UNE’s 2018 Frank Archibald Memorial Lecture Series is titled “Sovereign Language Repatriation - Language Pedagogy through Song Composition”, and will be delivered by Dr Lou Bennett, Director, Binung Boorigan & McKenzie Postdoctoral Research Fellow, University of Melbourne at the Armidale Bowling Club at 6pm on Thursday, November 8.
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It is the 32nd lecture and will be attended by about 50 members of the Archibald family to hear Dr Bennett give an overview of her work in language retrieval, regeneration and reclamation over the past 25 years as a practicing artist and academic.
English falls short in many ways.
- Dr Lou Bennett
“The work that I’m doing at the moment is at the forefront of emerging Indigenous methodologies, it’s at the forefront of language activism, which is at the forefront of language being spoken back in the communities,” Dr Bennett said.
“It is something that is shared among all communities. We all need to communicate, we all need to speak, we also need to understand each other and conceptualise ideas that English can’t.
“I think if we all had an Aboriginal Language and English, if we were bilingual, if all of Australia were bilingual, we would all understand each other a bit better.”
Dr Bennett said getting Australia to look at multi-lingual platforms was her driving factor.
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Learning another language helps you think in another way.
- Dr Lou Bennett
“Where we can have really important discussions about who we are as a nation,’ Dr Bennett said.
“We are under the premise at the moment that we are a multi-cultural society - we’re not. We can’t be because we’re monolingual.
“When people come from far and wide they have to learn English. What happens when they learn English and one language? A cognitive thing in the brain happens, one language, one idea, one truth. This country has multiple truths, multiple ideologies and multiple understandings of who we are in the world.”