Voices of Belonging: Video Archive of Heritage Language Narratives in Minnesota

Описание: Emma Reeder and Amanda Dalola

Multilingual Minnesota: The Heritage Language Project is an initiative focused on the creation of a searchable video database that documents the voices, languages, and cultural narratives of Minnesota’s heritage language communities. Inspired by projects like SpinTX and StoryCorps, the database features first-person narratives framed around ten culturally focused themes, recorded in the speakers’ own heritage languages. The project engages heritage learners as active contributors, deepening their connection to their own communities. As such, the recordings will be used to offer robust, authentic materials for heritage language learning in local courses on Vietnamese, Oromo, Somali, Amharic, and more. By preserving lived experiences and making them accessible to educators and researchers, Multilingual Minnesota strengthens ties between the University and Minnesota’s diverse linguistic heritage.

Presenters
Emma Reeder is a PhD student in Hispanic Linguistics in the Department of Spanish and Portuguese Studies at the University of Minnesota. She has an intersectional undergraduate background of Spanish, ethnic studies, and women’s studies. She has research interests in Spanish second language acquisition and phonology. She is currently involved in projects on the development of Spanish dialectal listening skills, and the perception and production of Spanish /bdg/ in second language learners.
Amanda Dalola is Director of the Language Center and Associate Professor of Linguistics at the University of Minnesota. Her research examines the production, perception, and digital media representations of sociophonetic variables and speech styles in French and Korean, as well as the pedagogical uses of social media in language learning. She is also deeply engaged in open educational practices: she co-authored #OnYGo, a multimodal OER for exploring multicultural French, and is currently developing Bánh Me, an OER targeting heritage learners of Vietnamese, as part of her commitment to accessible and inclusive language education.