B3 Linguistics
Spring 2025
Connecting the Classroom with the World: The Importance of Incorporating Education Abroad into the B3 Curriculum
It has become increasingly necessary for higher education to graduate global citizens. Incorporating education abroad into the curriculum is one of several ways to meet such a goal. This panel focuses on the value of international education and showcases some of the UTRGV summer 2025 faculty-led bilingual/Spanish study abroad opportunities. Dr. Caroline Miles, Director of Education Abroad for International Study Programs, will highlight why it is imperative to increase the number of UTRGV students going abroad and how education abroad should be designed to be part of students’ degree plans. Dr. Sarah Rowe, Dr. Guy Duke, Dr. Jair J. Aguilar, Dr. Pedro Hernandez, and Dr. Enedina Enriquez will showcase their study abroad programs to Ecuador, Spain and Puerto Rico, and specifically discuss how they will further the objectives of the Office for Bilingual Integration.
Dr. Caroline Miles received a BA from the University of Wales, Swansea, in the UK, and an MA and Ph.D. from the University of Southern Mississippi. She is a Professor of English in the Department of Literatures and Cultural Studies, and Director of Education Abroad under International Study Programs at The University of Texas Rio Grande Valley. She has published numerous articles and book chapters on the US and global South, the U.S.-Mexico border, and migrant journeys. She has co-hosted the multidisciplinary Annual International Conference on Border Studies with the Universidad Autónoma de Tamaulipas in Mexico for the past six years and is part of a team of faculty from UTRGV, Texas State University, and George Washington University that received a three-year National Science Foundation Grant, “Geographies of Migration and (in)security at the US-Mexico Border.”
Dr. Sarah Rowe is the Interim Chair of the Department of Anthropology and an archaeologist. Her main research focus is the archaeological cultures of the coast of Ecuador, where she has worked since 2002. She works to understand the past in collaboration with local communities. She co-directs the Proyecto Arqueológico de los Ríos Culebra-Colín on the lands of the comuna Dos Mangas, who she has collaborated with since 2006. The main focus of the project is the Buen Suceso site, a 6000-year-old village that was occupied for more than two thousand years. Each summer, students join her, community members, and researchers from the US and Ecuador to investigate the site and the people who lived there millennia ago.
Dr. Enedina Enriquez is a clinical associate professor with the UTRGV School of Social Work. She has been with the university for 14 years. She is an LCSW-S and Certified Grief Counseling Therapist who earned her BSW in December 1989 and her MSSW in May 2007 at the University of Texas Pan American in Edinburg, Texas. In 2011, she became a Licensed Clinical Social Worker and in 2018; she became a Texas State Board Approved Clinical Supervision. Dr. Enriquez received her doctorate in social work from the University of Southern California Suzanne Dworak-Peck School of Social Work in 2021. She has organized educational workshops, family grief workshops and expressive art therapy workshops for the community. She is fluent in English and Spanish.
Using textos fronterizos to challenge the social vs. academic language binary in bilingual teacher education
This talk explores the “social vs. academic” language binary that has shaped bilingual education and teaching, and influenced the ways in which the language practices of minoritized communities are positioned in schools. Additionally, it looks to how the linguistic landscape of the U.S.-Mexico borderlands can support bilingual teacher education to help teacher candidates shift towards a more holistic approach that embraces communities’ linguistic resources.
Dr. Christian E. Zúñiga is an Associate Professor of Bilingual & Literacy Studies at the University of Texas-Rio Grande Valley. Her research examines the language ideologies of bilingual communities in the U.S.-Mexico borderlands that shape how bilingualism and biliteracy are supported and developed in schools and homes. As a teacher educator, she also explores the ways in which bilingual teacher education can develop teacher candidates confidence in professionally, culturally and linguistically relevant ways. Her work has been published in journals such as the Bilingual Research Journal, Language & Education, and the Journal of Latinos & Education.
