Raising Awareness through Virtual Experiencing (RAVE)

The project approaches the challenge of finding ways to increase sociolinguistic awareness of issues related to language and stereotyping among teachers trainees and other professional programs (sociology and psychology, for example) at all levels, so that metalinguistic knowledge be translated into professional language usage. The methods are based on digital matched-guise techniques. For example, we can now manipulate identity attributes using digital media so that you can pretend to be of the opposite sex. With these methods we can give students personal experiences of how one's "identity " as perceived by others (gender, age, appearance, colour, etc.) affects how we are treated and judged, and also show how we ourselves are subconsciously affected by these structures in our judgement of others.