Language Portraits Research Articles

Small data in der linguistischen Diskursanalyse?

Quantitative approaches and big data analyses are widespread in current discourse linguistic studies and have influenced the field considerably. However, building on Fix’ ONE-text-discourse-analysis (2015) and using the example of discourses around multilingualism, this paper will try and attempt an exemplary small data analysis, using a very small corpus of just three very different data samples in order to see what kind of insights can be gained with a strictly qualitative approach. The texts that were chosen deal with discourses around multilingualism in very different ways. They include an online newspaper article, language portraits by multilingual school children and a language learning video on methods how to study a language such as German. After analysing all three artefacts and their particular value and insights when it comes to research on discursive attitudes towards multilingualism in Germany, it shall be discussed whether and how this small data approach could generally be useful in combination with other discourse linguistic methods.

“My Japanese is Blue, Because it Makes Me Blue”: Centering Emotion in Language Practices Through Language Mapping

Since the social turn in applied linguistics, there has been growing interest in the role of emotion in language practices. This role is especially relevant to self-access language learning in terms of how it influences learner autonomy and motivation. With its focus on autonomy and sociality, self-access learning offers unique affordances for facilitating learner and advisor awareness of emotion in language learning. To this end, this study used an arts-based method, language mapping, for learners to express their language practices in multimodal ways. Language mapping integrates body mapping and language portraits methods to catalyze individual and group reflection anchored by embodied, emotional experiences. The researchers collaborated with a Japanese university self-access language learning center to engage seven volunteer participants in a series of two workshops. Data were gathered through participants’ language maps, narratives shared in workshops, and questionnaire responses. Findings highlight the potential of language mapping in exploring learners’ affective connections to their named languages. While mother tongues were generally portrayed as comforting, vivid, default, and unconscious, relationships to learned languages were represented through more diverse visual and verbal metaphors. Key pedagogical considerations include the impact of exemplars and group processes.

“My Japanese is Blue, Because it Makes Me Blue”: Centering Emotion in Language Practices Through Language Mapping

Since the social turn in applied linguistics, there has been growing interest in the role of emotion in language practices. This role is especially relevant to self-access language learning in terms of how it influences learner autonomy and motivation. With its focus on autonomy and sociality, self-access learning offers unique affordances for facilitating learner and advisor awareness of emotion in language learning. To this end, this study used an arts-based method, language mapping, for learners to express their language practices in multimodal ways. Language mapping integrates body mapping and language portraits methods to catalyze individual and group reflection anchored by embodied, emotional experiences. The researchers collaborated with a Japanese university self-access language learning center to engage seven volunteer participants in a series of two workshops. Data were gathered through participants’ language maps, narratives shared in workshops, and questionnaire responses. Findings highlight the potential of language mapping in exploring learners’ affective connections to their named languages. While mother tongues were generally portrayed as comforting, vivid, default, and unconscious, relationships to learned languages were represented through more diverse visual and verbal metaphors. Key pedagogical considerations include the impact of exemplars and group processes.

Language Portraits of Four Transnational Educators from China: Experiences, Ideologies, and Teaching Practices

This study uses language portraits (Busch, 2018) to shed light on the relationship between the multilingual experiences and teaching practices of four transnational educators who have lived, studied, and taught across China and the United States. Using multimodal thematic analysis methods (Coffey, 2015; Purkarthofer & De Korne, 2020), this approach highlights the ways in which language experiences and teaching practices are mediated by language ideologies. This approach enables the participants to visualise and describe their linguistic repertoires and multilingual experiences in relation to teaching practices in the focus group interview. Findings show that these educators from China value Chinese as a resource for teaching and learning. They hold an asset-oriented view of the students’ home languages and are willing to incorporate their home languages to support classroom teaching and learning. Although they have mixed feelings about English, due to negative learning experiences, they are aware of the economic value of the language, which sustains their efforts to improve their English proficiency and influences their career plans. Overall, the educators evidence an emerging, yet rudimentary, multilingual awareness. The entrenched ideology of Mandarin monolingualism, which prioritises Putonghua (Standard Mandarin) over other Chinese dialects, along with the global dominance of English and its associated language ideology, has profoundly influenced teaching practices in multilingual classrooms.

