6th Second-Language and Disabilities Conference

Join us for our sixth annual conference dedicated to fostering an inclusive and diverse environment in world language classrooms. This event is designed to support instructors in creating anti-oppressive curricula that celebrate students’ unique differences through exploring research and pedagogical strategies that promote understanding, representation, and support for students with disabilities. Come be part of meaningful dialogue that transforms language education!Day 1 - Friday, March 1, 2024. 4:30-6:30 PM (in-person event)Keynote speaker Professor Olivier Le Guen (CIESAS, México) will present "When a disability generates a new language. The Yucatec Maya Sign Language documentation project."Abstract: According to many Western institutions, deafness is considered a disability—a limitation regarding a standard of normality. However, not all cultures regard differences in the same way. Yucatec Mayas, for instance, consider that each individual is unique and created by God (according to their local Maya-Catholic syncretism), hence the idea of a “normal individual” does not exist. Consequently, from extreme diversity emerges tolerance. In many villages all around the Yucatec peninsula in Mexico, deaf people have been born and, in order to communicate with them, their kin and neighbors developed a visual language (an emerging sign language), the Yucatec Maya Sign Language (YMSL). Multimodal habits of Yucatec Mayas speakers as well as their way of life helped shape this new visual language. In contrast with national sign languages, hearing signers represent the great majority of signers, making the YMSL a language created by a majority for the benefit of a minority.In this presentation, Professor Olivier Le Guen will describe the Yucatec Maya Sign Language and present their effort, as a team made of researchers and local signers, to describe this new linguistic system born out of the will to communicate.Event Address: CAS Room 132, 8 St Mary's St, Boston UniversityDay 2 - Saturday, March 2, 2024. 9:00 AM- 3:30 PM (Conference. Online event)

Register by: 3/1/2024
When 4:30 pm on 3/1/2024 to 3:30 pm on 3/2/2024
Location First day in person: CAS, 725 Commonwealth Ave (Room 132); Second day over Zoom
Contact Name Maria Datel
Phone (161) 731-2414
Contact Email datel@bu.edu