Why should we care about linguistic diversity and multilingual ecologies?

Round-table discussion on the Tiedekulma Stage Tiedekulma Stage, Yliopistonkatu 4, 00100 Helsinki, March 11 2020, 13:00-14:00:

Participants:

Sandrine Eschenauer is associate professor at the Aix-Marseille University (LPL UMR 7309) in the field of language sciences/didactics of foreign languages. She has experience of primary and secondary school levels, as well as university. She is particularly involved in “arts and languages” educational programs. Her research focuses on the translanguaging aspects observed while using performance (in particular through theatre) to teach two foreign languages at the same time (dual language classes), within a multicultural environment. Through arts, she encourages teachers and learners to unleash their creative potential, a process that echoes the biological roots of learning as a holistic phenomenon, which is both individual and inter-reactive.

Heini Lehtonen I am a sociolinguist currently working as a senior lecturer of university pedagogy in the Centre for University Teaching and Learning (HYPE) at the University of Helsinki. During my Ph.D. (2015) I conducted linguistic ethnography in multilingual schools in East Helsinki, focusing on the ways in which adolescents position themselves with regard to linguistic and ethnic diversities in the schools. In my post doc project (Itä-Helsingin uudet Suomen kielet, 2016 – 2019) I continued to work with the linguistic diversity of East Helsinki: together with other linguists, community artists, and a journalist, we organized sociolinguistically informed community art sessions with the aim of making diversity visible, enhancing linguistic awareness, and developing translanguaging pedagogies. In our current research project PEDAMO (together with Åsa Mickwitz, Dragana Cvetanovic and Auli Toom) we focus on linguistic and pedagogical support in bilingual bachelor programs (TvEx) at the University of Helsinki. My research interests include language ideologies, linguistic diversity and translanguaging pedagogies at universities.

Friederike Lüpke: I am an Africanist linguist specialising in the study of Mande and Atlantic languages, and Professor of African Studies at the University of Helsinki. Beyond grammar, I am interested in language as a social practice, and how different language ecologies are formed by and produce different language ideologies. My 2013 book Repertoires and choices in African languages (with Anne Storch) looks at African communicative settings, the interaction of speaking and writing, and the history of research on African language and its influence on language ideologies. My current research on the sociohistorical and linguistic aspects of small-scale multilingualism in village- and polity-based settings in Southern Senegal led to action research on repertoire-based literacies. Together with a local team of transcribers, researchers and members of the association LILIEMA (“Language-independent literacies for inclusive education in multilingual areas”) I am developing a repertoire-based literacy programme for highly multilingual settings. Multilingualism is not only a focal area of my research. What makes sustainable multilingual ecologies and how they can be nurtured in families, small-scale settings and international higher education environments is a question that underpins my teaching and interaction at the university and beyond.

Elizabeth Peterson: I am a sociolinguist who specializes in topics of language contact and language attitudes. In recent years, my work has turned toward the phenomenon of English as a source language for borrowing into the languages of Europe, especially into Finnish. With this work, I am especially interested in the incorporation of English-sourced discourse-pragmatic particles into Finnish. My most recent work in this area has been an investigation of English swear-word borrowings in Finnish (with Johanna Vaattovaara). In addition, I am interested in attitudes and indexicalities relating to English-sourced borrowings, and, in a broader sense, toward the use of English in general. I recently wrote a book called Making Sense of “Bad English”: An introduction to language attitudes and ideologies in which I discuss some of the views and discriminatory practices related to the use of English in different kinds of settings. I am on the steering committee for two different research groups: the Global Anglicisms Database research network and Discourse-Pragmatic Variation and Change research network. I am active in pursuing research-oriented assessments of the role of English and attitudes about English in the Nordic countries.

Laura Siragusa: I am a linguistic anthropologist, whose research interests comprise questions related to the revival of heritage languages, language ecology, verbal art and its relations to non-human animals and other beings, domestication, and health. Since 2008, I have been working with Veps — a Finno-Ugric minority in northwestern Russia. While my initial interest regarded the promotion of Vepsian heritage language, I later augmented my focus to verbal art and healing practices and relations between human and other-than-human beings as expressed in communicative practices. In particular, I am interested in how environments are constructed and construed through linguistic and paralinguistic practices. At the moment, I am working on three main projects: 1. Links between (indigenous) ways of speaking and environmental change. In 2019, I was awarded a KONE grant to conduct this research among rural Vepsian settlements. This work is grounded on indigenous methodologies and is thus coordinated with a Vepsian indigenous scholar; 2. Language responsibility in relation to a place. For this, I have co-edited a volume for Fennica Series Anthropologica (submitted); 3. Indigenous conceptualization of sustainability. This work has fruitfully provided a special issue for COSUST, which will be published in April 2020