Unpacking children’s perspectives of multilingualism through language portraits: insights from a Polish pre-school in Australia

ABSTRACT This paper delves into the dynamics of language-based agency of six-year-old children raised in transnational families in Australia. The members of the focal group are four pre-schoolers, who while creating language portraits, offer insights into the truncated diversity of their linguistic repertoires. Through extent, position, choice of colour, use of symbols, and the accompanying written comments, the children communicate information about home language maintenance. Concomitant interviews unfold the overall picture of family language policies of the studied participants. Unsurprisingly, although the children’s opinions are shaped or even persuaded by their parents’ discourses, and considering the fact that parents do not normally discuss their family language policies with them, the young participants provide valuable and reliable perspectives on language management in their homes. Further, they exhibit agency in their family language policies, which are yet to be deliberated in terms of a multi-actor construct, whereby all family members have their own voices. That said, children exercise a freedom of language choice despite the conscious or unconscious linguistic efforts of their parents, which can be regarded as a manner of negotiating and impacting language use within the family.

Family language policy in a transnational family living in Finland: multilingual repertoire, language practices, and child agency.

Each multilingual transnational family is unique and thus deserves to be carefully studied in terms of its family language policy (FLP). Speaker-centered approaches can provide a deeper understanding of linguistic diversity in a multilingual setting. The studied Russian-Italian family is raising a multilingual boy (8:2) in Finland. The multilingual repertoire includes Russian, Italian, Finnish, English, and Hebrew. In this case-study, an ethnographic approach is used to explore the multilingual family repertoire by presenting their lived experiences and language practices. I discuss the FLP and child's active role in shaping the family's linguistic practices (child agency). The following methods were combined: semi-structured interviews, language background surveys, written diary entries, self-recordings of interactions in the family, and a language portrait that depicts the child's multilingual repertoire. The interviews and other recordings were transcribed manually. The following research questions guided the study: (1) How do the family members describe their FLP? (2) How does the FLP evolve through everyday interactions (language practices)? (3) How does the child exercise his agency in the family setting? The results reveal that the family's language practices follow predominantly an one person-one language (OPOL) strategy; consequently, the child speaks a different language with each parent. However, the analysis of the language ideologies reveals positive attitudes toward both multilingualism and all the languages in the family's repertoire, which explains the multilingual practices having multiplicity and unexpectedness. FLP is shaping the family language practices. Evidence of language hierarchy can be explained by a number of family-external and family-internal social factors.

Language portraits going digital and multimodal: deciphering the translanguaging space and linguistic repertoires among multilinguals

In recent years, language portraits (LPs) have emerged as a valuable tool for visually representing multilingual learners’ linguistic repertoires. However, previous studies have primarily relied on traditional methods of inviting participants to sketch their language portraits on paper using pens and crayons. In this paper, we propose the use of digital methods to collect and analyze data on language portraits to examine the translingual practices and negotiations of meaning among multilingual individuals. By utilizing Synchronic Computer-Mediated Communication platforms, participants can actively deploy and mobilize multi-linguistic and multi-semiotic resources in lived experiences, engaging in interactive translanguaging practices. In this particular case study, data were collected through a biographic survey and a sketch of the language portraits in digital form, which were then further supported by follow-up interviews. Four participants’ LPs and oral narratives during the interviews were then subjected to qualitative multimodal analysis and discourse analysis. The results revealed that these digital language portraits (DLPs) possess significant features such as digital affordance and multimodality. They tap into the translanguaging spaces that emerge from the creative and critical meaning-making process, enabling multilingual individuals to visualize their linguistic repertoires through digital visual strategies. Furthermore, it was discovered that DLPs can foster creative performance and discursive negotiations, thereby enhancing participants’ expressive abilities in developing their language perceptions.

