Home Introduction: applied linguistics, ethics and aesthetics of encountering the Other
Article
Licensed
Unlicensed Requires Authentication

Introduction: applied linguistics, ethics and aesthetics of encountering the Other

  • Magdalena Kubanyiova ORCID logo EMAIL logo and Angela Creese ORCID logo
Published/Copyright: April 8, 2024
Become an author with De Gruyter Brill

Abstract

This article explains the rationale for proposing an applied linguistics of ethical encounters. It does so by extending the current reach beyond the critical and ideological commentary of unjust linguistic practices and considers how applied linguistics research might play an active role in both theorising and enabling ethical encounters. By ethical encounters we mean those that enact the political vision of an inclusive and just society in face-to-face meetings with particular others, i.e. the Other. We ground our inquiry in a relational framework, which places the subject’s responsibility at the heart of ethical relationships and as a basis for a political achievement of just society in settings of trauma, social stigma and unequal power relationships. We argue that the subject’s ethical responsibility is not merely interactionally accomplished but also aesthetically experienced in particular moments of proximity to others. We examine opportunities for an engaged applied linguistics that arise when its inquiry is pursued through the ethical and aesthetic lens.


Corresponding author: Magdalena Kubanyiova, School of Education, University of Leeds, Leeds, UK, E-mail:

Award Identifier / Grant number: AH/T005637/1

Acknowledgments

We are grateful to Maggie Hawkins, Haley De Korne and anonymous reviewers for their generous and constructive comments on this paper.

  1. Research funding: This research has been supported by the grant from the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AH/T005637/1) Ethics and Aesthetics of Encountering the Other: New Frameworks for Encountering Difference (ETHER; 2020–2022) https://ether.leeds.ac.uk/.

References

Adorno, Theodor. 1973. Negative dialectics. New York: Seabury.Search in Google Scholar

Alford, C. Fred. 2004. Levinas and political theory. Political Theory 32. 146–171. https://doi.org/10.1177/0090591703254977.Search in Google Scholar

Avineri, Netta, Laura R. Graham, Eric J. Johnson, Robin Conley Riner & Jonathan Rosa (eds.). 2019. Language and social justice in practice. New York: Routledge.10.4324/9781315115702Search in Google Scholar

Bassel, Leah. 2017. The politics of listening: Possibilities and challenges for democratic life. Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave Macmillan.Search in Google Scholar

Bauman, Zygmunt. 1993. Postmodern ethics. Oxford: Blackwell.Search in Google Scholar

Bhabha, Homi. 1994. The location of culture. London: Routledge.Search in Google Scholar

Biesta, Gert. 2016. The beautiful risk of education. Oxon & New York: Routledge.10.4324/9781315635866Search in Google Scholar

Blackledge, Adrian & Angela Creese. 2022. The potential of ethnographic drama in the representation, interpretation, and democratization of sociolinguistic research. Journal of Sociolinguistics 26. 586–603. https://doi.org/10.1111/josl.12546.Search in Google Scholar

Blackledge, Adrian & Angela Creese. 2023. Essays in linguistic ethnography. Bristol, UK: Multilingual Matters.10.21832/BLACKL5594Search in Google Scholar

Boldt, Gail & Joseph Michael Valente. 2021. A-signifying semiotics and deaf/nondeaf becomings. International Journal of Multilingualism 18. 303–319. https://doi.org/10.1080/14790718.2020.1867557.Search in Google Scholar

Bucholtz, Mary. 2001. Reflexivity and critique in discourse analysis. Critique of Anthropology 21. 165–183. https://doi.org/10.1177/0308275x0102100203.Search in Google Scholar

Bucholtz, Mary. 2016. Why bodies matter: Discourse and materiality after mass murder. Available at: https://bucholtz.linguistics.ucsb.edu/research.Search in Google Scholar

Butler, Judith. 2005. Giving an account of oneself. New York: Fordham University Press.10.5422/fso/9780823225033.001.0001Search in Google Scholar

Canagarajah, Suresh. 2018. Translingual practice as spatial repertoires: Expanding the paradigm beyond structuralist orientations. Applied Linguistics 39. 31–54. https://doi.org/10.1093/applin/amx041.Search in Google Scholar

Canagarajah, Suresh. 2023. A decolonial crip linguistics. Applied Linguistics 44(1). 1–21. https://doi.org/10.1093/applin/amac042.Search in Google Scholar

Cavanaugh, Jillian R. & Shalini Shankar (eds.). 2017. Language and materiality: Ethnographic and theoretical explorations. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.10.1017/9781316848418Search in Google Scholar

