Nodal frontlines and multisidedness. Contemporary multilingualism scholarship and beyond

ABSTRACT

At an overarching level this paper attempts to draw attention to emerging trends in the humanities where alternative ways of doing science reconfigure epistemological traditions and research methodologies, the role of intellectuals and their engagement with current conditions of the world, including ways in which scholars gazes are constituted. Drawing on what we call a Second Wave of Southern Perspectives (SWaSP), that sees the entanglements of two clusters – the first of which comprises contemporary ways of reading anticolonial, postcolonial and decolonial thinkers with offerings of Southern perspectives, and a second where contemporary theories about language and communication that considers their cultural and social dimensions, this paper calls for a mobile global-centric gazing. More specifically this paper actualises ontoepistemological trajectories that feed into the scholarship about multilingualism, looking at its different possible beings and becomings that enable a variety of ways of conceptualising multilingual practices. We do this by first presenting a brief review about recent discussions related to the concept of repertoires in the field of multilingualism and pathways that can move these debates in different directions. After this, we present possible ways to go beyond the sociolinguistics of multilingualism, by considering contemporary challenges in the knowledge production enterprise.

KEYWORDS:

• Second Wave of Southern Perspectives
• multisidedness
• multilingualism
• semiotic repertoires
• enregisterment
• chaining

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 Here it can be noted that a number of scholars highlight the economic dimensions that naturalise the hegemonies of European pushed colonialism and racism as the naturalised order of things (see for instance, Heller & McElhinny, 2017; Tsing, 2015). Krenak’s point of different humanities needs to be read in terms of pointing to hegemonies of such naturalizations – this is developed in our paper, in particular in terms of ‘humaning’ (see the final section).

2 The following can be named to highlight the epistemological heritage of this critique: Bhabha, Comaroff and Comaroff, Fanon, Grosfoguel, Kilomba, Mignolo, Santos, Spivak.

3 For more on SWaSP, see Bagga-Gupta (2017a, in press a, b, c).

4 Instead of her/his/their/they, we use the gender-neutral term zir unless the context calls for otherwise.

5 Linell (2009) and others have been critical to discussing these issues in terms of language-use, since that implies that language is outside of its users. The terms languaging and languagers attempt to go beyond this type of dichotomy.

6 See for instance, Bagga-Gupta (1999, 2002, 2012), Erting et al. (2002), Hansen (2005), Humphries and MacDougall (1999), Padden (1996).

7 Mouthings i.e. visually available articulations on the mouth of oral/spoken/verbal language-use is also described as a resource in visually oriented communication.