ALR special issue: Visual methods in Applied Language Studies (original) (raw)
Related papers
Review of Kalaja & Melo-Pfeifer (2019), Visualising Multilingual Lives: More Than Words
Sociolinguistic Studies, 2021
This volume can be considered a response to David Block's (2014) call to venture 'beyond lingualism' as we explore the range of semiotic modes or modalities to express students' hopes, visions, passions and identities. And so we move beyond language to explore how drawings, photos, computer-created images and collages can usefully be considered data in the 15 chapters of the volume. A key concern is therefore this innovative methodology and how its strengths can be harnessed. The other key element in the volume is the exploration of the experiences of multilingual students located around the world, especially in continental Europe (Finland, France, Germany, Portugal, Spain and Sweden) alongside those in Asia (Japan and South Korea), South America (Brazil) and Australia. This volume therefore celebrates the visual turn and the multilingual turn in sociolinguistic research. I shall focus first on the visual turn employed in all the chapters, but discussed with different degrees of theorisation, because this is an element that is of interest to me, having worked on the linguistic landscape-the visual manifestation of language-in the context of identity construction and language planning and policy. Melo-Pfeifer and Schmidt (Chapter 4) suggest that this methodology is democratic: it is useful in a context of unequal linguistic skills and repertoires. Everyone can produce images, and so no-one is disadvantaged.
Visualising Multilingual Lives: More Than Words
International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism, 2020
This is a book review of Visualising Multilingual Lives: more than words by Paula Kalaja and Sílvia Melo-Pfeifer published by Multilingual Matters in 2019. This groundbreaking volume brings together twelve authors from a variety of geopolitical contexts in several investigations of multimodality methodology.
Language Awareness, 2020
The acquisition of a language is a complex process. Applied Linguistics research tends to view this process as classroom-based. It is only more recently that learners, in particular young learners, are being placed in the centre of investigation in research exploring language learning from their subjective perspectives. To understand these learner-centred perspectives, there is a growing body of work using visual methodologies, despite the fact that such methodologies have yet to be clearly defined in Applied Linguistics. The contribution in the present article aims at providing some clarity on how visual methods are being used in this specific research field by reporting on a meta-analysis of 44 papers using relevant methodologies published in English between 2000 and 2018. Our analysis indicates that, in addition to methodological eclecticism, there is an imbalance in participant numbers (although data are usually collected among small groups) and a preference for researching the English Foreign Language classroom and English learners. Furthermore, studies tend to focus on language teaching and learning and on the affective dimension of language awareness.
This paper presents findings from the interdisciplinary research-project Signs of the Metropolises: Visual multilingualism in the Ruhr Area/Germany, which investigates the occurrence, regional distribution, function, production and perception of visual multilingualism in representative neighbourhoods of the cities Essen, Dortmund, Bochum and Duisburg. In a multi-method approach that combines data on visual multilingualism with urban sociological data and meta-linguistic data on language attitudes (collected in semi-standardised on-site interviews and multilingual telephone interviews), the following questions will be addressed: Does the diversity of languages reflect the diversity of urban population, i.e. the settlement pattern of ethnic groups in the Ruhr Area characterised by a north-south divide? Does the perception of visual multilingualism mirror the north-south divide? What are the dominant patterns of argumentation used by informants with and without migration background in favour of and against visual multilingualism? How are the languages and varieties perceived and evaluated by majority and minority groups?
Applied Linguistics Review
The multilingual turn in applied linguistics has produced a number of models that approach multilingualism from a variety of disciplinary and theoretical perspectives. However, fully developed models of multilingualism that focus on the language practices of individuals and groups are still lacking. This paper contributes to address this gap by introducing visual models that represent the contexts of practice and attitudes to the languages in the repertoire of lower secondary pupils in Norway. The paper starts by introducing the rich linguistic scenario in Norway and the role of language learning in developing students’ multilingual abilities. After a brief discussion on the role of practice in language learning, we provide an outline of current models of multilingualism, situating our visual models, the Ungspråk Practice-Based Models of Multilingualism (UPMM), in the field. The paper then focuses on the properties of the UPMM, which represent data collected from an online questionn...
Multilingualism and Multimodality: Current Challenges for Educational Studies
This volume explores research in language education in the context of unprecedented mobility of people and access to information, a combination that has been characterized as superdiversity (Vertovec, 2007). The book's central argument, elaborated in two parts, is that participation in multiple language communities and modalities requires reconsideration of the meanings of learning, teaching, interpreting and assessing language (2013, p. 2). In Part One, Multilingualism: Concepts, Practices and Policies, researchers expand dimensions of language knowledge and multilingualism. Part Two, Multimodality: Concepts, Practices and Consequences, examines the ways in which modes of communication shape interactions in educational spaces and change what “learning” looks like. The volume, the second in a series of three, constitutes a critical reflection on language and learning in an era of accelerated mobility and access to information in contemporary Western Europe and on experiences that contrast with national and pan-European drives for standardization and uniformity.
Another arrow for the quiver: A new methodology for multilingual researchers
Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development, 2019
This paper reports on a promising methodology for multilingualism studies that was trialled at the National Institute of Education (NIE) on the campus of Nanyang Technological University (NTU), Singapore, in 2018. The methodology named the Aural-Oral Transect (AOT) is a systematic, easy-to-implement, unbiased way of collecting quantitative data on spoken language use in multilingual settings, and the data arising from its application provides a snapshot of the aural-oral landscape, that is, the landscape of 'heard speech', a landscape that is available to the ears rather than the eyes. With its ability to provide easy access to data on the actual speech habits of members of a multilingual community, the wide employment of the AOT could bring forth a revolution in multilingual studies. The AOT is not intended to supplant or obviate tried and tested data collection approaches, rather it is promoted here as an additional tool for gathering data that has hitherto remained out of reach, another arrow for the researcher's quiver.