Innovation in Language Learning

Discourse in critical language studies has explored how communication “transcends individual languages” (Canagarajah, 2013) and can be viewed as an assemblage of translingual practices, sociomaterial entanglements, and semiotic processes (Pennycook 2025). To consider this expansive definition of language, this paper examines affect and archival collections as part of the assemblage of communicative modalities. It integrates conversations in archival studies that encourage libraries and archivists to engage with questions of social justice and trauma-informed archival practice (Regehr et al., 2023; Sexton 2025). Cifor and Caswell (2016) call for a better understanding of the affective relations archivists have with the creators, subjects, users, and communities of archival materials. For community members, archival research can be accompanied by intense feelings related “to suddenly discover yourself existing” (Caswell et al, 2016) and how records and mainstream historical narratives are “haunted by their silences” (Tai et al., 2019). Within the context of a community-led archival research project on the refugee resettlement programs in the United States and a mid-twentieth century language program in Laos, adult children and their parents share memories and experiences while learning language and preserving culture through communal affective practice (Wetherell, 2012) prompted by archival materials. This example demonstrates how language, affect, and archives function within an assemblage and work to resist the symbolic annihilation (Caswell et al, 2016) caused by historical records and the social pressures to subordinate home languages (Lippi-Green, 1997). It shows how language learning can be embedded and maintained within communities.