Alice Yeh Humanities
Re-Living Latin: Understanding the Interaction between Method, Material, and Meaning
Foreign language education in a study-abroad setting is taken for granted as a means of acquiring fluency and cultural competency. But for a language without a living space, as Latin arguably is, what is it like to be physically situated in a concrete, historical locale without a native community of speakers? Based in an immersion program in Rome, Alice’s research will focus on the relationship between techniques of instruction and students acquisition and transformation of Latin. She will investigate the boundary between a more immersive approach and the method of grammar-translation, the different functions of English and Latin metalanguage, or talk about talk, and the challenges of restoring Latin. Renewed in practice and radically reframed, Latin is a language still becoming, a language whose life beyond life must be understood.