Investigating the role of affects in additional language learning in the context of mobility through a multimodal autobiographical approach

This study focuses on the role of affects in additional language learning in the context of mobility. The starting point is the discovery of Francophone migrant literature by intermediate-level learners of French at an international university in Bulgaria. It concerns in particular the encounter with the Hungarian-Swiss writer Agota Kristof and her autobiographical text “L’Analphabète” [The Illiterate], which reveals a polarized attitude towards languages that have marked her life and career. Brought to reflect on the tension behind the way the author qualifies languages as “enemies” or “friends”, the learners share their own attitudes towards the languages of their repertoires through reflective drawings (language portraits), autobiographical narratives, and semi-structured interviews. Qualitative analysis of the collected data was conducted to examine in what ways students express their affects relating to languages with different status and how their attitudes are connected to the mobilities and other significant changes they have experienced. The results indicate that the participants express predominantly positive affects. All are attached to their initial languages, although this strong identification may be destabilizing in critical situations like mobilities abroad and significant life changes. English has an important place in the learners’ identity and is related to fluency, comfort, desire, and various opportunities. French is cherished mostly for its aesthetic values, although pleasure is often mixed with anxiety due to the lower levels of proficiency. Students feel attracted to additional languages, which they connect to cultural and leisure activities but have omitted other languages from their repertoires since they do not feel strongly attached to them. It appears that both teachers and learners can benefit from the multimodal autobiographical approach as it allows to explore the complexity of the learners’ plurilingual repertoires, the stories behind their construction, and the affects related to this process. / Keywords: additional language, affects, language portrait, migrant literature, mobility, multimodality, plurilingualism

Queering the norm, norming the queer: remaking Man through linguistic citizenship

ABSTRACT This article centres multilingualism in relation to gender, sexuality, culture, and race, presenting the narrative of one participant, Samson, who self-identifies as a black, queer, man and refers to several linguistic varieties that he has some proficiency in. The narrative emerged from an interview conducted in which Samson discussed his language portrait, a multimodal biographical method. Thematic analysis was used as a starting point in interpreting how Samson discursively constructs language in relation to gender, racial, sexual, and cultural positions. To unpack Samson’s constructions of self and others we bring decolonial feminist theoretical approaches in conversation with linguistic citizenship. We argue that Samson is trying to undo the normative conceptions of a range of identity categories and that he narrates several different discursive and social strategies to develop new subjectivities for himself and to create new relationalities. In his decolonial project of being, he tries to queer the norm and norm the queer. Samson’s story provides us with the possibility of living and languaging outside of colonial structures.

Raciolinguistic chronotopes in bilingual teacher candidates’ language portraits: A call for centering race in bilingual teacher education

ABSTRACT This study explored 17 bilingual teacher candidates’ (bilingual TCs) representations of their lived experience of language via linguistic portraits. Specifically, attention was paid to the semiotic elements (space, place, time, and the body) these bilingual TCs employed and the ways this assemblage of elements formed raciolinguistic chronotopes. Analysis demonstrates that raciolinguistic chronotopes enabled bilingual TCs to portray their experiences of racialization as Spanish-English bilinguals in the United States. Analysis also shows the ways these TCs often vacillate between adhering to and challenging raciolinguistic ideologies. Findings have implications for how language portraits are utilized as a teacher learning tool in teacher education programs serving bilingual TCs of Latina/o descent. Keywords: language portraits, raciolinguistic chronotopes, racialization, teacher candidates, teacher education.

An exploration of Taiwanese multilingual students’ linguistic identities

Language is a fundamental tool that people use to express and communicate their sense of self to a wider social world. An individual's identity is understood as being fluid, unfixed and multifaceted. Therefore, how an individual presents their identity through the use of languages in one's linguistic repertoire is a complex and dynamic process. This present study explored the linguistic repertoire and linguistic identities of Taiwanese multilingual students, ranging in age from 11 to 17, through the use of a Language Portrait Silhouette. The analysis focused on the qualitative data and sought to understand how individuals represent their rapport with their languages through the choice of color, the mapping location of a language on the silhouette and written narratives. Results revealed that Taiwanese students’ identities are evolving as their linguistic repertoire is expanding. That is to indicate that Taiwanese multilingual students’ linguistic identities are flexible and constantly changing.

The effects of multilingual pedagogies on language awareness: A longitudinal analysis of students’ language portraits

The purpose of this study is to investigate the use of language portraits as a tool for longitudinally investigating the changes in children's language awareness within a project that combines and implements translanguaging pedagogy and pluralistic approaches in an Italian primary and middle school (from Grade 1 to 8) with a high percentage of immigrant students. The language portraits produced by 71 children (between 9 and 12 years old) before and after their exposure to multilingual pedagogies were analysed using NVivo R1 in order to identify recurring patterns and differences. After engaging in multilingual activities, the emergent bilingual children whose first language portraits did not include their home languages decided to represent them. The majority of the children in the second language portrait also represent the languages spoken by their peers, indicating the recognition of the collective linguistic repertoire, as a result of the implementation of multilingual pedagogies.