Frameworks of Servingness through the Teaching of Writing at our Hispanic-Serving Institution
In this session, we examine frameworks of servingness by centering the power of languages and writing instruction that draw on what Higher Education Studies scholar Gina Garcia describes as “a multidimensional and conceptual way to understand what it means to move from simply enrolling students to actually serving them.” The session will include time for a conversation on what servingness looks like and the role of writing and language instruction within the context of UTRGV’s Hispanic-Serving Institutional designation.
Dr. Caleb González is an Assistant Professor of Rhetoric, Composition, and Literacy Studies at UTRGV. He is a 2022 national recipient of the K. Patricia Cross Future Leaders Award in Higher Education from the American Association of Colleges and Universities (AAC&U). His research focuses on what it means for college writing programs at Hispanic-Serving Institutions (HSIs) and Emerging Hispanic-Serving Institutions to make meaning of their designation through transformative and liberatory practices of writing. His work is forthcoming in journals like Teaching English in the Two-Year College (TETYC), College English, Open Words: Access and English Studies, and other edited collections focused on supporting students through the teaching of writing across disciplines.
Breaking Barriers and Fostering Belonging through Biculturalism and Bilingualism
Join us for an inspiring panel discussion featuring two UTRGV faculty and TEDx McAllen speakers, Dr. J. Joy Esquierdo and Silvia Vera- Huesca, who are redefining the landscape of education and the arts. Together, Dr. Esquierdo and Silvia Vera- Huesca will share their insights and experiences, highlighting the importance of embracing cultural and linguistic diversity in both education and the arts. This panel promises to be a thought- provoking and empoweing session that underscores the value of fostering various experiences and environments.
Dr. J. Joy Esquierdo is the Vice Provost for Bilingual Integration at the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley, where she advocates for bilingualism, bioculturalism, and biliteracy from early childhood to post-secondary education and career.
Sylvia Vera- Huesca is a Mexican theater and film producer, actress, writer, mother, and lecturer in the Department of Writing and Language Studies. She focuses her work on Mexican- American border life and biocultural experiences.
From the Borderlands to the Nation: How PSJA's Dual Language Program Began a Transformation in Bilingual Education
Erika Rendón-Ramos is an Assistant Professor in the Mexican American Studies Program. Rendon-Ramos received her PhD from Rice University in History. Her scholarship interests include dual-language education, Mexican popular culture, immigration and identity, transnationalism and the U.S. – Southwest borderlands.
Servingness & B3 Courses at UTRGV
The Office for Bilingual Integration at UTRGV offers courses taught in Spanish or bilingually (in Spanish and English) across a variety of different disciplines. As of Spring 2024, any student who takes a total of five B3 courses is eligible to earn the B3 Scholar Seal which is noted as an official institutional honor on students’ academic transcripts. This example of dual language education in higher education presents an example of servingness in Hispanic Serving Institutions. That is, it is a way for HSIs to move beyond simply enrolling Hispanic students to serving them (García, Núñez, & Sansone, 2009; García, 2019). Furthermore, it also presents an example of transformative and liberatory frameworks of teaching (García, 2023).
In this presentation, we first present an overview of the dual language program at this South Texas HSI and the corresponding certificate program. Then, we contextualize the program within the HSI framework of servingness and transformative and liberatory frameworks of teaching. Next, three professors from different disciplines describe their approaches to teaching college level courses bilingually and with culturally sustaining pedagogy. One professor describes her experience teaching business bilingually in an online asynchronous class which includes a Collaborative Online International Learning partnership with two institutions of higher education in Columbia. Another pr ofessor describes teaching music in a class incorporating a virtual exchange with a university in Colombia and how the use of flexible bilingual pedagogy and culturally sustaining pedagogy complement the ethnomusicological framework of culture as subsets of habits shared by distinct individuals and communities. Finally, a professor describes her experience and approach to teaching first year writing bilingually as a method of combating deficit perspectives and as an estrategia de resistencia. Together, the incorporation of Spanish, bilingual instruction, and culturally sustaining pedagogy across disciplines presents an alternative to the standard, English-only and monolingual ideologies which dominate higher education in the U.S.
