Multimodality and Multilingualism: Towards an Integrative Approach 9781800413399

Table of contents :
Contents
Figures and Tables
Contributors
Acknowledgements
Introduction: Origins, Scope and Rationale of the Book
Part 1: Multilingual Approaches
Introduction to Part 1: Appraising the ‘Multilingual Turn’ in Applied Linguistics and Sociolinguistics
1. Heritage Language Speakers’ Responses to Plurilingual Pedagogies in a Secondary School Context
2. The Development of the Linguistic Repertoire of Primary School Learners within the Mauritian Multilingual Educational System
3. ‘What’s in a Name?’ An Exploratory Study on International Students’ Names within International University Theatre Society Contexts
4. ‘So You Need to Be Able to Tell It Well’: On Footing and Genre in Lawyer– Client Consultations in the Field of Asylum Law
Part 2: Multimodal Approaches
Introduction to Part 2: Situating Multimodality in the Landscape of Language Research
5. Applying Linguistics to the Theatre Production Process
6. ‘A Special Closeness’, ‘des moments de tendresse indescriptibles’: A Multimodal Critique of Infant Feeding Health Promotional Discourse in Ireland and France
7. Expressing Reading Engagement within Drama-Based Literary Work: Perspectives from Three Students in a Linguistically Diverse Classroom in Sweden
8. Conversation through Art
Part 3: Integrating Multimodal and Multilingual Approaches
Introduction to Part 3: Multilingualism and Multimodality: A Comment
9. Meaning Matters: Multimodality, (New) Materialism and Co-production with Young People in Applied Linguistics
10. Peer to Peer Multiliteracies: A New Concept of Accessibility
Concluding Thoughts: Labouring Together towards Generous Cuts in Language and Literacy Education
Index

Citation preview

Multimodality and ­Multilingualism

Full details of all our other publications can be found on http://www. multilingual-matters.com, or by writing to Multilingual Matters, St Nicholas House, 31-34 High Street, Bristol, BS1 2AW, UK.

Multimodality and Multilingualism Towards an Integrative Approach

Edited by Steph Ainsworth, Dominic Griffiths, Gee Macrory and Kate Pahl

MULTILINGUAL MATTERS Bristol • Jackson

DOI https://doi.org/10.21832/AINSWO3382 Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data A catalog record for this book is available from the Library of Congress. Names: Ainsworth, Steph, editor. | Griffiths, Dominic, editor. | Macrory, Gee, editor. | Pahl, Kate, editor. Title: Multimodality and Multilingualism: Towards an Integrative Approach/ Edited by Steph Ainsworth, Dominic Griffiths, Gee Macrory and Kate Pahl. Description: Bristol; Jackson: Multilingual Matters, [2023] | Includes bibliographical references and index. | Summary: ‘This book explores the ways in which multimodality and multilingualism as areas of study intersect and provides empirical examples of how this looks in practice from a wide range of settings. It argues that the everyday practices of multilingual communities are multimodal in nature’ – Provided by publisher. Identifiers: LCCN 2022046189 (print) | LCCN 2022046190 (ebook) | ISBN 9781800413375 (paperback) | ISBN 9781800413382 (hardback) | ISBN 9781800413405 (epub) | ISBN 9781800413399 (pdf) Subjects: LCSH: Multilingualism – Social aspects. | Modality (Linguistics) | LCGFT: Essays. Classification: LCC P115.45 .M87 2023 (print) | LCC P115.45 (ebook) | DDC 306.44/6 – dc23/eng/20221129 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022046189 LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022046190 British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue entry for this book is available from the British Library. ISBN-13: 978-1-80041-338-2 (hbk) ISBN-13: 978-1-80041-337-5 (pbk) Multilingual Matters UK: St Nicholas House, 31-34 High Street, Bristol, BS1 2AW, UK. USA: Ingram, Jackson, TN, USA. Website: www.multilingual-matters.com Twitter: Multi_Ling_Mat Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/multilingualmatters Blog: www.channelviewpublications.wordpress.com Copyright © 2023 Steph Ainsworth, Dominic Griffiths, Gee Macrory, Kate Pahl and the authors of individual chapters. All rights reserved. No part of this work may be reproduced in any form or by any means without permission in writing from the publisher. The policy of Multilingual Matters/Channel View Publications is to use papers that are natural, renewable and recyclable products, made from wood grown in sustainable forests. In the manufacturing process of our books, and to further support our policy, preference is given to printers that have FSC and PEFC Chain of Custody certification. The FSC and/or PEFC logos will appear on those books where full certification has been granted to the printer concerned. Typeset by Riverside Publishing Solutions. Printed and bound in the UK by the CPI Books Group Ltd.

Contents

Figures and Tables

vii

Contributors

ix

Acknowledgements

xiii

Introduction: Origins, Scope and Rationale of the Book Steph Ainsworth, Dominic Griffiths, Gee Macrory and Kate Pahl

xv

Part 1: Multilingual Approaches Introduction to Part 1: Appraising the ‘Multilingual Turn’ in Applied Linguistics and Sociolinguistics Vally Lytra 1 Heritage Language Speakers’ Responses to Plurilingual Pedagogies in a Secondary School Context  Sophie Liggins 2 The Development of the Linguistic Repertoire of Primary School Learners within the Mauritian Multilingual Educational System  Yesha Devi Mahadeo-Doorgakant 3 ‘What’s in a Name?’ An Exploratory Study on International Students’ Names within International University Theatre Society Contexts Priyanki Ghosh 4 ‘So You Need to Be Able to Tell It Well’: On Footing and Genre in Lawyer–Client Consultations in the Field of Asylum Law Marie Jacobs

3

15

34

52

70

Part 2: Multimodal Approaches Introduction to Part 2: Situating Multimodality in the Landscape of Language Research Jennifer Rowsell v

91

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5 Applying Linguistics to the Theatre Production Process Kelli Zezulka

110

6 ‘A Special Closeness’, ‘des moments de tendresse indescriptibles’: A Multimodal Critique of Infant Feeding Health Promotional Discourse in Ireland and France  123 Ornaith Rodgers 7 Expressing Reading Engagement within Drama-Based Literary Work: Perspectives from Three Students in a Linguistically Diverse Classroom in Sweden Christina Hedman, Ewa Jacquet, Eva Nilsson and Katarina Rejman 8 Conversation through Art Jessica Bradley and Louise Atkinson

Part 3: Integrating Multimodal and Multilingual Approaches



Introduction to Part 3: Multilingualism and Multimodality: A Comment  Gabriele Budach

9 Meaning Matters: Multimodality, (New) Materialism and Co-production with Young People in Applied Linguistics Kate Pahl 10 Peer to Peer Multiliteracies: A New Concept of Accessibility  Ulrike Zeshan, Sibaji Panda, Uta Papen and Julia Gillen

Concluding Thoughts: Labouring Together towards Generous Cuts in Language and Literacy Education Khawla Badwan

Index

142

158

177

191 206

223 232

Figures and Tables

Figures

P1.1 Athan’s page marker  P1.2 Mattia’s multilingual and multimodal collage 

7 11

1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 1.6 1.7

Presentation prompts Sara’s HL book design Emenike’s HL book design Desi’s HL book design Abdul’s plurilingual poetry Lena’s plurilingual poetry notes Lena’s plurilingual poetry

20 25 27 28 29 29 30

2.1

Educational Centrifugal Linguistic Acculturation Framework  47

4.1

The pivotal position of the DVZ report in the beginning stage of the asylum procedure 84

P2.1 Shakesbook: Adaptation of Facebook 94 P2.2 Facebook Page for Bess Moss in Richard Wright’s Black Boy 95 P2.3 Suzanne’s Cindy Sherman photograph of Madness 104 6.1 6.2 6.3 6.4 6.5

HB, p. 33 HB, p. 35 MC 0–2, p. 36 MC 0–2, p. 43 MC 0–2, p. 50

8.1

Light, Language, Landscape (installation) Linda Persson with Wongatha women, Geraldine and Luxie Hogarth, with parts of the community of Leonora, Desert of Eastern Goldfields, Australia 167 My Dream is (?????) Muhamad Nakam, Chloé Chritharas Devienne, and the Greek Language and Multilingualism Laboratory168 Languages: Time Dream Avatars (installation) by Elina Karadzhova 169

8.2 8.3

132 132 133 133 134

vii

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9.1 Bird 9.2 Bead map 10.1 Emergence of the topic ‘Working with number literacy and sign language’ 10.2 Stairs and balls; Number train; Jumping; Mixed number circle 10.3 Science experiment with saplings 10.4 Multiliteracies used for fact-finding and documentation 10.5 Drawing created on the classroom wall 10.6 Reading a text about trees 10.7 Practising grammar in multimodal ways

194 195 210 211 215 216 217 217 218

Tables

1.1

Participants’ language profiles

19

2.1 Informal school talk  2.2 Songs 2.3 Informal talk 2.4 Reading  2.5 Speech acts

39 40 40 42 45

3.1 Profile of international and home student participants in Examples 1 and 2 

61

4.1 The transformative nature of entextualisation within the asylum procedure 4.2 The transformative nature of entextualisation in Consultation A 4.3 The transformative nature of the entextualisation in Consultation B 7.1 7.2 7.3

Nura’s expressions of participation Omar’s expressions of participation Mustafa’s expressions of participation

74 76 76 150 152 153

Contributors

Steph Ainsworth is a Senior Lecturer in Education at Manchester Metropolitan University and has research interests in phonological development, early reading and the teaching of grammar knowledge. She has a particular interest in the emotional aspects of language learning and education. She is Co-Director of the Literacy and Language Research Group at Manchester Metropolitan University. Louise Atkinson is a freelance visual artist, curator and researcher, with a PhD in Fine Art from the University of Leeds. She holds a visiting fellowship in the School of Fine Art, History of Art and Cultural Studies at the University of Leeds. Her work explores ideas of co-production and cross-cultural understanding in and through material culture, as a way of understanding how these contribute to notions of place. Through involving participants in her artistic and research practice, she considers how individual voices and experiences are represented in changing constructions of heritage. Khawla Badwan is Reader in TESOL and Applied Linguistics at Manchester Metropolitan University. Her research interests include language education, language and sustainability, social justice, mobility, identity, place and intercultural communication. Her most recent publication is Language in a Globalised World: Social Justice Perspectives on Mobility and Contact (Palgrave, 2021). She is editor (with Shoba Arun, Hadjer Taibi and Farwa Batool) of Global Migration and Diversity of Educational Experiences in the Global South and North: A Child-Centred Approach (Routledge, forthcoming). Jessica Bradley is Lecturer in Literacies in the School of Education at the University of Sheffield where she co-directs the BA Education, Culture and Childhood. She is interested in arts-based approaches to language research. Her research has explored linguistic landscapes through creative and participatory research methods while her doctoral research focused on translanguaging practices in street arts production and performance. She co-edited Translanguaging as Transformation: ix

x  Multimodality and Multilingualism

The Collaborative Construction of New Linguistic Realities (Multilingual Matters, 2020).  Priyanki Ghosh completed a PhD in Linguistics from the University of Surrey in November 2021. Her study investigated international student belonging through extracurricular participation within peripheral university theatre societies in the UK. She is passionate about promoting inclusion and belonging for minority students and is currently teaching on the subjects of globalisation and global citizenship. Julia Gillen is Professor of Literacy Studies in the Department of Linguistics and English Language at Lancaster University and former Director of the Lancaster Literacy Research Centre. She researches literacy in school and home contexts. She is a co-investigator in two ESRC projects funded 2022–2024: ‘Research Mobilities in Primary Literacy Education’ and ‘0–3-Year-Old Children’s Language and Literacy Learning at Home in a Digital Age’. Professor Gillen is a co-editor of the Journal of Early Childhood Literacy. Dominic Griffiths is a former Senior Lecturer in Inclusive Education and Special Educational Needs and is currently a Visiting Research Fellow in the Faculty of Health and Education at Manchester Metropolitan University. He has more than 30 years of teaching experience in primary, secondary and special schools and has worked as a local authority advisor. His research interests are focused upon the professional development of teachers to meet the needs of the diversity of students in mainstream schools. He is also interested in the discourses framing inclusive and special education, in particular, those around ‘special educational needs’ categories and the ‘neurodiversity’ paradigm. Christina Hedman is Professor in Swedish as a Second Language at the Department of Teaching and Learning at Stockholm University. Her recent research has focused on language and literacy practices among multilingual students from education and policy perspectives. Marie Jacobs is with the Department of Translation, Interpreting and Communication at Ghent University, where she is a post-­doctoral researcher in the field of sociolinguistics and a member of the MULTIPLES Research Centre for Multilingual Practices and Language Learning in Society. Using a linguistic ethnographic approach, she studies the role of language in legal assistance by analysing the interactional management of linguistically diverse lawyer–client consultations in the field of asylum law. 

Contributors xi

Ewa Jacquet is a Senior Lecturer in Swedish in Education at the Department of Teaching and Learning at Stockholm University. She is a former secondary school teacher and has long experience in teacher education, particularly within the field of literacy and drama. Sophie Liggins completed her PhD at Essex in 2022. She has worked for many years as a Spanish teacher and more recently as an EAL Coordinator. Her research looks at how education practices can respond to linguistically diverse secondary school cohorts with a focus on maximising opportunities to harness plurilingual repertoires. Vally Lytra is Reader in Languages in Education and PGR Convener at the Department of Educational Studies, Goldsmiths, University of London. She researches multilingualism in homes, schools and communities that have experienced diverse migration flows. She is editor (with Cristina Ros i Solé, Jim Anderson and Vicky Macleroy) of Liberating Language Education (Multilingual Matters, 2022). Gee Macrory is a former Principal Lecturer in Education and currently a Visiting Research Fellow in the Faculty of Health and Education at Manchester Metropolitan University. Her research interests include multilingualism, language development and teacher education. She has recently published Learning to Talk: The Many Contexts of Children’s Language Development (Sage, 2021). Yesha Devi Mahadeo-Doorgakant has been a Lecturer in the Department of English at Mauritius Institute of Education for 12 years. She is responsible not only for training future educators enrolled on courses offered by the MIE but is also engaged in curriculum development at primary as well as secondary level. Her research interests include multilingualism, translanguaging and multilingual pedagogies used within multilingual educational systems. Eva Nilson is a Lecturer in Swedish in Education at the Department of Teaching and Learning at Stockholm University. She is a former upper secondary school teacher. Her research has focused on reading and writing as an identity-making project in school. Kate Pahl is Professor of Arts and Literacy at Manchester Metropolitan University. She is the author, with Jennifer Rowsell, of Living Literacies: Literacy for Social Change (MIT Press, 2020). Her work spans literacy and language in communities, co-production and children’s engagement with treescapes. Sibaji Panda is one of the leading researchers and deaf educators in India, with more than two decades of experience in research and

xii  Multimodality and Multilingualism

development both in the UK and India. His current focus is on deaf education reform and alternative educational approaches. Uta Papen is Professor of Literacy Studies in the Department of Linguistics and English Language at Lancaster University and Co-Director of the Lancaster Literacy Research Centre. She has researched widely on the teaching of reading and writing in primary schools, critically examining policies, their research base and how they are implemented in schools. Professor Papen is particularly interested in using ethnography to develop literacy and language learning curricula and lessons based on authentic literacy practices, an approach that together with colleagues she has tried and adapted in work with deaf learners in India, Uganda and Ghana. Katarina Rejman is a Senior Lecturer in Swedish in Education at the Department of Teaching and Learning at Stockholm University. She is a former secondary high school teacher. Her research interest mainly focuses on literature in education. Ornaith Rodgers is a Lecturer in the French Department at the University of Galway. Her research interests are in applied linguistics, in gender and language and discourse analysis. She is particularly interested in constructions of motherhood and identity in health promotional discourse. Jennifer Rowsell is Professor of Digital Literacy at University of Sheffield’s School of Education. Her scholarship explores ways to expand literacy to match the kinds of skills and practices that children, teenagers and adults use and understand today. Her research interests include multimodal, makerspace and arts-based research with young people; digital literacies research; and more recent work in posthumanist and affect approaches to literacy teaching and learning, as well as research on the digital divide.​ Ulrike Zeshan is Professor of Sign Language Linguistics at the University of Central Lancashire and Co-Director of the International Institute for Sign Languages and Deaf Studies (iSLanDS). Her team has pioneered research in the comparative study of sign languages worldwide, and in the multilingualism of deaf sign language users. Professor Zeshan is a member of the European Academy of Sciences (Academia Europaea). Kelli Zezulka is a Lecturer in Technical Theatre at the University of Salford. Her research interests include the working practices of offstage and backstage theatre workers, about which she has written in both books and journals. She is a non-executive director of the Association for Lighting Production and Design and editor of its bi-monthly journal, Focus.

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank all the authors, who have so generously devoted their time to contributing to this volume. Their insights into multilingualism and multimodality have been an inspiration to our thinking around how these two fields might productively come together to push the boundaries of applied linguistics. Without their intellectual creativity, this volume would not have been possible. We would also like to thank the British Association for Applied Linguistics (BAAL) and Manchester Metropolitan University for supporting the conference that ultimately led to the genesis of this volume. Thank you also to Anna Roderick and the rest of the team at Multilingual Matters for making the publishing process so smooth and supportive.

xiii

Introduction: Origins, Scope and Rationale of the Book Steph Ainsworth, Dominic Griffiths, Gee Macrory and Kate Pahl

Origins of the Book

The idea for this edited volume arose from the annual BAAL (British Association for Applied Linguistics) conference at Manchester Metropolitan University in 2019. Together with our local organising committee, we planned and ran the conference, an event that brought in 200 delegates from more than 30 countries. As co-editors for this volume our task was not simply to report on, or select from, the papers that were presented: rather, we grew the idea from our experiences of planning, organising, participating in, and reflecting upon, the conference event in its entirety. The conference theme that we had chosen back in 2017 was ‘Broadening the Horizons of Applied Linguistics’, the premise of which was twofold: firstly, we wanted to showcase the immense range that applied linguistics has, and secondly, we wanted to encourage delegates to reconsider what applied linguistics can mean. In so doing, our hope was that we could begin to reconceptualise the field. Our invited plenary speakers addressed four themes respectively: discourse analysis; literacy and language development; new literacies and multimodal approaches; and language teaching and learning. Our speakers illustrated the breadth of life experience to which applied linguistics can contribute.1 In planning the conference, the refereeing process gave clear regard to the relevance of each paper to the conference theme, and the subsequent programme reflected as far as possible the breadth of scope of applied linguistics. In planning this volume, we invited presenters at the conference to submit chapters that reflected the main themes as highlighted by the plenary talks. However, the submissions gave us the opportunity to reflect upon what was now emerging – rather than quite simply grouping, or indeed, shoe-horning, the papers into the four sections that we had chosen to use as a framework, the work we were xv

xvi  Multimodality and Multilingualism

reading was pointing us towards a slightly different volume: the excellent work of the researchers was, if you like, quite simply broadening our horizons. The majority of abstracts submitted for review related to one or both of the broad umbrella themes of multilingualism and multimodality. When reviewing these submissions, it dawned on us that, in seeking to bring together the two themes of multilingualism and multimodality, we could begin to signal how this might actually be done, thus widening the scope of applied linguistics and leading to new research directions. Book Structure

The book is essentially in three parts: Part 1, Multilingual Approaches; Part 2, Multimodal Approaches; and Part 3, Integrating Multimodal and Multilingual Approaches. The terms multilingual and multimodal were chosen to reflect the complex world in which language is situated (Maybin, 2013), where people draw upon multiple languages and modes to communicate. The chapters within the volume open out the field of sociolinguistics with a particular focus on multilingualism and multimodality, signalling the complex repertoires used to create and communicate meaning. As will become clear to the reader as they work through the chapters, the distinction between the chapters in Parts 1 and 2 is not as clear cut as the part titles might suggest. While the chapters within Parts 1 and 2 report studies that focus predominantly on multilingualism and multimodality respectively, some of the studies contain elements of both (e.g. in Chapter 7, Hedman et al. focus predominantly on students’ multimodal encounters with literature but they also provide important pedagogical insights in relation to promoting reading engagement when working with speakers of minoritised languages). In fact, the central argument that unfolds through the volume as a whole is that the rich diversity of communicative practices should be respected and treated as elements within a dynamic and flexible repertoire, thus arguing against a separation between linguistic and multimodal practices. However, given that each of the two ‘camps’ has its own genealogies and traditions, we felt it would be useful to provide a snapshot of some of the diverse work that is taking place within the two approaches before providing examples of studies where multilingualism and multimodality have been brought together more explicitly within Part 3. Thus we put the two in correspondence with a focus on the intersection of multilingualism and multimodality. What unites the chapters is a commitment to acknowledge the diversity of everyday communicative practices, and the need to develop a more inclusive sociolinguistics grounded in what people actually do. While the individual chapters began life as presentations at the conference, each of the three main sections is introduced in a situating

Introduction: Origins, Scope and Rationale of the Book   xvii

chapter, written by leading scholars in the field whom we invited to make a contribution. We therefore owe an immense debt of gratitude to Vally Lytra, Jennifer Rowsell and Gabriele Budach, who kindly accepted our invitation to reflect on the theme of each section. Their contributions serve to frame the fields of multimodality and multilingualism and to situate the chapters that follow, so as to anchor them in their fields. We also owe huge thanks to the writers of those chapters, which together offer the reader an extremely stimulating, varied and broad set of insights into the field of applied linguistics, underpinned by innovative research in a range of contexts, in different countries and education systems, with different demographics and undertaken using a variety of methodological approaches. We are also very grateful to Khawla Badwan for accepting our invitation to provide a final section to sum up the field and give a sense of where the field is going. This final section identifies future directions, draws out key themes from the chapters and seeks to provide the reader with a lens with which to do future research, drawing on Badwan’s work on languaging, thus widening the field of sociolinguistics yet further. The Multilingual Turn

The field of sociolinguistics has become much more complex as researchers have come to grapple with the ontologically complex experience of multilingualism in a transnational world (Parkin, 2016). We live in multilingual societies with bi- and plurilingual speakers, in a world of more than 7000 languages (Ethnologue, ongoing; see also Coulmas, 2018) but only approximately 200 nation states. This simple fact alone should make us realise that any attempt to align languages with national identities is at one level nonsensical but, historically and politically, has also been a powerful and influential way to frame language identities (Badwan, 2021; also Badwan, Concluding Thoughts, this volume). Plurilingualism, however, is a long-established feature, as recognised by many in the field (see, for example, Canagarajah, 2009; Dyers, 2013; Watson, 1999). It is no longer possible to work within a monolingual as well as a monomodal paradigm (Maybin, 2013). Researching multilingually, we argue here, should become the ‘norm’ rather than the unusual (Genishi & Haas Dyson, 2009). As Badwan (2021) argues, this recognises the ways in which nationhoods are breaking down in new complex spaces of identity, and instead, she suggests the idea of simply ‘languaging’ as a verb that opens out understandings of language and identity. This volume works with this understanding of multilingualism as dynamic and embedded in the everyday, aligning with Badwan’s concept of languaging. As she says: ‘Languaging here has no boundaries: open, dynamic, overlapping, creative, responsive, proactive, human, posthuman and always in the making’ (2021: 7). Our book makes the claim

xviii  Multimodality and Multilingualism

that by bringing multilingualism into the frame, and exploring the intersections with multimodality, an expanded sociolinguistics is then produced that values the actual human complexities of communication. The multilingual turn, therefore, takes us beyond a simple recognition of our multilingual world and our plurilingual speakers. Multilingualism is our starting point as this is what we all inhabit and thus needs to be the lens through which society and research are viewed. This perspective challenges the hegemony of monolingualism as the norm (see May, 2014); but, more than this, it has challenged the notion of languages as boundaried, discrete entities. As long ago as 1982, Grosjean noted that a bilingual is not two monolinguals in one but a linguistically unique language user whose language use is a function of the differential experience they may have with each language. More recently, Heller (2007) has rejected the idea of bilingualism as ‘parallel monolingualisms’. An obvious implication of this perspective is that children (and adults) draw upon the complete repertoire of language at their disposal, engaging in ‘translanguaging’. Translanguaging is what speakers do in this multilingual world. This notion of ‘repertoire’ is fundamental in that it rejects the idea of ‘code-switching’ with its implication that languages constitute separate codes. Furthermore, as Blommaert and Rampton (2011: 4) point out, globalisation, superdiversity and communication technology serve to displace the starting assumptions of homogeneity, stability and boundedness in the study of language and language use with notions of mobility, mixing and political dynamics. But the notion of repertoire needs to go beyond language: what is needed is a translingual–transcultural orientation to education premised on a view of ‘language-as-a-resource’. This inclusive lens demands a broader understanding of language and language education that encompasses multimodal and multisensory modes. It also needs to recognise the tensions, dilemmas and struggles around how linguistic diversity is understood and interpreted across a range of local contexts, at particular times and places. If research for social transformation and for supporting approaches to education that are based on principles of equality and social justice is to be effective, then we need to understand how negotiations of knowledge, linguistic and cultural expertise, and identity articulations collide with broader discourses and ideologies of language, race and ethnicity. Importantly we need to interrogate whose voices get heard and whose get silenced or ignored. In Vally Lytra’s situating chapter that introduces Part 1 of the book, she develops the ideas above to frame the chapters in this section, identifying and highlighting how these illustrate the ways in which monolingual ideologies seek to constrain and control language use in a range of contexts. She shows how the four chapters sit within a repertoire perspective and offers an ethnographic vignette from her own experience to complement them.

Introduction: Origins, Scope and Rationale of the Book   xix

The Multimodal Turn

Part 2 of the book focuses on multimodality, which Carey Jewitt (2016: 1) notes: ‘… approaches representation, communication and interaction as something more than language’. The multimodal turn takes us beyond language, challenging the privileging of language in communication. Of course, it has long been noted that communicative events involve much more than language per se, including not only such things as gesture, volume and so on, but the social situation itself, described by Goffman in 1964 as the ‘neglected situation’. Equally, the idea that something other than language itself can convey information and influence the way we perceive the world is not a new one: the study of semiotics has a long history (see Kress, 1997, 2010; Scollon & Wong Scollon, 2003). We are all familiar with basic notions of red conveying danger or, in the context of traffic lights, an instruction to stop. However, as Ledin and Machin (2020) point out, what has changed is how different semiotic modes of communication are now combined in different ways. So, in the past, they argue, writing came largely without illustrations, and art was images on a blank canvas. They point to the ways in which different modes are used in combination, so that, as they suggest, school books, magazines and even bills look different from a mere 15 years ago. They note the role of computers in this, as they offer easy ways to combine writing, images, colour and so on, designed to prompt a particular response or mood. Jennifer Rowsell’s introduction to the multimodality section centrally locates multimodality as a field that enables a broader politics of sociolinguistics to emerge. Rowsell takes the reader into the world of multimodality, as a way of situating the field, and offers the potential for us to broaden our horizons as researchers. The chapters in Part 2 reflect the sheer range of fields of inquiry in which multimodal research can shed light on what Wittgenstein (2009 [1951]) termed different ‘forms of life’, each using their own ‘language games’. The chapters in Part 2 are located in the worlds of plurilingual education, arts education, theatre lighting technicians at work and the world of maternity advice. While they use a range of theoretical frameworks, what they all reflect is that, in each field, the verbal language games in each form of life are naturally embedded in, and interwoven with, non-verbal modalities, and multimodal approaches to research can facilitate multidimensional explorations of meaning and thus, in turn, reveal the multidimensional nature of meaning in each of these ‘lifeworlds’ (Husserl, 1970 [1936]). Working at the Intersections of Multilingualism and Multimodality

Finally, and importantly, Part 3 demonstrates the ways in which this book responds to the burgeoning of studies across the fields of

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multimodality and multilingualism, to provide a fresh, accessible snapshot of new research in the field, thus broadening the field of applied linguistics by working with a multilingual, multimodal lens. It acknowledges earlier work in multimodality (e.g. Jewitt & Kress, 2003) and multilingualism (Blackledge & Creese, 2010) and then considers how the two theoretical and methodological approaches intersect within the studies presented here. Sociolinguistics has gone through many different turns as it complicates itself to respond to how people actually communicate in practice. In her introduction to Part 3, Gabriele Budach points to how this move to recognise complexity has resulted in languages of description that include translanguaging and multimodality as well as the new materialism in applied linguistics. She highlights how a hybrid approach to applied linguistics that brings together what were historically two separate fields of interest, ‘putting meaning-making first’ (p. 181), allows us to explore the creative ways in which people communicate and learn in practice. Drawing upon her own experiences within bilingual classrooms, she illustrates how, when we broaden our focus on learning beyond language, we are able to appreciate the power of objects within the classroom, ‘deriving from materiality, in its own right’ (p. 183). We are also able to consider the way in which cultural influences shape children’s multimodal influences within the classroom, opening up ‘a small-utopian-window onto a classroom practice in which goals for learning would not be set by just one language and curricular tradition’ (p. 182). Budach draws out the implications of the studies reported within Part 3, which were selected as powerful examples of how, by working at the intersections of multilingualism and multimodality, we might ‘think critically about what literacy is and how we should imagine it differently’. These chapters illustrate how a hybrid multilingual/multimodal approach to ‘languaging’ opens up spaces for more inclusive practices, both in terms of research and classroom pedagogy, which use meaning-making as the starting point, rather than pre-conceived models of what literacy ‘should look like’. Badwan suggests ‘languaging’ as a more holistic and inclusive term, recognising ‘the in-betweenness that language creates and the fluidity of linguistic affiliation multilingual individuals experience’ (2021: 66). This insight is where multimodality, with its sympathetic understanding of what children and young people actually do when they make meaning, becomes helpful as it expands the analytic gaze of the researcher, widening its reach and scope. As Maybin (2013) has stated, monomodality, as well as monolingualism, are no longer possible as languages of description in a complex world. Recognising multilingualism is also an inclusive act. An awareness of the intrinsically multilingual nature of the world, whereby monolingual identities are the less common, re-situates understandings of human communication in a more respectful space. Those who are multilingual become the

Introduction: Origins, Scope and Rationale of the Book   xxi

norm, and this norm includes the complexity of on-line and off-line communicative practice, oral, written, typed, gestured, embodied and made and re-made in multiple modes and communicative practices. The chapters in this book describe architectures of communication that are shifting, transformational, improvisatory and complex. They refer to affect (Leander & Ehret, 2019) and embodiment (Enriquez et al., 2016), and echo the shifting sands of theoretical inroads into such ideas as the new materialism (Bennett, 2010) and the more complex theories of entanglement and intra-action from Barad (2007). In doing so, sociolinguistics itself is moved and turned on its head once more, through work with language users including children and young people who defy the careful boundaries of scholarship. Khawla Badwan, in summarising the book, also gives a sense of where the field is going and offers the reader a lens to use in doing future research. She provides a strong theoretical underpinning of the need to think through multilingual and multimodal scholarship within the field of applied linguistics. New theoretical approaches are introduced, arguing for researchers and educators to work together towards more ‘generous cuts’ and a ‘radical hope’, which respect the ‘unboundedness and creativity of meaning-making processes’ (p. 230). This approach offers a hopeful vision of sociolinguistics, which is situated in the ‘not yet’ (Pahl & Rowsell, 2020) and responds to social change with new ontologies of sociolinguistics which ally to how languages and literacies are used today. By engaging in research and pedagogies at the intersections of multilingualism and multimodality, we open up possibilities to engage with the world’s ‘infinite multiplicity of knowledges’, thus working towards a more just future. Note (1) Recordings of the four keynote presentations can be viewed at https://www.mmu. ac.uk/education/baal/. Our speakers were: Tim Grant, ‘Broadening the horizons of forensic linguistics: Applications, audiences and theories’; Julia Carroll, ‘Can morphology help reading and spelling development?’; Kate Pahl, ‘Meaning matters: Multimodality, (new) materialism and co-production in applied linguistics’; and Florence Myles, ‘Formulaicity in second language learning: Issues of conceptualisation and identification’.

References Badwan, K. (2021) Language in a Globalised World. London: Palgrave Macmillan. Barad, K. (2007) Meeting the Universe Halfway: Quantum Physics and the Entanglement of Matter and Meaning. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Bennett. J. (2010) Vibrant Matter. Durham, NC: Duke University Press Blackledge, A. and Creese, A. (2010) Multilingualism. London: Continuum. Blommaert, J. and Rampton, B. (2011) Language and superdiversity: A position paper. Working Papers in Urban Language and Literacies, WP70. https://www.academia. edu/1220287/Language_and_superdiversity_A_position_paper_2011?sm=b.

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Canagarajah, S. (2009) The plurilingual tradition and the English language in South Asia. In L. Lim and E. Low (eds) Multilingual, Globalizing Asia: Implications for Policy and Education. AILA Review (pp. 5–22). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Coulmas, F. (2018) An Introduction to Multilingualism: Language in a Changing World. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Dyers, C. (2013) Multilingualism in late-modern Africa: Identity, mobility and multivocality. International Journal of Bilingualism 19 (2), 1–10. Enriquez, G., Johnson, E., Kontavourki, S. and Mallozzi, C. (eds) (2016) Literacies, Learning and the Body: Putting Theory and Research into Pedagogical Practice. London: Routledge. Ethnologue (ongoing): https://www.ethnologue.com/ [accessed 25.01.2022]. Genishi, C. and Haas Dyson, A. (2009) Children, Language and Literacy: Diverse Learners in Diverse Times. New York, NY: Teachers College Press. Goffman, E. (1964) The neglected situation. American Anthropologist 66 (6), 133–136. Grosjean, F. (1982) Life with Two Languages: An Introduction to Bilingualism. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Heller, M. (ed.) (2007) Bilingualism: A Social Approach. Andover: Palgrave Macmillan. Husserl, E. (1970 [1936]) The Crisis of European Sciences and Transcendental Phenomenology: An Introduction to Phenomenological Philosophy (D. Carr, trans.). Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press. Jewitt, C. (2016) Introduction to multimodality. In C. Jewitt (ed.) The Routledge Handbook of Multimodal Analysis (2nd edn, pp. 15–30). Abingdon: Routledge. Jewitt, C. and Kress, G. (eds) (2003) Multimodal Literacy. New York, NY: Peter Lang. Kress, G. (1997) Before Writing: Rethinking the Paths to Literacy. New York: Routledge. Kress, G. (2010) Literacy in the New Media Age. New York, NY: Routledge. Leander, K.M. and Ehret, C. (eds) (2019) Affect in Literacy Learning and Teaching: Pedagogies, Politics and Coming to Know. New York: Routledge. Ledin, P. and Machin, D. (2020) Introduction to Multimodal Analysis (2nd edn). London: Bloomsbury. May, S. (ed.) (2014) The Multilingual Turn: Implications for SLA, TESOL and Bilingual Education. New York: Routledge. Maybin, J. (2013) Working towards a more complex sociolinguistics. Journal of Sociolinguistics 17 (4), 547–555. Pahl, K. and Rowsell, J., with D. Collier, S. Pool, Z. Rasool and T. Trzecak (2020) Living Literacies: Literacy for Social Change. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Parkin, D. (2016) From multilingual classification to translingual ontology: A turning point. In K. Arnaut, J. Blommaert, B. Rampton and M. Spotti (eds) (2016) Language and Superdiversity (pp. 71–88). London: Routledge. Scollon, R. and Wong Scollon, S. (2003) Discourses in Place: Language in the Material World. London: Routledge. Watson, K. (1999) Language, power, development and geopolitical changes: Conflicting pressures facing plurilingual societies. Compare: A Journal of Comparative and International Education 29 (1), 5–22. Wittgenstein, L. (2009 [1951]) Philosophical Investigations (Rev. 4th edn, P.M.S. Hacker and J. Schulte, eds). Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell.

Part 1 Multilingual Approaches

Introduction to Part 1: Appraising the ‘Multilingual Turn’ in Applied Linguistics and Sociolinguistics Vally Lytra

The notion of the ‘multilingual turn’ has been widely used in applied linguistic and sociolinguistic research to denote a heightened analytical focus on multilingual language use across a wide range of contexts and participants (Conteh & Meier, 2014; May, 2014). Linguistic diversity has been spurred by the intensification of human mobility within and across national borders and the diversification of people’s migration trajectories coupled by the new possibilities for education, work and leisure opened up by digital communication. Yet, this renewed analytical focus on multilingual language use obscures the fact that multilingualism is not a recent phenomenon. Writing from what is metaphorically called a ‘southern’ perspective, Heugh reminds us that many societies across Africa and Asia have long and complex histories of linguistic diversity and that ‘the majority of multilingual communities of the world continue to live beyond Europe and North America’ (Heugh, 2018: 342). The one-nation–one-language ideology that underpins statesponsored monolingualism is a foundational component of modern nation state building. May (2019: 125) cautions against ‘an ethnocentric and ahistorical view of multilingualism’ that ignores multilingual realities prior to the advent of nationalism and the nation-state and constructs multilingualism as a new and primarily urban phenomenon. Instead, Kramsch (2012) stresses the importance of taking a contextually embedded and historically grounded approach to the study of multilingualism. Taken together these scholars argue for a plural, heterogenous and multidimensional view of multilingualism that recognises its ‘many different iterations’ and investigates tensions, dilemmas, and contradictions in the experiences of ‘contemporary multilingualisms’ (Heugh, 2018: 348). The four chapters in this section 3

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pay attention to these concerns by bringing together ethnographically engaged studies from interactions between teachers and students in primary and secondary schools in Mauritius and the UK (MahadeoDoorgakant and Liggins respectively), between home and international students during theatre society sessions in a UK Higher Education institution (Ghosh), and between lawyers and their clients in consultations preceding asylum law hearings in Belgium (Jacobs). Researching Language Repertoires, Practices and Identities 

The ‘multilingual turn’ has been anchored within a broader epistemological turn in the social sciences that has taken place in the last three to four decades, from essentialist and unitary to social constructionist and post-structuralist perspectives. Critiques of the language–nation-state nexus have propelled scholars of multilingualism to rethink language, culture and identity from hermetically sealed and fixed social categories tied to a particular inheritance (e.g. of ethnicity, nationality, religion) to more fluid and dynamic understandings. This conceptual shift has been premised on understandings of languages as social and ideological constructions. It has refocused the analysis of language, from code to multilingual repertoires of meaning-making resources and identities located in local, translocal and transnational contexts (Heller, 2007; Makoni & Pennycook, 2007). By denaturalising the notion of a unitary language, our analytical gaze zooms in on the ‘plurality of differentially shared styles, registers and genres’ (Blommaert & Rampton, 2011: 4). Language repertoires are, thus, conceived as ‘biographically organized complexes of resources’ that ‘follow the rhythms of human lives’ (Blommaert & Backus, 2011: 9). The notion of language repertoire attempts to capture the dynamic nature of language and its contextual and biographical embeddedness (Busch, 2012). Rymes (2014) extended the notion of repertoire beyond languages, registers and genres to ‘communicative repertoire’. This includes a wider range of meaning-making resources comprised of ‘gesture, dress, posture, and even knowledge of communicative routines, familiarity with types of food or drink, and mass media references including phrases, dance moves, and recognizable intonation patterns that circulate via actors, musicians, and other superstars’ (2014: 9). The four chapters in this section sit within a repertoire approach to language and, while the analytical focus is on language practices, the authors touch upon how language as one kind of meaning-making resource – albeit central – is intertwined with other meaning-making resources, artifacts and modalities. In this respect, the studies point to new ways of expanding the meaning of language, to presenting language ‘as a part of a semiotic assemblage of relations between humans, objects and artefacts’ (Lytra et al., 2020: 2). Inspired by a

Introduction to Part 1: Appraising the ‘Multilingual Turn’  5

translanguaging approach to pedagogy (García & Li, 2014), in Sophie Liggins study the teacher/researcher seeks to activate and leverage the full gamut of a group of London secondary school students’ semiotic resources to engage in a series of arts-based multilingual and multimodal activities against the grain of hegemonic societal and institutional monolingualism in the context of an extra-curricular project. Yesha Devi Mahadeo-Doorgakant takes us to multilingual and multicultural Mauritius where the dominant national political discourse is one of ‘acceptance, tolerance and celebration of diversity’ (Auleer Owodally, 2016: 161) and ‘where’, as the author confirms, ‘languages interact fluidly with each other and do not remain in rigid silos’ in everyday life. Through a heteroglossic lens (Blackledge & Creese, 2010) the author charts and juxtaposes a pair of primary school children’s language and other communicative resources and artefacts (e.g. singing, a book) across formal and informal learning spaces. Both chapters foreground the conceptual pull of linguistic fluidity: they seek to capture students’ creative and innovative communicative practices and they argue for the pedagogical potential of flexible language practices that allow for movement between languages and open new forms of knowledge and identities (Canagarajah, 2011; Panagiotopoulou et al., 2020; Li & Lin, 2019). This conceptual repositioning of language is in line with a broader questioning of fixed and separate framings of identities and the traditional modernist view of essentialist linguistic identities and homogeneous speech communities that erases linguistic plurality and identity fluidity in the national imagination (Pujolar, 2007). Instead, identities are viewed as emergent, dynamic, and discursively constructed (Pavlenko & Blackledge, 2004). Speakers mobilise different language varieties, registers, genres and accents that create indexical links between linguistic forms and social meanings to negotiate situated selfand other identity positionings in social interaction (Bucholtz & Hall, 2005). Priyanki Ghosh examines naming and self-naming practices among a group of home and international students engaging in joint theatre activities at a UK university and illustrates how these practices are used to perform and construct contextually marked social identities associated with race and ethnicity. The study aligns with the emergent field of raciolinguistics, which investigates the crucial role that language plays in processes of racialisation, ‘how speakers “do” race and ethnicity in interaction’ and ‘the impact of racism on those who experience race as an everyday lived reality’ (Alim, 2016: 5). Marie Jacobs investigates the process of entextualisation that asylum narratives undergo during legal counselling interactions between lawyers, clients and interpreters. The author illustrates how a credible refugee identity is constructed by privileging the institutional voice that marginalises the applicant’s voice, rendering them ‘a spectator to the discursive construction of his

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own identity’. Both studies point to the nuances of how individuals understand and construct themselves and others, how rather than being stable and predetermined, identities can shift across contexts, and how ideologies of language, race and ethnicity shape speakers’ identity positionings but also how speakers can question these ideologies – for instance, in the way in which the asylum procedure treats asylum seekers’ testimonies. The next section focuses on some of the tensions, dilemmas and struggles that all four chapters foreground in understanding present-day linguistic diversity in education and society.  Tensions, Dilemmas and Struggles

A key tension that emerges across the chapters has to do with the ideological constraints of monolingual ideologies that operate in education and society more broadly and how they cascade down homes, communities, schools and other institutional settings. In so doing, they construct what Lin (2015) refers to as ‘hierarchical bi/ multilingualism’ that ‘essentialis[es] bi/multilingual language practices and identities forcing what are fuzzy, dynamic and fluid practices into separate language and identity categories with tight, discrete boundaries’ (2015: 21). The students’ initial resistance and discomfort to the teacher/researcher’s prompts to use the heritage language in their text-making in Liggins’ study painfully drives home the extent to which the dominant monolingual mindset prevalent in mainstream schools in England can hinder students from deploying their entire semiotic repertoires for learning and social identification. Emenike’s response – ‘I just speak English’ – to the teacher/researcher’s prompt that ‘we are all plurilingual’ reminded me of a personal story and the consequences of the monolingual norm. I share this with you below in the form of an ethnographic vignette.  Vignette 1: Athan’s page marker 

When my son Athan was about six years old, he made a page marker. He cut a piece of thick yellow paper into a long thin strip and used jagged scissors to create a zig zag pattern on the side (Figure P1.1). Then, he wrote in Greek on the side «Αυτός είναι ο σελιδοδείκτης του Άθαν» (this is Athan’s page marker). When he finished making the page marker, he showed it to his grandmother who was visiting from Greece. My mother admired the craftmanship and praised Athan for the accurate spelling of the admittedly long and complicated word «σελιδοδείκτης» (page marker). She then suggested that Athan take the page marker to school to show it to his teacher. To which Athan replied: «Τα ελληνικά είναι για το σπίτι» (Greek is for home). My mother responded that she was confident his teacher would love to see his work but Athan shrugged and moved on to do something else. The marker remained on the living room table, never making it to school. 

Introduction to Part 1: Appraising the ‘Multilingual Turn’  7

Figure P1.1  Athan’s page marker 

The story of Athan’s page marker speaks to the dilemmas of linguistic diversity that multilingual students face at different levels and how these levels are entangled. At an institutional level, Athan was going at the time to a dual-medium English/French international school in francophone Switzerland which boasted on the school website of having a bilingual programme and more than 40 different languages spoken in the school. In practice, the school supported an ideology of ‘separate bilingualism’ (Blackledge & Creese, 2010) that separated languages for learning and where access to the academic varieties of English and French taught at school were expected to guarantee educational success. Moreover, despite celebrating the students’ rich language and cultural experiences, their multilingual repertoires and intercultural capabilities beyond English and French were not afforded the same pedagogical legitimacy. From the perspective of the family, this story is illustrative of our family’s overt efforts to develop our children’s Greek literacy and the value we attached to sustaining Greek language, culture, and identity in a transnational context. Athan’s developing literacy capabilities in Greek were nourished at home and in the Greek complementary (community) school he had been attending on Saturday mornings from the age of four. Athan’s text-making at home strongly asserts how he leveraged his multilingual and multimodal resources beyond the official languages of schooling. Yet, this story also shows how our family’s effort to sustain Greek literacy was not a ‘neutral family matter’ (Curdt-Christiansen, 2018: 429). It collided with the school’s dominant language ideologies that valorised the official languages of instruction only. Indeed, Athan’s decision not to share his text-making with his teacher indicates an acute awareness of which languages were deemed appropriate to share at school and which were not – in other words that ‘multilingualism is hierarchically arranged’ (Heugh, 2018: 358). The story points to the messiness of lived multilingualism, the tensions of navigating both complementary and competing ideologies, practices, goals, expectations and desires. The tension over the normalcy of students’ everyday multilingualism and the compartmentalisation of languages at school is further unpicked by Mhadeo-Doorgakant. In Mauritian primary school classrooms different linguistic resources (English, French, Kreol Morisien) were assigned different functions and visibility in informal and formal school talk, and teachers played a central role in consolidating language

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hierarchies. Despite government language policies to create a multilingual educational system that includes Kreol Morisien as a legitimate language resource for learning alongside the two colonial languages, the former continues to remain in the margins of classroom discourse. Canagarajah (2011) and García and Li (2014) among others have challenged approaches to bilingual education that are based on a pedagogy of separating languages. They support pedagogical practices that leverage students’ entire language repertoires and all meaning-making resources in an integrated way for effective teaching and learning. The purposeful use of code-switching, translation and translanguaging can provide students with meaningful opportunities to learn, especially when the languages of schooling are different from the languages students and teachers speak at home and in their communities. While such flexible language practices are common in many classroom settings worldwide, they are often stigmatised or remain hidden in informal interactional moments due to prevailing purist and monolingual ideologies. Moreover, students’ language resources and cultural knowledge that are positioned outside the school’s narrowly defined norm are often silenced or ignored. At the same time, it is important to stress that educational systems are expected to teach in the academic variety that is associated with access to educational attainment and success. This expectation privileges standard written over vernacular, oral and diasporic varieties and dominant cultural knowledge and practices and reinforces the legitimacy of language separation pedagogies. To address this tension, Long et al. (2013), building on work on culturally relevant and critical pedagogies, advocate ‘embracing home and community resources’ while ‘paying attention to the development of students’ proficiency with languages and literacies of power’ (2013: 420). This complementary focus has the potential to disrupt what counts as privileged knowledge and language and cultural practices and to create opportunities for ‘new learning that simultaneously challenge[s] the status quo’ (2013: 431). Chapters also highlight struggles over ‘doing’ identity work and how language users exercise agency, voice and creativity. The international and local university students in Ghosh’s study show us how the performative and situated construction of the self and the ‘other’ through naming practices involves taking up, resisting and reworking subject positions, emphasising or downplaying affiliation and co-membership. International students, for instance, strategically used the ‘indexical bleaching’ of names (Bucholtz, 2016) as agentive acts of self-positioning to de-racialise unfamiliar names. Yet, all international students’ names were not treated the same way: different students’ selfnaming practices received different responses from home students, which opened or closed opportunities for group membership and belonging. As Ghosh cogently argues: ‘For the international students at least,

Introduction to Part 1: Appraising the ‘Multilingual Turn’  9

their names along with their “look” and accented voice becomes a proxy for establishing their foreignness’ (p. 65). The study brings to the fore the tension between the theatre society’s goal to construct a space for intercultural contact that welcomes all students and the processes of racialisation. In so doing, it drives home the tension between our analytical understandings of race and ethnicity as social and ideological constructs and ‘their endurance as social realities for subjugated racial and ethnic minorities, (im)migrants and other oppressed groups’ (Alim, 2016: 6). Jacobs’ chapter alerts us to the complexities between the lawyer’s efforts to maximise their client’s chances of being granted asylum and ‘the act of rendering the client voiceless within the legal consultation’ to ensure that the asylum authorities are provided with the institutional narrative they expect. At the same time, the author illustrates that clients expressed concerns about the entextualisation of their testimonies – for instance, concerns about whether the entextualised version of their interview is an accurate reflection of their own accounts. Taken together the chapters sensitise us to the tensions, dilemmas and struggles around how linguistic diversity is understood and interpreted across a range of local contexts, at particular times and places. They illustrate how negotiations of knowledge, linguistic and cultural expertise, and identity articulations intersect and at times collide with broader discourses and ideologies of language, race and ethnicity. They highlight the importance of attending to the ideological dimension and, thus, push us to interrogate whose voices get heard and whose get silenced or ignored and who decides, for ‘languages and intercultural communication are never just neutral’ (Phipps & Guilherme, 2004: 1). They urge us to consider the implications of our research for social transformation and for supporting approaches to education that are based on principles of equity and social justice. Looking into the future, a translingual–transcultural orientation to education premised on a view of ‘language-as-a-resource’ (Ruiz, 1984) can open ‘implementational spaces for multiple languages, literacies, and identities in classroom, community, and society’ (Hornberger, 2002: 45). In the final section, I present one such case from my own research in language education. What Have We Learned and Where Do We Go Next?  

A translingual–transcultural orientation offers researchers, teachers and students a dynamic and inclusive lens favouring a broader understanding of language and language education that encompasses and combines multimodal and multisensory modes (Lytra et al., 2022). Such an orientation offers the possibility for language learners not only to make use of their entire semiotic resources for meaning-making in

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particular localities and practices but also to develop creativity (Moore et al., 2020), build critical metalinguistic awareness (García & Kleifgen, 2019; Little & Kirwan, 2019) and nurture new ways of knowing and being in the world (Kramsch, 2009; Ros i Solé et al., 2020). Building on the little-studied educational context of international schools I discussed in the previous section, I would now like to explore briefly what happens when such an orientation is introduced and enacted in so-called ‘home languages’ classes whose purpose is to sustain students’ language and literacy skills in their home languages, cultures and identities. While these classes are usually offered with an additional fee as part of the schools’ after-school programme, there is a pervasive institutional culture of separation between the schools’ curriculum and pedagogy and that of the home languages classes, and home languages teachers tend to have limited interaction with the schools’ class and language teachers. My case comes from a teacher continuing professional development (CPD) project called the ‘Home language collaborative project: Our languages, our stories’, which I co-led at an English-medium international school in francophone Switzerland between November 2019 and February 2020 (Lytra et al., 2020). Together with the school’s home languages coordinator, six of the home languages teachers teaching Greek, Portuguese, French, Mandarin, Italian and Russian, and 30 students, we sought to problematise the peripheral position of students’ home languages in the school’s curriculum, pedagogy and policy with the aim of valorising home language teaching and learning and raising the visibility of the home languages programme for the whole school. Emphasising dialogue and collaboration between researchers and participants, we sought to co-construct pedagogical spaces that not only acknowledged multilingualism and linguistic diversity but also created opportunities for students to critically reflect upon, question and integrate their multilingual resources and rich cultural expressions that often faded into the background in their everyday school lives as legitimate resources for learning. The translingual–transcultural orientation of the project sought to unite the personal aspects of language education, focusing on students’ voices and desires, biographies and family histories with the aesthetic that posits an expansive and multisensorial understanding of language and a political dimension that challenges dominant ideologies and discourses that can isolate and ignore students’ languages, literacies and heritages that define home languages classes. Challenging that silence, we illustrate what might happen when students and language educators are encouraged to take risks and engage in news ways of meaning-making that open up unforeseen possibilities for doing language education (Lytra et al., 2022). The home languages teachers worked with their students to co-design and co-produce multimodal texts that were shared with the entire school to celebrate International Mother Tongue Day (21 February 2020).

Introduction to Part 1: Appraising the ‘Multilingual Turn’  11

Through project-based and arts-based approaches to language learning, they illustrated the richness that the use of the students’ multimodal, aesthetic and affective resources brought to language and language learning (Moore et al., 2020). Despite the school’s support for home language maintenance at a school language policy level, in practice, students initially perceived their home languages as a private matter disconnected from their everyday school lives, where rigid boundaries divided curricular and extra-curricular activities – not unlike the students in Liggins’ study. In Figure P1.2, Mattia’s autobiographical text-making complexifies labels, such as languages as medium of instruction, foreign languages and home languages, as he unites his different linguistic and cultural threads (Italian, French and English) and transnational experiences to enable and create new contexts for learning, possibilities of inclusion and the presentation of self and community. Mattia’s multilingual and multimodal collage offers an expansive view of language and language learning, where language is just one of the modes for meaning-making. He unites his language portrait and autobiographical language narrative with his love for ‘authentic pizza’ (‘la vera pizza’) and the music of rock band Coldplay and a map of the world tracing the changing circumstances of his family life. Embracing the full range of his semiotic resources, Mattia’s text-making broadens

Figure P1.2  Mattia’s multilingual and multimodal collage

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our understanding of language and literacy learning in French home language class beyond a narrowly defined monolingual norm, that points to ‘openness to other worlds, other languages, other ways of expressing oneself across a range of genres’ (Phipps, 2022: 249). At the same time, it highlights the ongoing development of his literacy skills in the academic variety of French valued by the school, which was one of the main reasons his parents enrolled him in the French home-language class. His text-making brings to the fore Long et al.’s (2013) assertion that recognising and leveraging students’ multilingualism as a medium of learning in each setting goes hand in hand with developing students’ academic capabilities in the academic varieties of power and socioeconomic aspiration. The text-making opens a pedagogical space for reconciling formal and informal literacy practices, different registers, language varieties and ideologies and for encouraging active learner participation, experimentation and a sense of ownership. The movement towards this pedagogical space creates a ‘translanguaging space’, theorised by Li (2011) as ‘a social space for the multilingual language user [that brings] together different dimensions of their personal history, experience and environment, their attitude, belief and ideology, their cognitive and physical capacity into one coordinated and meaningful performance and making it into a lived experience’ (2011: 1223). This case study from the field of language education along with the chapters in this section illustrate new ways in which we can listen to what is happening on the ground, to the everyday multilingual realities of most of the world’s speakers and the ‘language planning from below’ they engage in (Heugh, 2018: 355). These lived multilingualisms encourage us to seek out an expanded view of language that is situated within broader meaning-making processes connecting different actors, agencies and practices in a complex web of relationships contingent upon local circumstances while remaining attentive to the power of dominant discourses and ideologies and their constraining structures. In so doing, they suggest alternative ways in which new listenings can be made possible. References Alim, S.A. (2016) Introducing raciolinguistics: Racing language and languaging race in hyperracial times. In S.A. Alim, J.R. Rickford and A.F. Ball (eds) Raciolinguistics (pp. 1–30). Oxford: Oxford University Press.  Auleer Owodally, A.M. (2016) Joseph … Yousef: Changing names, navigating spaces, articulating identities. In V. Lytra, D. Volk and E. Gregory (eds) Navigating Languages, Literacies and Identities: Religion in Young Lives (pp. 161–175). New York, NY: Routledge.  Blackledge, A. and Creese, A. (2010) Multilingualism: A Critical Perspective. London: Continuum. Blommaert, J. and Backus, A. (2011) Repertoires revisited: ‘Knowing language’ in superdiversity. Working Papers in Urban Language and Literacies, WP67. http://www. academia.edu/6365319/WP67_Blommaert_and_Backus_2011._Repertoires_revisited_ Knowing_language_in_superdiversity [accessed 15 June 2021].

Introduction to Part 1: Appraising the ‘Multilingual Turn’  13

Blommaert, J. and Rampton, B. (2011) Language and superdiversity. Diversities 13 (2), 1–22. Bucholtz, M. (2016) On being called out of one’s name: Indexical bleaching as a technique of deracialization. In S.A. Alim, J.R. Rickford and A.F. Ball (eds) Raciolinguistics (pp. 273–280). Oxford: Oxford University Press.  Bucholtz, M. and Hall, K. (2005) Identity and interaction. A sociocultural linguistic approach. Discourse Studies 7 (4–5), 585–614. Busch, B. (2012) The linguistic repertoire revisited. Applied Linguistics 33 (5), 503–523.  Canagarajah, S. (2011) Translanguaging in the classroom: Emerging issues for research and pedagogy. In W. Li (ed.) Applied Linguistics Review (pp. 1–28). Berlin: Walter de Gruyter.  Conteh, J. and Meier, G. (eds) (2014) The Multilingual Turn in Languages Education: Opportunities and Challenges. Bristol: Multilingual Matters. Curdt-Christiansen, X.L. (2018) Family language policy. In J.W. Tollefson and M. PérezMilans (eds) The Oxford Handbook of Language Policy and Planning (pp. 420–441). Oxford: Oxford University Press. García, O. and Li, W. (2014) Translanguaging: Language, Bilingualism and Education. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. García, O. and Kleifgen, J.A. (2019) Translanguaging and literacies. Reading Research Quarterly 55 (4), 553–571.  Heller, M. (ed.) (2007) Bilingualism. A Social Approach. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Heugh, K. (2018) Conclusion: Multilingualism, diversity and equitable learning: Towards crossing the ‘abyss’. In P.V. Avermaet, S. Slembrouck, K. van Gorp, S. Sierens and K. Maryns (eds) The Multilingual Edge of Education (pp. 341–367). London: Palgrave Macmillan. Hornberger, N. (2002) Multilingual language policies and the continua of biliteracy: An ecological approach. Language Policy 1 (1), 27–51. Kramsch, C. (2009) The Multilingual Subject. Oxford: Oxford University Press.  Kramsch, C. (2012) Editor’s introduction. L2 Journal 4 (Special Issue on History and Memory in Foreign Language Study), 1–8. Li, W. (2011) Moment analysis and translanguaging space: Discursive construction of identities by multilingual Chinese youth in Britain. Journal of Pragmatics 43 (5), 1222– 1235. Li, W. and Lin, A.M.Y. (2019) Translanguaging classroom discourse. Classroom Discourse 10 (3–4, Special Issue), 209–215. Lin, A. (2015) Egalitarian bi/multilingualism and trans-semiotizing in a global world. In W.E. Wright, S. Boun and O. García (eds) The Handbook of Bilingual and Multilingual Education (pp. 19–37). Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell.  Little, D. and Kirwan, D. (2019) Engaging with Linguistic Diversity. A Study of Educational Inclusion in an Irish Primary School. London: Bloomsbury.  Long, S., Volk, D., Bains, J. and Tisdale, C. (2013) ‘We’ve been doing it your way long enough’: Syncretism as critical process. Journal of Early Childhood Literacy 13 (3), 418–439.  Lytra, V., Tharoo, S., Banfi, E., Chengyan, Z., Costa, C., Eleftheriou-Kaparti, M., Meyer, Z. and Schmid-Ilina, P. (2020) Honouring multilingual repertoires and identities: Our languages, our stories. EAL Journal 13 (Autumn), 18–21.  Lytra, V., Ros i Solé, C., Anderson, J. and Macleroy, V. (eds) (2022) Liberating Language Education. Bristol: Multilingual Matters. Makoni, S. and Pennycook, A. (eds) (2007) Disinventing and Reconstituting Languages. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters.  May, S. (ed.) (2014) The Multilingual Turn: Implications for SLA, TESOL and Bilingual Education. New York, NY: Routledge. May, S. (2019) Negotiating the multilingual turn in SLA. The Modern Language Journal 103 (S1), 122–129.  Moore, E., Bradley, J. and Simpson, J. (eds) (2020) Translanguaging as Transformation: The Collaborative Construction of New Linguistic Realities. Bristol: Multilingual Matters.

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Panagiotopoulou, J.A., Rosen, L. and Strylaka, J. (eds) (2020) Inclusion, Education and Translanguaging. How to Promote Social Justice in (Teacher) Education. Wiesbaden: Springer.  Pavlenko, A. and Blackledge A. (2004) Introduction: New theoretical approaches to the study of negotiation of identities in multilingual contexts. In A. Pavlenko and A. Blackledge (eds) Negotiation of Identities in Multilingual Contexts (pp. 1–33). Clevedon: Multilingual Matters.  Phipps, A. (2022) Liberating language learning through art: The imperative of cultural justice. In V. Lytra, C. Ros i Solé, J. Anderson and V. Macleroy (eds) (2022) Liberating Language Education (pp. 248–252). Bristol: Multilingual Matters. Phipps, A. and Guilherme, M. (2004) Critical Pedagogy: Political Approaches to Language and Intercultural Communication. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters.  Pujolar, J. (2007) Bilingualism and the nation-state in the post-national era. In M. Heller (ed.) Bilingualism: A Social Approach (pp. 71–95). Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.  Ros i Solé, C., Fenoulhet, J. and Quist, G. (2020) Vibrant identities and finding joy in difference. Language and Intercultural Communication 20 (5), 397–407.  Ruiz, R. (1984) Orientations in language planning. NABE Journal 8 (2), 15–34.   Rymes, B. (2014) Communicating Beyond Language. Everyday Encounters with Diversity. New York, NY: Routledge.

1 Heritage Language Speakers’ Responses to Plurilingual Pedagogies in a Secondary School Context Sophie Liggins

Introduction

A significant proportion of England’s school population speak languages other than English and, in London, 41% of students in secondary schools are classified as users of English as an Additional Language (EAL) (Department of Education, 2018). This characteristic means that these students can also be defined as speakers of a Heritage Language (HL), a culturally or ethnolinguistic minority language that develops in a bilingual setting in which the sociopolitical dominant language is English (Montrul, 2016: 2). It is widely recognised that embracing and utilising learners’ plurilingualism is valuable in terms of language development and identity in young learners (Gibbons & Ramirez, 2004; Lee, 2013), enabling them to negotiate paths for themselves in terms of how they use and view their languages (Creese et al., 2011: 1206) and offering benefits in terms of understanding the role of heritage languages (HL) in literacy, enhanced critical thinking and social development (Cummings, 2005; Moll et al., 1992; Smythe & Toohey, 2009). However, despite efforts by researchers and practitioners to promote the benefits of plurilingualism, there is currently no statutory guidance on how education practitioners should interact with linguistic diversity, highlighting the need for more research that focuses on the classroom. In order to contribute to addressing this gap, this chapter reports on a project examining student responses to plurilingual activities in order to better understand how to construct and implement plurilingual pedagogies.

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16  Part 1: Multilingual Approaches

This chapter begins with a discussion of plurilingual education and documented responses to translingual pedagogies. An outline of the context and the methodology is then followed by a presentation of data on students’ responses to the application of plurilingual pedagogies in a mainstream setting. The discussion section considers ways in which the responses can inform practitioners seeking to challenge monolingual practices that fail to harness the linguistic repertoires of all learners. Plurilingualism and Education

While many terms are used to describe diverse linguistic contexts, the term plurilingualism is used here to more accurately illustrate the dynamic nature of a context in which at least 40% of secondary school students are users of EAL with varied language backgrounds. Plurilingualism recognises that ‘holistic communication competence’ constitutes the different languages used by an individual, however partial the knowledge of the languages may be (Council of Europe, 2001, in Bak & Mehmedbegovic, 2017: 3–4). This definition is particularly relevant to the context of the participants in this study since the learners in question are HL speakers who use their HLs with a great degree of variation in proficiency (Montrul & Polinsky, 2019). Cook’s (2001) notion of a multicompetent mind is important from an educator perspective as it helps to envision its application in a school setting: ‘A L2 is not just adding rooms to your house by building on an extension at the back: it is rebuilding all the internal walls’. This image illustrates Cook’s premise that recourse to the L1 should be facilitated and the L1 should be used positively in the classroom rather than being seen as a ‘regrettable fact of life that has to be endured’ (Cook, 2001). The concept of translanguaging helps to explain how plurilingual secondary school students can potentially benefit from pedagogies that take into consideration their full linguistic repertoires. Canagarajah’s (2011: 401) definition of translanguaging has been developed in multilingual learning contexts and spotlights the importance of linking languages within one mind, defining the practice as the ‘ability of multilingual speakers to shuttle between languages’. García and Li (2014: 92–93) conceptualise translanguaging as ‘sustaining bilingual performances that go beyond one or the other binary logic of two autonomous languages’. When referring to how the concept is applied in school, they describe the practice as ‘educational efforts to develop ­children’s plurilingual abilities or to use those abilities to educate bilingual ­ students’ (2014: 2). As Li and Luo (2017) point out, the pedagogical side of translanguaging has been underdeveloped (Canagarajah, 2011; García, 2009b; Lin & Martin, 2005, in Li & Luo, 2017: 143) and has ‘traditionally been frowned upon in educational settings’ (Blackledge & Creese, 2010: 203).