Sparking the imagination: creative language pedagogies as intersemiotic translation

ABSTRACT In this paper, we use the lens of embodied language cognition and intersemiosis to argue for the importance of developing creative approaches to language work in classroom settings and we cite as an example some activities from a workshop that was developed for modern foreign languages (MFL) trainee teachers in London (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M9hR-LQ0xOE). The workshop resulted from a collaboration between an applied linguist (Coffey) and an artist-educator (Patel), and combined their shared understanding of language use as an emotional, embodied enterprise etched into our autobiographical identities. We suggest that working with intersemiotic approaches to language has the potential to reinvigorate language pedagogy by challenging dominant metaphors both of ‘language’ and of ‘learning’. The paper intends both to make a practical contribution in its reporting of activities, which we hope will inspire teachers and teacher educators to develop intersemiotic approaches for their own settings, and also to contribute to the broader scholarship that calls for ‘reframing teacher cognition’ (e.g. Coffey [2015]. Reframing teachers’ language knowledge through metaphor analysis of language portraits. The Modern Language Journal 99, no. 3: 500–14), even ‘liberating language education’ (e.g. Lytra et al. [2022]. Liberating Language Education. Bristol: Multilingual Matters), to imagine new orientations for how we engage with languages in our lives and our classrooms.

A Multi-Method Profiling of Adult Refugees and Migrants in an L2 Non-Formal Educational Setting: Language Needs Analysis, Linguistic Portraits, and Identity Texts

This paper will attempt to visualize adult refugees and migrants, as well as a specific multilingual and multicultural educational setting in Greece. This study aspires to depict/present the plurilingual profiles, language needs, and challenges of L2 Greek students through a variety of tools/methods, e.g., questionnaires, portraits, narratives, needs analysis, and assessment tools. In a complementary way, this research focuses on highlighting the value of language portraits, identity texts, and translanguaging in L2 Greek classrooms. Conditions regarding the educational process in the specific educational setting will also be discussed. This was a case study conducted in an open school for migrants in Greece. Eight volunteer teachers at the school and twenty students participated in this research through a multimethod research design. Multilingual profiles and learners’ needs and goals became visible, and the teachers managed to “hear” the multilingual voices of their students and understand their multilingual profiles. Overall, it is clear that these findings pave the way for large-scale research to investigate in depth everything presented in this research. Using language portraits and identity texts as group activities helps to conduct a productive discussion in the classroom, through which students gain access to the use of concepts such as “multilingualism”, “multiculturalism”, and “diversity”.

Parental emotionality and power relations in heritage language maintenance: experiences of Chinese and African immigrant families in Australia.

Emotionality is increasingly given prominence in the field of language acquisition and socialization in migration contexts. This cross-sectional study explores the emotional experiences of Chinese and African immigrant families in their practices of maintaining their children's heritage languages. We used open-ended interviews, field notes from informal conversations and observations, photographic evidence of children's literacy practices, and language portrait (LP) descriptions, to collect data. Results from an ethnographic analysis of the data revealed a whole range of negative and positive parental emotions (e.g., anxiety, loss, shame vs. enjoyment, accomplishment, and pride), in the discourse of maintaining heritage and minority languages. We discuss the language emotions, whether positive or negative, in light of language ideologies, which specifically points to the significance of profit discourse in the formation of family language policies (FLPs). This materialistic valorization reveals the complexities of power relations between English and minority languages, between Chinese and African languages, and within various Chinese and African languages. Consequently, the distinct hierarchies between English and minority languages and the hidden layers within minority languages further legitimate diasporic ideologies of Chinese and African parents in terms of the emotionality associated with prioritizing, maintaining, and forgoing languages. These findings suggests that language emotionality is of vital importance to the psycho-social wellbeing of immigrant families and has practical implications for policymakers and heritage language research.