Bios:
Dr. Katherine Christoffersen is an Associate Professor of Applied Linguistics at the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley where she also serves as Director of B3 Scholarship & Student Connection for the Office for Bilingual Integration. She holds a PhD in Second Language Acquisition & Teaching and an MA in English Language & Linguistics from the University of Arizona. Her research examines bilingualism in the community and the classroom through the use of ethnographic, qualitative, and discourse analytic methodologies. Dr. Christoffersen's research has been published in venues such as the International Multilingual Research Journal, and she recently co-authored a chapter on the B3 Scholar Seal in an edited volume on the Seal of Biliteracy in Higher Education. Dr. Christoffersen is also the co-creator of an online database of sociolinguistic interviews which documents the language varieties of the Rio Grande Valley entitled the Corpus Bilingüe del Valle, for which she has received two federal grants from the National Endowment of the Humanities.
Dr. Caleb González is an Assistant Professor of Rhetoric, Composition, and Literacy Studies at UTRGV. He is a 2022 national recipient of the K. Patricia Cross Future Leaders Award in Higher Education from the American Association of Colleges and Universities (AAC&U). His research focuses on what it means for college writing programs at Hispanic-Serving Institutions (HSIs) and Emerging Hispanic-Serving Institutions to make meaning of their designation through transformative and liberatory practices of writing. His work is forthcoming in journals like Teaching English in the Two-Year College (TETYC), College English, Open Words: Access and English Studies, and other edited collections focused on supporting students through the teaching of writing across disciplines.
Dr. Azucena Herrera is a Clinical Assistant Professor of Management at The College of Business and Entrepreneurship, University of Texas Rio Grande Valley (UTRGV). She is an Ad-Hoc Reviewer for The Institute for Business and Finance Research. She has been a member of the International Journal of Management and Marketing Research (IJMMR) Editorial Board. She earned a master’s and Ph.D. in Business Management. Dr. Herrera was awarded the 2024 Faculty Excellence Award at the RCV College of Business and Entrepreneurship and the 2023 Excellence in Online Teaching Award at UTRGV. She is a Faculty of Management who collaborates with the Office of Bilingual Integration and contributes to the B3 Seal Program by designing and teaching management graduate and undergraduate courses in Spanish and bilingual. Her most recent research focuses on border studies, bilingualism, and diversity and inclusion.
Mrs. Yemin Sánchez is a Senior Lecturer with the Writing and Language Studies Department at the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley. She has a MA in English as a Second Language from the University of Texas Pan American and she is currently a graduate student pursuing an EdD in Curriculum and Instruction. Her research centers on Latinx students and best practices or pedagogies at Hispanic Serving Institutions (HSIs). She is currently working with the First Year Writing (FYW) program teaching both English and bilingual courses for undergraduate students. In 2021, her contributions to the book “Border Writers, Latinx Identities and Literacy Practices at Hispanic-Serving Institutions,” were recognized with the Advancement of Knowledge Award by the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE).
Fall 2024
A Bilingual Republic? Texas 1836-1846
My work examines to what degree Texas was a “bilingual republic” during its decade of independence. Today, the Texas school curriculum (TEKS) and textbooks, public history sites, and museum exhibits highlight the importance of Tejanos such as Juan Seguín and José Antonio Navarro in the Texas Revolution and Republic. However, the participation of Tejanos in the governance of Texas was highly contingent on linguistic inclusion and the place of Spanish in the Republic. Through examining legislative records, I trace the trajectory of language policy in Texas from 1836 to 1845. After a promising beginning as a “bilingual republic” with significant funding for translation and interpreting from 1836 through 1840, Texas cut this spending and largely marginalized Spanish from 1841 to 1845. I examine the impact the rise and fall of bilingual policies had on individual political careers and the larger standing of the Spanish-speaking community. My ongoing work also considers the careers of interpreters, who often faced questions of competence and loyalty as they mediated ethnic and linguistic divides.
