Be Some Translation: A Poetic Experiment in Language, Identity, and Agency Among Refugee Youth

• In Event: 21.062 - MTCC Roundtable Session Six
  In Roundtable Session: 21.062-4 - New Methods: Discourse, Narrative, and the Politics of Evidence

Abstract

This poetic inquiry integrates Darvin and Norton’s (2016) current model of “investment” with poetic inquiry (Prendergast, 2009) to investigate four focal youth’s engagement in language learning. Using vox participare (Prendergast, 2009), I engage with the voices of participating youth in poetic form to represent their voices and investment for language learning based on the interview question, “Is learning English important?” Findings highlight participants’ desires to learn English to achieve future academic success and employment as well as their desire to be able to help other refugees. Rather than being objects of language learning, all four youth disrupt deficit-based “victim” narratives of refugee youth by envisioning agentive pathways to creating new language practices, identities, and possibilities for their lives.

Author

• Christina M. Ponzio, Michigan State University