In their provocative article, Nelson Flores and Jonathan Rosa have captured how dominant notions of competence reinforce normative whiteness as universal and fail to account for processes of racialization in language learning. Building upon their goal of “shifting the locus of enunciation in ways that provide a glimpse into alternative worlds beyond colonial logics,” in this commmentary, we illustrate one such alternative in which language and languaging are anchored in Indigenous notions of relationality, the worldview that everything is interrelated, and by extension, interdependent. This view aligns with the deep connection that Indigenous communities make to their languages and the specific geographical, sociopolitical, and cultural contexts of their use. Relational frameworks thus counter the dispossession experienced by many Indigenous communities due to the colonial practice of separating languages from these contexts (see Davis, 2017, pp. 40–42). Similarly, by facilitating knowledge coproduction in ways that are locally specific and accountable, a relational approach serves to undo practices of teaching and assessing language learning in ways that uncritically adopt Eurocentric (“universal”) norms (McIvor, 2020; Mellow, 2000).

We enter this discussion as scholar–practitioners based at a public university in the lands of the Cahuilla, Tongva, Serrano, and Luiseño peoples. Melissa Venegas is a white settler, PhD student, and former K–12 Spanish instructor. Her current research involves critical approaches to language education that examine language hierarchies and validate US varieties of Spanish. Wesley Y. Leonard is a citizen of the Miami Tribe of Oklahoma and a linguist who serves as a Native American Studies faculty member. His experiences being told that his community's efforts to learn their “extinct” language from documentation would not succeed inspired his current work in language reclamation, a mode of language recovery that replaces colonial logics with Indigenous community needs, goals, and worldviews.

Clearly, in its narrow conceptualization, linguistic competence is theoretically lacking. Its assumptions about language ignore the social contexts that are fundamental to language learning and use, and its focus on an ideal speaker–hearer as the unit of analysis misaligns with how languaging actually occurs. In contrast, an analytic that considers language users and learners as networks of relations points to different metrics and units of analysis––language ecologies rather than languages-as-objects and diverse communities rather than an abstract prototype. Below, we explore examples of how language learning can be framed through an approach anchored in relationality and the ensuing notion of relational accountability, the responsibility of being accountable to relationships such as those between people and nonhuman relations, institutions, and lands. While this principle applies for all language communities, we draw special attention to those that have experienced severe ruptures to core relationships due to colonial dispossession and cultural genocide. In these contexts, exercising relational accountability entails active interventions to restore the relationships that have been disrupted or severed. The initial goal may not be “proficiency,” but rather to strengthen cultural ties or relationships with Elders (Lukaniec & Palakurthy, 2022, p. 344).

As Flores and Rosa have pointed out, narrow definitions of language, as well as dominant notions of linguistic competence, render racialized students as “deficient” in academic language because of their supposed reliance on home or community language patterns. In addition to erasing the legitimacy of current language users’ practices, we further note how these dominant frameworks have replicated colonial logics that inhibit language reclamation potential. For instance, Miami people at one point had shifted fully to English, thus becoming “incompetent” in relation to myaamiaataweenki (speaking Miami) with relationships anchored in language similarly damaged. Decolonial framings of “competence,” however, might instead reference a community's collective ability to use their language(s), including future use as a result of reclamation (Leonard, 2008). Relational accountability entails building capacity to realize this potential through appropriate interventions in language teaching, development, and assessment. This is exemplified in ANA ‘ŌLELO, a Hawaiian proficiency scale developed by and for Hawaiians to reflect community values and ways of being (Kahakalau, 2017). The tool was designed to not only measure linguistic proficiency but also to perpetuate the Native Hawaiian culture. For example, the scale considers the ability to perform protocol, an important aspect of Native Hawaiian culture.

Moreover, as Flores and Rosa have described, normative notions of competence elevate some people to a fully human status while diminishing the humanity of racialized Others. We observe that this conceptualization also advances colonial violence by erasing the nonhuman relatives that have central roles in many Indigenous cultures. However, appropriate interventions can counteract these erasures. For example, Engman and Hermes (2021) described an ecological approach to language learning that recognizes land as a relative. Young Ojibwe learners participated in forest walks near what is now Hayward, Wisconsin, and the Lac Courte Oreilles Ojibwe Reservation. The participants engaged in collective meaning-making involving discussions of naming items, with the land as an interlocutor. Requests for names of items in Ojibwe went beyond lexical labeling, instead serving as invitations to consider broader relationships, for example, How did it get here? Who put it in this configuration? What is our relationship to the object? As another example, Corntassel and Hardbarger (2019) described land-based pedagogies with Cherokee youth and Elders in the territory of the Cherokee Nation in Oklahoma. Participants took photographs of items meaningful to them that could exemplify Cherokee community sustainability and perpetuation of Cherokee lifeways (p. 96), which they then presented at a community symposium. Such an approach exemplifies relational accountability to the land, community, and intergenerational knowledge, and acknowledges learners’ experiences and expertise as vital to community well-being.

As Opaskwayak Cree scholar Shawn Wilson concluded in his foundational Research Is Ceremony: Indigenous Research Methods, knowledge production and sharing become accountable to Indigenous ways of being and knowing through a relational framework because “relationships do not merely shape reality, they are reality” (Wilson, 2008, p. 7). The activities described above demonstrate language learning as a process anchored in relationality. People are learning language, but rather than this being a decontextualized goal assessed through normative notions of linguistic competence, it represents an outcome of cultivating relationships that allow communities to thrive.