Jamie Starling is an Associate Professor in the Department of History at the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley. A 2012 doctoral graduate of the University of Texas at El Paso, his dissertation and previous publications focused primarily on the role of Roman Catholic Clergy and missions, cross-cultural relations, and family life in the region. He offers graduate and undergraduate courses on United States, Texas, and Borderlands history, and is also the coordinator of the history department’s graduate studies programs.
Documenting the Language of the Rio Grande Valley in Sociolinguistics Classes: Community Engaged Scholarship & Culturally Sustaining Pedagogy
The marginalized as central: The impact of Hispanic vernaculars in advancing scholarship in Linguistics and beyond
While their speakers are all too often racialized and minoritized, investigations of marginalized speech forms have availed critical insights for scholarship in all subfields of Linguistics, to include structural linguistics, sociolinguistics, and the sociology of language. In this presentation, I survey my decades-long research programs to highlight studies on the phonological and morpho-syntactic variation attested in my native Hispanophone Caribbean variety, and on the borrowing, calquing, and code-switching attested in bilingual Spanish-English speech in the United States. These works have revealed robust patterns of linguistic continuity and variation, underscoring the importance of speakers’ socialization to broader understandings of language acquisition and mental representation, as well as of the dissemination, perception, and performance of particular phenomena in signaling social identities and incipient language change. The talk additionally offers directions for endeavors in general and Hispanic Linguistics and in allied disciplines such as Ethnic Studies and Speech Sciences & Technologies, and, equally importantly, it highlights efforts in teaching and mentoring that center marginalized varieties and their speakers towards diversifying the academy.
Embracing Diversity: Culturally Relevant Approaches to Mathematics Tasks
U.S. K-12 institutions continue to have a more culturally, linguistically, and racially diverse student population, with Hispanic and Asian students increasing in record numbers. As a result, K-12 teachers, including mathematics teachers, are expected more than ever to design, select, and implement mathematical tasks to address the needs of diverse students. Rich mathematical tasks that incorporate culturally relevant assets offer promise in meeting such demands. However, both preservice teachers (PSTs) and in-service teachers often lack sufficient opportunities to engage with and learn how to incorporate such instructional approaches. In response to this, our team of mathematics teacher educators and PSTs engaged in designing mathematical tasks that are rich and culturally relevant to Hispanic students living in the local area. We outline the process we followed to incorporate the authentic experiences of diverse students into mathematical tasks, providing insights into how educators can avoid overgeneralizations about specific cultural practices through critical and respectful discussions.
Dr. Luis M. Fernández aims to make a lasting impact on the education community at all levels. Growing up in the bilingual Rio Grande Valley (RGV) of Texas, his passion for improving mathematics education, particularly for Emergent Bilingual (EB) Latina/o/x students, drives his work. He focuses on developing instructional resources and professional development for educators to help EB students enhance both English acquisition and content learning. Additionally, he explores disparities in college students' math proficiency, including the need for developmental courses and equitable instruction methods, such as specifications grading in Calculus. His commitment centers on advancing educational equity, especially in mathematics.
Fantasmas, fronteras y milagros: Ghost Smuggling Corridos and the Undocumented Migrant Experience
Since the early 2000s, musical testimonios have been circulating social media platforms marked by themes of persecution, devotion, and survival centered on an apparition who migrants testify smuggles them safely across the U.S.-Mexico border. This phenomenon of corrido (ballad) composition, which I define as corridos de coyotes fantasma, narrates the near-death experiences of migrants and their miraculous encounters with the ghost of Saint Toribio Romo, adopted by migrants as el Santo Coyote and unofficial Patron Saint of Immigrants. Saint Toribio Romo was a young priest killed in Jalisco during La Cristiada, the 1926-1929 armed rebellion of Cristerosagainst the Mexican government. For migrants unable to return on pilgrimage to honor him at his shrine in Jalisco, corridos serve as musical votives that they share with devotees and future border-crossing survivors on YouTube, a space that defies geopolitical borders. Drawing on Derrida’s terminology and conceptualization of “hauntology,” as well as discourse on immigration politics in migrant religious expression, I analyze how these corridos transcend temporal and physical boundaries, marked by multiple layers of haunting. I explore how these corridos – a musical tradition most associated with Mexico’s revolutionary past – embody cultural memory of historical traumas of persecution, serving as haunting testimony of individuals forced to live invisibly as “ghosts” to avoid apprehension and survive.
