Researching Across Languages and Cultures: A guide to doing research interculturally

by Anna Robinson-Pant, Alain Wolf

Overview

We are working within an increasingly globalised knowledge economy, where researchers collaborate in cross-cultural teams, collect data in a variety of languages and share findings for international audiences who may be unfamiliar with the cultural context. Researching across Languages and Cultures is a guide for doctoral students and other researchers engaged in such multilingual and intercultural research, providing a framework for analysis and development of their experiences.

Demonstrating the link between the theoretical approaches offered by the authors and the practical problems encountered by doctoral researchers, this ground-breaking book draws on research interviews with doctoral students from around the world. Students’ written reflections on their experiences are presented as interludes between each chapter. A practical, hands-on guide to planning, conducting and writing up research, the book explores the crucial roles involved in interpreting data across cultures within doctoral research.

Key topics include:

• The role of the interpreter and/or local research assistant in the research process and the ethics of translation.
• Constructing knowledge across cultures: addressing questions of audience, power and voice
• Academic literacy practices in multilingual settings
• The doctoral student’s role within the geopolitics of academic publishing and forms of research dissemination
• The pragmatics of mediated communication (implicatures, intentions, dialogue)

Researchers who come from and work in monolingual societies often forget that their context is unusual – most of the world live in multilingual contexts, where linguistic shifts and hybridities are the norm. Two authors with extensive experience, together with a number of their existing or former research students, share insights into these issues that surround language and culture in research.

This book will be a useful guide for academic researchers, doctoral students, research supervisors and Masters students who carry out empirical research in multilingual or multicultural contexts and/or are writing about their research for a diverse readership across the world.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781138845060
Publisher:	Taylor & Francis
Publication date:	10/19/2016
Pages:	174
Product dimensions:	6.12(w) x 9.19(h) x (d)

About the Author

Anna Robinson-Pant is a Professor of Education and holds the UNESCO Chair in Adult Literacy and Learning for Social Transformation at the University of East Anglia, UK.

Alain Wolf is a lecturer in Translation Theory at the School of Politics, Philosophy, Language and Communication Studies at the University of East Anglia, UK.

Table of Contents

Preface 1. From cross-cultural to intercultural: an alternative perspective on the research process. 1a. Reflective piece by Pu Shi: Language, theory and power: cross-cultural issues in educational research 2. Multilingual research: accounting for the richness of ‘context’ 2a. Reflective piece by Eleni Konidari: Dressing with a scarf while undressing the prejudice. 3. The pragmatics of doing research across languages: inferences and intentions (Alain Wolf). 3a. Reflective piece by Achala Gupta: Cultural connotations in language structures: An experiential account of meaning making in the processes of translation. 4. The role of the interpreter/translator in the research process: the ethics of mediated communication. 4a. Reflective piece by Gina Lontoc: Transcribing language, translating culture? Transcription convention and issues on translation in educational research. 5. Writing across cultures: reader expectations and ‘crises of identity’ 5a. Reflective piece by Joanna Nair: Writing Relationships 6. Research in a multilingual context: Joining an international community of researchers. Endpiece