Presentation at Durham University 10 February 2016 Prue Holmes & Mariam Attia

1. Researching Multilingually at the Borders of
Language, the Body, Law and the State
(AH/L009636/1)
http://researching-multilingually-at-borders.com/
Researching Multilingually in Higher Education:
Opportunities and Challenges
10 February 2016
Prue Holmes & Mariam Attia
Durham University

2. 1. Introducing the project
2. Introducing “researching multilingually” (RMly) in higher
education (and the “monolingual” university)
3. The possibilities and complexities of RMly
4. PhD researcher reflections on RMly
5. Supervisor reflections on RMly
6. Implications for RMly
Preview

3. 1) Introducing the project

4. www.researching-multilingually-at-borders.com
(AHRC large grant under the “Translating cultures” theme, 2014-17)
http://researchingmultilingually.com/
(AHRC network grant, 2011-12)

5. To investigate and clarify the epistemological and
methodological processes of researching in more than one
language—whether dialogic, observational, textual, or
mediated—and their implications for research design,
instruments, data collection and generation, translation and
interpretation, and reporting.
Possibilities, opportunities, challenges, complexities
• network project (1)
Aim of the AHRC network project

6.  Concepts of borders and security/insecurity raise
important practical and ethical questions as to how
research might be conducted.
 Focus on Methods:
 comparing across discipline-specific methods,
 interrogating arts and humanities methods where the
body and body politic are under threat,
 developing theoretical and methodological insights as
a result.
 There are some pockets of work in disciplines but no
overarching framework across multiple disciplines.”
Context of the AHRC large-grant project:
Languages under pressure and pain
(at borders)

7. The project structure
Multimodal Complementary Methods
Processes
(reflexive, ethical)
Researchers
(Research teams: Two hubs, five case study sites, five PhDs)
CATC hub
Performance, artistic
creative methods
RMTC hub
Academic, investigative,
comparative methods

8. • How do researchers generate, translate, interpret and write up data
(dialogic, mediated, textual, performance) from one language to
another?
• What ethical issues emerge in the planning and execution of data
collection and representation (textual, visual, performance) where
multiple languages are present?
• What methods and techniques improve processes of researching
multilingually?
• How does multimodality (e.g. visual methods, ‘storying’, performance)
complement and facilitate multilingual research praxis?
• How can researchers develop clear multilingual research practices and
yet also be open to emergent research design?
(These questions emerged out of the earlier AHRC Network grant
- AH/J005037/1)
RMTC Hub research questions

9. 2) Introducing “researching
multilingually” (RMly) in higher
education

10.  In supervisory practice, there is the assumption that English is the
norm
 Whether a research student uses other languages (lit review, data
collection/transcription/analysis) in the research process is usually
undiscussed.
 Theses are expected to be written and presented in English. There are
no policies on inclusion of other languages.
 The preferred language of publication is often English (for status,
promotion)
 Oral examinations take place in English.
 There is no agreement on what constitutes “correct” English in
academic writing.
Yet, many postgraduate students in universities in the English-speaking
world do not have English as their first language.
The “monolingual” university

11. How researchers draw on their own, and others’
multilingual resources in the researching, reporting, and
representation of people where multiple languages are at
play
“The process and practice of using, or accounting for the use of, more
than one language in the research process, e.g. from the initial design of
the project, to engaging with different literatures, to developing the
methodology and considering all possible ethical issues, to generating
and analysing the data, to issues of representation and reflexivity when
writing up and publishing” (Holmes, Fay, Andrews, Attia, 2016, in press).
“Researching multilingually” – a definition

12. … from the inception of a research project, to designing
the project, the lit review, research questions, research
framework, choice of methods, ethics, reflexivity,
analysis, modes of (re)presentation
The researching multilingually process

13. 3) The possibilities and
complexities of researching
multilingually

14. Researchers
• Trajectories in engaging in multilingual research
• Researcher/participant(s) relationships; power; ethical practices
Data collection methods
• Interviews; focus groups (intersubjectivity)
• Consent forms (multimodality); recording; observing
• Questionnaires (in market research - “quick & dirty”; the limits of “back
translation”)
Language choices
• Possibilities and complexities of not knowing a language
• How to include local, regional, tribal, and colonial languages
• Languages as opportunities and affordances
Aspects of researching multilingually (1)

15. Literature reviews:
• As a researcher do you consult literatures in a range of languages? Why?
Why not?
• Should we acknowledge it when we reference academic works which
are translations, e.g., the works of Lev Vygotsky, writing in Russian?
• Should research students feel obliged to read and reference academic
literature in English, even when they share the language of the original
writing?
• Does it feel potentially beneficial to reference only works in English? If
so why?
Aspects of researching multilingually (2)