Dr. Teresita D. Lozano is an Assistant Professor of Musicology and Ethnomusicology at the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley. A native of the El Paso, Texas – Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua borderland, Dr. Lozano engages in research that explores the relationship between music, migration, religion, cultural memory, and identity. Her current monograph project centers on corridos de coyotes fantasma (“ghost smuggling ballads”) and their significance as musical manifestations of the undocumented migrant experience in the U.S.-Mexico transborder region. A passionate advocate for musical and community activism, she has served as a performer and Borderland music specialist for projects in public education and immigrant rights movements, including Motus Theater’s UndocuAmerica and UndocuMonologues. Prior to her position at UTRGV, she served as a Post-Doctoral Fellow in Ethnomusicology at West Virginia University. She was previously awarded the prestigious Charlotte Newcombe Doctoral Dissertation Fellowship for research centered on religion and ethics. She is also an alumna of the Smithsonian Institution’s Latino Museum Studies Program where she worked in residence as a graduate fellow for the Smithsonian Latino Center. Dr. Lozano holds a BME with an emphasis in flutefrom Baylor University and a Ph.D. in Ethnomusicology (Musicology) from the University of Colorado Boulder.
Spring 2024
Teaching Philosophy Classes in Spanish or Bilingually at UTRGV
Roughly 90% of UTRGV students are Hispanic or Latino/a/x and the majority are bilingual. As professional philosophers, we believe that teaching UTRGV students should involve engaging them as the bilingual and bicultural students they are while helping them develop philosophical biliteracy. Our panelists are from different linguistic and cultural backgrounds (native speaker, heritage speaker, L2 speaker) but all of us are bilingual, bicultural, and biliterate faculty who recently won a grant from the American Philosophical Association (APA) to design and teach philosophy courses in Spanish or Bilingually. Each of us has moved toward strong forms of bilingual education, from “a classroom where bilingual [students] are present but bilingualism is not promoted” to “a classroom where formal instruction fosters bilingualism” (Baker and Wright 2021). Moreover, we are developing these courses in ways that are linguistically and culturally sustaining for our local Mexican American community. Our panelists will discuss why and how we are doing this, the impact these classes have had on both us and our students, and the implications for disciplines like Philosophy and Linguistics.
Dr. Alex Stehn is Professor of Philosophy and Interim Director of the Center for Bilingual Studies at UTRGV. His most recent publication on B3 teaching is “Philosophizing in Tongues: Cultivating Bilingualism, Biculturalism, and Biliteracy in an Introduction to Latin American Philosophy Course” (2022).
Dr. Cynthia Paccacerqua is Associate Professor of Philosophy. A Baltimore native who spent her formative years in Rosario Argentina, she earned her MA in Latin American Studies at Stanford and PhD in Philosophy from SUNY Stony Brook. Dr. Paccacerqua specializes in social, political, and cultural philosophy within the traditions of Western, Latina-o, feminist, and Latin American/Decolonial Philosophy. She has published original work and translations in both the English and Spanish languages and is currently teaching a graduate bilingual course on Gloria Anzaldúa's work.
Dr. Danny Marrero’s academic and professional trajectory has been inspired by the fascinating issues that arise at the intersection between Law and Philosophy. As a native from Colombia, his first language is Spanish, but he has taught both English and Spanish in a variety of universities across both North and South America. At UTRGV, his teaching and research include culturally relevant issues such as feminicidio as well as classes in Spanish such as Pensamiento Crítico.
Dr. Christopher Gomez has been a lecturer at UTRGV for the past 6 years where he has taught, in Spanish and bilingually Introducción a la Filosofía, and Filosofía LatinoAmericana. He has published in Spanish on Mexican philosophy, and his current research draws from Gloria Anzaldua’s work.
