you led on this initiative, um, and you've got such an amazing, like, creative approach to pedagogy. Um, so I'm really excited to for people to hear the podcast and engage with it. And I know that some teachers that we've kind of tried it out with already have already listened to it and already given some really encouraging kind of messages about the content. So, yeah, we're excited for it to be out in the wider world.