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Journal Overview

May 22, 2023

New citizenship and the negotiation of the global/local interface: reflexivity, emotions, and metapragmatics

Raymund Vitorio

Abstract

New citizens are typically characterized as people who occupy an estuarial position between the global and the local: to simultaneously become authentic to their global provenience and rooted in their new local societies, they are expected to cautiously partake in processes of differentiation as they construct their identities. This article investigates how new citizens negotiate this seemingly untenable position to present themselves as new citizens of Singapore who have negotiated the global/local dichotomy, rendering themselves as legitimate citizens. By adopting a metapragmatic approach, the article focuses on two object-signs that new citizens commonly deploy: familial relations and passports. The analysis traces how the semiotic potential of these object-signs is mediated by accounts of emotions, which are indispensable considerations of how signs realize their semiotic potential. Through situated reflexive practices, new citizens use these object-signs to equivocally and strategically manage supposed markers of difference, which consequently enables them to claim legitimacy as Singaporeans. These identities challenge regimented views about the global and local affordances of the notion of citizenship. This expands the semiotic range of good/new citizenship, which may prove instructive in understanding variegated understandings of citizenship not just in Singapore but also in other contemporary multicultural societies.

Open Access May 22, 2023

“A new worker, for a new order, in a new era”: English, power and shifting ideologies of reflexivity in a Chinese global workplace

Eleanor Yue Gong

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Abstract

This paper offers a historiographic and ethnographic analysis of how reflexivity, as a communicative practice and valued personality trait, has been understood, regulated, legitimised and used to control Chinese workers from the planned-economy era to the present. Using a Shanghai-based multinational company as a case study, I document how and under what conditions English-mediated reflexivity, with its stress on self-entrepreneurship, came to replace former Mandarin-mediated reflexivity supporting a notion of collective workerhood. Special attention is paid to reflexivity’s changing roles in shaping, managing and evaluating workers and facilitating understandings of labour, power and agency. The paper argues that the emerging English-dominated reflexivity represents a required linguistic shift for the creation of a new worker type in the current globalised economy as it normalises managerial technologies of discipline, stratification and exclusion.

Open Access April 28, 2023

Preparing for the deployment of ready-made stories in social interaction: reflexivity and narrative practices in professional communication

Gilles Merminod

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Abstract

Since the nineties, the idea that narratives are essential for an efficient communication has massively spread in management, marketing and politics, supported by the profuse publication of storytelling guides and criticized by a number of social commentators. Nevertheless, little is known about how reflexive activities specific to professional communication partake in the visibility and solidification of this specific way of conceiving the use of stories. Drawing on semiotic-inspired works in linguistic anthropology, studies on talk-in-interaction and narrative analysis, this article analyzes how reflexive activities contribute to the construction of specific conceptions of what narratives are and what they do in professional communication. To achieve this, the article relies on a single case study that details the kind of ready-made stories and contextualization devices a storytelling guide provides for its readers. The analysis shows that the storytelling guide builds up a cultural model that is both archiving past narrative situations (a model-of action) and potentially generating new narrative situations (a model-for action). By doing so, the storytelling guide not only singles out specific communicative resources but also fuels a metapragmatic model in which accomplished storytellers are at the top of the social structure.

April 12, 2023

The representation of multilingualism in dubbing and subtitling for the deaf and hard of hearing (SDH)

Behnam Rezvani Sichani, Mahmoud Afrouz, Ahmad Moinzadeh

Abstract

Multilingualism serves an important function in the characterization of an audiovisual product; thus, its representation in translations demands scientific attention. The task of rendering multilingualism in translation becomes more complicated when no or limited access to the original audio content is possible. This being so, this study investigates the representation of multilingualism in English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing (SDH) and Persian dubbing of four polyglot films. It examines and discusses the strategies adopted by translators in eight translations, both the SDH and dubbed versions. The results indicate that translators employ a variety of solutions and strategies to tackle challenges and render the third language (L3), but still dubbing tends to neutralize L3 in most instances. In the case of SDH, L3 was made explicit, but the high frequency of homogenising strategies and the loss of L3 in the translations were noticeable. These results could be of use for both cinema and translation professionals and non-professionals, particularly for enhancing media accessibility (MA) for the deaf and hard of hearing (DHH) community, besides adding to the body of studies on the translation of multilingualism.

