Black Girl Multilinguals: A Linguistic Exploration of their Languagefulness

• In Event: AERA Roundtable Session Friday 1:45 pm - Gold 2
  In Roundtable Session: Identity, Culture and Sustaining Language

Abstract

This article offers a conceptualization of Black Girl Multilinguals and their demonstrations of languagefulness. Although seminal and transformational work around language theories and practices exist, there is a notable absence of Black girls in this discourse. While translanguaging and other linguistic scholarship has arguably pushed the field to new heights of language ideologies, this article adds to the work of those theories with an offering expansive enough to include the magic and nuances of Black girlhood. By offering a crítical lens through the embodied and linguistic practices of Black girls, the term languageful is introduced and explored. The findings suggest that the Black girl multilinguals are languageful, and this is demonstrated through their rich linguistic repertoire and flexibility.

Author

• Reka C. Barton, University of Maryland