Fay, R. (University of Manchester), Andrews, J. (University of the West of England), Holmes, P. and Attia, M. (Durham University), RM-ly work in progress: some current whats and hows from our interdisciplinary, collaborative work to date. Presentation as part of the AHRC Researching Multilingually at the Borders of Language, the Body, Law and the State symposium, Bucharest, Romania, November 3rd – 6th, 2015.

1. RM-ly Work in Progress: Some Current Whats and Hows from
Our Interdisciplinary Collaborative Work to Date
Richard Fay (The University of Manchester)
Jane Andrews (The University of the West of England)
Prue Holmes (Durham University)
Mariam Attia (Durham University)
Bucharest CS3/CATC/RMTC Symposium
Bucharest, 4th
– 6th
November, 2015

2. Some WHATs and HOWs (and a
WHYs) of Our Work in Progress
 ‘Work in Progress’ + Some … Reflections on/sharing of ….
… some (i.e. 2) of our Ways of Working
… some (i.e. 2) of the emerging thinking resulting from these WoWs
 WHYs – To answer the more philosophical and critical (and less
instrumental) question:
“What does it mean to language / be languaged (esp. in contexts of pain and pressure)?”
 WHATs & HOWs – two examples of differing WoWs as linked to the
insights emerging from them (examples, not models!)
 Other Examples – (1) Theory-Work and (2) CATC-led Performance …
(1) a HOW (i.e. one way in which we are feeding our conceptualisation remit) and
a WHAT (e.g. the potential of translingual practice in a RM-ly conceptualisation)
(2) a HOW (i.e. working with the CATC on ‘hotspots’) leading to a WHAT (e.g. the deeper
understanding of the image of the ‘well of the researcher’s linguistic resources)
Links between 1 and 2? (Laboratory)

3. Some Ongoing Ways of Working
• Presentation 1 reviewed this territory
• Reflections on (and for?) researcher practice vis-à-vis RM-ly
(reflections in action?) [REFLECTIVE PRACTICE]
• Narratives of researcher development vis-à-vis RM-ly (e.g.
researcher profiles/trajectories) [NARRATIVE INQUIRY]
• Accounts of and discussion of specific aspects of RM-ly
practice [REFLECTIVE PRACTICE]
• Collaborative, interdisciplinary exploration [EP?]
• HOTSPOTS (in Brussels process and supportive
documentation) – more later

4. Example 1 - overview
• HOW = collaborative (i.e. CS/CA/RM) fieldwork (Uganda)
• WHATs:
(1) languaging with LANGO (relational aspects of fieldwork)
(2) collaborative discussion re CS1 methodology (DIME) as viewed with
a RM-ly lens
(3) collaboratively arrived at - and diversely disseminated (Ross’ blog,
MAGic conference) - RM-ly methodological and content insights
re GMH (medical anthropology)
(4) links to the WHAT from Example 2

5. Example 1 – some specifics

6. ‘Building capacity for culturally appropriate psychosocial interventions in Northern Uganda’
•DIME (Design, Implementation, Monitoring and Evaluation) developed at John Hopkins University by Applied
Mental Health Research Group (AMHR)
•A multiphasic approach developed to assist with the development of psychosocial interventions for mental
health difficulties in low and middle-income countries (LMIC).
•…. the process is based on the principles of community-based participatory research (CBCR)
•Over 40 different languages are spoken in Uganda.
•There has been a tendency to translate local language understanding about distress into English (as a step to
providing local people with access to pre-existing, or new developed, forms of treatment often offered by
international NGOs).
•The textbooks used to train mental health professionals in Uganda tend to come from US/UK.
•English language descriptions of forms of psychopathology predominate in training.
•This has created a context where the global and the local dynamically interact.
https://rosswhiteblog.wordpress.com/2015/03/29/working-multilingually-to-promote-wellbeing-in-northern-
uganda/
Example 1 – some specifics

7. Example 1 – some specifics
“Having this focused and dedicated time together has done much to reaffirm
my confidence that the work in Uganda is providing rich opportunities for
understanding how the languaging of distress can impact on what forms of
support and assistance are deemed to be appropriate. Discussions with both
Richard and Katja have also allowed me to reflect critically on the
methodology that we have been employing and sharpened my awareness
around the points in the process where the use of English language training
has juxtaposed with the use of Lango in the delivery of interviews and the
recording of associated information. I also have to concede that having
Richard and Katja in the team has increased the amount of Lango that I have
been able to pick up.”
https://rosswhiteblog.wordpress.com/2015/04/03/3rd-april-2015-good-friday/

8. Example 2 – overview
• HOW – Hotspots, i.e. for me, thinking betwixt and between
more predictable encounters and activities
… serendipitous encounter between a) my own thinking about if and how
to prepare for the unplanned for trip to Uganda (Lira), b) Julien’s blog
posting (about ‘native-like’ language skills, c) Anabel Tremlett’s article
• WHATs – the arena of researcher’s linguistic preparation for
fieldwork

9. • Nettl (2005): “This dissertation fieldwork [for graduate programs in
ethnomusicology], which is preceded by cultural and linguistic preparation,
usually involve a year or more of residence in the field venue” (p.6).
• Tremlett (2009): “The experience of researching in a second language
is central to the types of ‘claims’ that can be made in ethnographic
fieldwork, yet the process of language acquisition is barely explored in
anthropological texts” (p.63).
• Beaudry (1997) – language in ethnomusicological fieldwork in which
researcher has insufficient linguistic competence to directly undertake
research in the local languages (use of interpreters/ translators).
• Kinginger (2011) – preparation prior to a sojourn experience // Language
awareness // Computer mediated communication // Activities to support pre-
departure proficiency // Jackson (2006) pre-sojourn preparation // Peace-
keepers // C-C Counsellors // Business // Diplomacy // ICT (Baxter, 1983)
Linguistic Preparation (1) … for Social Sciences and similar purposes
Example 2 – some specifics

