T-Lang Summer School
Written by PhD student, Virginia Grover.
I had the opportunity to attend a very interesting five day course at University of Birmingham called “Researching Translanguaging: Key concepts, Methods and Issues”, from June 19-23. It took place at the School of Education and was led by Angela Creese, the lead researcher in the T-LANG project entitled Translation and Translanguaging: Investigating Linguistic and Cultural Transformations in Superdiverse Wards in Four UK Cities, a four-year project funded by the AHRC. As attendees of the course we heard talks by, and engaged in discussions with, researchers from universities in the four cities involved in the T-LANG project: Birmingham, Cardiff, Leeds and London. In addition, researchers and PhD students from three South African universities participated and shared their research into translingual practices in the South African context. Over the week, the talks and workshops included translanguaging in conjunction with semiotic repertoires, superdiversity, the body, social media, cityscapes, education, multimodality and research practice. A panel on researching translanguaging and interdisciplinarity concluded the week. Delegates also enjoyed the chance to engage in collaborative work and hands on activities, including the use of drawings in ethnographic research, and the theatrical enactment of some of their own research findings. More details can be found on the T-LANG website blog.
By Virginia Grover.