Lessons in response-ability: supporting social encounters by ‘doing’ language

ABSTRACT

While many language programmes put the responsibility of language learning in the refugees' hands, few have developed approaches where the responsibility of language rests on both sides: with the refugees and the host communities. Building on rhetorical, intercultural and translanguaging theories, I present a peer-education model to show how it facilitated the emergence of social connections in translanguaging spaces. Participants focused on doing language: planning and delivering collective actions in their communities. I conclude by reviewing some of the principles of the programme that enable collective action-driven language response-ability as a process towards sociolinguistic integration.

Nombreux programmes linguistiques confient aux réfugiés la responsabilité de l'apprentissage des langues. Rares sont ceux qui ont développé des approches où la responsabilité repose du côté des réfugiés et des communautés d'accueil. Avec le support des theories rhétoriques, interculturelles et de translanguaging, je présente un modèle d'éducation afin de montrer comment faciliter l'émergence de connexions sociales dans des espaces de translanguaging. Les participants se sont concentrés sur la planification et la réalisation d'actions collectives dans leurs communautés. Je conclus en proposant principes du programme qui facilitent la capacité de réponse fondée sur l'action collective en tant que processus d'intégration sociolinguistique.

KEYWORDS:

• Intercultural communication
• language responsibility
• integration
• refugees
• linguistic hospitality

Acknowledgments

I would like to thank the Scottish Refugee Council for their relentless work in welcoming New Scots and ensuring that their rights are protected and their experiences in Scotland are rich, positive and constructive. I would also like to express my deep gratitude to all the participants involved in the SLSL programme who shared their time and stories with great generosity.

Disclosure statement

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

Notes on contributor

Lavinia Hirsu is a Lecturer in the School of Education at the University of Glasgow. Her research and teaching are transdisciplinary as she works at the confluence of digital literacies, theories of cultural diversity and social inclusion, academic writing and translingual pedagogy. She has recently been involved in a series of international projects and has coordinated projects aimed at supporting translingual practices in multilingual environments. She recently co-edited a collection entitled Rhetorical machines: Writing, code, and computational ethics (University of Alabama Press, 2019).

Correction Statement

This article has been republished with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Notes

1 Based on the success of the pilot, the Scottish Refugee Council was able to secure funding to role out the programme across Scotland (October 2018–September 2020) in eight community groups and their respective local areas.

2 Community-based language programmes are neither new nor specific to the Syrian refugee crisis. As Auerbach et al. note (1996), participatory models based on bilingual instruction have emerged in 1989–1993. Communities have been considered as hubs of shared knowledge, while the idea of using bilingual mentors and community interns has been supported in different language programmes for immigrants and refugees (see Auerbach et al., 1996).

3 In the Scottish context, the term New Scots is attributed to refugees and asylum seekers in an effort to remove the social stigma of these identity labels and to include everyone under the same collective identity banner of the Scottish identity.

4 The name of the peer in this vignette is a pseudonym.