This book is a synthesis of important topics in studying multilingualism: dynamic multilingualism, translanguaging, language policy, bilingual education, and bilingualism and cognition. The author as an immigrant herself integrated personal and dramatic experiences around most of the topics to show how they influence the lives of immigrants around the globe. The author’s aim is to reach the readers in a personal way. The issue of translanguaging and social justice is crucial for the book. The studies on bilingualism and cognition give amazing results on how bilingual children profit from increased metalinguistic awareness, abstract thinking, creativity, working memory, attention control, to name just a few. Bilingualism is shown to be a real gift for human understanding. The original feature of this book is the integration of excerpts of the interviews the author conducted with the experts in the field of bilingualism: Ellen Bialystok, Jim Cummins, Ofelia Garcí a, Christine He lot, Nancy Hornberger, and Catherine Snow. For each topic their opinions are combined with future directions in the research on bilingualism that can certainly inspire other researchers in the field. Finally, this book is called Drama of Multilingualism: Literature Review and Liberation, and it is exactly that, informing and affecting those who want to embark on this dramatic journey of exploring multilingualism.
No literary tradition in early modern Europe was as obsessed with the interaction between the native tongue and its dialectal variants, or with ‘foreign’ languages and the phenomenon of ‘translation’, as English Renaissance drama. Originally published as a themed issue of English Text Construction 6:1 (2013), this carefully balanced collection of essays, now enhanced with a new Afterword, decisively demonstrates that Shakespeare and his colleagues were far more than just ‘English’ authors and that their very ‘Englishness’ can only be properly understood in a broader international and multilingual context. Showing a healthy disrespect for customary disciplinary borderlines, Multilingualism in the Drama of Shakespeare and his Contemporaries brings together a wide range of scholarly traditions and vastly different types of expertise. While several papers venture into previously uncharted territory, others critically revisit some of the loci classici of early modern theatrical multilingualism such as Shakespeare’s Henry V.
Multilingualism is integral to the human condition. Hinging on the concept of Creative Multilingualism – the idea that language diversity and creativity are mutually enriching – this timely and thought-provoking volume shows how the concept provides a matrix for experimentation with ideas, approaches and methods. The book presents four years of joint research on Creative Multilingualism conducted across disciplines, from the humanities through to the social and natural sciences. It is structured as a manifesto, comprising ten major statements which are unpacked and explored through various case studies across ten chapters. They encompass areas including the rich relationship between language diversity and diversity of identity, thought and expression; the interaction between language diversity and biodiversity; the ‘prismatic’ unfolding of meaning in translation; the benefits of linguistic creativity in a classroom-setting; and the ingenuity underpinning ‘conlangs’ (‘constructed languages’) such as Tolkien’s Quenya and Sindarin, designed to give imagined peoples a distinctive medium capable of expressing their cultural identity. Creative Multilingualism: A Manifesto is a welcome contribution to the field of modern languages, highlighting the intricate relationship between multilingualism and creativity, and, crucially, reaching beyond an Anglo-centric view of the world. Intended to spark further research and discussion, this book appeals to young people interested in languages, language learning and cultural exchange. It will be a valuable resource for academics, educators, policy makers and parents of bilingual or multilingual children. Its accessible style also speaks to general readers interested in the role of language diversity in our everyday lives, and the untapped creative potential of multilingualism.
This book applies a descriptive and multimodal methodology for the analysis of multilingual TV series with recurrent use of foreign languages in order to examine the role of multilingualism in the audiovisual products analysed. It also explores whether and how dubbing affects the plot and characterisation of original TV series, while its focus on Italian dubbing provides more detailed and specific insight into the phenomenon.
This book explores the ways in which multimodality and multilingualism as areas of study intersect and provides empirical examples of how this looks in practice from a wide range of settings. The chapters include visual as well as linguistic descriptions of practice and provide an accessible introduction to multimodality and multilingualism for a readership from undergraduate students to researchers. The book argues that the everyday practices of multilingual communities are multimodal in nature, and that by working at the intersection of multilingualism and multimodality we may be able to make fruitful advances in multiple areas of applied linguistics, and properly appreciate the actual human complexities of communication.