Heritage Language Speakers’ Responses to Plurilingual Pedagogies   17

Writing about the role of attitudes in Puerto Rican university students’ reception of translanguaging pedagogies, Rivera and Mazak (2017: 5) state: ‘theorizing and having the best intentions will mean nothing unless students are receptive to the instruction methods being utilized’. While theoretical assumptions about pedagogy have an important place, and it is logical and morally sensible to make students’ linguistic repertoires a key part of their education, the practicalities of such an approach need to be clearly explored and explained before it is likely to be taken up by practitioners and policy makers. Student Responses to Plurilingual Pedagogies

A powerful example of student responses to plurilingual pedagogies is the Roma Translanguaging Enquiry Learning Space project, which used parents as translators in multilingual enquiry based learning (ROMtels, 2018). Translating for the teacher led to negotiation of meaning between students and to greater clarity in a retelling of an historical event that had been taught using the students’ HL. Deeper meaning through discussion was also evident, as was identification of cognates between the HL and English. There was also some visible resistance from the students due to what seemed like shyness or an uneasiness with using the L1 in an environment where it is not usually used (ROMtels, 2018). Findings from Creese and Blackledge’s (2011) work into language practices in complementary schools show that responses to endeavours to extend the bilingualism of students range from ‘ecological’ use of both languages (Hornberger, 2002: 30, in Creese & Blackledge, 2011: 4), to resistance and making choices to use English exclusively. Choices are perceived to be based on saving face regarding differing levels of proficiency in the languages or ‘identity performance’ of a range of identity positions. Beyond these examples, there is limited research documenting student responses and which addresses the reality of a classroom in which plurilingual pedagogies are being introduced as a new practice within monolingual settings, particularly in secondary school settings. Creese and Blackledge (2010: 214) suggest that ‘if we are to ease the burden of guilt associated with translanguaging in educational contexts, further research is needed on classroom language ecologies to show how and why pedagogic practices come to be legitimised and accepted by participants’. While translanguaging approaches are ones that may benefit learners, the broader educational context is a long way from embracing pedagogies that challenge the monolingual habitus of the state school system in England. Without classroom examples, it will be very difficult to implement pedagogies based on translingual ideology on a wide-scale long-term basis. As Costley and Leung (2020: 11) put it: ‘policy rhetoric

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without the support of informed professional practice is unlikely to lead to any change’. This study explores what happens when such pedagogies are enacted in an inner-city English secondary school setting. School Context

This study was carried out in a London secondary school where I worked as a Spanish teacher. Of the school’s pupils, 38.2% are reported to use EAL. As part of the school’s compulsory after-school enrichment programme, I designed an option that I named ‘Enhanced Plurilingualism’, which 12 students chose as their activity for the term. As a language teacher in the school, I encouraged students who spoke more than one language to consider the option and explained that we would be learning more about languages in general and exploring what we already know about our other language. I made it clear that the students did not need to have a high proficiency in their other language. The project consisted of a 15-week schedule of activities to promote plurilingual awareness and tap into students’ plurilingual identities/repertoires. I designed activities guided by the principle that when applying plurilingualism to education, linguistic repertoires are drawn on in creative and dynamic ways including promotion of home languages through home language support (Council of Europe, 2001, in Bak & Mehmedbegovic, 2017: 3–4). I subscribed to an ‘ecological perspective on multilingualism’, seeking to create an ‘ideological and implementational space in the environment for as many languages as possible’ (Hornberger, 2002: 30, in Blackledge & Creese, 2010: 202). These activities ranged from presentations about HLs to plurilingual poetry and the joint creation of a mural mapping the group’s linguistic diversity. Methodology

Copland and Creese (2015: 63) advise that, for policy change, there needs to be understanding of ‘people’s identities not in terms of apparent or visible categories, but rather as emic positions which are self-identified, dynamic and negotiable’. Case study methodology (Stake, 1995) guided this study, seeking multiple student perspectives and realities in order to better understand the ‘unheard’ position of languages in the wider societal frame (Pahl, 2014). The object of study was the learning space, or curriculum, for which I collected data in the form of field notes, audio recordings, interviews and artefacts produced as part of the sessions. Events in the field guided the development of categories. ‘Persistent patterns’ were drawn out in each of the data-sets (Yin, 2010: 219), with iterative readings of artefacts, transcripts and interview data. The data suggested different categories of responses to

Heritage Language Speakers’ Responses to Plurilingual Pedagogies   19

Table 1.1  Participants’ language profiles Name

Age

Gender

Sara

12

F

Emenike

12

Desi

11

Abdul

Languages

Born in UK

HL school attendance

Spanish/Hungarian

No

No

M

Yoruba/Hausa

Yes

No

F

Spanish

No

Yes

12

M

Twi

Yes

No

Mohammed

12

M

Somali

Yes

No

Khalifa

12

F

Brawanese

Yes

No

Lena

11

F

Yoruba

Yes

Yes

Jonathan

12

M

Twi

Yes

No

Geraldine

12

F

Twi

Yes

No

Paula

12

F

Twi

Yes

No

Omar

12

M

Arabic/Spanish/French

Yes

No

Modupe

12

M

Yoruba

Yes

No

plurilingual pedagogical practices, and the ways in which the responses varied became the main analytical focus. Illustrative examples of these are reported below. The 12 participants (detailed in Table 1.1) were aged 11–12 and were from a range of HL backgrounds. All except two (Sara and Desi, who arrived as babies) were born in the UK. Findings

The present findings focus on student responses to three of the activities that I carried out with the students: presentations about the HL; a HL book design; and the creation of plurilingual poetry. It was important to cultivate a space in which HLs were viewed as assets and in which students were given time to confidently identify as plurilingual. The tasks were designed to open up spaces for the students to work multimodally, including activities such as discussion, book design and language portraits. This was done primarily as a pedagogic choice in order to offer broader opportunities to draw on students’ linguistic repertoires, but secondly, for this study, the range of multimodal meaning-making acts documented provides a varied data-set to draw from for analysis. We began by discussing what plurilingualism meant and ways in which we fit within the definition. We watched clips of people speaking in multiple languages and explored websites such as ‘Tube Tongues’, which provides data on the linguistic diversity of London around different tube stations. I used the concept of possession in football to explain language dominance, which sparked conversation around

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bilingual language practices, ranging from watching television to being at a wedding, praying or translating correspondence for family. A vignette reporting on this discussion highlights a challenge in clarity, or sense of unboundedness, around which languages are spoken and when: When talking about praying, Emenike said that he does this in English but at the beginning he starts off in Yoruba. He wasn’t sure why it changes from Yoruba into English. Lena said that she prayed in English but with some parts in Yoruba because of the faith songs.

Much of the initial discussion centred around when and where the HLs were spoken. This varied among the group, some students reporting that they watched television in their HL and some saying that their main contact was overhearing family members. As a participant researcher I was keen to ensure the students understood that I, too, identified as plurilingual and I shared my own experiences of living in two languages to draw out similar or contrasting experiences of the students. The multimodality of the paper-based and live texts that I modelled served as a starting point for a multimodal space in which students were welcome to contribute using many different modes. Presentations about HLs

Students were given two hours to prepare a presentation on their HL (or one of the HLs) in response to the following prompts (Figure 1.1): I encouraged students to focus on linguistic features, but wanted most to find pictures of cultural representations of their languages, such as food and images of prominent figures, indicative of the inextricable connection between culture and language. This worked well as a starting place for many of the presentations, and the multimodal texts that were cultivated naturally by the students as part of the process meant that certain elements could act as centrepieces when talking about language. As I introduced the idea of the students delivering presentations, some resistance was displayed around speaking their HL in a public space and identifying as plurilingual, as shown in Extracts 1 and 2.

Figure 1.1  Presentation prompts

Heritage Language Speakers’ Responses to Plurilingual Pedagogies   21

Extract 1

1.  T – We are all happy (to be recorded). 2.  S – (Collectively) Yes. 3.  Kalifah – Miss, but I’m not speaking in my language!

Resistance is shown by Khalifa in response to being recorded while speaking her HL and this is followed by a more direct refusal to identify as plurilingual from Emenike (Extract 2): Extract 2

1.  T – Do you think any of your teachers know that you are plurilingual? 2.  Paula – What’s that? 3.  T – Remember we are all plurilingual because we speak more than 4.  one language every day. 5.  Emenike – No I don’t. I just speak English. 6.  T – Ok maybe not every day but within your life, you speak more than 7.  one language.

Emenike’s response to being categorised as someone who speaks two languages every day shows that he is not comfortable with this at this point. Once Emenike starts to work on the presentation, however, the time he has been given to produce a piece of work about his language has given him the opportunity to reconsider and acknowledge his Yoruba identity, which he is keen to share with the group. Extract 3

1.  Emenike – Ok, um, my name is Emenike and I’m from Nigeria and I 2.  speak Yoruba and 3.  my favourite food is everything on the screen 4.  T – So what is everything on the screen? 5.  Emenike – Oh so the thing on the top left is jollof rice with plantain 6.  and. I don’t know, 7.  there’s salad then there’s flavoured leaf, a leaf which has flavour, and 8.  then I think it’s 9.  fish and chicken then, the thing next to it is pounded yam 10.  Modupe – Yeah 11.  Emenike – There’s okra, the green thing yeah and the red thing is 12.  ‘pata’ and the thing 13.  there is chicken. Then the thing on the right is yam and egg. The egg 14.  is the one that has

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15. peppers and the yam is the white thing. And on the bottom is chin 16.  chin, its brown 17.  Ss – Chin chin chin chin 18. Emenike – And the thing to the left isheyo. Erm.. yeah. Oh and the 19.  other thing jerk 20. chicken. So these are the numbers in Yoruba ‘odo’ means zero, a.. 21.  means 1, meji is 2, 22. mata is 3, mari is 4, mavi is 5 mafa is 6, meji is 7, mejo is 8 , mesa 9 23.  and maroa is 10. 24.  And on the bottom is the greetings in Yoruba so (pauses) eke… 25.  Lena – Eka ar ba 26. Emenike – Ek ar o ba - that says good morning and ka so it means 27.  good afternoon and 28. kule is good evening …. is good night and ba wo mi means how are 29.  you. And that’s it.

Both languages are used in his presentations and at times both are needed to convey meaning. Emenike moves between languages and, rather than distinguish the language when using Yoruba names for food, his heteroglossia constitutes language forms simultaneously (Creese & Blackledge, 2010: 208). The use of images encourages him to share his heritage. He uses the screen to map out his explanation and seems comforted by the ability to share images to accompany his speech. This indicates the importance of the multimodality of the task when drawing out students’ responses to talking about their HL, a topic they are not used to talking about in the classroom. It is interesting to note that when Emenike stumbles on the greetings, he is helped by a fellow Yoruba speaker. This is an example of peer support, which grew throughout the project, as well as an uncertainty which often arose in terms of pronunciation and meanings. This uncertainty around how to pronounce words or find accurate translations, which at times becomes frustration, appears again in response to my question about whether students ever talk with teachers in the HL. Lena describes a time when the school cover supervisor, who is Nigerian, spoke in Yoruba, not directly to her but within her hearing. When I asked Lena to translate the anecdote, the negotiation between the students is revealing in terms of domains that they are comfortable with. Their perseverance is testament to the positive response they are having to being provided with an outlet that showcases their everyday, informal knowledge of Yoruba. Extract 4

1. T – Can you say it in Yoruba and then explain it? 2. Lena – (Laughs) Erm…OK.. Erm…

Heritage Language Speakers’ Responses to Plurilingual Pedagogies   23

3. Modupe – Okule… 4. Lena – She… said… 5. Modupe – (Saying parts of sentences in Yoruba.) 6.  Lena – oh… I’m trying to think of how to word it, but like… 7. (Pained laugh)…OK … erm… 8. She said.. 9. erm.. ah… 10. Modupe – Say it in English. 11. Lena – She said ‘This is one of my students she is walking in front 12. of me I bet she doesn’t 13. turn around’ 14. T – Oh. Say it in Yoruba then. Can you say it (to Modupe)? 15. Eminike – Me? No 16. Modupe – Ermmm… 17. Emenike – Oh Modupe! I forgot oh yeah (that he speaks Yoruba). 18. Modupe – (Some Yoruba parts of sentence.) 19. Lena – I can say some words. 20. T – Go on. 21. Lena – I’s like ok. 22. Modupe – Ola meeee. 23. Lena – I don’t.., like.. can’t say it… 24. Modupe – Ok! Ola me… eh… ola me.. I can’t say forward… Ola 25. meeni yeh. 26. Emenike – No no no, that’s son. 27. Lena – Yeah. Yeah it’s a simple way, in a simple way. 28. T – What like they are going away from you? 29. Modupe – Ola meeni yeah. 30. Emenike – Ba da sa o that’s son! 31. T – What does that mean? 32. Lena – that means ‘my child’.

The mode employed here to explore students’ experiences of multilingual language acts is a conversational and somewhat performative one. The interactive and unrestricted nature of this mode, a joint retelling of a story, allows the students to bounce their plurilingualism off each other in a way that writing a story about it, for example, might not have afforded as a semiotic resource. This modality proves to be important for allowing translanguaging to emerge. While the interaction reveals uncertainty, it also uncovers a battle to perform in response to being asked to use the HL to retell a story, showing the importance of peers in some HL speakers’ experiences. In contrast, Sara, a Spanish and Hungarian speaker is confident and easy during her presentation – for example, saying a word in an English accent

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and a Hungarian accent and proudly uses ‘we’ when talking about the language (Extract 5): Extract 5

1.  Sara – So I am from Hungary and I’m Hungarian and in Hungary, 2. you say Majaro (said in 3.  English accent) Majaro (said in Hungarian accent) and normally 4. you put two dots on the 5. o and we have a lot of erm like flicks and all It...

She also uses metalinguistic terms to describe what she is presenting and includes a cultural representation (Extract 6): Extract 6

1. Sara – And then I’ve got some nouns like flower (….) and like cloud 2. (felha) and next 3. pancakes are a traditional dessert

At one point, Sara hypothesises that, had her dad been Hungarian, her name would have been pronounced differently, sparking interest from the other students whose intrigue is evident in their repetition of the Hungarian variation of her name (Extract 7): Extract 7

1.  Sara: This is Hungary, this is the capital city and I… my city is 2. somewhere here, which is 3.  called Deperton and Szia up there is how you say ‘Hi’ and nor 4. mally... if… for.. . soo well, 5.  since I was born in Hungary, if my dad was Hungarian, my name 6. would have been 7.  spelled S-Z-A-R-A ‘cause if you have a Z you always put a S after it 8. but if you have an S 9.  you always put the Z after it and like if you have a G you put the Y 10. after it and if you 11. have the Y you put a G after it 12. S (collectively) – Ssszzara, Sara, Zara 13. Geraldine – Then how would you pronounce your name? 14. Emenike – Zara

While proficiency is not the focus here, it is interesting to note that similar levels of inaccuracy occur in Sara’s language production but that, in her case, it is not accompanied by so much trepidation. This could be related to the fact that she is the only Hungarian speaker in the

Heritage Language Speakers’ Responses to Plurilingual Pedagogies   25

classroom, whereas Lena, Modupe and Emenike were more careful not to make mistakes in front of peers who speak the same HL, in line with the language shyness theory that some HL speakers use their language less due to being ridiculed about imperfections (Krashen, 1998). HL Book Design

Students created a book designed for learners or speakers of their HL. They were given examples as guidance, including a counting book and a parallel text, but they were able to decide their content and design. Sara opted to label a picture in Hungarian rather than write a story, indicative of a lack of confidence in writing sentences in Hungarian, which she comments on in her interview when asked whether she would like to use her languages more in school subjects: Extract 8

1. Sara – I would think that’s a great opportunity for me to get ­ 2. confident because I don’t 3. actually know how to write in my languages that well but I’m ­ 4. learning Spanish in my 5. Spanish lessons but Hungarian I still need to learn like erm, the 6. symbols

She drew a picture of a park (Figure 1.2) and chose to label words such as fruit, tree, chair and frost and used correct spellings. Sara did not seem particularly focused on this task, especially in comparison to talking Hungarian or talking about the language, during which she was very animated. The opportunity to use a visual modality has encouraged her through her resistance and enabled her to continue to engage with the task.

Figure 1.2  Sara’s HL book design

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As an extra activity to encourage metalinguistic reflection, the students were prompted to think about how you would write ‘Maria’s house’ in their languages. Sara attempted this and wrote ‘Mori Hazsa’. She chose to change Maria to Mori, a Hungarian name, and formed a possessive. The word for house in Hungarian is Haz and she correctly included the ‘a’ sound at the end of the noun to indicate that it belongs to Mori. This response shows the potential to use the HL in sophisticated ways, and how strategies can be focused to guide students towards accessing it in ways that enrich linguistic understanding. It is interesting to note that, in contrast to Sara’s resistance to write in her HL, the process that she goes through using a live linguistic modality encourages a sophisticated response, enabling deep engagement with the HL. Emenike started off this task with a picture dictionary book design (Figure 1.3). He was reluctant at first, but I gave him a laptop to use and he soon became encouraged. While Google translate was not very useful for the task, he found websites with word lists and used them to create an A–Z. Emenike changed his attitude over the course of the project and his response to this activity shows him taking an interest in finding out new words in Yoruba. Two students produced a fable which they wrote as a parallel text. Desi’s ability to write a parallel text demonstrates strong text literacy in her HL. She has included a cover page with an illustration that she has spent time on, using colour and careful illustration, showing pride in her work. Desi’s English text (Figure 1.4) seems to be inspired by her use of Spanish to draft the fable. She translated idiomatic phrases in Spanish giving the English text an interesting touch that would not have been created if she had not used Spanish for the task. For example, she writes: ‘the cat was looking at the fish with a hungry look’. These responses indicate the possibility of richer creative writing when students are encouraged to access their full linguistic repertoires. The multimodality of the book design task encouraged students to research and think about their creations as having audiences. Each stage of the design requires a different mode. Students had to make use of search engines, images, text and, in some cases, sound. This range of modes enhanced their interaction with the HL, meaning that they are engaging multilingually within the different modalities, allowing them to use their linguistic repertoires freely and to choose whichever mode feels comfortable. The opportunities to write in the HLs were positive experiences for the students, which instilled pride and gave them the chance to act as experts. However, while the responses indicate that such strategies need practice and should be incorporated more frequently into lessons, practitioners need to be fully aware of the large variation in proficiency and the skills that need to be developed to use the strategies to the benefit of the students. An effective element of this task was the

Heritage Language Speakers’ Responses to Plurilingual Pedagogies   27

Figure 1.3  Emenike’s HL book design

emphasis on multimodality, given that the design of the book was completely up to the student. This meant there was a wide array of modalities accessed alongside writing, throughout the group during the same task, according to their preferences and proficiency in the HL. Plurilingual Poetry

With the objective of creating plurilingual poems, we read and discussed a poem together. The key words in the discussion were then given to the students and they were asked to translate as many as they could into their HLs. The next step was to write a poem inspired by the theme of the original poem, which was freedom, using the translated

28  Part 1: Multilingual Approaches

Figure 1.4  Desi’s HL book design

words. Students were encouraged to mix languages in the poem and to present the poem as they wished, visually. Abdul (Figure 1.5) annotated his word list, translating the words ‘running’, ‘power’, ‘money’ and ‘play’ into Twi. His poem focused on the Twi word for money: ‘sika’. While Abdul used both languages orally during the project, it was the first time that Abdul had used the languages together in a written form and it was a breakthrough in terms of including the HL in an activity that he would usually do monolingually.

Figure 1.5  Abdul’s plurilingual poetry

Heritage Language Speakers’ Responses to Plurilingual Pedagogies   29

Dialogue around the poetry activity further revealed students’ willingness to collaborate. Lena and Emenike reflected on language in the process of translation, explaining that some concepts in Yoruba needed a whole sentence, rather than one word. For example, the way they translated scope was ‘go and see it’. Again, Lena expressed some frustration at not being able to remember ‘simple words’, but this activity served well to set the students up as experts and there were many instances of the students telling the teacher something new about language. On Lena’s planning sheet (Figure 1.6), she translated a range of words on the list. On the back of her sheet are some notes that we made together. Lena talked and I wrote at some points and she added words to complete the sentences in Yoruba. She used the Yoruba word for ‘protected’ when talking about rights and ‘believe it’ and added ‘olodos don’t deserve freedom’. Her final poem changed a lot from the first one, with the first activity acting as a warm-up to using both languages (Figure 1.7). Use of words such as olodo (a common Yoruba insult translating as ‘empty headed’), owo (money) and aseyori (success) gives the piece a cultural element that would not have been accessed or included had the student’s use of the HL not been facilitated. Lena’s creative writing has been enhanced by the opportunity to bring an element of her life world to the classroom. This approach encouraged the learners to work more creatively with vocabulary and meanings, and to take risks when writing, opening up attitudes to using their plurilingualism in school. Her poetry showed an understanding of ways to play with language. Inspired by a model in class she has adopted her own style and it seems that with the capitalisation of some letters, she has intended to incorporate sound into her text.

Figure 1.6  Lena’s plurilingual poetry notes

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Figure 1.7  Lena’s plurilingual poetry

Discussion

The project provided a series of linguistic outlets through which change and development in terms of interaction with HLs are visible. The ease with which the students moved in and out of mindsets changed throughout the project, depending on factors such as the mode of the task or the way in which questions were framed. The data presented in this chapter foreground the role of heritage culture when talking about language and its value in identity development (Lee, 2013), and the importance of creating time and space for learners to engage with their plurilingualism. The development of a plurilingual curriculum space was challenged at times by resistance and discomfort (Blackledge & Creese, 2010) at the same time as being bolstered by students’ effortless translanguaging once it was situated in a comfortable environment in which peers supported each other. Opportunities to consider their plurilingualism led to wider perspectives on language use, which at times caused frustration and shyness (ROMtels, 2018) as they strived to perform their plurilingual selves, often encountering pride and surprise in doing so. While the context of the research was not a usual classroom context – rather an after-school elective – in this case it was in a mainstream environment with a mainstream subject teacher. The absence of prescribed curriculum objectives facilitated an exploration of what type of activities and modalities encouraged HL use and the contexts that suited the approach, such as food, culture, discussions about language, identity and creative writing, which are elements that play roles in many

Heritage Language Speakers’ Responses to Plurilingual Pedagogies   31

mainstream contexts. The project acts as a starting point to create such opportunities within existing curricula in mainstream lessons and serves as a preliminary basis for more such studies to explore how plurilingual pedagogies are responded to within such diverse contexts, contributing to the ‘underdeveloped’ pedagogical side of translanguaging (Li & Luo, 2017: 143). For there to be more documentation, it is important to record the practice not only in academic research but through ‘informed professional practice’ such as action research projects at school, or through teacher training initiatives (Costley & Leung, 2020: 11). Such practices being legitimised are important for further steps such as embracing the use of translations in mainstream subjects, encouraging students to get to grips with concepts in other languages, and breaking down the barrier caused by the mindset that English is the only avenue through which success and language development are available. Appendix: List of Plurilingual Activities Linguistic ‘Outlet’ 

Description 

Introductions in the HL 

An opportunity to introduce themselves individually as far as they could in the HL 

Group Discussions  

Discussion of definitions of plurilingualism, language dominance and attitudes toward the HL  

Short Film Viewings featuring HL Speakers 

An opportunity to encounter HL speakers in everyday life and to share individual reflections  

Identification of Multilingual/ Plurilingual Selves 

An opportunity for students to express how multilingual and plurilingual they felt by placing themselves on a scale 

Plurilingual Poetry 

Re-writing of poetry to include HL words and phrases 

HL Book Design 

An opportunity to use and develop knowledge of the HL to design children’s books in the HL 

Class Languages Survey 

A class survey carried out by the students to find out the nature of the languages spoken in the group, encouraging discussion and reflection 

Plurilingual Awareness Quiz 

A quiz on local and national plurilingual realities to explore students’ perceptions 

Tube Tongues Mapping 

Use of the Tube Tongues website, which shows the most commonly spoken language after English for each tube station in London, to generate discussion 

Linguistic Landscape Mural 

The joint creation of a mural that represented the local linguistic landscape of the students provided the opportunity for students to use a mix of media to represent their HL 

Multilingual Word Sort 

A word sort of five words (hello, yes, food, cat and happiness) translated into the different languages of the group and written on individual cards for students to recognise  

Translation Challenge 

Students were given four texts in English, increasing in difficulty, and they chose which they wanted to have a go at translating in the HL  

HL Dictionary Challenge 

Students created a learner dictionary, writing down a HL word for each letter of the alphabet  

32  Part 1: Multilingual Approaches

Language Portraits 

Students visually mapped their languages on to the silhouette of a body to express where they felt their languages in their body 

Written Presentations in the HL 

Students wrote self-introductions using as much of the HL as possible 

Spoken Presentations about the HL 

Students designed and delivered individual PowerPoint presentations about the HL  

Project Cover Pages 

Students designed project cover pages for the body of work produced 

HL Language Lessons 

Students designed and delivered mini lessons on the numbers 1–10 in the HL 

Language Attitude Card Sort  

Students arranged attitudinal statements about their languages in order of importance to them, so as to generate discussion 

References Bak, T.H. and Mehmedbegovic, D. (2017) Healthy linguistic diet: The value of linguistic diversity and language learning across the lifespan. Languages, Society & Policy https://doi.org/10.17863/CAM.9854. Blackledge, A. and Creese, A. (2010) Multilingualism: A Critical Perspective. London: Continuum. Canagaraja, S. (2011) Translanguaging in the classroom: Emerging issues for research and pedagogy. Applied Linguistics Review 2 (2011), 1–28. Cook, V.J. (2001) Using the first language in the classroom. Canadian Modern Language Review/La revue canadienne des langues vivantes 57 (3), 402–423. See also. http:// www.viviancook.uk/Writings/Papers/L1inClass.htm Copland, F. and Creese, A. (eds) (2015) Linguistic Ethnography: Collecting, Analysing and Presenting Data. London: Sage. Costley, T. and Leung C. (2020) Putting translanguaging into practice: A view from England. System 92 (2), 1–13. Creese, A. and Blackledge, A. (2010) Translanguaging in the bilingual classroom: A pedagogy for learning and teaching. The Modern Language Journal 94 (1), 103–115. Creese, A. and Blackledge, A. (2011) Ideologies and interactions in multilingual education: What can an ecological approach tell us about bilingual pedagogy? In C. Hélot and M. Ó Laoire (eds) Language Policy for the Multilingual Classroom: Pedagogy of the Possible (pp. 3–21). Bristol: Multilingual Matters. Creese, A., Blackledge, A., Barac, T., Bhatt, A., Hamid, S., Li, W., Lytra, V., Martin, P., Wu, C.-J. and Yagcioglu, D. (2011) Separate and flexible bilingualism in complementary schools: Multiple language practices in interrelationship. Journal of Pragmatics 43 (5), 1196–1208. Cummings, J. (2005) A proposal for action: Strategies for recognising heritage language competence as a learning resource in the mainstream classroom. The Modern Language Journal 89 (4), 585–592. Department of Education (2018) Schools, pupils and their characteristics: January 2018. https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/schools-pupils-and-their-characteristicsjanuary-2018. García, O. (2009) Bilingual Education in the 21st Century: A Global Perspective. Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell. García, O. and Li, W. (2014) Translanguaging: Language, Bilingualism and Education. New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan. Gibbons, J. and Rarmirez, E. (2004) Maintaining a Minority Language: A Case Study of Hispanic Teenagers. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters.

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Krashen, S. (1998) Language shyness and heritage language development. In S. Krashen, L. Tse and J. McQuillan (eds) Heritage Language Development (pp. 41–49). Culver City, CA: Language Education Associates. Lee, B.H. (2013) Heritage language maintenance and cultural identity formation: The case of Korean immigrant parents and their children in the USA. Early Child Development and Care 183 (11), 1576–1588. https://doi.org/10.1080/03004430.2012.741125. Li, S. and Luo, W. (2017) Creating a translanguaging space for high school emergent bilinguals. The CATESOL Journal 29 (2), 139–162. Moll, L., Amanti, C., Neff, D. and Gonzalez, N. (1992) Funds of knowledge for teaching: Using a qualitative approach to connect homes and classrooms. Theory into Practice 31 (2), 132–141. Montrul, S. (2016) The Acquisition of Heritage Languages. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Montrul, S. and Polinsky, M. (2019) Introduction to heritage language development. In M.S. Schmid and B. Köpke (eds) The Oxford Handbook of Language Attrition (pp. 419–433). Oxford: Oxford University Press. Pahl, K. (2014) Materializing Literacies in Communities: The Uses of Literacy Revisited. London: Bloomsbury. Rivera, A.J. and Mazak, C.M. (2017) Analyzing student perceptions on translanguaging: A case study of a Puerto Rican university classroom. HOW 24 (1), 122–138. http:// dx.doi.org/10.19183/how.24.1.312. ROMtels (2018) Roma Translanguaging Enquiry Space. https://nuvision.ncl.ac.uk/Play/ 17744. Smythe, S. and Toohey, K. (2009) Bringing home and community to school: Institutional constraints and pedagogic possibilities. In J. Miller, A. Kostogriz and M. Gearon (eds) Culturally and Linguistically Diverse Classrooms: New Dilemmas for Teachers (pp. 271–290). Bristol: Multilingual Matters. Stake, R.E. (1995) The Art of Case Study Research. London: Sage Publications. Yin, R. (2010) Qualitative Research from Start to Finish. London: Guilford Press.

2 The Development of the Linguistic Repertoire of Primary School Learners within the Mauritian Multilingual Educational System Yesha Devi Mahadeo-Doorgakant

Introduction

The Republic of Mauritius is situated about 2000 kilometres off the south-east coast of Africa. Having been a French colony in the 18th century and a British colony from the 19th to the 20th century, Mauritius gained its independence in 1968. The island is often described as being multilingual, multicultural and having a multilingual educational system in global representations, which have been conducted to codify the linguistic terrain in practice as well (Central Intelligence Agency, 2015; Ministry of Finance & Economic Development [CSO], 2000, 2011). Within the Mauritian multilingual educational system, English is the official medium of instruction while French is taught as a compulsory subject till upper secondary and oriental languages are offered as optional languages at the start of primary schooling. The oriental languages serve as the religious and/or cultural affirmation of the different ethnic groups who live on the island (Auleear Owodally, 2012). In 2012, after years of attempts at introducing the Mauritian Creole as the mother tongue in the educational system, Kreol Morisien (KM), the standardised version of Mauritian Creole, was introduced as an optional subject at primary level in Mauritius, on a par with oriental/Asian/ Arabic languages. Since then, primary school learners have been able to choose between studying either KM or any other oriental/Asian/Arabic language when they start their primary schooling. 34

The Development of the Linguistic Repertoire of Primary School Learners  35

This chapter stems from a linguistic ethnographic study that was conducted to understand the development of the linguistic repertoire of multilingual primary school learners aged 7–8 years. It is situated within the context of the major policy redirection marked by the official introduction of KM taught as an optional language. According to JeanFrancois and Mahadeo-Doorgakant (2013), despite the fact that the educational system compartmentalises languages into separate boxes, primary school learners are constantly embedded in a space where the languages interact fluidly with each other and do not remain within rigid silos. The Mauritian primary learner therefore engages with, and associates, a multiplicity of languages with different recognitions and statuses within their everyday worlds. But does entry into the schooling situation further exacerbate or alleviate these tensions between the fluid composite of languages? This question constitutes a founding rationale underpinning this study. It is within this very complex educational linguistic make-up that this study is posited. The above-mentioned policy redirection opened a unique avenue to researching how a multilingual develops their linguistic repertoire within such a complex multilingual educational system that is very different from other multilingual educational systems prevalent worldwide due to contextual linguistic intricacies. Theoretical Shift to Studying Multilingualism within the Mauritian Multilingual Educational System

To be more contextually and theoretically appropriate (Canagarajah, 2011) this study adopted a theoretical shift, from using the highly debatable term language towards using linguistic repertoire. Rather than considering multilinguals as deficient, the rich unique heritage and complexity of being multilingual was foregrounded (Blackledge & Creese, 2010). The literature suggested an interpretation beyond single discrete language utterances, towards looking at the interplay of the many co-existing interactional linguistic operations within a dynamic linguistic repertoire. This latter approach looks at language practices as part of social practices, which are fluid, dynamic and at times even disruptive. The intersection between personal linguistic repertoire, the circumscribing schooling contextual environment of changing policy and the wider evolving systemic Mauritian linguistic landscape, constituted the lens for the research study. This was deemed necessary as most of the literature that is available on multilingualism in the 20th century is deeply embedded within the structuralist theoretical construct of bilingualism (Blackledge & Creese, 2010; García, 2011; Hoffman, 2001). Indeed, the phenomenon of multilingualism is believed to be quite different from that of bilingualism (Cenoz & Jessner, 2000; Cenoz et al., 2001a, 2001b, 2003). Hoffman and Ytsma (2003) argue that it is necessary to demarcate the theoretical

36  Part 1: Multilingual Approaches

construct underpinning multilingualism because the multilingual learning environment is viewed as being complex and multifaceted and needs to be understood as it is and not embedded within either monolingualism or bilingualism as theoretical constructs. Moreover, with reference to the Mauritian multilingual reality, Tirvassen (2011a, 2011b, 2012) and Rughoonundun-Chellapermal (2007) challenge how everyday language practices of Mauritians, which are multi-dimensional, are often treated by official policy and educational practices as discrete, monolithic and bounded within one language system which, therefore, offers a limited perspective of the linguistic complexity of Mauritians. Research carried out by Auckle and Barnes (2011) and Oozeerally (2013) advocates the necessity to find new models more suitable for the Mauritian linguistic context and that would allow for a better understanding of the phenomenon of multilingualism. Thus, in this study, multilingualism as a theoretical construct will be viewed as the ‘appropriation and incorporation for meaning-making of any and all linguistic resources which come to hand’ (Blackledge & Creese, 2010: 17). Since most theoretical frameworks have looked at multilingual educational models within the structuralist parallel monolingualism paradigm, it was necessary to find an alternative lens to study the development of the linguistic repertoire of multilinguals within the education domain in Mauritius. For this purpose, translanguaging was adopted as a theoretical lens. Canagarajah argues that the concept of translanguaging assumes: that, for multilinguals, languages are part of a repertoire that is accessed for their communicative purposes; languages are not discrete and separated, but form an integrated system for them; multilingual competence emerges out of local practices where multiple languages are negotiated for communication; competence doesn’t consist of separate competencies for each language, but a multicompetence that functions symbiotically for the different languages in one’s repertoire; and, for these reasons, proficiency for multilinguals is focused on repertoire building. (Canagarajah, 2011: 1, my emphasis)

Translanguaging thus sees the linguistic repertoire of the learner embedded within the contextual intricacies of the learner. The construct of translanguaging thus offered a richer and more in-depth social analysis of the phenomenon under study. Data Production and Analysis Procedures Methodology

For the present chapter, I draw upon data produced in 2014 from a linguistic ethnographic study conducted to understand how the

The Development of the Linguistic Repertoire of Primary School Learners  37

linguistic repertoire of the multilingual learner is situated within the contextual reality of the official introduction of KM within the school arena. The data were produced through participant observation as well as audio-recordings. Referred to as an ‘umbrella term’ by Rampton (2007) and Rampton et al. (2004), linguistic ethnography distinguishes itself by bringing together two terms – ‘linguistics’ and ‘ethnography’, which come from two different disciplines – and attempts to see how joining these two terms can be beneficial as an approach to research. Linguistic ethnography offered a deeper insight into the phenomenon, with ethnography offering the means to observe the situated language use of the Mauritian primary school learner. I analysed this situated language use by using linguistic analytical frameworks which sat with the theoretical framework of this study. This allowed me to shed light on the different mechanisms and dynamisms of social and cultural production in the everyday activity of the multilingual learner, providing a means to acknowledge the complexities of language learning in the current and changing multilingual national and global realities. The study offered a cross-comparative critical analysis of the linguistic repertoires of the two participants, juxtaposing them with the repertoire of their two teachers, seeking to best understand how their linguistic repertoires develop within the multilingual educational system and why they develop in the way they do. Data production and participants

The study by no means sought to be representative of all types of schools in Mauritius but, rather, aimed to capture the phenomenon within one given context. Thick linguistic ethnographic data were therefore produced through participant observation of two Standard 3 primary school learners, named Stevie and Piper (pseudonyms), who had been chosen through a combination of snowball and convenience sampling. Data were produced within the formal domain of the classroom as well as the informal domain (breaktimes in the classroom space or outside the classroom) over one school term. The participant observations were each accompanied with thick field notes and audiorecordings to ensure that the speech acts of the participants were deeply embedded within the context in which they were produced. Analysis of data

The study made use of an eclectic mix of analytical strategies to analyse the data, namely Blommaert’s (2013) linguistic landscape (LLS) framework and the concept of historical bodies within nexus analysis (Scollon & Wong Scollon, 2007). To deepen the level of analysis, I also used the Bakhtinian (1981, 1986, 1994) concept of heteroglossia

38  Part 1: Multilingual Approaches

and voice. Bakhtin’s notion of heteroglossia maintains that, within an utterance, the voices of others are brought forward to demonstrate how voices relate to other voices (Blackledge, 2005; Blackledge & Creese, 2010; Luk, 2008). Therefore, the dialogicality within the different discourses embedded in the discourse of the learners was one of the foci of the analysis. Moreover, the classroom was seen as a historically constructed space with set patterns and norms for those who occupy it. This framework was also used with the concept of historical ‘bodies’, a term taken from Scollon and Wong Scollon’s (2007) theory of nexus analysis and used as an analytical framework in this study. The concept of ‘historical bodies’ was deemed appropriate for this study as within each interaction that occurred in this study, bodies came in contact, ‘bring(ing) along their own skills, experiences and competences’ (Scollon & Wong Scollon, 2004: 46). Recognising each body as ‘the life experiences of the individual social actors’ (Scollon & Wong Scollon, 2004: 46) enriched the understanding of how the linguistic repertoire developed. In this study, the learners and the teachers were seen as historical bodies bringing with them their life trajectories and histories, which in turn shaped their utterance when they interacted with each other. Findings

This section throws light on how the linguistic repertoire of primary school learners is developed within multilingual educational systems. It seeks to bring forth possible interpretations for understanding the data. Environmental repertoire of multilingual learners within ­informal school talk

Informal school talk occurred both within and outside the classroom when the learners interacted informally. Since the study explored the linguistic repertoire of the learner in the different spaces within which it evolved and developed at school, I felt it was necessary to study this aspect of the learner’s world also. The learner’s day is spent mostly within the classroom and the space that mostly shapes the contours of their world in the classroom is that of their desk. This space is not a fixed one as the teacher changes the seating arrangement of learners frequently to ensure that discipline is maintained in class. Given that this space is constantly shifting, the learner’s power over that space is transitory. A close look at the learner’s world shows us that the time that is normally given to the child for classwork is also subverted through the different activities that mould and are moulded by the linguistic repertoire of the child. During fieldwork, Stevie, who was quite

The Development of the Linguistic Repertoire of Primary School Learners  39

talkative, was made to change his place at different intervals. Yet, what remained fixed was the desk and the chair, which was the fixed space attributed to all learners. Therefore, the child’s desk and chair are highly representative of the space that is moulded by the child when he or she takes over the space allotted to him. The other space that makes up the learner’s world is the space outside the classroom. Hence, informal school talk data were generated within these two spaces. Furthermore, one of the main bodies that shape the learner’s world and interactional acts within this domain is no doubt the classmates of both learners. It was noted that Stevie and Piper’s informal school talk differed a lot in the choice of repertoire they made. Stevie used mostly KM to interact with his classmates as well as with the researcher over the time spent during data production irrespective of where he was and what he was talking about. This can be noted in the extracts below (Tables 2.1 to 2.3). Different fonts have been used to showcase the multilingualism embedded within the talk in the transcripts. Bold is used for KM talk while italics highlight the shift to French. Standard normal font is used for English, and translation in English is provided for all the talk. Another recurrent body that emerged from the data produced with Piper and Stevie was a semiotised object/feature, constantly present within their conversations. While much of the interactional data of Stevie had strands of his singing embedded within his repertoire, Piper’s linguistic repertoire on the other hand was very often centered around a book. The semiotic feature in his repertoire were the different songs Table 2.1  Informal school talk Informal school talk with classmate

Informal school talk with researcher

KEY: S = Stevie S3 = Stevie’s classmate

KEY: RES = Researcher S19 = Ciara S = Stevie

S: (addressing S3) ey sak delo la mo trouv enn dimoun pe sarye ha pe ale! {Hey that bag of water I see a person carrying that and going} S3: ki zafer? {What thing?} S: ein (…) mo trouv enn dimoun pe sarye ha lor so ledo pe bwar pe ale {What? (...) i saw a person carrying that on his shoulder drinking and going} S3: ki zafer? {What thing?} S: sak delo la ta {that bag of water}

S19: Ciara! RES: Tu as un joli nom?{You have a nice name?} S: (overlapping) ey guet sa sorsier la! (...) (noise in the background as children talk at the same time) {Hey look at this witch here! (...)} RES: (unintelligible )sorsier? {witch?} S: sorsier! (...) guet so nene!{witch! (...) watch her nose!} RES: (overlapping) lui c’est un crapeau! (...) (noise in the background as children laugh and talk) Stevie qui est crapeau (…) (noise in the background as desks are being pushed and children talk){he is a frog! (...) Stevie who is a frog (…)}

40  Part 1: Multilingual Approaches

Table 2.2  Songs Sega

Religious song

KEY: TEA = Teacher S10 = Other child in class S = Stevie

KEY: RES = Researcher S = Stevie P = Piper S2 = Classmate

S10: (overlapping )tu connais cette chanson la (…) (starts singing) katrer dimatin(…) (unintelligible){(overlapping) do you know this song (…) (singing) at four in the morning (…)} S: (joins her in the singing) papa kot to ete? papa kot to ete? ar mwa (…) ey mo konn enn sante (…) lor kline* man (pronounced as [maen] ) {dad where are you? dad where are you? with me (…) hey I know a song (…) on kline man} S10: mo konn enn sante (…) {I know a song} S: (overlapping singing in seggae style) mo kamarad ti (unintelligible) {my friend had}

S: (starts singing loudly in the background) les anges donnent en champagne (…) {the angels give in village (…)} P: Moi?{me?} S2: frot miss! (...) (noise in the background as the children are making a lot of noise) sens! {rub miss (…) (noise) smell!} RES: Ça sent bon! (...) (noise in the background) {it smells good!} S: (sings in the recorder) les anges donnent en campagne (unintelligible) de liberté (unintelligible because he has his mouth just over the recorder) montagne (unintelligible) aujourd’hui le feu est allumé aujourd’hui (…) le feu est allumé aujourd’hui (…) chantons hallelujah! (…) le feu est allumé (…) (noise in the background as children talk as he moves away from recorder) (sings) the angels give in the village (unintelligible) of freedom (unintelligible) mountains (unintelligible) today the fire is lit today (…) the fire is lit today (…) let’s sing hallejulah! (...) the fire is lit (...) (noise)}

Table 2.3  Informal talk Informal talk with classmates

Informal talk with researcher

KEY: P = Piper S3 = Other classmate

KEY: P = Piper RES = Researcher

S3: Non il a pas marker (…) {No he doesn’t have marker (…)}

RES: (overlapping) dans la pluie? (...) (noise in the background as children are talking) {(overlapping) in the rain? (...)}

P: Si (...) {Yes (…)} S3: C’est faux (..) {It’s false (…)} P: C’est vrai (...) {It’s true (…)} S3: C’est faux {It’s false} P: C’est vrai (...) {It’s true (…)} S3: C’est faux {It’s false} P: C’est vrai (…) E vremem, pa p koz menti mwa, mo mama ki donn mwa ha marker la… mo perdi mo marker, mo montre mo papa (overlapping) {It’s true (…) hey truly, I am not lying, it is my mum who gave me that marker (…) I lost my marker, I show my dad} S3: (overlapping) taler mo pu pran marker rouge mo pu desine (…) {wait I will take red marker I will draw (…)}

P: Miss tu as kas (…) kas? Si te plaît miss (…) si te plaît miss! (...) (teacher talking in the background) ey chi te plait (bell goes again) nou ale nou ale nou ale (…) (noise in the background as children are shouting) {Miss, you have money (…) money? Please, miss (…) please, miss! (...) (teacher talking in the background) Hey, please (bell goes again) let’s go let’s go let’s go (...) (noise}

The Development of the Linguistic Repertoire of Primary School Learners  41

he sang, ranging from sega (a style of music traditional in Mauritius, Rodrigues and the Seychelles), to religious song, to seggae (the fusion genre of sega and reggae), as well as songs forming part of the pop genre. Stevie used to attend Catechism classes on Saturday and one possible interpretation is that the choice of religious songs, where his repertoire consists both of KM and French, brings within his voice the voice of the Roman Catholic Church. In Mauritius, the Roman Catholic Church has a strong historical association with French. Although most Catechism classes are conducted using KM and French, French still has an upper hold due to its social status. Despite being a formal space, the classroom can be appropriated and recontextualised and shaped according to learners’ identities and linguistic repertoires. It can be contended that these instances offer us glimpses into what constitutes the learner’s world and how their linguistic repertoire translates this world. An analysis of the other genres of songs that Stevie sang led us to argue that, apart from the voice that emanated from the Church, voices that resonated within his voice offered us an insight into the world that he originated from and the environment that surrounded him. These voices belong to another institution, namely the media. Kelly-Holmes states: Given the role that media play in contemporary societies in many parts of the world, they are one of the main means by which individuals may engage with and be exposed to discourses about multilingualism and multilingual practices. (Kelly-Holmes, 2012: 333)

Indeed, Maybin (2013) recognises that children echo and respond to voices from the media, and Blackledge and Creese (2010: 142) and Rampton (2006: 27) argue that students bring into informal classroom talk elements of popular culture by indulging in linguistic play. It was hence interpreted that there was a confluence of institutional voices embedded within that of Stevie’s own voice: namely the voice of the Church and that of media that he listened to. The choice of media, however, spoke volumes of his lived experiences. In the case of Piper it was seen that, whether she was interacting with her classmates or the researcher, translanguaging formed a major feature of her speech and she made use of different languages whether she was interacting with her classmates or with the researcher. Thus, in the extracts that follow, where Piper is talking with her classmate and arguing with her over a marker, she starts by bickering with her in French and then shifts to KM to lay emphasis on the fact that she is not lying. She does the same with the researcher in one of the chats that they had, asking her whether she had money. Although she starts with a French sentence, she moves to using the word kas in her sentence and then she

42  Part 1: Multilingual Approaches

Table 2.4  Reading KEY: P = Piper S1 = Classmate in class S1: One nine ten P: lir!(...) (murmurs in the background) Un jour papa (…) {read! (…) One day dad (…)} S1: Papa {dad} P: Elephant (pronounced as English word){elephant} S1: Papa éléphant! {father elephant!} P: Papa elephant (pronounced as English word; murmurs in the background) {father elephant} S1: Éléphant! {elephant} P: Elephant (children talking among themselves in the background)

moves back to French, before insisting that they go out, shifting again to KM in her interaction. Piper’s speech acts are filled with such instances. Piper’s world also had a recurring semiotised object around which much of her linguistic repertoire is shaped. In various instances, during data production, Piper brought in a book that she was trying to read within her speech acts, as can be seen in the following extract where she moved between using French and KM as she ordered Larry, her neighbour, to read his book and she then moved on to help him read. She did so by pointing out the words as she was reading and pausing in between to let Larry repeat them after her. As she continued, instead of reading in French the word éléphant, she read out the word in English and she was corrected by Larry, who read it in French. She repeated after him but again read the word out in English instead of French. Books shaped the contours of Piper’s world. Even when she was not allowed to read them, she propped them under the desk and went through them as the teacher was teaching in the background, therefore subverting the space of the classroom as Stevie did, but in a less obtrusive manner. The books she read were either borrowed from the book corner or brought from home. A book that was predominant in the conversations was a gift from her mother. It was the French version of Little Red Riding Hood. Levya et al. (2012) state that children’s abstract thinking skills are shaped by parents’ talk and, according to Heath (1983) and Michaels (1981), the home context plays a key role when it comes to language learning, including the development of the repertoire of the learner and their literacy. In her research carried out in Mauritian pre-primary schools, looking at language choices of teachers with the pre-schoolers, Auleear Owodally (2011: 16) pointed out that the teachers ‘mentioned that there was parental pressure for them to use French in the preschool’. Moreover, she argued that the students’ mothers claimed that they

The Development of the Linguistic Repertoire of Primary School Learners  43

sometimes spoke French with their children at home and had ‘positive attitudes towards French’. Therefore, one possible interpretation was that Piper’s linguistic repertoire was moulded by her mother. According to Piper’s teacher, her mother, who was an administrative clerk, was very interested in the education of her children. It was therefore claimed that, as with Stevie’s world, Piper’s world was institutionally shaped, with her mother being a very important symbolic figure. If Piper’s world is constructed by her mother’s presence in her life, then her repertoire carries strands of her mother’s voice within it. This study viewed the classroom as being an ecosystem forming one layer within the learner’s world. Within this world, the learner’s repertoire comes into being through the interplay of institutional discourses that shape the world of the learners. It was understood that each individual learner comes to class with a repertoire of their own which, in this study, has been conceptualised as being the environmental repertoire of the learner. Thus, it can be stated that in environments and families where KM is mostly used and where the children are in touch with the repertoire of the media as well as that of religious institutions that families adhere to, their repertoire comprises those linguistic resources with which they have been in contact. In families where linguistic resources in French and KM are used, the children’s repertoire derives mostly from the repertoire of the family. Linguistic repertoire of learners within formal school talk

The formal domain is another layer of the children’s world and, in this study, was represented by the classroom spaces in which data were produced. The classroom is the physical space within which the learners spend most of their time during the day and it is one of the main elements that shape the interaction and hence the linguistic repertoire of the learners. The classroom is a space that has been historically constructed and which constructs patterns and norms for those who occupy it. Classrooms are not neutral spaces and the classroom in which this study was conducted was no exception. Within this space the language, which remained fixed throughout, was English, which was used mostly pedagogically, through teachers’ use of posters and other displays of written English to ensure that their students could recognise visually the different vocabulary items in English. Thus, what came out vividly was how the classroom space was constructed in a linguistically hierarchical manner. Most of the signs/displays that were fixed to the wall were in English, such as the body parts poster, a map of Mauritius, the days of the week, and numbers written in English. There were fewer visual signs of French within the classroom – and no display related to KM at all. The whiteboard dynamically reflected the contents of the lesson being

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taught and it was observed that there was usage of both English and French on the whiteboard as the teacher moved from teaching French to teaching other subjects in English. French was, therefore, de facto, an extra language of instruction in most cases. There was an absence of signs/displays/books in KM, even though it had been given an official space within the education system and was taught in the same classroom. A glance at the data showed that the teacher shaped the learners’ linguistic repertoire within the formal domain of the classroom. This is illustrated in Table 2.5, where the teachers teaching KM as well as the Enhancement Programme classes shape the different speech acts with the learners. However, in comparison to Stevie, Piper’s voice was hardly present in that domain. Hence, one main discursive practice noted within the arena of the classroom in the form of Piper’s voice was the near absence of the voice of the learner within the formal domain of the classroom. Pavlenko and Blackledge (2004), using the positioning theory of Davies and Harré (1990), bring forward three different types of identities that individuals may take on while interacting, namely: [i]mposed identities (which are not negotiable in a particular time and place); assumed identities (which are accepted and not negotiated); and negotiable identities (which are contested by groups and individuals). (Davies & Harré, 1990: 21)

It can be argued that the identity of the traditional learner is one imposed on all learners due to their marginal position in the classroom and that Piper, as a learner, assumed this identity without negotiating with it in her interactions. Most of the time, Piper remained silent: she only interacted when the teacher instructed her to do so. Moreover, when her voice was solicited, it came up as one voice resounding in a crowd. It can thus be claimed that learners are viewed as belonging to one single community and not as individuals within classroom discourse. As highlighted above, the teacher was one of the main bodies influencing the shaping of the linguistic repertoire. In their KM classes, both Stevie and Piper used KM to interact with their KM teacher, formally and informally, given that the latter interacted with them in KM. Moreover, it was seen that the General Purpose (GP) teacher, who taught the learners most of the core subjects, used her repertoire in a very significant way, shaping at the same time the attitudes of the learners towards the different languages. She used mainly French to interact with the learners within the formal domain, using the other two languages for very specific purposes. She taught English by using it alongside French, using English mostly to teach lexical items, chunks of languages or drilling sentences in English. Hence, Stevie and Piper made use of English only in the ways they had been taught to do so, that

The Development of the Linguistic Repertoire of Primary School Learners  45

Table 2.5  Speech acts KM Classroom

Stevie

Piper

KEY: TEA = Teacher S = Stevie

KEY: TEA = Teacher P = Piper SS = Other children in classroom S1 = Classmate S7 = Classmate

TEA: torti vwala!zot konn zistwar torti {Tortoise there! Do you know the story of tortoise?} S: (shouts) wi torti avek liev! {Yes the tortoise and the hare}

S1: mwa mo tousel (...){me I am alone (…)}

TEA: ale rakont enn kou {Ok tell me the story}

bokou atan van (…) (noise as all children are saying how they go back home after school hours) kouma to ale twa? {Ok many wait for the van (…) (noise) How do you go you?}

S: ti ena enn torti! {There was a tortoise} TEA: ein!ein! {Yes!Yes!} S: torti (…) si (…) ein liev la ti pli malin (…) sanse (…) sanse li konn (…) li konn galoupe lerla torti pe pe marse pe marse marse marse {tortoise (…) if (…) well the hare was smarter (…) as if (…) as if he knew (…) he knew how to run then the tortoise was walking slowly}

General Purpose Classes

KEY: TEA = Teacher SS = Other children in class S = Stevie P = Piper S19 = Classmate TEA: On regarde avec les yeux! (...) mais tu connais déjà l’histoire? (...) {We watch with the eyes! (...) but you already know the story (…)?} SS/P: Oui! (...) {Yes! (…)} S: C’était (…) c’était dans le livre de Kréol Morisien! {It was (…) it was in the Kreol Morisien book!} P: (overlapping) kreol! {creole!} TEA: Allez raconte moi l’histoire Stevie! (...) {Come on Stevie tell me the story! (…)} S: Il (…) il y avait une dame (…) {there (…) there was a woman (…)} TEA: Ey!assieds toi! (...) Stevie!(...) {Hey! Sit down! (…) Stevie! (...)} S: Il y avait une monsieur (…) {There was a man (…)} TEA: un monsieur! (...) {a man! (…)} S: un monsieur avec les dames (…) quand le dame l’a vu de (…) on a fait (unintelligible) le petit massepain (…) il a (…) il (…) il a (…) il a courir derrière lui (…) {a man with the ladies (…) when the lady has seen him (…) we have made a small marzipan (unintelligible) the small marzipan (…) he has (...) he (…) he has (…) he has run after him (…)}

TEA: (overlapping) ale

P: Mo mama (…) {My mother (…)} TEA: To atan to mama?c’est sa to paran (…) (murmurs as children are talking; conversation continues as teacher interacts with the learners about how they go home after school hours) {You wait for your mother? That’s it your parent (…)} P: (in a whisper) kapav tire? (...) (conversation continues between teacher and learners) {Can I take it out?} KEY: TEA = Teacher P = Piper SS = Other children in classroom TEA: Vous savez c’est quoi un massepain ? (...) {Do you know what is meant by marzipan? (…)} SS/P: Oui! (...) {Yes! (…)} TEA: Comment c’est quoi un massepain? (...) (several children interact at the same time explaining what marzipan is) c’est la foire là! (...) (children talking with TEA; interacts how marzipan is made and how the mothers of the children make marzipans using different methods; P stays quiet through this) be justement je vais raconter une histoire sur un petit bonhomme de massepain (…) (children talk in the background) ça veut dire c’est un petit bonhomme (…) qui est fait en? {What is a marzipan? (...) (explanation by children) We are at the market aren’t we! (...) (interaction between TEA and students) well then I will tell you a story of the small gingerbread man (…) (children talk) it means it is a small man (…) which is made of?} SS/P: massepain! (...) {marzipan!}

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is, through chorus repetition of lines or filling in oral gap exercises or answering through chunks of languages they had learned beforehand. It was also observed that the teacher only made use of KM within her repertoire to get an unresponsive learner to talk, or in asides to joke or reprimand the students for misbehaving. Therefore, this language avoidance strategy reveals in certain ways the attitudes of the teacher towards the use of KM in the classroom and what values she personally assigned to the language. Thus, it can be contended that the teacher looked down upon the usage of KM as a formal language of instruction, despite it being the language that was used in informal interactions with colleagues. In so doing, this ideology is also ingrained within the linguistic repertoire of the learners, as it is observed that the learners refrain from interacting with their GP teacher in KM. When they do so, they translanguage even when they are addressed in KM. García and Li (2013: 80) state that for learners who are emergent bilingual students, knowledge cannot be accessed except through language practices with which they’re already familiar. In turn, language practices cannot be developed except through the students’ existing knowledge…. At the same time, translanguaging enables students to truly show what they know.

Moreover, García et al. (2011: 54) claim that children within multilingual educational systems, ‘create their own third spaces with translanguaging predominating’. The learners in this study hence created a translingual system, merging their already acquired languaging practices with the more official institutional discourse within one arena to enable them to carry out meaningful interaction with their teacher. Unlike their learners, however, the teachers used the languages within their repertoire for very specific purposes, keeping the usage of these languages in the formal domain separate. Discussion and Conclusion

As was seen above, the Mauritian’s linguistic repertoire within the informal and formal domains was different. Whereas within formal school talk, the Mauritian learner was a marginal figure, having almost no voice and having to negotiate their identity through the different discursive practices brought forth, within the informal domain that was not the case. Within informal school talk, the Mauritian learner affirmed themself by fully making themself heard boisterously and by engaging in practices whereby their identity would be foregrounded. Thus, this study argues that multilingual learners step into the multilingual educational system with a rich flexible linguistic repertoire which is shaped by the

The Development of the Linguistic Repertoire of Primary School Learners  47

Figure 2.1  Educational Centrifugal Linguistic Acculturation Framework ­(Mahadeo-Doorgakant, 2017: 237)

environment in which they inhabit and that the multilingual educational system rigidly processes that repertoire so that it is separated into a number of languages which are taught within the system. This argument is represented visually in Figure 2.1. At the onset, when this study was conceptualised, the linguistic repertoire of the learner was seen as being a flexible, dynamic entity that emerged out of a unified whole, comprising a multilingual educational system deeply embedded within a multilingual society. However, the study revealed that, although the repertoire of learners was fluid and dynamic, having been shaped within a dynamic multilingual environment, when they stepped into the multilingual educational system, this repertoire was processed in a rigid manner and the learners were taught to streamline the languages into discrete compartments, with different values ascribed to the languages by the teachers. The linguistic repertoire with which Mauritian multilingual primary school learners step into the multilingual educational system (as represented diagrammatically in Figure 2.1) is a mix of seemingly chaotic dynamic elements, which has no concrete shape and that exists as a flexible and dynamic system. Children within a multilingual context therefore acquire a fluid repertoire that is built upon the various linguistic resources they come across within the different environments they inhabit. This study sees the environment as being the ecosystem that connotes the multilingual context within which a repertoire is a living organism

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that shapes, adapts, re-adapts and metamorphoses itself according to the ecosystem it inhabits. Similarly, the multilingual children’s repertoire is like that living organism, which morphs itself according to the different living organisms it comes into contact with, within the ecosystem in which it is used. Children within a multilingual context do not acquire one specific language or do not have one mother tongue as such, but, rather, acquire a repertoire which is shaped mainly by the living organism that is the family and the environment they are surrounded with, and which is quite often represented multimodally in speech acts. The multilingual educational system, on the other hand, can be compared metaphorically to a mechanical centrifuge which compartmentalises and separates the particles that make up the linguistic resources and which puts these different mixed substances into separate language boxes. Indeed, the multilingual educational system, which, conversely, has a strong structuralist monolingual mindset, itself is a rigid system that does not take into account the different repertoires that individual multilingual children have and aims at shaping the repertoire of the multilingual children differently. The aim of the multilingual educational system is to ensure that multilingual children do not have one repertoire but that their different linguistic resources are separated. Each of the separated repertoires of different languages can then be appropriated for different purposes. These languages which make up the multilingual educational system (notably English, French and KM), after spiralling and filtering through the centrifugal processes of schooling are rearranged into replicating the normative hierarchical arrangements of the languages within the social system. This is captured in Figure 2.1, where the two colonial languages, English and French, still maintain their linguistic supremacy and KM is subtly downgraded (even though present within the educational system). The centrifugal system provides a means to acculturate through the educational system a body of discrete language entities. Within those families who mimic the language practices of the multilingual educational system and who mirror the same discourse as well as the school ideology and ethos, the children are easily acculturated within the system. However, in the case of those children who have inhabited systems that are different from the one that is dominant in the multilingual educational schooling system, they run the risk of being rejected (filtered out) by the system. Therefore, the net effect is one which reinforces a strong preference for monolingual ideologies albeit within a multilingual educational environment. This model I have chosen to label Educational Centrifugal Linguistic Acculturation (ECLA) Framework. It serves to filter out multilinguistic plurality and diversity, towards streamlined discrete hegemonic monolingualisms. The educational centrifugal linguistic acculturation system engages the background repertoire of the learners and streams the learners towards separating

The Development of the Linguistic Repertoire of Primary School Learners  49

their linguistic repertoire into different languages, hence perpetuating the monolingual mindset. The agents of these mechanistic forces are themselves complicit in the consequences of their actions, unless they step back critically to examine the normativising potential of their action. Within this framework, however, elements of disruption exist which learners and teachers nevertheless can exercise when they are fully conversant with the implications of their actions that have become ritualised, normativised and prejudiced in favour of perpetuating the dominant status quo of inequity across different languages within a multilingual context. The potential to disrupt this status quo and to afford greater value to a multilingual society is more likely to be embraced by educators where the dynamic repertoire of learners is recognised and valued for its richness. References Auckle, T. and Barnes, L. (2011) Code switching, language mixing and fused lects: Emerging trends in multilingual Mauritius. Language Matters 42 (1), 104–125. Auleear Owodally, A.M. (2011) Juggling languages: A case study of preschool teachers’ language choices and practices in Mauritius. International Journal of Multilingualism 9 (3), 235–256. Auleear Owodally, A.M. (2012) Exposing preschoolers to the printed word: A case study of preschool teachers in Mauritius. Journal of Early Childhood Literacy 13 (1), 52–97. Bakhtin, M.M. (1981) The dialogic imagination: Four essays (M. Holquist, ed., C. Emerson and M. Holquist, trans.). Austin, TX: University of Texas Press.  Bakhtin, M. (1986) Speech Genres and Other Late Essays (C. Emersonn and M. Holquist, eds, V.M. Macgee, trans.). Austin, TX: University of Texas Press. Bakhtin, M.M. (1994) Problems of Dostoevsky’s poetics. In P. Morris (ed.) The Bakhtin Reader. Selected Writings of Bakhtin, Medvedev, Voloshinov (pp. 110–113). London: Arnold. Blackledge, A. (2005) Discourse and Power in a Multilingual World. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Blackledge, A. and Creese, A. (2010) Multilingualism: A Critical Perspective. London: Continuum. Blommaert, J. (2013) Ethnography, Superdiversity and Linguistic Landscapes: Chronicles of Complexity. Bristol: Multilingual Matters. Canagarajah, A.S. (2011) Translanguaging in the classroom: Emerging issues of research and Pedagogy. Applied Linguistic Review 2, 1–27. Cenoz, J. and Jessner, U. (eds) (2000) English in Europe: The Acquisition of a Third Language. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters. Cenoz, J., Hufeisen, B. and Jessner, U. (2001a) Looking Beyond Second Language Acquisition: Studies in Tri- and Multilingualism. Tubingen: Stauffenburg. Cenoz, J., Hufeisen, B. and Jessner, U. (2001b) Towards a trilingual education. Special Issue of the International Journal of Bilingualism and Bilingual Education 4 (1), 1–10. Cenoz, J., Hufeisen, B. and Jessner, U. (eds) (2003) The Multilingual Lexicon. Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Press. Central Intelligence Agency (2015) The world factbook: Africa-Mauritius. https://www.cia. gov/the-world-factbook/countries/mauritius/. Davies, B. and Harré, R. (1990) Positioning: The discursive production of selves. Journal for the Theory of Social Behaviour 20 (1), 43–63.