Family language policy in the context of return migration: A case study

Return migration has probably been granted the lowest attention in the field of family language policy (FLP). The current paper seeks to address this gap in the research and explores the dynamics of FLP of a Polish family in the context of their temporary migration to Germany and return migration to Poland. The authors investigate how mobility affects FLP, especially towards L1 (Polish) and L2 (German) in the context of migration and return migration. The study takes a qualitative, interview-based study design, supported by the language portrait technique. An analysis of the interview data has evidenced the parents’ strong support for the maintenance and development of L1 throughout the whole process of migration and return migration and the lack of it in the case of L2 after the return to Poland. The results have also evidenced that individuals in a family, including children, have significant autonomy and agency and can shape their independ- ent FLPs, which are aligned neither with their parents nor siblings.

Exploring Migrant Students’ Attitudes towards Their Multilingual Identities through Language Portraits

The increasing linguistic and cultural diversity in contemporary societies inevitably affects the field of education by challenging teachers to cope with the coexistence of different languages in the classroom. The present research was intended to investigate migrant children’s attitudes towards languages through language portraits in order to help educators obtain insights into student multilingual repertoires and experiences. To this end, by adopting a qualitative approach, the study used linguistic portraits and semi-structured interviews to collect the data. The participants of the study were 10 primary school children whose ages ranged from 8 to 12 with a migrant background who have been living in Greece, particularly on the island of Crete. Using the method of content analysis, the findings of the study indicated that migrant children made specific color choices based on flags, emotions, and world experience, and they put colors on parts of the body according to their functions, which signified students’ multilingual identities and experiences. Moreover, the findings highlighted multilingual students’ need to negotiate their multiple linguistic repertoires, make choices between the languages, prioritize them, rank them, or give priority to the second language, Greek, without, however, abandoning their first languages. The present study aspires to contribute to the relevant research and draws implications for the implementation of multilingual education and culturally sustaining pedagogies.

Visualising Third Culture Kids’ identity through language portraits: the case of Vietnamese sojourner children in Australia

ABSTRACT Using semi-structured interviews and language portraits, this research investigates how six Vietnamese sojourner children who have spent from two to five years in Australia perceive their bilingual/bicultural identity. This article contributes to the limited research on sojourner children’s or Third Culture Kids’ (TCKs) own perceptions of how their transnational experiences contribute to the formation of their bilingual/bicultural identity. The children portray themselves as unbalanced bilinguals who are more proficient in English than in Vietnamese. Results also uncover their strong sense of ethnicity through the internalisation of the idea of ‘being culturally Vietnamese’, supported by the colouring of what they see as the most culturally and emotionally representative parts of their body in their language portraits. Also highlighted is their proficiency in and the utilisation of English as an external tool to mediate their communication with the surrounding environment and negotiate their bilingual/bicultural identity accordingly. Their strong affiliation with Australian-ness through lived experiences is acknowledged, while the connection with their home country of Vietnam seems to be harnessed by more abstract factors such as birthplace, ethnicity and future plans. The paper concludes with a suggestion for appropriate support for TCKs to take advantage of their transnational experiences.

Investigating the role of plurilingual pre-service language teachers’ psychological landscape in their learning-to-teach process

ABSTRACT This cross-national study investigates the role of the plurilingual identity and the psychological landscape, i.e. the psychological disposition of pre-service language teachers in their learning-to-teach process. Thirty multilingual pre-service teachers from Israel and Austria participated in the study (15 from each country). Data sources included language portraits and in-depth semi-structured interviews. Drawing on ecological perspectives, data were analysed qualitatively utilising content analysis. Predominant themes were identified suggesting that pre-service teachers’ plurilingual identity is closely intertwined with their psychological landscape, influencing a wide array of professional development dimensions of their learning-to-teach process.

Unterricht des Deutschen als zweite Fremdsprache aus der Perspektive der Sprachenpolitik und der Schüler*innen

Our study focuses on expiring relationships between language policy in the educational context and the users of foreign languages (i.e. pupils). The theoretical part of the study introduces the term language policy and indicates its development in the Czech Republic over the recent years. The empirical part aims to describe how the pupils perceive the German language. Methodologically, we use qualitative analysis of language portraits and interviews. The research sample consists of 25 students (8th grade). Our results show the instrumentalized function of the German language and focus on the usage of the German language. Based on our results, we suggest some changes in language policy that would better fit pupils’ perceptions of languages.