Tag: linguistic ethnography

Summer School: Linguistic Ethnography (Belgium)

Study AbroadSummer school module on Linguistic Ethnography, Methods in Language Sciences, Ghent University, Belgium, 15-19 July 2024. Deadline: 30 June 2024 or until all spaces filled.

Through (guest) lectures, group work and reading groups, the course dives deep into linguistic ethnography’s foundational principles. Step by step, instructors will discuss the different steps of the research process: from research design to data analysis and dissemination. The keynote lecture entitled “What does it mean to find patterns in language data?” will be given by Prof. Dr. Karin Tusting, from Lancaster University.

This course is aimed at students and researchers from a variety of backgrounds with a keen interest in discourse and (the processes of) communication. Previous linguistic-ethnographic experience is not necessarily required. Registrations will close by the end of June 2024.

Other Instructors: 

    • From Ghent University, Departments of Linguistics and of Translation, Interpreting and Communication: Prof. dr. Geert Jacobs, Prof. dr. Stef Slembrouck, Dr. Marie Jacobs, Dr. Ella van Hest, Alexander De Soete

    • From the University of Antwerp, Department of Linguistics: Anne-Sophie Bafort

Questions are very welcome, just contact Dr. Marie Jacobs.

Eurac Research: PhD Studentship in Applied Linguistics / Linguistic Ethnography (Italy)

“Studentships“
PhD Studentship in Applied Linguistics / Linguistic Ethnography, Institute for Applied Linguistics, Eurac Research, Bolzano, Italy. Deadline: 31 March 2024.

The Multilingualism and Plurilingualism research group at the Institute for Applied Linguistics at Eurac Research is looking for a PhD student in applied linguistics/linguistic ethnography, who will join the team of the research project EduLiM and conduct PhD research within the project. The ideal start date for the position would be June 1st 2024.

EduLiM stands for Educational Transitions in the Context of Linguistic Minoritization and is a project funded by the Autonomous Province of Bolzano/Bozen South Tyrol in the framework of the Programme “Research Südtirol/Alto Adige 2022” and carried out in partnership with a research team at the Faculty of Educational Sciences at the University of Innsbruck. The project takes a linguistic-ethnographic approach to examining the role of language in children’s transition from early childhood education (ECE) to primary school in German-language education in South Tyrol. It combines critical educational and sociolinguistic theories and is designed as a multi-sited ethnography conducted in first-year primary school classes and with children’s families. In this way, EduLiM aims to create new knowledge on (language) education policies and practices related to transitions, on collaboration across institutional boundaries and between families and institutions, and on different ways in which children are constructed as linguistically minoritized.

The selected candidate will develop their PhD project within EduLiM and contribute to the project activities in this manner.

Eurac Research: Postdoc in Applied Linguistics / Linguistic Ethnography (Italy)

PostdocsPostdoctoral Fellowship in Applied Linguistics/Linguistic Ethnography, Institute for Applied Linguistics, Eurac Research, Bolzano, Italy. Deadline: 31 March 2024.

The Multilingualism and Plurilingualism research group at the Institute for Applied Linguistics at Eurac Research is looking for a postdoctoral researcher in applied linguistics/linguistic ethnography, who will co-lead the research project EduLiM with the project partners at the University of Innsbruck and join the research team of the project M-Spaces. The ideal start date for the position would be June 1st 2024.

Both projects explore the role of multilingualism and language education in early childhood with a linguistic ethnographic approach. EduLiM, which stands for Educational Transitions in the Context of Linguistic Minoritization, is funded by the Autonomous Province of Bolzano/Bozen South Tyrol in the framework of the Programme “Research Südtirol/Alto Adige 2022”. The project examines the role of language in children’s transition from early childhood education (ECE) to primary school in German-language education in South Tyrol. The project combines critical educational and sociolinguistic theories and is designed as a multi-sited ethnography conducted in first-year primary school classes and with children’s families. In this way, EduLiM aims to create new knowledge on (language) education policies and practices related to transitions, on collaboration across institutional boundaries and between families and institutions, and on different ways in which children are constructed as linguistically minoritized. M-Spaces, which stands for Researching and Transforming Multilingual Spaces, explores multilingualism and language education in pedagogical professionalization for ECE. It involves students of a vocational secondary school for ECE in Carinthia and in-service ECE teachers in Carinthia and South Tyrol in generating insights on pedagogical professionalization for ECE in linguistically heterogeneous migration societies.