16. Interpretation/translation:
• Interpreter = participant’s advocate, cultural mediator for
“monolingual” researcher
• Working with translators—need to share purposes & approaches of
research
• Translator = co-researcher
• Mediators—how do they influence interpretation of findings? What
about children speaking for parents/men speaking for their wives?
• Transcription (coding implications?)
Aspects of researching multilingually (3)

17. Ethical issues:
• Do ethical approval processes support researching multilingually
practices?
• Are researchers ensuring their research processes allow research
participants to respond in a range of languages (of their choice)?
• When we gain informed consent from research participants do we
provide information in a range of languages, if appropriate?
• Do ethical approval processes encourage researchers to engage with
participants who may not have their preferred language as English?
Aspects of researching multilingually (4)

18. Representation:
• Who is involved? When? At what level?
• Preparing translated data for the supervisor/examiner - when is
enough enough? Faithfulness? The correct way?
• Interlingual (pragmatic/contextual) glossing?
• Publication?
Policy:
• Which languages & where?
• Expertise of supervisors/examiners?
• Institutional policies?
• Editorial/publishing practices?
Aspects of researching multilingually (5)

19. 4) Examples of PhD experiences

20. Example 1: : Xiaowei Zhou
 Research focus:
Chinese students’ acculturation experiences in a UK university
 Data source:
Interviews undertaken in Chinese
 Researcher background:
English language and literature student in China; fluent in English;
undertaking PhD in UK university

21. “Could I do my interviews in Chinese?” Xiaowei asked …
 even though studying in an English-medium research environment,
researchers often have multilingual and (inter)cultural resources and
repertoires of value and appropriateness for their research …
“But am I allowed to do that?” …
 such resources are often viewed as obstacles to be overcome
 as something requiring permission
……rather than as
 affordances to be embraced, purposefully utilised, and transparently
discussed …
“And should I translate them or transcribe them first?” …
 through such questions, we began to realise the under-discussed
complexities of researching multilingually …
 even though we so often have/choose to write about it in English …

22. My exploration of the Mandarin-medium literature [re culture]
As I set out on my study and realised the potential advantage of my
bilingual background, I began to also explore relevant literature
written in Mandarin. First, I examined the contemporary Mandarin-
medium literature on “文化” – the Mandarin equivalent for culture and
a phrase existing in Mandarin for more than two thousand years. I
noted two characteristics of this literature:
It includes different definitions of “文化 [culture]”, definitions which
seemed to me similar to what I had learnt from the English-medium
literature; and
It tends to associate culture with countries or larger geographical
entities, including “中国文化 [Chinese culture]” and “西方文化 [Western
culture]”.

23. Example 2: Samia Naz
 Research focus:
Sociocultural factors affecting attitudes of the learners towards English
language
 Data source:
Interviews undertaken various languages and dialects
 Researcher background:
English language teaching and learning, research methodology; fluent
in English; undertaking PhD in in Pakistan and a vising scholar in the
UK

24. My PhD research involved me more [in] researching multilingually. My
field experiences during data collection are replete with such examples,
i.e. speaking regional languages to the participants during interviews
(parents’ interviews), following their accent and pronunciation to develop
rapport with them to convince them to be interviewed, translating the
reference letter from my department from English into Urdu language to
satisfy the parents who could not understand English language (“Letter”
from my department that showed my identity as a researcher was in
English), translating the responses of the interviewees from Urdu,
Punjabi and Saraiki into English, translating the Urdu, Punjabi and Saraiki
proverbs used by the interviewees into English and translating
questionnaire from English into Urdu for the students of the government
institutions.

25. 5) Supervisor reflections on
researching multilingually

26. Supervisor Reflections
 Learning from students (as a general theme)
At present I supervise a range of PhD students who are working
multilingually and who have all increased my awareness of
ethical, creative and sensuous dimension to multilingual
research, as well as to the limits to the concept of multilingualism
and whatever we may define as the limits of ‘the multilingual
field. (Phipps)

27. Supervisor Reflections
 Finding pleasure in learning from students
The bonus for me is that my horizons have frequently been
enlarged and I have been pleasantly stretched (Lewis)

28. Supervisor Reflections
 Finding pleasure in learning from students
My awareness of issues raised by ‘research multilingually’ has
been increased by the PhD students I’ve had the pleasure to
supervise in recent years at the University of Glasgow. They
have conducted research on a fascinating range of topics
using languages such as French, German, Greek, Finnish,
Slovak and Swedish, as well as English. (Gibb)

29. Supervisor Reflections
 Working with students
Some of the flavour of the developing curiosity that my doctoral
students and I experienced is captured in [a] poster which we
created to accompany a first conference paper on this theme. (Fay)
.. we have worked together to find ways to uncover hidden and
unexpected meanings which go against established discourses.
(Holliday)

