Unstandering
Publication Design
Senior Thesis Book
Unstandering is an exploration of multilingual conversations and our capacity to communicate authentically across languages. It traces the slippages and folds within English, embracing these shifts not as deviations but as lived, adaptable markers of identity. Through the lens of multilingual families, it highlights the generational gaps and fragmented dialogues that emerge across tongues, revealing how meaning often lives in the spaces between words. A collection of neologisms—some coined, some borrowed—alongside essays, interviews, and visual experiments, Unstandering maps the complex terrain of language as a site of power, resistance, and connection.
Part One | Reader Through 26 alphabetically arranged entries—each based on a neologism—the book examines how language intersects with power, class, and identity. Terms like "Anglo Mobility" highlight how English often enables social ascent, revealing the visible hierarchies within everyday speech.
The book invites active participation: its folded structure reveals and conceals content, echoing the fragmented nature of bilingual dialogue. Like conversation, it remains incomplete without a second person—unfolding meaning through interaction and the gaps in understanding.