The Case for Language Liberations

This is Part 1 of The Case for Language Liberation episode...

 

Language liberation is an essential tool in the effort to eliminate other oppressions (racism, classism, genocide, sexism, young people's oppression, and so on). This is because language has been used to hold in place the power and structure of the dominant groups and the privileges of their status quo.

 

María Rosa Brea-Spahn, Ph.D., CCC-SLP (ella, she, her/s), is a Clinical Associate Professor in the Department of Communicative Sciences and Disorders. Dr. Brea-Spahn joined NYU Steinhardt in Fall 2017 as the inaugural Director of the Bilingual Extension Track. She graduated with an Interdisciplinary Ph.D. in Cognitive Neural Sciences and a minor in Language Science from the University of South Florida’s Department of Psychology. Prior to and while obtaining her doctorate, she practiced as a bilingual, certified Speech-Language Therapist in school-based settings and was employed as a Clinical Instructor responsible for training and supervising graduate students with varying levels of expertise.

Dr. Brea-Spahn is a Dominican immigrant, bilingual communicator (user of Español and English), a critical teacher-scholar whose work has been centered at the intersection of multilingualism and disability. She teaches about and implements culturally responsive and sustaining pedagogical practices in her courses, as these are aligned with her overarching commitments to critical inquiry, reflexive praxis, and the redistribution of power in classroom spaces, in a way that remains representative of her students’ brilliant voices. Her classroom and community collaborations focus on researching the impact of standardized linguistic ideologies in speech-language practices, sustaining variability in languaging in the classroom, and co-envisioning a path for linguistic liberation.

Her dedication to student-centered teaching, social justice activism, and community engagement have received multiple accolades. In 2015, Dr. Brea-Spahn was selected for the University of South Florida's Provost Community Engaged Faculty Award. In 2020, she received the prestigious NYU Martin Luther King, Jr. Faculty Award. She is also the recipient of the 2021 American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (ASHA)'s Certificate of Recognition for Special Contributions in Multicultural Affairs. And in 2022, she received the NYU Steinhardt Teaching Excellence Award.