Dr. Dahlia Guzman is a Lecturer in Philosophy. As a native of Rio Grande Valley, she is proud of the unique heritage of this area and enjoys living and teaching in a place that straddles two cultures, two languages, and two ways of understanding the world.
- Title: Assessing Bilingual and Spanish Language Courses at UTRGV
Abstract: This study assesses student success and student perspectives in bilingual and Spanish language courses taught at UTRGV. The study incorporates quantitative analyses of GPA and course evaluations as well as qualitative analyses of student surveys. Findings show higher GPAs and course evaluations in bilingual/Spanish courses. Most current students are extremely satisfied with these courses, would take more courses, would recommend these courses to other students, and think the university should offer more bilingual/Spanish courses. Students also experience strengthened language skills, connection to family, community, and culture, a sense of belonging and affective factors, heightened cultural competency, impact on future career and serving Spanish speaking populations, and pride in bilingualism.
Title: Linguistic Inclusivity in Teaching and Learning across Disciplines: Exploring Linguistic Ideologies and Identities through Student-Faculty Partnerships
Abstract: Institutions of higher education and the education system in general often privilege Standard American English as the language of communication and instruction. We inadvertently stifle multilingual students’ learning, meaning-making, and communicative potential, and we stifle our own abilities to use our linguistic abilities as we learn with our students. We will explore how implicit linguistic bias prevails in educational spaces and how we can challenge them. We can all work collectively to build more just spaces across disciplines, professions, and communities by 1. reflecting on and identifying our own linguistic bias and how we may be contributing to English-only ideologies in education and 2. identifying a concrete action we can take today to center sense of belonging in teaching and learning spaces for all students’ linguistically diverse background, knowledge, and communicative practices.
Ryan McBride is a graduate student pursuing a Master of Arts in English with a concentration in Linguistics. He received his Bachelor of Arts in English with a concentration in Linguistics from UTRGV in Spring 2023. Since Fall 2021, he has been a student partner in the Students as Learners and Teachers at a Hispanic Serving Institution (SaLT HSI) program. As a student partner, Ryan has collaborated with faculty members on revising teaching documents and reconsidering pedagogical practices to improve students’ self-efficacy, sense of belonging, and engagement in their courses. As of Fall 2023, Ryan McBride is now serving as a Graduate Research Assistant and Student Partner Leader for SaLT HSI. His academic interests include translingual writing in classrooms, queer linguistics, improving students’ learning experiences in higher education through culturally sustaining practices, and indigenous language revitalization. He aspires to become a professor upon receiving his graduate degree and is committed to fostering culturally sustainable practices in his future classrooms.
Alyssa G. Cavazos is an Associate Professor in the Department of Writing and Language Studies where she teaches undergraduate and graduate coursework in writing studies. Her teaching and research interests center on language difference in the teaching of writing, translingual writing across communities, students' learning experiences and professional development in higher education. She also serves as the Director for the Center for Teaching Excellence, overseeing many professional development activities and partnerships. She also co-leads and directs the Students as Learners and Teachers at a Hispanic Serving Institution (SaLT HSI) program where students and faculty members collaborate to create meaningful and engaging teaching and learning experiences centered on student voices and success. Alyssa is also a fellow in the UT System Academy of Distinguished Teachers. She is committed to designing linguistically and culturally inclusive educational spaces, which can lead to students’ sense of belonging and academic success across academic disciplines in higher education and beyond.
