Event Date: 12th February 2022

Abstract:

In this presentation, Dr. Sender Dovchin focuses on the phenomenon of “linguistic racism” – the ideologies and practices that are utilised to conform, normalise and reformulate an unequal and uneven linguistic power between language users directed at culturally and linguistically diverse (CaLD) or Indigenous backgrounds around the globe.

Drawing on linguistic ethnographic study, she describes the importance of understanding what it means to speak as a racialised subject in the highly diverse societies of the twenty-first century, examining the manners in which one’s fundamental human rights are violated, and how one is deprived of both socio-economic and socio-cultural opportunities as a result of their use of language.

She acknowledges the multiple, complex layers of cause and effect that further entrenches linguistic racism into particular social, cultural, ethnic, national and educational contexts that (re)shape the minoritised speakers’ linguistic practices. She addresses the effects of critical approaches to current linguistic theories that break new ground by disclosing the reality that it is not always applicable to commend linguistic diversity without fully acknowledging ongoing, often profoundly entrenched, local constraints.

About the Speaker:

Dr. Sender Dovchin is a Senior Research Fellow at the School of Education, Curtin University and a Discovery Early Career Research Fellow of an Australian Research Council. She is also the Discipline Lead of Applied Linguistics and Languages Group of the School of Education, Curtin University.

Previously, she was an Associate Professor at the University of Aizu, Japan. She has also been awarded Young Scientist – KAKENHI – by the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science, the Government of Japan.

Dr. Dovchin is an Editor-in-Chief of the Australian Review of Applied Linguistics. Dr Dovchin was identified as “Top Researcher in the field of Language & Linguistics” under The Humanities, Arts & Literature of The Australian’s 2021 Research Magazine and Top 250 Researchers in Australia in 2021.

Her research pragmatically contributes to the second language education of young generation living in the peripheries, providing a pedagogical view to accommodate the multiple co-existences of linguistic diversity in a globalized world.

She has authored numerous articles in international peer-reviewed journals such as Applied Linguistics, Journal of Sociolinguistics, System, TESOL Quarterly, International Journal of Multilingualism, World Englishes, Asian Englishes, English Today, International Journal Bilingualism and Bilingual Education, International Journal of Multilingual Research, Journal of Multicultural Discourses, International Journal Bilingualism, Ethnicities, Multilingua, Linguistics and Education, and among others.

Dr. Dovchin has authored six books with international publishers such as Routledge, Springer, Palgrave Macmillan and Multilingual Matters.