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García, O. (2011) From language garden to sustainable languaging: Bilingual education in a global world. Perspective. A Publication of the National Association for Bilingual Education 34 (1), 5–9. García, O. and Li, W. (2013) Translanguaging: Language, Bilingualism and Education. New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan. García, O., Flores, N. and Chu, H. (2011) Extending bilingualism in US secondary education: New variations. International Multilingual Research Journal 5 (1) 1–18. Heath, S.B. (1983) Ways with Words: Language, Life, and Work in Communities and Classrooms. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Hoffmann, C. (2001) Towards a description of trilingual competence. International Journal of Bilingualism 5 (1), 1–17. Hoffman, C. and Ytsma, J. (eds) (2003) Trilingualism in Family, School and Community. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters. Jean-François, E.B. and Mahadeo-Doorgakant, Y. (2013) Vers une prise en compte de la compétence translinguistique des apprenants dans le système éducatif mauricien. Glottopol: Revue de sociolinguistique en ligne 22 (juillet), 47–66. Kelly-Holmes, H. (2012) Multilingualism and the media. In M. Martin-Jones, A. Blackledge and A. Creese (eds) The Routledge Handbook of Multilingualism (pp. 333–346). Abingdon: Routledge. Levya, D., Sparks, A. and Reese, E. (2012) The Link between preschoolers’ phonological awareness and mothers’ book-reading and reminiscing: Practices in low-income families. Journal of Literacy Research XX (X), 1–22. Luk, J.C.M. (2008) Classroom discourse and the construction of learner and teacher identities. In M. Martin-Jones, A.M. de Meija and N.H. Hornberger (eds) Encyclopedia of Language and Education. Volume 3: Discourse and Education (2nd edn, pp. 121–134). New York, NY: Springer-Science and Business Media LLC. Mahadeo-Doorgakant, Y.D. (2017) The development of the linguistic repertoire of primary school learners within the Mauritian multilingual educational system. PhD thesis,  School of Education, University of KwaZulu-Natal. Maybin, J. (2013) Towards a sociocultural understanding of children’s voice. Language and Education 27 (5), 383–397. Michaels, S. (1981) ‘Sharing time’: Children’s narrative styles and differential access to literacy. Language in Society 10, 423–442. Ministry of Finance and Economic Development (2000) 2000 population census. http:// statsmauritius.govmu.org/English/Pages/2000--POPULATION--CENSUS---MAIN-RESULTS.aspx. Ministry of Finance and Economic Development (2011) 2011 population census. http:// statsmauritius.govmu.org/English/Census andSurveys/Documents/ESI/pop2011.pdf. Oozeerally, S. (2013) The contribution of Dynamic Systems Theories (DSTs) in (re)thinking the language sciences: An overview. In I. Andrews and H. Mariaye (eds) MA Education Research Conference Proceedings – From Research to Professional Practice: The Value of Reflexivity (pp. 29–43). Brighton and Moka: University of Brighton–Mauritius Institute of Education. Pavlenko, A. and Blackledge, A. (2004) Introduction: New theoretical approaches to the study of negotiation of identities in multilingual contexts. In A. Pavlenko and A. Blackledge (eds) Negotiation of Identities in Multilingual Contexts (pp. 1–33). Clevedon: Multilingual Matters. Rampton, B. (2006) Language in Late Modernity: Interaction in an Urban School. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Rampton, B. (2007) Neo-Hymesian linguistic ethnography in the UK. Journal of Sociolinguistics 11 (5), 584–607. Rampton, B., Tusting, K., Maybin, J., Barwell, R., Creese, A. and Lytra, V. (2004) UK linguistic ethnography: A discussion paper. Unpublished. Available at  www.ling-ethnog.org.uk.

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Rughoonundun-Chellapermal, N. (2007) Famille, enfant, école: Les représentations de l’école et de l’écrit d’enfants entrant dans l’écrit en langues étrangères. Études de cas conduites à l’île Maurice auprès d’enfants scolarisés âgés de 4 à 8 ans. Doctoral thesis, Université e Toulouse-Le Mirail. Scollon, R. and Wong Scollon, S. (2004) Nexus Analysis: Discourse and the Emerging Internet. London: Routledge. Scollon, R. and Wong Scollon, S. (2007) Nexus analysis: Refocusing ethnography on action. Journal of Sociolinguistics 11 (5), 608–625. Tirvassen, R. (2011a) Curriculum et besoins langagiers en zone d’éducation linguistique plurielle. In P. Martinez, M. Miled and R. Tirvassen (eds) Le français dans le monde (pp. 104–114 ). Paris: CLE International. Tirvassen, R. (2011b) Pourrait-on faire sans la langue et ses frontières? Étude de la gestion des ressources langagières à l’Île Maurice. Cahiers de sociolinguistique 15, 55–75. Tirvassen, R. (2012) L’entrée dans le bilinguisme. Paris: L’Harmattan.

3 ‘What’s in a Name?’ An Exploratory Study on International Students’ Names within International University Theatre Society Contexts Priyanki Ghosh

Introduction

As the world’s second largest higher education provider, every year the UK hosts thousands of EU and non-EU international students who come to pursue higher education in its world-renowned universities (UKCISA, 2016). Currently, international students constitute 22% of the total UK university student population (Hubble & Bolton, 2021). They are widely studied because of their economic significance and their contribution to the cultural diversity and international mindset of neoliberal UK universities (Abdullah et al., 2014: 238; Universities UK, 2014, 2019). Yet, this student group also faces unique challenges with regards to developing a sense of belonging, due to their temporary, marginal status and diverse sociocultural, economic, linguistic and phenotypic differences (Brown, 2009; Yao, 2015). Quite often this also includes their unfamiliar and ethnoracially marked names (Edwards, 2006; Schmitt, 2019). Our names are known to be quite personal to us. A name is ‘an emblem’, as Schmitt (2019: 11) following Reyes (2013) says, ‘to which a social persona is attached’, even though these attachments can vary with contexts (Reyes, 2013: 165). Research on name calling, renaming, mispronunciation, anglicisation or even deliberate imposition of a new name (Bucholtz, 2016; Butler, 2021) and those particularly on international students (Edwards, 2006; Schmitt, 2019), demonstrate 52

‘What’s in a Name?’ An Exploratory Study on International Students’ Names  53

some of the reasons behind different naming practices and the injurious consequences that such speech might bear for people of ethnoracially and linguistically marginalised groups. More than referential forms that ‘pick out individuals’, our names therefore are essentially contextual, carrying specific indexical meanings that Bucholtz (2016: 273) points out ‘can (work to) put you back in place but such a place can be no place (at all)’. Despite these insights and expanding emphasis on the essentially multimodal, multilingual and indexical nature of language across sociolinguistics, intercultural communication, new literacy studies and other fields (Lytra, 2012; Rampton, 2017), little is known about how international students’ names and naming practices influence their sense of belonging within the everyday university contexts they encounter. In this chapter, I explore data from my PhD to discuss how international students’ unfamiliar names become multilingual resources within the peripheral and multimodal contexts of extracurricular university theatre societies to generate points of convergence and dissonance over cultural differences, linguistic independence and rights to self-­description (Bucholtz, 2016). I use students’ names within societal contexts and ­practices as a departure point, and leverage ethnographically informed, sociolinguistic insights from my research, to enable a more holistic understanding of the currently unknown, ongoing intersubjective and reciprocal processes involved in university students’ situated meaning-­making practices. Names here become a window into how theatre and the intercultural overlap, through the blending of different multilingual and multimodal resources, to shape international student participants’ self-presentation, identities, identifications (including their a­ffiliations) and membership trajectory within these unconventional but popular university spaces. Multilingualism and Multimodality in UK Universities

In the context of anglophone UK universities, scholars note that the bilingual and multilingual repertoires of diverse students (and I suggest this also includes their ethnoracial names) have contributed largely to the evolving and complex linguistic ecology, making them, ‘sites of multilingualism’ (Preece, 2011: 121). This complex linguistic ecology closely resembles a situation of superdiversity that defines the nature of many urban communities in Britain (Rampton, 2019; Vertovec, 2006). The relationships between variables such as language, migration, human capital (particularly educational capital) and ethnicity (and one’s names as this chapter will show) in such contexts can, however, become more unpredictable than ever before (Rampton, 2019). Thus, multilingualism in relation to the evolving linguistic ecology within UK university contexts can be best defined not as a ‘collection of languages that the speaker controls’. Rather, following the recent multimodal turn in multilingual studies (Lytra, 2012), multilingualism involves

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a ‘complex of semiotic resources’ (Blommaert, 2010: 102) that interlocutors leverage within different communicative activities, to realise their communicative ends (Gumperz, 2001) and negotiate their situated identities within ‘co-present encounters’ (Bucholtz & Hall, 2005; Goffman, 1974). In line with Gumperz’s sociolinguistic traditions (Gumperz, 1982, 1992) and a Goffmanian view of performance of social action in everyday life (Goffman, 1959), this approach concerns the ways sociolinguistically different people combine and mobilise different linguistic as well as visual, aural, kinaesthetic and artefact-related features within various activities: including gestures, oral or artistic performance, language varieties, accents, registers and genres that are deployed within situated encounters to ‘control the conduct of the others, especially their responsive treatment of him’ (Goffman, 1959: 15; see also Di Luzio et al., 2001; Rampton, 2019). An important part of how modes and media mesh together in different activities also involves how interactants ‘evaluate talk’ using language ideologies (Gumperz, 2001: 37) or people’s ideas about such ways of using their language within specific activities (Rampton, 2019). By ‘extending the affordances of meaning making’ (Pahl & Rowsell, 2006: 6–7) beyond language, a multimodal perspective in multilingualism has enabled new insights on the spatiality and temporality involved in young people’s meaning-making practices within mixed ethnic recreational and classroom settings (e.g. Lytra, 2012; Rampton, 1995). Notwithstanding the current emphasis on integrating students’ non-academic experiences to evaluate the social processes involved in learning (Montgomery & McDowell, 2004), including the shift towards multiplicity, unpredictability and uncertainties involved in university students’ identities, transition and belonging (Dippold et al., 2019; Gravett & Ajjawi, 2021), in-depth insights on mixed students’ interculturality in university student mediated contexts is at best rare. Articulating the complex communicative landscape of UK universities, Preece (2011) argues that the monolingual ethos and ideology of prioritising standardised English has worked adversely to both devalue and complicate the inherent multilingual diversity of its students and staff. English as a lingua franca (ELF) is almost always the default means of intercultural communication between socioculturally and linguistically different speakers in UK university contexts. Studies in ELF practices, however, indicate that diverse students and staff regularly bring in their multilingual repertoires that become relevant through their everyday encounters, such as within students’ classroom interactions (Lytra, 2012), informal discussions (Preece, 2011) or even lunch-time conversations between university colleagues (Cogo, 2009). The combination of different linguistic systems, demonstration of codeswitching, integration of accommodation and negotiation strategies in ELF encounters (Cogo, 2009) between closely acquainted colleagues (Cogo, 2009) reflects on the rich multimodal and multilingual university

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communication landscape. Simultaneously, it coheres with Pennycook’s (2012) views about the nature of such ELF contexts. Language knowledge in ELF settings in this view is both grounded in and emerging from language use within specific activities that people engage in within specific communities of practices (Pennycook, 2012). Communication can, however, be unpredictable in such ELF contexts (Cogo, 2009). As diverse students engage with different groups and vary significantly in their sociocultural resources, institutional power and communicative backgrounds, differences in politeness conventions, ideologies, values, positioning, and knowledge of different contexts, this can create ambiguity and misunderstandings. In turn, such unpredictability either works to perpetuate or eliminate social differences (Rampton, 2020), potentially enabling or disabling the way in which individuals and groups belong (Yuval-Davis, 2006). The prioritisation of international students’ language and social categories like race and ethnicity in research and practice (Yao, 2015) here demands much needed insights, which could account for the fine-grained interactional and broader processes that go into constructing students’ interpersonal relationships, attachments and belonging differently within extracurricular university contexts. Names as Complex Intersections of Language, Culture and Identities

Prioritising seemingly trivial things like one’s name to address the above-mentioned research gaps in university contexts might also call for further clarification about ‘What’s in a name?’. As Shakespeare (2014) famously said in Romeo and Juliet: ‘That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet?’ (Act II, Scene II). Many other literary stalwarts, like the Indian poet and Nobel Laureate Tagore, as well as linguistic scholars in Onomastics (the branch that studies names), have since argued persuasively that this could very well be, if the rose were just an object (a flower), whose essence is bound by its limited characteristics such as colour, smell or form. Human characteristics (more so now in this era of transnational mobility and interconnectedness) are complex and therefore hardly ever perceivable by such narrow universal definitions (Tagore, 1900). Personal names, Schmitt (2019) notes, belong deeply to the linguistic realm even while remaining distinct from other parts of speech. Although people have names universally, we do not generally attempt to translate our personal names like other lexical items, such as dogs or apples, across languages. Thus, even if we happen to know two different ‘Clares’ – let’s say, a Clare White and a Clare Grant – they do not lead to the same Clare. Names thus have a ‘duality of meaning’ (Bailey & Lie, 2013): more than just serving referential functions of denoting a subject, by projecting a highly personal indexicality names draw connections

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to people’s social categories such as race, culture, generation, class and much more (Rymes, 1996). The injurious and inhuman effects of renaming, and the misnaming practices of ethnoracially minoritised and marginalised students in American classrooms, that Bucholtz cites, demonstrate how names can become a substitute for social categories such as race and ethnicity (Bucholtz, 2016: 274). Names are therefore not devoid of meaning but deeply intertwined with issues of personhood and power (Rymes, 1996). As the meanings of names are tied to cultural and linguistic narratives that vary with contexts, a name in one context may project a high indexicality while meaning nothing at all in some other context (Rymes, 1996). Jan Blommaert (2010) thus asserts in Sociolinguistics of Globalization, that the value and functions of social and cultural forms can greatly vary across both geographical and social spaces, such that what might work in one place may not work somewhere else. Also, as Schmitt (2019), calling on Bailey and Lie (2013) and Bourdieu (1991), states, naming may be a performative act but the power to exercise linguistic and cultural capital as per one’s will is intricately connected to one’s socioeconomic status. Name choices thus can have the power to situate individuals differently in specific contexts and project specific identities that are intricately bound to their contexts of use. Chinese international students’ choices to use anglicised names in US university contexts, Schmitt (2019) notes, may be partially seen as their efforts to project an indexicality that is more culturally and linguistically accessible. Yet, the Chinese practice of using multiple names, and even changing them several times over their lifetime and as per contexts, is connected deeply to their perceptions of their self and identities in different contexts (Schmitt, 2019). Bucholtz asserts that when names are performatively interpellated they can ‘(make) the bearer culturally recognisable as a social subject’ (Bucholtz, 2016: 274). In a different light, Edwards also explains the prevalent practices of Chinese students’ naming practices in ELF learning contexts (Edwards, 2006). He points to multifaceted reasons, indicating ideological and power-related differences emerging between teachers and learners in ELF contexts, that guide Chinese students’ expectations and reasons to adopt or reject anglicised names. Such racial and ideological processes involved in international students’ renaming practices, as demonstrated above, indicate the complexity of names and international students’ efforts to manage their foreign names within UK university spaces. ‘It is however particularly at the borders where ethno-racialised groups come into contact that names become sites of negotiation and struggle over cultural difference, linguistic autonomy and right to self-definition’ (Bucholtz, 2016: 275). During my PhD study, the complex multilingual situation within the voluntary, extracurricular theatre societies within a single south-eastern UK institution, represented one such peripheral border space that existed

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under the broader university framework. As part of the network of campus communities, theatre societies are populated by diverse students from varying sociolinguistic backgrounds, situated differently on multiple axes of power positions (membership duration, participation trajectory, roles, university course, to cite a few). Theatre society spaces thus reflect the fast-evolving linguistic diversity of anglophone universities where UK institutional ethos and monoglot ideology along with interactants’ different backgrounds, work to make English a default contact language of choice for diverse students’ communication (Preece, 2019). The ‘Doing (of) drama’ by diverse student members within the university environment of teaching blocks, as a voluntary practice and outside mainstream academic engagements, however, opened up a ‘liminal (borderland) space’ (Carlon, 1996), for witnessing critical performances through ‘performed language’ in action (Baumann, 2011: 708). Theatre and drama are regarded as interactive, communicative and collaborative art forms, that integrate multiple modes like song, dance, music, acting etc. (Milde, 2019). Mixed students’ mutual theatre practices (e.g. improvisation, physical theatre, shows), within informal society contexts, broadened the communicative sphere, through legitimising different linguistic and also embodied, material, aural, visual resources including shared and cultural modes of communication, used for the joint production and negotiation of meaning and achieving goals of participation (Milde, 2019; Nicholson, 2005; Schechner, 2002). As I will discuss later, in such volatile, creative spaces, language – including students’ names – could become creative, stylistic features (Coupland, 2004) or converted to interactional resources within improvised games (Johnstone, 1999; Spolin, 1999). Frame changes between playing and improvising and performers’ orientation towards dominant ideologies and received categories like names, opened the potential pathway for understanding how international and home students leverage different resources, to include or exclude each other and define their changing identities and identifications to ‘us’ and ‘them’ (Cornips & de Rooij, 2018). International Students’ Names in Theatre Society Contexts

While names are likely to become the initial referential points of introduction that are often shared at the beginning of any conversation, in theatre society contexts names especially construed the de facto mode of introductory greeting rituals and deference acts (Goffman, 1967: 47–97). This is often the first step to becoming known and getting to know unacquainted others when joining a new society. It is possible that, because international student names are often ethnoracially loaded and naming indexes one’s sociocultural positions such as race, ethnicity, gender and even generation (Bucholtz, 2016: 274), the very act of uttering their

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names can make some students conscious of their inherent ‘foreignness’, triggering de-racialisation or anglicisation strategies, in order to counter it. As an example, I consider my own name, ‘Pia’, which is a truncation from my real name ‘Priyanki’, which I use mostly for official purposes, reserving the truncated version ‘Pia’ for my everyday interactions. A similar tendency to truncate names was observed among two other South Asian international students in theatre societies, Sam and Sadithya, where indexical bleaching could be said to de-racialise names by stripping them of contextually marked ethnoracial meaning forms (Bucholtz, 2016: 275). In Sadithya’s case, on his first day at the society after the September Re-Fresher’s Fayre in February 2019, while we waited for the session to start, indexical bleaching was visible as he attempted to clarify his name to Tracy, the improv-rep of the group who had come to greet and welcome him. While Sadithya could be said to be a common Indian name, standing beside him it sounded odd because instead of pronouncing it as [Sadi(th)ya (saːdɪthjɐ)], which is how it is usually pronounced in India, he seemed to alter the pronunciation to [Sa(dit)ya (sa:dɪtjɐ)], the (dit) indicating a fundamental shift towards the hegemonic English phonological system (Bucholtz, 2016). Sadithya repeated the same pronunciation twice to help Tracy get it right. One explanation for this could be the underlying assumption that such an effort may be necessary as the native speaker, in this case Tracy, would find it difficult to deal with a foreign ethnic name. But this also concurrently indexes Sadithya’s sense of peripheral marginality and being an ‘outsider’ within the group at that time. Bucholtz (2016: 278) confirms that linguistically problematised names mostly require responsibility and specific strategies on the part of the bearer for the ‘public management of name pronunciation’. Later, when I interviewed the other international student Sam, who had spent most of his life outside India but was ethnically Indian like Sadithya and myself and an active Theatre society 3-member, ease of pronunciation also emerged as the reason for choosing to use his truncated version of his name: I think I think it’s probably the easier to pronounce thing/ yeah I don’t think I did it because (0.1)/ (full name) seemed more foreign or anything. (Interview with international student Sam, transcript notes [396–398], 2019)

Sam is, however, a common truncation for Indian names like ‘Samrat’; therefore, as Schmitt (2019:15) explains on nicknaming, international students’ naming practices could here indicate a creative way to index an informal identity and non-deference in such extracurricular contexts. A tendency, however, to creatively transform or even anglicise names was nonetheless noticeable in the case of some South Asian home students as well. At least within the theatre society context, where they

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were regular, active members with committee positions, Samraz was Sammy while Niaz became AAZee. Studies note that such creative efforts are a means of asserting complex cultural identities that are ‘binominal’ in nature (Kim, 2007). The aspect that needs attention, however, is that calling oneself Sammy or AAZee is not the same as Daniel being called Dan or Catherine being called as Kate. As both Samraz and Niaz are Muslim names, in both cases while de-racialisation is achieved, it could be interpreted as an agentive choice to shield oneself against the negative stigmatisation that is currently associated with being Muslim in the UK and within its university contexts (Brown, 2009). Creativity or anglicisation of both international and home students’ names, as discussed above, was certainly not as prolific as Chinese students’ name-changing practices noticed in anglophone universities (Edwards, 2006; Schmitt, 2019). This does not mean that these name choices should be ignored. Instead as names differ in value as per contexts, these naming practices can be interpreted as strategies to overcome the boundaries of race and ethnicity. Active involvement of Sam, Sammy and AAZee in sessions, committee matters and rapport with other white member students, which I observed throughout my ethnographic observations (October 2016 to May 2019), could be interpreted as displaying integrative potential with the hegemonic white majority within the society, while simultaneously denying its racial foundations by creatively renaming oneself as one of them. Following Alim (2016), this is indicative as a strategic move for transracialisation, wherein to transracialise is ‘to translate oneself racially… to …transcend the bounding norms of social and cultural dictates, but also to question the very ontologies on which “definitions” of race are founded’ (Alim, 2016: 35). Even though the discussion so far demonstrates that South Asian international and ethnic home students are likely to engage in indexical bleaching of names, that it emanated from the participants themselves is a sign of agentive choice: ‘To claim the right to name oneself as one sees fit in a given context’ rather than a coerced effort at cultural assimilation (Bucholtz, 2016: 278). The above should indicate a specific sensitivity to international students’ self-naming practices as sometimes the first hurdle in establishing links with socioculturally different others in university ELF-based contexts. The two interactional segments I analyse in Examples 1 and 2 below, propose a variant understanding. These examples show how home students’ efforts to socialise and include new members in society-­improvised game contexts, leads to racialisation of their ethno-­ linguistically marked names. The transcripts and observations used here are taken from two separate sessions conducted within the same theatre society, right after the Fresher’s Fayre and Re-Fresher’s Fayre in 2018 and 2019. Both transcripts include performances of new international students who participated within the game of 4 Things.

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As a ritualised society practice, the improvised warm-up practice of 4 Things, involved the whole group at the beginning of sessions and resembled what Goffman defined as ‘occasioned activities’ (Goffman, 1974: 53). Such activities worked to focus members’ attention: shifting from playful dispersed interactions between groups of team members as they waited for sessions to begin, to more serious activity frames (Coates, 2007: 49; Goffman, 1974: 83), which marked the onset of the society’s session-based activities, constructed through its team-based performances. The game rules in 4 Things allowed any participating member potentially to offer a category of four similar things to each performer during their turns. Performing students then had to fill in the provided category with roughly four related items to successfully complete their turns and enable the next participant to start theirs. In the previous turns prior to the episodes analysed below, the categories offered to performers included four kinds of fruits, four favourite actors, and more personal choices like four reasons why you joined the society or dyed your hair pink. Each performer’s turn in the game ended with the celebratory chorus ‘These are the four things’, followed by joint clapping that served to recognise each performer and their performance; the sequence repeated until everyone in the circle had had their turn. Over time, warm-up games like 4 Things, thus served to define each society’s culture and joint enterprise that ‘build up and grow out of (these) everyday practices’ (Antonsich, 2010: 645) to index different society members’ attachment and (dis)identification to society spaces (Schechner & Brady, 2013: 57). In the following section, I turn my attention to how two new international student members’ identifications and belonging grew out of their participation in such situated improvised theatre society practices. Table 3.1 provides information about the main performers Table 3.1  Profile of international and home student participants in Examples 1 and 2 (participant names changed to retain phonetic sounds but spellings have been altered for ethical considerations) Name

Member position in theatre society

Student status

University year and level of study

Sadithya

New member attending first session in society

International student of Indian descent, from Middle East

1st year, undergraduate

Horatiou

New member attending first session in society

Spanish international student from Spain

1st year, postgraduate

Sammy

Long term member and previous committee member

Ethnic home student of South Asian descent

Final year, postgraduate

Tracy

Long term member, past committee member and present impro rep for the group

Native white home student

Final year, undergraduate

Kelly

Long term member, past and present committee member for the group

Ethnic white home student

2nd year, undergraduate

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(home and international students) involved in the analysis of transcripts 1 and 2. The transcription conventions followed for the extracts are available in the chapter Appendix (p. 66). Example 1: Feb. 2019, warm-up ritual game – 4 Things; Participants: Sadithya (new international student, Indian descent), Sammy (South Asian ethnic home student, regular, long-term member), Tracy (white home student, long-term member, group’s impro rep) and 18 co-performing members including myself. 1. Sadithya: Hi I am saːdɪthjɐ ↓ 2. Audience: Hi sa:(ɪt)jɐ↑, 3. Sammy: four Indian names]] 4. ((looks at Sadithya who is gazing back at him)) 5. Sammy: [[because sa:( dɪt)jɐ is a really nice Indian name 6. ((looking at Tracy and then at Sadithya)) 7. Tracy: it is nice yeah, 8. (0.6) 9. Sadithya: Aryan 10. Audience: one 11. Sadithya: aa… Nivedita, 12. Audience: two 13. Sadithya: Om [[ 14. Audience: three]] 15. Sadithya: [[ tanveer 16. Audience: Four, these are the four things↑ 17. Audience: ((collective applause and cheering))

The transcript above indicates how audience members including Sadithya jointly utilise the participation frameworks of performer and audience and shared understandings of game opening and closing routines to manage turns (lines 1, 2) that signal their cooperation and organises participation within the ritualised game of 4 Things (Goffman, 1974). Contrary to his introduction sequence with Tracy before the session (discussed in the previous section), line 1 shows how new member Sadithya’s utterance remains unbleached. This variation indicates the potential of international students’ adjustment of linguistic order in ELF situation as per changing roles. Sadithya’s decision this time to pronounce his name unbleached within the game context, speaks of a change of positionality – a gradual understanding of what could be linguistically and contextually appropriate within the group. The flexibility allowed by the game rules of 4 Things, the dual frames of play and performance operating within the improvised, informal activity frame (Goffman, 1974), and co-participant Sammy’s South Asian heritage

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and positioning as a regular, home student society member, however, allow the performative interpellation of Sadithya in line 3 that converts his name into a game category. This racialises Sadithya as ‘Indian’. Following Bucholtz (2016), Sadithya as the bearer of the name with his phenotypical Indian body and linguistic accented voice (Alim, 2016: 36), performatively becomes a culturally recognisable social subject with specific social positionalities: namely, an Indian male with a nice Indian name. I, however, knew from our brief interchange before this session that, although Sadithya was Indian, his family lived in the Middle East. Sammy’s performative ethnic indexing of Sadithya combined with his indexically bleached utterance of the name in line 5 can be said to differentiate Sadithya as the Asian ‘exotic other’ (Said, 1978), while simultaneously displaying Sammy’s epistemic knowledge of Indian-ness as an Asian British person and his enthusiasm and attention as a capable performer and long-term committee member (Baumann, 2011). Unlike professional improvisation settings with stricter audience and performer roles (Spolin, 1999), the ideologies of community theatre practice nevertheless help balance these power differences by allowing flexible frame overlaps through the keying of performance and play (Goffman, 1974), visible through Sammy’s consequent referential utterance ‘because Sa(dit)ya is a really nice name’ in line 5. This, along with Sammy’s gaze directed first at co-participant and friend Tracy and then Sadithya, resembles a pre-emptive strategy, commonly used by ELF speakers to eliminate ambiguity and unintended offences in interactions (Cogo, 2009), enabling Sammy to enhance and expand the semantic meaning of his presented category, which he successfully does by justifying his choice with a positive attribute ‘nice’, preceded by an intensifier ‘really’. Sammy’s bleached utterance of Sadithya’s name as ‘really nice’ and Tracy’s subsequent response in line 7 ‘it is nice yeah’, can, however, explain Sadithya’s prolonged silence in line 8. Sadithya’s silence here could be interpreted as his hesitation and speaks of his alienation (Goffman, 1967: 113–136) and sense of foreignness, which could explain why he stopped coming to the group after this. The cooperative principle of the improvisation game frame and the game rules nevertheless binds the participants into organised turn-taking. Sadithya uses this successfully and leverages his knowledge of Indian names to fill in the categories (lines 9–15). While this fixates Sadithya’s identity as an Indian student, the audience’s joint applause and cheering in line 17 helps mask any embarrassment (Goffman, 1967) until he ended his turn. The above example shows how sociocultural and linguistically differently positioned theatre society members, leverage ethnoracial names as multilingual resources and mobilise a range of other embodied and shared resources to co-construct their everyday improvised theatre practices, jointly and creatively within the society’s session contexts. Names, however, become the proxy for race and ethnicity (Bucholtz,

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2016: 277) and the means for diverse students’ complex negotiation of power differences through situated identities, ideologies, and identifications brought into theatre practice. As with Example 1, in Example 2 I offer a transcript from the same game, performed a few months earlier in October 2018, which shows a similar pattern. Horatiou is a Spanish student who, like Sadithya, had just joined the society after the 2018 Fresher’s Fayre. Example 2, Oct. 2018, warm-up ritual game – 4 Things; Participants: Horatiou (new international student from Spain), Kelly (Ethnic white home student, regular long-term member), and 53 audience members including myself. 1. Horatiou: hɒˈraθjo, 2. Kelly: Four reasons Spain is the best country in the ($$) world ($$),]] ((laughs)) 3. Audience: [[ hahahaha ((joining Kelly’s laughter)) 4. Horatiou: They have good beer 5. Audience: one 6. Horatiou: amm.. good (0.1) good people 7. Audience: two 8. Horatiou: good magicians 9. Audience: three 10. Horatiou: Where do you go other than Spain? 11. Audience: four↑ 12. Kelly: Cuatro↑ ((loud clapping and cheering of audience))

Identical to Example 1, while the game rules serve to organise participation between the performing members, new member Horatiou’s name gets interpellated as Spanish by home student Kelly, who was also a language student studying Spanish at that time. Unlike Sadithya, however, Horatiou’s name does not get treated as foreign. Kelly’s shared affiliation and identification with Horatiou’s Spanish ethnicity can be indexed in line 2 through the prosodic cues in the intraphrasal accenting (Gumperz, 1992) of ‘four’ and ‘best’, in association with ‘Spain’, as well as her smile voice that ends in a joint group laughter in lines 2 and 3. Additionally, in line 12 at the end of Horatiou’s turn, Kelly’s brief code-switching from English to Spanish is an accommodation strategy common in ELF settings (Cogo, 2009). Her use of ‘cuatro’ indexes her Spanish identity through a display of her linguistic knowledge of Spanish; Kelly’s and the audience’s laughter cued in lines 2, 3 and 12 simultaneously indexing a positive orientation to the performer and his country. Horatiou’s nervousness as a new member and a secondlanguage speaker of English is concurrently visible in line 6 through

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the use of discourse filler ‘amm’, and the broken delivery of the syntactic elements in the repetition of ‘good’, followed by a syntactic pause element as he comes up with his second category. Contrary to Example 1, the positive evaluation of Spain and Spaniards by Kelly in line 2, sparks a shift from improvisation to play, indicated by the audience’s overlapping affiliative laughter in line 3; this becomes crucial for Horatiou to creatively carve a positive image of Spain and Spanish people (lines 2–10) and successfully complete his turn. It is interesting to note that, since their first performances, Horatiou returned to subsequent sessions and Sadithya to none. Both the transcripts are roughly the same exchange, in terms of structure at least. However, they differ in their treatment of international student names. A sociolinguistically informed multilingual and multimodal perspective here allows us to see how international student’s names along with what Young calls ‘look’ (Young, 2003: 1–9) and Alim calls the body (phenotype, comportment), work together as embodied, interpretive frames for home students to racially translate international student members through performances (Alim, 2016: 36). The ideologies of community theatre practice and the cooperative principle of improvisation are visible throughout the audience’s and key home student members’ inclusive attitudes within the activity sequences, which largely enable socioculturally different performers to organise their participation; game opening and closing sequences and synchronised turn allocation here greatly aiding diverse participants’ interpretations within the activity frame. Nonetheless the analysis also exhibits how home students accessed Indian and Spanish international students’ names differently through performing their different ideologies and identifications that were tied to language hierarchies and performer goals of participation. The informal community theatre activity space allows performers to manage the arising uncertainties through quick switches between performing and playing and the skilful use of diverse linguistic resources (e.g. hegemonic English, code-switching through Spanish), paralinguistic features (e.g. coordination of laughter, gestures, gaze, pauses), shared and cultural resources (knowledge of Indian names, games rules, participation frameworks). This constructs the emerging intersubjective and reciprocal processes differently, which caused the Indian and Spanish international student’s initial experiences of participation within the game sequences to vary. Conclusion

In this chapter, I have explored the neglected area of naming and mixed students’ multilingual practices within an extracurricular, UK-based university theatre society. The discussion has highlighted how international and home students used multilingual names, along with a range of other

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semiotic resources, to construct their self and the ‘other’ performatively, through their joint participation and practice within these informal university contexts. South Asian international and home students’ different practices of using anglicised and creative names within society and activity contexts, indicate how race and ethnicities can impact naming practices variably across students’ different interactional roles (Alim, 2016). For the international students at least, their names along with their ‘look’ and accented voice became a proxy for mapping their foreignness to the UK. This shows how names have different weightings in different contexts, such that a common Indian name Sadithya becomes a symbol of Asian exoticism whereas a Spanish/Greek name gets a higher indexicality by being interpreted as ‘best country’, predicting the inherently ideological nature of improvised theatre interactions in shaping mixed student’s social relations, identities and participation within student-mediated contexts. That ethnic minority students are more likely to experience anxiety for being different in UK university contexts (Roberts et al., 2008: 1–8), could explain why South Asian international students in this analysis (including myself) showed an elevated consciousness of their race and ethnicity, which is likely to have evoked agentive choices for indexical bleaching of names, observed above. Intercultural communication studies such as by Zhang (2015: 45) on Chinese international studies, race and ethnicity in the US points that cultural identities are ‘… de-territorializing and a mutating variable in postcolonial conditions’. Therefore, post-colonial international students’ identities are always in ‘“in-between” spaces’ of the multiple habitus they may occupy, and always in the process of becoming (2015: 48). Nevertheless, research such as Sharma’s sociolinguistic work on the changing speech patterns of Punjabi Londoners notes that even though race and ethnic identifications are variable, phenotypical distinctiveness of ‘visible minorities’ becomes ‘distractingly salient’ for observers to presume all linguistic behaviour to be a marker of ethnic identity (Sharma, 2016: 223). Differences in the phenotypical and linguistic distinctiveness of international student member bodies thus become points of power negotiation (Spitzman, 2014: 57) to determine their performative interactions in university ELF-based society contexts. While issues of race and ethnicity are known to restrict face-to-face communication between international and home students (Spitzman, 2014), the broader PhD study results show how theatre societies offered rare and unique spaces for spontaneous intercultural contact (Henderson, 2011), through embodiment and enactment of diverse communities of performers and spectators together (Dolan, 1993: 426). Importantly, game structures and the keying of play incorporated within the improvised activities, such as the game of 4 Things analysed above, turned cultural differences into points of exploration, communication and connection for socioculturally differently located students. Over time these situated

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interactions shaped both the community and its performers to become instrumental in defining diverse international student members’ differential experiences of belonging within them. The chapter’s findings open both possibilities and concerns for administrators, student unions and support officers in reconsidering the potential influence of peripheral clubs and society spaces in shaping diverse university students’ experiences and sense of belonging. This chapter’s insights alone should promote evaluation of current research and university practices needed to promote intercultural awareness of the subtleties involved in language and name usage. Such awareness is not only vital for enhancing students’ communicative and future employability skills for a global workplace. Foremost, it holds the potential to improve diverse students’ current engagement and inclusion within existing UK university student support structures that play a key role in nurturing students’ overall university experience. Appendix

Transcription conventions followed Jenks (2011) and Gumperz and Berenz (1993). Transcription notation symbols used in the transcripts: , Slight rise in pitch at the end of an utterance [[ ]] Simultaneous utterances – (beginning[[) and (end]]) { } Overlapping utterances – (beginning { ) and (end }) = Contiguous utterances (or continuation of the same turn) (0.4) Represents the tenths of a second between utterances (.) Micro pause unit between utterances .. Represents pauses of up to 0.5 seconds … Represents pauses between 0.5 and 1 second : Elongation (more colons need longer stretches of sound) - An abrupt stop in articulation WORD When utterance is stressed ↑ Marked up-step in intonation ↓ Marked down-step in intonation * Before the syllable when one syllable is accented $$ word$$ Smile voice (hhh) Exaltations (.hhh) Inhalations he or ha Laugh particle (hhh) Laughter within a word (also represents audible aspirations) wo (hhh) rd

‘What’s in a Name?’ An Exploratory Study on International Students’ Names  67

References Abdullah, D., Abd Aziz, M.I. and Mohd Ibrahim, A.L. (2014) A ‘research’ into international student-related research: (Re)Visualising our stand? Higher Education 67, 235–253. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10734-013-9647-3. Alim, H.S. (2016) Who’s afraid of the transracial subject? Raciolinguistics and the political project of transracialization. In H.S. Alim, J.R. Rickford and A.F. Ball (eds) Raciolinguistics: How Language Shapes Our Ideas About Race (pp. 33–50). Oxford: Oxford University Press. Antonsich, M. (2010) Searching for belonging: An analytic framework. Geography Compass 6 (4), 644–659. Bailey, B. and Lie, S. (2013) The politics of names among Chinese Indonesians in Java. Journal of Linguistic Anthropology 23 (1), 21–40. Bauman, R. (2011) Commentary: Foundations in performance. Journal of Sociolinguistics 15 (5), 707–720. Blommaert, J. (2010) The Sociolinguistics of Globalization. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Bourdieu, P. (1991) Language and Symbolic Power. Cambridge: Polity Press. Brown, L. (2009) International students in England: Finding belonging through Islam. Journal of Muslim Minority Affairs [Online] 29 (1), 57–67. Bucholtz, M. (2016) On being called out of one’s name: Indexical bleaching as a technique of deracialisation. In H.S. Alim, J.R. Rickford and A.F. Ball (eds) Raciolinguistics: How Language Shapes Our Ideas About Race (pp. 273–287). Oxford: Oxford University Press. Bucholtz, M. and Hall, K. (2005) Identity and interaction: A sociocultural linguistic approach. Discourse Studies 7 (4–5), 585–614. Butler, J. (2021) Excitable Speech: A Politics of the Performative (1st edn). London: Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003146759. Carson T. (1996) Liminality and Transformational Power. Lanham, MD: University Press of America. Coates, H. (2007) A model of online and general campus-based student engagement. Assessment and Evaluation in Higher Education 32 (2), 121–141. Cogo, A. (2009) Accommodating difference in ELF conversations: A study of pragmatic strategies. In A. Mauranen and E. Ranta (eds) English as a Lingua Franca: Studies and Findings (pp. 254–273). Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing. Cornips, L. and de Rooij, V.A. (eds) (2018) The Sociolinguistics of Place and Belonging: Perspectives from the Margins. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Coupland, N. (2004) Style: Language Variation and Identity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Di Luzio, A., Günthner, S. and Orletti, F. (eds) (2001) Culture in Communication: Analyses of Intercultural Situations. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Dippold, D., Bridges A., Eccles, S. and Mullen, E. (2019) Taking ELF off the shelf: Developing HE students’ speaking skills through a focus on English as a lingua franca. Linguistics and Education [Online] 54, 100761. Dolan, J. (1993) Geographies of learning: Theatre studies, performance and the ‘performative’. Theatre Journal 45 (4), 417–41. Edwards, R. (2006) What’s in a name? Chinese learners and the practice of adopting ‘English’ names. Language, Culture and Curriculum 19 (1), 90–103. Goffman, E. (1959) The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life. London: Penguin Books. Goffman, E (1967) Interaction Ritual: Essays on Face-to-face Behavior. New York, NY: Anchor Books. Goffman, E. (1974) Frame Analysis: An Essay on the Organization of Experience. London: Penguin Books. Gravett, K. and Ajjawi, R. (2021) Belonging as situated practice. Studies in Higher Education 47 (7), 1386–1396.

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Gumperz, J. (1982) Discourse Strategies. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press Gumperz, J.J. (1992) Contextualisation revisited. In P. Auer and A. di Luzio (eds) The Contextualisation of Language (pp. 39–54). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Gumperz, J.J. (2001) Contextualisation and ideology in intercultural communication. In A. Di Luzio, S. Gunther and F. Orletti (eds) (2001) Culture in Communication: Analyses of Intercultural Situations (pp. 35–54). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Gumperz, J. and Berenz, N. (1993) Transcribing conversational exchanges. In J.A. Edwards and M.D. Lampert (eds) Talking Data: Transcription and Coding in Discourse Research (pp. 91–121). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. Henderson, J. (2011) New and not so new horizons: Brief encounters between UK undergraduate native speaker and non-native speaker Englishes. Language and Intercultural Communication 11 (3), 270–284. Hubble, S and Bolton, P. (2021) International and EU students in higher education in the UK FAQ’s. Research briefing, House of Commons Library. https://commonslibrary. parliament.uk/research-briefings/cbp-7976/ [accessed 3 November 2020]. Jenks, C. (2011) Transcribing Talk and Interaction: Issues in the Representation of Communication Data. Philadelphia, PA: John Benjamins. Kim, T.-Y. (2007) The dynamics of ethnic name maintenance and change: Cases of Korean ESL immigrants in Toronto. Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development [Online] 28 (2), 117–133. Lytra, V. (2012) Multilingualism and Multimodality. Abingdon: Routledge. Milde, A. (2019) Linguistics in drama processes. Working Papers in Urban Language and Literacies, WP251. https://wpull.org/product/wp251-linguistics-in-drama-processes/. Montgomery, C. and McDowell, L. (2004) Social networks and learning: A study of the sociocultural context of the international student. In C. Rust (ed.) Improving Student Learning: Theory, Research and Scholarship, Proceedings of the 2003 11th International Symposium (pp. 66–79). Oxford: Oxford Centre for Staff and Learning Development, Oxford Brookes University. Nicholson, H. (2005) Applied Drama: The Gift of Theatre. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Pahl, K. and Rowsell, J. (2006) Introduction. In K. Pahl and J. Rowsell (eds) Travel Notes from the New Literacy Studies: Instances of Practice (pp. 1–15). Clevedon: Multilingual Matters. Pennycook, A. (2012) Lingua francas as language ideologies. In A. Kirkpatrick and R. Sussex (eds) English as an International Language in Asia: Implications for Language Education (pp. 137–154). New York, NY: Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-4578-0_9. Preece, S. (2011) Universities in the Anglophone centre: Sites of multilingualism. Applied Linguistics Review 2 (2011), 121–146. Rampton, B. (1995) Language crossing and the problematisation of ethnicity and socialisation. Pragmatics 5 (4), 485–513. Rampton, B. (2017) Crossing: Language and Ethnicity amongst Adolescents (3rd edn). Abingdon: Routledge. Rampton, B. (2019) What do we mean by ‘multilingual’? Linguistic repertoires. Working Papers in Urban Language and Literacies, WP260. https://wpull.org/wp-content/ uploads/2022/04/WP260_Rampton_2019_What_do_we_mean_by_mu.pdf. Reyes, A. (2013) Corporations are people: Emblematic scales of brand. Language in Society 42 (2), 163–185. Roberts, J., Sanders, T. and Wass, V. (2008) Students’ perceptions of race, ethnicity and culture at two UK medical schools: A qualitative study. Medical Education 42 (1), 45–52. Rymes, B. (1996) Naming as social practice: The case of little creeper from Diamond Street. Language in Society 25 (2), 237–260. Said, E.W. (1978) Orientalism. New York, NY: Pantheon. Schechner, R. (2002) Performance Studies: An Introduction. London: Routledge. Schechner, R. and Brady, S. (2013) Performance Studies: An Introduction (3rd edn). London: Routledge.

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Schmitt, L. (2019) The practice of mainland Chinese students adopting English names and its motivations. PhD thesis, Graduate Center, City University of New York (CUNY). Shakespeare, W. (2014) Romeo and Juliet. Minneapolis, MI: First Avenue Editions. Sharma, D. (2016) Changing ethnicities: The evolving speech styles of Punjabi Londoners. In H.S. Alim, J.R. Rickford and A.F. Ball (eds) Raciolinguistics: How Language Shapes Our Ideas About Race (pp. 221–237). Oxford: Oxford University Press. Spitzman, E. (2014) Situated intercultural communication: Domestic and international student interaction. Open Access Dissertations Paper 214. PhD thesis, University of Rhode Island, Kingston, Rhode Island. Spolin, V. (1999) Improvisation for the Theater: A Handbook of Teaching and Directing Techniques (3rd edn). Evanston IL: Northwestern University Press. Tagore, R. (1900) Rabindra Rocambole [In Bengali]. West Bengal: ViswaBharati publications. https://rabindra-rachanabali.nltr.org/node/7834 [accessed 24 August 2020]. UKCISA (2016) Briefing on international students [Online]. UK Council for International Affairs. https://ilpa.org.uk/briefing-on-international-students-uk-council-for-internationalstudent-affairs-ukcisa-september-2016/ [accessed 28 February 2017]. Universities UK (2014) 2014 International trends and enrolment patters in UK. QS Quacquarelli Symonds, 22 October. https://www.qs.com/2014-international-trendsand-enrolment-patterns-in-uk/. Universities UK (2019) International facts and figures 2019 [Online]. https://www. universitiesuk.ac.uk/policy-and-analysis/reports/Pages/Intl-facts-figs-19.aspx [accessed 31 August 2020]. Vertovec, S. (2006) The Emergence of Superdiversity in Britain. COMPAS Communications WP-06-25. Oxford: Centre on Migration, Policy and Society (COMPAS), University of Oxford. http://www.compas.ox.ac.uk/fileadmin/files/pdfs/Steven%20Vertovec%20 WP0625.pdf [accessed 9 November 2020]. Yao, C.W. (2015) Sense of Belonging in International Students: Making the Case against Integration to US Institutions of Higher Education. Faculty Publications in Educational Administration, 45. University of Nebraska-Lincoln, Lincoln, NE. http:// digitalcommons.unl.edu/cehsedadfacpub/45. Young, H. (2013) Theatre and Race. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Yuval-Davis, N. (2006) Belonging and the politics of belonging. Patterns of Prejudice 40 (3), 197–214. Zhang, B. (2015) Dis/reorientation of Chinese international students’ racial and ethnic identities in the US: Communicating race and ethnicity in the global–local dialectic. PhD thesis, Southern Illinois University, Carbondale, IL.

4 ‘So You Need to Be Able to Tell It Well’: On Footing and Genre in Lawyer– Client Consultations in the Field of Asylum Law Marie Jacobs

Mobility characterises every aspect of the life of asylum seekers.1 People who apply for international protection have often been ‘on the run’ for a long time after fleeing their home countries. Accordingly, biographical accounts of asylum seekers are characterised by details of their travel routes. These stories, in turn, travel through the asylum procedure and several bureaucratic institutions along the way. The result is that asylum narratives are de- and re-contextualised over the course of the asylum procedure. This transformational process, which renders talk into text as if it were detachable from its local context, is referred to as ‘entextualisation’ in the literature (Bauman & Briggs, 1990; Park & Bucholtz, 2009; Rock et al., 2013; Silverstein & Urban, 1996). Research that analyses the role of language within asylum procedures considers ‘entextualisation’ to be characteristic of the western and legal context of asylum management (Blommaert, 2001; Maryns, 2006; Jacquemet, 2011). Such scholarship has exposed the problematic language ideologies that inform the way in which narratives are processed within the procedure. Whether (and if so, how) this practice of entextualisation also pervades the context of legal counselling – a practice that features non-governmental stakeholders and that can be situated on the backstage side of the procedure rather than at the heart of it, has hitherto remained underexplored. Some academics have theorised about the way in which asylum procedures and their eligibility criteria might influence the communication between lawyer and client (Bohmer & Shuman, 2007; Hambly, 2019; Reynolds, 2020; Smith-Khan, 2020). 70

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However, due to the private nature of the lawyer–client interaction and the difficulty in negotiating access within this confidential setting (Eades, 2010; Maryns & Jacobs, 2021), few studies have the empirical data to explore the way in which government institutions process asylum narratives and how this leaves a mark on the interaction that takes place in the contexts of legal counselling. In this chapter, I intend to address this knowledge gap by drawing upon authentic data from legal consultations between lawyer and client in the field of immigration law. My data set consists of field notes and audio-recordings of lawyer–asylum seeker interactions, which I gathered during linguistic-ethnographic fieldwork at two immigration law firms. My analysis of these empirical data reveals that the entextualisation that characterises the official steps of the asylum procedure (the frontstage side of the procedure) also shapes legal service provision (the backstage side of the procedure). It does so by showing how the institutional trajectory of the asylum narrative implies discursive transformations and evokes questions of authorship within the context of the legal consultation. Secondly, the chapter also demonstrates how asylum seekers themselves are aware of, and concerned about, the dangers entailed by the asylum procedure’s entextualisation processes. Research Context

When an asylum seeker arrives in Belgium they have to start the asylum procedure as soon as possible. By Belgian law, they are appointed a pro bono lawyer to offer counsel during this high-stakes administrative procedure. Drawing on Goffman’s dramaturgical metaphor (1959), this chapter refers to the official stages of the asylum procedure – on the basis of which asylum decisions are made – as the frontstage side of the procedure. Legal counselling interaction is categorised as the backstage side of the procedure, as the purpose of lawyer–client contact is to prepare the asylum seeker for their frontstage interactions. The first frontstage step takes place at the Immigration Department (in Dutch, Dienst Vreemdelingenzaken, henceforth abbreviated to DVZ), a government institution that is part of the Federal Public Service Interior. Among other administrative matters, this first step requires the applicant to take part in the ‘first hearing’, an interview in which a government official asks the applicant about their travel route and their reasons for requesting international protection. The purpose of this hearing is to collaboratively (i.e. between the government official, the applicant and, in some cases, the interpreter) fill in a questionnaire, on the basis of which the government official draws up a report. This report is read to the applicant so that they can confirm or reject the constructed narrative. No lawyer is allowed to be present during the first hearing but the applicant can ask for a copy of the report.

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This written record occupies a pivotal position within the textual trajectory of the asylum narrative because the content of the document, drawn up during the first hearing, pervades the course of the application. The DVZ report is, for example, important in light of the next frontstage step of the procedure, which consists of a second (more extensive) hearing at the Office of the General Commissioner for Refugees and Stateless Persons (in Dutch, Commissariaat Generaal voor de Vluchtelingen en de Staatlozen, henceforth abbreviated to CGVS). This is the central asylum authority that makes the eventual decision on asylum applications. This second hearing uses the DVZ report as its starting point and the CGVS’s independent investigations attach a great deal of importance to the consistency of the asylum narrative throughout both steps (Agentschap Integratie en Inburgering, 2021). In light of assessing the credibility of the applicant, it is important that the specifics given in the first hearing correspond with the ones from the second hearing. If the applicant fails to provide consistent testimonies, this negatively affects the final decision, because inaccuracies are considered harmful to the ‘overall credibility’ of the applicant and thus expose them to claims of fabrication (UNHCR, 2013). In this way, the content of the DVZ report also influences the final decision of whether someone is granted asylum or not. Although the interview at DVZ and the report that is produced during this communicative event inform highly consequential decisionmaking, the Belgian procedure prohibits the presence of a lawyer at this first frontstage phase of the procedure. Moreover, there is also little research about the role of language within this phase of the procedure. While Maryns (2006) has reported on the entextualisation processes at stake at DVZ during the early 2000s, she later reflected on how the authorities denied her access to conduct follow-up research in future years (Maryns & Jacobs, 2021). In this regard, the data set of audiorecordings from legal consultations in the field of immigration law, on which this chapter draws, offers a rare window into what nowadays happens behind closed doors at DVZ. Asylum seekers are given the opportunity to make additional comments or to rectify mistakes in the DVZ report at the beginning of the second hearing at the CGVS. As the accuracy of the first report is highly important, asylum lawyers often carve out time to go through the details of the record with their client during legal consultations on the backstage side of the asylum procedure. My fieldwork at law firms specialised in immigration law has taught me that this is not at all an unnecessary luxury, as the DVZ reports are almost never flawless. Similarly, I found out that the act of ‘going through’ the written report in the context of a lawyer–client consultation is not straightforward either. When the lawyer and their client orally go through the DVZ report to check whether the client’s testimony has been reported accurately, this often prompts the client

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to reflect upon the DVZ interview and the entextualisation of their narrative by the DVZ official. These performances of the DVZ report during legal consultations, and the reflections which they instigate, can be considered a valuable source of information for researchers trying to grasp the hidden, discursive dynamics of what happens during the first interview at DVZ. Conceptual Framework

It comes as no surprise that, within the procedure as well as in the context of (legal) service provision, asylum encounters are almost inherently of a multilingual nature. The communication within the Belgian procedure is regulated according to article 51/4 of Belgium’s 1980 Aliens’ Act. This law stipulates that applicants can choose one of Belgium’s official languages (French or Dutch) as the procedural language, i.e. the language that is used for spoken and written communication throughout the asylum procedure (Maryns, 2017). The Aliens’ Act (1980) also dictates that applicants who are not proficient in French or Dutch are entitled to linguistic support in the form of an interpreter. In this case, DVZ decides on the procedural language. Maryns (2017) has shown that government officials themselves often resort to English as a lingua franca (and therefore as an ‘ad hoc institutional language’). In other words, the interview at DVZ takes place in either Dutch, French or English or is mediated by an interpreter, yet the report of the interview is always in French or Dutch. A similar multilingual trend can be observed in my backstage data of legal consultations between applicants and their lawyers. When dealing with multilingual applicants, lawyers decide between using a lingua franca (English, French or Dutch) and requesting an interpreter. As I noticed during my fieldwork, most legal practitioners make this decision on the basis of the perceived language proficiency of the asylum applicant (an estimation that is often informed by the information/ opinion of social workers, who are active in reception centres and help the applicants with scheduling legal appointments), the availability of interpreters (sometimes at short notice) and the delicacy/complexity of the interactional goals of the meeting. The multilingual nature of the asylum procedure, which prompts the asylum narrative to be translated from one stage of the procedure to another, can be considered one parameter of a wider process of entextualisation. This scholarly term has been widely used to describe the textual travel within bureaucratic settings (Bauman & Briggs, 1990; Park & Bucholtz, 2009; Rock et al., 2013). In the context of the asylum procedure, specifically, the term captures how text circulates between legal settings and across institutional activities (Blommaert,

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Table 4.1  The transformative nature of entextualisation within the asylum procedure GENRE

DVZ INTERVIEW

DVZ REPORT

CONSULTATION

CGVS INTERVIEW

LANGUAGE

Interview language, e.g. Farsi (with interpreter), English as a lingua franca, etc.

Institutional language, i.e. either Dutch or French

Consulation language, e.g. Farsi (with interpreter), English as a lingua franca, etc.

Interview language, e.g. Farsi (with interpreter), English as a lingua franca, etc.

MODE

Oral

Written

Oral performance of written document

Oral

PARTICIPANT(S)

Asylum seeker (Interpreter) DVZ official

DVZ official

Asylum seeker (Interpreter) Lawyer (Researcher)

Asylum seeker (Interpreter) Lawyer CGVS official

2001; Jacquemet, 2011; Maryns, 2006). Talk is de-contextualised from one social context only to be re-contextualised into another one (Silverstein & Urban, 1996). The interaction that takes place during the legal consultation is ‘embedded in a chain of mediated discursive events’ (Briggs, 1997: 526): the lawyer, the client, and, if present, the interpreter prepare backstage for the upcoming frontstage interview at the CGVS by drawing on the written record that was constituted during a prior frontstage interview between a DVZ official and the applicant in question. This shows how the entextualisation of the asylum procedure comprises multiple stakeholders and contexts. Following Bauman and Briggs (1990), I describe entextualisation as a transformational process that implies change at the level of language, mode and genre (see Table 4.1). First, the language level comprises the multilingual nature of the textual trajectory, characterised by the usage of different languages (institutional vs communicative) and by the occasional use of an interpreter. Second, any analysis that focuses on the way in which the asylum narrative is processed on the backstage and frontstage side of the procedure, renders visible the tension between spoken (oral) and written (textual) modes of communication. Third, transformations at the level of genre are connected to the different institutional contexts in which the asylum narrative circulates. Testimony is elicited in the form of an interview at DVZ, but transformed into a report, a genre that erases the questions of the interviewer and presents the applicant’s answers as self-initiated testimony. This report is then performed by the lawyer within the context of a legal consultation, when the lawyer checks the accuracy of the testimony by rendering the text in short stretches. Note that the DVZ report is also entextualised during the CGVS interview, which takes the report as a reference point. The data analysis will demonstrate that the entextualisation of the DVZ report in the asylum procedure complicates lawyer–client interactions and will draw on four theoretical concepts in doing so. As the written record plays a prominent role in the legal consultation,

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instances of reported speech (in which the lawyer indicates what the asylum seeker said during the first hearing) characterise the communication between lawyer and client. The re-contextualisation of these statements (either in direct or indirect speech) has the potential to complicate the legal counselling interaction. As a result of the entextualisation process, the lawyer–client interaction is characterised by shifts in footing (Goffman, 1959): the alignment of the lawyer changes as they move between a plurality of stances, i.e. the government perspective (who constructed the written record), the client’s perspective (whose speech is reported on in the written record) and their own primary interactional role (as counsellor, who advocates for their client and, in doing so, checks and re-enacts the DVZ report). The way in which various perspectives are embedded within the discourse of the lawyer, can be conceptualised as the layering of voices in one voice (Bakhtin, 1984). As the data analysis will show, the fact that utterances expressed by the lawyer embody another party’s point of view can be complex to grasp for asylum seekers. Additional metapragmatic framing (Silverstein, 1993), in which the lawyer explicitly verbalises whose speech is reported and explains their footing, can alleviate such discursive ambiguity. Fieldwork shows, however, that achieving such metapragmatic framing is quite challenging in its own right. Methodology and Data

As indicated earlier, this chapter draws on my linguistic ethnographic fieldwork in the form of observations at Belgian law firms specialised in immigration law. My data consist of field notes based on my ethnographic observations, as well as audio-recordings of the legal consultations. The excerpts of data have been chosen to illustrate (the consequences of) the entextualisation of the asylum narrative, in the sense that they show how the written DVZ report plays a prominent discursive role in the legal advice communication setting. In what follows, I will present fragments from two different consultations. Consultation A features a young, male applicant from Afghanistan and his female lawyer. The communication between L and A takes place in English, which is used as a lingua franca. The DVZ report, however, is written in French, which the lawyer has a good command of, though it is not her L1. The DVZ interview (which took place before the legal consultation) was conducted by means of an interpreter (Dari–French) and the upcoming interaction at CGVS will normally follow that example. Table 4.2 presents the use of different languages, modes and genres in Consultation A. Consultation B features a male applicant from Lebanon, an Arabic– Dutch interpreter and a female lawyer. The Arabic turns in transcript 2 have been back translated into Dutch by an independent translator.

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Table 4.2  The transformative nature of entextualisation in Consultation A GENRE

DVZ INTERVIEW

DVZ REPORT

CONSULTATION

CGVS INTERVIEW

LANGUAGE

Dari–French (with interpreter)

French

English as a lingua franca

Dari–French (with interpreter)

MODE

Oral

Written

Oral performance of written document

Oral

PARTICIPANT(S)

Asylum seeker Interpreter DVZ official

DVZ official

Asylum seeker Lawyer Researcher

Asylum seeker Interpreter Lawyer CGVS official

Table 4.3  The transformative nature of entextualisation in Consultation B GENRE

DVZ INTERVIEW

DVZ REPORT

CONSULTATION

CGVS INTERVIEW

LANGUAGE

Arabic–Dutch (with interpreter)

Dutch

Arabic–Dutch (with interpreter)

Arabic–Dutch (with interpreter)

MODE

Oral

Written

Oral performance of written document

Oral

PARTICIPANT(S)

Asylum seeker Interpreter DVZ official

DVZ official

Asylum seeker Lawyer Interpreter Researcher

Asylum seeker Interpreter Lawyer CGVS official

I have, in turn, translated this translation into English, just like I did with the turns that were authentically spoken in Dutch. The DVZ interview was mediated by an Arabic–Dutch interpreter, while the DVZ report was written in Dutch. The lawyer supposes that this linguistic strategy will repeat itself, with regards to the upcoming interaction at CGVS. Table 4.3 presents the use of different languages, modes and genres in Consultation B. Entextualisation in the Legal Consultation

Excerpt 1, which was taken from Consultation A, illustrates how the institutional record is embedded within the lawyer–client interaction. In the first turn, the lawyer mentions that the applicant will have more time to explain his life story during ‘the interview on Monday’, an utterance that refers to his upcoming CGVS hearing, but that for now, she will simply ‘go through’ the DVZ report with the applicant. The phrase ‘just confirm me that everything is correct’ can thus be interpreted as ‘just confirm me that everything is correct’. The excerpt deals with the problems that the client encountered in Afghanistan. Excerpt 1

01. Lawyer: So during the interview on Monday, you will have the opportunity to explain more but just confirm me that everything is correct hm? So uh you were never arrested? You were never umm convicted

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02. 03. 04. 05. 06. 07. 08. 09. 10. 11. 12. 13.

umm and you were not active in an in any political organisation in Afghanistan? Um if you would return to Afghanistan you declared that you would ummm uh that you would will be uhmmm uhh murdered? Applicant: yeah. Lawyer: or that you will be obliged to become a terrorist. Applicant: yea. Lawyer: and they asked you who will uhm who will kill you? The Islamic group. Applicant: yea. Lawyer: umm they asked you why do you think that and then you declared umm my problems have started in university when I met uhmm certain people. Applicant: ya. Interviewer: uhm it’s three persons uh so three people uhmm who uhmm with whom I became friends? Applicant: yeah. Lawyer:  uhmmm … five months after the start of the eeuhm Applicant: the course. Lawyer: Euhm, the courses.

In turn 01, the lawyer starts by metapragmatically framing the client’s role in the backstage interactional activity of ‘going through the DVZ report’. This role can be described as quite limited as the lawyer explains to the applicant that she is not looking for additional information but merely for his confirmation on the content of the report. Previous research has argued that there speaks a certain power asymmetry from the way in which the applicant’s narrative is processed within the procedure (Maryns, 2006). Entextualisation is a bureaucratic phenomenon: a practice enabled by institutional actors (Bauman & Briggs, 1990), who possess the legitimacy to de- and re-contextualise the asylum narrative. In the excerpt of the lawyer–client consultation presented in Excerpt 1, the restricted nature of the client’s allocated responsibility, as well as the fact that the lawyer does not wait for the client’s response but immediately dives into the report, echoes this institutional power imbalance. The lawyer voices and controls the representation of the applicant’s discourse. This power imbalance renders the client a spectator to the discursive construction of his own identity (Jacobs & Maryns, 2021) – that is, until the end of the fragment (turns 11–13), where the lawyer is struggling to find a suitable English translation and the applicant completes her sentence. This short repair sequence ultimately brings home the observation about

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disempowerment, as it highlights the way in which the entextualised interaction sidelined the authentic voice of the applicant before. The fact that the power asymmetry that goes hand in hand with entextualisation pervades the legal service provision stages as well does not come as a surprise. In the end, although asylum lawyers do not work for the government, they do operate within the same institutional system. As the client’s application is being processed within this legal framework, legal advice communication (backstage) cannot break free from the governmental migration management practices (frontstage). The lawyer’s endeavour to improve her client’s chances of being granted asylum takes the form of double-checking the content of the DVZ report, because the document is used as a starting point as well as a benchmark for the upcoming hearing at the CGVS. The act of rendering the client voiceless within the legal consultation, thus aims to ensure that the government does not start on the wrong track, something that can be considered as detrimental to the client’s chances of being granted asylum. The lawyer’s performance of the client’s biographical account takes on the form of entextualisation, as the lawyer is re-contextualising the report within a new and different social context, an act that has a transformative capacity. The linguistic transformation is prominent during this part of the legal consultation: the lawyer is translating on the spot, rephrasing French sentences (the procedural language used in the report) into English (the lingua franca that is used during the consultations). Her turns are uttered hesitantly – something that she apologises for a little later in the consultation and which the applicant responds to in an understanding manner by saying ‘you’re not a machine, yeah’. In this way, both interactants actively reflect upon the transformational and challenging character of the entextualisation. Note that the lawyer is not literally ‘translating’ the DVZ report: her act of re-contextualisation also implies rephrasings. She is, for example, turning the statements from the report into questions. In turns 01 and 07 this practice takes the form of transforming the reflexive ‘I’ pronoun into the addressing ‘you’ pronoun – a communicative move that exposes the layering of voices and ambiguity around authorship brought about by the entextualisation that takes place in the asylum procedure. The lawyer also adds a rising intonation at the end of the sentence, which indicates that a question is being asked and that a reaction (in this case: a confirmation) is expected. The intonation shift is accompanied by the multimodal act of looking from the report (towards which the gaze was directed for translation purposes) towards the applicant. The way in which the entextualisation of the asylum narrative transcends different genres and different participant constellations is at stake within the excerpt. It is, for example, interesting to observe that reference is made to the communicative interview context that informed

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the DVZ report. This compositional context is completely absent from the DVZ report itself, which takes the form of a monologue and presents the applicant’s narrative as self-initiated (Maryns, 2006). Yet, the lawyer is re-inserting the reported as well as the dialogic character of the text she is reciting. She does this by using indirect speech preceded by ‘you declared’ in turns 01, 03 (in which the projected dialogue is still dependent on the main clause, namely ‘you declared’ from turn 01 – Irvine, 1996), and ‘they asked’ in turns 05 and 07. In this way, the lawyer is acknowledging: (a) the different participants who were involved in the frontstage interview event at DVZ, (b) the co-constructed character of the report and (c) the different voices that are embedded in her own backstage communication. When zooming in on specific turns, it becomes clear that this polyphonic nature of the circulating talk (Maryns, 2013) has the potential to result in discursive ambiguity over who said what. In turn 05, the lawyer provides an indirect question as well as the answer to that question. The answer is formulated in direct unembedded speech and without the recurring rising intonation, hereby, as it were, simulating the question-and-answer sequence that happened during the DVZ interview. Note that, within this interactional dynamic, the lawyer takes on the role of the applicant and animates his voice. The indirect speech introduced in turn 07 evokes a similar shift in footing. Whereas the applicant’s position was referred to in the you-form up until then, the I-form fulfils this function in the later turns. This shift in footing, in which the lawyer ventriloquates (the DVZ report’s reflection of) the applicant’s voice, underlines the ambiguity of role division and authorship that is brought about by the entextualised nature of the interactional activity. The de- and re-contextualisation of the asylum narrative leads to the decomposition of the simple role categories, in which new meanings for personal pronouns emerge within the discursive practice (Silverstein & Urban, 1996). Accordingly, this small segment of a legal consultation in the realm of asylum law reveals the complexity of backstage re-enacting a frontstage event. Although the lawyer at times foregrounds the transformative character of entextualisation, by addressing (or one could even describe it as ‘re-animating’) the dialogical context in which the DVZ report came into being, the asylum authorities themselves do not take into account the co-constructed character of the asylum narrative. On the contrary, the government considers the applicant to be the sole author and, therefore, the sole person responsible for the narrative that travels across different bureaucratic institutions (Reynolds, 2020). An echo of this institutional attitude can be found in the lawyer’s recurring use of the verb ‘to declare’ (turn 01, turn 07), a verb of which the semantic connotations do not leave a lot of room for discussion about authorship.

