Adapting an Online Survey Platform to Permit Translanguaging

Alys Young,Rita Giacoppo,Katherine Rogers,Claire Dodds,Francisco Espinoza

doi:10.1177/1525822x21993966

Abstract

This article concerns online data capture using survey methods when the target population(s) comprise not just of several different language-using groups, but additionally populations who may be multilingual and whose total language repertoires are commonly employed in meaning-making practices—commonly referred to as translanguaging. It addresses whether current online data capture survey methods adequately respond to such population characteristics and demonstrates a worked example of how we adapted one electronic data capture software platform (REDCap) to present participants with not just multilingual but translanguaging engagement routes that also encompassed multimodal linguistic access in auditory, orthographic, and visual media. The study population comprised deaf young people. We share the technical (coding) adaptations made and discuss the relevance of our work for other linguistic populations.

Highlights

Translanguaging is a practical theory of language that focuses attention on the everyday linguistic and semiotic social practices of plurilinguals: “A practice that involves dynamic and functionally integrated use of different languages and language varieties, but more importantly a process of knowledge construction that goes beyond language(s)” (Li 2018:15)
Survey methodologies are increasingly interested in questions associated with multilingual design including translation process and equivalence, and response characteristics of multilinguals depending on language of participation (Harkness 2008), translanguaging in survey design has not been addressed
We address the methodological and practical issues pertaining to building an online survey that permits participants to navigate according to different language pathways AND to draw on their translanguaging repertoires within a single survey

Summary

Introduction

Translanguaging is a practical theory of language that focuses attention on the everyday linguistic and semiotic social practices of plurilinguals: “A practice that involves dynamic and functionally integrated use of different languages and language varieties, but more importantly a process of knowledge construction that goes beyond language(s)” (Li 2018:15). Survey methodologies are increasingly interested in questions associated with multilingual design including translation process and equivalence, and response characteristics of multilinguals depending on language of participation (Harkness 2008), translanguaging in survey design has not been addressed. Different language versions of the same survey usually remain distinct from the purview of the participant, in effect negating the possibility of using their multilingual repertoire to make sense of a question if required This is surprising given the growth of language contact, fluidity, and flux (Creese and Blackledge 2015), whether in migrant and/or culturally diverse populations, that is shaping the language repertoires of generations growing up in the age of superdiversity (Phillimore et al 2018). A young person who uses spoken language at home and in school may sign with peers and at deaf community events; or a young person whose first language is a signed language such as BSL (British Sign Language) may have good access to spoken language in the right acoustic environments; other deaf young people may be firmly

Methods

Discussion

Conclusion