Consoli, Sal & Sara Ganassin. 2023. Reflexivity in applied linguistics: Opportunities, challenges, and suggestions. London: Routledge.10.4324/9781003149408Search in Google Scholar

Coupland, Nikolas & Adam Jaworski. 2004. Sociolinguistic perspectives on metalanguage: Reflexivity, evaluation and ideology. In A. Jaworski & N. Coupland (eds.), Metalanguage: Social and ideological perspectives, 11, 15–52. Berlin & New York: De Gruyter Mouton.10.1515/9783110907377.15Search in Google Scholar

Creese, Angela & Adrian Blackledge. 2012. Voice and meaning-making in team ethnography. Anthropology & Education Quarterly 43. 306–324. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1548-1492.2012.01182.x.Search in Google Scholar

Deumert, Ana. 2018. Mimesis and mimicry in language – creativity and aesthetics as the performance of (dis-)semblances. Language Sciences 65. 9–17. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.langsci.2017.03.009.Search in Google Scholar

Deumert, Ana. 2022. The sound of absent-presence: Towards formulating a sociolingusitics of the spectre. Australian Review of Applied Linguistics 45. 135–153. https://doi.org/10.1075/aral.21039.deu.Search in Google Scholar

Deumert, Ana. 2023. Linguistics in a minor key—Of atmospheres, voice (s), and ethics. Applied Linguistics 44(5). 916–929. https://doi.org/10.1093/applin/amac082.Search in Google Scholar

Diniz De Figueiredo, Eduardo H. & Juliana Martinez. 2021. The locus of enunciation as a way to confront epistemological racism and decolonize scholarly knowledge. Applied Linguistics 42. 355–359. https://doi.org/10.1093/applin/amz061.Search in Google Scholar

Dovchin, Sender & Stephanie Dryden. 2022. Translingual discrimination: Skilled transnational migrants in the labour market of Australia. Applied Linguistics 43. 365–388. https://doi.org/10.1093/applin/amab041.Search in Google Scholar

Duranti, Alessandro. 2010. Husserl, intersubjectivity and anthropology. Anthropological Theory 10. 1–20. https://doi.org/10.1177/1463499610370517.Search in Google Scholar

Eckert, Penelope. 2012. Three waves of variation study: The emergence of meaning in the study of sociolinguistic variation. Annual Review of Anthropology 41. 87–100. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-anthro-092611-145828.Search in Google Scholar

Erasmus, Zimitri. 2018. Race otherwise: Forging a new humanism for South Africa. Johannesburg: Wits University Press.10.18772/12017090589Search in Google Scholar

Faudree, Paja. 2012. Music, language, and texts: Sound and semiotic ethnography. Annual Review of Anthropology 41. 519–536. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-anthro-092611-145851.Search in Google Scholar

Flores, Nelson & Jonathan Rosa. 2019. Bringing race into second language acquisition. The Modern Language Journal 103(2019 Suppl). 145–151. https://doi.org/10.1111/modl.12523.Search in Google Scholar

Gadamer, Hans-Georg. 2013 [1975]. Truth and method. (J. Weinsheimer & D. G. Marshall, Trans.). London: Bloomsbury.Search in Google Scholar

García, Ofelia & Li Wei. 2014. Translanguaging: Language, bilingualism and education. Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave.10.1057/9781137385765_4Search in Google Scholar

Goffman, Erving. 1959. The presentation of self in everyday life. Garden City, NY: Doubleday Anchor.Search in Google Scholar

Goffman, Erving. 1983. The interaction order: Americal Sociological Association, 1982 presidential address. American Sociological Review 48. 1–17. https://doi.org/10.2307/2095141.Search in Google Scholar

Guyer, Paul. 2014. A history of modern aesthetics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Search in Google Scholar

Haraway, Donna. 2016. Staying with the trouble: Making kin in the chthulucene. Durham & London: Duke University Press.10.2307/j.ctv11cw25qSearch in Google Scholar

Heller, Monica. 2014. Gumperz and social justice. Journal of Linguistic Anthropology 23. 192–198. https://doi.org/10.1111/jola.12026.Search in Google Scholar

Herzog, Annabel. 2020. Levinas’s politics: Justice, mercy, universality. Philadelphia: University of Philadelphia.10.9783/9780812296808Search in Google Scholar

Inoue, Miyako. 2003. The listening subject of Japanese modernity and his auditory double: Citing, sighting, and siting the modern Japanese woman. Cultural Anthropology 18. 156–193. https://doi.org/10.1525/can.2003.18.2.156.Search in Google Scholar