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Excerpt 2, which was taken from Consultation B and which features a female applicant from Lebanon, displays a similar communicative situation. The written record is again at the heart of the interaction, with the lawyer metapragmatically framing the communicative activity of ‘going through’ the DVZ report by saying, ‘Okay, now I will indeed I will go through the report of the first interview and then you can tell whether everything has been recorded correctly (.) now it is logical that this is not detailed, right (.) just tell me, so you don’t have to add but just confirm what is correct and what’s not.’.2 A little later, during this exercise in going through the report, Excerpt 2 takes place. The data fragment, which deals with a situation of intimidation and assault, reveals an interactional situation in which the entextualisation is enabled (and possibly exacerbated) by the multilingual assistance of an Arabic– Dutch interpreter. Excerpt 2

01. Lawyer: en ze waren dus op zoek naar 02. Interpreter: uhu kan yabhatho 3ala , Uhu waren op zoek naar . 03. Lawyer: ze maakten de inboedel in het huis stuk 04. Interpreter: ja 05. Lawyer: ze sloegen mijn anderen neer 06. Interpreter: kassaro kola l2athath, odharabo euh Ze maakten alle inboedel, en ze sloegen euh 07. Lawyer: en ze sloegen de broer van 08. Interpreter: akh, osalahoh euh halasoh euh jarouh De broer, en ze slierd* euh slord* euh sleurden hem. 09. Applicant: dharaboh Ze hebben hem geslagen. 10. Interpreter: dharabouh o jarrouh maktoub hona, dharabouh Ze hebben hem geslagen, en hebben hem gesleurd, zo staat het geschreven, ze hebben hem geslagen. 11. Applicant: ah dharabouh, Je ze hebben hem geslagen. 12. Interpreter: dharabo akho Ze hebben de broer van geslagen. 13. Applicant: ibn akh*, akho , De zoon van de broer, de broer van . 14. Interpreter: akhou , De broer van . 15. Lawyer:  was toen niet thuis ik weet niet waar hij wel was, nadien is verdwenen

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16. Interpreter: , makan fi lbayt, maknt 3aref was niet thuis. Ik wist van niks. 17. Applicant: kan ah mich mawjoud Hij was ja niet aanwezig. 18. Interpreter: ikhtafa ba3d dhalik ikhtafa, Hij is verdwenen, daarna is hij verdwenen. 19. Lawyer: toen ze me ondervroegen over wist ik niet waar hij was 20. Interpreter: lama sa2alouni 3an ayna howa, lam akon a3rifo Toen ze mij hebben gevraagd over , wist ik van niks. 21. Applicant: he Ja. 22. Lawyer: maar ze geloofden me niet 23. Interpreter: lam yathi9o bi, Ze vertrouwden mij niet. 24. Lawyer: ze zeiden als ik niet vond, ik het zelfde werk zou moeten doen als in het verleden 25. Interpreter: o9aloli idha lam tajid , sawfa ta3malo nafs l3amal li 9am bih fima saba9. En ze zeiden als je niet vindt, ga je hetzelfde werk doen als in het verleden heeft gedaan. 26. Applicant: eh Ja.

Excerpt 2 resembles Excerpt 1, in terms of power dynamics. The role that is allocated to the applicant is again minimal. The multilingual transformation of the entextualisation is, however, of a different nature. In turn 01 and 05, 08 and 10, the lawyer quite literally recites the DVZ report. This is possible because the document is written in Dutch. Unlike what was happening in Excerpt 1, the lawyer seems to impose very few changes; she does not even systematically transform the report’s statements into questions by changing the intonation pattern (see turn 01 and turn 10 of Excerpt 2). The multilingual, transformative dimension of the entextualisation is concentrated within the role of the interpreter, who translates the lawyer’s Dutch sentences into Arabic. The compositional context of the DVZ report is not referred to in this excerpt. In reading out loud the report, the lawyer takes on the stance of the applicant and, up until turn 09, the interpreter’s renditions of the lawyer’s statement adopt the same footing. Nevertheless, the entextualisation still causes confusions about speaker role and authorship. The use of reported speech in turns 05–06 and turns 11–12 are particularly hard to interpret, as the stretches of

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quoted indirect speech do not refer to the participants of the interview event that informed the DVZ report (as was the case for reported speech in Excerpt 1) but concern the assault situation on the basis of which the applicant is applying for asylum. This means that the reported speech was not inserted by the lawyer but was rather part of the DVZ report itself. The job of translating the local interaction from Dutch to Arabic (and the other way around) constitutes an additional level of entextualisation. Following Wadensjö (1998: 107), the job of the interpreter can be conceptualised as de-contextualising the original unit and re-contextualising ‘a new version of it in the flow of talk’. In Excerpt 2, the presence of the interpreter does not seem to alleviate the ambiguity about the authors and the referents (to put it in Saussurean terms) of the expressed sentiments. Note, for example, that the interpreter transforms the lawyer’s original sentence from turn 10, which was formulated in direct speech, into indirect speech in his rendition. This implies that the interpreter takes on the role (and therefore animates the voice of) the people who threatened the applicant, as seen in turn 11. The lawyer refrained from doing this in turn 10: she merely reported (in reported speech) what the DVZ report states the applicant claimed his assaulters had said. In this way, the fact that there is an additional level of filtering present, in the form of the multilingual assistance of an interpreter, seems to exacerbate the complexity of the interactional situation. Emic Concerns about the Entextualisation Process

The ability to distinguish textual trajectories and to notice the consequences of entextualisation seems to require a certain degree of abstraction and analytical distance. Maryns (2006), who analysed the linguistic practices at DVZ and CGVS, noted that, although the entextualisation patterns are plain and obvious for language scholars, awareness in the field seems rather bleak. She explains this with reference to the way in which the professional habitus of DVZ employees assimilates to ‘institutional routines of processing information’ (Maryns, 2006: 317). My data, however, show how from an emic perspective (Pike, 1966), many applicants do demonstrate awareness of, and concerns about, the way in which the asylum procedure treats their testimonies. In Consultation A, the Afghan applicant repeatedly expressed his distress over the fact that his first interview was more than three years ago. At the beginning of the consultation, the applicant immediately took the floor to argue that over time his memories had started to become blurry, saying: ‘But euhm like two days ago I was just thinking about it (.) that this it has been such a long time that happened with me and it’s really hard to remember everything by detail (.)’. He added:

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‘a year okay it’s okay two years ago it’s okay but three years (.) sometimes is getting hard you know (.)’. By recognising the importance that the authorities attach to detail and by doubting his ability to provide what they are looking for, the applicant demonstrates awareness of the genre criteria of the CGVS hearing. The applicant implies that the way in which his testimony is being processed within the asylum procedure prohibits him from providing the institutional narrative (Jacobs & Maryns, 2021) that the government expects from him. The gaps between the different communicative events, a bureaucratic phenomenon that the applicant has no power over, constrains his testimony (Briggs, 1997) and, therefore, his chances of being granted asylum. The applicant in Consultation B similarly expressed emic concerns about the entextualisation at work in the asylum procedure. At the start of the consultation, the client immediately asked the interpreter whether the lawyer would take him through the content of the DVZ report. This sentiment was expressed through seemingly bizarre discursive phrasings like, ‘Is this what I said (?)’, a statement that can be interpreted as ‘Is the lawyer going to tell me what DVZ reports about my interview?’, and ‘I’d like to hear what I said’, which can be read as a request to the lawyer to translate the report. These statements foreground an applicant who is focused on the way in which the process of record-keeping might have transformed his ‘local utterances (…) into discursive facts’ (Maryns, 2013; Scheffer, 2007: 2). The client seemed eager to know whether the entextualised version of the interview reflects his actual story. In this way, the excerpt also reveals that the applicant is aware that the report might contain inaccuracies. He does not blindly assume the report to be a literal textual representation of his words. Concluding Thoughts

This chapter has explored how entextualisation shapes, transforms and complicates legal service provision in the context of the Belgian asylum procedure. It is striking to see that the bureaucratic phenomenon of entextualisation not only concerns the textual trajectory within the frontstage side of the asylum procedure but that it also influences the legal counselling interactions on the backstage side of the procedure. In making this claim, the chapter draws on audio-recordings from lawyer– client consultations that I observed during my linguistic ethnographic fieldwork at law firms specialised in immigration law. Maryns (2006) has described the way in which the DVZ report is entextualised throughout the frontstage side of the procedure. The data analysis presented in this chapter, however, shows how the written report also plays a crucial role within the backstage setting of legal advice communication. The pivotal position of the written DVZ report within the textual trajectory, is illustrated in Figure 4.1. The figure captures how the DVZ report, which

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Figure 4.1  The pivotal position of the DVZ report in the beginning stage of the asylum procedure

was composed on the basis of the DVZ interview, shapes what happens inside of the lawyer’s office. The image also illustrates the way in which the CGVS hearing is connected to the DVZ report. As legal service providers anticipate that the report is the starting point as well as the benchmark of the CGVS interview, they verify the entextualisation that happened at DVZ in order to improve the client’s chances of being granted asylum. They do so by entextualising the entextualised report, through re-enacting the frontstage record (and to a certain extent, interaction) during backstage legal counselling. This reveals how there is a certain level of interplay between the two distinct communication tracks: the interaction between the applicant and the asylum authorities, on the one hand, and the contact between the applicant and their legal service provision, on the other, are unmistakably related. The data analysis also revealed how the backstage entextualisation practice of going through the DVZ report considerably complicates the interactional dynamics of lawyer–client consultations, causing confusion about footing, speaker roles and authorship. This observation especially resonates when an interpreter is present, as this additional layer of filtering (or even entextualisation) holds the possibility of exacerbating the complexity of the interactional situation. There is also a power asymmetry contained within these entextualisation processes and the way in which they govern asylum procedures. The data analysis has shown how scholarly observations about the way in which written ‘evidence’ is consistently granted a higher status than oral testimony on the frontstage side of the procedure, can

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be generalised towards the backstage setting of legal advice communication as well. The power imbalance is tangible in the fact that the lawyer can be seen to privilege the institutional written representation of the applicant over their authentic, oral voice. The finality of this discursive asymmetry is, however, completely different on the backstage side than on the frontstage side. The lawyer is silencing the voice of the client within the backstage interaction because they operate within the boundaries of an institutional procedure that excludes the voice of the applicant by means of entextualisation. Legal service providers cannot break free from this procedural dynamic, but they do act with the intention of improving the applicant’s chances of being granted asylum. As the analysis has shown, the entextualisation process that characterises the asylum procedure implies that applicants’ narratives ­inevitably undergo changes on the level of language, mode and genre. The process of de-contextualisation from one situation and re-­­ contextualisation in another situation goes hand in hand with process of translation and rephrasal. The eventual asylum narrative is a product of the institutional procedures in which it has been processed. Interestingly, the data analysis foregrounded that asylum seekers themselves are aware of these ­problematic ways in which text travels throughout the procedure. The applicants not only acknowledged the transformative capabilities of the entextualisation but also the complexities it brings about and the possible dangers it entails. The linguistic ethnographic investigation presented in this chapter found theoretical grounding for the distress that applicants experience about the way in which their narratives are processed, by arguing that the intricate nature of the textual trajectories of asylum narratives is hard to reconcile with the complexity of asylum narratives, on the one hand, and with the institutional demand for accurate, consistent and coherent accounts, on the other. In light of this, this piece of research contributes to a growing body of research that advocates for rethinking asylum assessments in the linguistically diverse context of the determination of refugee status. Notes (1) In this chapter, I use the terms asylum seeker and applicant (for international protection) interchangeably. Although I am aware that the transposition of European directives into Belgian legislation, in 2018, substituted the former term ‘asylum seeker’ for ‘applicant ’ (Jacobs & Maryns, 2021), I opt to also use the term ‘asylum seeker’ in this chapter as it is a productive term, that often emerges within my empirical data. (2) I have only provided the English translation of the sentence in the main text. The original utterance in Dutch was the following: ‘oké nu dan zal ik inderdaad es als het zal ik es door het verslag gaan van het eerste interview en dan kan u zeggen of dat alles juist is genoteerd (.) nu het is logisch dat niet dat dit niet gedetailleerd is hé (.) maar zeg mij gewoon dus u moet niet bijvertellen maar bevestig gewoon wat het correct is of niet(.)’.

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References Agentschap Integratie en Inburgering (2021) Procedure voor Dienstvreemdelingenzaken. https://www.agii.be/thema/verblijfsrecht-uitwijzing-reizen/asiel-internationalebescher ming/hoe-verloopt-de-asielprocedure/procedure-voor-de-dienstvreemdelingenzaken [accessed 03.01.2021]. Bakhtin, M. (1984) Problems of Dostoevsky’s Poetics (C. Emerson, ed. and trans., with an Introduction by W.C. Booth). Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press. Bauman, R. and Briggs, C. (1990) Poetics and performances as critical perspectives on language and social life. Annual Review of Anthropology 19 (1), 59–88. Blommaert, J. (2001) Investigating narrative inequality: African asylum seekers’ stories in Belgium. Discourse & Society 12 (4), 413–449. Bohmer, C. and Shuman, K. (2007) Rejecting Refugees: Political Asylum in the 21st Century. London: Routledge. Briggs, C. (1997) Notes on a ‘confession’: On the construction of gender, sexuality, and violence in an infanticide case. Pragmatics 7 (4), 519–546. Eades, D. (2010) Sociolinguistics and the Legal Process. Bristol: Multilingual Matters. Goffman, E. (1959) The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life. New York, NY: Anchor. Hambly, J. (2019) Interactions and identities in UK asylum appeals: Lawyers and law in a quasi-legal setting. In N. Gill and A. Good (eds) Asylum Determination in Europe: Ethnographic Perspectives (pp. 195–218). New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan. Irvine, J.T. (1996) Shadow conversations: The indeterminacy of participant roles. Natural histories of discourse. In M. Silverstein and G. Urban (eds) Natural Histories of Discourse (pp. 131–159). Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Jacobs, M. and Maryns, K. (2021) Managing narratives, managing identities: Language and credibility in legal consultations with asylum seekers. Language in Society 51 (3), 375–402. Jacquemet, M. (2011) Crosstalk 2.0: Asylum and communicative breakdowns. Text & Talk 31 (4), 475–497. Maryns, K. (2006) The Asylum Speaker: Language in the Belgian Asylum Procedure. London: Routledge. Maryns, K. (2013) ‘Theatricks’ in the courtroom: The intertextual construction of legal cases. In C. Heffer, F. Rock and J. Conley (eds) Legal–Lay Communication: Textual Travels in the Law (pp. 107–126). Oxford: Oxford University Press. Maryns, K. (2017) The use of English as ad hoc institutional standard in the Belgian asylum interview. Applied linguistics 38 (5), 737–758. Maryns, K. and Jacobs, M. (2021) Data constitution and engagement with the field of asylum and migration. Journal of Pragmatics 178, 146–158. Park, J. and Bucholtz, M. (2009) Introduction. Public transcripts: Entextualization and linguistic representation in institutional contexts. Text & Talk 29 (5), 485–502. Pike, K. (1966) Emic and etic standpoints for the description of behavior. In A. Smith (ed.) Communication and Culture (pp. 52–163). New York, NY: Holt, Reinhart & Winston. Reynolds, J. (2020) Investigating the language–culture nexus in refugee legal advice meetings. Multilingua 39 (4), 395–429. Rock, F., Heffer, C. and Conley, J. (2013) Textual travel in legal–lay communication. In C. Heffer, F. Rock and J. Conley (eds) Legal–Lay Communication: Textual Travels in the Law (pp. 107–125). Oxford: Oxford University Press. Scheffer, T. (2007) On procedural discoursivation – Or how local utterances are turned into binding facts. Language & Communication 27 (1), 1–27. Silverstein, M. (1993) Metapragmatic discourse and metapragmatic function. In J. Lucy (ed.) Reflective Language: Reported Speech and Metapragmatics (pp. 33–58). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Silverstein, M. and Urban, G. (1996) The natural history of discourse. In M. Silverstein and G. Urban (eds) Natural Histories of Discourse (pp. 1–17). Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.

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Smith-Khan, L. (2020) Migration practitioners’ roles in communicating credible refugee claims. Alternative Law Journal 45 (2), 119–124. UNHCR (United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees) (2013) Beyond proof: Credibility assessment in EU asylum systems: Full report. https://www.refworld.org/ docid/519b1fb54.html [accessed 03.01.2021]. Wadensjo, C. (1998) Interpreting as Interaction. London: Routledge.

Part 2 Multimodal Approaches

Introduction to Part 2: Situating Multimodality in the Landscape of Language Research Jennifer Rowsell

‘Hope’ is the thing with feathers.   Emily Dickinson, quoted in Starer & Dickinson (1977)  Introduction

Multimodality is a field and approach to language that invokes and relates theories from various streams of semiotics, linguistics, rhetoric, literacy studies, anthropology, media studies and, more recently, posthumanism and affect theory. In this way, multimodality is a field that has grown and taken hold across disciplines to open up and add complexity to understandings about meaning-making across contexts and spaces. There is much to gain looking backwards, sitting within the present, and looking ahead to how multimodality has transformed over time and to track the warp and weft of it given the rapid pace of change. What multimodality has always invited, and continues to invite, are ways to frame multilingual research that are expansive and more than an account of linguistic exchanges. Multimodal theory gives to multilingual research a larger canvas on which to explore other forms of communication that bilingual speakers access to make meaning across contexts. In this way, multimodal theory invites agency and freedom to linguistic and language-based research.  In this chapter, I will summarise the ways in which multimodal approaches – past, present and future – foster an understanding of communicative practices, by foregrounding key researchers and conceptual turns complemented by examples from my own research over the years. In doing so, I outline the current state of research in multimodality, presenting an argument for the need to think multimodally when conducting multilingual research.   91

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Starting with Kress 

Though the origins of multimodality (i.e. the specific use of this term) within educational research have roots in older traditions and particular alignments with the writings of Michael Halliday, the core ideas and launch of the theory came from Gunther Kress. Having trained with Halliday, Kress set out on a long, esteemed journey inviting researchers and educators to move out of the sarcophagus of language and linguistics to conceptualise language as comprised of multiple modes. A mode is a unit of meaning (Kress, 1997). Kress emphasised in his writings that modes rely on the notion of fit and/or choice. By fit or choice, Kress (2003) argues that there are best fits between a semiotic resource with its own inherent properties or structure and organisation and the meaning-making purposes. A simple example is that a picture transmits meanings and expression in a different way than words do. It is without doubt clear that there are qualitative differences between a picture, a song and a poem. Take the Dickinson epithet that begins the chapter: ‘Hope’ is the thing with feathers (Starer & Dickinson, 1977). Now, these six words, strung together as they are, represent a perfect fit, as they could never be precisely replicated in a picture, painting or song. Admittedly, a voice could say or sing these words; however, it could never be the same as reading them silently in your head or seeing them on a page. ‘Hope’ is a thing with feathers is singly, uniquely, fittingly transmitted through language and punctuation. Kress drilled down into such choices (linguistic or otherwise) to situate people, contexts and interests.  Kress set literacy researchers on a path to crack open language and theorise linguistic moments as nestled, in or entangled with, other modes of representation and expression. From the mid-1990s until now, multimodality was a way to attend systematically to the social interpretation of a wide range of communicational forms that are used for making meaning. There are some essential points to account for in multimodal research. Firstly, spoken and written language are part of a set of multimodal resources in which modes have the potential to contribute equally to meaning. Secondly, modes (like language) have been shaped by social, cultural and historical usages and actualise communication in specific ways; it is for this reason that the choice of mode is a central aspect of interaction and meaning (Kress & Van Leeuwen, 1996; Rowsell, 2013). Thirdly, individuals orchestrate and configure modes in a myriad of ways that signal the nature and significance of the interaction between, across and within modes (Jewitt, 2008; Norris, 2009). Returning briefly to the line from Dickinson’s poem, ‘Hope’ in quotation marks says a different thing than it would without quotation marks. Or, feathers implies a different message than words like: a thing with chains or a thing with teeth. Fourthly, like

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language, modes are shaped by rules and norms that take their cues from conventions and institutions and these conventions are influenced by the rules, traditions, interests and motivations of the context. An example might be dissertation writing and following the rules of the APA. What is crucial to multimodality is that modes impart certain kinds of meanings and that these meanings and their valence shift across contexts and spaces.   To account for the idiosyncratic nature of meaning-making, Kress (1997) developed the concept of the motivated sign. Motivated signs are signs that materialise the point of view of the sign maker. A child’s drawing, an Instagram thread, a tweet, and other types and genres of texts, are all motivated signs. Motivated signs are texts that people design and produce that are motivated by the subjectivities of the sign maker. Texts carry the traces of the text designer/sign maker, and the pathway that a designer takes and the materialities that they embed can reveal important information about how they learn and understand the world. Focusing on the processes behind sign making first, followed by the meanings presented in the signs, Kress (1997) refers to the motivated sign as the process by which individuals must decide which modes to privilege in sign making. Reflecting on multimodal/multilingual research over the years, I strongly benefitted from Stein’s research in South Africa with bilingual children who spoke local dialects and English, but who also drew significantly on multimodal resources to express themselves (Stein, 2003, 2008). Stein illustrated a flatness that language offered children compared with images and artifacts: for example, a child in her research who asked her, ‘How do I smile in writing?’ (Stein, 2008: 52). Stein opened up windows and doors that closed off bilingual children’s forms of expression and representations.  Such research carefully documents the subtle and subjective ways that meaning makers communicate to people and to themselves about moments. These multilingual, multimodal research processes are complex, as they are shaped at individual and social levels, informed not only by prior experiences but also by the immediacies of the moment. One of the best ways to illustrate motivated signs and embedding interests within genres is drawn from a research study I conducted in 2007 with year 9 students at Princeton High School in the United States. The research was part of a longitudinal research study that led to a theory developed with Pahl called artifactual literacies (Pahl & Rowsell, 2010; Rowsell, 2011). Over four years, I conducted research with an English teacher in a year 9 English class called English Plus. English Plus provided extra support for students who struggled with English. The research was ethnographic and action research based and the English teacher and I taught English through a multimodal lens. For a four-week unit, we explored ways of applying multimodality to teaching canonical texts. To do so, we adapted contemporary vernacular genres such as

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Figure P2.1  Shakesbook: Adaptation of Facebook

Facebook pages to Shakespearean and canonical texts. Figure P2.1 displays our development of ‘Shakesbook’ (an adaptation for Facebook) that asked students to create profiles of characters in Shakespearean comedies and tragedies.  Based on this work, we applied the Shakesbook concept to other novels and, in Figure P2.2, I display a Facebook page for a character named Bess Moss in Richard Wright’s Black Boy (2000 [1945]). The

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Figure P2.2  Facebook page for Bess Moss in Richard Wright’s Black Boy

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student, Louisa (pseudonym), who developed this Facebook page for Bess, admired Bess in the novel, who was a young woman who fell in love with Wright. Developing the page gave Louisa an opportunity to get inside the Bess Moss character but through Louisa’s own lived experiences (interests, motivations, skills) of using Facebook as a part of her everyday literacy life (Davies, 2006). The research gave Louisa, as a culturally and racially diverse student who speaks English and Spanish, an opportunity to apply her lived literacies (Pahl et al., 2020) within a more formal, institutional space; a space that formerly framed her outside literacies as deficit. In this way the thought and creation of the Facebook page provided Louisa with ways of making the assignment a motivated sign actively embedding her own motivations and lived experiences with the text genre (i.e. language, visual mediations and textual features). What is more, the activity imbued confidence, agency and a felt presence in the English classroom. Early Multimodal–Multilingual Researchers

As Kress’ writings gained traction in the field, literacy and language researchers increasingly adopted multimodal methods within their ethnographic fieldwork. There were a few other contemporaries to Kress who also paved the way to multimodal theories of language and literacy. One such theorist is Siegel (1995), who started from Peirce and Saussure, and built on Halliday, by focusing her research and writings on the generative possibilities of moving across modes (e.g. from writing to drawing). Unlike Kress, Siegel relied heavily on Peirce’s understanding of any sign use as the expansion of meaning which elucidated the organisational rules of different sign systems. A strong contribution to the literacy and language research field has been her ability to explain and illustrate how meaning makers, particularly children, move across two or more sign systems (e.g. from words to images and then to gesture) and, importantly, how meaning-makers invent relationships between modes to enrich their understandings. Siegel argued that children use these generative potentials more fully as they move more easily across modes in their early play, until they learn how to work within more valued modes (such as print). She connects the potential of transmediation, or cross-modal movement, with the turn in educational arenas toward inquiry rather than transmission models of formalised learning. By complicating and nuancing meaningmaking in this way, she demonstrated how young children represent agency in their learning.  Pahl (2002) is another well-known scholar who was one of the other early adopters of Kress’ multimodal theorising when she applied multimodality within her fieldwork in the homes of South Asian boys aged five to eight years in London homes. Over 18 months, Pahl

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visited these children’s homes and introduced disposable cameras for documenting multimodal meaning-making at home. What Pahl uncovered were meaning-making practices that happened in highly specific cultural and social environments. These complex multimodal texts produced by children resulted in material entanglements of cultural and linguistic systems with media and popular culture texts. Some of these remediated texts combined birds with Turkish words and fairy tales such as the Ugly Duckling, while other texts displayed Pokémon cards with cultural artifacts. Through this research, Pahl connected multimodality with home narratives and literacy practices that uncovered untapped and sophisticated understandings about the ways in which children communicate across sites. Pahl (2004) found that family narratives, centred around objects, could be important resources for learning in schools and family learning settings. Such work opened the field of multilingual research to alternative ways of thinking about bilingual children’s communicational practices across sites.  There are connections between Pahl’s research and Kenner’s research (2000) on how communicational worlds may include community contexts such as Mosque, school and home. In Kenner’s Home Pages (2000), she described how Billy, aged three years, was immersed in a literacy world that included his country of origin, Thailand, his local community, but also a Thai temple he attended, his school, where his mother worked, his home, his own interests at home, including cartoons and videos that he liked to watch (Kenner, 2000). By mapping Billy’s multimodal worlds, Kenner showed multilingual researchers the where and how of literacy activities eliding with linguistic practices eliding with school literacy activities. In short, literacy practices folded into each other in complex, tacit ways. Similarly, Kell’s research (2006) adopted multimodality and semiotic ethnographic methods to track a Xhosa woman’s mission to get her house repaired in a Cape Town shantytown. Kell’s research traces Nomathamsanqa’s modal crossings – identifying her problems and struggles, writing emails to officials about these problems, then her appearance at community meetings, and then writing detailed accounts in a journal etc., and the ways in which these multimodal literacy practices illustrate her fluency across modes of expression and representation. Her many literacy practices were continually ignored by the local council, but it was clear that she voiced her concerns across genres and in sophisticated, even elegant, ways. Kell’s multilingual–multimodal research reveals power, hegemonies and circulating discourses imposed upon Nomathamsanqa as she attempted to navigate people, texts, objects and contexts to fight for her right to a safe and secure home environment. So it is that these early researchers showed the field of language research how bilingual speakers communicate clearly and effectively across hegemonic forces and powerful institutional contexts. 

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Multimodality in a Digital and Media Age 

As multimodality took hold within literacy and language research, scholars began applying it as a theory across varied media and digital contexts, platforms, and text genres. Multimodality coupled well with popular culture and media texts because of mediated and vernacular texts’ inherent interactive logic. Multimodality gave researchers ways to interpret how young people performed identities and how invisible and hidden so many of their multimodal competencies were within more institutional environments (Rowsell & Kendrick, 2013). Multimodality and media-focused research, therefore, provided a window into children and teenagers’ nuanced understandings about storylines and their development of ideas, values and deeper understandings about the world. For instance, Marsh’s research (2004) in media and digital literacy opened up the field to the ways that young children leverage texts like Pokémon and Club Penguin to gain currency in schooling spaces. Similar to Pokémon as the cultural currency of children on the playground (Marsh, 2004, 2010, 2011), knowledge of popular culture gave children in Marsh’s research cultural currency in ways they did not have otherwise. Marsh’s research (2010) excavated the hidden literacies in spaces and, in the tradition of Dyson (1997), exhibited how children’s sophisticated understandings become eclipsed in classrooms. Another seminal digital literacy theorist is Wohlwend, whose detailed ethnographies with children in schooling environments show a circulation of discourses and ideologies that hold values, stereotypes and assumptions. Wohlwend pushed the field to explore children’s play and improvisation with media texts as drawing on their lived experiences to work through important ideas about gender roles and relational connections. Through her research on Disney Princess Play, Wohlwend showed how boys improvised to convince peers to allow them to take up such princess roles as Snow White, Jasmine or Ariel the Little Mermaid (Wohlwend, 2009, 2011, 2012). Applying nexus analysis, Wohlwend gives researchers tools to locate discourses and excavate them across formal and informal spaces (Wohlwend, 2020).  Speaking directly to media texts and multilingual research, there were a number of scholars who united popular culture and multimodality. For instance, Ibrahim (1999) in Canada detailed the ways in which a group of Francophone African youth applied principles of hip-hop and rap music, not only to learn black English through their listening practices but also to mediate their own identities in the process. In addition, scholars like Lam (2004) and Chik (2012) have researched multimodal and media practices with language learners, exploring the differential levels of motivation and sophisticated practices displayed in gaming practices contrasted with much less interest and investment in more formal, school-based literacy practices. Popular culture and media are

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therefore framed as gateways into multilingual practices that facilitated learning practices. Popular culture, then, was not only used as language learning texts: it also facilitated learning practices (Duff, 2002).   There is significant scholarship in creative cultural production, which takes place as children and youth design and redesign multimodal texts. One cannot help but think about research on videogames and the agentive practices and untapped competencies that emerge from gamebased play and improvisations. Abrams (2009, 2011, 2013, 2015), for instance, has conducted extensive research with gamers, illustrating rich understandings of videogame characters, vocabulary, spatial competencies and relational practices. Her longitudinal research in library spaces over many years contributes to an appreciation of the quality of thinking with media that youth display, which is, again, relatively invisible in schooling environments.   Multimodality, Multilingualism and the Posthuman Turn 

Closely documenting multimodal texts, virtual or analogue/physical, naturally leads to an account of materialities (Burnett, 2015). Several literacy researchers have identified gaps in the field by accounting for the agency of matter in literacy (Kuby, 2013). Work that closely examines materials and artifacts accessed and used as resources during meaningmaking can be viewed as giving life, attention and agency to people’s practices with texts and objects, but also, and importantly, as imbuing agency into matter explored in literacy and language research. What scholars have argued (Leander & Boldt, 2013) is that, within literacy studies, there has been an overreliance on explaining the nature and implications of literacy and multimodal practices and sense-making through linguistic paradigms neglecting more expansive orientations to meaning-making through material worlds. New materialist orientations to lived experiences draw out the vibrancy of matter and its agentive role within lived experiences (Pahl et al., 2020) An example of research situated within a materialist paradigm is the notion of artifactual literacies (Pahl & Rowsell, 2010), which focuses on artifacts as signalling identities and as laden with stories and contexts as well as with an increased focus on modes, materials and technologies. There are constant interactions between humans and objects, and objects are sometimes technologies, but not always – sometimes they are the stuff that surrounds us as part of the environment, the natural environment as well as mundane, everyday objects (Kuby et al., 2015; Pahl & Rowsell, 2010). Posthuman researchers focus on interactions between people and the things/stuff around them. Barad (2007) described the ways in which matter co-exists with meanings. Scholars like Kuby (2013) interpret how individuals and matter/things co-exist, co-construct, co-become across contexts. Pahl and I captured similar insights when we

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foregrounded artifacts and the stories they tell about people and their lives in our artifactual literacies research (Pahl & Rowsell, 2010). What posthuman work has done for literacy researchers is to open up a space to examine how human and non-human assemblages intra-act across time and space. Materialist and posthumanist scholars (Barad, 2007; Hultman & Lenz Taguchi, 2010) account for how entangled people are with the objects and texts that surround them. Rather than regarding the material objects that we use as passive or inert (Gee, 1996), scholars applying posthumanism and new materialism to literacy research argue that objects are performative agents (Kuby & Gutshall, 2016). To illustrate this alternative lens on multilingual research, I offer a research vignette.  Research vignette #1

From 2017 until 2020, I conducted a Social Science and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) project entitled ‘Maker Literacies’ across five secondary schools in the Niagara region in Canada. This research vignette focuses on a six-week study at a high school in the Niagara region on making and designing board games. There were 15 Grade 10 students in the class, who ranged in age from 15 to 16 years old. Jason Hawreliak and I (co-researchers on the project) conducted the research with the young people and their two teachers in their careers course. Careers is a year 10 course that focuses on educational futures, future jobs and career trajectories. We opted for this particular course rather than a literacy course because it allowed us to have a longer period in the school timetable (three hours, three times a week over six weeks). The research involved the gradual development of board games from the initial concept all the way to the final design, promotional plan and marketing pitch. We chose board games rather than videogames because it was more realistic within the limited timeframe of six weeks. Two stipulations and/or constraints were made clear from the outset of the project: (1) the project had to be tied to a careers course (because that is the course that Julia and Laura, the participant teachers, teach), so there had to be a career and future citizens overlay on the research; and (2) rather than a virtual game, students had to use arts and crafts materials to make their board games (with some use of technology).  The research began with a critical analysis of popular board games, where students played and reflected on their gaming experiences of Ticket to Ride, Pandemic and Clue. During discussions, we talked about the rationale/logic and function of the board game; however, most of our discussions evolved around the materialities and design of the game. Once we all played the games, three game designers came in to speak with the class about the art and craft of designing games – videogames and board games. We critically framed popular board games, then Jason

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interpreted their multimodality and designs, then the aesthetic and design phases took place, which involved brainstorming designs; arts, craft, and making the game; conducting usability testing; and, finally, the logic and execution of marketing and promotional materials.   In this vignette to illustrate posthumanist undertones in literacy and language research, I focus on Casey, who devised a game with her group members that functions much like the board game Clue. Casey wanted to push against gender stereotypes in games like Clue. Committed to equity and fighting racist and gendered stereotypes, Casey took the opportunity to design alternative framings of game characters on game cards through descriptions, illustrations, card formats and character dress and accessories. Reacting to what she viewed as gendered stereotypes in Clue’s game cards (e.g. Miss Scarlet in Clue is a white, rich femme fatale), Casey wanted to portray more fluidity in sexuality and gender and much more racial diversity. I remember that when Casey played Clue in class, she noticed how biographies of male characters foregrounded their achievements, while biographies of female characters foregrounded their looks and romantic attachments. To disrupt these patriarchal, heteronormative renderings, Casey designed more contemporary and subversive game cards of such characters as Mira King, whom she described in the following way:  Even though she’s high class, she tends to try to treat herself as though she’s middle class. But, she still has money and this sometimes leads her to make unintentionally bad decisions. For example, she may end up giving out a little too much money and she has trouble saving money. (Description of Mira King, October 2018) 

Carefully designed, Mira King is Caribbean Canadian with a nose ring, tattoo and a confident look. Casey shared her cards with Jennifer on Google Docs (but did not want to share the visuals more widely) and the group had numerous comments in the margins concerning her design and rendering of Mira as well as debates about design features such as the colour palette, illustration style and font choices on the card. A key point about Casey’s game card design is the way that she started with a story that materialised slowly and deliberately from a design. It was not the other way around. It was not a story that became a design – the design, the modes, the matter became as her own convictions about stereotypes became stronger. With Jason, Casey talked about how classic games like Clue and videogames perpetuate stereotypes and racist views. Casey then made a number of characters guided by her convictions about racial diversity of characters and about the ambiguity of sexuality. These convictions were thrown into relief, made manifest and real for her when she completed Mira King.   Youth and matter often entangle, and it is through these entanglements that key parts of identities can be apprehended and

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thrown into relief. This argument relies heavily on Barad (2007) and is based on her adoption of Donna Haraway’s notion of diffraction, described by Dolphijn and van der Tuin as:  … diffraction patterns record the history of interaction, interference, reinforcement, difference. Diffraction is about heterogeneous history, not about originals. Unlike reflections, diffractions do not displace the same elsewhere, in more or less distorted form, thereby giving rise to industries of [story-making about origins and truths]. Rather, diffraction can be a metaphor for another kind of critical consciousness. (Dolphijn & van der Tuin, 2012: 51) 

To respectfully, ethically and deeply analyse young people’s practices and environments, demands an account not only of human engagements but also of the influence of material worlds and morethan-human agency (Barad, 2007). In so doing, researchers thereby attend more carefully to patterns of difference, acknowledging how these differences are creative, motivated (Kress, 1997) and, relating to this chapter, multimodal and distribute agency across humans and matter. This type of optic can be generative for multilingual researchers wanting to locate matter within human and more-than-human (Barad, 2007) moments. Focusing on artifacts and objects allows bilingual speakers to blend cultures and linguistic systems naturally; objectfocused research can open up spaces for hybrid identities and cultures (Alim & Paris, 2017).   Multimodality, Multilingualism and the Affect Turn 

Just as researchers attend to posthumanism to redress an overemphasis on humans in literacy research, so too researchers have identified a focus on design and representation at the expense of more non-representational, embodied, felt forces at work within language and literacy practices (Ehret & Rowsell, 2021; Leander & Boldt, 2013; Leander & Ehret, 2019; Lewis & Tierney, 2013). For example, research by Lewis and Tierney (2013) explores emotion as an action, as mediated by language and how language, in turn, can mobilise emotion in a racially and ethnically diverse high school setting. Lewis also explores the affordances and constraints involved in the production of identity, as it relates to emotion and embodiment. It is the invisible and embodied dimensions of literacy teaching that can move students to think critically and become during meaningful conversations in English class. Similarly, Leander and Boldt (2013) explore youth identities, investigating emotionally saturated multimodal literacyrelated activities. In Leander and Boldt’s (2013) article, they detail and theorise several hours in middle schooler Lee’s day at home with a

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friend. Leander and Boldt describe digital play, physical movements, gestures, drawing, writing, and then more moving – in other words, Lee’s meaning-making is ‘in the body’ drawing out emotions, materialities and different timescales. Affect and emotion play key roles in identity formation and sign transformation. There has been powerful work by researchers co-researching with youth examining how bodies bear stories and histories of race that push against and disrupt white normativity (Haddix, 2012; Lewis & Crampton, 2016). Similarly, Ehret’s research draws on fieldwork with youth in a hospital where he invites readers to think about literacy in a minor key, as relational and as filled with affective flows and intensities (Ehret, 2018). Such work has inspired me to dig deeper into affective and disruptive layers within objects and the stories that they tell.  Research vignette #2 

To illustrate affect in literacy research, I spotlight a vignette from a research study that took place in the autumn of 2012 into January 2013 called Being Cindy Sherman when Peter Vietgen and I worked with 20 Year 12 students in a Niagara secondary school. The project drew on young people’s tacit and conscious awareness of everyday affect, which are feelings/emotions/affect that cascade over moments and multimodal engagements. Peter developed the project around the work of Cindy Sherman. Sherman has had a long career as a photographer producing conceptual photographs. Her images capture archetypes and stereotypes, such as her horizontal series featured in Vogue magazine of emotions depicting moments like claustrophobia or anxiety. Sherman is both artist and object of study in her work and she takes on the identity of stereotypes. Peter planned a six-week project that led to a group of 20 high school students producing their own Cindy Sherman portraits. We began the research with Peter presenting the work of Cindy Sherman. Then the group moved onto brainstorming and improvising with props, clothing, and experimenting with angles and postures. What worked well about applying Sherman’s methods with teenagers is how she captures everyday roles, actions and felt experiences. Such work aligns with Kathleen Stewart’s theorising of ordinary affect (Stewart, 2007). Stewart claims that there are ‘lines of potential that a something coming together calls to mind and sets in motion’ (Stewart, 2007: 2). Teenagers in this study recognised ordinary affect and moved into the space of affect to create their photographs and write their artist statements.   To illustrate how students took up Sherman’s aesthetic and ordinary affect, I offer Suzanne’s (pseudonym) photograph of madness. At first sight, there is nothing ordinary about Suzanne’s photograph in Figure P2.3.

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Figure P2.3  Suzanne’s Cindy Sherman photo of Madness 

Artist’s Statement by Suzanne (pseudonym)  This self-portrait was done to represent everyone’s definition of the word ‘mental.’ I chose to have words smeared across the backdrop because I feel that the words really give you a strong image of what’s going on in the head of a mental patient. I wanted to be on the ground and looking away to show a sense of vulnerability. I also felt that having on a hospital gown and dark exaggerated makeup in a dimly lit room really pulled together the whole photo. (January 2013)

Suzanne spent time planning and arranging her shot. Figure P2.3 shows a young woman with a white face in a hospital gown looking

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down against a backdrop of a white sheet with random black letters. She drew and plotted the sequencing of the shot. In her journal (which she agreed to share), Suzanne talked about constraints on designing and developing the image, such as an inability to edit the shot digitally and the limitations of using a disposable camera. However, she reflected on how deliberate and attentive she had to be to mood, light and darkness, angles, props and artifacts, to executing the shot, given that she was using a disposable camera and a friend had to take the photo.   Stewart applies words such as ‘tangles’, ‘habituation’ and ‘coexistence’ alongside phrases such as ‘snapping into senses’, to define how ordinary affects work (Stewart, 2007: 3–4), and her descriptions resonate with the affective details of multimodal compositions. Students like Suzanne draw out emotions, thoughts, beliefs, senses from images. Stewart argues that ordinary affects are ‘expressions of ideas or problems performed as a kind of involuntary and powerful learning and participation’ (Stewart, 2007: 40). What I recognise now, as I did years ago, is that Suzanne had a desired affect, an immanence and intensity, that she wanted to portray in her photograph, that gives the photo and artist statement a life and vitality (Boldt, 2020).   Coda: Final Thoughts and a Link to the Chapters 

Multimodality has emerged out of relative obscurity over the past two decades as a term that has purchase in language and literacy research, theory and practice. This chapter has been concerned with research methods and approaches to the study of multimodality in literacy and language research. As with all fields of research and inquiry, the landscape of multimodality has shifted and will continue to do so – especially as we move beyond Covid-19 and its seismic shifts in literacy practices and interactions.   In the chapters in this section, this landscape is beautifully illustrated, providing different contexts for multimodality and thereby stretching the ways in which multimodal analysis and description can be used. For example, Kelli Zezulka explores the concept of silence as mode, and, in her careful discussion of the interactions during theatre productions, argues that ‘silence can be seen as a discrete mode through which intention and individual agency are exercised’. Drawing on Taylor’s concept of postural intertextuality (Taylor, 2014) this work augments understandings of silence through ‘an examination of what is unsaid, either through choice, necessity or imposition’. This enables a new understanding of how the use of silence can affect agency, power and status. By contrast, Ornaith Rodgers provides a multimodal critical discourse analysis of the material aimed at breastfeeding mothers. Through a contrastive analysis, she shows how languages, images, layout, colour and size and other elements are integral to seeing how

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mothers and their practices are being positioned (Kress & van Leeuwen, 1996).  The use of colour as mode plays beautifully into the analysis. The study thereby shows how multimodal discourse analysis can illuminate everyday leaflets and the ways that these can impact on their readers, in this case, mothers.   Christina Hedman, Ewa Jacquet, Eva Nilsson and Katarina Rejman show how embodied engagement, through drama, can extend the ways in which students respond to dramatic texts. Multimodality and embodied experiences offer a wider reach and set of affordances for meaning making in these contexts. Their work sensitively charts the experiences of three students, who ‘came to know’ their insider identities (McLean, 2019) through this work and the texts they were inhabiting through an embodied, sensory and affective engagement with the dramatic texts. Finally, Jessica Bradley and Louise Atkinson provide a compelling account of the challenge of interdisciplinarity, exploring the complexities of lived research with a focus on visual and creative methods. While multimodality is the starting point for this chapter, the work is concerned with the tensions across the fields of practice of socially engaged art and applied linguistics. The visual becomes the terrain for the work, and the genealogies of practice become the key aspects of this work. This, then, surfaces the tensions across those fields of practice and asks what is the role of multimodal conversation in interdisciplinary research, and what does focusing on multimodal conversations tell us about the possibilities for the arts in understanding languaging? These expansive understandings show us the possibilities of expanding the field and ways of thinking about how that expansion could impact on other disciplinary conversations.   This brings us back to where the field of multimodality is now. The identities (or subjectivities) of multimodally literate people are grounded in a wide range of overlapping and changing social investments and are the result of embodied, sensory and diverse affects and effects. I would think that a view of multimodality that increasingly focuses on critical perspectives, equity and social justice is increasingly important during politically and economically turbulent times. Multilingual researchers in particular must attend to more-than-human and affective dimensions of research to off-set historic deficit framings and a disregard for other ways of communicating thoughts, feelings and ways of being. What is more, future understandings of multimodality need to continue to be grounded in both offline and online worlds (without dichotomising these), while at the same time taking more granular accounts of the affordances of modalities – visual, auditory, gestural, embodied etc. – that represent finer ways of voicing self. As people move beyond the pandemic, it is particularly pressing to reframe research methods for multilingual research to take account of digital inequalities that will exist and ways

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that multimodal theory can hold promise to make visible the fractures made by such inequities. References  Abrams, S.S. (2009) A gaming frame of mind: Digital contexts and academic implications. Educational Media International 46 (4), 335–347.  Abrams, S.S. (2011) Association through action: Identity development in real and virtual video game environments. Teachers College Record 113 (13), 220–243.  Abrams, S.S. (2013) A wealth of modal shifts: Reconsidering directionality and cross-modal understandings of virtual and place-based practices’. Paper presented at the American Education Researchers Association, San Francisco, CA.  Abrams, S.S. (2015) Videogames and literacies: Historical threads and contemporary practices. In J. Rowsell and K. Pahl (eds) The Routledge Handbook of Literacy Studies (pp. 354–368). London: Routledge.  Alim, H.S. and Paris, D. (2017) What is culturally sustaining pedagogy and why does it matter? In H.S. Alim and D. Paris (eds) Culturally Sustaining Pedagogies: Teaching and Learning for Justice in a Changing World (pp. 1–24). New York, NY: Teachers College Press.  Barad, K. (2007) Meeting the Universe Halfway: Quantum Physics and the Entanglement of Matter and Meaning. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.  Boldt, G. (2020) Theorizing vitality in the literacy classroom. Reading Research Quarterly 56 (2) (Special Issue: Literacy, Affect, and Uncontrollability), 207–221. https://doi. org/10.1002/rrq.307. Burnett, C. (2015) (Im)materialising literacies. In J. Rowsell and K. Pahl (eds) The Routledge Handbook of Literacy Studies (pp. 520–531). London: Routledge. Chik, A. (2012) Digital gameplay for autonomous foreign language learning: Gamers’ and language teachers’ perspectives. In H. Reinders (ed.) Digital Games in Language Learning and Teaching (pp. 95–114). London: Palgrave Macmillan. Davies, J. (2006) Affinities and beyond! Developing ways of seeing in online spaces. e-learning-Special Issue: Digital Interfaces, 3 (2), 217–234.  Dolphijn, R. and van der Tuin, I. (2012) New Materialism: Interviews & Cartographies. London: Open Humanities Press.  Duff, P. (2002) The discursive co-construction of knowledge, identity and difference: An ethnography of communication in the high school mainstream. Applied Linguistics 23 (3), 298–322. Dyson, A.H. (1997) Writing Superheroes: Contemporary Childhood, Popular Culture, and Classroom Literacy. New York, NY: Teachers College Press.  Ehret, C. (2018) Moments of teaching and learning in ’ children’s hospital: Affects, textures, and temporalities. Anthropology & Education Quarterly 49 (1), 53–71.  Ehret, C. and Rowsell, J. (eds) (2021) Literacy, affect and uncontrollability. Reading Research Quarterly 56 (2), 201–206. Haddix, M.M. (2012) Talkin’ in the company of my sistas: The counterlanguages and deliberate silences of Black female students in teacher education. Linguistics and Education  23 (2), 169–181.  Hultman, K. and Lenz-Taguchi, H. (2010) Challenging anthropocentric analysis of visual data: A relational materialist methodological approach to educational research. International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education 23 (5), 525–542. Ibrahim, A.E.K.M. (1999) Becoming black: Rap and hip-hop, race, gender, identity, and the politics of ESL learning. TESOL Quarterly 33 (3), 349–369. Jewitt, C. (2008) Multimodality and literacy in school classrooms. Review of Research in Education 32 (1), 241–266. Kell, C. (2006) Crossing the margins: Literacy, semiotics and the recontextualisation of meanings. In K. Pahl and J. Rowsell (eds) Travel Notes from the New Literacy Studies: Instances of Practice (pp. 147–171). Clevedon: Multilingual Matters. 

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Kenner, C. (2000) Home Pages: Literacy Links for Bilingual Children. Stoke-on-Trent: Trentham Books.  Kress, G. (1997) Rethinking Paths to Literacy. London: Routledge. Kress, G. (2003) Literacy in the New Media Age. London: Routledge. Kress, G.R. and van Leeuwen, T. (1996) Reading Images: The Grammar of Visual Design. Hove: Psychology Press.  Kuby, C.R. (2013) Critical Literacy in the Early Childhood Classroom: Unpacking Histories, Unlearning Privilege. New York, NY: Teachers College Press.  Kuby, C.R. and Gutshall Rucker, T. (2016) Go Be a Writer!: Expanding the Curricular Boundaries of Literacy Learning with Children. New York, NY: Teachers College Press. Kuby, C., Gutshall Rucker, T. and Kirchofer, M. (2015) ‘Go be a writer’: Intra-activity with materials, time and space in literacy learning. Journal of Early Childhood Literacy 15 (3), 394–419. Lam, W.S.E. (2004) Border discourses and identities in transnational youth culture. In J. Mahiri (ed.) What They Don’t Learn in School: Literacy in the Lives of Urban Youth (pp. 79–98). New York, NY: Peter Lang. Leander, K. and Bolt, G. (2013) Re-reading ‘A Pedagogy of Multiliteracies’: Bodies, texts and emergence. Journal of Literacy Research 45 (1), 22–46. Leander, K. and Ehret, C. (eds) (2019) Affect in Literacy Teaching and Learning: Pedagogies, Policies, and Coming to Know. New York, NY: Routledge.  Lewis, C. and Tierney, J.D. (2013) Mobilizing emotion in an urban classroom: Producing identities and transforming signs in a race-related discussion. Linguistics and Education  24 (3), 289–304.  Lewis, C. and Crampton, A. (2016) Literacy, emotion, and the teaching/learning body. In G. Enriquez, E. Johnson, S. Kontovourki and C. Mallozzi (eds) Literacies, Learning, and the Body: Putting Theory and Research into Pedagogical Practice (pp. 105–121). London: Routledge.  Marsh, J. (2004) Introduction: Children of the digital age. In J. Marsh (ed.) Popular Culture, New Media and Digital Literacy in Early Childhood (pp. 1–10). London: Routledge. Marsh, J. (2010) Young children’s play in online virtual worlds. Journal of Early Childhood Research 8 (1), 23–39. Marsh, J. (2011) Young children’s literacy practices in a virtual world: Establishing an online interaction order. Reading Research Quarterly 46 (2), 101–118. McLean, C. (2019) Insider identities: Coming to know the ethnographic researcher. In M. Grenfell and K. Pahl (eds) (2019) Bourdieu, Language-based Ethnographies and Reflexivity: Putting Theory into Practice. New York, NY: Routledge. Pahl, K. (2002) Ephemera, mess and miscellaneous piles: Texts and practices in families. Journal of Early Childhood Literacy 2 (2), 145–166. Pahl, K. (2004) Narratives, artifacts, and cultural identities: An ethnographic study of communicative practices in homes. Linguistics and Education 15 (4), 339–358. Pahl. K. and Rowsell, J. (2010) Artifactual Literacies: Every Object Tells a Story. New York, NY: Teachers College Press. Pahl, K. and Rowsell, J. with D. Collier, S. Pool, Z. Rasool and T. Trzecak (2020) Living Literacies: Literacy for Social Change. Boston, MA: MIT.  Rowsell, J. (2011) Carrying my family with me: Artifacts as emic perspectives. Qualitative Research 11 (3), 331–346.  Rowsell, J. (2013) Working with Multimodality: Rethinking Literacy in a Digital Age. London: Routledge. Rowsell, J. and Kendrick, M. (2013) Boys’ hidden literacies: The critical need for the visual. Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy 56 (7), 587–599.   Siegel, M. (1995) More than words: The generative power of transmediation for learning. Canadian Journal of Education/Revue canadienne de l’éducation 20 (4), 455–475.  Starer, R. and Dickinson, E. (1977) Hope Is the Thing with Feathers: For Chorus, S.A.T.B. A Capella. Melville, NY: MCA Music.  

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5 Applying Linguistics to the Theatre Production Process Kelli Zezulka

Introduction 

While emerging scholars in applied linguistics are beginning to widen the scope of the field to include live and performing arts – for example, methods of creative inquiry (Bradley & Harvey, 2019; McKay & Bradley, 2016) and the impact of university theatre societies on international students (Ghosh, 2019; see also Chapter 3, this volume) – the intricate processes of theatre making that occur during technical rehearsals remain elusive. As a freelance lighting designer for theatre and opera, the articulation of these processes is something I have been exploring throughout previous research (Zezulka, 2019a, 2019b, 2019c). While these studies have focused specifically on spoken dialogue, here I wish to begin to question the role that silence plays in multimodal discourse between lighting professionals at work, touching on the ways in which power, hierarchy and agency are enacted throughout the intense working environment of the technical rehearsal.  As other scholars have noted, silence is often overlooked in qualitative analyses of spoken (transcribed) texts, because it is often seen to be the ‘opposite of speech’ (Poland & Pederson, 1998: 293) or ‘an absence of communication’ (Kawabata & Gastaldo, 2015: 5). As I will argue here, however, silence – whether the result of strategic omission, passivity, powerlessness, hesitation or lack of knowledge – is worth exploring as an ‘integral part of the fullness of expression’ (Kawabata & Gastaldo, 2015: 2). Furthermore, understanding the rules of silence – ‘where, when, and how to be silent, and the meaning attached to silence’ (Braithwaite, 1990: 321) – is fundamental to becoming a member of a particular group. Silence therefore becomes a potentially significant mode of communication when considered alongside intentionality, that is, when speakers ‘choose to say nothing, but instead could have said something’ (Schröter & Taylor, 2018: 7). Building on Jewitt et al. (2016) I posit that, in theatre technical rehearsals, silence can be seen as a method of communication in its own right (particularly in demonstrating the

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‘habitus’ of technical rehearsals) and not solely something that is ‘filled with more meanings made in [other] modes’ (2016: 28). This multimodal discourse analysis approach to the study of theatre design and production processes, specifically the focus on silence, is not something that has previously been considered with regards to the technical rehearsal period.   In this chapter, I will focus on two key members of the theatre design and production team, namely the lighting designer and the lighting programmer. I will use some short examples of their professional discourse to examine moments of silence during the theatre production process to show how an analysis of these moments can help ‘to better understand that which is taken for granted and its impacts on social relations’ (Poland & Pederson, 1998: 306), thereby explicating the hidden mechanisms of collaboration and the underlying structures of agency, power and hierarchy that characterise technical rehearsals, in particular. The technical rehearsal period has been specifically chosen here because of the demands of time and space that this creative environment necessitates, which mean that lighting designers (and, by extension, lighting programmers) must paradoxically work in both creatively exposing and procedurally hidden ways.   The Technical Rehearsal 

In theatre, the technical rehearsal marks the start of what is commonly known as the ‘production period’. Typically, technical rehearsals take place in the three to seven days before the first public performance, with dress rehearsals occurring in the interim period. For the lighting team in particular, technical rehearsals are ‘a period of often intense activity’ (Moran, 2017: 27) and ‘intense creativity but also of anxiety and strain’ (Hunt, 2015: 1). It is during technical rehearsals that the tangible contributions of the lighting designer and their team are made visible on stage. Light, as a scenographic material, is the ‘glue’, if you like, that binds a production together, linking time, space and materiality – but it is intangible, only having materiality by proxy, when it comes into contact with another object in space (though see Graham, 2018: 166–169, for an argument for light’s inherent materiality).   Physically and spatially, the work of the lighting designer and lighting programmer takes place at a centralised production desk, often temporarily constructed in the middle of the stalls level of the theatre auditorium. Hunt describes it as the ‘“nerve centre” or “point of command”’ for the production team as well as a ‘centre of social space and activity’ (2015: 15–16). At this production desk, the lighting designer and lighting programmer communicate with other members of the production team via headsets that link multiple offstage and backstage spaces around the building (colloquially known as ‘cans’). Oddly, however, given the close proximity of the lighting designer and lighting

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programmer during the technical rehearsals, the use of headsets often means that talk is prioritised in communication over other modes (e.g. gestures, gaze or other actions). There are a few instances of this kind of multimodality that I will touch on below, although given the nature of communication in this environment, I propose that silence can be seen as a discrete mode through which intention and individual agency are exercised. Through a discourse analysis approach, I have been able to critically dissect the intricate processes of technical rehearsals, a setting that I am highly familiar with in my professional work as a lighting designer, and to show how talk and silence are key constituents in the manifestation of this particular creative collaborative work environment.  Methodology 

The extracts that follow are taken from my doctoral research, completed in late 2019. Methodologically, this research followed a linguistic ethnographic approach. I completed 11 observation periods in total; transcripts from two of these are analysed below. I spent anywhere from one to seven days observing lighting designers and lighting programmers, in particular (though the director was also often a key part of these observations), recording and then transcribing their dialogue as they were creating the lighting design on stage. Crucially, then, these conversations occur in the moment, rather than as a reflection on the process and/or final product, in a significant departure from other writing and research in theatre design and production (for example, Pilbrow (2010) and Moran (2017), among others). These extracts present snapshots of the process during technical rehearsals that took place in March 2016 (production 1) and March 2017 (production 2). The dialogue has been anonymised (a condition of my undertaking this fieldwork), and I have therefore redacted (indicated by the use of square brackets) any identifying information. I have also referred to speakers by their job title (using ‘LD’ for the lighting designer and ‘LP’ for the lighting programmer); additionally, the generic ‘they’ is used throughout when referring to the speakers.   Korkiakangas et al. (2016: 234) note that in many industries ‘communication practices that involve speech have been standardized’, which helps to give teams sufficient information ‘about “what is going on”, what others are doing and what action one should take in a given situation’ (2016: 235). Standardised talk during technical rehearsals can be seen in many places: for instance, in the syntax of the commands inputted into the lighting console by the lighting programmer or in the professional vocabulary used by practitioners. The rules around silence, however, are sometimes less clear, and these are further muddied by a lack of visual cues from speakers, as communication during technical rehearsals predominately takes place ‘on cans’. Communication during

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a technical rehearsal is therefore multimodal and not solely constructed through spoken dialogue: silence here functions as a discrete mode in its own right.  There are often periods of silence of varying length during technical rehearsals. Unlike in most naturally occurring talk, where silences tend to be filled with ‘small talk’ or other ‘filler’ talk (see Malinowski, 2014 [1946] on phatic talk as well as Laver’s (1974) elaboration thereon), silence in technical rehearsal talk is not usually regarded to be ‘problematic talk’ (Jaworski, 2000), nor is it necessarily indicative of unease or awkwardness. Indeed, there are occasions when the rules of the technical rehearsal require silence; for instance, unless the lighting designer and programmer are plotting or otherwise amending lighting cues, it is generally forbidden to talk ‘in a standby’, that is, in the period between the deputy stage manager (DSM) giving ‘Stand by’ and ‘Go’ commands. Likewise, there are times when talk would be distracting or counterproductive to the work at hand: for instance, when intensely observing (or perhaps listening to) the action on stage or in a period of focused concentration. A lack of response – a silence – outside these conditions can indicate several things and can be used by speakers in different ways, as will be shown in the examples that follow.  Transcription key 

LD lighting designer  LP lighting programmer  ::: elongated speech  = latched speech  [ overlapping speech  (.) small pause  (0.2) length of pause in seconds  [gesture]  italics in square brackets denotes a gesture or other ­clarifying information this emphasis  Silence in Technical Rehearsals 

Technical rehearsals are often characterised by varying degrees of ‘unseen’ labour. As Essin (2015) argues, this is partially due to the physical location of the lighting designer and lighting programmer, ‘distanced and isolated from the stage’, performing work ‘mystified in its technical complexity’ (2015: 209). This hidden work could also be seen as a form of silence. Even though the onstage action might have come to a visible standstill, during a technical rehearsal work continues in the background: for instance, the DSM might tidy up the cues in their prompt book, the lighting programmer might correct or amend any

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programming, and the lighting designer may use the time to update their paperwork or think about upcoming scenes. Creative and production team members spend the technical rehearsal in a constant state of readiness (Hunt, 2015: 17), continually processing and responding to the events occurring on stage and in their ears over the headset system; they are never simply passive observers or listeners.   The importance of this unseen work (and knowing when and how it needs to be done) is demonstrated in Extract 1:   Extract 1 (production 1) 

1 LD: [to the programmer] and while we’ve been sitting around all this time all that should have been cleaned up (.) in blind (0.7) 2 Programmer: yeah   3 LD: I shouldn’t be telling you to do these jobs (.) you should be doing them naturally (0.5) less sitting around

The lighting designer here is very explicitly describing the work of the programmer that would otherwise go unseen, even to the lighting designer. The statement ‘I shouldn’t be telling you to do these jobs’, with the emphasis on ‘telling’, demonstrates the multiple levels of unseen work and tacit knowledge at play during technical rehearsals.   While the programmer audibly responds with ‘yeah’ in turn 2, I would argue that this only serves to fill what would otherwise be an awkward pause rather than acting as an agreement per se. The programmer has little to contribute to this conversation that is essentially a series of commands from the lighting designer rather than a discussion. To leave a pause in turn 2 – that is, to not reply at all – would potentially only damage this already tenuous professional relationship. The programmer here was inexperienced, and this lack of experience showed in several aspects of their work. First, there was the slow rate at which the lighting programmer’s working relationship with the lighting designer developed; second, there was a mismatch between their skillset and the expectations of the lighting designer; and third, the lighting programmer exhibited a lack of understanding of the ‘rules’ of response while using headsets, one of the many aspects of the habitus of the technical rehearsal. This is not a criticism of the lighting programmer per se: the habitus is ‘the active presence of the whole past of which it is the product’ (Bourdieu, 1990: 56), built up over time, and the cumulative product of experience, embodied tacitly. The rules of talk and, importantly for our purposes here, the rules of silence are part of the professional habitus of theatre production and ‘need to be consciously adhered to, maintained and reinforced by individuals subscribing to them when they become part of the relevant professions’ (Schröter & Taylor, 2018: 8). The lighting programmer’s lack of material experience of the technical rehearsal is clearly seen in the resulting lack of awareness

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of the conventions of talk that govern the technical rehearsal. The effect of this lack of habitus is seen in the silences that make up the lighting designer’s turns in Extract 2:  Extract 2 (production 1) 

1

LD: [to the programmer] you alright 

(8.2)  2

PR: would you like me to make it [the beam] bigger 

3 LD: just make it a little bit bigger (1.2) whoa (1.1) OK (.) now uh make [channel] 1 copy from [channel] 2 (0.7) ‘cause then it’ll get shutters and size and everything

The lighting designer starts this exchange, part of a longer plotting sequence, by ‘checking in’ with the programmer. The long silence that follows and the fact that the programmer does not answer the question but rather replies with a question of their own would suggest that they are not, in fact, ‘alright’ and are instead perhaps a bit unsure or apprehensive and looking for confirmation from the lighting designer that they are executing their requests in the correct manner. This is further confirmed by the use of a question (which does not answer the lighting designer’s question) in the lighting programmer’s response in turn 2.  Research in operating theatres (Bezemer et al., 2016; Korkiakangas et al., 2016; Weldon et al., 2013) has shown that, in question-andanswer pairs, not only is the response itself important but also when it is delivered: for example, whether a reply (either verbal or actional) anticipates a request, overlaps a request, or is delivered after a period of silence. Korkiakangas et al. (2016: 245) also note how instances of nonresponse in an operating theatre, in particular in those that include a ‘lack of visual access and absence of acknowledgement’, can ‘create momentary interruptions as the surgeon disengages from the operating field’. While the operating theatre is arguably a more high-risk environment than a theatre auditorium during technical rehearsals, there is a similarly high level of focus and concentration needed and a similar potential for things to go wrong – indeed, the structure of the technical rehearsal is predicated on multiple iterations of trial and error that require concerted levels of concentration.   In moments such as in Extract 2, when the lighting designer requested some unfamiliar or complicated programming from the programmer, which occurred frequently throughout this production, these requests were often followed by long silences. Looking at later turns in the same sequence in Extract 3, there are clues in the silences and the surrounding talk that tell us where the lighting designer’s gaze is focused and how the change in focus affects the fluency of their talk,

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demonstrating the disruptive effect of these seemingly ‘momentary interruptions’ (Korkiakangas et al., 2016: 245).   Extract 3 (production 1) 

2 

PR: would you like me to make it [the beam] bigger 

3  LD: just make it a little bit bigger (1.2) whoa (1.1) OK (.) now uh make [channel] 1 copy from [channel] 2 (0.7) ‘cause then it’ll get shutters and size and everything  4 

PR: recall::: from::: (0.3) would copy work better 

5  LD: uh::: [SIGH] uh (.) you need to do 2 copy from (0.3) copy to if you want to (0.7) 2 copy to 1 (.) that’s what you want to do if you want to use copy (2.1) ah (0.7) so they’ve obviously been rigged the opposite way round so now pan it over the table (3.3) come on (2.8) they’re waiting for us so we need to be working quicker (5.1) [replying to someone on channel A] that’s not the point (.) still needs to work quicker (1.3) [to the programmer] and lift it onto the table (6.5) OK (.) and uh::: put it into 50 percent frost  6 

PR: both (0.2) 

7 

LD: yeah (5.7) 

The two silences in turn 3 occur while the lighting designer is looking at the stage, in particular at the beam of light from the lantern the lighting programmer is manipulating via the lighting console, as the designer concentrates on the visual and aesthetic ‘look’ of the lighting state on stage. During the first silence in turn 3 the size of the beam is changing (hence ‘whoa’ when it gets to – or past – the desired size) and, in the second silence, the lighting designer is surveying the stage and possibly working out their next instruction. This series of instructions is thus both multimodal and discursive, an example of Taylor’s concept of postural intertextuality, in which ‘the functions of the posture or gesture are to convey meaning through a choice of an embodied mode’ (Taylor, 2014: 417). In both cases, the lighting designer’s attention is fixed on the stage and on the creative elements of the design. However, their attention clearly shifts in turn 5, with the ‘uh’ that trails off into an audible sigh of frustration, while they shift into thinking about the syntax of the lighting console. What follows in the rest of turn 5 is a rather long and uninterrupted set of instructions from the lighting designer in which they are clearly frustrated, seen particularly in the emphatic directive ‘come on’ and the interjection with someone on channel A that the lighting programmer ‘needs to work quicker’. At no point does the light­ing programmer interject here, leaving long silences in which the lighting designer’s frustration seems to increase. In observing silence in relation to power, Gardezi et al. (2009: 1393) suggest that this type of silence may be motivated by a ‘fear of exposing a lack of knowledge’.