April 3, 2023

The role of social networks in academic discourse socialization: insights from degree-seeking multilingual international students in China

Wendong Li, Yang Gong

Abstract

This study adopted a social network perspective to explore the academic discourse socialization experiences of eight degree-seeking multilingual international students at a university in eastern China. Based on a triangulation of ethnographic interviews, social network questionnaires, and supplementary sources (e.g., voluntarily submitted recordings, texts about academic exchanges), the study revealed five patterns of students’ social networks, including heterogeneous-sparse network, heterogeneous-dense network, homogeneous-sparse network, homogeneous-dense network, and balanced network. This resulting network typology was utilized to interpret the role of social networks in individuals’ socialization trajectories, which were observed to include affecting capacities to negotiate academic norms , structuring channels to build and transform expertise , and shaping space for multicompetence development . While different network connections demonstrated different roles, networks with similar characteristics could exert divergent impacts, highlighting the mediation of a range of individual and sociocultural dynamics. Based on the findings, the study contributes to critical multilingual studies by offering theoretical implications for socialization research on community and competence, and providing practical suggestions for research, education, and program administration in international education.

March 16, 2023

Perceiving in networking interactions: emblems, indexicality, and their mapping through reflexivity

Jacqueline Militello

Abstract

For newly met acquaintances, deployment of a single lexical term, an emblem such as tech or finance , signals where one stands in the professional universe and points to any manner of traits and characteristics or a certain type of person. This positioning and evaluation has pivotal real-world implications for occupational attainment as people decide whether a conversation is worth continuing and a contact worth advancing. This study examines self-presentation sequences at a professional networking event in Hong Kong. In the interactions at these events, professional emblems serve to locate people amongst different taxonomies, such as hierarchies of eliteness, and invoke various traits. But in highly diverse, globalized contexts like this one in Hong Kong, what happens when shared knowledge of emblems is not readily available, and how do participants negotiate this? This study seeks to answer these underexamined questions, acutely relevant in particular social circles nowadays, focusing on misrecognized, vaguely recognized, semiotically transposed, and spuriously recognized cases. It also introduces advanced visual depictions of the indexical maps that participants hold, in all their complexity, drawing both from interaction, where there are some hints of emblem uptake, and subsequent interviews, where emblems’ indexicalities and their social value to social actors are made explicit. This study fills a gap in how people with diverse biographies ‘cobble together’ indexical meanings in the moment to position their interactants within their conceptions of the world and ascribe social value.

March 16, 2023

Attention-consuming or attention-saving: an eye tracking study on punctuation in Chinese subtitling of English trailers

Ying Cui, Xiao Liu, Yuqin Cheng

Abstract

Chinese subtitling of English trailers is essential for marketing foreign films in China, and there is a need to focus on audience reception. Ideal subtitles are expected to provide a necessary aid to the audience but to attract as little attention as possible. Paralinguistic factors like punctuation can influence the audience’s attention and reception. Therefore, this study aims to explore the impact of punctuation on a Chinese audience’s attention distribution between subtitles and visuals via the eye tracking technique. We recruited 62 participants and selected ten English trailers for films to be released. We prepared two parallel Chinese versions for each trailer, one using punctuation marks and the other using spaces. The participants were randomly assigned into two groups to watch the two versions respectively and filled out a questionnaire afterwards to rate their desire to watch those films. Data analyses show that, while punctuation does not have a significant impact on participants’ attitudes towards the films, the version without punctuation causes less fixation on subtitles, implying that omitting punctuation marks can ensure more attention to the visual and hence a better viewing experience.

January 24, 2023

Authorities at play in Indigenous language reclamation: tensions and possibilities in the Yucatan Peninsula

Aldo Anzures, Frances Kvietok

Abstract

Language revitalization efforts have been critiqued for creating and reproducing linguistic, epistemological, and pedagogical hierarchies that might run counter to a community’s needs and interests. Drawing on a seven-year ethnographic and collaborative research with the Maya cultural promoters of the Caste War Museum in Tihosuco, Mexico, we describe the dynamics of our Maya language reclamation partnership focusing on the creation of bilingual comic books and summer workshops for children. These experiences show a slow but steady language reclamation approach based on the concern for younger generations to feel comfortable to claim their right to speak and learn Maya and on their fondness for Maya language and culture. We argue that the construction, negotiation, and assertion of linguistic and pedagogical authority among all participating actors is central to reclamation projects, and that these processes are impacted by outsider researchers-collaborators in ways that can support but also potentially harm these language efforts. This paper sheds light on the various tensions lived in long-term language reclamation projects, recognizing the need for outsider researchers to turn our reflexive gaze inwards and consider how we can bring to the fore practices we can celebrate as well as address and transform those that cause discomfort and uncertainty.