This collection offers a cross-disciplinary exploration of the ways in which multilingual practices were embedded in early modern European literary culture, opening up a dynamic dialogue between contemporary multilingual practices and scholarly work on early modern history and literature. The nine chapters draw on translation studies, literary history, transnational literatures, and contemporary sociolinguistic research to explore how multilingual practices manifested themselves across different social, cultural and institutional spaces. The exploration of a diverse range of contexts allows for the opportunity to engage with questions around how individual practices shape national and transnational language practices and literatures, the impact of multilingual practices on identity formation, and their implications for creative innovations in bilingual and multilingual texts. Taken as a whole, the collection paves the way for future conversations on what early modern literary studies and present-day multilingualism research might learn from one another and the extent to which historical texts might supply precedents for contemporary multilingual practices. This book will be of particular interest to students and scholars in sociolinguistics, early modern studies in history and literature, and comparative literature.
Within a clear conceptual framework, this book explores ways that teachers, reading specialists, administrators, and teacher educators can provide more effective literacy instruction to K-9 students from diverse ethnic, cultural, and linguistic backgrounds. Cutting-edge theory and research is interwoven with detailed case studies that bring to life the complexities of teaching in today's multicultural and multilingual classroom. Topics covered include: *How and why culture matters in literacy instruction *Drawing on students' multiple literacies in the classroom *Motivating and engaging English-language learners *Steps that teachers can take to heighten their cultural awareness and skills *Tapping into family and community resources for literacy learning
What does another language do to the individual who learns and uses it? How is the individual's idea of self affected by the other language? This case study deals with these two overarching questions within the context of learning English as a foreign language through drama at a German upper-secondary school in South Tyrol. It investigates how the students see themselves in their roles, how they perceive themselves as users of the foreign language, and how they experience themselves in-role in another language. The results show how powerful drama-based activities can be and what educational impact they have.
South Africa is a multiracial, multiethnic and multilingual country. During the dismantling of apartheid, schools opened doors to all race groups which introduced a cacophony of multi-isms into classrooms across the country; multiracialism, multilingualism, multiculturalism and so on resulting in a diversity of learners in one classroom, learning together. The situation presented a microcosmic environment of heterogeneity for teachers to grapple with as they delivered the curriculum. In some schools though, usually in rural areas, one can still find school environments that are predominantly homogeneous, but this reality only emphasises the divide between elite, challenging urban education and the lagging behind of under-resourced rural schools. The South African constitution (which has been lauded as one of the most liberal constitutions in the world) enshrines language rights. It recognises eleven official languages; Setswana, IsiZulu, IsiXhosa, TshiVenda, XiTsonga, IsiSwati, Sesotho, Sepedi, IsiNdebele, Afrikaans and English.
Texts of the past were often not monolingual but were produced by and for people with bi- or multilingual repertoires; the communicative practices witnessed in them therefore reflect ongoing and earlier language contact situations. However, textbooks and earlier research tend to display a monolingual bias. This collected volume on multilingual practices in historical materials, including code-switching, highlights the importance of a multilingual approach. The authors explore multilingualism in hitherto neglected genres, periods and areas, introduce new methods of locating and analysing multiple languages in various sources, and review terminology, theories and tools. The studies also revisit some of the issues already introduced in previous research, such as Latin interacting with European vernaculars and the complex relationship between code-switching and lexical borrowing. Collectively, the contributors show that multilingual practices share many of the same features regardless of time and place, and that one way or the other, all historical texts are multilingual. This book takes the next step in historical multilingualism studies by establishing the relevance of the multilingual approach to understanding language history.
Drama pedagogy has been undergoing considerable changes over the last few years. The diversification of dramatic texts and performative practices both analogue and digital impacts on foreign language education and requires new forms of literacies for teachers and learners. This volume brings together papers that theorize and investigate current teaching perspectives at the nexus of drama-oriented and performative teaching and foreign language education.
This volume charts the widening frontiers of black literary aesthetics using the prose and dramatic fictions of writers from Africa and the African diaspora. The chapters come in two interactive phases of current critical discourses involving rejoinders from past-present concerns and issues of cultural and contemporary modernity. These studies stress the argument that African literature is hardly discussed outside contemporary history and that the reason for the apparent disconnection among groups in Africa and the diaspora can be traced to the disparate elements within the continent and diaspora.