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This exchange highlights the lighting programmer’s novice status and the asymmetrical power dynamic in this relationship; given the lighting designer’s building impatience with the programmer, this may be a strategic use of ‘self-protective silence’ (Gardezi et al., 2009: 1394) from the programmer.  This may also be indicative of the programmer’s internalisation of institutional hierarchies, in which they are, by default, subordinate to the lighting designer – what Bourdieu (1977: 3) calls a ‘structured disposition’. The use of silence functions as a ‘structured disposition’ in the habitus of technical rehearsals, the tacitly embodied awareness of one’s place in the social and professional hierarchies that occur in this institutional setting. With limited previous exposure to, and experience in, this setting (a lack of ‘symbolic capital’, to use Bourdieu’s (1986) words), coupled with the uncertainty with which they execute the lighting designer’s commands, the programmer lacks the confidence and the agency to counter or resist this imposed institutionalised hierarchy and so it is perpetuated in this relationship. However, later, in Extract 4, the programmer’s silence seems paradoxically to become an active strategy of self-preservation as well as an act of powerlessness.   Extract 4 (production 1) 

6  PR: both (0.2)  7  LD: yeah (5.7)  8  PR: do you want me to make 1 a bit bigger=  9  LD: =no (1.3) it’s something else it’s the colour that’s the problem (1.2) uh::: put them into uh::: (1.3) put them into 1 2 (.) Lee 124 see what they think that does (2.1) you’ll have to take it off the colour picker (.) doesn’t exist (4.7) that’s correct (.) that was correct (.) yeah (3.2) and put that at uh::: 30 (1.1) 20 (0.7) 10 (1.2) 15  

When, after a long silence, the programmer does try to offer some input (turn 8), they are dismissed straight away by the lighting designer. The lighting designer’s subsequent turn is punctuated with multiple silences of varying lengths, but the programmer remains silent throughout. These silences are thus also a silencing: removing the lighting programmer’s professional agency, stifling their input into the process and, possibly as a result, discouraging investment in the product of their labour. Schröter and Taylor (2018: 8–10) note that ‘selfcensorship’ of this kind may be a deliberate strategy that allows speakers to ‘remain silent in order to not rock the boat’ (Schröter & Taylor, 2018: 10). In an environment such as the technical rehearsal, in which the production team will very likely spend up to 13 hours a day for four or five consecutive days (or even longer on larger productions, such as those in the West End) together, this purposeful silence could be seen as a form of self-preservation.  

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Contrast this to the programmer in the second production, who was very experienced and thus more instilled into the habitus of the technical rehearsal, thereby possessing a larger amount of symbolic capital than the programmer in the extracts above. They share a similar exchange as above, in Extract 5, in which the programmer offers a suggestion and is almost immediately rebuffed by the lighting designer:   Extract 5 (production 2)  

1  2  3 

LD: can we just add uh into this::: (1.1) uhhh::: (1.1)  PR: the [location] prosc (0.5)  LD: no (2.1) 

This occurs while rehearsals are happening on stage, and the lighting designer is trying to ‘light over’ the rehearsal (Moran, 2017: 56–57) before the actors move on to the next section. Realising that the lighting designer is struggling to quickly recall either channel numbers or a preset, the lighting programmer proffers a suggestion in turn 2, which the lighting designer immediately rejects. However, unlike in the extracts from production 1 above, this does not lead to a series of silences; in fact, the programmer continues to offer alternatives, even going against the lighting designer in turns 3 and 4 (Extract 6):   Extract 6 (production 2) 

3  LD: no (2.1) look we’ve got it in=  4  PR: =I’ve just added it in=  5  LD: =no no no that’s not what I meant though that’s brilliant (0.6) but can we also bring in 43 and 46 and just light a bit further up into those guys up there (2.1) [shouting, to the choreographer] can we just hold that position for two seconds for me please (1.0) [on cans, to the DSM] can you hold that position for two seconds (0.4) please (4.3) [shouting to the stage] help me (0.2) no, it’s alright it’s great just two minutes (0.3)

Despite having their suggestion rejected rather decisively in turn 3, the lighting programmer goes ahead anyway. The lighting designer in turn 5 concedes that what the programmer has done is ‘brilliant’ and then pursues another, presumably their originally intended, course of action. As the actors on stage move on to the next scene, the lighting designer shouts to the choreographer to ask the actors to ‘hold that position’ (turn 5), repeating the request on cans to the DSM. It is unclear from the recording what prompts the lighting designer’s ‘help me’ at the end of this turn, though one can surmise that their original request to the stage has been ignored. The programmer, sensing the lighting designer’s frustration and desire

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to complete this task as fast as possible, offers yet another potential solution in turn 6 (Extract 7):   Extract 7 (production 2)  

6  PR: do you want me to just (.) I’ve got a forestage cross wash [LD] would that be helpful=  7  LD: =show us (0.9) show us your forestage (1.8) whoa (2.1) up a little bit (0.5) OK (.) it’s the people up above that I’m concerned about=  8  PR: =oh I didn’t realise I’m so sorry  9  LD: yeah no that’s what I meant (.) I mean, what you did was great (1.0)

The lighting designer agrees to the programmer’s offer and, while it’s not quite right (turn 7), they do acknowledge that what the programmer ‘did was great’ (turn 9). There appears to have been some misunderstanding over what exactly the lighting designer had wanted (the programmer apologises in turn 8), and this may have contributed to the lighting designer’s sharp rebuttal in turn 3. This is clarified over the next few turns (Extract 8):   Extract 8 (production 2) 

10  PR: so which ones are we missing=  11  LD: =go back into the cue (1.6) right so now add in 43 [and   12  PR: [where would you like them sorry=  13  LD: =on (.) crossing on to that group over there=  14  Programmer: =the upstage or the mid[stage  15  LD: [upstage=  16  Programmer: =great thank you    (4.0)  17  LD: OK (1.1) I mean you can sort of get both (0.5) that’s great (1.4) and then let’s do the same=  18  Programmer: =yeah I’m just gonna do a nicer job of this and then we’ll totally do that (21.6)

The programmer’s tone becomes increasingly forceful and impatient over these last few turns. They cut off the lighting designer in turn 12 in order to obtain the information they feel they need in order to carry out the lighting designer’s request, emphasising certain words to make this clearer (‘where’, turn 12; ‘upstage or midstage?’, turn 14). Even the ‘thank you’ in turn 16 feels backhanded rather than sincere. In the long pause between turns 16 and 17, the programmer is moving the light into place with no instructions regarding beam size, shape, frost or colour

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from the lighting designer. While there are pauses and silences throughout this transcript, they feel very active, as though work is happening during them, even when this is not stated as explicitly as it is in turn 18. The unseen work that occurs during technical rehearsals is particularly prevalent throughout this exchange. As Essin (2015) notes, the onstage, visible labour that is seen by an audience ‘is balanced by and only visible through the equally skilled labor of [a] hidden workforce’ (2015: 197).  The work engaged in by lighting designers and programmers is literally unseen: pre-production work takes place primarily away from the rehearsal room; during technical rehearsals, designers and programmers work in the dark and at a distance removed from the performance space; the programmer’s physical work at the production desk may go unseen by the lighting designer, even if they are sitting next to each other; and the ways in which ideas are translated into reality (that is, how mental images and talk are transferred to a performance space) are equally unseen. These unseen factors all contribute to the perceived marginalisation of these professions as well as a lack of understanding of their processes and their contributions to performance. This is an area in which applied linguistics and discourse analysis can be deployed, as seen here, in order to explicate the previously hidden or latent processes of collaboration that occur in this very specialised, highpressure, time- and resource-poor environment.  Conclusion 

An objective of my research in this area thus far has been to explicate the ways in which lighting designers and programmers work during technical rehearsals, drawing out and unravelling the latent processes of negotiation that occur in this particular workplace environment, as shown here through a brief but concerted examination of the use of silence. As Braithwaite (1990: 322) notes, silence is an integral part of communication; it ‘is not just the absence of behavior’. Silence, like speech, is ‘communicative’ (Acheson, 2008) and can ‘play roles in both our awareness of our being-in-the-world and our intersubjectivity with others’ (Acheson, 2008: 552). In this way, silence can be seen as a discrete mode of communication, a ‘way of speaking’ that is ‘patterned in culturally significant ways’ (Braithwaite, 1990: 321). It is my hope that this chapter has made a start in demonstrating the communicative potential of silence during theatre technical rehearsals, through an examination of what is unsaid, either through choice, necessity or imposition. This includes how the use of silence can affect agency, power and status, whether this is an active act of self-preservation/selfcensorship or a passive act of being silenced.   While the physical proximity of the lighting designer and the lighting programmer at the production desk can be beneficial to conducting

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non-verbal acts of communication, the metaphorical distance sometimes created through disparity in professional and creative agency can stand in sharp relief to this; silence here functions as ‘a powerful communicative code to signal the presence of a differentiation in power’ (Braithwaite, 1990: 325). Through the reliance on headsets to communicate during technical rehearsals, thus bypassing ‘traditional’ multimodal means of communication, silence becomes a discrete mode of communication in its own right, a ‘communication strategy’ that ‘plays a significant role in conveying feelings and meanings’ (Kawabata & Gastaldo, 2015: 6). By attending to the use of silences in technical rehearsal talk, and by employing a multimodal discourse analysis approach, the underlying structures of power and agency that occur in this intensely concentrated work environment can be further observed and explicated. References  Acheson, K. (2008) Silence as gesture: Rethinking the nature of communicative silences. Communication Theory 18, 535–555. Bezemer, J., Korkiakangas, T., Weldon, S.-M., Kress, G. and Kneebone, R. (2016) Unsettled teamwork: Communication and learning in the operating theatres of an urban hospital. Journal of Advanced Nursing 72 (2), 361– 372.  Bourdieu, P. (1977) Outline of a Theory of Practice. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.  Bourdieu, P. (1986) The forms of capital. In J.G. Richardson (ed.) Handbook of Theory and Research for the Sociology of Education (pp. 241–258). New York, NY: Greenwood Press.  Bourdieu, P. (1990) The Logic of Practice (R. Nice, trans.). Cambridge: Polity. Bradley, J. and Harvey, L. (2019) Creative inquiry in applied linguistics: Language, communication and the arts. In C. Wright, L. Harvey and J. Simpson (eds) Voices and Practices in Applied Linguistics: Diversifying a Discipline. Heslington: White Rose University Press. https://doi.org/10.10.22599/BAAL1.h. Licence: CC BY-NC 4.0.  Braithwaite, C.A. (1990) Communicative silence: A cross-cultural study of Basso’s hypothesis. In D. Carbaugh (ed.) Cultural Communication and Intercultural Contact (pp. 321–328). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.  Essin, C. (2015) Unseen labor and backstage choreographies: A materialist production history of A Chorus Line. Theatre Journal 67 (2), 197–212.  Gardezi, F., Lingard, L., Espin, S., Whyte, S., Orser, B. and Baker, G.R. (2009) Silence, power and communication in the operating room. Journal of Advanced Nursing 65 (7), 1390–1399.  Ghosh, P. (2019) International student participation in UK HE, university theatre societies: Challenges to belonging. Paper at the British Association for Applied Linguistics conference, 29 August, Manchester Metropolitan University, Manchester.  Graham, K. (2018) Scenographic light: Towards an understanding of expressive light in performance. PhD thesis, University of Leeds.  Hunt, N. (2015) A commanding view: The scenography of the production desk and the technical rehearsal. International Federation for Theatre Research, 6–10 July, Hyderabad, India.  Jaworski, A. (2000) Silence and small talk. In J. Coupland (ed.) Small Talk (pp. 110–132). London: Longman. 

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Jewitt, C., Bezemer, J. and O’Halloran, K. (2016) Introducing Multimodality. New York: Routledge.  Kawabata, M. and Gastaldo, D. (2015) The less said, the better: Interpreting silence in qualitative research. International Journal of Qualitative Methods 14 (4), 1–9.  Korkiakangas, T.K., Weldon, S.-M., Bezemer, J. and Kneebone, R. (2016) ‘Coming up!’: Why verbal acknowledgement matters in the operating theatre. In S.J. White and J.A. Cartmill (eds) Communication in Surgical Practice (pp. 234–256). Sheffield: Equinox Publishing. Laver, J. (1974) Communicative functions of phatic communion. In A. Kendon, R.M. Harris and M. Ritchie Key (eds) Organization of Behaviour in Face-to-Face Interaction (pp. 215–238). The Hague: Mouton.  Malinowski, B. (2014 [1946]) On phatic communion. In A. Jaworski and N. Coupland (eds) The Discourse Reader (3rd edn, pp. 284–286). London: Routledge.  McKay, S. and Bradley, J. (2016) How does arts practice engage with narratives of migration from refugees? Lessons from ‘utopia’. Journal of Arts & Communities 8 (1), 31–46.  Moran, N. (2017) The Right Light: Interviews with Contemporary Lighting Designers. London: Palgrave Higher Education.  Pilbrow, R. (2010) Stage Lighting Design: The Art, the Craft, the Life (3rd edn). London: Nick Hern Books.  Poland, B. and Pederson, A. (1998) Reading between the lines: Interpreting silences in qualitative research. Qualitative Inquiry 4 (2), 293–312.  Schröter, M. and Taylor, C. (2018) Introduction. In M. Schröter and C. Taylor (eds) Exploring Silence and Absence in Discourse: Empirical Approaches (pp. 1–21). Cham: Springer.   Taylor, R. (2014) Meaning between, in, and around words, gestures and postures: Multimodal meaning making in children’s classroom communication. Language and Education 28 (5), 401–420.  Weldon, S.-M., Korkiakangas, T., Bezemer, J. and Kneebone, R. (2013) Communication in the operating theatre. British Journal of Surgery 100 (13), 1677–1688.  Zezulka, K. (2019a) The language of light: How lighting designers use language and exercise agency in creative collaboration. PhD thesis, University of Leeds.  Zezulka, K. (2019b) A linguistic ethnography of theatre production. In C. Wright, L. Harvey and J. Simpson (eds) Voices and Practices in Applied Linguistics: Diversifying a Discipline. Heslington: White Rose University Press. https://doi.org/10.22599/ BAAL1.h.   Zezulka, K. (2019c) The lighting programmer as creative collaborator. Behind the Scenes: Journal of Theatre Production Practice 2 (1). https://via.library.depaul.edu/bts_ journal_of_theatre_production_practice/vol2/iss1/.

6 ‘A Special Closeness’, ‘des moments de tendresse indescriptibles’: A Multimodal Critique of Infant Feeding Health Promotional Discourse in Ireland and France Ornaith Rodgers

Introduction 

This study seeks to examine if, and to what extent, health promotional material in Ireland and France attempts to influence mothers’ decisions on how to feed their babies. It explores the discursive strategies and semiotic choices used in a sample of infant feeding health promotional pamphlets from each country to present the practices of breastfeeding and bottle feeding to mothers, and explores similarities and differences in the discourse of both sets of materials. It further questions whether the discourse of these materials allows women to make meaningful choices with regard to feeding their babies. These findings are discussed against the backdrop of wider ideological discourses underpinning the discourse of infant feeding in contemporary Western society.    The World Health Organisation (WHO) recommends exclusive breastfeeding up to six months of age, with continued breastfeeding along with appropriate complementary food up to two years of age or beyond. This recommendation has become the optimal goal of healthcare systems around the world, with antenatal classes, healthcare professionals, advice books, government health policies, magazines and websites all promoting breastfeeding as the superior way of feeding 123

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infants (Knaak, 2010; Símonardóttir & Gíslason, 2018). Along with other EU states, the WHO recommendation is endorsed by both Ireland and France. At the time of the research, breastfeeding initiation rates stood at 60% in Ireland (UNICEF, 2019) and 69% in France (Co-naître, 2019). McCarthy Quinn et al. (2019: 71) emphasise that Ireland has one of the lowest breastfeeding rates in the OECD area. The promotion and support of breastfeeding has thus become an important feature of public health policy in Ireland. However, while new mothers in Ireland can expect to hear a strong ‘Breast is best’ message from a range of governmental and non-governmental agencies, Faircloth (2017: 32) argues that, in France, the WHO recommendations are supported in theory but that, in practice, breastfeeding is not a public health policy issue in the same way. Nevertheless, Ireland and France are no different to other western countries where the aims of health promotion around infant feeding in recent years have been to increase both initiation rates and the duration of breastfeeding (Head, 2017: 1).  Ideological Background  Breastfeeding, motherhood and public health in a neoliberal risk society

The discourse of breastfeeding intersects with broader discourses around motherhood and expected behaviour from mothers (Símonardóttir & Gíslason, 2018: 666). Brookes et al. (2016: 342) argue that the widespread promotion of breastfeeding can be closely aligned to societal beliefs about what it means to be a ‘successful’ or a ‘good mother’. The concept of a ‘good mother’ has undergone a strong cultural shift since the first half of the 20th century, with Hays (1996) arguing that motherhood has consistently intensified over time, becoming increasingly child centred, emotionally absorbing and labour intensive. The terms ‘new momism’ (Douglas & Michaels, 2004) and ‘total motherhood’ (Wolf, 2011) are also used to refer to similar ideologies of contemporary motherhood. Total motherhood can be defined as ‘a moral code in which mothers are exhorted to optimize every aspect of children’s lives, beginning with the womb’ (Wolf, 2011: xv). Faircloth (2013: 189–190), however, in her comparative analysis of mothering as identity work in the UK and France, argues that parenting is less ‘intensive’ in France. She attributes this lesser ‘intensity’ to France’s system of heavily subsidised, easily available, affordable childcare and feels that women in France do not engage self-realisation through parenting in the manner exhorted by the above-mentioned ideologies of motherhood. Total motherhood further endorses the view that ‘mothers are responsible for anticipating and eradicating every imaginable risk to

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their children’ (Wolf, 2011: 71–72). The ideology of total motherhood is thus embedded in neoliberal risk culture, which Wolf (2011: xvi) defines as ‘a pervasive anxiety about the future that drives many people to build their lives around reducing all conceivable risks’. Breastfeeding, where mothers are personally responsible for reducing health risks for babies by controlling the production of their food, is thus central to this ideology and is in line with the movement towards a neoliberal model of public health in western societies. This model of health is based on the idea of personal responsibility: that rates of illness will be reduced if individuals modify their lifestyles in accordance with healthy living advice (Brookes & Harvey, 2015: 59). In line with this model, every mother becomes uniquely accountable for the health of her babies (Wolf, 2011: 66).      Science and breastfeeding advocacy

The prevalence of the above-described parenting culture in western risk societies has thus redefined successful parenting as an activity where mothers are expected to take full responsibility for their children’s development under the guidance of experts and science (Símonardóttir, 2016: 106). Motherhood has become an experience regulated by external authorities (Kanieski, 2010: 335), and informed and guided by experts (Knaak, 2010: 348). The message for women that ‘Breast is best’ has become one of the ‘scientific truths’ that is rarely questioned or contested (Símonardóttir & Gíslason, 2018: 674).    Intensive mothering, total motherhood, risk culture and the ubiquity of science are, therefore, all elements that interplay in the ideology of contemporary motherhood, and form the backdrop to the materials studied here.   Data and Methods

The dataset for this study is comprised of infant feeding materials routinely given to new mothers in Ireland and France. In a recent study on infant feeding materials in Ireland, I identified a strong tendency to persuade new mothers to breastfeed regardless of their circumstances (Rodgers, 2020). These materials were updated in 2020 and this study was designed not just to examine these new materials but, also, to compare them to similar pamphlets distributed to mothers in France to see if patterns identified were unique to Ireland.    Today, in Ireland, new mothers are routinely given an information pamphlet entitled My Child: 0–2 Years (hereafter abbreviated as MC 0–2) by their public health nurse on their first home visit. It is published by Ireland’s Health Service Executive (HSE), in conjunction with Healthy Ireland and the National Healthy Childhood programme. ‘La boîte rose’ is a pack widely available to new mothers in France in maternity

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hospitals, doctors’ surgeries, pharmacies, and can also be ordered freely online. Produced by the company, Family Service, it is created by a team including gynaecologists, midwives and paediatricians. Here, the pamphlet, Happy Baby: Ma première année (hereafter abbreviated as HB), in this pack is studied. This dataset was chosen as these materials are widely distributed at a national level in both countries to new mothers. The sections of these pamphlets focussing on infant feeding form the basis of this study. In My Child: 0–2 Years, this is a section of 18 pages on breastfeeding and six pages on bottle feeding, while in Happy Baby: Ma première année there is a section of 15 pages on breastfeeding and two pages on bottle feeding. This study examines these materials using a multimodal critical discourse analysis (MCDA) approach. Over the past decade, studies in fields such as CDA, sociolinguistics and pragmatics have been using multimodality as part of their analyses (Ledin & Machin, 2018: 2). Key studies such as Escott and Pahl (2017 and 2019) applied the MCDA framework to young people’s films to provide insights about literacy and language, while Taylor (2016) used a multimodal discourse analysis framework to examine students’ face-to-face interaction in class. Other recent studies using MCDA include analyses of university marketing pages (Lewin-Jones, 2019), and media representations of teachers (Catalano & Gatti, 2017). It has also been used to examine visual ageism and the sexualisation of older celebrities in L’Oréal’s advert campaigns (Kenalemang, 2021), online payday loan discourse (Brooks & Harvey, 2017) and online constructions of breast cancer (Gibson et al., 2015).   The MCDA approach derives essentially from critical discourse analysis (CDA), which emphasises the social and constitutive nature of discourse (Fairclough, 1992: 3). It is a process of denaturalisation or demystification in order to expose realities hidden behind elements that have become naturalised (Fairclough, 1995). It connects detailed textual analysis with ideologies that support dominant powerful groups in society (Mayr, 2008: 13), and reveals power interests that may be buried in texts. MCDA essentially follows the same principles as CDA by seeking to reveal ideologies concealed in discourse, by showing ‘how the powerful seek to re-contextualise social practice in their own interests and maintain control over ideology’ (Machin et al., 2016: 303). However, MCDA looks at the many and various modes of communication that we use, rather than focussing on one dominant mode like language (Taylor, 2016: 87). For some researchers, it signals a ‘visual turn’ within CDA by including how discourses are also constructed and realised through visual modes (Gibson et al., 2015: 274). When looking at the application of MCDA to talk, Taylor (2016: 84) positioned it as viewing ‘the communication of meaning through the employment of a multimodal ensemble of semiotic resources’. In terms of written discourses,

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meaning is analysed through language, images, layout, colour, size and other visual elements (Kress & van Leeuwen, 1996). These are all semiotic modes available to text producers, and meaning is the product of the interplay between these various semiotic modes (Brookes & Harvey, 2015: 62). Brookes and Harvey (2015: 76) emphasise that health promotion texts in particular are essentially multimodal, harnessing not just language but also visual elements in their design. In our study, therefore, we are looking at how photographs and formatting choices also work to create meaning by describing the choices made by the author and placing those meanings next to those found in the accompanying text (Machin & Mayr, 2012: 9).   Results and Discussion 

The analysis reveals that there is a key attempt in these pamphlets to influence mothers’ decision-making with regard to how to feed their babies. Essentially, these materials aim to persuade mothers to breastfeed regardless of their individual circumstances and promote a very specific health agenda. The analysis shows that this is achieved in both instances by constructing breastfeeding as an aspect of ‘good motherhood’ through specific discursive and semiotic choices. However, despite similarities in the persuasive strategies used, the correlation between ‘good motherhood’ and breastfeeding does not manifest itself in exactly the same way in the materials designed for mothers in Ireland and France. This analysis explores the different manifestations of this message that ‘good mothers’ breastfeed in both sets of materials against the backdrop of the wider ideological discourses on motherhood previously outlined. In the pamphlet, Happy Baby: Ma première année, breastfeeding is presented as an aspect of ‘good motherhood’ through the use of apparent statements of fact, images, metaphors, superlative and comparative forms and the recurrent use of specific lexical items to present it as the ‘right’ and ‘only choice’. Bottle feeding is barely mentioned and the absence of information and images relevant to this practice clearly constructs breastfeeding as the ‘only’ feeding choice for mothers. In My Child: 0–2 Years apparent statements of fact, images and lexis are also used to construct breastfeeding as the supreme form of infant feeding but, unlike in the French materials where bottle feeding barely features, here it is discussed at length, but is permeated by a variety of fear-inducing strategies to persuade women not to bottle feed. Colour, layout and recurrent lexical items from the fields of risk and infection are used to position bottle feeding as a risky practice.  It is important to establish at the outset that it is not the purpose of this study to question the scientific evidence of the value of breastfeeding, even though Wolf (2007, 2011) calls into question the credibility of

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scientific evidence that finds breastmilk significantly superior to formula milk as a way to feed babies. She argues that ‘for every study linking it to better health, another finds it to be irrelevant, weakly significant, or inextricably tied to other unmeasured or unmeasurable factors’ (Wolf, 2007: 600; see Wolf (2011) for a detailed critique). Nevertheless, this study does not seek to dispute in any way the value of breastfeeding attested to in medical research. Instead, its focus is on the choice to breastfeed/bottle feed as opposed to the merits of breastfeeding/bottle feeding. Its intention is to reveal the way that breastfeeding is elevated through a variety of semiotic modes in these materials to such a status that it is likely to have a strong negative impact on the well-being of mothers who have to/choose to adopt alternative feeding methods. Discursive strategies and semiotic choices common to Irish and French materials  The linguistic indexing of mothers

In both sets of materials, infant feeding is constructed as a concern that weighs primarily on women. Readers are linguistically and visually indexed as mothers of feeding infants, with second person pronominal words – specifically ‘you’, ‘your’, ‘vous’ and ‘votre’ – used in conjunction with references to being a mother or having the biological ability to produce milk.    Allaiter votre bébé, plus que le nourrir, c’est instaurer une relation privilégiée avec lui… Et avec vous-même. [Breastfeeding your baby is more than just feeding him, it’s establishing a special bond with him… And with yourself.] (HB, p. 27)  Your breastmilk is all your baby needs for the first 6 months (…). Breastfeeding (…) gives you a chance to rest with your baby and to get to know them. (MC 0–2, p. 32) 

In terms of the visual representation of parents in these texts on infant feeding, all the images with the exception of one, in each set of materials are of mothers. Both texts thus offer a gendered representation of the practice of infant feeding. While the father/partner is acknowledged as an important person in the child’s life, he is not expected to be with the baby constantly but to provide support for the mother so that she can fulfil her natural role. His job is to project manage, to let mother rest, making sure family life runs smoothly.    Your support can help your partner, especially when she is tired. (…) Help her to position the baby near the breast. (…) Help out with housework. (MC 0–2, p. 42) 

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Le rôle du père est primordial dans la réussite de l’allaitement. En vous déchargeant des soucis du quotidien, comme les tâches ménagères par exemple, en s’occupant de l’aîné ou de vos aînés ou encore en gérant les courses, votre conjoint vous permet (…) d’être pleinement disponible pour votre bébé. [The role of the father is vital for successful breastfeeding. By taking over daily preoccupations such as house work, looking after older children or managing the shopping, your partner can allow you (…) to be fully available for your baby.] (HB, p. 31)

The recurrent use of the lexical item ‘help’ in My Child: 0–2 years immediately casts the father in a supporting role by suggesting that these tasks are outside what he would normally do. Likewise in Happy Baby: Ma première année the use of the verb ‘décharger’ (to take over) again implies that these daily tasks belong primarily to the mother – that fathers/partners are simply stepping in.  Apparent statements of facts

The use of apparent statements of facts is a key persuasive device used in both materials. These appear mostly in the form of unconditional declarative statements, presenting breastfeeding as the superior form of infant feeding:    Le lait maternel, par les anticorps qu’il contient, contribue à renforcer le système immunitaire (…) en d’autres termes, un bébé allaité au sein sera moins malade et se remettra bien plus vite d’une petite infection. [Breastmilk, through the antibodies it contains, contributes to the strengthening of baby’s immune system (…); in other words, a breastfed baby will be less sick and will recover faster from a minor infection.] (HB, p. 30)  L’allaitement maternel diminue le risque de certains cancers féminins comme celui du sein et de l’ovaire. [Maternal breastfeeding also reduces the risk of certain female cancers such as breast and ovarian cancer.] (HB, p. 30)  Breastfeeding protects your health and your baby’s health, is important for your baby’s health growth and development and provides antibodies to protect your baby from illness and build their immune system. (MC 0–2, p. 32)  Breastfeeding helps you to be a healthy weight and reduces your risk of breast cancer, ovarian cancer and diabetes. (MC 0–2, p. 32) 

These declarative statements embody apparent statements of fact, even though no evidence or references are produced to support them. The recurrent uses of the lexical verb ‘to protect’ with the preposition ‘from’, together with the verb phrase ‘to reduce your risk of …’/‘diminue le rique de ...’ reinforce the notion of ‘risk’ and the need to protect infants from it. The use of the nominalisations ‘breastfeeding’/‘l’allaitement maternel’ and the noun ‘le lait maternel’ (breastmilk) are also significant as they

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place the focus on the process of breastfeeding and background the social actors involved (Machin & Mayr, 2012: 138). These nominalisations used in conjunction with the transitive verbs ‘contribuer’ (to contribute), ‘diminuer’ (to reduce), ‘help’, ‘protect’, ‘renforcer’ (to strengthen) and ‘build’ place emphasis on breastfeeding as a powerful practice with far-reaching consequences. Mothers are persuaded in both sets of materials that breastfeeding will be beneficial, not just to their babies but also to themselves as mothers. The implication of these unconditional assertions is that mothers should breastfeed their children, and that not to do so would be to jeopardise their infant’s health and their own.  Representation of difficulties as surmountable 

One of the most persuasive discourse patterns throughout both sets of materials is in the representation of any difficulties or problems with breastfeeding as challenges that can be easily overcome with the right professional help:      If you have any breastfeeding challenges you are not alone. Ask for help There is almost always a solution. (MC 0–2, p. 38)  Go to your public health nurse, lactation consultant or local breastfeeding group for help (…) (MC 0–2, p. 41)  (…) n’hésitez pas à solliciter les sages-femmes, puéricultrices et autres conseillères en lactation (…). [(….) don’t hesitate to contact the midwives, maternity nurses and other lactation consultants (…).] (HB, p. 28)  (…) ayez toujours sous la main les coordonnées d’une sage-femme ou d’une conseillère en lactation en cas de petit problème. [(…) always have to hand the contact details of a midwife or lactation consultant in case of any little problem.] (HB, p. 31) 

These recommendations to contact trained professionals for help, advice and support, appear on almost every page of the section on breastfeeding in the Irish materials, with more sporadic references in the French pamphlet. This is reflective of parenting culture in western risk societies where, as previously outlined, motherhood has become a practice to be undertaken under the guidance of experts. This framing of potential problems as minor, backgrounds the very real problems that many women have with breastfeeding and pushes women to breastfeed regardless of personal circumstances or obstacles that may make breastfeeding difficult for them.  In the section on bottle feeding in My Child: 0–2 Years, however, there are no references to ‘challenges’, nor is the lexical item ‘help’ ever used. Instead support is offered only in terms of providing information or if your baby is sick:  Your nurse or midwife will give you information on all these options, including how to safely prepare formula for your baby. (MC 0–2, p. 49) 

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Get advice from your GP or public health nurse if your baby is sick and not feeding well. (MC 0–2, p. 54) 

There are no words of reassurance or encouragement and there are no offers of help, support or consultation and no references to ‘challenges’ of any description. Once again, the omission of these items is significant. In Happy Baby: Ma première année there are no references to help or support with bottle feeding whatsoever.    Images 

In Happy Baby: Ma première année, there are five images of mothers and babies and one of a father and baby in the section on breastfeeding, and none at all on the two pages devoted to bottle feeding. Based on the work of Roland Barthes (1973, 1977), Machin and Mayr (2012: 49–50) argue that there is probably never any neutral denotation when images are concerned – all images denote something and are significant.    A close examination of the photographic images in Happy Baby: Ma première année shows that all these images depict mothers/babies in peaceful settings with plenty of natural light, providing bright visual images of breastfed babies. Two are close-up shots of babies feeding at the breast and are taken from a side angle but from a close-up position, which according to Machin and Mayr ‘can connote a close alignment and sharedness of position’ (2012: 99). There is one image of a father holding a baby (not included here) under a section entitled ‘le rôle du papa’ (dad’s role) while the remaining three photos show smiling mothers and content babies. In one of these images (Figure 6.1) the mother is sitting feeding a baby in a wicker chair by a window with lots of natural light.    The remaining two images are close-up shots of mothers lying down feeding their babies, in either warm colours or again, natural light. The favourable visual depictions of breastfed babies accentuate their health and happiness. No crying babies or tired mothers are depicted. Brookes et al. (2016: 355) argue that in their study of infant feeding pamphlets in the UK ‘the most emotive discursive realisations of conflating the act of breastfeeding with motherhood (…) reside in the photographs of babies and breastfeeding mothers which recur throughout the pamphlet’. In this chapter’s analysis, all the images follow the same semiotic pattern, representing mothers and babies as participating in moments of bonding, closeness and happiness.    In My Child: 0–2 Years, two images show babies at the breast. In the first image (Figure 6.2), soft warm lighting together with the close-up image of the baby once again creates a feeling of intimacy between the reader and the mother and baby depicted. The second image (Figure 6.3) is also presented in soft tones to portray night-time feeding and is again

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Figure 6.1  HB, p. 33

taken from a side angle but from a close-up position. The viewer is thus encouraged to align with this smiling mother, who is feeding a content baby. The third image (not included here) is one of both parents and, once again, lots of natural light, a smiling mother and a content baby provide a favourable depiction of breastfeeding. The final image (Figure 6.4) is taken in a setting which appears to be a café/restaurant and reveals a happy mother feeding her baby at the table.    In both sets of materials there are no images at all in the sections on bottle feeding. Machin and Mayr (2012: 102) argue that ‘just as it is

Figure 6.2  HB, p. 35 

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Figure 6.3  MC 0–2, p. 36 

revealing to ask who is backgrounded or excluded visually from a text, so it is important to ask the same visually’. While, linguistically, mothers and babies are represented, we do not see these visually. They are thus visually excluded from this section, in direct contrast to the section on breastfeeding, arguably dehumanising the practice of bottle feeding.  Differences in the discursive and semiotic choices in the Irish and French materials 

Although the correlation between ‘good motherhood’ and ‘breastfeeding’ remains the same in both sets of materials, there are marked differences in the manifestation of this message. While a series of fear-­ inducing discursive and semiotic strategies is used in the Irish pamphlet to persuade mothers in Ireland not to bottle feed, in the French materials studied, bottle feeding is barely mentioned while the benefits of breastfeeding are further exalted through the use of metaphor and comparative and superlative forms. 

Figure 6.4  MC 0–2, p. 43 

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My Child: 0–2 Years  Fear-inducing strategies

Fear-inducing strategies are used extensively, not just in the lexis of the pamphlet but also in the visual arrangements and the use of bullet points and numbering. Bullet points are used to list the items needed to prepare formula milk, while instructions with regard to cleaning equipment, putting bottles together and making up formula feeds are presented using numbering and are conveyed using clear imperative commands:  How to make up a formula feed 

1. Empty your kettle and fill it with one litre (1l) of freshly drawn cold tap water and boil. (…) 2. Leave the boiled water to cool in the kettle (…). Cool it for 30 minutes, but no longer. This will make sure the water is not too hot, but also that it is no less than 70°C. 3. Clean the work surface well. Wash your hands with soap and warm water and dry them on a clean towel.  4. Read the instructions on the formula’s label carefully to find out how much water and powder you need.  5. Pour the correct amount of water into a sterilised bottle.  (MC 0–2, p. 53) 

Each stage of the cleaning, sterilising or bottle preparation operations appears as a step in numerical order. Readers are expected to follow each step carefully to avoid the risk of infection. Warnings in a dark blue text box coupled with an exclamation mark also appear at the end of each page on bottle feeding, further underlining the ‘high risk’ of infection should mothers choose to bottle feed (Figure 6.5).  Colour is a key resource in visual communication (Kress & van Leeuwen, 2002: 347) and can be a key factor in adding salience to texts (Machin & Mayr, 2012: 54–55). In this instance the choice of a stark dark blue font together with the use of the exclamation mark in a circle, which is an icon usually used to signal a warning, attaches a sense of danger to the practice of bottle feeding.  The verbs ‘check’ and ‘make sure’, together with the adverb ‘carefully’, are used recurrently throughout the section on bottle feeding, suggesting that bottle feeding is inherently full of risks and dangers that must be mitigated through careful practice:

Figure 6.5  MC 0–2, p. 50 

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Make sure your hands and the work surface are clean. (MC 0–2, p. 51)  If you use water from a private well, you should check it is safe to drink. (MC 0–2, p. 52)  It is important to measure the formula and water carefully. (MC 0–2, p. 53)  Make sure the temperature of the fridge is 5°C or less. (MC 0–2, p. 54) 

Lexical items such as the noun ‘bacteria’, the adjective ‘sterile’ and the verb ‘sterilise’ occur frequently and their recurrent use further underlines the risky dimension to bottle feeding: Like any food, powdered infant formula is not sterile and may contain bacteria. This is why equipment like bottles and teats need to be sterilised. (MC 0–2, p. 49)    You must sterilise all feeding equipment until your baby is at least 12 months old. (MC 0–2, p. 50)  Once you open a bottle to add water or powder, it is not sterile. (MC 0–2, p. 51) 

The lexical choices throughout draw on an underlying discourse of risk, with lexical items such as the adverb ‘safely’, the adjective ‘safe’, and the comparative and superlative forms ‘safer’ and ‘safest’, the verb ‘to protect’ and the noun ‘protection’ used recurrently:  Your nurse or midwife will give you information on all these options, including how to safely prepare formula for your baby. (MC 0–2, p. 49)  Boiled tap water is usually the safest type of water to use. Know the safety of your local water supply. (MC 0–2, p. 52)  Breastfeeding protects your health and your baby’s health. (MC 0–2, p. 32) Throw away any feed not used within 24 hours – this helps to protect your baby from illness such as gastroenteritis (…) (MC 0–2, p. 54) 

The relentless emphasis on the risk of infection through the recurrent use of the above-mentioned semiotic choices and lexical items, constructs bottle feeding as an alternative but riskier feeding choice for mothers in Ireland, reaffirming breastfeeding as the safer and better option. These discursive choices are underpinned by neoliberal risk culture and aim to guide mothers towards breastfeeding in order to control health risks for their children.   ‘Happy Baby: Ma première année’  Absence of information on bottle feeding

In the section on bottle feeding in the French materials, what is most noticeable is the complete lack of reference to bottle feeding as an

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alternative to breastfeeding for newborns. It is immediately ruled out as an option for new mothers: Une fois qu’on passe au biberon, l’alimentation du bébé n’est plus exclusivement réservée à la maman (…) [Once you move onto the bottle, baby feeding is no longer exclusively reserved for the mum (…)] (HB, p. 60) 

There is absolutely no reference whatsoever to mothers choosing to bottle feed from birth. Instead the verbal structure ‘une fois qu’on passe au biberon’ immediately positions bottle feeding as a practice that is adopted after baby has been breastfed for a certain length of time and assumes that all mothers will breastfeed. This lack of information about bottle feeding from birth is reminiscent of the study by Fenwick et al. (2013: 432) of the discourse of infant feeding messages in antenatal education, where they underlined the fact that, by only talking about breastfeeding, breastfeeding was positioned as the ‘best and only feeding option’. Fairclough (2003: 136) also emphasises that what is missing from a text is just as important as what is present. The suppression of references to bottle feeding backgrounds it as a practice, reaffirming breastfeeding as the only appropriate choice for mothers.  Comparatives and superlatives 

Comparative and superlative forms are also used extensively throughout Happy Baby: Ma première année when referring to breastfeeding/breastmilk: (…) pour bébé, c’est l’assurance de recevoir la nourriture la plus adaptée qui soit à ses besoins (…) [(…) for baby it’s the assurance they are receiving the food which is most adapted to their needs (…)] (HB, p. 27)  Si le lait maternel est reconnu comme le meilleur aliment nutritif pour le bébé, être nourri dépasse la question alimentaire. [If breastmilk is recognised as the best food for baby, being fed goes beyond the simple question of food.] (HB, p. 28)  (…) un bébé allaité au sein sera moins malade et se remettra bien plus vite d’une petite infection. [a breastfed baby will be less sick and will recover much faster from a small infection.] (HB, p. 30) 

These comparative and superlative forms all position breastfeeding/ breastmilk as better or superior to something else. While bottle feeding is never explicitly mentioned we can reasonably infer that this is what breastfeeding is being compared to.    Metaphors

Linguists have shown how metaphor is fundamental to human thought and to how we describe and think about the world and how

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it can highlight aspects of things and background and silence other aspects, and thus shape our understandings (Machin & Mayr, 2012: 13). Metaphors have hidden ideological loadings and can mask power relations (Fairclough, 1995: 94). In this pamphlet, there are poignant metaphors of breastfeeding as ‘a natural process’, as ‘magic’, drawing on discourses of attachment parenting and total motherhood. The use of nature to advocate particular forms of behaviour is arguably nothing new, (Faircloth, 2017: 27), and Hume (2000) further argues that nature has long served as a moral grounding for action. In this instance, it is used to persuade women that breastfeeding is the natural and, by default, the correct choice in terms of infant feeding. This is achieved predominantly through the positioning of babies as ‘knowing how to breastfeed’ and frequent references to the need for mothers to ‘faire confiance à votre bébé’ (to trust your baby), the use of the lexical item ‘instinct’ and the verb structure ‘savoir faire’ (to know what to do), all of which position breastfeeding as a natural practice:  Dès sa venue au monde, faites confiance à votre bébé: il sait comment faire. [Right from his/her arrival into the world, trust your baby: he knows what to do.] (HB, p. 28)  (…) l’instinct de succion est si fort chez le tout petit… [(…) the sucking instinct is so strong in the baby…] (HB, p. 28)  Faites-vous confiance et faites confiance à votre bébé. [Trust yourself and trust your baby.] (HB, p. 31)  L’allaitement maternel renforce le lien avec la mère: tendresse, confiance mutuelle. [Maternal breastfeeding reinforces the connection with the mother: tenderness, mutual trust.] (HB, p. 30) 

This positioning of breastfeeding as the natural choice is reinforced by the reference to formula feeding as ‘artificial feeding’: La prise de poids d’un bébé allaité est différente de celle d’un bébé nourri artificiellement. [The weight gain of a breastfed baby is different to that of a baby fed artificially.] (HB, p. 35) 

The use of the adverb ‘artificiellement’ implies that ‘breast milk, given its status as a natural substance, as opposed to an artificial one, is understood to be essentially, and unquestionably, pure and good’ (Wall, 2001: 597). Wall further argues that the implication that breastfeeding is natural for women, and that women as a universal category have the inherent capacity to breastfeed, ‘trivializes the differences between women and the very real difficulties that women face when attempting to breastfeed’ (Wall, 2001: 597).

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The metaphor of ‘magic’ is also omnipresent in this section:  Parmi les modifications extraordinaires de votre corps pour le développement de votre bébé, celles qui concernent vos seins sont les plus magiques. [Out of all the extraordinary changes in your body to allow your baby to develop, those that concern your breasts are the most magical.] (HB, p. 28)  (…) les tétées sont des instants magiques durant lesquels votre tout petit vous dévisage comme la huitième merveille du monde!  [(…) feeding times are magical instances during which your little one looks up at you as if you are the eighth wonder of the world.] (HB, p. 31)  N’oubliez pas que la prolactine exerce un effet calmant sur bébé, mais aussi sur vous (…) Magique! [Don’t forget that prolactin has a calming effect on baby, and also on you (…) Magic!] (HB, p. 34) 

Magical moments, eighth wonder of the world – breastfeeding truly is positioned as a wondrous phenomenon. The implication is that, by not feeding, mothers are missing out on all of these magical moments. The metaphors that accompany this discourse of breastfeeding are intimately bound up with the concepts of maternal love, nature and closeness. Conclusion

The infant feeding health promotional materials examined in this study clearly aim to persuade women to breastfeed, in line with the aims of health promotion in Ireland, France and most western countries. Essentially, women are persuaded to breastfeed regardless of their social, economic or personal circumstances. Real problems they may have when breastfeeding are deemed minor and are presented as easily surmountable with sufficient motivation and professional help. The analysis demonstrates how specific lexical and grammatical choices, images, colour and layout are used to promote breastfeeding as the ‘right’ and ‘only’ choice. If we understand MCDA as concerned with ‘revealing discourses, the kinds of social practices that they involve and the ideologies that they serve’ for the purpose of instigating social change (Ledin & Machin, 2018: 29), this study contributes to the field of multimodal discourse analysis by demonstrating the need to take account of all semiotic forms when analysing discourse. Brookes et al. (2016: 359) also emphasise the need for critical discourse research into health education ‘to take into account the multimodal, material reality of discourse’ and the present study highlights that a study of language alone is not sufficient. As seen in this chapter, it is through the interplay of language and other semiotic modes, that the producers of health promotion materials can produce such powerful messages. While there are some differences in the types of persuasive devices used in both sets of materials, the message remains the same for mothers

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in Ireland and France, and breastfeeding is clearly constructed as the optimal and only choice. However, infant feeding decisions are deeply complex, with a wide range of circumstances at play (Head, 2017) and this analysis has demonstrated that these texts do not reflect the reality of the complexity of mothers’ experiences. In fact, they place undue pressure on new mothers in Ireland and France to breastfeed by aligning breastfeeding with ideologies of ‘good motherhood’.   This chapter further raises the question as to why the language of choice, so central to women’s issues, is so blatantly absent from this particular form of discourse. It suggests that multimodal communication in this domain become less prescriptive and didactic, that the use of coordinated visual and linguistic choices to create emotive and idealistic representations of breastfeeding be avoided, and the use of fear-inducing strategies to guilt-load mothers into breastfeeding their babies be refrained from. It is vital that materials given to new mothers take account of the fact that mothers cannot always conform to the ideal picture presented in these texts of how babies should be fed. The incorporation into these materials of a more sensitive approach that is mindful of the need to incorporate a more compassionate approach to infant feeding decisions would be an important discursive move to protect new mothers from the negative consequences of prescriptive ideals of infant feeding and motherhood. References Barthes, R. (1973) Mythologies. London: Paladin.  Barthes, R. (1977) Image Music Text. London: Paladin. Brookes, G. and Harvey, K. (2015) Peddling a semiotics of fear: A critical examination of scare tactics and commercial strategies in public health promotion. Social Semiotics 25 (1), 57–80. Brookes, G. and Harvey, K. (2017) Just plain Wronga? A multimodal critical analysis of online payday loan discourse. Critical Discourse Studies 14 (2), 167–187. Brookes, G., Harvey, K. and Mullany, L. (2016) ‘Off to the best start’? A multimodal critique of breast and formula feeding health promotional discourse. Gender and Language 10 (3), 340–363. Catalano, T. and Gatti, L. (2017) Representing teachers as criminals in the news: A multimodal critical discourse analysis of the Atlanta schools’ ‘Cheating Scandal’. Social Semiotics 27 (1), 59–80. Co-naître (2019) Available from: http://www.co-naitre.net/actualites/ [accessed 13 October 2020]. Douglas, S.J. and Michaels, M.W. (2004) The Mommy Myth. New York, NY: St Martin’s Press. Escott. H. and Pahl, K.H. (2017) Learning from Ninjas. Young people’s films as a lens for an expanded view of literacy and language. Discourse Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education 40 (12), 1405911. Escott, H. and Pahl, K.H. (2019) ‘Being in the bin’: Affective understandings of prescriptivism and spelling in video narratives co-produced with children in a post-industrial area of the UK. Linguistics and Education 53, 100754. Faircloth, C. (2013) Militant Lactivism? Attachment Parenting and Intensive Motherhood in the UK and France. New York: Berghahn. 

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Faircloth, C. (2017) ‘Natural’ breastfeeding in comparative perspective: Feminism, morality and adaptive accountability. Ethnos 82 (1), 19–43.  Fairclough, N. (1992) Discourse and Social Change. Cambridge: Polity Press.  Fairclough, N. (1995) Critical Discourse Analysis. The Critical Study of Language. Harlow: Longman.  Fairclough, N. (2003) Analysing Discourse: Textual Analysis for Social Research. London: Routledge.  Fenwick, J., Burns, E. Sheehan, A. and Schmied V. (2013) We only talk about breastfeeding: A discourse analysis of infant feeding messages in antenatal group-based education. Midwifery 29 (5), 425–433.  Gibson, A.F., Lee, C. and Crabb, S. (2015) Reading between the lines: Applying multimodal critical discourse analysis to online constructions of breast cancer. Qualitative Research in Psychology 12 (3), 272–286.  Hays, S. (1996) The Cultural Contradictions of Motherhood. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.  Head, E. (2017) Understanding mothers’ infant feeding decisions and practices. Social Sciences 6 (50), 1–11.  Health Service Executive (Ireland) (2016) Breastfeeding in a healthy Ireland. Health service breastfeeding action plan 2016–2021. https://www.hse.ie/eng/about/who/ healthwellbeing/healthy-ireland/publications/breastfeeding-in-a-healthy-ireland.pdf. Hume, D. (2000) A treatise of human nature. In D. Fate Norton and M.J. Norton (eds) A Treatise of Human Nature (pp. 1–402). Oxford: Oxford University Press.  Jewitt, C., Bezemer, J. and O’Halloran, K. (2016) Introducing Multimodality. Milton Park: Routledge.  Kanieski, M.A. (2010) Securing attachment: The shifting medicalisation of attachment and attachment disorders. Health, Risk and Society 12 (4), 335–344.  Kenalemang, L.M. (2021) Visual ageism and the subtle sexualisation of older celebrities in L’Oréal’s advert campaigns: A multimodal critical discourse analysis. Ageing & Society 42 (9), 1–18.  Knaak, S.J. (2010) Contextualising risk, constructing choice: Breastfeeding and good mothering in risk society. Health Risk and Society 12 (4), 345–355.  Kress, G. and van Leeuwen, T.J. (1996) Reading Images: The Grammar of Visual Design. London: Routledge.  Kress, G. and van Leeuwen, T.J. (2002) Colour as a semiotic mode: Notes for a grammar of colour. Visual Communication 1 (3), 343–368. Ledin, P. and Machin, D. (2018) Doing critical discourse studies with multimodality: From metafunctions to materiality. Critical Discourse Studies 16 (1), 1–17.  Lewin-Jones, J. (2019) Discourses of ‘internationalisation’: A multimodal critical discourse analysis of university marketing webpages. Research in Post-Compulsory Education 24 (2–3), 208–230.  Machin, D. and Mayr, A. (2012) How to Do Critical Discourse Analysis. A Multimodal Introduction. London: Sage.  Machin, D., Caldas-Coulthard, C.R. and Milani, T.M. (2016) Doing critical multimodality in research on gender, language and discourse. Gender and Language 10 (3), 301–308.  Mayr, A. (2008) Language and Power: An Introduction to Institutional Discourse. London: Continuum.  McCarthy Quinn, E., Gallagher, L. and de Vries, J. (2019) A qualitative exploration of breastfeeding support groups in Ireland from the women’s perspectives. Midwifery 78, 71–77.  Rodgers, O. (2020) Good mothers breastfeed: Discursive constructions of good motherhood in infant feeding health promotional discourse in Ireland. Journal of the Motherhood Initiative for Research and Community Involvement 11 (1), 137–155.  Símonardóttir, S. (2016) Constructing the attached mother in the ‘world’s most feminist country’. Women’s Studies International Forum 56 (2), 103–112. 

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Símonardóttir, S. and Gíslason, I.V. (2018) When breast is not best: Opposing dominant discourses on breastfeeding. The Sociological Review 66 (3), 665–681.  Taylor, R. (2016) The multimodal texture of engagement: Prosodic language, gaze and posture in engaged, creative classroom interaction. Thinking Skills and Creativity 20, 83–86.  UNICEF Ireland (2019) Urgent action on breastfeeding needed. https://www.unicef.ie/ stories/ireland-breastfeeding-worst-world/ [accessed 11 August 2020].  Wall, G. (2001) Moral constructions of motherhood in breastfeeding discourse. Gender and Society 15 (4), 592–610.  Wolf, J. (2007) Is breast really best? Risk and total motherhood in the national breastfeeding awareness campaign. Journal of Health Politics, Policy and Law 32 (4), 595–636. Wolf, J. (2011) Is Breast Best? Taking on the Breastfeeding Experts and the New High Stakes of Motherhood. New York, NY: New York University Press. 

7 Expressing Reading Engagement within Drama-Based Literary Work: Perspectives from Three Students in a Linguistically Diverse Classroom in Sweden Christina Hedman, Ewa Jacquet, Eva Nilsson and Katarina Rejman

Introduction 

This chapter centers around creative multimodal learning in relation to the reading of literature. Through a focus on the ‘reading of “things”—artifacts, objects, texts’ (Johnson & Enriquez, 2016: 273), the chapter highlights the interplay between text, learning and ‘the sensual, affective, materiality of bodies’ (Hughes, 2016: 124; cf. Vasudevan, 2010). Building on a phenomenological approach to the embodied dimensions of literacy in time and place, we also acknowledge how expressions of individuals as literate beings are contingent upon personal histories as well as institutional norms (Enriquez, 2016: 51).  More specifically, the chapter draws on a collaborative dramabased literary project in a linguistically diverse secondary classroom in Sweden. Within the frame of such a drama-based ‘embodied pedagogy’ (Rothwell, 2011: 582), the reading of a detective novel was embedded in a range of creative multimodal learning activities comprising corporeal engagement through ‘material-discursive’ and ‘emotive’ meaning-making (see Johnson & Kontovourki, 2016: 5). The project was introduced by the authors, and one teacher, Nicole, invited us to work collaboratively in her class.  142

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The aim was to investigate and discuss student expressions of literary engagement within the drama-based frame and the possible significance of observed embodied engagement for pedagogical approaches to literature. In this chapter, we focus specifically on three of the students: Nura, Omar and Mustafa (pseudonyms). Like most of their peers, they spoke a language other than Swedish at home: Arabic and two other languages that originated in Southwest Asia. (These languages are not named, to protect the integrity of the students.) Reading engagement is discussed in terms of expressed participation, drawing on an analytical frame from Enciso (1996). This frame builds on reader response theory (Rosenblatt, 1978) and focuses on how readers relate to events and characters in a story: for example, regarding the distance between the reader and the events in the story and whether readers make any associations between themselves and the characters or events in the story world.  In our explorations of the interplay between text, learning and the body (Enriquez et al., 2016), we draw on Sund et al.’s (2019) notion of embodied engagement: that is, how students’ actions in the classroom comprise educative encounters as well as less educative encounters or disengaged encounters (see below). The latter is discussed also in terms of resistance as literacy practice (Truman et al., 2020: 1).  This research is motivated by the fact that many teachers ‘strive for more contextually situated, engaging, and communicative language use’ (Belliveau & Kim, 2013: 10; cf. Dinapoli, 2009), although it may be unclear how to achieve this when teaching literature in linguistically heterogeneous settings, particularly beyond the primary school level (cf. Belliveau & Kim, 2013). This was expressed to be a challenge also in the setting under study, and teacher Nicole found that there was a need for more creative multimodal learning activities.  Drama-based pedagogy in the language learning classroom 

Drama activities employed over time and within a student participatory framework may afford students in the language learning classroom ‘a range of benefits’ (Winston & Stinson, 2014: 42), including a ‘deeper engagement with literature’ (Belliveau & Kim, 2013: 18). Such a pedagogy may also offer students ‘richer means of expression’ (Winston & Stinson, 2014: 46; cf. Anderson & Loughlin, 2014): for example, in terms of multimodal expressions where the use of various artefacts also involves corporeal and sensory dimensions. Richer means of expression further include how new understandings of text can be performed through bodily means (cf. the notion of body-poems, Enriquez, 2016; Rosenblatt, 1978). Somers (2008: 67) emphasizes how students’ engagement with artefacts or a ‘compound stimulus’, such as details of objects and images, may enhance motivation and action in literary work (see also Belliveau & Prendergast, 2013: 278); in addition,

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such artefacts could offer students ideas and topics to write about and could facilitate verbal argumentation (Jacquet, 2011; Wagner, 1998).  Our project was inspired by research on how literature learning can be facilitated by drama-based pedagogy and the use of various story-­ related artefacts (cf. the notion of artifactual literacies, Pahl & Rowsell, 2010). This was evident, for example, in the initial walk-through (see p. 146, this chapter), where a range of story-related artefacts was presented, which functioned as an introduction to the story world of the novel (see also Introduction to Part 2 by Jennifer Rowsell, this volume). Such multimodal modes of communicating may provide an aesthetic ‘entry point’ (Gardner, 2000: 99) for the learning of literary content that might not be easily accessible to all students (Belliveau & Prendergast, 2013: 278), by intersecting literacy/literary learning and the body (Enriquez et al., 2016). Since such meaning-making is also contingent upon interpersonal relations (Enriquez, 2016) and opportunities for participation, Belliveau and Kim (2013) emphasize the possible empowering function of interpersonal (educational) space within drama-based work, where ‘diverse voices are in dynamic interaction with one another in multiple ways’ (Belliveau & Kim, 2013: 1920).  The engaged reader  

We apply Alvermann and Guthrie’s (1993) definition of the engaged reader, as outlined by Enciso (1996: 172), hereby drawing on the work of reading response theorist Rosenblatt (1987) and her emphasis on engagement in reading as something vital that constitutes the reading experience:  [E]ngaged readers elaborate on and connect their own experiences with the text, rather than expecting the text to carry and convey meaning. Engaged readers also seek books of interest to them; use their knowledge of textual structures, the world, and personal experiences to construct and evaluate meaning; and embed their reading in social purposes and interactions that facilitate intertextual, interpersonal, and societal understanding. (Enciso, 1995: 172)  

Engagement in reading is thus embedded in the social context in which literary meaning is constructed, including the reader’s attention to textual structures, world knowledge and personal experiences.   Importantly, we relate reading engagement to the role of education in terms of helping students make sense of and expand on initial impressions of their readings (cf. envisionment building, Langer, 2000: 18–19), which also involves emotive aspects. Emotions, or ‘appraisal connections’, may be triggered when readers sense a connection with literary character/s – for example, when they perceive characters to have similar ‘interests, goals and wants’ as themselves (Robinson, 2005: 114).

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An emotional response could be that the reader begins to ‘care’ about the character/s and what happens in the literary text (2005: 114). In educational drama, ‘affective space’ is ideally created when students feel supported and prone ‘to [take] risks within the drama that can trigger experiential learning’ (Piazzoli, 2014: 82).   The Drama-based Literary Project

The project was situated in a 7th-grade class (ages 13–14) in a linguistically and culturally diverse school located in a suburban area. The majority of the students were speakers of languages other than Swedish at home, both larger minoritized languages in the Swedish context, such as Arabic and Spanish, as well as smaller minoritized languages. Before the start of the project, the authors – all researchers in the field of language education – visited the school. On the basis of these initial meetings, informed consent was collected by the second author. These meetings encompassed discussions on the choice of novel and collaborative tasks. The second author suggested the detective novel, Aphrodite and the Death (Jacobsson, 2006), which Nicole first read before agreeing with the choice. Nicole had previously read other books in the same book series to other secondary school students and found that these were appealing to this age group. The characters of the novel did not, however, share the diverse linguistic and cultural backgrounds that the students did.   After these initial meetings, we started the collaborative workshops during the class’s joint lessons in Swedish and Swedish as a Second Language taught by Nicole. The workshops spanned more than one term and consisted of about 10 lessons.   The detective novel

The novel Aphrodite and the Death is situated in a secondary school class in Sweden and starts with the murder of Mikaela, an 8th-grade student. The main character is one of Mikaela’s classmates, Aphrodite, who takes on the role of detective and, together with another classmate named Linus, eventually discovers the murderer’s identity. Apart from the murder, which also involves a dead dog, the story includes a tentative love story between Aphrodite and Linus.   The project’s collaborative activities

These were mainly designed and led by the second author, who has extensive experience in teaching literary drama, with the assistance of Nicole and the other authors. The latter took part in small-group work with the students or collected observational fieldnotes from the side of the classroom. Between collaborative workshops, Nicole read the novel

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aloud in class. The following activities formed the cornerstones of the workshops (see also Jacquet, 2011):  (1) An initial crime scene walk-through was presented by the authors, where physical items associated with the murder were distributed throughout a room (such as a toothbrush, a bottle, a stone with blood stains, a suitcase, a dog collar, a photo of a rutted road etc.) into which groups of students entered one at a time. There, the students also encountered a rewritten version of the novel’s prologue, as a short news item in a daily paper, in which the murder was described and situated in the vicinity of the school. In addition, the students listened to a dramatized emotional phone call from Mikaela’s mother (pre-recorded by the authors). The task was to write down the physical items (by one student in each group) and to subsequently collaboratively hypothesize on what had happened. The authors assisted the walk-through and the follow-up group discussions, which were audio-recorded.   (2) A portrayal of Mikaela, a task presented by the authors, was based on a digital photo of a student (by those who were willing to have their photos taken), which was edited by each student group in a coloring app according to the story’s description of the victim. A whole class follow-up activity was a dramatized TV interview (led by two of the authors), where the students had the opportunity to ask questions about Mikaela as imagined classmates, and where the imagined mother was also interviewed. These activities were audio-recorded.   (3) An ‘investigation board’ was pinned to the classroom wall, where Mikaela’s relations to suspected murderers and the collected evidence were outlined through the use of various artefacts such as photos, fake blood and cotton swabs. This task was presented by the authors, and the students worked in groups with different investigation boards. The students’ hypotheses, as formulated in each group, were further based on an analysis of Mikaela’s social network. The authors assisted in the various constructions of investigation boards, and audio-recorded the small group discussions.   (4) Dramatized investigative talk in small groups. As part of the students’ explorations of the storyline, a voluntary group member reported the group’s investigative work and conclusions in class, in collaboration with the rest of the group. These talks were assisted and audiorecorded by the authors.  Finally, the students had the opportunity to video-record some crime scenes in small groups.   Between the workshops, the students carried out individually written assignments, such as summaries, reflections, reviews and a news item on an imagined crime. Through these means, the students were given additional opportunities to relate the story world to their own experiences and views.  

