Post-Monolingual Research Methodology: Multilingual Researchers Democratizing Theorizing and Doctoral Education

Abstract

This paper reports on the ground-breaking research in the study of languages in doctoral education. It argues for democratizing the production and dissemination of original contributions to knowledge through activating and mobilizing multilingual Higher Degree Researchers’ (HDRs) capabilities for theorizing through them using their full linguistic repertoire. This paper contributes to this study’s development of post-monolingual research methodology which provides a theoretic-pedagogical framework for multilingual HDRs (a) to use their full linguistic repertoire in their research; (b) to develop their capabilities for theorizing and (c) to construct potentially valuable theoretical tools using metaphors, images, concepts and modes of critique. This paper is based on a longitudinal program of collaborative research whereby monolingual Anglophone and multilingual HDRs jointly developed their capabilities for theorizing through producing Anglo-Chinese analytical tools, and the associated pedagogies for using their languages in doctoral research. This longitudinal research program has been undertaken in the field of doctoral education to further a defining feature of democracy, namely linguistic diversity. This research has been conducted with the aims of promoting the multilingualism of Australian universities and activating linguistic communities of scholars to use their full linguistic repertoire in their research. The main finding arising from this program of research has been the development of post-monolingual research methodology which (a) uses the divergences within and between languages to undertake theorizing and (b) in co-existence with the tensions posed by monolingualism, especially the insistence on using extant theories available in only one language. Doctoral pedagogies of intellectual/racial equality provide multilingual HDRs with insights into the debates about the geopolitics governing the use of languages in the production and dissemination of theoretical knowledge and the capabilities for theorizing. Often, from an English-only monolingual mindset, difference and divergence are seen as a recipe for deficits and dissonance. However, this paper challenges such mistaken beliefs by showing that multilingual HDRs can deepen and extend their capabilities for theorizing by using their own linguistic repertoires. Post-monolingual research methodology is to be of enormous benefit to multilingual researchers and scholars engaged in intellectual labor in predominantly English-only monolingual universities.