Being Bilingual: Issues for Cross-Language Research
The current political debates in England highlight the role of language in citizenship, social exclusion, and discrimination. Similar debates can also be found around the world. Correspondingly, research addressing different language communities is burgeoning. Service providers and academics are inc...
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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Athabasca University Press
2006-01-01
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| Series: | Journal of Research Practice |
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| Online Access: | http://jrp.icaap.org/content/v2.1/temple.html |
| _version_ | 1818665397984952320 |
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| author | Bogusia Temple |
| author_facet | Bogusia Temple |
| author_sort | Bogusia Temple |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | The current political debates in England highlight the role of language in citizenship, social exclusion, and discrimination. Similar debates can also be found around the world. Correspondingly, research addressing different language communities is burgeoning. Service providers and academics are increasingly employing bilingual community researchers or interpreters to carry out research. However, there is very little written about the effect of working with bilingual researchers. What it means to be bilingual is often essentialised and rarely problematised. Bilingual researchers are seen as unproblematically acting as bridges between communities just because they are bilingual. Their ties to communities, their use of language, and their perspectives on the research are rarely investigated. Language is tied in an unproblematic way to meaning, values, and beliefs. In this article, I use examples from my own research to question what it means to be bilingual and to do cross-language research. I argue that there is no straightforward way in which meanings can be read off from researchers’ ties to language and that being bilingual is not the same for everyone. |
| first_indexed | 2024-12-17T05:48:00Z |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj.art-1ef01da63ffa499380bc9542ee630d8b |
| institution | Directory Open Access Journal |
| issn | 1712-851X |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-12-17T05:48:00Z |
| publishDate | 2006-01-01 |
| publisher | Athabasca University Press |
| record_format | Article |
| series | Journal of Research Practice |
| spelling | doaj.art-1ef01da63ffa499380bc9542ee630d8b2022-12-21T22:01:14ZengAthabasca University PressJournal of Research Practice1712-851X2006-01-0121M2Being Bilingual: Issues for Cross-Language ResearchBogusia TempleThe current political debates in England highlight the role of language in citizenship, social exclusion, and discrimination. Similar debates can also be found around the world. Correspondingly, research addressing different language communities is burgeoning. Service providers and academics are increasingly employing bilingual community researchers or interpreters to carry out research. However, there is very little written about the effect of working with bilingual researchers. What it means to be bilingual is often essentialised and rarely problematised. Bilingual researchers are seen as unproblematically acting as bridges between communities just because they are bilingual. Their ties to communities, their use of language, and their perspectives on the research are rarely investigated. Language is tied in an unproblematic way to meaning, values, and beliefs. In this article, I use examples from my own research to question what it means to be bilingual and to do cross-language research. I argue that there is no straightforward way in which meanings can be read off from researchers’ ties to language and that being bilingual is not the same for everyone.http://jrp.icaap.org/content/v2.1/temple.htmlbilingual researchercross-language researchinterpretationtranslation |
| spellingShingle | Bogusia Temple Being Bilingual: Issues for Cross-Language Research Journal of Research Practice bilingual researcher cross-language research interpretation translation |
| title | Being Bilingual: Issues for Cross-Language Research |
| title_full | Being Bilingual: Issues for Cross-Language Research |
| title_fullStr | Being Bilingual: Issues for Cross-Language Research |
| title_full_unstemmed | Being Bilingual: Issues for Cross-Language Research |
| title_short | Being Bilingual: Issues for Cross-Language Research |
| title_sort | being bilingual issues for cross language research |
| topic | bilingual researcher cross-language research interpretation translation |
| url | http://jrp.icaap.org/content/v2.1/temple.html |
| work_keys_str_mv | AT bogusiatemple beingbilingualissuesforcrosslanguageresearch |