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As the nature of the workshops was collaborative, several changes in the design of the pre-planned lessons were made during the course of the thematic work. Changes were made, for example, with respect to how the activities proceeded between the author-guided workshops and the response of the students.   The students also answered a short questionnaire, distributed by the authors, on their literacy practices outside school. Of the 16 students who turned in their responses, all reported frequently engaging with digital literacies, including social media, news, films, games and a range of various texts (often in English). Seven answered that they ‘read novels’ at home.   Student interviews  

The project concluded with interviews conducted by the first author with the 15 students who wished to be interviewed (individually, in pairs or triads), each interview lasting about 15–30 minutes. The thematized questions centered around the students’ experiences and feelings about their reading, in order to get a sense of how they constructed possible personal involvement or engagement with the story. The students were also asked about their feelings regarding role-taking, the workshop themes, and how they usually worked with literary reading.  Nura, Omar and Mustafa 

We focus on three students who had taken an active role in the interviews and expressed engagement in the reading of the novel in clearly distinct ways, yet also similar, ways: (1) Nura, who was interviewed together with Aisha, explicitly expressed literary engagement; (2) Omar, who was interviewed together with Mohamed, also expressed literary engagement, although in different ways from Nura; and (3) Mustafa, whose (embodied) actions seemed to position him as disengaged throughout most of the workshops, also expressed his view on literary engagement, distinct from the others, in the interview.   As mentioned, like most of their peers, all of them spoke a language in addition to Swedish at home (Arabic and two other languages originating from Southwest Asia). In our observations, these languages were, however, not found to be drawn upon in class as a resource for learning, and none of the students in the interviews said that they used one of these languages spoken at home (apart from Swedish and English) during lessons.   Analytical Procedures and Frames 

The collected data (fieldnotes, student texts, photos, audiorecordings) were uploaded to a safely stored digital unit. The authors continuously discussed the data with each other, and also with Nicole in

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the ongoing planning of the workshops, throughout the project, which formed an important part of the analytical process and its focus. Nicole also discussed the planning continuously with the students. The analyses were based on the following theoretical–analytical lenses.  Analyzing expressions of participation 

As stated previously, our qualitative analysis of literary engagement draws on Enciso’s (1996) categorization, in terms of main expressions of participation (each category representing quotes in Enciso, 1996: 185–186, original italics):  • Distance between oneself (the reader) and events in the story (Being in the midst; Being a distant observer; Being a close observer/seeing details);  • Perspective taking (Adopting one perspective; Switching perspectives/ seeing, thinking, or feeling from another’s point of view; Holding mutual perspectives/trying to understand and integrate multiple viewpoints); and • Associations between oneself and the characters or events in the story (Empathizing/having a sense of the way another feels in a given situation; Identifying/recognizing a similarity between oneself and the story world; Merging/ feeling like one has become the character or a part of the setting.  Such expressions and their emotive aspects – mainly analyzed in the audio-recorded interviews but also in fieldnotes and audio-recordings from classroom activities – are discussed further under ‘Expressed participation’ (see Findings). Analyzing embodied engagement  

In the following points below, embodied engagement (cf. Dewey, 1938; Enriquez et al., 2016; Todd, 2014) is teased out in terms of ‘educational encounters’ (Dewey, 1938; Howes, 2008), that is, how ‘students’ actions acquire a certain function in the classroom’ (Sund et al., 2019: 1):  • Educative encounters refer to ‘[e]mbodied pedagogical relations with a potential for further growth’, typically related to small group work and/or when students are ‘encountering the undetermined rather than learning pre-determined knowledge’ (Sund et al., 2019: 22).   • Disengaged encounters occur when ‘students both disengage themselves through their actions as well as become disengaged from doing […] the task at hand’ (Sund et al., 2019: 9). This disconnectedness, which

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may also reflect acts of resistance (Truman et al., 2020), provides, according to Sund et al. (2019), less space for learning.  • Screened encounters refer to digital screens, here with a special focus on ‘when the materiality of the screen blocks face-to-face encounters’, which can both restrict the educative potential and be educative (Sund et al., 2019: 15).  These encounters form a frame for discussing educative potentials on the basis of observational fieldnotes of classroom activities (see Participation in whole-class discussions and small-group work in Findings). Findings 

The analyses of ‘Expressed participation’ and ‘Participation in whole-class discussions and small-group work’ are discussed for each of the three students, ending with a short summary of the student’s literary engagement with the novel. The analyses are followed by a ‘Concluding discussion’. Presented quotations were translated from Swedish to English by the first author.  Nura

Nura was interviewed together with Aisha, with whom Nura often collaborated in the classroom. Both said that they talked Arabic and Swedish at home. They often engaged in various digital literacy practices, and Aisha regularly ‘read novels’ at home. According to Nura, they only talked Swedish during lessons, and Aisha said that she tried not to talk to the teachers in Swedish in the same way as she talked with her peers.  Expressed participation. In the interview, Nura was found to put herself in the midst of the story world (Table 7.1, A). She expressed that the workshops made her feel that ‘something was happening’ and that she continued to think about the story after each workshop. Her engagement was reinforced by the novel’s descriptions of the characters and events, which she found to be ‘good’, ‘went deeper’ and ‘made you feel and understand’. Her engagement and appraisal connections seemed to be particularly triggered by the news item in the initial walk-through that situated the story in her own vicinity: ‘It happened on my street’, which made Nura feel part of the story. After this initial walk-through, she recounted how she began viewing her neighborhood differently, considering a range of potential imagined murderers, which rendered her with a thrilling feeling of suspense, even of being ‘scared’.   In the interview, Nura tried to understand and integrate multiple viewpoints through her explicit empathizing with the novel’s characters, such as the mother of the murdered Mikaela: ‘I think about the mother’

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Table 7.1  Nura’s expressions of participation   Expressions  

Examples from Nura 

A.  Distance between oneself and events in the story  Being in the midst 

‘It happened on my street’; ‘I felt scared’ 

B.  Perspective taking  Holding mutual perspectives 

Relating to a real friend and to characters in the novel, such as Mikaela and her mother: ‘I would not have coped if it had happened to my friend’: ‘I think about the mother’ 

C.  Associations between oneself and the characters or events in the story  Empathizing 

Having a sense of how the characters feel  

Identifying 

The story world becomes her own  

Merging 

Imagining being the main character Aphrodite  

D.  Activities relative to those of the characters  Role-taking/ Imagining 

Considering how she would feel or what she would say or do in a similar situation by imagining or pretending to be Aphrodite  

(Table 7.1, B ). Nura also related the story and its characters to herself and the co-interviewee, Aisha, by claiming emphatically that she would not cope if a classmate like Aisha was murdered (Table 7.1, B).  The artefacts in the walk-through also triggered Nura’s associations between herself and Aphrodite, the main character, whom Nura said she pretended to be (e.g. while sitting on the bus), and she wished to ‘come up with ideas like Aphrodite’, in this sense ‘merging’ with the main character while making the story’s setting her own (Table 7.1, B). Nura thus made explicit associations between herself and characters and events (Table 7.1, D), and expressed that ‘without all those feelings, I would not have been interested’, indicating the importance of emotive aspects for her literary engagement.   Participation in whole-class discussions and small-group work. Both Nura and Aisha said that they felt too shy to speak in whole-class discussions, also evident from our classroom observations, and they almost never participated unless they were asked to do so. Instead, they preferred small-group work, in which they participated actively. Nura thought it was ‘exciting’ to role-take, as well as to be an observer, and to hear her classmates expressing their views on the story, as ‘everybody didn’t have the same thoughts as yourself’ (interview). She pointed out that the collaborative tasks were not like mathematics, since ‘when you answer you know it can’t be right or wrong’, which relates to what Sund et al. (2019: 22) call encountering the undetermined rather than pre-determined knowledge, signifying possible educative encounters in the small group’s interpersonal educational space (Belliveau & Kim, 2013).   Summary of reading engagement. Nura’s expressed engagement taps into main parts of Alvermann and Guthrie’s (1993) definition of an engaged reader, not least since she embedded her reading in interactions

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that facilitated interpersonal understanding. Her expressions were characterized by strong appraisal connections with the story world, involving close associations with the story’s characters. Nura appreciated the collaborative small-group work and role-taking/envisionment/ imagination, comprising potentially educative encounters.  Omar

Omar was interviewed with Mohamed. Besides Swedish, Mohamed also spoke Arabic at home, whereas Omar spoke Swedish at home, as well as two other minoritized languages originating from Southwest Asia. Omar and Mohamed frequently engaged in digital literacy practices, and Omar told us that he used to read stories to his younger siblings. Expressed participation. Unlike Nura, Omar kept his distance from characters and events in the story, although he acknowledged emotive aspects in the interview: ‘you can still understand and get these feelings’ (Table 7.2, A). By maintaining the distance of an observer, he could depict an event as ‘tragic’, thus indicating empathy, although he did not personally identify with the character. In the interview, Omar further stressed the importance of being able to reflect on and express one’s own thoughts on the story. He had particularly enjoyed discussing and comparing descriptions to form a hypothesis on the murder, in the small groups:   When you sit in a group, that’s fun I think, you state your hypothesis, what you think will happen, and if the other person doesn’t agree, then you talk, and at the end you’ll see who was right. (Interview with Omar) 

This type of collaborative talk seems to have helped Omar and the group to step into the story world (cf. Langer, 2000) and to hold mutual perspectives (Table 7.2, B). In a whole-class discussion (audio-recorded), Omar expressed that the murdered Mikaela was an ‘eye servant’ who acted nice and gentle when teachers were present but ‘when the teachers leave she is another person’. Omar had not read this in the novel but ‘sensed’ that she was like this, ‘since she was very popular and snappy’, which he recognized from people he knew. He thus related the novel character to his own experiences, hence also expressing a sense of the way the Mikaela of the story world might feel (Table 7.2, C). Participation in whole-class discussions and small-group work. Like Nura, Omar appreciated the other peers’ views in small-group work. In the interview, he considered their joint ‘speculations’ as a way ‘to go into a story’ and that summarizing was not enough for reaching a deeper understanding (cf. Langer, 2000). Omar was verbally confident and he participated willingly and frequently in both whole-class and small-group discussions. In the creative writing tasks, such as the news item based on an imagined crime, Omar recounted a storyline with

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Table 7.2  Omar’s expressions of participation Expressions  

Examples from Omar 

A.  Distance between oneself and events in the story  Being a distant observer 

‘Well, I can’t relate if I say so, but if you speculate and go into the story properly, you can still understand and get these feelings’ 

B.  Perspective taking Holding mutual perspectives 

Comparing descriptions to form a hypothesis; identify personal traits in a novel character on the basis of his own experiences 

C.  Associations between oneself and the characters or events in the story  Empathizing 

Having a sense of the way a character (Mikaela) feels, in relation to real people whom he knows 

similar traits as others’ texts in class, but which also resembled stories on gang criminality in media, as a type of intertextual relation. This is reminiscent of Rish and Caton’s (2011) study on collaborative writing as a way to encourage intertextual relationships, which involved taking part of other students’ stories.  In the interview, Omar further expressed that he appreciated the drama-based multimodal work with various artefacts, because ‘then you come to see it in real life too’ when ‘you see for yourself, and the others around’, pointing to the materiality of the workshops as possibly educative (cf. Pahl & Rowsell, 2010). In addition, he thought roleplaying – ‘to be a character’ – had been ‘fun’, not least in relation to the final video-recording.   Free access to the internet in class meant that many of the students frequently engaged in digital literacies on their individual computers. Nicole sometimes told students who were engaging in ‘off-task’ screened encounters (Sund et al., 2019) to close their screens, which also occurred in small-group work. It was, however, unclear how such screened encounters hindered Omar from engaging with the task at hand.    Summary of reading engagement. Omar’s and Nura’s expressed engagement with the novel taps into similar parts of Alvermann and Guthrie’s (1993) definition. Both integrated multiple viewpoints and appreciated role-taking and small-group work. A main difference was Nura’s expressed strong appraisal connections, whereas Omar’s perspective was that of a distant observer. Another important difference was that whole-class discussions afforded Omar opportunities to express his engagement, but not Nura, who felt uncomfortable speaking in class. For both, however, the drama-based multimodal work with various artefacts formed an important part of their engagement.  Mustafa 

Mustafa wished to be interviewed individually. Besides Swedish, he talked a minoritized language originating from Southwest Asia,

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meaning that he shared this language resource with Omar. Mustafa also attended ‘Mother Tongue instruction’, a weekly lesson of the minoritized language, and a regular out-of-school drama-based activity, where he learned about and read poetry in this language. When asked in the interview, Mustafa emphasized that he did not wish to use these resources in class.  Expressed participation. In the interview, Mustafa said that he often read novels at home in one particular genre: Manga. However, he did not find the detective genre, nor this particular novel, interesting, which positioned him as a primarily disengaged reader of the novel. From the perspective of a distant observer, however, he expressed the best parts of the story to be the character development of Linus and his father, thus emphasizing a meta-perspective (Table 7.3, A). Mustafa also made an appraisal connection in relation to the dead dog in the story: ‘I felt very sad when a dog got wounded’. In this sense, Mustafa was referring to some separate events and perspectives (Table 7.3, B), and by associating the dead dog with a previous personal experience, he recognized a similarity between himself and the story (Table 7.3, C).   Participation in whole-class discussions and small-group work. Mustafa did not appreciate small-group work – ‘it doesn’t work’ – because of the other students’ many-screened ‘off-task’ encounters. Nor did Mustafa feel comfortable speaking in whole-class discussions. One option for him seemed to be, then, to engage in other literacies on his computer. However, he appreciated role-play and drama, of which he had experiences from outside school. In one of the whole-class sessions, Mustafa participated in role-play as one of Mikaela’s classmates (audiorecorded). Also, he found, to his own surprise, a topic to write about in one of the creative tasks, which ‘did not happen often’ (interview). Here, the drama-based frame may have helped him both to take a risk in class (Piazzoli, 2014) and to find a relevant topic (e.g. Jacquet, 2011), despite the fact that the novel did not appeal to him.   Summary of reading engagement. To Mustafa, several parts of the workshops seemed to comprise disengaged encounters, which may Table 7.3  Mustafa’s expressions of participation   Expressions  

Examples from Mustafa 

A.  Distance between oneself and events in the story  Being a distant observer 

Seeing events from an observer’s distance, such as character development 

B.  Perspective taking  Switching perspectives 

Moving between (some) perspectives  

C.  Associations between oneself and the characters or events in the story  Identifying 

Recognizing a similarity between oneself and the story world, regarding the dead dog in the story 

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also be understood as an act of resistance (cf. Truman et al., 2020), considering that ‘engaged readers also seek books of interest to them’ (Alvermann & Guthrie, 1993). Mustafa clearly expressed what literacies practices he preferred and created for himself an affective space for saying no to the understandings of literacy that underpinned the literary workshops (Truman et al., 2020). Mustafa’s encounters were, thus, different from those of Nura and Omar, also in terms of smallgroup work. However, one similarity was that they all reported appreciating role-playing, which could be observed in drama-based activities. Several other students said in the interviews that they preferred the drama-based activities to ‘sitting and reading only’, reflecting how the workshops altered the embodiment of the regular literary classroom.  Concluding Discussion 

The findings show how Nura, Omar and Mustafa experienced and took advantage of afforded educational encounters and expressed literary engagement in both similar and distinct ways in relation to this particular detective novel, setting and drama-based framing. We found the workshops to facilitate a ‘deeper engagement’ with the novel (Belliveau & Kim, 2013: 18), considering the three students’ positive experiences with role-play, in particular, which shaped ‘affective space’ (Piazzoli, 2014) and ‘participation within the world of the story’ (Enciso, 1996: 173). Identified appraisal connections were closely linked to the story-related artefacts (such as a stone stained with blood, a recorded phone call, etc.), pointing to their vital role for a widened repertoire of expressions (Pahl & Rowsell, 2010; Somers, 2008; see also Jennifer Rowsell, Introduction to Part 2, this volume). Moreover, the workshops afforded the students several collaborative opportunities to process the text, which may be of specific importance to language learners. The small-group activities, however, did not afford all students, like Mustafa, an ‘interpersonal educational space’ (Belliveau & Kim, 2013: 19), nor was such a space necessary for all students, like Omar, for daring to express oneself in class.  The embodied engagement in the workshops comprised situations that positioned students both as listeners (typically, whole class) of mainly pre-determined knowledge, when students were sitting facing the teacher and the smartboard, and as active agents (typically, small groups), when the tasks required them to engage with more undetermined knowledge through multimodal activities with artefacts, altering their embodiment from sitting only. These different activities afforded the students learning experiences that were potentially educative in different ways, and, importantly, highlight the language and literature class as an embodied practice. Such drama-based work could

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thus function as ‘the repositioning of the body in teaching and learning’ (Sund et al., 2019: 16; see Enriquez et al., 2016) and make teachers more aware of these aspects (Franks, 2015). However, the function of the ‘off-task’ screened encounters warrants further assessment. Applying the lens of body texts may, for example, complicate these ‘embodied performances as something deeper than a disruption’ (Enriquez, 2016: 53). One function seems to be their afforded ‘affective possibilities’ of ‘saying no as literacy practice’ (Truman et al., 2020: 1). More studies are needed, however, with respect to how and why an activity engages some students but not others, with the purpose of enhancing potential spaces for learning and fair access to knowledge. Such research also necessitates more close-up multimodal, as well as multilingual, analyses.   In this setting, the subordination of the students’ spoken languages, besides Swedish and English, appears to be undisputed. The three students were not used to expressing themselves to their full potential in class in this way, which is often the case for speakers of minoritized languages. The absence of such opportunities may give rise to negative lived experiences with regard to the study of language, literacy and literature in school. Drama-based multimodal literary work that creates space for widened embodied expressions and experiences may thus have added value for these students. It would also be desirable, and a challenge, for future educational drama projects within linguistically diverse classrooms to encompass the students’ whole multilingual repertoire as a resource for learning.   This chapter contributes, nevertheless, new knowledge on the potential and possible design of creative multimodal literary workshops in secondary classrooms and investigative tools useful for researching other contexts in need of creative literary teaching. With respect to drama-based teaching, the study contributes much needed data from older students beyond the primary school level, as well as student perspectives, since research on linguistically heterogeneous classrooms still calls for more student voices.   References  Alvermann, D.E. and Guthrie, J.T. (1993) Themes and Directions of the National Reading Research Center. Perspectives in Reading Research, No. 1. Washington, DC: Office of Educational Research and Improvement (ED).  Anderson, A. and Loughlin, S.M. (2014) The influence of classroom drama on English learners’ academic language use during English language arts lessons. Bilingual Research Journal: The Journal of the National Association for Bilingual Education 37 (3), 263–286. Belliveau, G. and Kim, W. (2013) Drama in L2 learning: A research synthesis. Scenario 2, 7–27.  Belliveau, G. and Prendergast, M. (2013) Drama and literature: Masks and love potions. In M. Andersson and J. Dunn (eds) How Drama Activates Learning. Contemporary Research and Practice (pp. 277–290). London: Bloomsbury. 

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Dewey, J. (1938) Experience and Education. New York, NY: Macmillan.  Dinapoli, R. (2009) Using dramatic role-play to develop emotional aptitude. International Journal of English Studies 9 (2), 97–110.  Enciso, P. (1996) Why engagement in reading matters to Molly. Reading & Writing Quarterly: Overcoming Learning Difficulties 12 (2), 171–194.  Enriquez, G. (2016) Reader response and embodied performance: Body-poems as performative response and performativity. In G. Enriquez, E. Johnson, S. Kontovourki and C.A. Malozzi (eds) Literacies, Learning, and the Body: Bringing Research and Theory into Pedagogical Practice (pp. 41–56). New York, NY: Routledge.  Enriquez, G., Johnson, E., Kontovourki, S. and Mallozzi, C.A. (2016) Literacies, Learning, and the Body: Bringing Research and Theory into Pedagogical Practice. New York, NY: Routledge.  Franks, A. (2015) What have we done with the bodies? Bodies present and absent in drama education research. Research in Drama Education: The Journal of Applied Theatre and Performance 20 (3), 312–315.  Gardner, H. (2000) The Disciplined Mind. New York, NY: Penguin.  Howes, E.V. (2008) Educative experiences and early childhood science education: A Deweyan perspective on learning to observe. Teaching and Teacher Education 24 (3), 536–549.  Hughes, H.E. (2016) Racialized bodies as lived experiences: How phenomenology might offer literacy studies another perspective on the body. In G. Enriquez, E. Johnson, S. Kontovourki and C.A. Malozzi (eds) Literacies, Learning, and the Body: Bringing Research and Theory into Pedagogical Practice (pp. 122–135). New York, NY: Routledge.  Jacobsson, R. (2006) Afrodite och döden [Aphrodite and the death]. Stockholm: Norstedts.  Jacquet, E. (2011) Att ta avstamp i gestaltande: Pedagogiskt drama som resurs för skrivande [From the standpoint of embodiment: Educational drama as a resource for writing]. PhD thesis, Stockholm University.  Johnson, E. and Enriquez, G. (2016) On literacies, learning, and bodies: Theorizing, researching, and imagining pedagogies. In G. Enriquez, E. Johnson, S. Kontovourki and C.A. Malozzi (eds) Literacies, Learning, and the Body: Putting Theory and Research into Pedagogical Practice (pp. 271–277). New York, NY: Routledge.   Johnson, E. and Kontovourki, S. (2016) Introduction: Assembling research on literacies and the body. In G. Enriquez, E. Johnson, S. Kontovourki and C.A. Malozzi (eds) Literacies, Learning, and the Body: Putting Theory and Research into Pedagogical Practice (pp. 3–19). New York, NY: Routledge.   Langer, J. (2000) Literary Understanding and Literature Instruction. Albany, NY: State University of New York at Albany, National Research Center on English Learning & Achievement.   Pahl, K. and Rowsell, J. (2010) Artifactual Literacies: Every Object Tells a Story. New York: Teachers College Press.   Piazzoli, E. (2014) Process drama: The use of affective space to reduce language anxiety in the additional language learning classroom. In J. Winston and M. Stinson (eds) Drama Education and Second Language Learning (pp. 77–93). New York, NY: Routledge.  Rish, M.R. and Caton, J. (2011) Building fantasy worlds together with collaborative writing:  Creative, social, and pedagogic challenges. English Journal 100 (5), 21–28.  Robinson, J. (2005) Deeper Than Reason: Emotion and its Role in Literature, Music, and Art. Oxford: Clarendon Press.  Rosenblatt, L. (1978) The Reader, the Text, the Poem: The Transactional Theory of the Literary Work. Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press.   Rothwell, J. (2011) Bodies and language: Process drama and intercultural language learning in a beginner language classroom. Research in Drama Education 16 (4), 575–594.  Somers, J. (2008) Interactive theatre: Drama as social intervention. Music & Arts in Action 1 (1), 61–86.  Sund, L., Quennerstedt, M. and Öhman, M. (2019) The embodied social studies classroom: Repositioning the body in the social sciences in school. Cogent Education 6 (1), 1–21.  

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Todd, S. (2014) Between body and spirit: The liminality of pedagogical relationships. Journal of Philosophy of Education 48 (2), 231–245.   Truman, S.E., Hackett, A., Pahl, K., McLean Davies, L. and Escott, H. (2020) The capaciousness of no: Affective refusals as literacy practices. Reading Research Quarterly 56 (2), 223–236. https://doi.org/10.1002/rrq.306. Vasudevan, L. (2010) Education remix: New media, literacies, and the emerging digital geographies. Digital Culture & Education 2 (1), 62–82.  Wagner, B.J. (1998) Educational Drama and Language Arts. What Research Shows. Portsmouth: Heinemann.  Winston, J. and Stinson, M. (eds) (2014) Drama Education and Second Language Learning. New York, NY: Routledge. 

8 Conversation through Art Jessica Bradley and Louise Atkinson

‘Thus we cover the universe with drawings we have lived.’   Bachelard, The Poetics of Space (1994 [1958]: 12)  Introduction 

In this chapter we reflect on ‘Visual Representations of Multilingualism’ (2018–2019), a project which began as an initial question around how the British Association for Applied Linguistics (BAAL) could visually ‘represent’ research into and around multilingualism. We open up discussion on multimodality (Kress, 2010) in the context of ‘Visual Representations of Multilingualism’, which brought together fine art and applied linguistics. Having started as a bounded, public-facing endeavour with specific aims and objectives (as we outline later on in this chapter), the project evolved into a larger and more complex inquiry, raising a series of questions relating to how we work collaboratively, across sectors, and across named disciplines. Our purpose in writing this chapter is to explore some of these questions and tensions and how these smaller projects are catalysts for, and become embedded in, longer-term inquiry.  Our argument here is that these kinds of reflections are important because they offer us the chance to reflect on these small, tangential and side projects, which offer a slight detour or ‘sideways glance’ (cf. Ingold, 2008) leading to ‘imagining otherwise’ (Pahl, 2021; Phipps, 2019). Imagining otherwise (Olufemi, 2022; Walsh et al., 2020), or ‘the not yet’ (Walsh et al., 2020: 67), in the context of the work described here, allows us to engage both with theories and lived experiences of dynamic multilingualism, and how these might be understood through and beyond language.    We, the chapter authors, have collaborated across a number of research projects that focus on languages and, in particular, on multilingualism. Jessica’s research is ethnographically informed, and she has explored multimodality and translanguaging in street theatre (Bradley, 2018) and young people’s experiences and understandings of linguistic landscapes (Bradley et al., 2018), using arts-based methods. 158

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Louise is an interdisciplinary visual artist, curator and researcher, with interests in the relationship between art and ethnography. Louise is committed to socially engaged practice and understanding authorship in co-creation processes. Together we approach from different disciplinary perspectives, but with shared research questions and underpinning philosophies around participation and working with communities. We outline our working relationship because it is important to contextualise collaboration (Jungnickel & Hjorth, 2014), and because collaboration ‘perpetually requires translation as it moves through different transitions and modes’ (Jungnickel & Hjorth, 2014: 143). This chapter, therefore, also serves to translate our collaboration.  In writing this chapter we also want to shed light on some of the complexities of developing research across disciplinary spaces, through attention to the images of artworks and conversations in and around them, which emerge and then intersect. It is evident that, more and more, inter- (and indeed trans-) disciplinary research is valued and understood both within and outside the academy (Facer & Pahl, 2017). However, there are still challenges in terms of how this research can be undertaken meaningfully and how it might be received by research communities and by public audiences. As a researcher and an artist working in and around education, we see the pervasiveness of interdisciplinarity, and the creative possibilities for researching collaboratively when our focus is on ‘education’ (broadly configured and construed). Research and teaching in education are inherently interdisciplinary, as they are in the expansive areas of language(s) and linguistics. A modern languages degree will include linguistics, literature, cinema, philosophy, history, politics, art, culture and, of course, education, in addition to the learning of the ‘language(s)’ themselves (Burdett et al., 2018). Likewise, applied linguistics is interdisciplinary to its core: an umbrella for multiple intersecting and diverging approaches to language in ‘real world problems’ (cf. Brumfit, 1995: 27; Widdowson, 2019).   And yet, the intricacies and lived experiences of doing research that is interdisciplinary can be often glossed over or edited out of research publications, which instead focus on the data and findings – although, increasingly, exceptions to this are becoming visible. For example, the 2016 Creating Living Knowledge report (Facer & Enright) for the UK-based Connected Communities research programme focused on interdisciplinary research and how universities and communities work together, and research undertaken within this broader portfolio sought to make visible the mechanisms and processes of interdisciplinarity (and the tensions therein) (e.g. Campbell et al., 2018; Facer, 2020; Facer & Pahl, 2017). For interdisciplinary research with artists, the artworks or artistic or creative outputs might be conceived as outputs for dissemination or data to be analysed, and this creates a tension in terms of the artist’s role and the artistic output itself (Pool, 2018). One risk

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here is of instrumentalising the arts and therefore reducing the artists’ potential contribution through predetermining the scope and nature of their creativity inquiry. Likewise, the arts might be absorbed within the ‘multimodal’, meaning that complex histories and traditions are rendered invisible (Atkinson & Bradley, 2019). This risk of reductivism does not lie in the use of images and art processes, but in the way that the histories of these practices may not be incorporated or considered when choosing a particular media or genre to use within research in applied linguistics.  For Jessica’s doctoral research, which she undertook with street artists in the UK and Slovenia (Bradley, 2018, 2020), she observed educational workshops, production processes and street performances. Something she documented frequently related to how street arts educators trained performers to engage audiences in order to encourage them to participate in a performance. The street performers were taught that once they had made eye contact and brought someone – whether adult or child – into their game, or into their ‘play’, they were then responsible for that person until the performance had finished or the person’s participation had ended. This way of working, of engaging with another person and taking care of that person for the duration of the ‘play’, is one that can also inform interdisciplinary and co-produced research. We use it here as a way to guide our working practices when engaging in conversations across disciplines and practices, as we do for this project.   Visual Representations of Multilingualism: (Inter)Disciplinary Discomfort 

‘Visual Representations of Multilingualism’ invited artists to contribute images of artworks that engaged with ideas of multilingualism and living multilingually. Initiated by Zhu Hua as part of a drive to increase the visibility of the wide range of multilingualism research within the British Association for Applied Linguistics (BAAL), it sought to open up new understandings of multilingualism in dialogue with research which expands beyond more additive views of language (e.g. Creese et al., 2014–2018; Otheguy et al., 2015). Zhu Hua invited Jessica to participate in the project due to her research into multilingualism and art as part of the AHRC-funded ‘Translation and Translanguaging’ project (Creese et al., 2014–2018) and because she co-convened the International Association for Applied Linguistics (AILA) Research Network for Creative Inquiry and Applied Linguistics (2018–2021). Jessica then invited Louise, an artist–researcher who had collaborated with her on a number of creative arts and multilingualism projects (e.g. Bradley et al., 2018; Bradley & Atkinson, 2020) and whose research interests also cohered around communication and identity. Louise

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directs the international artist opportunity platform, CuratorSpace, which offered a wider potential audience for the project, enabling us to engage with artists from around the world. We frame the chapter as a conversation (Kester, 2004) in itself, and consider conversations as having the potential to open up new understandings within the context of the Visual Representations of Multilingualism project. We argue that opening up to interdisciplinary understandings of languaging requires an openness to challenge and discomfort.   The ‘Visual Representations of Multilingualism’ project was originally conceived as a competition, with three prizes for winning entries and plans for an exhibition to be held in Manchester at BAAL’s Annual Meeting (see Bradley et al., 2022, for a more detailed discussion of this process). We have previously considered the artworks from the perspective of the postmonolingual condition and monolingual paradigm (Yildiz, 2012), including how artworks might conceptualise languaging in ways which might go beyond the postmonolingual condition. We have also set out some of the implications of our findings for future transdisciplinary research and practice, under the broader umbrella of creative inquiry and applied linguistics (Bradley & Harvey, 2019), including possibilities for artists and linguists to continue to collaborate in meaningful ways. In the current chapter we adopt a reflective stance on how ‘conversations’ (Kester, 2004) took place within and across the process, and became realised in the form of artworks, which again, continue the conversation.  By way of a theoretical framework, we found it useful to return to Louise’s doctoral research (Atkinson, 2016) for which she had explored ideas from social anthropologist Alfred Gell’s Art and Agency (1998), which defines the work of art as having three main characteristics:   1.  It is made to be seen by an audience. 2. It is an index of social agency, i.e. it reflects the agency and desire of the person who made it. 3.  It has an element of captivation. (Atkinson, 2016: 13) 

Louise’s doctoral research (Atkinson, 2012–2016) was practice based and she maintained a blog, ‘Practice as Research’ on the ‘a-n The Artists Information Company’ web pages. The Artists Information Company is an artist membership organisation which seeks to support artists and inform cultural policy. The blog documented her progression through academia as a visual artist, enabling her to make her engagement with literature visible as she also created artworks and curated exhibitions. It was also utilised as a narrative framework for the thesis, enabling the reader access to her thought processes, as she continued to make work. Jessica’s doctoral research (Bradley, 2014–2018) explored multilingualism

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and multimodality in street arts production and performance, and she too used blogging in her fieldwork to describe experiences and bring them into dialogue with theory.  It was through blogging, and through engagement with the idea of blogging through research, that we first began to collaborate academically, although we had worked together previously in arts engagement for a university in the north of England. We discovered we had shared interests in making processes visible, including our own thought processes and reading, and in documenting the multiple intersecting connections between theory and practice in our work. We explored some of these ideas initially in a paper for the Society for Artistic Research annual conference in 2016 (Atkinson & Bradley, 2016), for which the overall conference theme was the relationship between writing and artistic practice. Writing about the ‘Visual Representations of Multilingualism’ project has enabled us to reflect on how these ideas have developed over time and across our collaborative work together over what has been, at the time of this book’s publication, the past eight years. In one of our earliest collaborations in 2016, we had sought to create a taxonomy of writing in digital space, to explore how we understood writing in these different projects, and we used the concept of ‘conversation’ then, too. We stated:   By creating this taxonomy, we use the collaborative and inductive research methods that we are bringing together through our conversations, to question how knowledge is produced and then defined. For Louise, in practice-led arts research, she questions the duality of the form her doctorate will finally take and the inherent paradox. On the one hand, her artwork cannot speak for itself – despite it being considered a form of knowledge. On the other hand, the writing itself is not considered to be a practice.   Our conversations have centred on what our writing does. At the different stages of our research, we have considered the ‘how’. We ask whether when we write, or when our writing practice is carried out in ‘digital space’, this writing can itself be considered to be a cultural object. It was through this process that we embarked on the task of starting to categorise our writing practice. Through this joint endeavour, we are able to draw on our different disciplinary backgrounds. This process allows us to conceptualise that which is different and that which aligns.   (Atkinson & Bradley, 2016: np) 

The idea of the ‘work behind the work’, as identified in Louise’s blog and in our extract above, is important for our discussion here (see also Pahl & Pool, 2018). In one of her doctoral blogposts (8 January 2014) Louise wrote about how Gell’s ideas shaped her creative processes, explaining that, taking Gell’s framework into account, the art-making process can be said to index the maker’s social agency, including the

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multiple decisions involved. Each decision, as it is considered and then made, marks a point at which another possible avenue is closed down. At each of these points, multiple other possibilities existed. Likewise, as a decision is made, another series of possibilities opens up, related to the particular direction the artist has chosen. These points, these decisions, and these unspoken, unseen possibilities, are so often invisible. Yet they are an important part of the production of creative outputs. Louise writes about how what she describes as mutability in her own practice comes from her desire to ensure that the possible permutations of the work are maintained, in order that audiences for her work can visualise and engage in her decision-making processes. Similarly, Jessica’s doctoral research, as a visual and linguistic ethnographic study, sought to take account of decision making at all stages of the research process, making these visible as ethical practice, a methodological framework she theorised as ‘liquid’, following Zygmunt Bauman (see Bradley, 2017, 2020). There is a discomfort, or tension, inherent in any kind of project that crosses disciplines and practices and which invites engagement. In this particular context, inviting the participation of artists in an endeavour which seeks to enhance visibility of multilingualism within a language and linguistics focused field is also inviting artists into a conversation. This links with what Grant Kester (2004) describes as ‘procedural knowledge’, with a focus on ‘empathetic insight made available through a process of active listening’ (2004: 158). The point here is to challenge the perception of a collective identity, instead ‘opening to the transformative experience of others’ (2004: 158). For example, although perhaps those initiating the conversation have some ideas for what they envisage might be discussed within the conversation, it is not known at the outset where that conversation might lead, nor what those invited to be involved might want to talk about. The nature of the conversation itself is therefore also a point of discomfort, in terms of its positioning within a particular field of research. What do we envisage when we invite people into ‘our field’? Where might things lead? As the project continued, we therefore asked ourselves what would happen if the questions were more extensive, if we sought to widen the conversation beyond ‘applied linguistics’ and ‘multilingualism within applied linguistics’. Framing our work as a conversation allows us to do this, and gives the project life beyond its bounded dates and timeline. It is here that we see the real value of a small-scale bounded project and the opportunities it gives us to imagine otherwise, in the way that Pahl describes (2021).    Defining Conversation: As ‘Multimodal’ 

Inspired by Kester, we deliberately choose to frame our chapter discussion as a conversation to shed light on these points that we both

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described in our practice and research as decisions, and that we identified as symbolic during the ‘Visual Representations of Multilingualism’ project. It should be noted that although some of the conversations we describe are perhaps more conventional, taking place verbally and faceto-face, the majority are not: these we define as multimodal conversations, with and through the artworks themselves and often digitally enabled by email and video technology. We conceptualise conversations here as something much broader: from those taking place within the project team, for example, to those using video calls and email, to those encapsulated within the artworks themselves, and to those which took place with audiences when the artworks were exhibited. Intersecting Conversations

The conversations we describe in this chapter undoubtedly intersect. At times they also unravel. They are messy (Law, 2004). We now discuss some of the kinds of conversations within the project, which we structure in what might be considered a loose taxonomy of sorts, mirroring the work we described previously from 2016. We do so in a linear way, as we are bound by the need for coherence, for the reader to be able to follow a thread, and by the genre of a book chapter of this kind. But we acknowledge the ways in which these conversations are circular, in their intersections and their simultaneity. By opening up these conversations and describing them, we seek to shed light on the processes and move beyond a focus on the ‘end product’ itself. We also consider this as a tentative framework for considering project processes for small-scale, ‘sideways glance’ (cf. Ingold, 2008) initiatives of this kind, allowing researchers and practitioners to reflect.   But first we start at the end, with the artistic outputs themselves (Bradley & Simpson, 2021) (the longlisted exhibited artworks are available to view at https://vimeo.com/478991914e). Following Gell, we position these artworks, these things, as social agents. As social agents they derive their meaning from the research and from the conversations surrounding them and which bring them together into a curated exhibition. But, unless they are discussed, unless the conversations take place, or emerge, they have no agency in themselves within the context they have been placed. Their agency derives from their impact on other people and through their discussions. In the context of ‘Visual Representations of Multilingualism’, their agency within the field of applied linguistics emerges through conversations with and around the artworks, and through engagement with them. It is therefore important to consider these less visible, circular and intersecting conversations as important, as they help us to understand both the agency of the artworks and their impact on perceptions and experiences of multilingualism.  

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Creativity and Creative Inquiry in Applied Linguistics 

The project has particular relevance to discussions of creativity, creative practice and creative inquiry (Bradley & Harvey, 2019; Harvey & Bradley, 2021; Harvey et al., 2022) in applied linguistics, and in language education more broadly. Rodney Jones (2019) foregrounds the need for researchers and educators to be more honest about what he describes as the ‘messiness’ of language learning situations (see also Carter, 2004). Moreover, Jones suggests that language itself is messy, therefore requiring acknowledgement and attention to this messiness:   In short, what is missing from most discussions of creativity and language education is an honest engagement with the ‘messiness’ of most situations in which people are trying to learn language, the ‘messiness’ of creativity, and the ‘messiness’ of the whole business of language itself (Jones, 2018). (Jones, 2019: 536)  

This messiness also links to theories of dynamic multilingualism – such as translanguaging – which see language use as flexible and going beyond named languages linked to nation states (García & Li, 2014). These ideas served as a catalyst for the project itself (Bradley et al., 2022), moving away from language(s) as bounded and countable entities:    Most considerations of creativity in language learning and teaching have taken place within the framework of dominant monolingual ideologies that see languages as discrete and abstract codes, separate from one another and from the messy social contexts in which they are used. (Jones, 2019: 536)  

The project, in itself situated across disciplines and practices, therefore offered the potential to shed a different kind of light on the messiness and the non-bounded nature of language(s). We now go on to consider a series of conversations we identified within the process, which serve to position the artworks in multimodal dialogue with applied linguistics through an exhibition and accompanying artist talk. These conversations foreground Gell’s ideas for what makes an artwork, in terms of bringing the artworks into contact with an audience, creating ways for the artists’ agency and desires to be made visible through exploring the sense of ‘captivation’.   Initial conversations: Establishing the idea  

The first conversations we consider are those that took place at the outset and from which the project developed. These conversations were between applied linguists within BAAL, some of whom had been engaging with artists and with creative practice as part of their research

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at the project’s inception. With these initial conversations came the ideas for what might be possible, a timeframe within which it could take place, and the first draft of a proposal. The conversations began with ideas of possibility. Within these conversations it was also important to have these first ideas approved by BAAL, as the leading organisation, and to set out a draft framework for what was desirable in terms of outputs. These conversations were necessarily disciplinary, and they looked forward and outwards, towards inviting others in.   Expanded conversations: Inviting others in  

The next series of digital conversations took place as plans started to be developed and ideas realised. These can be conceptualised as reaching outwards, reaching beyond the discipline to include creative practitioners and to co-write a ‘call’, a multimodal article which could then be disseminated to the international arts community through CuratorSpace.   Outward-facing conversations: The ‘call’ as a limiting medium  

Beyond the organising group, the conversation with artists began through the open call for artworks on CuratorSpace. This call set out the main brief for the competition and exhibition, with a number of points to which artists could respond. The broadcast medium of an open call announcement, coupled with the thematic element and photographic nature of the call, in some ways limited the opportunity for conversation. However, it was hoped that artists would find commonalities between their practice and the research questions, in order to enrich linguistic understandings through their work. A particular challenge lay in how to communicate dynamic multilingualism within the call. It can be easier to explain what it is not (for example, the co-presence of named but distinct languages) rather than what it is. In some ways this also lent weight to the purpose of the project itself, which sought to bring together multiple perceptions of languaging.   Conversations around process: Engagements through CuratorSpace 

Following the open call, we published an article on CuratorSpace, linking to the original call and further elaborating on the ways in which ‘dynamic multilingualism’ has been theorised by different scholars and with connections to the arts. As with the open call, this included links to key theorists (e.g. Gardner-Chloros, 2014; Lee, 2015) in interdisciplinary applied linguistics, to enable artists to contextualise their work within the field.  

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Making conversations: Artistic conversations through the creating process 

Although many artworks contain imagined – often unknown – processes, descriptions accompanying the submitted artworks offered reflections of how each artist had responded to the brief. As discussed earlier in this chapter, the work of art is only a part of the conversation, and often relies on the dialogue between itself and the accompanying text (for example the exhibition text or description) to give context to the ideas it contains. This interplay, rather than closing down interpretations, can create an introduction to the artist’s experience and process, to enable deeper engagement with the work.   In addition, many of the submitted works contained elements of conversation and participation, often across and beyond language. Here we consider a number of the submitted artworks. First, we take the example of Linda Persson and her collaborators, Wongatha women, Geraldine and Luxie Hogarth, with parts of the community of Leonora, Desert of Eastern Goldfields, Australia (Figure 8.1). Their collaborative work explored the politics and histories of minority languages with communities in the Australian outback, bringing together place, people and heritage, through the generations.   Persson was based in the Western Australia Goldfields area (of which the Eastern Goldfields form a part) for two years, working with

Figure 8.1  Light, Language, Landscape (installation) Linda Persson with Wongatha women, Geraldine and Luxie Hogarth, with parts of the community of Leonora, Desert of Eastern Goldfields, Australia 

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the communities there to explore language and the link with the land. Together they created artworks made from solar-panelled LED lights, which were shaped into words from different languages. This culminated in the multilingual installation, documented in Figure 8.1. The project sought to make visible what is invisible, reflecting Persson’s interest in the complex relationship between language and the land, and the parallels between the Scandinavian environ and the desert environ. The image(s) foreground hierarchies of language(s) in multilingualism and marginalisation.   Among other works, the Greek Language and Multilingualism Laboratory worked with refugees, using dreams as a way to explore methods of communication through drawing and photography (Figure 8.2), and Elina Karadzhova created an immersive digital environment with young people to convey the ways in which speakers of different languages understood time (Figure 8.3). Communication, within a community of participants and then beyond, is central to these examples. Yet the images and descriptions allow only a glimpse into the experience of creating the work and, in the case of Persson and colleagues and Karadzhova, the immersive experiences of the works themselves. These suggest the limits of an image-based call as a

Figure 8.2  My Dream is (????) Muhamad Nakam, Chloé Chritharas Devienne, and the Greek Language and Multilingualism Laboratory, University of ­Thessaly, Greece (George Androulakis, Roula Kitsiou, Mariarena Malliarou, Iro-Maria ­Pantelouka, Karolina Rakitzi, Sofia Tsioli) 

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Figure 8.3  Languages: Times Dreams Avatars (installation) by Elina Karadzhova 

frame for exploring creative practice and multilingualism, losing much of the evocativeness of the immersive experiences (Benjamin, 2010 [1935]). Critical conversations: Establishing the long and short lists 

By the deadline we had received more than 90 submissions from 26 countries. It was then necessary to select the artworks for the exhibition from which the three competition winners would be chosen. The panel of judges was made up of Louise and Jessica, with organiser Zhu Hua, and art historian and educator Abigail Harrison Moore. The panel first selected works individually according to agreed criteria and then met to agree a longlist of works which would be exhibited and a shortlist of three entries to be recommended for the prizes offered by BAAL in collaboration with the publisher Multilingual Matters. These were then considered by the BAAL executive committee for confirmation and approval, with the announcement of the winners made in a blogpost published by BAAL.  The artworks submitted were created within a rich context that is difficult to communicate through the artistic output alone. This, coupled with the single photographic representation of the work, limited

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the potential for expressing the artistic ideas in full. Jessica noted the following in her reflections: The problem of an image. The images of the artworks are flat, some are taken with smartphones, some are better quality than others. Some images show moments from a longer immersive experience. Others show woven, collaged artworks, flattened. The images are at once a problem and not a problem. They allow for ease of presentation, they allow for ease of exhibiting. But for many of the submitted artworks, much is lost. (Jessica Bradley, reflective notes on the project)  Curatorial conversations  

When we launched the project in 2018, we stated that we would show selected artworks as part of the BAAL Annual Meeting, hosted by Manchester Metropolitan University in August 2019. In spring 2019, once we had selected the artworks to be exhibited, we contacted the conference organisers to explore exhibition options and arrange to visit the available spaces. We were offered the opportunity to hold the exhibition in The Cave, an immersive exhibition space, which gave us different possibilities in terms of projection and lighting. For the exhibition itself – in digital format and projected onto blank walls – we selected the longlisted entries, as agreed by the judging panel, and decided to show them in alphabetical order by artist name. We contacted the artists and asked if there were more images which they might send to us for the exhibition. We also asked if they could provide any additional information about their work that might help us in our descriptions of the artworks. These curatorial conversations served to establish how the space would inform the ways in which the artworks were shown and experienced: their multimodal affordances.   Exhibition conversations 

We then invited selected artists to discuss their work in a chaired discussion as part of the exhibition at the BAAL conference. This further consolidated the sense of the artists’ practice as a whole and the ways in which their work intersected with the research, giving the opportunity for those attending the conference to hear more about the exhibition and the work behind the work, and to engage in conversation with the artists directly.   Persson was one of the artists who participated in the conversation and she spoke to conference delegates about the complexity of representing the experiences of those two years and of the installation itself through static images (see Bradley & Simpson (2021) for a longer discussion of this with reference to Elina Karadzhova’s installation). She described the processes behind the work, and, in particular, the

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collaborations involved in this project, which was co-produced with the desert communities. Although the images themselves served to document the artworks, the commentary enabled a deeper understanding and appreciation of the creation process, offering additional layers of engagement.  Continuing conversations

The curatorial process, along with the resulting exhibition, elicited continued engagement with the artists, who provided further information, images and in some cases essays, related to language and multilingualism within their work. As the artworks continued to be exhibited across different spaces in 2019 and 2020, these conversations continued, and the focus also shifted: for example, with the potential for continuations of certain aspects of the project, including video works which might show multimedia artworks or multiple stills to create a narrative approach to artistic practice. These conversations also highlighted other challenges: for example, the project call and subsequent communication was in English (cf. Piller, 2016). This raised questions for us about how we might respond to the challenge of the monolingual lens on multilingualism that this approach inevitably gave the project, and how we might respond dynamically given the internationalism of the call. This made us consider whether these are questions of translation (of the call and associated texts) or whether there are alternative ways of ‘welcoming’ people into different disciplinary spaces and creative inquiry.  Conclusion

The processes involved in curating the exhibition, and the conversations discussed above, have enabled us as authors to continue to develop our own thinking about the possibilities for artists to engage in dialogue around multilingualism with linguists, and how the arts can be understood as spaces for disrupting accepted understandings of multilingualism. In conclusion we return to the three characteristics of an artwork, as defined by Gell and outlined at the beginning of the chapter as a loose framework for our reflections: (1) It is made to be seen by an audience. (2) It is an index of social agency, i.e. it reflects the agency and desire of the person who made it. (3) It has an element of captivation.   An open call of this kind has inherent tensions. We initiated the conversation – as applied linguists first and foremost – and we invited people to engage with us in and through that conversation. In this case, we asked artists to engage with us in and through their artworks, a multimodal conversation. Ideally, with a call of this kind, this will

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be part of a wider conversation that the artist might be already having through their work; the artworks would be part of a practice that is already developing. It is not the case that we are asking an artist to tailor their practice to a particular brief. Instead, we are looking to find commonalities and artworks that express something beyond what we can conceive through our more logocentric applied linguistics research (cf. Harvey, 2020; Harvey et al., 2022). We are seeking something that pushes our thinking further, that challenges us, that enables us to imagine otherwise. Following this argument, the word ‘representation’ in this context is potentially a misnomer, as what the artworks do arguably goes far beyond ‘representation’ (see also Bradley et al., 2022).  As the conversations progressed, the project became a holding space for different dreams and desires, symbolising what were sometimes competing aspirations for directions of travel, or when and where things ought to end. It also asked what is the role of multimodal conversation in interdisciplinary research, and what does focusing on multimodal conversations tell us about the possibilities for the arts in understanding languaging?   We now ask ourselves How do we keep the conversation going? There is much that is not seen, as the project offered only a tiny glimpse into the artistic processes behind each artwork. Returning to the theoretical beginning, and where the project began, the project also asks whether through this work we are in fact moving beyond concepts such as translanguaging, which cannot adequately capture the complexity of what is expressed within the artworks and within the artistic processes. Do we need, in fact, to imagine otherwise if we are to really go ‘beyond language’, bringing in creativity to understand the complexities of living multilingually? And, if we do, will we be able to ‘treat creativity as if it really mattered’, as Jones states we need to, and to see ‘creativity as the deeply political act it is’ (Jones, 2019: 536)? Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank all the artists who contributed to the Visual Representations of Multilingualism project and who kindly continue to allow us to think through their creative practice. We also thank Zhu Hua, who initiated the project and with whom we wrote the previous chapter about this work. References  Atkinson, L. (2012–2016) Practice as research [blog]. A-n The Artists Information Company. https://www.a-n.co.uk/blogs/practice-as-research/ [accessed 3-1-20]. Atkinson, L. (2016) Souvenirs from the British Isles. PhD thesis, School of Fine Art, History of Art and Cultural Studies, University of Leeds.   Atkinson, L. and Bradley, J. (2016) Writing as practice, practice as writing: Conversations between art, linguistics and ethnography in digital space. Conference paper given at Society for Artistic Research, The Hague, April 2016. 

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Atkinson, L. and Bradley, J. (2019) Art education as communicative repertoire: Questions for creativity in applied linguistics. Conference paper given at Annual Meeting of BAAL, Manchester Metropolitan University, August 2019.   Bachelard, G. (1994 [1958]) The Poetics of Space. Boston, MA: Beacon Press.   Benjamin, W. (2010 [1935]) The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction. Lexington, KY: Prism Key Press.  Bradley J. (2017) Liquid methodologies: Researching the ephemeral in multilingual street performance. In J. Conteh (ed.) Researching Education for Social Justice in Multilingual Settings: Ethnographic Principles in Qualitative Research (pp. 153–172). London: Bloomsbury.  Bradley, J. (2018) Translation and translanguaging in production and performance in community arts. PhD thesis, Faculty of Education, Social Sciences and Law, University of Leeds. Bradley, J. (2020) Ethnography, arts production and performance: Meaning-making in and for the street. In T. Lähdesmäki, V. Ceginskas, E. Koskinen-Koivisto and A.-K. Koistinen (eds) Ethnography with a Twist: Methodological and Ethical Challenges and Solutions in Contemporary Research (pp. 197–212). London: Routledge.  Bradley, J. and Harvey, L. (2019) Creative inquiry in applied linguistics: Language, communication and the arts. In C. Wright, L. Harvey and J. Simpson (eds). Voices and Practices in Applied Linguistics: Diversifying a Discipline (pp. 91–107). Heslington: White Rose University Press. Bradley, J. and Atkinson, L. (2020) Translanguaging beyond bricolage: Meaning making and collaborative ethnography in community arts. In E. Moore, J. Bradley and J. Simpson (eds) Translanguaging as Transformation: The Collaborative Construction of New Linguistic Realities (pp. 135–154). Bristol: Multilingual Matters.  Bradley, J. and Simpson, J. (2021) Reflections on transdisciplinary approaches to multilingualism, pre- and post- COVID19. iHuman research blog [Online]. https:// www.sheffield.ac.uk/ihuman/news/reflections-transdisciplinary-approachesmultilingualism-pre-and-post-covid19 [accessed 12-4-21].   Bradley, J., Moore, E., Simpson, J. and Atkinson, L. (2018) Translanguaging space and creative activity: Theorising collaborative arts-based learning. Language and Intercultural Communication 18 (1), 54–73. Bradley, J, Zhu, H. and Atkinson, L. (2022) Visual representations of multilingualism: Exploring aesthetic approaches to communication in a fine art context. In V. Lytra, C. Ros i Solé, J. Anderson and V. Macleroy (eds) Liberating Language Education (pp. 297–317). Bristol: Multilingual Matters.  Burdett, C., Burns, J., Duncan, D. and Polezzi, L. (2018) Transnationalising modern languages: Reframing language education for a global future. PolicyBristol, September. https://www.bristol.ac.uk/policybristol/policy-briefings/transnationalizing-modernlanguages/. Brumfit, C.J. (1995) Teacher professionalism and research. In G. Cook and B. Seidlhofer (eds) Principle and Practice in Applied Linguistics. Oxford: Oxford University Press.  Campbell, E., Pahl, K., Pente, E. and Rasool, Z. (2018) Re-imagining Contested Communities: Connecting Rotherham Through Research. Bristol: Policy Press.  Carter, R. (2004) Language and Creativity: The Art of Common Talk. London: Routledge.   Creese, A. et al. (2014–2018) Translation and translanguaging: Investigating linguistic and cultural transformations in superdiverse wards in four UK cities. Arts and Humanities Research Council project (AH/L007096/1).  Facer, K. (2020) Convening publics? Co-produced research in the entrepreneurial university. Philosophy and Theory in Higher Education 2 (1), 19–43.   Facer, K. and Enright, B. (2016) Creating Living Knowledge: The Connected Communities Programme, Community–University Partnerships and the Participatory Turn in the Production of Knowledge. Bristol: University of Bristol and the Arts and Humanities Research Council.   

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Facer, K. and Pahl, K. (2017) Valuing Interdisciplinary Research: Beyond Impact. Bristol: Policy Press.    García, O. and Li, W. (2014) Translanguaging: Language, Bilingualism and Education. New York: Palgrave MacMillan. Gardner-Chloros, P. (2014) Multilingualism and the arts: Introduction. International Journal of Bilingualism 18 (2), 95–98.  Gell, A. (1998) Art and Agency. Oxford: Oxford University Press.   Harvey, L. (2020) Entangled trans-ing: Co-creating a performance of language and intercultural research. In E. Moore, J. Bradley and J. Simpson (eds) Translanguaging as Transformation: The Collaborative Construction of New Linguistic Realities (pp. 184–198). Bristol: Multilingual Matters.   Harvey, L. and Bradley, J. (2021) Epilogue: Intercultural dialogue, the arts, and (im) possibilities. Language Teaching Research. https://doi.org/10.1177/13621688211044546. Harvey, L., Tordzro, G. and Bradley, J. (2022) Beyond and besides language: Intercultural communication and creative practice. Language and Intercultural Communication (22) 2, 103–110. https://doi.org/10.1080/14708477.2022.2049114. Ingold, T. (2008) Anthropology is not ethnography. Proceedings of the British Academy 154, 69–92.   Jones, R.H. (2019) Creativity in language learning and teaching: Translingual practices and transcultural identities. Applied Linguistics Review 11 (4), 535–550.   Jungnickel, K. and Hjorth, L. (2014) Methodological entanglements in the field: Methods, transitions and transmissions. Visual Studies 29 (2) (Special Issue: Transformations in Art and Ethnography), 138–147.  Kester, G. (2004) Conversation Pieces: Community and Communication in Modern Art. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.   Kress, G. (2010) Multimodality: A Social Semiotic Approach to Communication. London: Routledge.  Law, J. (2004) After Method: Mess in Social Science Research. London: Routledge.   Lee, T.K. (2015) Translanguaging and visuality: Translingual practices in literary art. Applied Linguistics Review 6 (4), 441–65.   Moore, E., Bradley, J. and Simpson, J. (eds) (2020) Translanguaging as Transformation: The Collaborative Construction of New Linguistic Realities. Bristol: Multilingual Matters.   Olufemi, L. (2022) Experiments in Imagining Otherwise. London: Hajar Press.   Otheguy, R., García, O. and Reid, W. (2015) Clarifying translanguaging and deconstructing named languages: A perspective from linguistics. Applied Linguistics Review 6 (3), 281–307.   Pahl, K. (2022) Commentary for part 4. In V. Lytra, C. Ros i Solé, J. Anderson and V. Macleroy (eds) Liberating Language Education (pp. 318–320). Bristol: Multilingual Matters. Pahl, K. and Pool, S. (2018) Re-imagining artistic subjectivities within community projects. Imaginaries of the Future 01: Bodies & Media 4 (2), 1–22.  Phipps, A. (2019) Decolonising Multilingualism: Struggles to Decreate. Bristol: Multilingual Matters.    Piller, I. (2016) Monolingual ways of seeing multilingualism. Journal of Multicultural Discourses 11 (1), 25–33.   Pool, S. (2018) Everything and Nothing Is Up for Grabs: Using Artistic Methods within Participatory Research. Bristol: University of Bristol and Arts and Humanities Research Council.     Walsh, A., Sutherland, A., Visagie, A. and Routledge, P. (2020) ImaginingOtherwise: A glossary of arts education practice on the Cape Flats. ArtsPraxis 7 (2b).  Widdowson, H. (2019) Disciplinarity and disparity in applied linguistics. In C. Wright, L. Harvey and J. Simpson (eds) Voices and Practices in Applied Linguistics: Diversifying a Discipline. Heslington: White Rose University Press.      Yildiz, Y. (2012) Beyond the Mother Tongue: The Postmonolingual Condition. New York, NY: Fordham University Press. 

Part 3 Integrating Multimodal and Multilingual Approaches

Introduction to Part 3: Multilingualism and Multimodality: A Comment  Gabriele Budach

Let me begin by thanking the editors of this collection for inviting me to comment on a section of this book. It has been a great pleasure and inspiration to read the work of Julia Gillen, Uta Papen, Ulrike Zeshan and Sibaji Panda (called further down the ‘Happy Hands team’) and Kate Pahl, all of whom I would like to congratulate on their fascinating, thought-provoking texts. In what follows, I will take up Kate’s suggestion and start by looking back at my own research trajectory and how multilingualism and multimodality have become important in my work. I will then engage with the work laid out in the two chapters I read and point to some of the ways I see them contributing to new lines of research emerging at the intersection of multilingualism and multimodality.  Looking back at my own trajectory, it probably resembled those of numerous PhD students starting out as sociolinguists interested in language minority communities and their multilingualism in parts of the western world, in the late 1990s. As part of a larger project team, I was doing fieldwork in French adult literacy centers in Ontario/Canada looking at what it meant for people to be – or more precisely to selfidentify as or be considered as – francophone in a mainly anglophone province and social environment. The broader goal of the research was to understand how recent socioeconomic changes had affected this and other francophone communities in eastern parts of Canada. My task was to look into community institutions entrusted with the delivery of French literacy classes to adults. In this research, multilingualism, and the role of French in particular, served to mirror the increasingly complex make-up of Canadian society and as a lens through which wider social change could be understood.   Anchored in what today would be termed critical sociolinguistics (Boutet & Heller, 2007; Heller, 2001), I took – like everyone else in the research team – a critical discourse analytical approach. I was reading

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Norman Fairclough (2001) and Pierre Bourdieu (1977) to understand how the analysis of people’s practices and what they said about them could provide an insight into the social structure of Canadian society, and the position of individuals and communities within it. Spending time in the field and talking to people (doing mostly interviews) revealed discourses and competing ideas about values and boundaries that defined imagined francophone communities. Such negotiations were complicated by increasing new migration, that challenged the views of longestablished local francophone communities and their efforts to maintain French and promote a certain vision of the language as ‘pure’ – while others were giving it up for English – in an overall climate of economic and political pressure that would soon fundamentally transform the world of francophone community organisations, by introducing what is termed today a neoliberal agenda. In those days, we were investigating multilingualism and how people positioned themselves with regards to particular languages, to understand about social processes, the production and reproduction of social structures, hierarchies and power relations. We did this with a particular focus on the relations of domination between anglophones and francophones, how they had been built in the past and how they were transforming at the time of our research. In those days, multimodality was entirely absent from the group’s conceptual and analytical approach. While we looked into material culture, as presented at francophone festivals or fairs, which we took as representations of francophone culture to affirm a francophone identity or to attract local and international tourists, such material manifestations themselves were never of any particular analytical interest – as the preferred focus would be on language choice, language practice, language accents, including eventually code-switching.   My specific context – French adult literacy centers – lent itself to a similar sociologically inspired analysis, revolving around the interpretation of terms related to ‘literacy’ and its affiliates in French (e.g. alphabétisation, analphabétisme, illétrisme etc.) and questions such as: Who is considered an an-/alphabète? On the basis of what criteria? Who has access to classes offered by French adult literacy centers? Who is considered (a legitimate) francophone? And so forth. And that is what I mainly did for my thesis.  Meeting with Marilyn Martin-Jones (Martin-Jones & Jones, 2000) during a visit to Toronto led me to discover a new research paradigm that had started to flourish in the UK: New Literacy Studies. Back then, I started reading the work of anthropologist Brian Street (1993, 2014) – and later works by colleagues in Lancaster: David Barton (2017), with Mary Hamilton (2012) and Ros Ivanič (Barton et al., 2000) – which turned out to be a true revelation for me. Brian Street had done fieldwork in Iran and very tellingly described how the literacy taught

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in rural schools was fundamentally different from literacy that rural people needed to be able to function well in their local market economy. When he introduced the notion of an ‘autonomous’ view of literacy – which is a view that considers itself as universally true and relevant – and critiqued such a view as ‘ideological’, he opened a door for me and helped me to see beyond the Canadian context I was currently investigating. I began to understand how western ideas of literacy, through colonialism, had shaped educational systems in colonised territories and continued to serve as a means to create and sustain systems of domination and oppression. I could see how they were ill-fitted to the needs of local people, but rather serving, sometimes even unwillingly, the ‘colonial Western mindset’ and global policies, eager to spread ‘development’ worldwide, through national and international institutions, dominated by western states and their ideas. Although Brian Street was not foregrounding ‘materiality’ per se, or any particular aspect of materiality embedding literacy, he pointed to the relevance of local context that had created the conditions for what people would see and understand as meaningful ‘literacy’ in a particular setting.   In the early years of 2000, I got involved in a German–Italian primary school project in Frankfurt, Germany. Beginning in 2002, I spent a lot of time in the classroom following the biliteracy teaching and learning of first graders aged six to seven. The project adopted a two-way-immersion approach which, at the time, had been popularised and researched mainly in the US (in projects mostly including English and Spanish). At that time, a lot of research on two-way immersion in the US adopted a psychological approach, aiming to underscore the cognitive benefits of bilingual education. This was to support and legitimise two-way immersion as a viable educational approach, in a political climate that turned increasingly critical and hostile towards educational offers including other languages, and Spanish in particular. After the voting of proposition 227 in California (followed by referenda in numerous other states) which suggested that English became the only language of instruction in US schools, the bilingual approach became sidelined and even illegal in some parts of the country, which made conducting research in this area much more difficult. Proposition 227 aimed at fostering ‘English only’, while bilingual education had aimed at developing a balanced Spanish and English bilingualism to benefit both children from Spanish-speaking backgrounds and mainstream multilingual education in the US. Proposition 227 was an example for how state monolingualism not only operated as an engrained, routinised ideology, inherited since the early days of 19th-century nationalism, but it also showed how this ideology had regained ground very recently, through declaring various US states (monolingual) English speaking for the first time in history, under the perceived threat of a rapidly growing Spanish-speaking population.  