The selected candidate will co-lead EduLiM from the outset of the project and will mainly be responsible for the family ethnography. Within M-Spaces, the selected candidate will contribute to the analysis of data generated on ECE teachers’ experiences with multilingualism in their pedagogical practice and to the dissemination of findings.

CFP Linguistic Ethnography in a Changing World (UK)

ConferencesLinguistic Ethnography in a Changing World, Explorations in Ethnography, Language and Communication (EELC) conference, 20-21 September 2018, University of Edinburgh, UK. Deadline extended: 7 May 2018.

7th biennial conference of the Linguistic Ethnography Forum, hosted by the Moray House School of Education at the University of Edinburgh.

This year’s theme takes in Brexit, Trump and ‘this country’s had enough of experts’ to ask … what role should LE research play in this changing world? What are the questions it should seek to answer, and how can it make a distinctive contribution to the national debate?

Continue reading “CFP Linguistic Ethnography in a Changing World (UK)”

University College London Job Ad: Applied Linguistics

Research Assistant (2 years) – Ref:1640327 ESRC-funded Family Language Policy project – Somali community in London
UCL Institute of Education, University College London

Duties and Responsibilities:
You will be a member of the UCL Centre for Applied Linguistics, which is located in the UCL Institute of Education. The UCL Centre for Applied Linguistics is a centre of international excellence in research and teaching in bilingualism and multilingualism, second language acquisition and assessment, discourse analysis, sociolinguistics, language-in-education policy and practice, English language teaching and teacher development, corpus linguistics, and intercultural communication.

The successful applicant will be involved in conducting family-based linguistic ethnography within the Somali community in London with different types of families. The post-holder will be expected to manage the day-today project objectives, under the supervision of Professor Li Wei, and to work in collaboration with the other project team members based in Reading University and Birkbeck College, University of London.

The post is available and funded from 01 September 2017 until 31 August 2019.

Key Requirements:
Candidates should have postgraduate qualifications in applied linguistics, with extensive knowledge of the Somali community in the UK and extensive knowledge of linguistic ethnography. Good knowledge of standard statistical analysis and demonstrable skills in verbal and written communication are expected.

Closing Date: 7 May 2017, latest time for the submission of applications: 23:59
Interview date:  TBC

CFP Translanguaging and Repertoires across Signed and Spoken Languages (Germany)

“Translanguaging and repertoires across signed and spoken languages: Insights from linguistic ethnographies in (super)diverse contexts”
20-21 June 2016
Göttingen (Germany)
Deadline for abstracts: 31 December 2015

Admission is free but registration is necessary

Confirmed presentations:
Alastair Pennycook, University of Technology Sydney
Adrian Blackledge, University of Birmingham
Angela Creese, University of Birmingham
Ulrike Zeshan, University of Central Lancashire
Annelies Kusters, Max Planck Institute for the Study of Ethnic and Religious Diversity
Massimiliano Spotti, Tilburg University
Ruth Swanwick, University of Leeds

The aim of this symposium is to foreground contributions based on linguistic ethnographies which were undertaken in educational settings and public/private/parochial settings in which people engage in the practice of translanguaging. With translanguaging we mean the linguistic practices in which people with diverse and multilingual backgrounds engage in order to make themselves understood by others. When doing so, they do not make use of separated languages but use elements/lexicon/grammar of (what might be regarded as) two or more different languages, hence the term ‘translanguaging’. In the process of translanguaging, people typically make use of a variety of channels or modalities: they may speak, point, gesture, sign, write, in a variety of combinations – ie multimodality.

