On January 25th, Dr. Vijay Ramjattan joined us for our fifth event of the JHI 2023-24 Seminar on Multilingualism.
This hybrid event had a fantastic turnout both in-person and online! Dr. Ramjattan's talk stimulated much discussion afterward and left us with important matters to act on.
Thank you to UTM Catering for the yummy snacks!
 |
Dr. Vijay Ramjattan (PhD, OISE/University of Toronto) teaches in the International Foundation Program at the University of Toronto. His research focuses on the intersections of language, race, and work(place learning). In recent work, he explores raciolinguistic sensemaking by international students in Canada: in a world where they are subject to racist perceptions of their Englishes, they associate employability with “sounding Canadian". Beyond its scholarly contributions, Dr. Ramjattan’s research works toward changes to institutional policies and practices that disadvantage racially minoritized language workers. |
This presentation explored the idea that employability is both an auditory and racialized construct. Drawing on a study on how international students make sense of sounding employable for the Canadian labour market, it specifically detailed the ideological role of vocal accent in determining the racialized sound of employability. After presenting various examples from the study, the presentation concluded with a call for public pedagogies that challenge individual and institutional listening practices in the context of the workplace.