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Still, there was some very engaging ethnographic work coming out of two-way-immersion-classroom research in the US, that I found highly inspirational. It documented how children played – in various modes – drawing and writing in multiple languages exploring their emergent linguistic repertoires (Manyak, 2002, 2006). While the research remained focused on language and language development, it considered practices as hybrid and embedded in other modes. Work looking at the connection between children’s literacy and popular culture came from educational scholars such as Anne Haas Dyson (1997), Jackie Marsh and Elaine Millard (2000) and Barbara Comber (Comber & Thomson, 2001; Comber, 2015) who started to look into literacy learning and how it could be connected to place and local neighborhoods, while exploring these connections through the lens of pedagogy and in school-based learning. Although these authors were often only marginally concerned with multilingualism, they pointed to the significance and inherent multimodality of children’s play and learning, that classroom pedagogy should draw on more importantly.  When I started getting interested in the multimodal productions of children, it was without yet knowing most of the theories that lay behind the concept. What raised my interest in particular was objects and what children did with them. Of course, there is no other place filled with as much material stuff and objects as a primary school classroom. However, looking at how material things were used in teaching and learning – within the biliteracy frame of the programme – and by children spontaneously, was very intriguing. There were three things I saw happening, perhaps particularly enabled by the biliteracy approach:  (1) Rather unsurprisingly, there was the use of objects for mathematics learning, as it is common in most first-grade classrooms: children were manipulating chestnuts (or other objects) to learn how to count and to do simple math operations before they could do them without the support of objects. As Vygotsky would say: objects served specific curricular purposes and were considered as tools to train the children’s higher cognitive skills.   (2) Particular objects were introduced because they existed in the German or the Italian school curriculum, but not necessarily in both. Both classroom teachers – one trained in the German and the other in the Italian educational system – were committed to developing a bilingual and bicultural curriculum, which led to mutual learning and the gradual entrenchment of two curricular traditions. In particular, the Italian curriculum foresees the use of many more objects in primary mathematics teaching. These needed to be handmade and fabricated by the children. It included for instance (a) an abaco (abacus), made from cork, wooden sticks and small pasta rolls that represented numbers and were used for counting and to perform simple mathematical operations, or (b) a geoboard, which

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was made from wood and nails – placed in a cluster-like shape – and rubber bands, used to build geometrical shapes of a particular size by clinging them around specific nails on the board. Going beyond the lines of one particular – national – curriculum enabled both children and teachers to explore new ways of seeing and doing – a practice which created room and heightened attention for multimodality – and how it can be used in classroom pedagogy (Budach, 2012).  (3) Other objects were brought in by the children and used in biliteracy tasks: for instance, to identify letters in both languages. On closer inspection, all these curricular objects, which were included on invitation by the teachers to serve a particular curricular goal, turned out to be much more than just doing this. They expanded notions of the curriculum, brought in children’s live worlds and home cultures, and they troubled established relations of power in the classroom (Budach, 2013), by putting meaning-making first, and not the execution of a particular task that needed to be done in a particular way. During this time, I discovered multimodality and the work by Gunther Kress and his colleagues (2006) (see also Jewitt & Kress, 2010; Kress, 2005, 2009). I could see and agreed that learning basically was meaningmaking and that it involved representation – how and in what forms (teaching) contents were made available to learners – and communication – how the meaning of these contents was communicated, by the teachers to the children or among the children while working in mixed-language pairs or small groups. Observing the classroom revealed very quickly that a great deal of negotiation was taking place: negotiation of identities (see Pavlenko & Blackledge, 2004) based on ideas of language, power and linguistic competence. Interestingly, children less competent in the majority language were not necessarily at a disadvantage or positioned less favorably than children from a majority-language background, as often happens in mainstream schools that only value German as the sole language of instruction. Later I understood why this was bound to happen. I saw, for instance, that the unequal distribution of (language) knowledge (in German and Italian) was actually intentional. It was part of a systemic approach that also guided the process of how children were selected for the programme. Unevenness was not seen as a deficit but as complementarity. It was explored in peer learning, by children with complementary repertoires. Thereby, the project started from the assumption that children’s ‘means of language’ and ‘modes of knowing’ (Spotti & Blommaert, 2017) neither fully nor solely reside in the majority language, but their ‘repertoire’ is broader and includes other languages (Busch, 2012). The project did not ignore that fact, but it attempted to explore the synergies that can emerge, if ‘repertoire’ is understood not as a singular, monolithic standard, but as diverse, intrinsically different and complementary to others. Looking beyond language, this also brought

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to light that not every content is necessarily represented best through language. Sometimes, this is because not everyone in the room understands a particular ‘language’, or the particular code and form in which it is delivered. In other cases, language is just less well suited than other modes – such as a picture/visual/gestural representation – to communicate an idea efficiently. It was important to find distance from the focus on language as the sole starting point and end point of learning.  The biliteracy classroom seemed an ideal place for opening such an experimental space. It appeared as a small, utopian window onto a classroom practice in which goals for learning would not be set by just one language and curricular tradition. I come to the last episode of my own journey, very briefly, before turning to the work presented here by colleagues in this section of the book. It concerns a collaboration I had the privilege to engage in together with my colleague Donna Patrick form Carleton University in Ottawa, and that we undertook in partnership with the Ottawa Inuit Children’s Centre. Together with Inuit women, we thought about what could be meaningful educational activities for Inuit children living in the city. Deeply thankful for this life transforming experience, here I wish to share only two main lessons I have retained from that collaboration: (1) ‘literacy’ is not only not a neutral term – possibly carrying very different meanings for different people in different settings – it is, as for the Inuit women we worked with, a symbol of colonialism and white domination evoking for them a disastrous legacy of residential schooling, the suffering of language loss, and fear of their cultural and physical extinction (see also Singh, 2017). Early on, we were made to understand that, for all we would be doing, ‘literacy’ was not the appropriate term, and we would never use it in our discussions later on. While there is the beginning of a scholarly discussion of what ‘literacy’ could mean in indigenous terms, we never engaged in such a debate with our Inuit collaborators. It simply felt out of place, and we were there to learn about how Inuit thought about educating their children in culturally appropriate ways, and not about pushing any kind of academic agenda or debate around terminology (on this topic see also Finnegan, 2018). To come up with a new label or possibly more adequate term was not in their interest, nor was it in ours. (2) What I learnt, instead, and understood only gradually, is that, for Inuit, educational activities are filled with material objects. It is important, however, that these were never and by no means accessory, auxiliary, subordinate or temporary, and not designed ‘at the service’ of any particular goal of (language) learning or the acquisition of some kind of higher cognitive function. Objects, I learnt, form an essential part of what it means to be Inuit, to be learning Inuit ways of living, and to become part of an Inuit world view and cosmology. Objects were not and could not be suspended or made redundant. The singing of

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a fishing song needed the (self-made) rod to perform the song and to establish the connection with a fish that the text of the song was speaking about (Budach & Patrick, 2012).   From that and previous experiences in the biliteracy classroom, I learnt that materiality matters not only in shaping what we do, but – beyond that – it shapes who we are, in the world, as humans, as researchers, as well as our ontological position that we take in these endeavors. Much of this learning has received important inspiration from the work by Kate Pahl and Jennifer Rowsell (Artifactual Literacies, 2010), which has been a constant companion in these years, also feeding into an interdisciplinary special issue looking into the role of ‘language and objects in trans-contextual communication’ (Budach et al., 2015). In this interdisciplinary collection we aimed to look beyond a perspective that sees objects as mere ‘mediational means’ (Scollon & Wong Scollon, 2003) and helpers in disseminating (discursive) meaning across contexts. Conversely, we sought to understand how the (material) presence of objects shaped communication and human interaction by a power deriving from materiality in its own right.   Revisiting Pedagogy, Learning and Living at the Intersection of Materiality, Multimodality and Multilingualism 

For quite some time, multilingualism and multimodality research have trailed separate paths. I remember – as does Kate Pahl in her chapter – that there was quite some resistance in several sociolinguistic and applied linguistics circles to open up to data other than strictly ‘linguistic’ (oral or written verbal) and to accept multimodality as a worthwhile and legitimate subject of study and analysis. As Kate, when presenting a (geographical) map made from beads created by one of the women she was working with, made to represent her own trajectory, I remember blunt faces at sociolinguistic conferences when talking about (children’s) images and how they provided insights into children’s meaning-making (see also Kress, 2005). On another occasion – a research meeting – we were denied presenting visual data – photographs taken in a public space – and we were told this was ‘nothing’, implying that visual data were irrelevant – and possibly threatening – to the then state-of-the-art in sociolinguistic research.  Conversely, scholars working on multimodality back then showed little interest in multilingualism. So, I was told by a colleague from the group around Gunther Kress based at the Institute of Education in London, that they were not ‘working on multilingualism’. Coming from social semiotics, their interest was rather in communication, communicative processes and how meaning was created, based on using a range of semiotic resources, encompassing MORE THAN language.

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As far as research on literacy was concerned, it was the New London Group (convened by Mary Kalantzis and Bill Cope; initially the group consisted of Courtney Cazden, Norman Fairclough, Jim Gee, Gunther Kress, Allan Luke, Carmen Luke, Sarah Michaels and Martin Nakata) who first suggested the term multiliteracies in their 1996 manifesto. It drew attention to multimodality and communication in multiple modes and advocated a wider concept of literacy, including computerbased/online communication, which, with the advancement of digital technology, had started to shape and impact on learners’ everyday literacy significantly. At the start, the group also paid relatively little attention to multilingualism. Later, this changed when Jo Lo Bianco joined and put multilingualism on the group’s map.  Some work in New Literacy Studies, on the other hand, started early developing a sensitivity towards multilingualism (see Marilyn MartinJones and Kathrin Jones’ Multilingual Literacies (2000) and Brian Street’s preface to it), while works by other colleagues from the Lancaster Literacy Research Group (David Barton, Mary Hamilton, Ros Ivanič, Anita Wilson, Karin Tusting and others) remained focused mainly on English.   Today, the multiliteracies framework has reached enormous popularity and is called upon to label a wide range of pedagogical and disciplinary approaches to (literacy) learning – including, for instance, those based in experimental psychology – that oftentimes are brought in line, without much hesitation, to fit existing curricular demands, watering down some of the founding principles of the group’s manifesto with regards to criticality and learner agency.   The two chapters in this section of the book have the great merit of offering a fresh reading and take-up of these ideas, that lay behind the concepts of ‘literacy’ and ‘multiliteracies’. They provide ample food for thought to ask ourselves critically about what ‘literacy’ is, and how we could and should imagine it differently. The chapters offer insightful discussion and point to new directions in research: (1) outlining new conceptual terrain, (2) helping to solve methodological problems and (3) advancing the agenda of collaborative research, as an ethical claim, but also as the very foundation that researchers should build their work on. (1) Conceptual terrain

As mentioned in previous sections of this book, there has been a conceptual shift in sociolinguistic and applied linguistics research. This has brought about a change from talking about (multilingual) language repertoires (Agar, 1994) and biliteracy to adopting the term ‘pluriliteracy’. This shift also implied broadening the view beyond the linguistic and acknowledgment of resources other than those related to (spoken and written) language, such as ‘resources in other semiotic modes’ (García et al., 2008).  However, spoken and written language in

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school have remained prevalent as a medium of instruction, to convey contents, to test skills and the knowledge of pupils, in addition to being a key curricular subject. Therefore, materiality has taken time to be considered as an important source and contextual element for learning (Martin, 2019). Although there is an acknowledgment of the role and importance of ‘other semiotic modes’, they never quite reach the status of language, and they remain – where considered – oftentimes an ‘addon’, subsumed or sidelined by linguistic analysis.   Kate Pahl’s reflective piece in this book shows how shifting the focus to people’s homes fundamentally changes such a priority. Her work reveals the importance of material culture, of stuff and all sorts of artefacts people have accumulated – and that have become meaningful to them – throughout their life’s journey. Objects, such as a map of beads not only stand for a woman’s experience and knowledge, in the sense of representing it: as a literacy artefact and in the eyes of that woman, it IS literacy, as it incorporates and entails her experience and knowledge. I remember various discussions with linguists about whether things while being read as ‘signs’ by people, but missing a linguistically encoded form, could actually be considered ‘literacy’. While there is a scholarly dimension to this debate, of course, it also raises much broader questions revolving around issues of power and who is to say and decide what literacy is and what it is not.   The ‘Happy Hands team’ (Julia Gillen, Uta Papen, Ulrike Zeshan and Sibaji Panda), in its chapter, is looking at multilingual and multimodal teaching in a primary school in India where children from the deaf community are taught by deaf teachers. The authors give us an exciting and thought-provoking lesson in how such thinking – what literacy is for whom – can be approached differently and how the previously observed imbalance still privileging (oral and written) language in schools, can, in fact, be turned upside down. With their concept of accessibility, they suggest a radical paradigm shift that moves away from a conventional goal of schooling, which is to fit learning into the requirements of an existing mainstream curriculum – in their case the curriculum for hearing people – to an approach that aims to ‘improve deaf children’s ability to benefit from mainstream schooling’ (p. 207). This shift implies that it is not ‘literacy in English’ – the school’s chosen language of writing – that is the primary goal of literacy teaching and learning, but a commitment to ‘work with and support students’ developing semiotic repertoires’. The authors say: ‘the aim of such primary education is not “becoming literate” in a specific language but becoming increasingly able to manage a broadening semiotic repertoire, using multilingual, multimodal and multiliterate tools with growing competence and confidence’ (p. 220).  From the outset, this is different from most mainstream schools that, at least implicitly, continue to put language first and central. As far as languages at the Happy Hands school are concerned, the semiotic

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repertoire that children are in the process of building includes Indian Sign Language (ISL) that all children master and use as their main means of communication in the classroom, and written English, which they learn, using – not oral input – but mainly visual information, pictures and samples of written words that are retrieved by the children from internet sources and appropriated meaningfully in the classroom context.  If we say ‘sign language’, of course, it needs to be noted that a sign language is based on gestures that carry meaning, and on hand movements that perform these gestures in a space in front of the human body. Gesture and performing gestures are key. But sign language is also spatial, and the spatial dimension – where a gesture is performed in relation to the human body – can differentiate meaning. Therefore, space and spatial relations are explored creatively in the pedagogical approach that the school develops, e.g. to learn (spatial) prepositions in English, or to differentiate smaller and bigger numbers in mathematics, developing conceptual knowledge alongside spatial notions and dexterity.    Conceptually, this approach resonates with the work of colleagues in social semiotics (Kress et al., 2008) who ask about representation and the affordances of particular modes. This becomes an important curricular goal, when the authors say: ‘the aim is for the children to understand how equivalent information can be represented in various languages and modalities … how the different communicative resources can be managed’ (p. 218). This not only raises the question of what (meaningful) educational content is – a question asked also in many mainstream schools – it makes us think about how this content can be accessed in alternative ways if we start from the vantage point of the learner. In this case, the starting point is the ‘deaf world’ and community, a viewpoint that recognises ‘sensorial asymmetries in all dimensions of being’ (p. 209).   Pursuing this goal, the Happy Hands school and tutors do not start from any ready-made, pre-existing curriculum, by offering ‘access to educational content, through the added medium of sign language and literacy’ (pp. 213–14) but, rather, they aim at ‘actively recreating [content] in linguistically and culturally appropriate form’. They argue for the need to ‘recreate educational content in a “deaf way”’, helping children to develop ‘semiotic repertoires that are aligned to their needs as linguistic and cultural minorities’, as an act of rethinking social justice (p. 214). (2) Methodological problems

Both chapters discuss and contribute to methodological problems that have been raised when combining multilingualism and multimodality research. One problem – that Kate Pahl points out in her chapter, citing Janet Maybin – consists in ‘how to conceptualise different kinds of semiotic material and the relations between them in communicative practice’ (Maybin, 2013: 548). 

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There is a challenge to integrate verbal language, gesture and other modes analytically. While there are fine-grained models of multimodal analysis (Norris, 2004), the question is what we do, need and want to understand from such an analysis. From her own work with children, Kate Pahl shares how language activity is forming part of complex multimodal interaction – as in play that involves movement, staged action, the swirling about of sticks and swords, etc. In such moments, language, literacy and material culture seem deeply entrenched, and it is hard – and probably also not useful – to try to disentangle and tear apart individual components and to consider them as carrying meaning separately. While such data seem opaque and difficult to analyse in an integrated way, as Kate Pahl points out, she also notes that separating out language and disentangling it from the spatial movement and the bodily action that the little boy in her study is performing while entering into relationship with (non-human) parts of the setting of the action, would make us researchers lose out on important parts of ‘what is going on’, what is at stake for the boy and what the whole scene means to him.   Here, the ‘Happy Hands team’ provides an interesting example for how the trans-modal gap is being approached in the context of their study. They see Sign Language (accessible through gestures) and English (as a written code) as the two end points of a continuum. ‘Fingerspelling’ is seen as occupying a kind of ‘middle ground’. Fingerspelling means that hand gestures are used to spell letters of an English word if the word is unknown to the interlocutor or if the relation to a gesture/concept in sign language is unclear. The physical modality of the gesture is used by children and teachers in the deaf classroom to mediate meaning that is represented differently in two meaning-making systems, sign language and English. Fingerspelling could thereby be seen as one such possibility to integrate meaning-making systems operating in different modes.  Another interesting basis for understanding about how the multilingual and multimodal can become integrated in literacy learning is offered to us through the description of classroom pedagogy. For instance, learning about plants and what they need in order to grow (e.g. light and water), starts with an experiment and children putting plants into pots – some of them exposed to sunlight, others not. This engages children in activity privileging the experiential, the haptic and the visual. Children observe the outcomes of this experiment and then start to make sense of it, learn about the components and processes involved in what they have seen. They look up visual material doing internet research, followed by compiling a self-made compendium of what they have found, including the drawing of plants to which terms written in English are added. Writing is embedded in what authors of the Happy Hands team call a ‘learning journey’, which is designed around a complex and well-thought use of different materials offering content to children in different modes. Sign language is used all along as the main means of communication among the children and with the tutors.

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(3) Collaborative research

The authors in this section strongly advocate a participatory approach that is needed (1) to adequately address the needs of people who are said to be beneficiaries of our research and (2) to benefit research and help researchers to ask meaningful questions, those that actually matter to our participants and to society, rather than engaging in academic debate for its own sake. The Happy Hands team, referring to disability studies, points out: ‘In present-day disability discourse, the notion of “Nothing about us without us” is now widely accepted. Disability movements no longer want to be seen as passive recipients of access that has been designed by other people for them’. They claim more agency and ask to be involved in decision making that concerns the life and opportunities of members of their community. However, in the area of education this shift has not yet happened. It is still the case that education is firmly in the hands of professionals, and people with disabilities have little say in the matter. The Happy Hands team’s response is to give children an ‘active role in the selection of topics, activities, and in the creation of learning materials’ and to understand learning as a ‘co-creative process’, making co-creation the aim ‘rather than individually testable outcomes’ (p. 219). This approach challenges the very logic of (most forms of) schooling, which is based on measuring individual performance, enhanced by neoliberal education policies that have reinforced this logic and by testing practices following on from it.   A similar stance favoring collaborative approaches is adopted by Kate Pahl, who advocates ‘a methodological orientation that attends to lived experience and to ontological categories that are formed with participants in research projects. It might mean acknowledging complex linguistic heritages that are unwritten, or undocumented’ (p. 201). Or unsayable, unwritable.  Authors of both chapters highlight that a collaborative, co-creative approach is necessary. Not only because it is ethically warranted but also because it points us in the direction of new (or not yet sufficiently explored) research terrains – spaces of learning created by the deaf community, or (material) literacy practices set up by young people and families in their homes. This helps us to ask new and meaningful questions about what ‘literacy is and what it can be’, as Kate says, and how we can and should study it as researchers? How we can teach it as teachers? And where do we need to turn to seek for things we may have missed out on in the past?  The two chapters make a case for how we can obtain inspiration to re-design education – as ‘whole-design systems’, as suggested by the Happy Hands team – involving a move away from the pre-­ fabricated curricula and training/teaching materials for students and teachers, trusting in an organic co-constructive process. This may

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seem destabilising to many teachers and parents. However, it is worthwhile exploring what we can achieve by engaging more actively with built physical space (e.g. making designs and drawing on stairs, floors or walls in situ and during class time), and how this can enable multimodal participation in different forms and by children and teachers with different semiotic repertoires and abilities. This not only helps more learners and teachers to play an active part in learning activities: it also sensitises us, researchers, to the power of multimodality and multimodal semiotic repertoires. It helps us to overcome our own ‘language-focused’ bias, which can play out in one as well as in multiple languages. And it urges us to recognise the rights of marginalised communities, who have begun to challenge that bias, and to support their claims for change. The two chapters in this section make strong points and demonstrate in exemplary ways how collaborative and co-creative approaches can sharpen our attention to multilingual and multimodal practice. They also show how bringing together the conceptual lenses of multilingualism and multimodality can advance our research in the coming years. References Agar, M. (1994) Language Shock: Understanding the Culture of Conversation. New York, NY: William Morrow.  Barton, D. (2017) Literacy: An Introduction to the Ecology of Written Language. Chichester: Wiley. Barton, D., Hamilton, M. and Ivanič, R. (eds) (2000) Situated Literacies: Reading and Writing in Context. Hove: Psychology Press.  Bourdieu, P. (1977) L’économie des échanges linguistiques. Langue française 34, 17–34.  Boutet, J. and Heller, M. (2007) The ‘social’ in sociolinguistics: Towards a critical sociolinguistics. Langage et société 121–122 (3), 305–318.  Budach, G. (2012) Part of the puzzle: The retrospective interview as reflexive practice in ethnographic collaborative research. In M. Martin-Jones and S. Gardner (eds) Multilingualism, Discourse and Ethnography (pp. 319–33). London: Routledge.  Budach, G. (2013) From language choice to mode choice: How artefacts impact on language use and meaning making in a bilingual classroom. Language and Education 27 (4), 329–342. Budach, G. and Patrick, D. (2012) ‘Chaque objet raconte une histoire’: Les pratiques de littératie chez des Inuits en milieu urbain. Cahiers de l’Acedle (Association des chercheurs en didactique des langues étrangères) 9 (2). https://doi.org/10.4000/rdlc.2745. Budach, G., Kell, C. and Patrick, D. (2015) Objects and language in trans-contextual communication. Social Semiotics 25 (4), 387–400. https://doi.org/10.1080/10350330. 2015.1059579. Budach, G., Patrick, D. and Mackay, T. (2015) ‘Talk around objects’: Designing trajectories of belonging in an urban Inuit community. Social Semiotics 25 (4), 446–464.  Busch, B. (2012) The linguistic repertoire revisited. Applied Linguistics 33 (5), 503–523.  Comber, B. (2015) Literacy, Place, and Pedagogies of Possibility. London: Routledge.  Comber, B. and Thomson, P. with Wells, M. (2001) Critical literacy finds a ‘place’: Writing and social action in a neighborhood school. Elementary School Journal 101 (4), 451–464.  Dyson, A.H. (1997) Writing Superheroes: Contemporary Childhood, Popular Culture, and Classroom Literacy. New York, NY: Teachers College Press.  Fairclough, N. (2001) Language and Power. Harlow: Pearson Education. 

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Finnegan, R. (2018) Oral Poetry: Its Nature, Significance and Social Context. Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock.  García, O., Bartlett, L. and Kleifgen, J. (2008) From biliteracy to pluriliteracies. In P. Auer and L. Wen (eds) Handbook of Multilingualism and Multilingual Communication (pp. 207–228). Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton.  Hamilton, M. (2012) Literacy and the Politics of Representation. London: Routledge. Heller, M. (2001) Critique and sociolinguistic analysis of discourse. Critique of Anthropology 21 (2), 117–141.  Jewitt, C. and Kress, G. (2010) Multimodality, literacy and school English. In D. Wyse, R. Andrews and J. Hoffman (eds) The Routledge International Handbook of English, Language and Literacy Teaching (pp. 366–377). London: Routledge.  Kress, G. (2005) Before Writing: Rethinking the Paths to Literacy. Abingdon: Routledge.  Kress, G. (2009) Multimodality: A Social Semiotic Approach to Contemporary Communication. Abingdon: Routledge. Kress, G., Charalampos, T., Jewitt, C. and Ogborn, J. (2006) Multimodal Teaching and Learning: The Rhetorics of the Science Classroom. London: Bloomsbury. Manyak, P.C. (2002) ‘Welcome to Salón 110’: The consequences of hybrid literacy practices in a primary-grade English immersion class. Bilingual Research Journal 26 (2), 421–442. Manyak, P.C. (2006) Fostering biliteracy in a monolingual milieu: Reflections on two counter-hegemonic English immersion classes. Journal of Early Childhood Literacy 6 (3), 241–266. Marsh, J. and Millard, E. (2000) Literacy and Popular Culture: Using Children’s Culture in the Classroom. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.  Martin, A.D. (2019) The agentic capacities of mundane objects for educational equity: Narratives of material entanglements in a culturally diverse urban classroom. Educational Research for Social Change 8 (1), 86–100.  Martin-Jones, M. and Jones, K.E. (eds) (2000) Multilingual Literacies: Reading and Writing Different Worlds. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.  Maybin, J. (2013) Working towards a more complex sociolinguistics. Journal of Sociolinguistics 17 (4), 547–555.  New London Group [Cazden, C., Cope, B., Fairclough, N., Gee, J., Kalantzis, M., Kress, G., Luke, A., Luke, C., Michaels, S. and Nakata, M.] (1996) A pedagogy of multiliteracies: Designing social futures. Harvard Educational Review 66 (1), 60–92.  Norris, S. (2004) Analyzing Multimodal Interaction: A Methodological Framework. Abingdon: Routledge.  Pahl, K. and Rowsell, J. (2010) Artifactual Literacies. Every Object Tells a Story. New York, NY: Teachers College Press.  Pavlenko, A. and Blackledge, A. (eds) (2004) Negotiation of Identities in Multilingual Contexts. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters.  Scollon, R. and Wong Scollon, S. (2003) Discourses in Place: Language in the Material World. Abingdon: Routledge.  Singh, J. (2017) Unthinking Mastery: Dehumanism and Decolonial Entanglements. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.  Spotti, M. and Blommaert, J. (2017) Bilingualism, multilingualism, globalization and superdiversity: Toward sociolinguistic repertoires. In O. García, N. Flores and M. Spotti (eds) The Oxford Handbook of Language and Society (pp. 161–178). Oxford: Oxford University Press. Street, B.V. (ed.) (1993) Cross-Cultural Approaches to Literacy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Street, B.V. (2014) Social Literacies: Critical Approaches to Literacy in Development, Ethnography and Education. Abingdon: Routledge. 

9 Meaning Matters: Multimodality, (New) Materialism and Co-production with Young People in Applied Linguistics Kate Pahl

Introduction

This chapter provides an argument for bringing together the fields of multimodality, new materialism and co-production in applied linguistics. Drawing on my own research, I aim to take the reader through the journey that enabled me to understand the intersections between multilingualism and multimodality in the work that I did. In many of my projects I worked in a co-productive way, working with communities to make sense of their multilingual histories, drawing on their histories of practice and funds of knowledge. I draw on direct experience of fieldwork, together with reading in the field of literacy and language. I pay particular attention to questions of racial justice and inequality in the field of literacy and language. The context for my work is multilingual homes and communities. These spaces are sometimes described as ‘lacking’ something. I energetically resist this idea; instead, I argue that we have to construct new tools to recognise this. A linguisticjustice approach, as Baker-Bell (2020) describes in her work on why educators and researchers should recognise black language, enables us to do this work. I also take the reader on a reading journey, providing an insight into my ‘encounter’ with applied linguistics. I make no apologies for the partiality of this response but, rather, weave it into the empirical research work that I was doing, as an accompaniment. In doing so, I 191

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surface how reading and thinking go alongside empirical research, or, in Ingold’s words, reading ‘undergoes’ the work of scholarship (Ingold, 2015: 25). Ingold described the idea of undergoing, drawing on the work of Wieman (1961), as a way of gaining insight not into what people do but what they undergo, how they experience life. This signals a turn against defined action, and more into lived life. As a doctoral student, interested in language and literacy, and thereafter, I experienced applied linguistics as a process of ‘undergoing’. But, as I experienced it, I began to question and wanted thereby to change the field, introducing more messy, uncertain, visual, artistic and complex concepts. This chapter describes my journey and recognises it as a duration, a period of time, during which I myself changed and adapted my thinking.   In my writing, I weave my argument together with my encounters with homes. My initial research project for my doctorate was concerned with the literacy practices of three boys at risk of some kind of exclusion from school (Pahl, 2002). I continued to research ethnographically to develop understandings of stories and objects in homes (Pahl & Rowsell, 2010). As I researched, I became interested in a racial-justice approach, drawing on critical race theory to make sense of how young people’s narratives were heard, or not heard (Pahl, 2014). The studies were carried out over many years. In this chapter I particularly refer to the following studies: (1) An ethnographic study of three London homes with a focus on three boys aged 5–6 and their home literacy practices (Pahl, 2002). (2) An ethnographic study of one British Asian family’s home literacy practices, with a focus on collaboration with the family and the children of the family (Pahl, 2014). (3) Studies of home stories and objects, with British Asian households (Pahl & Rowsell, 2010). (4) A set of studies that explored children’s experience and perceptions of language and literacy (Escott & Pahl, 2017). (5) A study of ‘feeling odd’ in the world of education, conducted jointly with a cohort of children from year 3 (ages 7–8) to year 6 (ages 10–11) (Pahl & Pool, 2021). In all this work, I drew on sociolinguistics together with the New Literacy Studies (Street, 1997). I am, at heart, not a believer in applied linguistics as a discipline, although I like it and I have always loved the British Association of Applied Linguistics (BAAL) conferences, as they were full of friendly people. I have been concerned at the way in which linguistics as a field sometimes feels like an attempt to ‘tidy up’ the messy, complex and nuanced way in which people, especially children and young people, use language. When attending BAAL conferences in the early 2000s, I found the focus on ‘code-switching’ did not match

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the complex, multimodal, multilingual productions of the children I encountered, in my homes study, as they moved from bouncing on the sofa, to drawing, to inscriptions and play maps. These productions did not ‘fit’ the ways in which language was supposed to sit neatly in categories, and the concepts of ‘literacy’ and ‘language’ also spilled outside their accepted boxes. Leander and Boldt (2013) similarly describe events, while watching a boy, Lee, play from home, observing that:    The boundaries between play and reading and between physically active and more passive activities were not maintained. (2013: 27) 

In my work, I have always tried to retain a close eye on ‘what is going on here’ and the ‘going-on’ is often much more diffuse and ontologically speculative than the categories allow. This realisation pre-figures the insights of Parkin (2016), as described below.   When working in homes, both for the study of the three boys and in subsequent studies, I also found that things had agency. A tissue-paper bird flew across the room. Small objects were hidden under mattresses. Objects were multilingual and spoke with different languages. Multilingualism opens out a world of dialogic objects, that speak with multiple voices. By seeing objects and things as actants in meaningmaking ensembles, different interpretative understandings come to the fore (Escott & Pahl, 2017). As Ninja swords swoop through the air, in a world without language, the sword is the thing, not the word. This is the journey I take in this chapter.   Translanguaging across Modes 

Research that is working across the fields of multimodality and multilingualism has burgeoned recently, aided by the move to ‘translanguaging’ and the work of Kress (1997) in thinking about multimodality. The idea of translanguaging, as ‘multilingualism from below’ (Baynham, 2020: 15), fits the way I have worked in homes and better describes the complex meaning-making practices that I watched. Baynham argued (2020: 16) that it is important to ‘hear’ the voices of participants in research so that they can shape how concepts such as translanguaging are understood. He argued for the need to challenge dominant multilingual normativities (such as, I would argue, the problematic concepts of L1 and L2) by listening to what participants actually do. Consider the example shown in Figure 9.1. This was drawn at home by a six-year-old Turkish boy I called Fatih, as part of the study of children’s meaning-making in the home (see Pahl, 2002). This image is of a bird, and the word ‘Bird’ is written in Turkish as well as English. In the middle is the word ‘Gosh’ crossed out – this is the phonetic spelling of ‘Kus’ for bird. There is something here to be learned about

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Figure 9.1  Bird

the experience of the child who speaks Turkish at home and English at school, but also who is trying to make sense of words across those linguistic repertoires. The bird sits in its nest, undisturbed. These transmodal, transcultural and transnational modalities that I encountered in homes often took the form of artifacts, made and re-made and then sometimes displayed in the home. One such artifact was Fatih’s

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Figure 9.2  Bead map 

mother’s prayer-bead map, re-made by Fatih. His mother described to me how he would make maps with her prayer beads ‘like England, like Turkey, like Saudi Arabia’ and she outlined the shapes her son made (Figure 9.2). This map-making practice was both transcultural and transmodal – indicating in the shapes the specific countries the family encountered. Here, the concept of transculturalism signals both linguistic diversity as well as multimodality and culture, recognising the way that ‘identities are

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dynamic, plural, connected, local and global’ (Zaidi & Rowsell, 2017: 1). The bead map signals these transcultural identities, and is also artifactual. The object becomes an instantiation of a transcultural identity, with a history of its own, as a set of prayer beads. Here the concept of transculturalism is brought to life by the inventive bead map – an artifact made from another material, prayer beads, to signify journeys, countries, identities. Literacy, as a term, can be used to describe communicational practices that include oral, written and crafted multimodal texts. Finnegan (2015) critiqued the separating out of written language, oral speech, and musical and gestural understandings of language, leading to a questioning of the concept of ‘language’ as a bounded entity. An expanded view of literacy recognises how literacies themselves are multimodal, and ‘opens up new possibilities for considering what counts as literacy in young children’s lives’ (Flewitt, 2008: 125). There is an equity issue here, as practices and communicative modes not previously seen as ‘anything’, or described, sometimes, as ‘nothing’ come to be viewed as complex texts (Morrell, 2017). Children who compose multimodally, in multiple languages, can be less visible in school, which produces a set of expectations that tends to privilege particular literacies, including monomodal monolingual practices. Recognising these multilingual and multimodal practices requires different kinds of lenses and more expansive understandings of literacy practices and their relations to power (Street, 1997).   Research in Homes: Materiality and Literacy 

The experience of researching in homes is a sensory and material one. When I researched in homes, whether for the initial study or for subsequent studies of British Asian homes (see Pahl, 2002, 2014), I sat on squishy settees, and shared my fieldwork notebook with the boys, who bounced beside me, ran around the room, watched the television and played on their train mats. I drank cups of sugary tea and ate snacks. I watched the television and played video games. Tissue-paper birds, made hastily but with care, were stuffed under mattresses and came out to be thrown across the room. Toys laid out across a floor described arcs of thinking. The process of making in homes was material, and felt and affective. I found Gunther Kress’s Before Writing (1997) helpful in thinking about the idea of what is ‘to hand’: As children are drawn into culture, ‘what is to hand’ becomes more and more that which the culture values and therefore makes readily available. The child’s active, transformative practice remains, but it is more and more applied to materials which are already culturally formed. In this way children become the agents of their own cultural and social making. (Kress, 1997: 13)

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One of the aspects of research in homes that needs exploring more is that the ways of thinking about literacy and language, and the cultural ways of knowing that make up literacy practices, emerge from lived experience, over time, that is also cross-generational. Ideas about language and literacy that have been developed in universities might not reflect the lived reality of children who live multilingually, across languages, digitally and materially and within and across generations. The experience of screens and sofas is both material and (im)material at the same time (Burnett et al., 2014). Bilingual children do not view their literacies and languages as separate but, rather, experience them as simultaneous (Creese & Blackledge, 2010: 205).   From doing research in homes, I concluded that a conceptual framework that separates language into neat piles might not be reflecting the lived experience and communicational ontologies of crossgenerational multilingual speakers in home settings. Therefore, I began to think that the tools that applied linguists were using to conceptually understand language needed re-thinking in relation to the world in which children growing up in multilingual contexts were living. On a recent project, I explored the idea of ‘feeling odd’ with a group of year 3–6 children (see Pahl & Pool, 2021). When I watched children in central Manchester playing in the playground, swapping ideas in Urdu and mixing languages, drawing on their experience of playing Fortnite and Tic Toc and trampolines, I realised that the world of academia needs to come closer to these experiences. The experiences of lockdown and enforced home schooling have made this a more important, and urgent, question. The answer for me as a researcher was to propose the idea of children-as-researchers, as their expertise in their linguistic practices was important to attend to. Working with artist Steve Pool, I have more recently worked with groups of children who could articulate their worlds through their films and digital productions (Pahl & Pool, 2021).   Building theory ‘from the ground up’ is also complex as an endeavour. This attentiveness to re-think questions of ‘what is going on here’ presents some challenges, as Janet Maybin (2013) argues:   the theorization of multimodality and the ubiquity of digital communicative practice…have presented a range of challenges concerning how to conceptualize different kinds of semiotic material and the relations between them in communicative practice. (Maybin, 2013: 548) 

What we need to think about in applied linguistics is: what to pay attention to. I remember presenting the ‘bead map’ (Figure 9.2) to a group of applied linguists in a doctoral students’ seminar and getting the response that this was ‘nothing’. ‘Nothing’ is an interesting concept. I have been interested in ‘nothing’ and ephemera, and the firm ‘No’ of a child who doesn’t want to be in a study, or to read a book, and the ways

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in which young children’s linguistic choices are funnelled through a lens created by adults (Truman et al., 2020). As Ruth Finnegan suggests:   Selective choices are inevitable. …The resulting appreciation of the multiple modes of human life…at once takes us beyond the purely verbal and cognitive and uncovers the partiality of the narrow linguistic tale. (Finnegan, 2015: 14) 

What is seen as important to discuss in applied linguistics, then, is a political act. Baker-Bell (2020) emphasises a linguistic-justice approach. Rather than ask students to ‘code-switch’ and ‘fit in’, she describes the need to recognise black language and to actively champion it as legitimate, rather than ask students to adjust to a white linguistic hegemony. Her argument is that processes of linguistic sciences that recognise certain linguistic forms as superior have worked to place black students in a deficit position and render their communicative practices as lesser. Baker-Bell was building on a number of situated linguistic ethnographic studies of literacy practices, and a focus on action and change (Richardson, 2006). Linguistic ethnography offers the researcher the opportunity to situate the ‘what is going on here’ of language practices within a web of cultural and social understandings developed through ethnography. The work of Tusting (2000) in developing linguistic ethnography, drawing on the scholarship of Martin-Jones and Jones (2000), is an important part of this slow and careful recognition of existing literacy and language practices in everyday settings. In my work, I drew on these perspectives to re-situate and re-evaluate home literacy practices from a linguistic-justice perspective (Pahl, 2014). Artifactual Literacies 

My research has drawn on ethnographic methods to explore stories and objects (see Pahl & Rowsell, 2010). When I entered a home, the artifacts, colours and shapes in every home I entered enchanted me as visual artifacts – a blue green waterfall, a piece of Arabic script, a golden swan, came alive through stories (Pahl, 2012). This embodied, ethnographic and materially situated encounter with artifacts in homes, revealed the ways in which multimodal and multilingual communicative practices were woven together, and led to an understanding that a much more entangled idea of multilingual literacies was needed. I also learnt about the importance of recognising the value of grandparents and family relations, and their stories and objects in the home, as part of a meaning-making landscape for the children. As I listened to children talking about special objects, and narrating them, I realised that, for them, literacies were entangled in everyday stuff. In many contexts, the ‘stuff’ in homes (Miller, 2010) was material in actual ways – households

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were full of material stuff that was stitched and sewn and knitted. ‘Stuff’ is a term that is not easily categorised, as Miller (2010: 1) acknowledges. It is an un-bounded term existing in the everyday that, at the same time, recognises the ties that bind people and things. Weaving together ideasas-well-as-things was part of what I experienced in homes. One of the studies included an exploration of writing in home contexts (see Pahl, 2014). Here, one of the community researchers from my study reflects on this: The textile side of our heritage comes from the women in the family. We have older relatives that do appliqué, crochet, embroidery, sewing and knitting [from the girl’s mother’s side their grandmother’s sister and cousin and from their father side his two cousins who live close by]. My younger sister loves craft type of activities and buys the girls a lot of resources to do sewing and fabric work especially on birthdays, Christmas and Eid. (Written text from the girls’ aunt, email, August 2010)

The relationship between material objects and speech, and then to writing, is complex. As Maybin (2013) points out, there is an interrelationship between writing, material objects and speech that has yet to be researched. Objects can dance and come alive in stories, and stories are often embodied and linked to objects (Pahl & Rowsell, 2010). Building on this idea but extending this into the world of the non-human, Pennycook (2018) argued that there is a need for a more expansive view of language than is common in applied linguistics. This could include non-human as well as human stuff, as well as a re-thinking of the ontological position of the human in the non-human world. Pennycook cites the idea of ‘attunement’ as a way to bring to the fore voices that might not be visible or audible within a purely linguistic framework (2018: 106). Part of my concern when thinking about how applied linguistics works as a discipline, is to consider how this production of knowledge privileges, or does not privilege, less privileged communities and places. Ways of knowing and describing the world have been shifted by the recognition that there is a crisis of representation that dis-favours particular voices (Nagar, 2014: 82). The process of constructing a lens to look at literacy and language therefore needs to be shaped collaboratively. Here, I consider the questions: How are literacies conceptualised but also shaped and constructed from stuff within the everyday? What would happen to the concept of ‘literacy’ if it were to incorporate materially situated literacies within objects and in relation to material culture? This view of literacy begins to account for embodiment, feeling and affect, that takes a much wider spectrum of communicative practices into a definition of literacy. Enriquez et al.

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(2016: 9) argue for an account of literacies that includes questions of how the body feels within structures and they argue for a new language of description of literacy that accounts for the interconnectedness of embodiment and texts. An artifactual literacies approach enables researchers to make links from literacy to materially situated cultures but also enables a view of literacies as artifactual, diverse, plural and multivoiced (Pahl & Rowsell, 2010). This is a rich, tapestried, woven account of literacy and language practices, crossed with objects, stories, visual objects, gesture and digital as well as material phenomena. New Materialism and Applied Linguistics 

So, are objects themselves agents in communicative ensembles? In a study of children’s meaning-making in schools, we found that a new way of recording children’s multimodal production was needed. In our discussion about how objects have come to be important when looking at language-in-use, Hugh Escott and myself (2017) turned to the world of new materialism. We found the work of Thiel (2016) and Kuby et al. (2015) helpful in thinking about the affective power of objects in human and non-human encounters. We found that attending more closely to the interaction between objects and humans can de-centre the human and can address new issues that emerge in the entangled mix of childand-object. In a short film made by a group of 10-year-old-boys about a world without language, swords and paper became important actors in the meaning-making mix. We explored how a ‘Ninja’ sword could become an actant in a discussion, through a short play filmed by a group of boys, about the role of language. Objects as actors in a mediated world have been analysed alongside discourse by semiotics experts such as Roberta Taylor (2014). We found these insights helped us understand the ways in which objects themselves carry meanings. The way in which objects are entangled within literacy and language practices has opened out new modes of thinking. We found the opacity of the data (swords and paper) important in that it did not speak in oral or written language but moved through the air and jumped. This led us to a more ‘relational– materialist’ approach that sees the objects’ immanence as part of the unfolding activity (Rautio, 2014). Re-framing this world in this way has led to a number of turns into a post-human view of the world, where objects and humans might be entangled but both speak with multiple voices. This then de-centres the role of language and literacy in that mix and makes the field of applied linguistics even more complicated. Collaboration 

One of the key aspects of this work is to understand that definitions of literacy and language need to be more situated in the ontological

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worlds of participants as co-researchers (Parkin, 2016). Multilingual speakers’ experiences of growing up in multilingual families continue to be less researched from the point of view of children and young people. In their work on ‘theorising arts-based collaborative research processes’ Andrews et al. (2020: 118) talk about the challenges of cross-disciplinary work, and what they describe as ‘interthinking’. Drawing on the work of Phipps (2019), who has theorised multilingualism from the perspective of those who are multilingual, concepts such as ‘linguistic competence’ become problematic. Who has competence and who judges this competence. What is it to be incompetent? This, then, can open up a discussion about the importance of arts-based understandings that draw on diverse modes to make meaning (Pahl, 2019). A collaborative approach to understanding complex multimodal and multilingual communicative practices can open up a more emergent, affective, dialogic and relational account of multimodal and multilingual literacy and language practices. Translanguaging addresses the ‘process of knowledge construction’ in sociolinguistics (Li, 2017: 15). Working with community partners as co-researchers changed how I understood literacy and language in communities. In that spirit of dialogic research practice, I found it very useful to think of translanguaging as ‘speaking back’ (Baynham, 2020: 15). When I worked with young people, they helped me understand ways of engaging and creating meaning differently. Our work often took place in community contexts where young people took the lead (Pahl, 2019). For example, in a project situated in a youth centre working with a group of young people, which was concerned with the ways in which young people do, or do not, speak to government, the young people decided to co-create a script about feeling unsafe, and then present this as a shadow-puppet play. They also decided to dance to ‘Stamp on the Ground’ by the Italo Brothers. The ways in which they made meaning were shaped by their own modal choices and subtle, nuanced, cultural understandings. Working collaboratively with artist/film maker Steve Pool, they made a film that was shown to a group of civil servants in London. Unfortunately, the civil servants did not manage to have time to watch the film, although its bumpiness and difficult messages made it hard to listen to (Pahl & Pool, 2017).   Participatory methodologies alongside an ethnographic perspective can develop insights from young people that then unsettle what literacy is and could be. The ownership of concepts, ideas and research thinking on literacy and language can then be shared and co-constructed. I would advocate a methodological orientation that attends to lived experience and to ontological categories that are formed with participants in research projects. It might mean acknowledging complex linguistic heritages that are unwritten or undocumented. One of the reasons

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we need to do research with people in communities is that the books about the practices we find there have not yet been written. Literacy and language research is a utopian enterprise, one that finds its way in the half-glimpsed spaces of the ‘not yet’ (Pahl & Pool, 2020). Thinking forward, of what might be, requires a speculative, affective perspective, a hopeful attuning to everyday possibilities.   Reading and Correspondence 

This chapter has been written in correspondence with the reading I have done. Rather than see the reading as a backdrop to my ideas, I have tried to show how the ideas in this chapter were built up through a correspondence with a group of texts. Ingold (2015) talked of the practices of correspondence as being akin to a process of weaving. Here, I begin to weave in the ways in which I have learned, read, thought and re-thought in the field of applied linguistics. In so doing, I also pay attention to the politics of citation (Ahmed, 2017) and the ways in which exclusions have been perpetuated in the field of applied linguistics. I have learned by reading, itself a literacy practice. Applied linguistics tells stories of lineages and genealogies. It wends its way from early folklore linguistics and ends up entranced by objects, stories and visual and material stuff. Ahmed (2017) asks the question: Whose citations count and why? Carol Shields, in her novel Unless (2002), describes the thoughts of a woman mourning the apparent loss of her daughter. She begins to muse on the genealogies of authors and who cites who. Describing a man interviewed on the television, who then responded to a question about the major literary influences on him, Chekhov, Hardy and Proust, the author exclaims:  What’s the matter with this man? Hasn’t he ever heard of Virginia Woolf? Isn’t he brave enough to pronounce the names Danielle Westerman or Iris Murdoch? But of course it’s not a matter of bravery in his case: the idea simply does not occur. (Shields, 2002: 76) 

So, here I worry about applied linguistics as well. In some earlier edited books, male authors tended to ‘define’ the field; the female authors provided context and illumination. It is still the case that women from the communities described by applied linguistics are less likely to define and describe the experiences of translanguaging and multilingualism from below, with some notable exceptions (e.g. Rasool, 2019). But, maybe, I am now able to forgive applied linguistics its transgressions and, instead, admire its digressions, diversions and non-linear narratives. For as the chapters in this book show, and as so many recent edited volumes show, the voices of applied linguistics research are diverse, multi-voiced, polyphonic, and encompass everything from posthuman

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new materialism to discourse analysis. Perhaps I need to recognise that applied linguistics has nurtured many scholars, many women, and many of colour.   It is clear that the fields of linguistic ethnography (Copland & Creese, 2015; Tusting, 2000), multilingual literacies (Martin-Jones & Jones, 2000) and translanguaging (García & Li, 2018) have become increasingly diverse. Lytra, Volk and Gregory’s edited volume (2016), exploring languages, literacies and identities, defined a field, as did Enriquez et al.’s (2016) Literacies, Learning and the Body. The field of creativity and applied linguistics has been described by Moore et al. (2020). Badwan’s work (2020) on ‘unmooring language’, which explores the outer reaches of what language is, extends this work. Becoming the definer, not the defined, in applied linguistics is an important turn in the last few years. The messy world of applied linguistics has been taken over – its ‘stuff’ is strewn across the floor and across the scholarship, and the hybrid digital and multilingual worlds of the home and the ‘school gate literacies’ (Rasool, 2019) of the everyday have prevailed.   References   Ahmed, S. (2017) Living a Feminist Life. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.  Andrews, J., Fay, R., Frimberger, K., Tordzro, G. and Sitholé, T. (2020) Theorising artsbased collaborative research processes. In E. Moore, J. Bradley and J. Simpson (eds) Translanguaging as Transformation: The Collaborative Construction of New Linguistic Realities (pp. 118–134). Bristol: Multilingual Matters. Badwan, K. (2020) Unmooring language for social justice: Young people talking about language in place in Manchester, UK. Critical Inquiry in Language Studies 18 (2), 153–173.  Baker-Bell, A. (2020) Linguistic Justice: Black Language, Literacy, Identity and Pedagogy. London: Routledge.  Baynham, M. (2020) Comment on part 1: Collaborative relationships. In E. Moore, J. Bradley and J. Simpson (eds) Translanguaging as Transformation: The Collaborative Construction of New Linguistic Realities (pp. 15–22). Bristol: Multilingual Matters. Burnett, C., Merchant, G., Pahl, K. and Rowsell, J. (2014) The (im)materiality of literacy: The significance of subjectivity to new literacies research. Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education 35 (1), 90–103. Copland, F. and Creese, A. with Rock, F. and Shaw, S. (2015) Linguistic Ethnography: Collecting, Analysing and Presenting Data. London: Sage.  Creese, A. and Blackledge, A. (2010) Multilingualism. London: Bloomsbury.   Enriquez, G., Johnson, E., Kontavourki, S. and Mallozzi, C. (eds) (2016) Literacies, Learning and the Body: Putting Theory and Research into Pedagogical Practice. London: Routledge.   Escott, H. and Pahl, K. (2017) Learning from Ninjas: Young people’s films as a lens for an expanded view of literacy and language. Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education 40 (6), 803–815. https://doi.org/10.1080/01596306.2017.1405911. Finnegan, R. (2015) Where is Language? An Anthropologist’s Questions on Language, Literacy and Performance. London: Bloomsbury.   Flewitt, R. (2008) Multimodal literacies. In J. Marsh and E. Hallett (eds) Desirable Literacies: Approaches to Language and Literacy in the Early Years (2nd edn, pp. 122–139). London: Sage.  

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García, O. and Li, W. (2018) Translanguaging. In C. Chapelle (ed.) The Encyclopedia of Applied Linguistics (pp. 1093–1109). Chichester: Wiley. https://doi.org/10.1002/ 9781405198431.wbeal1488. Ingold, T. (2015) The Life of Lines. London: Routledge.  Kress, G. (1997) Before Writing: Rethinking the Paths to Literacy. New York, NY: Routledge.  Kuby, C.R., Gutshall Rucker, T. and Kirchhofer, J.M. (2015) ‘Go be a writer!’: Intra-activity with materials, time and space in literacy learning. Journal of Early Childhood Literacy 15 (3), 394.  Leander, K.M. and Boldt, G.M. (2013) Rereading ‘A Pedagogy of Multiliteracies’: Bodies, texts, and emergence. Journal of Literacy Research 45 (1), 22–46.  Li, W. (2017) Translanguaging as a practical theory of language. Applied Linguistics 39 (1), 9–30.   Lytra, V., Volk, D. and Gregory, E. (eds) (2016) Navigating Languages, Literacies and Cultures. London: Routledge.   Martin-Jones, M. and Jones, K. (eds) (2000) Multilingual Literacies: Reading and Writing Different Worlds. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.   Maybin, J. (2013) Working towards a more complex sociolinguistics. Journal of Sociolinguistics 17 (4), 547–555.  Miller, D. (2010) Stuff. Cambridge: Polity Press.  Moore, E., Bradley, J. and Simpson, J. (eds) (2020) Translanguaging as Transformation: The Collaborative Construction of New Linguistic Realities. Bristol: Multilingual Matters.   Morrell, E. (2017) Toward equity and diversity in literacy research, policy, and practice: A critical, global approach. Journal of Literacy Research 49 (3), 454–463.  Nagar, R. (2014) Muddying the Waters: Coauthoring Feminisms across Scholarships and Activism. Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press.  Pahl, K. (2002) Ephemera, mess and miscellaneous piles: Texts and practices in families. Journal of Early Childhood Literacy 2 (2), 145–165.   Pahl, K. (2012) Every object tells a story: Intergenerational stories and objects in the homes of Pakistani heritage families in south Yorkshire, UK. Home Cultures 9 (3), 303–328.  Pahl, K. (2014) The aesthetics of everyday literacies: Home writing practices in a British Asian household. Anthropology and Education Quarterly 45 (3), 293–311. Pahl, K. (2019) Recognizing young people’s civic engagement practices: Rethinking literacy ontologies through co-production.  Studies in Social Justice 13 (1), 20–39.  Pahl, K. and Rowsell, J. (2010) Artifactual Literacies: Every Object Tells a Story. New York, NY: Teachers College Press. Pahl, K. and Pool, S. (2017) Can we fast forward to the good bits? Working with film: Revisiting in the field of practice. In S. Malik, C. Chapain and R. Comunian (eds) Community Filmmaking: Diversity, Practices and Places (pp. 245–262). London: Routledge.  Pahl, K. and Pool, S. (2020) Hoping: The literacies of the ‘not yet’. In K. Pahl and J. Rowsell with D. Collier, S. Pool, Z. Rasool and T. Trzecak. Living Literacies: Literacy for Social Change (pp. 67–90). Cambridge, MA: MIT. Pahl, K. and Pool, S. (2021) Keeping an eye on the ball: Doing research-creation in school. International Journal of Art and Design Education 40 (3), 655–667. https:// onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/jade.12373. Parkin, D. (2016) From multilingual classification to translingual ontology: A turning point. In K. Arnaut, J. Blommaert, B. Rampton and M. Spotti (eds) Language and Superdiversity (pp. 71–88). London: Routledge.  Pennycook, A. (2018) Posthumanist Applied Linguistics. London: Routledge.  Phipps, A. (2019) Decolonising Multilingualism: Struggles to Decreate. Bristol: Multilingual Matters. Rasool, Z. (2019) Faith, culture and identity. In D. Bloome, M.L. Castanheira, C. Leung and J. Rowsell (eds) Re-theorising Literacy Practices: Complex Social and Cultural Context (pp. 209–222). New York: Routledge.

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Rautio, P. (2014) Mingling and imitating in producing space for knowing and being: Insights from a Finnish study of child-matter intra-action. Childhood 21 (4), 461–474. Richardson, E. (2006) Hiphop Literacies. London: Routledge Street, B. (1997) The implications of the new literacy studies for literacy education. English in Education 31 (3), 26–39. Taylor, R. (2014) Multimodal analysis of the textual function in children’s face-toface classroom interaction. In A. Maiorani and C. Christine (eds) Multimodal Epistemologies (pp. 228–244). New York, NY: Routledge. Thiel, J.J. (2016) Shrinking in, spilling out, and living through: Affective energy as multimodal literacies. In G. Enriquez, E. Johnson, S. Kontovourki and C. Mallozzi (eds) Literacies, Learning, and the Body: Putting Theory and Research into Pedagogical Practice (pp. 90–104). London: Routledge. Truman, S., Hackett, A., Pahl, K., McLean Davies, L. and Escott, H. (2020) The capaciousness of ‘No’: Affective refusals as literacy practices. Reading Research Quarterly 56 (2), 223–236. Tusting, K. (2000) The new literacy studies and time: An exploration. In D. Barton, M. Hamilton and R. Ivanic (eds) Situated Literacies: Reading and Writing in Context (pp. 35–53). London: Routledge.   Shields, C. (2002) Unless. London: Fourth Estate.  Street, B.V. (1997) The implications of New Literacy Studies for literacy education. English in Education 31 (3), 26–39.  Wieman, H.N. (1961) Intellectual Foundations of Faith. San Ramon, CA: Vision Press.  Zaidi, R. and Rowsell, J. (eds) (2017) Literacy Lives in Transcultural Times. London: Routledge.  

10 Peer to Peer Multiliteracies: A New Concept of Accessibility Ulrike Zeshan, Sibaji Panda, Uta Papen and Julia Gillen

Introduction

Our contribution to this section of this book, on working towards the intersection between multimodality and multilingualism, brings out a new concept of accessibility stemming from our work on the project ‘Peer to Peer Deaf Multiliteracies: Towards a Sustainable Approach to Education’ (2017–2020). In this project, multiliteracies have provided a key creative lens with which to work with young deaf adults and children in India, Ghana and Uganda, to support access to education for them. Drawing on multiliteracies, in the project we developed a pedagogy that supports use of a sign language (for example Indian Sign Language – ISL) with developing English literacy.  The concept of multiliteracies stresses that ‘literacy’ is a complex set of practices and competencies in various modes (Cope & Kalantzis, 2000; New London Group, 1996). The original arguments noted that in a rapidly changing world a dynamic approach is needed, acknowledging that reading and writing are interactions with multiple modes; linguistic and cultural diversity should be foregrounded; and that literacy pedagogies need to change to acknowledge that diversity and to support communications using multiple modes. For the deaf learners in our project, the priority was to develop their multilingual competences, which in their case includes different modalities between sign language and English. Full expression in either language is embodied entirely differently, although pedagogic bridges can be creatively devised and employed.    The ‘peer to peer’ element of our project reflects what is for us another crucial aspect of our ethos: we leverage privileges, including funding of institutions in the Global North, to support deaf-led initiatives. Our deaf students were taught by deaf teachers; their endeavours were in turn constantly supported by deaf research 206

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assistants. All were working co-operatively to leverage their developing multiliteracies, supported by other project members. The first author of this chapter, as PI of the project, brought to it multilingual competences and extensive experience in leading international projects involving deaf communities. The second author is director of the school discussed below and a leading activist and academic in Indian deaf education and sign language. The third and fourth authors acted as co-investigators, supporting the project from a multiliteracies perspective.   It is now essential to lay out the background to our project, specifically in India – the location of the project partner whose work we discuss in this chapter. In India, as in many countries of the Global South, deaf people continue to have limited access to education. Schools for the deaf, where sign language is used as the medium of instruction, are few and far between (Murray et al., 2016). It is not unusual that hearing teachers with little knowledge of sign language teach deaf children or young adults. There are very few deaf people qualified as teachers of the deaf. Hence, not only is access to education limited but the quality of that education is likely to be poor.   Deaf people are a linguistic and cultural minority. Education and literacy are not only a human right but they are needed for the achievement of social participation, economic integration and the well-being of all citizens (Hanemann, 2015). Given the limited access to education for many deaf people and the stigma that is still widely attached to sign languages and to deaf people themselves, a deficit approach is frequently the starting point for educational initiatives and policies. Access is conceptualised from the perspective of mainstream education, the aim being to improve deaf children’s ability to benefit from mainstream schooling. By contrast, our approach is strength based, not deficit focussed, and we conceptualise accessibility in a radically different way as we work with and support students’ developing semiotic repertoires (Kusters et al., 2017).   In our project, we worked with a large group of deaf researchers, teachers and students across four countries to develop and implement this new approach to deaf education, with a specific focus on sign language and English literacy and a commitment to co-creating curricula and learning activities and working with and developing students’ full semiotic abilities. In the following section we offer an overview of the project site from which we draw in this chapter: the Happy Hands School for the Deaf in Odisha. In the third we explain how our approach to multiliteracies has flourished in this school and we explain how the multiliteracies approach became a crucial aspect in how we conceptualised and enabled accessibility. In the fourth section we explain this new understanding of accessibility.  Overview of Our Project and the Happy Hands School in Odisha

The Happy Hands School for the Deaf in Odisha was established in 2016 in a small village located between Sambalpur and Sonepur.

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The Happy Hands School is a boarding school and the majority of its children come from families below the poverty line. It is the only school for deaf children in the surrounding area. The main language used, inside and outside lessons, is Indian Sign Language (ISL) and nearly all staff are deaf. A major purpose of the school is to enhance children’s access to ISL, their L1. Some children enter the school with little or no knowledge of ISL and thus in essence have been without language. Literacy is an essential component and English is the primary written language selected by the school, although it is located in a multilingual environment. English is perceived by adult deaf Indians to be essential for communication, future employment, access to cultural resources, including online, and therefore the preferred language for literacy.    We began this project having learnt two major lessons from an earlier pilot project (see acknowledgement for details). In the pilot, we had worked with young adults in India to support their English literacy, adapting Street’s (2012) ‘real literacies’ approach (Gillen et al., 2016; Zeshan et al., 2016). Teaching was focused on real texts such as signage, forms, rail tickets, and lesson activities were designed to support students’ active engagement with these texts. Grammar and vocabulary learning were to be embedded in lessons on real literacies, a notion referred to by local project partners as ‘Real Life English’. This deaf-led concept enlivened all our perspectives on what was being encountered: real life English could be engaged with in the street, online, in the home or anywhere; it was multimodal, often non-standard and unpredictable. Peer tutors were often only a little ‘ahead’ of students in comprehension and use, and everybody in the project was learning together. Emerging from this pilot were two key findings taken into the design of the larger project reported on here. Firstly, we moved conceptually from ‘literacy development’ to ‘multiliteracies’, taking account of students’ semiotic repertoires including ISL, use of digital literacies and the multimodal nature of their communications. Secondly, discussions with project partners and local stakeholders suggested a demand for us to develop our approach to use with children. This necessarily involves pedagogic shifts in working with very young children from the earlier ‘peer to peer’ emphasis, yet also brings vast possibilities in creating a more holistic and creative approach to enhancing their learning and well-being.   Multiliteracies and Accessibility at Happy Hands School for the Deaf

The multiliteracies approach posits that learners need to develop metacognitive thinking capacities, both to understand and express themselves through language and other modes, and to take critical approaches to developing knowledge and understanding of the curriculum. For Cope and Kalantzis (2009), a critical approach means a pedagogy

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that emphasises learners’ agency and that invites learners to compare and evaluate knowledge claims. In our specific context, criticality also meant that we took account of ‘alternative starting points for learning’ (Cope & Kalantzis, 2009: 188) relating to learners’ subjectivities and differences: in our case their situation as deaf children or young adults. Specifically, the critical element of our approach translated into a commitment towards accessibility for all our participants. The concept of accessibility recognises sensorial asymmetries in all dimensions of being (De Meulder et al., 2019). Accessibility in our project, as discussed in detail below, has multiliteracies and multimodality as its core and, as we will show, is transformative in its approach to how learning takes place.  It is impossible to summarise the overall project’s methodology here as it was a complex project chiefly in three countries and over a lengthy period of time. We would refer interested readers to our two open access books (Webster & Zeshan, 2021a, 2021b). Especially interesting might be the chapter by Nirav Pal giving examples of working with children and adults and approaches to analysis (Pal, 2021). While this chapter exemplifies our approach to working with visual materials, Deepu Manavalamamuni provides further insights (Manavalamamuni, 2021).   It is important to emphasise that project teachers devised the learning activities; researchers were providing support and analysis. Our overall ethos is to enable teacher autonomy. The deaf researchers and head discussed the project with the teachers and children in the school; this is more meaningful than it being presented as an intervention from external foreign and hearing research participants. Everything was explained in ISL and then consent forms, including use of images and video recordings, were discussed in ISL or the local language with hearing parents. Consent forms were affirmed in the relevant language or by teaching staff, when, as is common in boarding schools such as Happy Hands, teaching staff act in loco parentis. Ethical issues relating to the project were discussed with the teachers and children in the school. A key consideration was to enable the work of the teachers and children to be shared with wider audiences. The school has a very active Facebook site and the children in the school regularly create videos of their learning activities which they share on Facebook.   To give an example of our approach, we share two fragments of data from deaf researcher and teacher Nirav Pal at Happy Hands School for the Deaf, working with 10 children aged between five and nine years, in January 2019. First, illustrating what our data look like, we present an extract from a peer tutor report (Figure 10.1). All tutors provided monthly written reports about the lessons they had taught.   Figure 10.1 illustrates a number of key points. We point to the critical agency of Nirav Pal, who realises that although the children have some knowledge of number – when asked in ISL to write down a number

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Figure 10.1  Emergence of the topic ‘Working with number literacy and sign ­language’

they can do this – this capacity is sometimes decontextualised from an actual mathematical understanding. So Nirav devises activities that link the symbol to the concept, whether with relation to artefacts such as the knives in the first picture, or embodied with fingers as in the second picture. Further, he links the development of numerical understanding to a wider concern for supporting the children’s sense of identity, their pride in having a specific number of possessions, and being able to communicate this to adults.   Figure 10.2 demonstrates Nirav’s creativity in maximising opportunities for multimodality in his pedagogy, again concerned with developing the children’s mathematical knowledge. His activities are designed to support the children’s multilingualism and multimodal competences and skills in a rich way: these are so much more than ‘a maths lesson’ as might be imagined in a more narrowly conceived curriculum. He makes connections between children’s interests and capacities to act in the world, designed to enhance the children’s learning. In the first image, stairs have been numbered; the task was to throw the ball onto an evenly numbered stair. The concept of an even number is thus vividly illustrated in the physical world and tied to a ball-throwing game, encouraging greater dexterity. In the second and third images extensive craft activities are shown, bringing considerable powers of attention and manual skills together with the instantiations of numbering. Children are involved in learning in collaboration, producing artefacts of value in

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Figure 10.2  Stairs and balls; Number train; Jumping; Mixed number circle 

the process. The idea of blending physical exercise with number recognition was continued outside. A six-year-old girl, Bina, jumped onto spots according to the numbers signed by her partner. She signed that she now finds it ‘easy to jump well’. Further exercises also bring in the idea of a number as a symbolic index rather than necessarily associated with

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counting. In the final picture Bina has reached the final of a competition: a boy suggests a number; Bina and her peer sought to point to it first while the tutor adjudicates.   Overall, Nirav Pal embeds pedagogic principles drawn from established sociocultural understandings including learning through play, making connections to children’s authentic experiences and enhancing children’s capabilities to collaborate with one another (Rogoff, 2003). As Nirav embeds the teaching of numbers in ‘real life’ (authentic) experiences, including a game, without being familiar with this concept, he draws on the understanding of numeracy as a social practice and the important insight that the teaching of maths in school contexts can benefit from a teacher’s drawing on home or community numeracy practices, here a children’s game (Baker et al., 2006).   Accessibility from the Grassroots   Accessibility: What and who? 

In our work, we argue that the new forms of learning we create – ecosystems as we call them – are motivated by a different view of accessibility than is commonly assumed, by both laypeople and professionals. Although the notion of ecosystems arose in relation to biological organisms (Willis, 1997), it has since been applied to other interconnected systems, including those relating to education and learning. Hence we think of ecosystems in general as comprising ‘living and non-living components and all their interrelationships in specified physical boundaries’ (Guetl & Chang, 2008: 55), with a particularly strong emphasis on interrelationships. The most important insight from the work with deaf learners is our approach in terms of wholesystems redesign. That is, we do not construct specific and focussed interventions that address parts of the learning process, such as new learning materials, a teacher training package, or the introduction of technological tools. Instead, we redesign all parts of the learning system. What this looks like has been shown in work with young deaf adults that was conducted by the same research team with the same overall philosophy, as part of our pilot project (see Fan (2018) for an in-depth look at the resulting ecosystem of learning with young deaf adults in India). In addition to the components of the learning ecosystem, the redesign also includes a different understanding of the aims, roles and interrelationships of those who participate in learning. One aspect of this is in relation to the concept of accessibility. Our understanding of accessibility offers an alternative to common ideas of the concept, both in terms of what it is that is being accessed and in terms of who has agency in the process of creating this access.  

