The Writing Across the Curriculum Program would like to invite you to the first event of the Spring 2024 Workshop Series, “Navigating Linguistic Shores: Post-Monolingual Insights in L2 Instruction from Jhumpa Lahiri’s In Other Words” on Thursday, Mar. 14 at 2:30pm via Zoom. The presenter will be Filippo Fabricatore.
“To know a new language, to immerse oneself, one must leave the shore,” writes Jhumpa Lahiri at the beginning of In Other Words (2015), a bilingual text (with the Italian original on the verso pages and the English translation on the recto ones) where the author records anecdotes and reflections on her relationship with languages and the challenging process of learning Italian. One of the primary goals of this workshop is exactly to understand what the metaphorical “shore” represents, from which every language learner must depart. Identifying the native language as it would be overly simplistic. Lahiri, for instance, considers Italian a refuge—a personal space she has chosen, symbolizing the culmination of a triangle that encompasses Bengali, her family’s language spoken at home, and English, the language of school and education. As such, her experience aligns with the phenomenon of translanguaging, where individuals fluidly utilize their complete linguistic repertoire to communicate based on the context. Such an approach challenges conventional notions of the monolingual paradigm, according to which ‒ as Yildiz writes ‒ “there is one privileged language, the mother tongue,” which “offers a strong model of the exclusive link between language and identity” (Beyond the Mother Tongue: The Postmonolingual Condition, 2012).
Building upon these foundations, my presentation will demonstrate how Jhumpa Lahiri’s insights can be applied to the teaching of a second language. By exploring specific activities implemented in an advanced Italian language class that I taught in Fall 2021, the workshop will illustrate how using a bilingual text like In altre parole / In Other Words could be beneficial for both deepening the knowledge of lexicon and morphology of the language the students are learning, and fostering the awareness about their experience as speakers who unconsciously handle multiple languages. In a society where each language and variety should have an equal right to exist, this approach promotes an inclusive and post-monolingual attitude. Moreover, sharing Lahiri’s struggles and enthusiasm related to the learning process would encourage learners to metaphorically think about their own learning journey and take advantage of the role emotions play in their language acquisition.
This event is organized by the Writing Across the Curriculum (WAC) Program at CSI and co-sponsored by the Center for Teaching, Learning, and Professional Development.
If you have questions about this event, please contact Rosanne.Carlo@csi.cuny.edu or Alyson.Bardsley@csi.cuny.edu.
By the Center for Teaching, Learning, and Professional Development