Jaffe, Alexandra. 2016. Indexicality, stance and fields in applied linguistics. In Nikolas Coupland (ed.), Applied linguistics: Theoretical debates, 86–112. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.10.1017/CBO9781107449787.005Search in Google Scholar

Jaworski, Adam & Crispin Thurlow. 2010. Language and the globalizing habitus of tourism: A applied linguistics of fleeting relationships. In Nikolas Coupland (ed.), The handbook of language and globalisation, 256–286. Oxford: Blackwell.10.1002/9781444324068.ch11Search in Google Scholar

Kelz, Rosine. 2016. The non-sovereign self, responsibility, and otherness. Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave Macmillan.10.1057/9781137508973Search in Google Scholar

Kubanyiova, Magdalena & Parinita Shetty (eds.). 2024. Listening without borders: Creating spaces for encountering difference. Bristol: Multilingual Matters.10.21832/9781788921060Search in Google Scholar

Kusters, Annelies. 2021. Introduction: The semiotic repertoire: Assemblages and evaluation of resources. International Journal of Multilingualism 18. 183–189. https://doi.org/10.1080/14790718.2021.1898616.Search in Google Scholar

Levinas, Emmanuel. 2006 [1972]. Humanism of the other. (Nidra Poller, trans.). Urbana & Chicago: University of Illinois Press.Search in Google Scholar

Levinas, Emmanuel. 1985. Ethics and infinity. Pittsburgh: Duquesne University Press.Search in Google Scholar

Levinas, Emmanuel. 1998. Entre nous: Thinking-of-the-Other. New York: Columbia University Press.Search in Google Scholar

Levinas, Emmanuel, Tamra Wright, Peter Hughes & Alison Ainley. 1988. The paradox of morality: An interview with Emmanuel Levinas. In Robert Bernasconi & David Wood (eds.), The provocation of Levinas: Rethinking the other, 168–181. London: Routledge.Search in Google Scholar

Lionnet, Françoise & Shu-mei Shih (eds.). 2011. The creolization of theory. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.10.1215/9780822393320Search in Google Scholar

Lorde, Audre. 1984. Poetry in not a luxury. Reprinted. In Michele Plott & Lauri Umanski (eds.), Making sense of women’s lives: An introduction to women’s studies, 248–250. Oxford: Collegiate Press.Search in Google Scholar

Lytra, Vally, Cristina Ros I Solé, Jim Anderson & Vicky Macleroy. 2022. Liberating language education. Bristol: Multilingual Matters.10.21832/LYTRA7949Search in Google Scholar

Nancy, Jean-Luc. 2007. Listening. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.Search in Google Scholar

Ochs, Elinor. 2012. Experiencing language. Anthropological Theory 12. 142–160. https://doi.org/10.1177/1463499612454088.Search in Google Scholar

Peck, Amiena, Christopher Stroud & Quentin Williams (eds.). 2020. Making sense of people and place in linguistic landscapes. London: Bloomsbury.Search in Google Scholar

Peck, Amiena & Quentin Williams. 2020. Skinscapes and friction: An analysis of Zef Hip-Hop ’Stoeka-style’ tattoos. In Amiena Peck, Christopher Stroud & Quentin Williams (eds.), Making sense of people and place in linguistic landscape, 91–106. London: Bloomsbury.Search in Google Scholar

Pennycook, Alastair & Emi Otsuji. 2015. Metrolingualism: Language in the city. New York: Routledge.10.4324/9781315724225Search in Google Scholar

Piller, Ingrid. 2016. Linguistic diversity and social justice: An introduction to applied applied linguistics. Oxford: Oxford University Press.10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199937240.001.0001Search in Google Scholar

Rosa, Jonathan. 2019. Looking like a language, sounding like a race: Raciolinguistic ideologies and the learning of Latinidad. Oxford: Oxford University Press.10.1093/oso/9780190634728.001.0001Search in Google Scholar

Saito, Yuriko. 2015. Aesthetics of the everyday. In Edward, N. & Uri Nodelman (eds.), The Standford encyclopedia of philosphy. Available at: https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2015/entries/aesthetics-of-everyday/.Search in Google Scholar

Silverstein, Michael. 2003. Indexical order and the dialectics of sociolinguistic life. Language & Communication 23. 193–229. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0271-5309(03)00013-2.Search in Google Scholar

Snell, Julia. & Adam Lefstein. 2017. “Low ability,” participation, and identity in dialogic pedagogy. American Educational Research Journal 55. 40–78. https://doi.org/10.3102/0002831217730010.Search in Google Scholar

Stroud, Christopher & Quentin Williams. 2017. Multilingualism as utopia: Fashioning non-racial selves. AILA Review 30. 167–188. https://doi.org/10.1075/aila.00008.str.Search in Google Scholar

