Translanguaging outside the Academy: Negotiating Rhetoric and Healthcare in the Spanish Caribbean (Studies in Writing and Rhetoric) - Softcover

Rachel Bloom-Pojar (author)

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0814139922 ISBN 13: 9780814139929

Publisher: NCTE: National Council of Teachers of English, 2018

Synopsis

Moving outside of classroom-based and English-dominant contexts, Rachel Bloom-Pojar draws from an ethnographic study of a summer health program in the Dominican Republic to examine what exactly rhetorical translanguaging might look like, arguing for a rhetorical approach that accounts for stigma, race, and institutional constraints.

Within a context where the variety of Spanish spoken by the local community is stigmatized, Bloom-Pojar examines how raciolinguistic ideologies inform notions of stigma in this region of the Dominican Republic, and then demonstrates how participants and patients in this study "flip the script" to view "professional" or formal Spanish as language in need of translation, privileging patients' discourses of Spanish and health. This framework for the rhetoric of translanguaging:

• Complicates language ideologies to challenge linguistic inequality
• Cultivates translation spaces across modes, languages, and discourses
• Draws from collective resources through relationship building
• Critically reinvents discourse between institutions and communities

Ultimately, the study emphasizes how a focus on collective linguistic resources can enhance translanguaging practices between institutional and community contexts. The ILP offers both the freedom and the structure to guide students to success. Yes, letting go can be scary--but the results speak for themselves.

About this title

About the Author

Rachel Bloom-Pojar is an Associate Professor of Rhetoric and a Professional Writing & Community Engagement Plan Coordinator at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. Her research interests include community literacies, rhetorics of health, feminist ethnographic research, language access, and reproductive justice. She is currently working on a project with promotores de salud (health promoters) who work with reproductive and sexual health education in Wisconsin. During the 2020-2021 academic year, she was in residency at Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin to advance this research as a Mellon/ACLS Scholars and Society Fellow in their community education department with the promotores de salud program.

Edition details

• Publisher: NCTE: National Council of Teachers of English
• Publication date: 2018
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0814139922
• ISBN 13: 9780814139929
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 157