Speaker: Adeola Agoke
Time: 12:00 pm- 1:00 pm CST
Venue: 206 Ingraham Hall
This in-person event will be livestreamed (Click here to Zoom in)
Talk Description
To a greater extent, African languages have yet to be engaged meaningfully in facilitating global knowledge production. Instead, they are often described and perceived as underdeveloped and mostly lack a written tradition with only a few exceptions like the language Ge’ez I Ethiopia which is not spoken anymore. From the lens of African philosophical writing, very few works are documented in African languages or even engaged based on African cultural experiences. Developing knowledge systems that transcend geographical boundaries requires a shift in the perspective of education and modes of delivering the language as well as the culture. With a focus on Yoruba from southwestern Nigeria, this paper draws on technology as a tool to challenge the marginalization of African languages in expressing African experiences. I also address the important gap in the discourse about the role of African languages in narrating the African experience. I argue that technology constitutes a site for negotiating African presence, and all forms of identities that capture her essence, including linguistic, cultural, historical, political, and all forms of knowledge production.
Speaker’s Bio
Dr. Adeola Agoke is a Teaching Assistant Professor and the Director of the African Languages Program in the Department of African Cultural Studies at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. Her research interests include sociocultural/applied linguistics, language pedagogy, and the use and practices of language across contexts. Dr. Agoke is the author of the Proficiency-Based Dictionary of Yorùbá, an innovative language learning resource fortified with audio pronunciation of Yoruba vocabulary and visual representations of Yoruba conversations, organized by proficiency levels. Her publication has also appeared in the Modern Language Journal, Journal of African Languages Teachers Association, and JIMR Cancer. With a passion for bringing theoretical insights in applied linguistics to language pedagogy and other purviews of studies, Dr. Agoke, along with her colleague, received a $342,000 grant to research autonomous language learning. She has also contributed to health science research on developing GAMES that integrate African languages in interventions for chronic diseases among African immigrants and the Black population in the United States. At UW-Madison, Dr. Agoke teaches courses in applied linguistics and teaching methods, including the Multilanguage Seminar.
The event is free and open to the public.