Methodological Principles for Researching Multilingually: Reflections on Linguistic Ethnography

Abstract

Linguistic ethnography provides insight into how communication occurs between individuals and institutions, while situating these local actions within wider social, political and historical contexts (Copland & Creese, 2015) and has proven to be a particularly effective tool for developing our understanding of individuals’ lived multilingual realities (see Unamuno, 2014) and societal multilingualism. Turning the ‘reflexive gaze’ that is central to ethnography (Clifford & Marcus, 1986) back onto linguistic ethnography itself, we argue that where complex multilingual interactions are the object of study, more attention must be given to how multilingualism affects each aspect of the process of actually doing linguistic ethnography. In this paper we outline the development of three principles that we put forward as being essential in developing and conducting contemporary linguistic ethnography in multilingual settings. The principles are: 1) Researching multilingually; 2) Researching collaboratively; and 3) Researching responsively.

Teachers Talking About CLIL Pedagogy: Transforming Teacher Practices Through Collaborative Autoethnography

“…Three English faculty members have been engaged in this study since 2021 to explore and develop our CLIL lecture class practices. There is a stress on how we as teacher-researchers need to not simply focus on what we teach but to reflect on how we interact (Costley & Reilly, 2021) when developing our pedagogies. In our case, the "transformative" and less structured, collaborative nature of CAE (Breault, 2016, p. 778), as opposed to solo narratives, interviews, or surveys, was agreed upon as a practical means for our interactions.…”

“…Just want to comment that I appreciate this whole paragraph very much, especially the meta-ness of it. (Lisa) This feeling among us crystallized in a shared reading of Costley and Reilly (2021), who emphasized the importance of how researchers interact about doing research. In our case, this was reflected in how we rationalized and problematized CAE.…”

�Languages don�t have bones, so you can just break them�: rethinking multilingualism in education policy and practice in Africa

“…We need to reflect on how we do research on language and on education. We need to emphasise collaboration (Costley & Reilly 2021) and open access, to include a diversity of knowledge systems (Chetty et al forthcoming) and to avoid the appropriation of knowledge. We need to reconsider what are valuable as research outputs when, in our current system, too often journal articles and edited volumes are produced in English are dominated by 'Northern' scholars and are inaccessible to scholars who are not affiliated with university libraries with large budgets (Gibson et al forthcoming).…”

Learning literacy in a familiar language: comparing reading and comprehension competence in Bemba in two contrasting settings in Northern Zambia

“…The passage was a narrative and was on a topic that learners would identify with and thus contextually relevant. In keeping with our adopted ethnographic linguistic approach and the principle of researching multilingually and collaboratively (see Costley & Reilly 2021), the researchers discussed and agreed with the teachers how to grade learners in terms of reading fluency in Bemba on a five-point Likert type scale.…”