January 11, 2023

Seeking understanding: categories of linguistic (non)belonging in interviews

Kaarina Hippi, Liisa-Maria Lehto

Abstract

This paper discusses how persons of multicultural backgrounds describe in interviews their everyday experiences when using Finnish. The focus is on categories of linguistic (non)belonging described in interview interactions. The data consist of 23 single and pair interviews of 33 informants in total and come from two interview datasets. Data are analyzed discursively, taking into account positions and identities constructed in interviews. First, the study concentrates on descriptions where the informants’ interlocutors (particularly customer service persons) switched to English and the interviewees assumed reasons for it. Secondly, the recounted experiences where multiculturals have received comments on their Finnish language use are examined. According to the informants, language choices and evaluations arise from the perception of difference by the interactant. When language choice is discussed, categorizations of the informants as non-Finnish speakers arise. When the focus is on received comments, the informants discuss the categorizations of non-nativeness and origins. The informants position themselves in relation to these categories: They discuss the motivations and conditions for them. The study takes a closer look at how, in the interviews, there is space to criticize linguistic practices contrary to many everyday situations. The study brings to light the informants’ interpretations of switching language and commenting on one’s language as well as underlying ideologies of these situations, thereby also bringing about the possibility for change. The descriptions are multilevel, and we discuss how the categories of identification are constructed and how they are perceived in the interviews.

January 4, 2023

“I’ll be there for you”: affective production of a “hyper-real” cultural-consumption space

Yang Song

Abstract

The refashioning of popular cultural resources has become a salient strategy for the construction of “hyper-real” spaces of cultural consumption worldwide. Taking Lefebvre’s triadic model of space as the anchorage, this study proposes an analytical framework to examine the affective production of space. Ethnographic fieldwork was conducted in the Central Perk café in Shanghai as replicated from the American sitcom Friends . The analysis reveals that resemiotization, recontextualization, and the spatial arrangements of the interior café enabled fan-customers to orchestrate individual-specific affective assemblages based on their varied familiarity with the sitcom and alignment with its affective values and characterization. It is found that these affective assemblages afforded fan-customers socio-atmospherics featuring a cozy, relaxed state of being and a home-like sense of belonging. The affective practices of the human-nonhuman participants turned this themed café into a lived space of affinities that helped the café owner and fan-customers cope with atomization and precarity in cosmopolitan life. It is argued that the proposed analytical framework can reveal the role of affect as a critical social force that enables individuals to fulfill their sociocultural needs and desires by appropriating transnational popular cultural resources and co-producing a cultural consumption space.

Open Access October 11, 2022

Language proficiency and use of interpreters/translators in fieldwork: a survey of US-based anthropologists and sociologists

Katarzyna Sepielak, Dawid Wladyka, William Yaworsky

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Abstract

The proficiency in vernacular has long been a methodological ethos pervasive among field researchers and—despite new dynamics of fieldwork—still overshadows discussions related to collaboration with translators and interpreters, which are either marginalized or hidden within the category of a ‘research assistant’. The purpose of this study is to take a step beyond anecdotal evidence and explore trends in language proficiency and use of translation services among US based field researchers who had conducted international or domestic studies in an area where a language other than English was present. We conducted the largest-to-date survey on the subject and analyzed 913 responses from faculty at sociology and anthropology programs in the United States. We documented their global fieldwork activity and found only limited proficiency in field languages accompanied by a proliferation of reliance on translators and interpreters, not matching any methodological discussion present in the textbooks and other scholarly sources. We indicate disparities in the use of vernacular and translation services in the post-colonial societies and point out related ethical and methodological concerns. Furthermore, we analyze the researchers’ decision-making processes and their general perspectives on the importance of vernacular’s knowledge and opinions on the admissibility of translators in the fieldwork.

Open Access September 26, 2022

Children’s use of English as lingua franca in Swedish preschools

Karolina Larsson, Polly Björk-Willén, Katarina Haraldsson, Kristina Hansson

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Abstract

This paper highlights a current phenomenon reported from preschools placed in multilingual areas in Sweden, namely that some preschoolers with mutually different language backgrounds sometimes use English as lingua franca instead of Swedish during play. The data stems from a study of language environments in Swedish preschools situated in both monolingual and multilingual areas. The analyses reveal that many children are influenced by the English language in both areas, but to a much greater extent in multilingual areas. An interesting situation arises when the majority language of society, which is also the language of education and lingua franca of the preschool, acquires a less prevailing role in children’s accomplishment of everyday practices. Data show that the participating children are exposed to and speak English to a varying extent. They learn and teach each other English, and speak English in an array of pragmatic purposes; to position themselves in the social hierarchies of the preschool group, to create meaning within their shared peer culture and for the purpose of exclusion of intruders. English is also used as a secret language of friendship.