10. • Gardner & Martin-Jones (2012) new ethnoscapes,
technoscapes, mediascapes
• ESRC RDI researching multilingualism, multilingualism in
research practice
• Creese & Blackledge (2010) team working to explore
translanguaging in specified contexts e.g. complementary
schools
• Heller (2012: 30-31) circulating people, entering a mobile,
multilingual global economy
• Multilingualism “not as a property of individuals or of
groups, or even as a characteristic of spaces, but rather as
sets of circulating, constructible and deconstructible
resources”
‘New multilingual realities ’ (1): Insights from sociolinguistics
Example 2 – some specifics

11. • Critique of a monolingual orientation to communication
e.g. one language maps onto one culture
• Translingual practice as identity expression e.g. lyrics
from rap artist MIA
• New theories, not new practices – code-meshing is not
new
• “my aim has been to provide new research insights into
the ways in which mobile semiotic resources are
negotiated for meaning in global contact zones, and
also to suggest pedagogical approaches to develop
such co-operative dispositions and performative
competence for cosmopolitan relationships”
(Canagarajah, 2013 p.202)
• Our concern – maybe a translingual mindset could be
‘New multilingual realities ’ (2): Insights from Applied Linguistics/Education
Example 2 – some specifics

12. • Planning for multilingual research – with a monolingual
mindset?
• Monolingual ideologies at play within an education
system (Bonacina, 2012)
• Researcher assumptions regarding language use /
choice between research participants and interpreter
(Andrews, 2013)
• Research context as a translingual space –
implications for research planning, linguistic
preparation
Illustration 1: Researching learning in multilingual homes
Example 2 – some specifics

13. • Case Study 1 (Lira, Uganda): To assist with developing contextually
sensitive psychosocial interventions for the Lango-speaking
people living in the Lira district
• Linguistic Preparation …. for 2-weeks in Uganda – English?
KiSwahili? Luganda? Lango? Acholi?
• Linguistic Preparation …. for relational aspects supporting the
research rather than for the research itself
• The DIME research manual is in English; the training for Research
Assistants was delivered in English; all data collection was
conducted in Lango
• The DIME methodology insists that the research should be
conducted in one language …. restrictive & frustrating for
participants?
Illustration 2: Researching context-sensitive psycho-social interventions (a)
Example 2 – some specifics

14. • Ross’ Blog: “It is important to note that the school that we visited
yesterday and the University we visited today only teach students using
English. This highlights the challenges that health professionals might
have [having been] taught in a language that is not necessarily the first
language of the people that they subsequently treat. I think this serves to
highlight the ecological validity and potential utility of the research that we
are conducting.”
• “Discussions with both Richard and Katja have also allowed me to reflect
critically on the methodology that we have been employing and sharpened
my awareness around the points in the process where the use of English
language training has juxtaposed with the use of Lango in the delivery of
interviews and the recording of associated information. I also have to
concede that having Richard and Katja in the team has increased the
amount of Lango that I have been able to pick up.”
https://rosswhiteblog.wordpress.com/
Illustration 2: Researching context-sensitive psycho-social interventions (b)
Example 2 – some specifics

15. • What might usefully be included in the linguistic
preparation undertaken/encouraged for researchers (in
diverse disciplines) working in the complex ‘scapes’?
• Language learning
+
• Language awareness
+
• Translingual (practice) mindset
+
• ??
Revisiting Linguistic Preparation – some further thoughts (1)
Example 2 – some specifics

17. Languaging
Languaging
“… a way of articulating the full, embodied and engaged interaction
with the world that comes when we put the languages we are using
into action.”
“… being a person in that language in the social and material world
of everyday interactions.”
Languagers…
“… engage with the world-in-action, … move in the world in a way
that allows the risk of stepping out of one’s habitual ways of
speaking and attempt to develop different, more relational ways of
interacting with the people and phenomena that one encounters in
everyday life.”
(Phipps, 2011, p. 365)

18. Languaging
Languaging is …
•relational - about the feelings we experience with
others, through place, positioning
– Intercultural, interpersonal, interagentive
•rhizomatic – “the dense tangled cluster of interlaced
threads or filaments any point in which can be
connected to any other” (Ingold, 2000, p. 140).
•involves a language ecology that includes the senses
and sensory experience
•phenomenological – how people perceive the world

19. Translation as a languaging response to phenomena
“… a way of living in translated worlds, the worlds
that meet in relations and that come to make sense
through relations” (Phipps, 2011, p. 372).
Languaging – not just cultural work, but translation as
embodiment of feeling, and ways of relating to place
and to words; shared through habitation
 Yolland speaks of the land to Marie using the Irish names
 Maori identity – whakapapa, mihi
How can researchers draw on languaging in their
researcher praxis?
Languaging

20. Translingual practice
“My aim has been to provide new research insights
into the ways in which mobile semiotic resources are
negotiated for meaning in global contact zones, and
also to suggest pedagogical approaches to develop
such co-operative dispositions and performative
competence for cosmopolitan relationships”
(Canagarajah, 2013, p.202).
Our concern – maybe a translingual mindset could be
nurtured in researcher praxis? If so, how?

21. Example 1 – some specifics

22. Example 2 – some specifics