Language Choice and Researcher’s Stance in a Multilingual Ethnographic Fieldwork
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Lídia Gallego-Balsà
Abstract
In bilingual settings language choice represents one of the main resources individuals have to construct their identities. According to Jaffe (2009), it is also a way in which individuals position themselves towards the languages of the sociolinguistic context. However, in the context of researching multilingual settings, very little attention has been paid to how the researcher’s language choice(s) interact with the participants’ language choices, and how the linguistic features that s/he activates contribute to the construction of the researcher’s identity and her/his stance towards the languages of the sociolinguistic matrix within which the research is embedded. This paper is based in the context of Catalonia and explores how the researcher projects and is ascribed a stance as a consequence of her own linguistic practices. First, it shows that these practices lead to the construction of relationships of (dis)affiliation between the researcher and the participants, which ultimately influence the type of data collected. Second, it suggests that language choice is an essential lens through which to look at the researcher’s positionality in multilingual settings and provide more transparent accounts of multilingual ethnographic research.
Funding statement: This work was supported by Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad (Funder Id: 10.13039/501100003329), (Grant Number: FFI2015-67769-P)
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Transcription conventions
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long sound
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shift to high pitch
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shift to low pitch
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rise
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fall
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latching
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uptake
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top end overlap
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botton begin overlap
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bottom end overlap
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faster
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slower
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softer
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louder
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smile voice
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missing word
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text omitted
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description of communicative features that accompany language
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explanation of the researcher
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pause of less than one second
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pause of one second and a half
© 2020 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston
Artikel in diesem Heft
- Frontmatter
- Language(s), culture(s), ethnicity(-ies), social class and religious background: intersections in researcher’s identity and ethnography
- Doing ethnography among Latinos in London and Barcelona: languages, genders, and ethnicities
- Preparing the milk and honey: between ethnography and academia as a racially minoritised academic
- Language Choice and Researcher’s Stance in a Multilingual Ethnographic Fieldwork
- Regular Articles
- Does context really collapse in social media interaction?
- Conceptual metonymies and metaphors behind SHUI (WATER) and HUO (FIRE) in ancient and modern Chinese
- Strategy development and cross-linguistic transfer in foreign and first language writing
- Thai university students studying in China: Identity, imagined communities, and communities of practice
Artikel in diesem Heft
- Frontmatter
- Language(s), culture(s), ethnicity(-ies), social class and religious background: intersections in researcher’s identity and ethnography
- Doing ethnography among Latinos in London and Barcelona: languages, genders, and ethnicities
- Preparing the milk and honey: between ethnography and academia as a racially minoritised academic
- Language Choice and Researcher’s Stance in a Multilingual Ethnographic Fieldwork
- Regular Articles
- Does context really collapse in social media interaction?
- Conceptual metonymies and metaphors behind SHUI (WATER) and HUO (FIRE) in ancient and modern Chinese
- Strategy development and cross-linguistic transfer in foreign and first language writing
- Thai university students studying in China: Identity, imagined communities, and communities of practice