在他们挑衅性的文章中，纳尔逊弗洛雷斯和乔纳森罗莎捕捉到了占主导地位的能力概念如何强化规范性白人作为普遍性，并未能解释语言学习中的种族化过程。在本评论中，我们基于他们的目标，即“以一种能够让人们一瞥超越殖民逻辑的替代世界的方式改变表达的轨迹”的目标，展示了一种这样的替代方案，其中语言和语言以土著关系的概念为基础，一切都是相互关联的，进而相互依存的世界观。这种观点与土著社区与其语言及其使用的特定地理、社会政治和文化背景之间的深厚联系相一致。因此，关系框架抵消了许多土著社区由于将语言与这些背景分开的殖民做法而遭受的剥夺（见戴维斯，2017，第 40-42 页）。同样，通过以当地特定和负责任的方式促进知识共同生产，关系方法有助于取消以不加批判地采用欧洲中心（“普遍”）规范的方式进行教学和评估语言学习的实践（McIvor，2020；Mellow，2000）。

我们作为位于 Cahuilla、Tongva、Serrano 和 Luiseño 人民土地上的公立大学的学者-从业者进入这个讨论。Melissa Venegas 是一名白人定居者、博士生和前 K-12 西班牙语讲师。她目前的研究涉及语言教育的关键方法，这些方法检查语言层次结构并验证美国的西班牙语变体。Wesley Y. Leonard 是俄克拉荷马州迈阿密部落的公民，也是一名语言学家，担任美洲原住民研究教员。他的经历被告知，他的社区从文档中学习“灭绝”语言的努力不会成功，这激发了他目前在语言回收方面的工作，这是一种语言恢复模式，用土著社区的需求、目标和世界观取代殖民逻辑。

显然，在其狭隘的概念化中，语言能力在理论上是缺乏的。它关于语言的假设忽略了对语言学习和使用至关重要的社会背景，并且它对理想的说话者 - 听者的关注作为分析单位与语言实际发生的方式不一致。相比之下，将语言用户和学习者视为关系网络的分析指向不同的度量和分析单位——语言生态而不是语言作为对象和多样化的社区而不是抽象原型。下面，我们探讨了如何通过以关系为基础的方法和随之而来的关系责任概念来构建语言学习的示例，对人际关系负责的责任，例如人与人之间的关系、机构和土地之间的关系。虽然这一原则适用于所有语言社区，但我们特别关注那些因殖民剥夺和文化种族灭绝而导致核心关系严重破裂的人。在这些情况下，行使关系问责制需要积极干预以恢复被破坏或切断的关系。最初的目标可能不是“熟练”，而是加强与长者的文化联系或关系（Lukaniec & Palakurthy, 2022 , p. 344）。

正如弗洛雷斯和罗莎所指出的那样，狭隘的语言定义，以及语言能力的主导概念，使种族化学生在学术语言方面“缺乏”，因为他们被认为依赖家庭或社区语言模式。除了消除当前语言用户实践的合法性之外，我们进一步注意到这些主导框架如何复制抑制语言回收潜力的殖民逻辑。例如，迈阿密人曾一度完全改用英语，因此在与 myaamiaataweenki（说迈阿密）相关的方面变得“无能”，以语言为基础的关系也同样受损。然而，“能力”的非殖民主义框架可能会指代社区使用其语言的集体能力，包括未来因复垦而使用的能力（伦纳德，2008 年）。关系问责制需要通过对语言教学、发展和评估的适当干预来建设实现这一潜力的能力。这在 ANA 'ŌLELO 中得到了体现，这是一个由夏威夷人开发并为夏威夷人开发的夏威夷熟练程度量表，以反映社区价值观和存在方式（Kahakalau，2017 年）。该工具的设计不仅是为了衡量语言能力，也是为了延续夏威夷原住民文化。例如，该量表考虑了执行协议的能力，这是夏威夷原住民文化的一个重要方面。

此外，正如弗洛雷斯和罗莎所描述的，能力的规范性概念将一些人提升到完全人性的地位，同时削弱了种族化的其他人的人性。我们观察到，这种概念化还通过抹去在许多土著文化中发挥核心作用的非人类亲属来推进殖民暴力。然而，适当的干预可以抵消这些擦除。例如，Engman 和 Hermes ( 2021) 描述了一种将土地视为相对的语言学习的生态方法。年轻的 Ojibwe 学习者参加了现在威斯康星州海沃德和 Lac Courte Oreilles Ojibwe 保护区附近的森林漫步。参与者以土地为对话者，参与讨论命名项目的集体意义创造。Ojibwe 中对项目名称的请求超出了词汇标签的范围，而是作为邀请考虑更广泛的关系，例如，它是如何到达这里的？谁把它放在这个配置中的？我们与对象的关系是什么？另一个例子是 Corntassel 和 Hardbarger ( 2019) 描述了俄克拉荷马州切罗基民族领土上切罗基青年和长者的陆上教学法。参与者拍摄了对他们有意义的物品的照片，这些物品可以体现切诺基社区的可持续性和切诺基生活方式的延续（第 96 页），然后他们在社区研讨会上进行了展示。这种方法体现了对土地、社区和代际知识的相关责任，并承认学习者的经验和专业知识对社区福祉至关重要。

正如 Opaskwayak Cree 学者肖恩·威尔逊在他的基础研究是仪式中得出的结论：土著研究方法、知识生产和共享通过关系框架对土著的存在和认识方式负责，因为“关系不仅塑造现实，它们就是现实”（威尔逊，2008 年，第 7 页）。上述活动表明语言学习是一个以关系为基础的过程。人们正在学习语言，但这不是通过语言能力的规范概念评估的脱离语境的目标，它代表了培养使社区蓬勃发展的关系的结果。