Swann, Joan & Ana Deumert. 2018. Applied linguistics and language creativity. Language Sciences 65. 1–8. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.langsci.2017.06.002.Search in Google Scholar

Tankosić, Ana & Sender Dovchin. 2023. The impact of social media in the sociolinguistic practices of the peripheral post-socialist contexts. International Journal of Multilingualism 20. 869–890. https://doi.org/10.1080/14790718.2021.1917582.Search in Google Scholar

Tannen, Deborah. 2007 [1989]. Talking voices: Repetition, dialogue, and imagery in conversational discourse. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.10.1017/CBO9780511618987Search in Google Scholar

Valente, Joseph Michael. 2020. In between Spiderman and the Incredible Hulk. In Irene W. Leigh & Catherine A. O’Brien (eds.), Deaf identities, 349–369. Oxford: Oxford University Press.10.1093/oso/9780190887599.003.0015Search in Google Scholar

Webb, Heather. 2016. Dante’s persons: An ethics of the transhuman. Oxford: Oxford University Press.10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198733485.001.0001Search in Google Scholar

Wetherell, Margaret. 2013. Affect and discourse – what’s the problem? From affect as excess to affective/discursive practice. Subjectivity 6. 349–368. https://doi.org/10.1057/sub.2013.13.Search in Google Scholar

Wortham, Stanton. 2001. Language ideology and educational research. Linguistics and Education 12. 253–259. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0898-5898(01)00055-9.Search in Google Scholar

Yancy, George (ed.). 2004. What white looks lie: African-American philosophers on the whiteness question. New York: Routledge.10.4324/9780203499719Search in Google Scholar

Zavala, Virginia. 2019. Translanguaging pedagogies and power: A view from the South. Language and Education 33. 174–177. https://doi.org/10.1080/09500782.2018.1517779.Search in Google Scholar

Received: 2024-03-06
Accepted: 2024-03-15
Published Online: 2024-04-08
Published in Print: 2025-03-26

© 2024 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston

Articles in the same Issue

  1. Frontmatter
  2. Special Issue 1 : Applied Linguistics, Ethics and Aesthetics of Encountering the Other; Guest Editors: Maggie Kubanyiova and Angela Creese
  3. Introduction
  4. Introduction: applied linguistics, ethics and aesthetics of encountering the Other
  5. Research Articles
  6. “When we use that kind of language… someone is going to jail”: relationality and aesthetic interpretation in initial research encounters
  7. The humanism of the other in sociolinguistic ethnography
  8. Towards a sociolinguistics of in difference: stancetaking on others
  9. Becoming response-able with a protest placard: white under(-)standing in encounters with the Black German Other
  10. (Im)possibility of ethical encounters in places of separation: aesthetics as a quiet applied linguistics praxis
  11. Unsettled hearing, responsible listening: encounters with voice after forced migration
  12. Special Issue 2: AI for intercultural communication; Guest Editors: David Wei Dai and Zhu Hua
  13. Introduction
  14. When AI meets intercultural communication: new frontiers, new agendas
  15. Research Articles
  16. Culture machines
  17. Generative AI for professional communication training in intercultural contexts: where are we now and where are we heading?
  18. Towards interculturally adaptive conversational AI
  19. Communicating the cultural other: trust and bias in generative AI and large language models
  20. Artificial intelligence and depth ontology: implications for intercultural ethics
  21. Exploring AI for intercultural communication: open conversation
  22. Review Article
  23. Ideologies of teachers and students towards meso-level English-medium instruction policy and translanguaging in the STEM classroom at a Malaysian university
  24. Regular articles
  25. Analysing sympathy from a contrastive pragmatic angle: a Chinese–English case study
  26. L2 repair fluency through the lenses of L1 repair fluency, cognitive fluency, and language anxiety
  27. “If you don’t know English, it is like there is something wrong with you.” Students’ views of language(s) in a plurilingual setting
  28. Investments, identities, and Chinese learning experience of an Irish adult: the role of context, capital, and agency
  29. Mobility-in-place: how to keep privilege by being mobile at work
  30. Shanghai hukou, English and politics of mobility in China’s globalising economy
  31. Sketching the ecology of humor in English language classes: disclosing the determinant factors
  32. Decolonizing Cameroon’s language policies: a critical assessment
  33. To copy verbatim, paraphrase or summarize – listeners’ methods of discourse representation while recalling academic lectures
Downloaded on 17.9.2025 from https://www.degruyterbrill.com/document/doi/10.1515/applirev-2024-0083/html
Scroll to top button