Translanguaging in performance: an ethnographic drama approach

ABSTRACT

Translanguaging involves communication through available semiotic resources, including embodied action. In this paper, we report research in which we observed communication in a volleyball team. We also show how we found conventional academic writing to have limited scope in the representation of embodied communicative practice and came to ethnographic drama as a viable alternative. In the theatre, the enaction of everyday communication is laid out before the audience, inviting reflection, and critical evaluation. We discuss theatre techniques that steer the audience away from emotional involvement and towards intellectual judgement. We propose that techniques introduced in Bertolt Brecht’s [1978. Brecht on Theatre. London: Bloomsbury Academic ] theatre of estrangement have the potential to expand the range and scope of ethnographic analysis, offering a creative means of critical reflection on translanguaging as embodied communication.

KEYWORDS:

• Ethnographic drama
• linguistic ethnography
• translanguaging
• performance
• sociolinguistics

Disclosure statement

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

Notes

1 This work was supported by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (1 April 2014–31 March 2018) as a Translating Cultures Large Grant: ‘Translation and Translanguaging: Investigating Linguistic and Cultural Transformations in Superdiverse Wards in Four UK Cities’ ((AH/L007096/1) £1,973,527), Principal Investigator, Angela Creese, with Mike Baynham, Adrian Blackledge, Jessica Bradley, John Callaghan, Lisa Goodson, Ian Grosvenor, Amal Hallak, Jolana Hanusova, Rachel Hu, Agnieszka Lyons, Bharat Malkani, Sarah Martin, Emilee Moore De Luca, Li Wei, Jenny Phillimore, Mike Robinson, Frances Rock, James Simpson, Jaspreet Kaur Takhi, Caroline Tagg, Janice Thompson, Kiran Trehan, Piotr Wegorowski, and Zhu Hua.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Arts and Humanities Research Council.