Researching Multilingually

Conceptual and Methodological Failures, Struggles and Successes

Edited by Bridget Goodman, Brian Seilstad

Publication date:

14 January 2025

Publisher

Multilingual Matters

Dimensions:

234x156mm
6x9"

ISBN-13: 9781788925693

This book examines what ‘researching multilingually’ means in practice and theory. It is multinational and transnational in scope, including the voices of both experienced and emerging scholars who reflect on the process of conducting, analyzing and reporting multilingual research in various settings. Together the chapters address issues including theorizing multilingualism and collaborative research with multilingual scholars and research participants; navigating insider or outsider positioning with research participants; making and accepting language choices among researchers and participants during research; translating and interpreting multilingual data; and confronting policy challenges of multilingual research design and reporting in English-dominant contexts. The book ties these processes to existing theories of multilingualism in research and proposes new ways of understanding best practices while also wrestling with challenges and at times ‘failures’ in the research process.

This engaging volume offers new ways of theorizing research on, with and by multilingual speakers in multilingual contexts. It provides a rich collection of testimonies from younger and older scholars on how they have researched the teaching of English in a ‘multilingual’ manner in various parts of the world. Their honest and mature reflections raise interesting questions about the educational benefits and the political risks of researching multilingually.