Multiling Winter School 2023 - Researching family multilingualism: Theoretical and methodological approaches

Sociolinguistic research on family multilingualism seeks to understand the dynamic interrelation between caregivers’ decision-making and practices with respect to language use in the family, child agency, child language acquisition, and institutional policies outside the home.

The 2023 Winter School focuses on bi/multilingual families as a complex and dynamic space whose norms are informed both by family-internal factors and home-external affordances, including technological developments supporting digital communication, and constraints.

Our aim is to address and provide a critical approach to multilingualism in diverse family types from various perspectives, examining how, and why, bi/multilingual families in diverse settings negotiate and/or navigate bi/multilingualism in the family.

Additionally, we will explore multiple methodological lenses, including discourse analysis, interactional sociolinguistics, and ethnographic fieldwork, in researching family multilingualism. In this way, we aim to support PhD researchers with varied data, analytic methods, and interests.

Learning outcomes

On successful completion of this course, students will: 

• be able to discuss and understand current theoretical and methodological approaches to research on family multilingualism in diverse settings and different family types.
• be familiar with the contributions of discourse analysis, interactional sociolinguistics, and linguistic ethnography as methodological approaches to researching family multilingualism.
• be able to evaluate and critically analyze theoretical concepts and methodologies employed in research on family multilingualism.
• be able to identify elements of an ethically grounded, reflective practice for language research on families.
• be able to present their own research, and engage in discussion of their peer’s research
• be able to apply insights, techniques and ethical concerns gained from this course to future research and teaching practice.

ECTS

Participants are granted credit on the basis of:

1. Participation (minimum 80% of course activities).
2. A presentation and discussion of own work.
3. Serving as a discussant for the presentation of another participant.

Program

Click here to open the program for MultiLing Winter School 2023

Reading list

Approx 400 pages, assigned by the lecturers (TBA).

Prerequisites

The participants must be enrolled in a PhD program in linguistics or a related field of study. There is no course fee, but participants will have to cover their own travel and accommodation expenses. If you are unsure whether your research would fit within the scope of the course, please contact the organizers to discuss.

Application procedure

All applicants are kindly asked to submit (together with their application):

1. A 250-word description of the data and method(s) that they would like to present for discussion during the course. The students will be asked to give a short presentation introducing their study and a challenge they have encountered, and discussing it in the light of relevant publications on the reading list for the course. NB! UiO-applicants: Send the description to the organizers.
2. All external (non-UiO) applicants: A brief letter of recommendation from their supervisor indicating that the course is relevant for the applicant.
3. Go to the course front page, to find links to Søknadsweb and/or Studentweb, where you register your application.

Confirmed lecturers

• Lyn Wright (University of Memphis, USA)

• Åsa Palviainen (Jyväskylä University, Finland)

• Luca Onnis (University of Oslo, Norway)

• Natalia Kartushina (University of Oslo, Norway)

• Rafael Lomeu Gomes (University of Oslo, Norway