Pt. 1. Researching trajectories, multilingual repertoires and identities -- pt. 2. Researching discourses, policies and practices on different scales -- pt. 3. Researching multilingual communication and multisemioticity online -- pt. 4. Multilingualism in research practice : voices, identities and researcher reflexivity -- pt. 5. Ethnographic monitoring and critical collaborative analysis for social change.
Researching Multilingualism expertly engages with a new sociolinguistics of multilingualism, taking account of this new communicative order and the particular cultural and social conditions of our times. Seventeen chapters are divided into four sections covering: researching discourses, policies and practices; contemporary mobilities; Researching multilingual communication on-line; Multilingualism in research practice. This state-of-the-art overview of research methodologies in multilingual settings will be of interest for all students and researchers working in the area of multilingualism within Linguistics, Applied Linguistics, Education and Communication Studies.
This book contributes to understanding research approaches for studying multilingualism in the context of contemporary superdiversity, in environments that are being dramatically transformed by transnational migration and movement of peoples. It explores language in urban contexts: the city as a site for experimentation and creativity in language practices. This involves considering theoretical frameworks in which to examine these practices, but above all, it focuses on how we do, or could do, research into these language practices and their users. What methodologies are we using to understand urban linguistic contexts? What do we want to learn? The chapters explore complex and challenging situations, capturing the evolution of new forms of language practice and changing attitudes to language in the city.
This book offers a unique understanding of how researchers’ linguistic resources, and the languages they use, are politically and structurally constrained, with implications for the reliability of the research. The book will help readers to make theoretically and methodologically informed choices about the political dimensions of their research.
Over the last twenty years, sociolinguistic research on multilingualism has been transformed. Two processes have been at work: first, an epistemological shift to a critical ethnographic approach, which has contributed to a larger turn toward post-structuralist perspectives on social life. Second, the effects of globalization—transnational population flows, new communication technologies, transformations in the political and economic landscape—have sparked increasing concern about the implications of these changes for our understanding of the relationship between language and society. A new sociolinguistics of multilingualism is being forged: one that takes account of the new communicative order, while retaining a central concern with the processes in the construction of social difference. The contributors to this volume have been at the forefront of these epistemological shifts. They write here about the conceptual and methodological challenges posed by these shifts, and the profound changes that we are witnessing in the late modern era.
By the co-author of Language Online, this book builds on the earlier work while focusing on multilingualism in the digital world. Drawing on a range of digital media – from email to chatrooms and social media such as Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube – Lee demonstrates how online multilingualism is closely linked to people's offline literacy practices and identities, and examines the ways in which people draw on multilingual resources in their internet participation. Bringing together central concepts in sociolinguistics and internet linguistics, the eight chapters cover key issues such as: language choice code-switching identities language ideologies minority languages online translation. Examples in the book are drawn from both all the major languages and many lesser-written ones such as Chinese dialects, Egyptian Arabic, Irish, and Welsh. A chapter on methodology provides practical information for students and researchers interested in researching online multilingualism from a mixed methods and practice-based approach. Multilingualism Online is key reading for all students and researchers in the area of multilingualism and new media, as well as those who want to know more about languages in the digital world.
This book focuses on ethical and methodological issues faced by researchers working with young language learners in formal school contexts. It uncovers and explicitly discusses a range of ethical dilemmas, challenges and experiences that researchers have encountered and grappled with, in studies of all kinds from large scale, experimental studies to ethnographic studies focused on just a handful of children. The chapters are written by researchers working with children in different classroom contexts around the world and highlight how ethical dilemmas and tensions take on a complex form in child-focused research, requiring researchers to pay particular attention to the social and cultural norms of the different communities within which children are educated as well as their school-based experiences. The book comprises three sections, with the first part focused on involving children as active participants in research; part two on ethical challenges in multilingual contexts and part three on links between teacher education and researching children. The book includes a critical discussion of the opportunities and challenges associated with applying the UNCRC (1989) document in second language research with children which will be of use to any researcher working in this area.
This volume offers an ontogenetic perspective on research on L3, multilingualism and multiple languages acquisition and a conceptually updated picture of multilingualism studies and third/multiple language acquisition studies. The contributions by prominent scholars of multilingualism present state-of-the-art accounts of the significant aspects in this field. This unique collection of articles adopts a broad-spectrum and synthesized view on the topic. The volume, largely theoretical and classificatory, features main theories, prominent researchers and important research trends. The articles also contain factual and historical material from previous and current decades of research and offer practical information on research resources. For lecturers, students, educators, researchers, and social workers operating in multilingual contexts, The Exploration of Multilingualism is manifestly relevant.
Multilingualism, multiculturalism, and internationalization in higher education is a contemporary reality worldwide. Because of the importance of multilingualism in learning policy, special professional and education training should be provided both to teachers and students. Multilingual education can promote linguistic and cultural diversity, inclusion, and social development. The Handbook of Research on Multilingual and Multicultural Perspectives on Higher Education and Implications for Teaching focuses on both top-down and bottom-up perspectives on multilingual and multicultural education based on conceptual and empirical studies. This book provides evidence in support of sustainable multilingualism and multiculturalism in higher education. Covering topics such as dialectic teaching, multilingual classrooms, and teacher education, this major reference work is an essential resource for pre-service teachers, educators of higher education, language policy experts, university administration, scholars, linguists, researchers, and academicians.
