“Three Ways to Speak English”
Jamila Lyiscott, 2014
Originally published as TED Talk
Hashtags
#multilingual, #education, #personal is political, #poetry, #protest, #trauma, #stereotype, #language discrimination, #grammar, #colonialism, #audio
Frame
JS & ET: We often kick off the semester with this poem and students respond enthusiastically to a message that is intent on disrupting the norms of academic spaces and how we regulate each other. In this poem, Lyiscott connects language to her own body and to the social contexts in which she moves. This recording is also a great way to introduce students to the idea of “performing” a language, raising questions about who we perform for and why.
This interactive video features several pause points with close-shot questions for discussion. They may be helpful to review before listening and can be found in the guide below.
Text Version
Close Shots: Since this text is a poem, we recommend listening to (or watching) the whole piece in its entirety before breaking it down.
| Time (mm:ss) | Questions |
| 1:20 | In this first part, Lyiscott performs her three Englishes by retelling three moments of exchange – listening closely you see that she meets one English with another version each time, as if to break the rules of exchange.
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| 2:50 | Lyiscott digs into the “rules” of language as she recounts correcting her professor, correcting her mother, and her internal process of finding language when at home, school, or with friends. In this part of the poem try to pull out lessons from these examples about the “rules” of language.
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| 3:45 | Lyiscott asserts: “How can you expect me to treat their imprint on your language as anything less than equal?” What does she mean here?
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| End | The latter part of the poem describes the history of Lyiscott’s three Englishes and the politics of identity and communication that come from this.
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Text Version
Wide Shots:
- What is grammar? How does it work?
- What does it mean to be articulate?
- When have you received a back-handed compliment? How would you describe what happened? What was exchanged? How did you know it had ulterior meaning?
Mid Shots
- See “The Point of Education” for an exploration of Lyiscott’s liberation literacies principles she developed as guidelines for teaching.
Possible Transitions
DU: Since performativity seems to be a central concept in Lyiscott, I could pair this with Pedro Pietri’s “Puerto Rican Obituary” to go over all of the different polyphonic registers that both authors use to deliver their performances.
ET: Given that Lyiscott talks about how she purposefully speaks, and she has a moment of “correcting” her mother’s grammar, I would pair this with Michel DeGraff’s “As a Child in Haiti, I Was Taught to Despise My Language and Myself” to discuss the purpose and motives behind how we teach language. Putting this alongside NPR’s “Saving a Language You’re Learning to Speak” and Gloria Anzaldúa’s “How to Tame a Wild Tongue” would add even more dimensions to this topic.
See:
“As a Child in Haiti, I Was Taught to Despise My Language and Myself”
“Gun Bubbles”
“How to Tame a Wild Tongue”
“Place Name: Oracabessa”
“Puerto Rican Obituary”
“Saving a Language You’re Learning to Speak”
“Three Ways to Speak English”
"To Speak is to Blunder"
“Vão/Vòng A Conversation with Katrina Dodson"
Against the Grain: Listening for Controversy (exploration)
Historical Contexts (exploration)
Parsing Themes (exploration)
Translations Across and Within Languages (exploration)
See:
“The Contract Says: We’d Like the Conversation to be Bilingual”
“How to Tame a Wild Tongue”
“Place Name: Oracabessa”
“Puerto Rican Obituary”
“Saving a Language You’re Learning to Speak”
“Skin Feeling”
“Three Ways to Speak English”
"To Speak is to Blunder"
“The Transformation of Silence into Language and Action”
Body as Metaphoric Space (exploration)
Emotion in Language (exploration)
Historical Contexts (exploration)
Juxtapositions of Silence (exploration)
Self Reflection, Collective Change (exploration)
Transculturation, Language and South-South Migration (exploration)
written or spoken form that typically uses metered language and structure to highlight sound and rhythm
See:
“The Contract Says: We’d Like the Conversation to be Bilingual”
“Place Name: Oracabessa”
“Puerto Rican Obituary”
“Three Ways to Speak English”
Insufficient Definitions (exploration)
Tracing Citations (exploration)
Translations Across and Within Languages (exploration)
See:
“As a Child in Haiti, I Was Taught to Despise My Language and Myself”
“The Contract Says: We’d Like the Conversation to be Bilingual”
“How to Tame a Wild Tongue”
“Place Name: Oracabessa”
“Puerto Rican Obituary”
“Three Ways to Speak English”
“The Transformation of Silence into Language and Action”
Dialogue Over Time: A New Boogaloo: “How Beautiful We Really Are” (exploration)
See:
“As a Child in Haiti, I Was Taught to Despise My Language and Myself”
"Connecting the Dots"
“Three Ways to Speak English”
“Place Name: Oracabessa”
Insufficient Definitions (exploration)
Dialogue Over Time: A New Boogaloo: “How Beautiful We Really Are” (exploration)
Historical Contexts (exploration)
recorded text delivered orally rather than in writing
See:
"Asters and Goldenrod"
“Grammar, Identity, and the Dark Side of the Subjunctive”
“Place Name: Oracabessa”
"Puerto Rican Obituary"
“Saving a Language You’re Learning to Speak”
“Three Ways to Speak English”
Dialogue Over Time: A New Boogaloo: “How Beautiful We Really Are” (exploration)
Historical Contexts (exploration)
Indigenous Perspectives of Western Science (exploration)
Music Trails (exploration)
Reading the “Fine Print” (exploration)