September 21, 2022

Translation for language revitalisation: efforts and challenges in documenting botanical knowledge of Thailand’s Northern Khmer speakers

Narongdej Phanthaphoommee, Siripen Ungsitipoonporn

Abstract

This research examines the Thai and English translation equivalents of Northern Khmer ethnobotanical terms and the corresponding translation strategies, along with the translators’ reflections on their role as language revitalisation agents. The ultimate purpose of this translation effort is to provide a knowledge base for Northern Khmer learners and an English conversation textbook for local Thai and Northern Khmer students, as well as preserve traditional botanical information. The cultural-specific items that pose translation problems are traditional medicine-related terms, tastes, and parts of the plant. For Northern Khmer to Thai, the most frequently employed translation strategies are literal translation and cultural substitution, and for Thai to English, a combination of literal translation and paraphrasing. Besides the geographical, linguistic and cultural distance between the three languages, translators as agents with their language ability and willingness are crucial elements for Northern Khmer revitalisation. At the same time, the effort to undertake the process tends to be fully realised at the community level. Volunteer translators’ intention to devote their translations to educational resources for local students has a substantial impact on translation strategies. The translators’ self-concept is also enhanced by their prior involvement in the preserving botanical wisdom project and subsequent translation process, during which they reflect on language pairs and strengthen their knowledge of dialect as a by-product.

September 19, 2022

Hesitant versus confident family language policy: a case of two single-parent families in Finland

Polina Vorobeva

Abstract

During the past decade, the field of family language policy has broadened its scope and turned its attention to diverse family configurations in versatile sociolinguistic contexts. The current study contributes to this endeavor by focusing on two single-parent families who live in Finland and who strive to support Russian as a family language. Applying nexus analysis as an epistemological stance and as an analytical lens, the study takes an emic perspective on family language policy. Furthermore, it examines how family language policy is manifested and negotiated during mother–child play and what discourses shape it. The findings reveal two contrasting ways in which family language policy is manifested and negotiated in the families. Confident family language policy in one of the families is informed by the mother’s historical body (i.e., prior experience of raising children bilingually), while in the other family, discourse in place represented by divergent language ideologies plays a significant role in shaping family language policy and is connected with hesitant decisions about language use in the family.

October 6, 2021

Language choice in churches in indigenous Gã towns: a multilingual balancing act

Akua Asantewaa Campbell, Jemima Asabea Anderson

Article number: 000010151520210063

Abstract

This paper examines the determinant factors motivating language choice in churches in coastal Accra, an area characterized by a high degree of urbanization and multilingualism. As this region is also ethnically Gã, we survey the attitudes of Gã congregants to the use of other languages in their churches, bearing in mind the pressure faced by Gã from the more dominant vehicular languages, Akan and English. Data was obtained via participant observation, questionnaires and interviews. Using domain analysis, we show that language choice in the church domain is guided by the diametric principles of inclusiveness and church expansion on the one hand, and the conservation of a homogeneous socio-cultural identity on the other. Multilingual churches espouse the former while monolingual churches prize the latter. Gã congregants in churches that make extensive use of Akan and English report feeling satisfied with the language choices in their churches as they see these lingua francas as necessary for reaching out to the wider community. Although in other spheres of life there is irritation among Gã natives about the diminishing role of their language, in the church domain, this is readily tolerated for the greater good of advancing the church’s work.

September 25, 2014

“Lunch Keeps People Apart”: The Role of English for Social Interaction in a Multilingual Academic Workplace

Raffaella Negretti, Miguel Garcia-Yeste

Abstract

Research on the role of language in multilingual workplaces, where English is often adopted as a lingua franca (ELF), shows that language practices influence socialization and interpersonal communication, frequently creating issues such as asymmetrical sharing of information, language clusters, or thin communication. Similarly to other organizations, academic workplaces are undergoing a process of internationalization. However, academia as a workplace has been largely ignored, particularly in terms of language practices in social situations. We address this gap by investigating multilingualism in an academic workplace; departing from the concepts of language clustering and thin communication, we focus on how language practices affect social interaction and the establishment of rapport. We report the experiences of five academics with various backgrounds and status in a science university department in Sweden. In-depth interviews and grand/mini tour elicitation techniques reveal how language practices – English and other languages – are experienced from different points of view. We identify lunch as the primary activity associated with social interaction and exchange of information: people and places connected with this activity seem to determine language practices. In the final section we discuss the presence of language clustering and thin communication in this academic workplace.

About this journal

Objective

Multilingua is a refereed academic journal publishing six issues per volume. It has established itself as an international forum for interdisciplinary research on linguistic diversity in social life. The journal is particularly interested in publishing high-quality empirical yet theoretically-grounded research from hitherto neglected sociolinguistic contexts worldwide.

Topics

Bi- and multilingualism
Language education, learning, and policy
Inter- and cross-cultural communication
Translation and interpreting in social contexts
Critical sociolinguistic studies of language and communication in globalization, transnationalism, migration, and mobility across time and space

Article formats

Research articles, research notes, reports, debates, review articles and short reviews