30. Supervisor Reflections
 Multilingual research as the norm
More recently, supervising multilingual research has become more
or less the norm for me. (Lewis)
To me, their research is always ‘multilingual’ because of the
number of different discourses which need to be untangled and
negotiated. (Holliday)

31. Supervisor Reflections
 Becoming aware and acting upon that
My interest in ‘researching multilingually’ has emerged from my
experiences as an ethnographer in Nepal and more recently, from
working as a supervisor and researching academic literacy
practices with international doctoral students at UEA.
-> I began to realise that writing in English was not just a ‘language
issue’, but involved questions and dilemmas about identity and
cultural values.
-> this led to my current research interest in academic literacies
and intercultural communication. (Robinson-Pant)

32. Supervisor Reflections
 Becoming aware and feeling confined
Because of heavy workload and tight schedules most of academics
in HEIs face these days, I never got around to acting upon the
issues, even though I was aware of the relevance of the issues to
research quality. (Smith)

33. 6) Implications for researching
multilingually

34. • Researchers, supervisors, examiners, editors, publishers,
interpreters/translators/transcribers
• Geopolitics of English/ELF?
• Ethical procedures and practices
• Internationalisation/globalisation have brought new insights
into these processes
• We need to avoid being “essentialist” about language and
languages
Implications for the higher education context

35. The overarching construct for our thinking about the possibilities for and
complexities of researching multilingually
Researcher purposefulness
The informed and intentional research(er) thinking and decision-making
which results from an awareness and thorough consideration of the
possibilities for and complexities of all aspects of the research process
(including RM-ly).
(Holmes, P., Fay, R., Andrews, J., & Attia, M. (2016, in press). How to research multilingually: Possibilities
and complexities. In H. Zhu (Ed.) Research methods in intercultural communication. London: Wiley.
Implications for the researcher
Being purposeful, creative, and resourceful

36. An emergent RMly conceptualisation
Purposefulness
• Making informed and intentional researcher decisions
• Researcher reflexivity & sensitivity, identity
Relationships
• Researcher, supervisor, participants,
mediators/translators/interpreters/transcribers
• Trust, ethics, power
Researching multilingually spaces (including context)
• Research (topic); researched; researcher; re/presentation
• Interdisciplinary insights
• Institutional culture
Theoretical implications

37. University policies – what guidelines exist for influencing practices of
supervisors? experienced researchers? doctoral researchers? examiners?
ethics committees? language choices in theses?
Research Council policies – are practices sympathetic to “researching
multilingually”? Are evaluators alert to opportunities and possibilities for
researching multilingually? Are practices more “local” to disciplines or
individuals?
Academic & professional association guidelines – how attuned are they to
researching multilingually issues?
(see http://researchingmultilingually.com/?page_id=503
Fay & Holmes presentation, IALIC, University of Durham, 2012)
Policy implications

38. Issues we are exploring …
• Research methods textbooks need to give attention to
researching multilingually – taking issues beyond language-
related disciplines
• Research training courses for all students
• Supervisor training/guidelines
• Community researcher training/guidelines
Pedagogical implications

39. To ensure the trustworthiness of the research, RMly researchers might
consider the following:
 build and nurture relationships among all stakeholders
- Interrogate positions of power and positioning
 recognise the values and motivations of those initiating, undertaking
and evaluating the research
- project funders, supervisors, ethics committees, other researchers, policy
implementers
 negotiate the institutional parameters of the research site or context
- e.g., the institutions involved
 investigate the in-between, and often unexplored, spaces—the silences,
interruptions, apprehensions, unexplored and unarticulated tensions
and decision making—invoked in the minds of researchers, supervisors,
and research participants (and other stakeholders)
Conclusion

40. Building a wider RMly researcher knowledge base and network:
www.researchingmultingually.com
www.researching-multilingually-at-borders.com
1) What is your experience of doing research in more than one language?
2) What is your experience of becoming aware of the complexities in this
area?
Send 300 – 500 words (same text can be offered in different languages) and
photo (JPEG) to mariam.attia@durham.ac.uk
An invitation to participate

41. Thank you
Tak
ً‫شكرا‬
Merci
Grazie
Danke schön
Xie xie 谢谢
p.m.holmes@durham.ac.uk
mariam.attia@durham.ac.uk
Holmes, P., Fay, R., Andrews, J., Attia,
M. (2013). Researching multilingually:
New theoretical and methodological
directions. International Journal of
Applied Linguistics, 23(3), 285–299.
Holmes, P. Fay, R., Andrews, J., Attia,
M. (2016, in press). The possibility of
researching multilingually. In H. Zhu
(Ed.), Research methods in
intercultural communication: A
practical guide. London: Wiley.