Multilingual streets: translating and curating the linguistic landscape

The project uses participatory and arts-based methods to explore young people’s engagement with the languages around them. 

This interdisciplinary project is situated at the intersection of research, practice and engagement and seeks to have an impact on language education and arts education.

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How to take part

For schools

Our workshops are designed for young people in years 7 to 9. They use arts-based methods to explore multilingualism and languages in everyday lives.

Curriculum-wise it links to modern languages, art and design, literacies and geography.  As the project progresses we will be uploading toolkits based on the project.

For researchers

We want to explore the different ways we can use linguistic landscape-based research in participatory contexts and education.

We are therefore seeking to make links with other researchers developing work in this area. 

For cultural institutions and arts educators

We are developing our project in collaboration with arts educators and cultural institutions, including the Manchester Museum and the Whitworth Gallery.

If you are interested in participation, collaboration or want to find out more, contact Jessica Bradley.

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Presentations and talks

Louise Atkinson and Jessica Bradley spoke about the application of the Multilingual Streets project methodologies to art education on 31 August 2019 at the BAAL 2019 annual meeting at Manchester Metropolitan University as part of the AILA Ren Creative Inquiry and Applied Linguistics colloquium.

Downloads

Download the slides (.docx, 19.8KB)

Jessica Bradley delivered a seminar about the project as invited lecturer to undergraduate students in the School of Education at the University of Leeds on 2 May 2019.

Download the slides (PDF, 2MB)

Jessica Bradley and Louise Atkinson delivered a day-long workshop at the Society for Research into Higher Education in London on 18 March 2019.

Download the slides (PDF, 1.4MB)

Publications

• Bradley, J. & Atkinson, L. (2020, forthcoming) Translanguaging beyond bricolage: Meaning making and collaborative ethnography in community arts. In E. Moore, J. Bradley & J. Simpson (Eds). Translanguaging as transformation: The collaborative construction of new linguistic realities. Bristol: Multilingual Matters.
• Moore, E., Bradley, J. & Simpson, J. (eds). (2020, forthcoming). Translanguaging as transformation: The collaborative construction of new linguistic realities. Bristol: Multilingual Matters.
• Bradley, J. & Harvey, L. (2019) Creative Inquiry in Applied Linguistics: Language, Communication and the Arts. In C. Wright, L. Harvey & J. Simpson (eds.) Voices and Practices in Applied Linguistics. York: White Rose Publishing.
• Bradley, J., Moore, E., Simpson, J. & Atkinson, L. (2018) Translanguaging space and creative activity: Theorising collaborative arts-based learning. Language and Intercultural Communication, Special Edition, Bridging across languages and cultures in everyday lives: new roles for changing scenarios, 18(1), pp.54-73.
• Bradley, J. (2017c) Translanguaging engagement: Dynamic multilingualism and university language engagement programmes. Bellaterra Journal of Teaching & learning Language & Literature, 10(4), pp.9-31.
• Simpson, J. & Bradley, J. (2017) Communication in the contact zone: The TLANG project and ESOL. Language Issues 27.2, pp.4-18.

Funding

Funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC)’s ‘Open World Research Initiative’ (OWRI) ‘Cross-Language Dynamics: Reshaping Community’ programme.