When translanguaging, people draw upon linguistic repertoires, a term which denotes that people learn and use to speak, sign, write, read (parts of) different languages throughout their lives. Linguistic repertoires are typically multimodal, for example gestures are inherent part of spoken language production and mouthings are inherent part of many signed languages. In addition to biographic linguistic repertoires, there are spatial repertoires, linked to specific locations such as markets and repertoires linked with a certain culture and/or religion. Importantly, translanguaging not only draws on but also transforms repertoire.

Current works into spoken languages translanguaging include Angela Creese and Adrian Blackledge’s ongoing AHRC project “Translation and Translanguaging: Investigating Linguistic and Cultural Transformations in Superdiverse Wards in Four UK Cities” (2014-2018). Alastair Pennycook is (with Emi Otsuji) the author of the recently published book “Metrolingualism: Language in the City”, which sheds light on the ordinariness of linguistic diversity as people go about their daily lives in the city and make use of diverse linguistic resources. Massimiliano Spotti’s research focuses on asylum seeking 2.0 where identity negotiation in spoken interaction is supplemented with online evidence that corroborates the discourse of suspicion used as standard by the authorities.

Current works into multilingualism/translanguaging in relation to signed languages and/or gesture include Ulrike Zeshan’s ongoing ERC (2011-2016) project “Multilingual Behaviours in Sign Language Users, focusing on “cross-signing”, “sign-speaking”, and “sign-switching”, breaking new ground with respect to a field of research that can be called “Sign Multilingualism Studies”. Ruth Swanwick’s British Academy project is titled “Deafness and bimodal bilingualism: A plurilingual language framework for education”. Annelies Kusters focuses on gestural interactions and multimodality between fluent deaf signers and hearing non-signers in customer interactions and public transport in Mumbai.

We invite/include contributions that are based on the study of translanguaging in practice: how do people make use of different languages and different modalities (signed/gestured, spoken, written) when drawing on different repertoires in order to make themselves understood? The fact that contributions about the full spectrum of human language use (including signed/gestured/spoken/written) are invited, exploring a common theme, is innovative because the study of signed and spoken languages sociolinguistics have developed rather separately from each other. The focus on language use in practice (in which gesture is an inherent element of spoken languages production and mouthed/spoken/written/fingerspelled language is used by people who use signed languages) will be instrumental in bridging these separate strands, which is a much needed development in order to understand human language production in general. The study of gesture has brought signed and spoken language researchers of theoretical linguistics together, but a parallel bridge has not yet been built in sociolinguistics and linguistic anthropology. Thus the symposium and the special issue will be cutting edge and highly competitive, as they extend concepts of translanguaging because of the unique ways in which signed and spoken languages are be used together. In short, the goal of the symposium is to create new knowledge, dialogue or transactions between studies of sign and spoken language diversity and plurality.

The languages of presentation will be International Sign and English, and English-IS interpretation will be organized.

Studentship-intercultural and health

The development of intercultural competence among medical students
King’s College London

First supervisor: Shuangyu Li
Second supervisor: Ben Rampton
Division: Medical Education
Type of programme: 4 years
Project code: MELiS

Project description: There is growing recognition of the need to develop intercultural competence among medical students, and this is reflected in the GMC’s Tomorrow’s Doctors 2009 and DoH’s the Race Equality Action 2004. But research suggests that intercultural training lacks coherence in UK medical schools, and the situation of international students is also a source of concern. Within this problem-space, this studentship addresses 3 questions at the interface of medical education and linguistic ethnography:

– what kinds of contribution to intercultural competence development derive from which settings, taking into account the full range of formal and informal contexts in which medical students participate?

– how far and in what ways are the intercultural learning needs of home and international students complementary or divergent?

– what are the implications for training?

Objectives for each year:
Year 1: a. review training frameworks and facilities available in UK medical schools; b. develop research skills c. design research tools year
Year 2: a. conduct ethnographic investigation with medical students at KCL
Year 3: a. analysis data; b. consider publications in journals and conferences
Year 4: write up and disseminate results.

The studentship will draw on training provided both by the Centre for Language Discourse & Communication and the College’s ESRC Doctoral Training Centre, and it will be affiliated to the DTC’s Education, Mind and Society Theme.