Multilingualism, Discourse, and Ethnography

Over the last twenty years, sociolinguistic research on multilingualism has been transformed. Two processes have been at work: first, an epistemological shift to a critical ethnographic approach, which has contributed to a larger turn toward post-structuralist perspectives on social life. Second, the effects of globalization—transnational population flows, new communication technologies, transformations in the political and economic landscape—have sparked increasing concern about the implications of these changes for our understanding of the relationship between language and society. A new sociolinguistics of multilingualism is being forged: one that takes account of the new communicative order, while retaining a central concern with the processes in the construction of social difference. The contributors to this volume have been at the forefront of these epistemological shifts. They write here about the conceptual and methodological challenges posed by these shifts, and the profound changes that we are witnessing in the late modern era.

Selected Contents: Introduction: Multilingualism, discourse and ethnography Marilyn Martin-Jones and Sheena Gardner Section 1: Linking local practices to wider social processes Introduction Li Wei 1.Rethinking sociolinguistic ethnography: from community and identity to process and practice Monica Heller 2.Sociolinguistic perspectives on language and multilingualism in institutions Melissa G. Moyer 3.Unpicking agency in sociolinguistic research with migrants David Block Section2: Researching identities and identities in research practice Introduction Marilyn Martin-Jones 4.Pontian Greek adolescents: the negotiation of identities in an urban context in northern Greece Eleni Mariou 5.Negotiation of identities across times and spaces Adrian Blackledge and Angela Creese 6.Authenticity, legitimacy and power: critical ethnography and identity politics Frances Giampapa Section 3: Taking account of trajectories: multilingualism across social spaces Introduction Monica Heller7. Cultural geography and the re-theorization of sociolinguistic space Mike Baynham 8.Diaspora youth, ancestral languages, and English as ‘translation’ in multilingual space Gill Cressey Section 4: Developing visual and semiotic perspectives on multilingualism Introduction Mark Sebba9. Material ethnographies of multilingualism: Linguistic landscapes in the township of Khayelitsha Christopher Stroud and Sibonile Mpendukana 10.Experiences and expressions of multilingualism: visual ethnography and discourse analysis in research with Sámi children Sari Pietikäinen 11.Ethnographic perspectives on multilingual computer-mediated discourse: insights from Finnish football forums on the Web Samu Kytölä and Jannis Androutsopoulos 12.Multilingual Nation online? Possibilities and constraints on the BBC Voices website Bethan Davies, Tommaso M. Milani and Will Turner 13. English as an Additional Language policy-rendered theory and classroom interaction Constant Leung 14.Young learner perspectives through researcher-initiated role play Aizan Yaacob and Sheena Gardner 15.Doing research in multilingual schools: Shifting research positioning in response to dialogic methods Carla Jonsson 16.Ideologies and issues of access in multilingual school ethnography: a French example Florence Bonacina Section 6: Building researcher-researched relationships Introduction Angela Creese 17.The advantages of research in familiar locales, viewed from the perspectives of researcher and researched: reflections on ethnographic fieldwork in MozambiqueFeliciano Chimbutane 18.A critical linguistic ethnographic approach to language disabilities in multilingual families Deirdre Martin 19.‘Part of the puzzle’: the retrospective interview as reflexive practice in collaborative ethnographic research Gabriele Budach 20.Collaborative practice, linguistic anthropological inquiry and the mediation between researcher and practitioner discourses Alexandra Jaffe

Sheena Gardner is Head of the Department of English and Languages at Coventry University, UK. Marilyn Martin-Jones is Emeritus Professor and former Director of the MOSAIC Centre for Research on Multilingualism at the University of Birmingham, UK.