First year PhD student Eric Wirth presented work in progress as part of the Graduate Student Round Table event, mentored byDr. Jaspal Navell Singh. Entitled “We’re here! We’re queer, and we’re translanguaging!” His presentation sought to explore the further development of a paper, first written for the fall 2024 “Issues in Applied Linguistics” course led by Dr. Panagiota Gounari, into a piece of empirical qualitative research.
Regarding the work Eric explains, “My initial position paper argues that while there is limited academic research specifically on queer translanguaging, it is a valid phenomenon that can be observed in real-world situations, particularly within multilingual queer communities. In my paper I use examples from popular media, such as the international Drag Race franchises, and online discussions to illustrate how queer individuals fluidly navigate between languages to express their identities and connect with a global queer community. The paper advocates for further research into queer translanguaging, suggesting avenues such as analyzing media transcripts and studying online communities to better understand this complex linguistic practice. As I develop this research question, I want to explore the indexicality of queer translanguaging. I also think there is room to explore the influence of English as a common linguistic element in queer communities across different countries and languages and talk about whether English is a unifying or colonizing force. Also, with respect to English, when present as an additional language of multilingual queer speakers of a language with grammatical gender, is a non-gendered language such as English favored for perceptions of grammatical gender neutrality?”
Congratulations Eric!
Photo includes mentor and fellow graduate student presenters left to right: Mukib Khan, Oklahoma State University; Dr. Jaspal Navell Singh; Eric Wirth; Fan Cao, Tsinghua University; Jacob Algrim, University of Hawai’i at Mānoa (Jacob earned his master’s degree in applied Linguistics from UMass Boston in 2020).