Fall 2023
“Hablo pocha, ¿no?”: Countering hegemonic language ideologies in the classroom and the community
In the U.S.-Mexico borderlands, language ideologies of linguistic purism have resulted in derogatory labels for Mexican American language varieties including pocho and mocho. More recently there have been a few examples of ‘reclaiming’ these terms through semantic inversion. While these terms are frequently referenced in research on language in the U.S. Southwest, to date there has been no in-depth study of how these terms are used and understood by Spanish-English bilinguals along the U.S.-Mexico border. This study analyzes the use of the terms pocho and mocho in two sociolinguistic corpora in South Texas (Corpus Bilingüe del Valle, Bessett & Christoffersen, 2019-) and Southern Arizona (Corpus de Español en el Sur de Arizona, Carvalho, 2012-). The study reveals both historically perjorative monoglossic ideologies of pocho/mocho and more positive instances of heteroglossic ideologies of pocho/mocho. Monoglossic ideological stances position pocho/mocho as 1) not speaking a language well, 2) not correct or imperfect, 3) ugly, and 4) harming, damaging or ruining Spanish. For instance, Tania states, "They don't speak it. They assassinate it." On the other hand, heteroglossic ideological stances represent pocho/mocho as 5) a marker of solidarity and instrumental, 6) bilingual competence and ability, 7) identity and language pride, 8) meaningful, and 9) cultured, cool, and unique. In one excerpt, Eduardo states powerfully, "It's our pocho dialect y nos entendemos” ('…and we understand each other'). This discourse analysis demonstrates how language ideologies of pocho/mocho are enacted but also contested by bilinguals in the U.S.-Mexico borderlands, and by extension, how such ideologies reflect power asymmetries.
For the purpose of this talk at UTRGV’s Linguistic Seminar Series, I will further detail the CoBiVa corpus and its incorporation into various B3 courses with the ‘culturally sustaining pedagogy’ designation as well as the newly developed B3 Scholar Seal. I also describe findings from another study on student perspectives in working with the corpus in these community engaged scholarship classes. Finally, I discuss how this study, the corpus, and the classes contribute to a B3 linguistics at UTRGV, as this is the first talk in the new sub-series of ‘B3 Linguistics’ marking a collaboration between the Writing & Language Studies Department’s linguistics faculty and the B3 Institute.
Katherine Christoffersen is an Associate Professor of Applied Linguistics in the Department of Writing & Language Studies at UTRGV. She is also the Associate Director of the B3 Institute and an affiliate in the Mexican American Studies program. Dr. Christoffersen holds a PhD in Second Language Acquisition & Teaching from the University of Arizona and a masters in English Language/Linguistics from the University of Arizona. Her research interests include sociolinguistics, bilingualism, and language learning. She has experience teaching a variety of courses related to sociolinguistics, including topics such as border languages, sociolinguistics, language and culture, and discourse analysis.
Translating with AI: The Good, The Bad & The Ugly
Since artificial intelligence emerged on the global scene some months ago, the hype around ChatGPT has reached fever pitch. Some people see AI-based tools as promising game changers with the potential to revolutionize the way we teach, study and work. Others caution that their flaws may still outweigh their potential benefits. For us in the Translation Studies, this is not a new conversation.
In our field, we have been facing a similar situation since machine translation (e.g. Google Translate, DeepL and so on) was made available to the general public. Since the early 2000s, computers have been doing translation work that had traditionally been performed by humans and, in recent years, machine translation has reached unprecedented quality levels. But what exactly does this mean? How well do machines translate? Can we trust Google Translate or ChatGPT to translate for us? In this presentation I will tackle these questions. I will first explain what happens in the backstage when we ask our devices for a translation. Then, through several examples, I will discuss the main strengths and weaknesses of automated translation, its reliability and I will also address the elephant in the room: in a scenario in which machine translation, artificial intelligence and deep learning technologies evolve at a steady pace, is there a future for human translators and linguists?
Dr. Nazaret Fresno is an Associate Professor of Spanish Translation and Interpreting and the Associate Chair of the department of Writing & Language Studies at UTRGV. She holds an MA in Literary Translation, an MA in Audiovisual Translation and a PhD in Translation Studies. She teaches a variety of undergraduate and graduate courses including Translation Theory, Healthcare Translation and Interpreting, Audiovisual Translation, and Translation Technologies. Her research interests include website localization, audiovisual translation (translation for dubbing and subtitling) and media accessibility (especially, live closed captioning).