[Music]
Speaker 1:
Words are things I am convinced someday we’ll be able to measure the power of words.
I think words are things they get on the walls they get in your wallpaper they get in your rugs in your upholstery in your clothes and finally into you this quote is from the late Dr Maya Angelou who is one of my all-time favorite writers and poets and in many ways it speaks to and frames my research and intellectual work and commitment the quote also embodies the intelligence and determination of my awesome parents and extraordinary grandparents and great-grandparents who you know I watched throughout my life.
Fiercely grapple with resist and wrestle down words that sought to dismiss their personhood and humanity and demean their vision of my future in future generations they had a colossal amount of resilience and wisdom and they were my first teachers they taught me the value of words and that words undeniably do matter my scholarly journey when I you know when I think about it it really began.
When I was a high school english teacher and it was from the that classroom or my classroom and insights that i’ve had and experiences that I’ve had as an african-american young woman growing up in the rural south but I really began to ponder things in my classroom that i was seeing and hearing and how the day-to-day experiences of some of my students seem so different than others particularly especially black girls in students from what I call historically resilient communities their words and experiences you know I carry them with me and they are definitely part of my scholarly research DNA and you know just I guess you could say my intellectual makeup.
Sso to some you know it probably comes as no surprise that my research involves the study of language and words and it uses an approach called discourse analysis and i use that to study educational context and historically resilient communities particularly the experiences of black young women around silence as well as black youth when i think about this course analysis I guess to simplify it’s just a way to examine and look at people’s actions and interactions as they use language.
I study language to capture power i’m interested in power relations particularly how people use language and what they do with it and how we position each other with and through our languaging now while others may think of discourse analysis differently than I do you know I think about it as an exploration of seeing you know. I also use other areas like whiteness studies and the work of black feminists um to better understand and see more clearly the experiences of those who’ve been marginalized as well as those who’ve been historically privileged.
What black feminist in whiteness study does is it just it often helps me see and begin to unpack layers of systemic privilege or hardship that these historically resilient youth have navigated or suffered through seeing is definitely important and central I think to my intellectual work it’s a metaphor that I use a great deal in my recent work.
I think we often perceive each other through our language and you know I just find it quite intriguing and I think this course analysis is you know a useful approach to help us just see better and to see each other and honor our humanity and I think that is more important now than ever you know so I hope to continue collaborating and doing meaningful research with those involved in teaching and learning context particularly youth and teachers and community members those involved in in helping professions as well as you know industry i’m also very passionate about a new opportunity to serve as the director for the center of video ethnography and discourse analysis um also known as ceveda that’s housed in the department of teaching and learning.
I see the center as an opportunity collaborate and engage my work more broadly and to help people understand how discourse analysis it can be a way to help them see and better understand and address inequities and disparities I really hope that the center will have engagements and you know activities and resources for those who want to explore discourse analysis this summer for example um I hope to offer a class around languaging and equities during that college of education and human ecology’s summer institute which is you know for teachers and community members who just want to engage um and learn more and the class will use this course analysis in the autumn Savada will also kick off the table standing for discourse and we hope to engage students: graduate, undergraduate students, faculty.
You know our community we hope to engage in conversations with scholars from the field of discourse analysis and ultimately at some point i would you know like to offer a sort of renewable certificate for teachers um and community members who and those from helping professions as well you know really anyone who wants to think about studying language as a means to help address and begin to understand some of the systematic inequities and disparities that often plague our society as a whole in our institutions like racism.
I’m absolutely eager and thrilled to be able to engage and translate my work, my intellectual work in multiple directions with my students right here in the classrooms in the college of education and human ecology um the osu community the columbus community ohio um and you know nationally and global our global community so i’m excited and I’m convinced that our words do things you know Tony Morrison said we die that may be the meaning of life but we do language and that may be the measure of our life.