Translanguaging space and creative activity: theorising collaborative arts-based learning

ABSTRACT

This paper focuses on an innovative transdisciplinary educational arts-based learning project, LangScape Curators, which links to and leads from research conducted for the AHRC-funded ‘Translation and Translanguaging’ project. Here, we describe how we work collaboratively with creative practitioners to use a variety of creative arts methods with young people to explore the linguistic landscapes of Leeds. We propose a theoretical framework for collaborative research activity of this nature, and we use one of the creative arts activities – collage – to exemplify visual understandings of how communicative repertoires and linguistic landscapes are explored through co-produced pedagogical workshops. The programme and its associated research make an original contribution to linguistic landscape-based collaborative ethnographic research. We conclude by setting out directions for the future of these activities and their application in applied linguistics research and practice.

Cet article se concentre sur le projet créatif transdisciplinaire, LangScape Curators (LS-C), associé à la recherche menée au projet «Translation and Translanguaging» (TLANG), financé par le AHRC. Ici nous décrivons nos recherches collaboratives réalisées avec des artistes pour développer des méthodes créatives afin d’explorer les ‘paysages linguistiques’ de Leeds avec des jeunes. Nous proposons un cadre théorique pour des activités de recherche collaboratives, et nous utilisons l'une des activités créatives - le collage – pour illustrer les implications des activités pédagogiques coproduites et la compréhension visuelle des répertoires communicatifs et des paysages linguistiques que ce projet permet. Le programme et ses recherches apportent une contribution originale à la recherche ethnographique collaborative sur le paysage linguistique. En conclusion, nous définissons des orientations pour l'avenir de ces activités et leur application dans la recherche en linguistique appliquée et dans la pratique.

KEYWORDS:

• Linguistic landscape
• collaborative ethnography
• arts-based methods
• translanguaging
• superdiversity

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Corrigendum

Acknowledgements

The project was possible due to funding from the Educational Engagement Social Sciences Cluster and the authors thank Steven Gleadall for his ongoing support and his enthusiasm for the project. We would also like to thank the young people and centre staff at IntoUniversity Leeds-East and Leeds-South, the Leeds-based TLANG team which included Mike Baynham, Jolana Hanusova and Massimilliano Sassi, and in particular John Callaghan on whose linguistic landscape research practice this project is based. The creative writing activities were devised and led by Sarah Bradley-Adam and the performances by Helen Clarke. The work develops from the Arts and Humanities research project (1/4/2014–31/3/2018) ‘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, Daria Jankowicz-Pytel, Agnieszka Lyons, Bharat Malkani, Sarah Martin, Emilee Moore, Li Wei, Jenny Phillimore, Mike Robinson, Frances Rock, James Simpson, Jaspreet Kaur Takhi, Caroline Tagg, Janice Thompson, Kiran Trehan, Piotr Wegorowski and Zhu Hua.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors

Jessica Bradley is doctoral researcher in the School of Education and visiting researcher in the School of Fine Art, History of Art and Cultural Studies at the University of Leeds. She is also research and evaluation officer in the Institute of Childhood and Education at Leeds Trinity University. Her research focuses on multilingual and multimodal practices in community arts. She has interests in co-production and collaboration with artists and creative practitioners in the field of language and communication research.

Emilee Moore is Serra Húnter Fellow at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona and affiliated with the TLANG project at the University of Leeds. She studies interactional practices in multilingual and multicultural contexts from a perspective integrating linguistic ethnography, interactional sociolinguistics, ethnomethodology and sociocultural theories.

James Simpson is a Senior Lecturer in Language Education at the University of Leeds, and is a co-investigator on the TLANG project. As well as his work on TLANG his research interests are the teaching and learning of English for multilingual students in migration contexts, and language learning with new technology in the developing world. He is developing research interests in participatory arts and language learning.

Louise Atkinson is a visual artist, curator and researcher who completed a practice-based PhD in the School of Fine Art, History of Art and Cultural Studies at the University of Leeds in 2016. Her work is based on ideas of appropriation as interpretation and how these relate to collecting in museum and art practice. She is also interested in exploring co-production and cross-cultural understanding in and through material culture.

ORCID

Emilee Moore http://orcid.org/0000-0003-0112-4251

Notes

1 For more information, please refer to: www.birmingham.ac.uk/tlang.

2 For more information, please refer to: http://intouniversity.org. We have permission from the organisation to use their name, although all pupils’ names have been altered to protect their identity.

3 A group of 24 research-intensive universities in the UK. See: http://russellgroup.ac.uk/about/our-universities/.