Michel DeGraff | |
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![]() Michel DeGraff at MIT-Haiti Symposium in 2010 | |
Born | 1963 (age 61–62) |
Alma mater | City College of New York (BS) University of Pennsylvania (PhD) |
Scientific career | |
Fields | Linguistics |
Institutions | Massachusetts Institute of Technology |
Thesis | Creole grammars and acquisition of syntax: The case of Haitian |
Website | Official site |
Michel Anne Frederic DeGraff [1] (born 1963) is a Haitian creolist and a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). His scholarship focuses on Creole studies and the role of language and linguistics for decolonization and liberation. [2] He has advocated for the recognition of Haitian Creole as a full-fledged language. [2]
DeGraff was born in Haiti in 1963. [3] He grew up in a middle-class family and attended a school where the instruction was in French. He felt that French was a hindrance at school, as not speaking it well caused complexes of inferiority among otherwise bright children. [4] He believes that he spoke one and a half languages, with Haitian Creole being the "half", when in fact the language that all children spoke well by default was Creole. [4] He recalls that French, although imposed at home and at school, was never used for jokes or on the soccer field. [4]
DeGraff moved to New York in 1982 and enrolled in City College of New York, where he studied computer science. [5] He developed an interest in linguistics during an internship at Bell Labs in New Jersey in 1985, as a Summer Intern at AT&T Bell Laboratories' Linguistics and Artificial Intelligence department. [5] In 1992, he earned a PhD in computer science from the University of Pennsylvania, with a dissertation on the role of language acquisition in the formation of the syntax of Haitian Creole. [5] [6]
DeGraff is a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. [2] He previously served on the board of the Journal of Haitian Studies. [2] He is also a founding member of the Haitian Creole Academy. [7]
In the fall of 2012, he received a $1 million grant from the National Science Foundation to introduce online Creole language materials in the teaching of STEM in Haiti. [2] He believes that Haitian children should be taught in their native language at all levels of instruction, contrary to the tradition of teaching them in French. [4] DeGraff believes that instruction in French, a foreign language for most Haitian children, hinders their creativity and their ability to excel. [4]
In 2022, DeGraff was elected as a fellow of the Linguistic Society of America. [8]