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The traditional assumption behind accessibility is that there is a given shared reality, whether physical or non-physical, that is more easily accessed by some people than by others. In particular, it is people with disabilities or other limitations – for example old age – who face barriers in accessing this shared reality. Under this assumption, the issue of accessibility is merely to remove the barriers. For instance, if the entrance to a building is via a staircase, adding a ramp will provide equivalent access for wheelchair users. For someone who is deaf but otherwise completely fluent in the relevant language of literacy, adding subtitles to a movie provides access to a largely similar, though not identical, experience. Having provided the accessibility features, the problem can then be largely regarded as solved.   Another concept is the idea of Universal Design (Mace et al., 1996), originating from the design of built environments. In Universal Design, accessibility features are not added on to existing environments as a secondary step (or afterthought) but, rather, the designer of the environment considers the needs of non-mainstream users of the environment from the beginning. The design should be such that it can be accessed by the largest possible number of people to the highest possible degree, so it would include features such as high-visibility signage, with Braille if appropriate, wide doorways, ramps, disabilityaware staff, and so on. In Universal Design, these features are built in from the beginning and, therefore, a higher degree of success in terms of accessibility can be expected due to the advance planning.   More recently, Universal Design has also been applied to information and education. This concerns aspects of public life such as mass media broadcasts, for example involving audio descriptions, sign language interpreting, the design of educational materials (with particularly ample possibilities in digital formats), and the design of classrooms (e.g. Bracken & Novak, 2019). Among these, access to education is much more challenging to achieve than access to physical spaces, because education is itself a complex process.   In our research, we ask what it is that the young deaf people in our learning groups are accessing. The main defining factor is that, as a linguistic and cultural minority, deaf sign language users have a world­view that is different from the hearing society. Advances in the field of deaf studies in recent decades have resulted in a substantial literature that discusses features of this ‘deaf world’ (e.g. Lane, 2005). The most important implication for education is that educational content is not merely accessed but actively recreated in linguistically and culturally appropriate form. This notion is different from accessing something that is already preconfigured and exists externally. Instead, the assimilation of knowledge and skills is actively mediated by the learners with the help of peer tutors as facilitators. Consequently, the aim of our project is not merely to offer access to educational content, through the added medium of sign language

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and literacy, but to support learners in developing semiotic repertoires that are aligned to their needs as linguistic and cultural minorities. Being able to confidently manipulate their own semiotic repertoires is seen in our work as the main avenue towards improving both educational outcomes and life opportunities of deaf sign language users. Furthermore, in order to make education truly accessible to deaf learners, it is necessary to recreate educational content in a ‘deaf way’ (Delaporte, 2002; Holcomb, 2010). If we take this proposition seriously, it immediately follows that the question of who is the ‘provider’ of accessibility in educational contexts will also change. Usually, the call is for either sign language interpreters in the classroom (in the case of so-called inclusive settings where deaf children are taught alongside hearing children), or, in the case of segregated schools, for teachers of the deaf to be fluent in sign language. Since sign language interpreter training and teacher training in special education is itself inaccessible to deaf people, these professionals are almost always hearing people. This is true not only in countries of the Global South but also in industrialised countries. In our project countries, this inaccessibility is heightened by the fact that primary and secondary education is very poor in quality. There are thus very few deaf people who are qualified teachers of the deaf.  Being a cultural mediator for educational aims is extremely challenging for people who are not already familiar with deaf communities and their culture. In our project countries, this issue is severely aggravated by the fact that hearing teachers of the deaf generally have very limited sign language skills. In India, for instance, becoming a teacher of the deaf does not necessitate fluency in sign language either upon entering or upon completing the professional qualification, and the component of sign language in the curriculum is very limited. In our learning spaces – for example in the Happy Hands School for the Deaf – the entire agency for the educational process lies with deaf people. Deaf learners and their deaf peer tutors together co-create learning that is meaningful and stimulating for them. This is an essential design feature of our ecosystems of learning (Fan, 2018). In present-day disability discourse, the notion of ‘Nothing about us without us’ is now widely accepted (Charlton, 2000; Ferndale, 2018). Disability movements no longer want to be seen as passive recipients of access that has been designed by other people for them. Increasingly, agency becomes a contested terrain. However, in the area of education this shift has not yet happened. It is still the case that education is firmly in the hands of professionals, and people with disabilities have little say in the matter. This is all the more damaging in the case of deaf sign language users, who need to manage such large linguistic and cultural gaps in relation to the hearing mainstream. Therefore, our ecosystems of learning prioritise the agency of deaf people

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over the perceived need for formal qualifications as educators. We would like to mention here that we do not entirely discount formal training and qualifications. However, formally qualified deaf teachers of the deaf are extremely rare in the countries where we work. As part of our project we have recently created curricula for professionalising deaf educators.  Accessible learning in a multiliterate, bilingual, multimodal environment 

We now turn to an example of how accessible learning happens in our project. The group of 12 children between the ages of eight and 11, were in their third year of attending the school. The school does not follow a strict grouping of children into grades or age groups. In the example that we show here, the children followed a series of theme-based learning activities related to the main topic of ‘trees’. The way this topic came up for learning is typical of education at the school: the peer tutor working with this class had observed that the children were interested in growing plants, and they were experimenting with plants outside classroom hours in their free time. When the class went out for a walk, the tutor therefore directed the children’s attention to the various trees, and together they decided to have trees as a learning topic. Thus from the very beginning, the learners were actively involved and empowered to choose what they would like to learn about. The first activity was to run an experiment in order to discover what it is that trees need to grow well. Together with the tutor, the children set up two saplings on the roof of the school. One sapling was covered with a black cloth and the other one was left open. In the discussion (via ISL) about the two saplings, some children expressed the opinion that the black cloth cover would be good for the tree, as the tree would be protected against the elements. Instead of correcting this view there and then, the tutor let the experiment proceed uncommented. After two weeks, it was clear that only the uncovered sapling had thrived, and the covered one had died (see Figure 10.3).  In conventional terms, this approach might be called ‘experiential learning’, and such an activity might be part of a ‘project week’.

Figure 10.3  Science experiment with saplings 

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However, the peer tutor has very little explicit training as a teacher and is unaware of such pedagogical notions. It just so happens that this kind of learning is very compatible with a deaf way of learning. Scholars in deaf studies have started to frame debates around deaf pedagogies and deaf educators, where deaf histories and cultures, sign language and deaf humour, or the preference for visual experience feature prominently (e.g. Ladd, 2011). Reading about a new topic and approaching things in an abstract text-based way is not the preferred initial approach in deaf communities. Given the choice, text-based activities will always come further down the line.  Once the scientific result was clear, the next step was to search the internet for pictures of various trees, other plants, and their parts, such as flowers, leaves, roots etc. The children learned to write the English words for these and created a table where pictures and words were matched (Figure 10.4). This activity involved multiple literacies and channels: digital literacy when searching the internet, drawing and writing words in English, and discussing the whole process in sign language.   With some vocabulary in place, the children then set out to draw a colourful picture of ‘What plants need’ on the classroom wall. This was an opportunity for the tutor to explain in more detail the role of sunlight, water, leaves and roots. In this way, the science lesson was combined with art, leaving a permanent display that everyone could be proud of (see Figure 10.5). Later, visitors to the school were presented with a complete signed explanation of the drawing and its meaning by some of the children. This indicates how much the class has taken ownership of their work, showing it off proudly to visitors and explaining it confidently.   As explained above, in the school, English literacy is one of the priorities. Therefore, at this stage the tutor introduced a short text in English about trees. With deaf primary school children, one main approach to reading is to create a fully bilingual environment where the text is presented alongside sign language (Goldin-Meadow & Mayberry,

Figure 10.4  Multiliteracies used for fact-finding and documentation 

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Figure 10.5  Drawing created on the classroom wall 

2001). That is, the tutor provides the same information in sign language, and goes back and forth between the written text and the signs, making the links. Children practised this ‘signing along with reading’, followed by a writing activity (Figure 10.6).   This kind of literacy work is bilingual (using ISL and written English) as well as multimodal. As we have seen, writing is integrated with drawing, and reading happens alongside signing. In the mix of modalities, fingerspelling occupies an important middle ground: its physical modality is the signed visual–gestural modality, but its content is not sign language but English. It is a representation of English spelling on the hands. Fingerspelling makes it easy to talk about English while signing, as it is possible to quote written words seamlessly at any time (see MacGlaughlin (2018) about the role of fingerspelling in deaf literacy).

Figure 10.6  Reading a text about trees 

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The aim of these activities is not to produce flawless English; some mistakes are readily tolerated and, in fact, the deaf peer tutor is not fully fluent in English either. Instead, the aim is for the children to understand how equivalent information can be represented in various languages and modalities, and to practise how the different communicative resources can be managed. Building up metalinguistic competence and the confidence to manage one’s toolbox of multiliteracies is the aim of such learning.   Finally, another learning activity focused on grammar, in particular the use of prepositions. Teaching grammar to deaf students is notoriously difficult (Cannon & Kirby, 2013), not least because sign languages are grammatically very different from the written languages used in the same location. For instance, ISL does not use anything equivalent to English local prepositions ‘in’, ‘on’, ‘under’ etc, and instead uses visually iconic signs to indicate location, that follow the objects being located. The preceding English reading and writing exercises had included some prepositions, and the tutor decided to create a focused grammar lesson about these, as they are difficult for ISL users. Again, he chose an experiential approach in the form of a game. Prepositions were written on separate pieces of paper, and children picked up these papers and then physically found corresponding locations – for example, by hopping inside a box or sitting down on a chair (Figure 10.7). Such games are a frequently used method at the Happy Hands schools. By the time of the final game, the learning journey had gravitated away from the original idea of trees as the topic. Therefore, the topic was closed and a new learning journey started. This entire learning journey took about a month, and children worked on the topic on and off, without a specific timetable. As argued above, learning included English literacy (reading, writing and grammar), art, digital literacy, and science. There was also a mathematics activity but this is beyond the scope of this chapter. Sign language plays a double role in this multilingual–­ multimodal context: on the one hand, the aim of learning is to improve children’s competence in expressing themselves in ISL, their first language; on the other hand, sign language is the medium of instruction, so it is nearly always present when other literacies, modalities and languages are used (see contributions to Webster & Zeshan, 2021a, 2021b).

Figure 10.7  Practising grammar in multimodal ways 

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In summary, these are the features that make learning at the Happy Hands school accessible to deaf children, in the sense of accessibility argued for in the previous section:  • Children play an active role in the selection of topics, activities and in the creation of learning materials.  • All communication about activities in the learning process is in Indian Sign Language, which is fully accessible to all children.  • The content of learning is embedded in a coherent learning journey, where the different ‘subjects’ are integrated with learning about the theme.  • The co-creative process of learning is itself the aim, rather than individually testable outcomes.  In our research, we do in fact run pre-testing and post-testing but the testing activities are indistinguishable from other activities; for the children, it is just a matter of playing another game or making another output.   Throughout this section, the notion of communicative and semiotic resources has been central to the discussion. To conclude, we return once more to the question of how accessibility arises from multiliteracies, multilingualism and multimodality in the case of deaf learners. Conclusion: The Role of Multiliteracies, Multilingual and Multimodal Spaces 

Our ecosystems of learning, such as exemplified in the sections above, deploy the power of multilingualism and multimodality to set up spaces where deaf people co-create their own constantly evolving learning. Paramount to this approach is the way in which agency lies with the deaf learners, tutors and researchers. In our work, deaf people are active at many levels, whether as peer tutors, research assistants, senior researchers, or non-academic staff at the Happy Hands school. Further research has now documented the ways in which these diverse deaf actors are benefiting from interactions with sign language users within the same project at increasingly professional skill levels through a variety of channels and modalities (Webster & Zeshan, 2021a, 2021b). By using multilingualism, multimodality and multiliteracies in a deaf-led programme we enable deaf people to access knowledge on their own terms, rather than education being imparted to them as an externally created package. Acquiring a wide range of semiotic resources is crucial along this path of accessing knowledge and skills. Hence the aim of such primary education is not ‘becoming literate’ in a specific language but becoming increasingly able to manage a broadening semiotic repertoire, using multilingual, multimodal and

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multiliterate tools with growing competence and confidence. Making use of their repertoire, deaf people in our programme are fully engaged in a curriculum that they themselves co-create, with learning activities that draw on their preferred learning styles, in a strengths-based approach (Dockett & Perry, 2016). As shown in the above examples, children and teachers co-creating and using visual materials around authentic experiences is a cornerstone of the curriculum. These examples also show that multimodality and the use of ISL and English impact positively on the children’s engagement with learning (see also contributions to Webster & Zeshan, 2021a, 2021b). This confirms the central role of a multiliteracies-inspired pedagogy in developing inclusive curricula, as Cope and Kalantzis, (2009) envisaged, and demonstrated in a multilingual environment in Finland through an innovative project working with young children who do not have Finnish as their L1 (Kumpulainen et al., 2018). Apart from establishing and documenting these new ecosystems of learning, with multimodality and multilingualim as their core, our work also reconceptualises accessibility in participatory terms through a variable model of deaf participation, from the young child learner with no knowledge of sign language to a research assistant (RA) able to work towards an MA qualification, and much differentiation and diversity in between. Our work demonstrates how such reconceptualisation arises from fruitful interactions of theoretical notions such as multimodality and multiliteracies with authentic grassroots contexts. Acknowledgements

This project ‘Peer to Peer Deaf Multiliteracies: Towards a Sustainable Approach to Education 2017–2020’, was funded by the ESRC and the former UK Department for International Development, which merged with the Foreign & Commonwealth Office on 2 September 2020 to become the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office (Ref: ES/P008623/1). The pilot project referred to, ‘Literacy Development with Deaf Communities Using Sign Language, Peer Tuition, and Learnergenerated Online Content: Sustainable Educational Innovation 2016– 2017’, was also funded by the ESRC and the former UK Department for International Development (Ref: ES/M005186/1). We are grateful to our funders for supporting both projects.  References  Baker, D., Street, B.V. and Tomlin, A. (2006) Navigating schooled numeracies: Explanations for low achievement in mathematics of UK children from low SES background. Mathematical Thinking and Learning 8 (3), 287–307.  Bracken, S. and Novak, K. (eds) (2019) Transforming Higher Education through Universal Design for Learning: An International Perspective. London: Routledge. 

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Cannon, J. and Kirby, S. (2013) Grammar structures and deaf and hard of hearing students: A review of past performance and a report of new findings. American Annals of the Deaf 158 (3), 292–310.  Charlton, J.I. (2000) Nothing About Us Without Us: Disability, Oppression and Empowerment. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.  Cope, B. and Kalantzis, M. (eds) (2000) Multiliteracies: Literacy Learning and the Design of Social Futures. London: Routledge.  Cope, B. and Kalantzis, M. (2009) ‘Multiliteracies’: New literacies, new learning. Pedagogies: An International Journal 4 (3), 164–195. https://doi.org/10.1080/15544800903076044. De Meulder, M., Kusters, A., Moriarty, E. and Murray, J.J. (2019) Describe, don’t prescribe. The practice and politics of translanguaging in the context of deaf signers. Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development 40 (10), 892–906. https://doi.org/10.1080/ 01434632.2019.1592181. Delaporte, Y. (2002) Les sourds, c’est comme ça [The deaf, that’s how it is]. Paris: Éditions de la Maison des Sciences de l’Homme.  Dockett, S. and Perry, B. (2016) Imagining children’s strengths as they start school. In W. Parnell and J.M. Iorio (eds) Disrupting Early Childhood Education Research: Imagining New Possibilities (pp. 139–153). London: Routledge.  Fan, H.R. (2018) An e-learning ecosystem for deaf young adult learners’ English literacy attainment in India. PhD thesis, University of Central Lancashire.  Ferndale, D. (2018) ‘Nothing about us without us’: Navigating engagement as hearing researcher in the deaf community. Qualitative Research in Psychology 15 (4), 437–455.  Gillen, J., Panda, S., Papen, U. and Zeshan, U. (2016) Peer to peer deaf literacy: Working with young deaf people and peer tutors in India. Language and Language Teaching 5 (2), 1–7. http://azimpremjiuniversity.edu.in/SitePages/pdf/Language-and-LanguageTeaching-July-2016.pdf. Goldin-Meadow, S. and Mayberry, R.I. (2001) How do profoundly deaf children learn to read? Learning Disabilities Research & Practice 16 (4), 222–229.  Guetl, C. and Chang, V. (2008) Ecosystem-based theoretical models for learning in environments of the 21st century. International Journal of Emerging Technologies in Learning 3 (1), 50–60.  Hanemann, U. (2015) Lifelong literacy: Some trends and issues in conceptualising and operationalising literacy from a lifelong learning perspective. International Review of Education 61 (3), 295–326. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11159-015-9490-0. Holcomb, T.K. (2010) Deaf epistemology: The deaf way of knowing. American Annals of the Deaf 154 (5), 471–478.  Kumpulainen, K., Sintonen, S., Vartiainen, J., Sairanen, H., Nordström, A., Byman, J. and Renlund, J. (2018) Playful Parts: The Joy of Learning Multiliteracies. Helsinki: Kiriprintti Oy.  Kusters, A., Spotti, M., Swanwick, R. and Tapio, E. (2017) Beyond languages, beyond modalities: Transforming the study of semiotic repertoires. International Journal of Multilingualism 14 (3), 219–232. https://doi.org/10.1080/14790718.2017.1321651. Ladd, P. (2011) Deafhood and deaf educators: Some thoughts. In G. Mathur and D.J. Napoli (eds) Deaf Around the World. The Impact of Language (pp. 372–382). Oxford: Oxford University Press.  Lane, H. (2005) Ethnicity, ethics and the deaf-world. Journal of Deaf Studies and Deaf Education 10 (3), 291–310. https://doi.org/10.1093/deafed/eni030. Mace, R.L., Graeme, J.H. and Place, J.P. (1996) Accessible Environments: Toward Universal Design. Raleigh, NC: Center for Accessible Housing, North Carolina State University.  MacGlaughlin, H.M. (2018) The role of fingerspelling in early communication, language, and literacy acquisition of deaf children. EdD. dissertation, Lamar UniversityBeaumont, Texas. Manavalamamuni, D. (2021) The influence of visual learning materials on learners’ participation. In J. Webster and U. Zeshan (eds) READ WRITE EASY: Research,

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Practice and Innovation in Deaf Multiliteracies Volume 2 (pp. 45–86). Preston: Ishara Press.  New London Group (1996) A pedagogy of multiliteracies: Designing social futures. Harvard Educational Review 66, 60–92.  Pal, N. (2021) Qualitative data from learner portfolios. In J. Webster and U. Zeshan (eds) READ WRITE EASY: Research, Practice and Innovation in Deaf Multiliteracies Volume 1 (pp. 195–236). Preston: Ishara Press.  Rogoff, B. (2003) The Cultural Nature of Human Development. Oxford: Oxford University Press.  Street, B.V. (2012) LETTER: Learning for empowerment through training in ethnographicstyle research. In M. Grenfell, D. Bloome, C. Hardy, K. Pahl, J. Rowsell and B.V. Street (eds) Language, Ethnography and Education (pp. 73–89). London: Routledge.  Webster, J. and Zeshan, U. (eds) (2021a) READ WRITE EASY: Research, Practice and Innovation in Deaf Multiliteracies Volume 1. Preston: Ishara Press. https://www. oapen.org/. Webster, J. and Zeshan, U. (eds) (2021b) READ WRITE EASY: Research, Practice and Innovation in Deaf Multiliteracies Volume 2. Preston: Ishara Press. https://www. oapen.org/. Willis, A.J. (1997) The ecosystem: An evolving concept viewed historically. Functional Ecology 11 (2), 268–271.  Zeshan, U., Fan, H.R., Gillen, J., Panda, S., Papen, U., Tusting, K., Waller, D. and Webster, J. (2016) Summary report on ‘literacy development with deaf communities using sign language, peer tuition, and learner-generated online content: Sustainable educational innovation’. https://islandscentre.files.wordpress.com/2016/10/summary-report-p2pdl1. pdf.

Concluding Thoughts: Labouring Together towards Generous Cuts in Language and Literacy Education Khawla Badwan 

The questions, debates and arguments that this book presents respond to a range of contemporary ontological and epistemological challenges in the fields of literacy studies, applied linguistics, sociolinguistics and education. These fields, among many other social (sub-)disciplines, continue to grapple with the legacy of colonialism that has been crucial to sustaining narrow understandings and framings of what counts as ‘language’ and ‘literacy’ and who is seen as a ‘knower’, ‘user’ and ‘speaker’ within white epistemological frames that centre whiteness as the normal way of being. Such frames, Budach tells us in this volume (Introduction to Part 3), inform the colonially entrenched values and discourses of state monolingualism that stubbornly control educational systems in ways that are restrictive and restricting. This book engages with De Sousa Santos’ (2018: viii) call for changing the world ‘while constantly reinterpreting it’. Throughout its different parts and chapters, readers are reminded that, through engaging with the world multilingually and multimodally, we stand a better chance of coming to grips with its infinite multiplicity of knowledges, while challenging, and moving beyond, universal claims, general theories and grand narratives. What the authors in this book tell us is that we need to labour together towards an expansive politics of knowledge about language and literacy in order to produce future goodness that embraces, fosters and affirms different ways of meaning-making, especially those ways that are otherwise deemed ‘odd’, ‘irrelevant’ or ‘nothing’ in oppressive homogenising educational structures. This book offers spotlights of liberation that are traceable and hopeful, yet messy, challenging, uncomfortable and far from being straightforward. What the authors in this book show us is that it is possible to claim language 223

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and literacy back, liberating it from its self-claimed masters who for a very long time have continued to guard against change under ideological claims of protecting language and literacy ‘standards’ and ethical claims of giving marginalised people tools for ‘social mobility’ through insisting that their minoritised, racialised, sub-standard ways of speaking and meaning-making need fixing in the direction of the white speaker (Alim, 2019). This book turns these claims on their heads, rejecting a vision of language and literacy that can be separated from the world, with its complexity, diversity, mobility and multimodality.   In what follows, I start by expanding on what Kuby et al. (2019) refer to as ‘cuts too small’ with reference to existing educational structures and arrangements, arguing that they stem from normative frames that are ‘too White’, ‘too monolingualising’, ‘too neat’ and ‘too narrow’. After that, I demonstrate the importance of opening up, expanding, and going beyond these troubling frames – in ways that allow us to ‘stay with the trouble’ as we are grappling with our ‘thick present’ (Haraway, 2016); a present that is becoming thicker in an always shifting political landscape, with new and old challenges such as climate change, neoliberal politics, necropolitics, xenophobic populism, racism, gender inequality, displacement, class struggles, post-truth politics… and the list goes on. In response to these challenges, we are reminded by Latour (2004) that we need to start with rethinking our relation to matters of concern, and, in this book, the authors foreground multilingualism and multimodality as urgent matters of concern in relation to what counts as knowledge and meaning-making in a troubled world, whereby individuals – young and old – experience the social symbolic pressure of language and communication in ways that have transformed critical understandings of what ‘language’ is, or might mean. To this end, Kramsch (2021: 3) asserts that ‘language has become less a mode of information than a mode of impression management and emotional manipulation’. This book responds to the symbolic violence of language borne out of narrow, prescriptivist ideologies by pushing towards generous cuts while holding on to the belief that ‘language is not merely a passive way of referring to or describing things in the world, but a crucial form of social action itself’ (Rosa, 2019: 35). Therefore, this book comes with an activist agenda that speaks directly to educational institutions and individuals who see in language and literacy education a core aspect of their job. In the last section of this chapter, I call for labouring together to create conditions for massing that spring from the practice of radical hope which, while acknowledging fundamental injustices that inform educational aspects of language and literacy, insists that we can find ways forward. These ways shall not be determined through clear or straightforward road maps, but through ‘affirmative ethics’ (Braidotti, 2019) that engender our collaboration to open up spaces for creativity, difference and fostership.  

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Troubling Frames of Language and Literacy in Education: ‘Too White’, ‘too monolingualising’, ‘too neat’, and ‘too narrow’ 

Butler’s (2009) Frames of War is concerned with frames and framing processes through which we apprehend or fail to apprehend the lives of others, while maintaining the view that such frames are politically saturated. Butler (2009: 1) demonstrates that, ‘if certain lives do not qualify as lives or are, from the start, not conceivable as lives within certain epistemological frames, then these lives are never lived nor lost in the full sense’. Here, I refer to these frames as troubling frames because in the context of language and literacy, they are used to categorise language and literacy practices into two main categories: grievable and non-grievable (Badwan, 2021). These categories are inspired by Butler (2009), who explains that grievable lives are those whose loss is a prelude to grief and that this does not apply to all lives because there is a difference between living and having a life. To have a life means to exist socially and politically, to be recognised and valued in your presence and missed in your absence. In my book (Badwan, 2021), I extend the characteristic of being ‘grievable’ to language and literacy. That is to say, when certain language and literacy practices are deemed ‘grievable’, they become recognised in their presence and missed in their absence. The recognition is normative, framed through politically and racially saturated epistemologies. Following Butler (2009), we need to ask about the conditions under which it becomes possible and acceptable to apprehend certain language and literacy practices as valued, and those that make it less possible or even impossible. Throughout this book, the authors have presented different types of ‘non-grievable’ language and literacy practices, such as the ones that have no place in the school, including the multilingual paper that never made it to the classroom (see Lytra, Introduction to Part 1, this volume).   What we learn from the different chapters in this book is that individuals, especially young people, experience the dilemma of navigating the tension between ‘school literacy’ and ‘home literacies’, while living between languages, cultures, worldviews, modalities, technological possibilities and multiplicities of knowledge. And, from a very young age, they start to see the need to conform to the narrow framing of what counts as literacy at school (and education in general) as they engage in processes of self-positioning to reduce the intensity of their ‘oddness’, ‘foreignness’, ‘racialised bodies’ and ‘minoritised histories’ (Badwan, 2021). They do this with the view that to possess grievable language and literacy practices means to adjust in the direction of the grievable ‘popular culture’, described by Bourdieu and Wacquant (1992: 82) as ‘policies of cultural upgrading aimed at providing the dominated with access to dominant cultural goods or, at least, to a degraded version of this culture’. These policies continue to inform

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language and literacy education, sugar coated with claims that social justice can only be achieved through giving everyone access to basic linguistic needs. At the same time, the same policies create a stubborn binary between so-called ‘native’ or ‘non-EAL’ children and ‘non-native’ or ‘EAL’ children. EAL stands for English and an Additional Language and is a label used in schools in the UK to refer to ‘any pupil who has indicated that he or she speaks, or is thought to speak, a language at home that is not English’ (Cunningham, 2019: 124). This label produces a stubborn dualism (Viegen, 2020: 55) that reproduces hierarchies, assumptions, expectations and discourses about particular kinds of bodies; often racialised, othered, marginalised, and labelled as migrant, minoritised or non-white. The question that asks itself here is: What messages do these educational policies, labels and discourses send to children and young people who do not fit the white mould in education? To this, Morrison (1998) responds:   ...as though our lives have no meaning and no depth without the White gaze. And I have spent my entire life trying to make sure that the White gaze was not the dominant one in any of my books… This was a brandnew space and once I got there, it was like the whole world opened up, and I was never going to give that up. (From a TV interview with Charlie Rose)

As the chapters throughout this book demonstrate, the authors continue to present different ways of (re-)imagining this ‘whole world’ that we can open up by insisting on passing on, and going beyond, the ‘White gaze’ in language and literacy education. What we learn from Morrison (1998) is that language not only means but also matters, and so the hope of the book is to expand the scope of relevance of language and literacy studies through alternative forms of knowledge, embodied experiences, emotions and multimodal assemblages of meaning-making processes.   Not only are mainstream language and literacy frames too white, but they are too monolingualising, too narrow and too neat. When children exist in a system that turns its back on the complexity of their languaging practices and experiences, these children are asked to overlook the learning and becoming that can, and does indeed, occur in other languages, knowledges and worldviews. I agree with Alim and Paris (2017) that this outdated philosophy that insists on asking children and young people to conform to white, middle-class, monolingual forms of language and literacy will not grant young people access to power; rather, it may increasingly deny them that access (Alim & Paris, 2017: 6), position them as ‘languageless’ (Rosa, 2019) and ultimately push them out of the education system.  

Concluding Thoughts  227

We need to question these frames, how they are enacted in the everyday lives of children and young people, the processes that sustain them and our role in reproducing or challenging them. This book highlights the deep inequalities in the ways that discourses about language and literacy are affirmed and distributed and opens up possibilities for changing this while acknowledging that we need new ways for thinking, doing, imagining and practising language and literacy research while joining the dots between bodies, spaces, places, race, lives, affects, stories, histories, struggles, politics and activism. While doing so, we need to identify the different ontologies of language and literacy to understand what counts as ‘language’ and ‘literacy’, for whom and under which conditions. For instance, we need to be clear on the ontological tensions associated with understanding this thing we call ‘language’. While there are multiple ontological frames to consider here (cf. Hall, 2020), I highlight two ontological frames of language that are often at odds with one another. First, there is the view that perceives language to be an ‘idealised internal’ system (Hall, 2013) that can be imagined as an ‘industrial skill’ in an education system whose core mission is to train children and young people to not only acquire but also to master this idealised skill. This view is described by Gramling (2021: 7) as ‘linguaphobic, racist, half-baked, or, at best, partial’. On the other hand, there is the view that treats language as a verb that refers to socially embedded processes enacted in actual communication (Hall, 2020) and which cannot be neatly conceptualised as a skill. Similarly, we need to recognise the ontological tensions associated with the term ‘literacy’. On the one hand, there is a monolithic view of literacy. One that is neat and narrow and treats literacy as a skill to do with reading and writing, coding, and decoding certain types of texts and language registers. On the other, there is the view that has been promoted in this book: one that sees in literacy complex social lives and plurilithic situated practices embedded and embodied in spatial, technological and material affordances and conditions.   We need to ask who benefits from these neat and narrow understandings, and implementations, of literacy in mainstream education? Who do they exclude and why? As we engage with these questions, among many others, we can come to grips with the troubling reality that mainstream education is based on cuts that are too small (Kuby et al., 2019). These arrangements are too small for the migrant, the mobile, the racialised, the working class, the poor, the deaf, the disabled, the marginalised and the minoritised. They exclude much more than they include. The authors in this book respond to this stubborn educational challenge arguing for the need to call out deficit framings that disregard and disadvantage numerous ways of communicating, feeling and being (Rowsell, Introduction to Part 2, this volume). And while they revisit the notion of accessibility in primary education for

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deaf children, Gillen, Papen, Zeshan and Panda challenge the readers of this volume to re-think the purpose of primary education in the 21st century when they say:  [T]he aim of such primary education is not ‘becoming literate’ in a specific language but becoming increasingly able to manage a broadening semiotic repertoire (Kusters, et al., 2017), using multilingual, multimodal and multiliterate tools with growing competence and confidence. (pp. 219–220)

One might be left to wonder what would primary education be like if its key focus were nurturing and expanding semiotic repertoires while attending to the multilingual, the multimodal, the technological, the spatial, the affective and the more-than-human?   In the next section, I discuss the role of educators in massing together generous cuts that foster an understanding of literacy as ‘a relational doing, an enactment, a becoming, which leaves material traces in the world’ (Newfield & Bozalek, 2019: 47) and perceive language as a verb with, ‘no boundaries: open, dynamic, overlapping, creative, responsive, proactive, human, post-human, and always in the making’ (Badwan, 2021: 7), weaving together generous cuts that accommodate, include and foster voices and lives that have remained voiceless, invisible and non-grievable in biased educational policies around language and literacy. Educators Massing Together towards Generous Cuts 

The above discussion points towards two key challenges that language and literacy educators are often faced with. First, discussions about language and literacy in education often operate within ‘contentious spaces’ (Bucholtz et al., 2017: 53), with deeply entrenched features of institutional racism and classism. We need intellectual massing and renovations to keep an eye on the politics at play, such as racial discrimination and white normativity. Ultimately, this requires labouring together to do critical work that does not only provide a better analysis of inequalities in our contexts, or advocates for a better world. Rather, it is the critical work that painfully and meaningfully engages with the question, ‘[h]ow do we work toward change in the contexts of our work, where issues of language sit at the heart of forms of inequality?’ (Pennycook, 2021: 21). This laborious, unsettling and uncomfortable work requires an exploration of our bondage as education researchers, leaders and practitioners in order to embrace what Braidotti (2019: 173) refers to as ‘affirmative ethics’ that aim to ‘collectively construct conditions that transform and empower our capacity to act ethically and produce social horizons of hope, or sustainable futures’. Through affirmative ethics, educators can mass together threads and knots of hope, fostership,

Concluding Thoughts  229

activism, trialling and experimenting. These threads continue to twist and mesh by the experience of their complex massing. This massing is powerful, meaningful and impactful, weaving together, unfolding and unravelling in multiple directions while heading towards a future it cannot yet imagine. Yet, it is a massing that points towards generous cuts that create nurturing conditions for self-determination and civic participation for the linguistically marginalised.   The second challenge is that educators will frequently be faced with theories that get in the way of real work. This challenge is not unlinked to the first one. As we mass together conditions for critical, activist work, we will ultimately enter the room with different ontoepistemological positions and theories. Weedon (1987: 7) comments on the role of theory in critical work by explaining that ‘rather than turning our backs on theory and taking refuge in experience alone, we should think in terms of transforming both the social relations of knowledge production and the type of knowledge produced’. That is to say, we should not treat theory as impenetrable, stable or unquestionable, but we need to problematise the conditions under which theories emerged, thinking about social structure, knowledge production, pedagogy and politics (Pennycook, 2021), embracing the fluidity, uncertainty and the need to constantly ‘stay with the trouble’ (Haraway, 2016).   However, to stay with the trouble and be response-able, we need to empower one another, collaborate, and practise generative joy and collective thinking (Haraway, 2016). This book presents numerous examples of collective thinking that has produced a listening and observing project of depth, width, integrity and activism. Together, the chapters in this book speak of radical hope that acknowledges the fundamental injustices of the everyday, yet they stubbornly insist on finding ways forward. These ways are attuned to the embodied, the lived, the affective, the spatial, the material, the non-human, the morethan-human and the always in-the-making, signalling a stubborn commitment to what Grosz (2017) calls ‘ontoethics’. This term refers to ‘ways of thinking about not just the world as it is but how it could be, how it is open to change, and above all, the becomings it may undergo’ (Grosz, 2017: 1). What we learn from the different chapters in this book is that the collective labouring that the book embodies signals the towardness of the intersections that bring together curious literacies and multimodalities in ways that challenge the status quo. And yes, the book imagines a future it cannot see yet. A state of being linked to the notion of desiring, as explained by a Deleuzian scholar Danial Smith (2012) when he asserts: ‘desire is about something that we perhaps don’t know or see yet’. As such, the examples presented in this book do not represent finished attempts, neat answers or simple fixes to the wicked problem of language and literacy in education: rather, they open up windows and cracks into the yet-to-be-imagined.

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Let us continue thinking, desiring, collaborating, puzzling and pondering about these things we call ‘language’ and ‘literacy’, while learning and un-learning from individuals who have been historically deemed as ‘less human’. We need to acknowledge the dominance of political prejudice and white normativity in the epistemic injustices of our world. We need to learn, collaboratively and vulnerably, from children, young people, the mobile, the racialised, the minoritised, the othered and the marginalised so that one day our definitions of language and literacy in education can be hopeful, accommodating and generous enough to cope with the unboundedness and creativity of languaging and meaning-making processes.   References  Alim, S. (2019) (De)occupying language. In N. Avineri, L. Graham, E. Johnson, R. Riner and J. Rosa (eds) Language and Social Justice in Practice (pp. 184–192). London: Routledge.  Alim, S. and Paris, D. (2017) What is culturally sustaining pedagogy and why does it matter? In D. Paris and S. Alim (eds) Culturally Sustaining Pedagogies: Teaching and Learning for Justice in a Changing World (pp. 1–21). New York, NY: Teachers College Press.   Badwan, K. (2021) Language in a Globalised World: Social Justice Perspectives on Mobility and Contact. Cham: Palgrave.  Bourdieu, P. and Wacquant, L. (1992) An Invitation to Reflexive Sociology. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.  Braidotti, R. (2019) Posthuman Knowledge. Cambridge: Polity Press.  Bucholtz, M., Casillas, D. and Lee, J. (2017) Language and culture as sustenance. In D. Paris and S. Alim (eds) Culturally Sustaining Pedagogies: Teaching and Learning for Justice in a Changing World (pp. 43–60). New York, NY: Teachers College Press.   Butler, J. (2009) Frames of War. London: Verso.  Cunningham, C. (2019) Terminological tussles: Taking issue with ‘English as an Additional Language’ and ‘Languages Other than English’. Power and Education 11 (1), 121–128.  De Sousa Santos, B. (2018) The End of the Cognitive Empire: The Coming of Age of Epistemologies of the South. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.  Gramling, D. (2021) The Invention of Multilingualism. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Grosz, E. (2017) The Incorporeal: Ontology, Ethics and the Limits of Materialism. New York, NY: Columbia University Press.  Hall, C. (2013) Cognitive contributions to plurilithic views of English and other languages. Applied Linguistics 34 (2), 211–231.   Hall, C. (2020) An ontological framework for English. In C. Hall and R. Wicaksono (eds) Ontologies of English: Conceptualising the Language for Learning, Teaching and Assessment (pp. 13–36). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.    Haraway, D. (2016) Staying with the trouble: Making kin in the Chthulucene. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.   Kramsch, C. (2021) Language as Symbolic Power. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.  Kuby, C., Spector, K. and Thiel, J. (2019) Cuts too small: An introduction. In C. Kuby, K. Spector and J. Thiel (eds) Posthumanism and Literacy Education (pp. 1–17). New York, NY: Routledge. Kusters, A., Spotti, M., Swanwick, R. and Tapio, E. (2017) Beyond languages, beyond modalities: Transforming the study of semiotic repertoires. International Journal of Multilingualism 14 (3), 219–232.   Latour, B. (2004) Why has critique run out of steam? From matters of fact to matters of concern. Critical Inquiry 30 (2), 225–248. 

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Morrison, T. (1998) From an interview with Charlie Rose. Retrieved from: https:// charlierose.com/videos/17664  Newfield, D. and Bozalek, V. (2019) A Thebuwa hauntology: From silence to speech. In C. Kuby, K. Spector and J. Thiel (eds) Posthumanism and Literacy Education (pp. 37–60). New York, NY: Routledge.  Pennycook, A. (2021) Critical Applied Linguistics: A Critical Re-introduction. London: Routledge.   Rosa, J. (2019) Looking Like a Language, Sounding like a Race: Raciolinguistic Ideologies and the Learning of Latinidad. Oxford: Oxford University Press.   Smith, D. (2012) Essays on Deleuze. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.   Viegen, S. (2020) Becoming posthuman: Bodies, affect, and earth in the school garden. In K. Toohey, S. Smythe, D. Dagenais and M. Forte (eds) Transforming Language and Literacy Education: New Materialism, Posthumanism, and Ontoethics. New York, NY: Routledge.   Weedon, C. (1987) Feminist Practice and Poststructuralist Theory. Oxford: Blackwell.

Index

Abrams, S.S. 99 abstract thinking skills 42 academic language varieties 7 accents 58, 62, 65 accessibility 185, 208–19, 227–8 Acheson, J. 120 action research 31, 93 additive bilingualism 160 aesthetics 144 affect turn xxi, 102–5, 106 affective embodiment 142, 144–5 affirmative ethics 224, 228–9 affordances 54, 102, 106, 170, 186, 227 Agar, M. 184–5 Ahmed, S. 202 AILA (International Association for Applied Linguistics) 160 Alim, S.A. 5, 9, 59, 64, 65, 102, 224, 226 Alvermann, D.E. 144, 150, 152, 154 ambiguity 79, 82 Andrews, J. 201 Antonsich, M. 60 Aphrodite and the Death (Jacobsson, 2006) 145–7 apparent statements of facts 129–30 applied linguistics 110–22, 160–6, 172, 197, 199, 200, 202–3, 223 appraisal connections 144–5, 149, 151, 152, 153, 154 art 158–74, 201, 216 artifacts 93, 97, 99–100, 102, 105, 142, 143–4, 194–5, 196 artifactual literacies 93, 99–100, 154–5, 180, 183, 198–200 artistic conversations 167–9 Artists Information Company 161 asylum seekers 70–87 Atkinson, L. 159, 160, 161, 162–3, 169 attunement 199 Auckle, T. 36 Auleear Owodally, A.M. 42

Australia 167–8 autobiographical texts 11 BAAL (British Association for Applied Linguistics) xv, 160, 161, 165–6, 169, 170, 192 Backus, A. 4 Badwan, K. xvii, 203, 225, 228 Bailey, B. 56 Baker, D. 212 Baker-Bell, A. 191, 198 Bakhtin, M.M. 37–8, 75 Barad, K. xxi, 99, 100, 102 Barnes, L. 36 Barthes, R. 131 Barton, D. 178, 184 Bauman, R. 57, 62, 74, 77 Bauman, Z. 163 Baynham, M. 193, 201 bead maps 196, 197 Being Cindy Sherman 103–5 Belgium 70–87 Belliveau, G. 143, 144, 150, 154 Bennett, J. xxi bilingual education 6–9, 179–80, 216–17 bilingualism additive bilingualism 160 children 197 emergent bilinguals 46 hierarchical bi/multilingualism 6, 7, 43, 168, 226 multimodal research 96–7 not parallel monolingualisms xviii separate bilingualism 7, 8 simultaneous 197 structuralism 35–6 theoretical constructs of 35–6 visual representations of multilingualism 160 biliteracies 179–82 biographical accounts 11, 70 black language 191, 198

232

Index 233

Blackledge, A. 5, 7, 16, 17, 18, 22, 30, 35, 36, 38, 41, 44, 181, 197 blogging 161–2 Blommaert, J. xviii, 4, 37, 54, 56, 181 board games 100–2 body-poems 143 Boldt, G. 99, 102, 103, 105, 193 book design tasks 25–7 border spaces 56–7 bounded entities, languages (not) as xviii, 4, 6, 47, 165, 196, 197 Bourdieu, P. 56, 114, 117, 178, 225 Boutet, J. 177 Bozalek, V. 228 Bradley, J. 110, 158, 160, 161–3, 164, 165, 169, 170, 172 Brady, S. 60 Braidotti, R. 224, 228 Braithwaite, C.A. 110, 120 breastfeeding promotional discourse 123–41 Briggs, C. 74, 77, 83 British Association for Applied Linguistics (BAAL) xv, 160, 161, 165–6, 169, 170, 192 Brookes, G. 127, 131 Bucholtz, M. 5, 8, 53, 54, 56, 57, 58, 59, 62–3, 228 Budach, G. 181, 183, 223 bullet point lists 134 Burdett, C. 159 Burnett, C. 99, 197 Busch, B. 4, 181 Butler, J. 225 Canada 177–9 Canagarajah, S. 8, 16, 35, 36 captivation 165 case study methodology 18–19 Caton, J. 152 Cazden, C. 184 centrifugal model of multilingual education 47–8 Chang, V. 212 Chik, A. 98 children children-as-researchers 197, 201 home-based research 196–200 multimodal multilingualism 192–3, 196 multimodal research 96–7, 98, 180, 187 play 41, 65–6, 96, 98–102, 160, 180, 187, 193, 197 repertoires of primary learners 34–51, 206–22 school versus home literacies 225

Chinese names 56 citation politics 202 classism 228 classroom environments 17, 38–46, 143–4, 180, 187 co-creation 10, 159, 188–9, 201, 207, 214, 219–20 code-switching xviii, 63, 178, 192 Cogo, A. 54, 55, 63 collaborative research 145–7, 159–60, 162, 184, 188–9, 200–2 collaborative work 29, 145–7, 150–4, 199–200, 219–20 collective thinking 229 colonialism 48, 179, 223 colour 134 Comber, B. 180 communicative repertoires 4 comparatives and superlatives 127, 133–4, 136 Connected Communities research 159 conversation as multimodal 163–4 Cook, V.J. 16 cooperative principle 62 Cope, B. 184, 206, 208–9, 220 Copland, F. 18 co-production 191–205 correspondence 202–3 Costley, T. 17–18, 31 Coulmas, F. xvii Council of Europe 16, 18 Coupland, N. 57 Covid-19 105, 197 Creating Living Knowledge 159 creative inquiry 161, 165–6 creative writing 25–30, 151–2 creativity 10, 57, 165, 172, 203 Creese, A. 5, 7, 16, 17, 18, 22, 30, 35, 36, 38, 41, 160, 197 critical agency 209 critical conversations 169–70 critical discourse analysis (CDA) 126, 177–8 critical metalinguistic awareness 10 critical race theory 192 critical research approaches 208–9 critical sociolinguistics 177–8 cultural capital 56, 98 cultural mediation 214 cultural objects 182–3, 199 see also artifacts; artifactual literacies Cunningham, C. 226 curatorial conversations 170 CuratorSpace 161, 166

234 Index

Curdt-Christiansen, X.L. 7 curricular objects 180–1 Davies, B. 44 Davies, J. 96 De Meulder, M. 209 De Sousa Santos, B. 223 deaf communities 185, 187, 206–22 declarative statements 129–30 dialogic objects 193 dialogic research 201 dialogicality 38 diffraction 102 digital technology artwork 168 children’s film and digital work 197, 201 conversations 164, 166 deaf communities 216 digital and media age of multimodality 98–9 multiliteracies 184 screened encounters 149, 152, 155 writing in digital spaces 162 disability studies 188, 214, 216 discourse analysis 111, 112–13, 126 discrete entities, languages (not) as xviii, 4, 6, 47, 165, 196, 197 Dolphijn, R. 102 drama 57, 106, 110–22, 142–57 dramaturgy 71 Duff, P. 99 Dutch 73 dynamic multilingualism 47, 158, 165, 166 Dyson, A.H. 98, 180 ecological use of languages 17, 18, 53 ecosystems 43, 212, 214–15, 219–20 education bilingual education 6–9, 179–80, 216–17 centrifugal model of multilingual education 47–9 classroom environments 17, 38–46, 143–4, 180, 187 cuts too small 227–8 deaf communities 185, 206–22 formal school talk 43–6 generous cuts 223–31 ‘home languages’ classes 10 immersion education 179–80 informal school talk 38–43, 46–7 multilingual education 34–51 plurilingual pedagogies 15–33 Universal Design 213

Educational Centrifugal Linguistic Acculturation (ECLA) Framework 47–9 Edwards, R. 56 Ehret, C. xxi, 102, 103 embodiment xxi, 64, 142–57, 187, 200, 210–12, 229 emergent bilinguals 46 emotion 102–5, 144–5, 224 see also affect turn Enciso, P. 143, 144, 148 engaged reader 144–5, 150–1 English academic language varieties 7 English as a Lingua Franca (ELF) 54–5, 61, 62, 63, 73, 78 English as an Additional Language (EAL) 15, 16, 18, 226 English-only policies 179 in India 208, 216–17, 218 in Mauritius 34, 43–4, 46, 48 medium of instruction 34, 43–4, 46, 48, 179 theatre societies 57 UK universities 54 Enriquez, G. 142, 143, 144, 155, 199–200, 203 entanglement xxi entextualisation 70, 72–5, 76–83 environmental repertoires 43 envisionment building 144 errors/mistakes 25 Escott, H. 126, 192, 193, 200 Essin, C. 113, 120 ethnicity and race 57–8, 61–3, 64, 65 see also racism ethnographic studies 35–7, 59, 71, 75–6, 93, 97, 98, 112, 158, 163, 180, 192, 198, 203 ‘exotic other’ 62 experiential learning 215–16 expressions of participation 148, 149, 151, 152, 153 Facebook 94–6, 209 Facer, K. 159 facts, statements of 129–30 Faircloth, C. 124, 137 Fairclough, N. 126, 136, 137, 178, 184 Fan, H.R. 212, 214 fear-inducing strategies 134 Fenwick, J. 136 fingerspelling 187, 217 Finnegan, R. 196, 198 Flewitt, R. 196

Index 235

fluency 115–16, 218 see also proficiency fonts 134 footing 75, 79 formal school talk 43–6 4 Things game 59–60, 61–2, 63–4 frames/framing processes 225–8 France 123–41 French academic language varieties 7, 12 in Belgium 73 in Canada 177–8 Catholic Church 41 in Mauritius 34, 41–3, 44 games/gaming 59–64, 99, 100–2, 218 García, O. 5, 8, 10, 16, 46, 165, 184–5, 203 Gardezi, F. 116, 117 Gardner, H. 144 Gastaldo, D. 110, 121 gaze 78, 115 Gee, J. 100, 184 Gell, A. 161, 162, 164, 165 genre 12, 41, 74, 83 Germany 179 gesture xix, 4, 116, 182, 186 Gibbons, J. 15 globalisation xviii, 37, 56, 196 Goffman, E. xix, 54, 57, 60, 61, 62, 71, 75 Goldin-Meadow, S. 216–17 ‘good mothers’ 124, 127 Google translate 26 Gramling, D. 227 Greek Language and Multilingualism Laboratory 168 grievable language 225 Grosjean, F. xviii Grosz, E. 229 Guetl, C. 212 Guilherme, M. 9 Gumperz, J. 54, 63, 66 Guthrie, J.T. 144, 150, 152, 154 habitus 114, 115 Haddix, M.M. 103 Hall, C. 227 Hall, K. 5 Halliday, M.A.K. 92 Hamilton, M. 178, 184 Hanemann, U. 207 Happy Hands 185–6, 187, 188, 207–20 Haraway, D. 102, 224, 229 Harré, R. 44 Harvey, K. 127 Harvey, L. 110, 161, 165, 172 Hawreliak, J. 100–2

Hays, S. 124 Head, E. 138 health promotion 123–41 Heath, S.B. 42 Heller, M. xviii, 4, 177 Henderson, J. 65 heritage language speakers 15–33 heteroglossia 5, 22, 37–8 Heugh, K. 3, 7, 12 hidden literacies 98 hierarchical bi/multilingualism 6, 7, 43, 168, 226 historical bodies 37, 38 Hjorth, L. 159 Hoffman, C. 35–6 holistic communication competence 16 home contexts 42, 192, 193, 196–200 ‘home languages’ classes 10 Hornberger, N. 9, 17, 18 Hughes, H.E. 142 Hume, D. 137 Hunt, N. 111, 114 Husserl, E. xix hybrid practices 180 Ibrahim, A.E.K.M. 98 identity affect turn 102–3 becoming 65 collective identity 163 complex cultural identities 59 ‘doing’ identity work 8 hierarchical bi/multilingualism 6 identity development 30 identity fluidity 5 identity performance 17 imposed on learners 44 and the multilingual turn xvii names 52–69 national xvii, 177 negotiable 44, 54, 181 plurilingual identities 19–21 popular culture 98 power asymmetries 77 raciolinguistics 5 situated identities 54, 63 transcultural identities 196 images see also visual modes of communication classroom hierarchies of languages 43 in health promotion 127, 128, 131–3 non-neutral denotation 131–3 presentations about Heritage Languages 20–5

236 Index

imagined communities 178 imagining otherwise 158 immersion education 179–80 immigration law 70–87 imperatives 134 in-between spaces 65 indexical bleaching 58, 59 indexicality 5, 8, 53, 55–6, 62, 65, 128 India 185–6, 206–22 infant feeding health promotion 123–41 informal school talk 38–43, 46–7 information provision 123–41 Ingold, T. 158, 164, 192, 202 institutional hierarchies 117 intercultural communication 9, 65 interdisciplinarity 106, 159–63, 166, 183, 200–2 interjections 116 International Association for Applied Linguistics (AILA) 160 International Mother Tongue Day 10–11 international students 52–69, 110–22 interpreters 73, 74, 80–1, 83, 213, 214 interrelationships 199, 212 intersecting conversations 164 intersubjectivity 120 intertextuality 105, 116, 152 interthinking 201 interview methods 147 intonation 79 intra-action xxi Inuit children’s education 182 Ireland 123–41 Ivani, R. 178, 184 Jacobs, M. 72, 77, 83 Jaworski, A. 113 Jean-Francois, E.B, 35 Jewitt, C. xix, 110, 181 Johnson, E. 142 Jones, K. 178, 184, 198, 203 Jones, R. 165, 172 Jungnickel, K. 159 Kalantzis, M. 184, 206, 208–9, 220 Karadzhova, E. 168, 169, 170 Kawabata, M. 110, 121 Kell, C. 97 Kelly-Holmes, H. 41 Kendrick, M. 98 Kenner, C. 97 Kester, G. 161, 163 Kim, T-Y. 59 Kim, W. 143, 144, 150, 154 Kirwan, D. 10

Kleifgen, J.A. 10 Korkiakangas, T.K. 112, 115, 116 Kramsch, C. 10, 224 Krashen, S. 25 Kreol Morisien 34, 41–2, 46, 48 Kress, G. 92–6, 102, 106, 127, 134, 158, 181, 183, 184, 186, 193, 196 Kuby, C.R. 99, 100, 200, 224, 227 Kusters, A. 207, 228 Lam, Wan Shun Eva 98 Langer, J. 144, 151 language avoidance strategies 46 see also reluctance to use languages language loss 182 language planning from below 12 language shyness theory 25, 30 languagelessness 226 languaging xvii–xviii, xx, 161, 227, 228, 230 Latour, B. 224 lawyer-client consultations 70–87 layering of voices 75, 78 layout and text design 134 Leander, K.M. xxi, 99, 102, 103, 193 Ledin, P. xix Lee, B.H. 30 Leung, C. 17–18, 31 Levya, D. 42 Lewis, C. 102 lexical item choice 127, 129–30, 134–5, 137 Li, S. 16, 31 Li Wei 5, 8, 12, 16, 46, 165, 201, 203 Lie, S. 56 lifeworlds xix lighting direction (theatre) 111–12 Lin, A. 6 linguistic competence 201 see also proficiency linguistic diversity xviii linguistic ethnography 37 linguistic justice 191, 198 linguistic landscape (LLS) 37 linguistic repertoires see repertoires lists 134 literacy artifacts 185 literacy studies 99, 142–57, 178–83, 192–3, 196–200, 223, 227 literacy worlds 97 literary work, drama-based 142–57 Little, D. 10 lived experience research 188, 192, 197, 212 lived literacies 96 Lo Bianco, J. 184 local context xviii, 9, 70, 179

Index 237

London 15–33 Long, S. 8, 12 ‘look’ 64, 65 Luk, J.C.M. 38 Luke, A. 184 Luke, C. 184 Luo, W. 16, 31 Lytra, V. 4, 9, 10, 53, 54 Mace, R.L. 213 MacGlaughlin, H.M. 217 Machin, D. xix, 126, 127, 130, 131, 134, 137 Mahadeo-Doorgakant, Y. 35, 47 ‘Maker Literacies’ 100–2 Makoni, S. 4 Manavalamamuni, D. 209 Manyak, P.C. 180 marginalised communities 52–3, 56, 58, 168, 189, 224, 227 Marsh, J. 98, 180 Martin, A.D. 185 Martin-Jones, M. 178, 184, 198, 203 Maryns, K. 72, 73, 74, 77, 79, 82, 83 materialities 99–102, 142, 178–9, 182, 185, 196–200, 227 Mauritius 34–51 Mayberry, R.I. 216–17 Maybin, J. xvi, xvii, xx, 41, 186, 197, 199 Mayr, A. 127, 130, 131, 134, 137 Mazak, C.M. 17 McCarthy Quinn, E. 124 McLean, C. 106 meaning choice of mode 92–3 creating meaning with children 201 duality of meaning (names) 55 generative potential of modes 96 learning as meaning-making 181 meaning-making in the classroom 181 motivated signs 93 multimodal research 183 negotiation of meaning 17 of what is absent 136 media 41 medium of instruction English in Mauritius 34, 43–4, 46, 48 English in US 179 official languages 7, 179, 181 sign languages 207, 218 metacognitive capacities 208–9 metalinguistic awareness 10, 24, 26, 218 metaphor 127, 133–4, 136–8 metapragmatic framings 75, 77, 80

Michaels, S. 42, 184 migration 3, 70–87, 227 Millard, E. 180 Miller, D. 198, 199 minoritised students 56, 65, 207, 224, 227 see also ethnicity and race modes, definition of 92–3 monolingual ideologies xviii, 3, 6, 8, 12, 17, 48, 54, 161, 223, 226 Montrul, S. 15, 16 Moore, E. 10, 11, 203 Moran, N. 111, 117 Morrell, E. 196 Morrison, T. 226 motherhood ideologies 124–5, 127, 130, 133–4, 137, 138 mothers and the development of repertoires 43 motivated signs 93 multicompetent minds 16 multilingual education 34–51 multilingual turn xvii–xviii, 3–4 multilingualism, theoretical constructs of 35–6, 229 multiliteracies 184, 185, 203, 206–22, 227 multimodal critical discourse analysis (MCDA) 126 multimodal research 186–7 multimodal turn xix, 53–4 Nagar, R. 199 Nakata, M. 184 names 8–9, 52–69 narratives 70, 72, 79, 97, 144, 151, 192, 199 national identities xvii, 177 nationalism 3 nation-state building 3, 165 neoliberalism 124–5, 135, 178, 224 New Literacy Studies 178–9, 184, 192 New London Group 184, 206 new materialism 191–205 Newfield, D. 228 nexus analysis 37, 38, 98 nicknaming 58 non-human artifacts 199 non-verbal communication 112, 120 see also visual modes of communication objects see also artifacts; artifactual literacies cultural objects 182–3, 198–200 see also artifacts; artifactual literacies curricular objects 180–1 dialogic objects 193

238 Index

objects 193, 198–200 semiotics 39, 42, 200 official languages 7, 34, 73 one-nation-one-language 3 onomastics 55 ontoethics 229 Oozeerally, S. 36 ordinary affect 103 ‘other’ positioning 62 Pahl, K. xxi, 54, 93, 96–7, 99–100, 126, 144, 152, 154, 158, 159, 162, 163, 183, 185, 186, 188, 192, 193, 196, 197, 198, 199, 200, 201, 202 Pal, N. 209–12 parallel texts 26 parent talk 42–3 Paris, D. 102, 226 Parkin, D. xvii, 193, 201 participant observation 37 participatory methodologies 188, 201 Patrick, D. 182, 183 pauses 114, 120 see also silence Pavlenko, A. 5, 44, 181 Pederson, A. 110, 111 peer support 22–3, 206–22 Peirce, C. 96 Pennycook, A. 4, 55, 199, 228, 229 performative acts 56, 57, 61–2, 65 Persson, L. 167–8 Phipps, A. 9, 12, 201 photographs 127, 131–3, 183 Piazzoli, E. 145, 153, 154 play 41, 65–6, 96, 98–102, 160, 180, 187, 193, 197 plurilingual poetry 27–30 plurilingualism xvii, 15–33, 184–5 poetry 27–30, 143 Poland, B. 110, 111 Polinsky, M. 16 polyphonic talk 79 Pool, S. 159, 162, 192, 197, 201, 202 popular culture 98–9, 225 positioning theory 44, 106 postcolonialism 65 posthuman turn 99–102, 106, 202–3, 228 post-structuralism 4 postural intertextuality 105, 116 power asymmetries 56, 62–5, 77–8, 81, 84–5, 117, 137, 178, 181 prayer-bead maps 195–6 Preece, S. 53, 54, 57 Prendergast, M. 144 prepositions 218 pride in languages 24

primary school learners in Mauritius 34–51 proficiency children’s 181 Happy Hands school for deaf children 218 heritage language speakers 16 holistic communication competence 16 linguistic competence 201 as repertoire building 36 sign languages 214 promotional discourse 123–41 pronouns 128 pronunciation, of names 58 prosody 63 Puerto Rico 17 Pujolar, J. 5 ‘pure’ language ideologies 178 question-and-answer pairs 115 racial justice 191 racialisation 62 raciolinguistics 5 racism 59, 227, 228 radical hope 224, 229 Ramirez, E. 15 Rampton, B. xviii, 4, 37, 41, 53, 54, 55 Rasool, Z. 203 Rautio, P. 200 reader response theory 143 reading of “things” 142 see also artifactual literacies real literacies approach 208, 212 religion 41 reluctance to use languages 21, 26, 30 repertoires see also translanguaging bilingual education 181–2 children’s 193–4 children’s literacy 180 communicative repertoires 4 dynamic nature of 4 ‘Enhanced Plurilingualism’ 18 environmental repertoires 43 in modern education 228 mothers and the development of repertoires 43 multilingual turn xviii multiliteracies 219–20 plurilingual pedagogies 17 plurilingualism 184–5 primary school learners in Mauritius 34–51 semiotics 39

Index 239

reported speech 75, 81–2 Reyes, A. 52 Richardson, E. 198 Rish, M.R. 152 Rivera, A.J. 17 Roberts, J. 65 Robinson, J. 144 Rodgers, O. 125 Rogoff, B. 212 Roma Translanguaging Enquiry Learning Space project 17–31 Ros I Solé, C. 10 Rosa, J. 224, 226 Rosenblatt, L. 143 Rothwell, J. 142 Rowsell, J. xxi, 54, 93, 98, 99–100, 102, 144, 152, 154, 183, 192, 196, 198, 199, 200 Rughoonundun-Chellapermal, N. 36 Ruiz, R. 9 Rymes, B. 4, 56 Said, E. 62 salience 134 Schechner, R. 60 Schmitt, L. 52, 55, 56, 58, 59 Schröter, M. 114 Scollon, R. 37, 38, 183 Scollon, S.W. 183 screened encounters 149, 155 second person pronouns 128 self-description 53 semiotics exclusion of multilingualism 183–4 health promotion 127–9, 131, 133–8 motivated signs 93 multimodal turn xix, 54 objects 200 plurilingualism 184–5 repertoires 185, 206–22, 228 semiotised objects 39, 42, 200 sign languages 207 social semiotics 186 separate bilingualism 7, 8 Shakesbook 94 Sharma, D. 65 Shields, C. 202 Siegel, M. 96 sign languages 185–6, 206–22 silence 44, 110, 112–20 Silverstein, M. 74, 75, 79 Símonardóttir, S. 124, 125 Simpson, J. 164, 170 sites of multilingualism 53 situated identities 54, 63

situated language use, observation of 37 Slovenia 160 Smith, D. 229 social agents 161, 162–3, 164, 171 social constructionism 4 social justice 9, 226 social media 94–6, 209 social semiotics 186 Society for Artistic Research 162 sociocultural positions 57, 62, 212 socio-economic status 56 sociolinguistics 54, 56, 64, 65, 177, 183, 192, 201, 223 Somers, J. 143 songs 41 ‘southern’ perspectives 3, 207, 214 Spanish 179 spatiality 186 Spolin, V. 57, 62 Spotti, M. 181 Stake, R.E. 18 stance 75 standardized talk 112 ‘standards,’ language 224 ‘staying with the trouble’ 224, 229 Stein, P. 93 step-by-step instructions 134 Stewart, K. 103, 105 Stinson, M. 143 Street, B. 178–9, 184, 192, 208 street arts 160 structuralism 35–6 structured dispositions 117 Sund, L. 143, 148, 149, 150, 155 super-diversity xviii, 53 superlatives 127, 133–4, 136 Sweden 142–57 symbolic capital 117 Tagore, R. 55 Taylor, C. 114 Taylor, R. 105, 116, 126, 200 teachers CPD 10–11 critical agency 209–10 deaf communities 214–15, 216 Happy Hands 209 influence on linguistic repertoires 44–6 technical rehearsals (theatrical) 111–20 text layout 134 theatre production process 110–22 theatre societies 52–69 theory, value of 35–6, 229 theory ‘from the ground up’ 197

240 Index

thick data 37 ‘thick present’ 224 Thiel, J.J. 200 third spaces 46 Tierney, J.D. 102 Tirvassen, R. 36 transculturalism 196 transdisciplinarity 159, 161 translanguaging see also repertoires applied linguistics 203 conversations through art 160, 165, 172 gender 202 knowledge construction 201 and the multilingual turn xviii multimodal translanguaging 193–6 plurilingual pedagogies 16–17, 30–1 repertoires 5 teachers 46 as theoretical lens 36 translingual pedagogies 15–33 translanguaging spaces 12 translation 29, 31, 55, 78, 81–2, 170 translingual pedagogies 15–33 translingual-transcultural orientations 9–10 transmediation 96 transmodality 187, 194–5 transnational contexts 4 transracialisation 59 troubling frames 225–8 Truman, S.E. 155, 198 Tusting, K. 184, 198 UK universities 53–5 Universal Design 213 university theatre societies 52–69 Urban, G. 74, 79 urban phenomena, multilingualism as 3 US 179 van der Tuin, I. 102 van Leeuwen, T. 92, 106, 127, 134 Vertovec, S. 53 video games 99

Viegen, S. 226 Vietgen, P. 103 visual modes of communication see also gesture; images in the classroom 182 colour 134 communication through art 158–74 deaf communities 216 grammar 218 research community resistance to 183 theatre production process 112, 120 visual turn 126 ‘Visual Representations of Multilingualism’ 160–3 voice 37–8, 44, 75, 78, 79, 228 Vygotsky, L. 180 Wacquant, L. 225 Wadensjö, C. 82 Wall, G. 137 Walsh, A. 158 Webster, J. 209, 218, 219, 220 Weedon, C. 229 white norms 59, 198, 224, 226, 228, 230 whole-design systems 188, 212 Wieman, H.N. 192 Wilson, A. 184 Winston, J. 143 Wittgenstein, L. xix Wohlwend, K.E. 98 Wolf, J. 124, 125, 127, 128 Wong Scollon, S. 37, 38 writing tasks 25–30 Yin, R. 18 Young, H. 64 Ytsma, J. 35–6 Yuval-Davies, N. 55 Zaidi, R. 196 Zeshan, U. 209, 218, 219, 220 Zezulka, K. 110 Zhang, B. 65 Zhu Hua 160, 169