Multilingual Production Research Articles

Expanding Multilingual Learning as a Pathway to Equity during the COVID-19 Pandemic

Real-time learning in health emergencies is a critical mechanism to provide frontline health workers, responders, decision-makers and the public with access to the latest knowledge to save lives, reduce disease transmission and protect the vulnerable. The World Health Organization (WHO) established the OpenWHO.org learning platform to meet this need. Courses are free, self-paced, accessible in low-bandwidth and offline formats, and available in national and local languages. Multilingual production was prioritized and expanded to meet the learning needs of the COVID-19 pandemic. Enrolment data from the introductory COVID-19 course, which has more than 1 million enrolments across 45 language versions, were examined according to language and geographical reach to assess how multilingual availability contributes to equity in learning. The analysis found that most language versions had uptake clustered in key countries where native speakers are concentrated, while use of some translations was more broadly dispersed. In nearly ¾ of the available language versions of the course, more than ⅓ of enrolments were found in the top country of use. The findings suggest that multilingual courses served as entryways for learners who may not have otherwise been able to participate, even as enrolment numbers likely underestimate the impact. A production policy that prioritizes translation of open online courses into diverse languages contributes to equity in access to public health knowledge at the global and country levels during health emergencies.

Short Science Comics for a Broad Audience - An Interview with Jessica Burton and Serge Haan from LUX:plorations

 In 2020, the University of Luxembourg launched a series of science comics called “LUX:plorations”. Each volume comprised of a collection of eight stories about science and research in Luxembourg and it is available in five different languages. Produced in collaboration between local scientists and artists, this science communication project serves as a proof of concept for multi-lingual and collaborative comic productions. The comic is available for free in the form of hard copies as well as in several digital formats online under a Creative Commons licence. This article introduces the concept behind LUX:plorations via an interview with two members of the organization team, namely Serge Haan and Jessica Burton. It gives insights into the production and translation process as well as the distribution of the comic.

Empowering local bilingual teachers through extending the pedagogy of multiliteracies in Taiwan’s primary education

In 2018, Taiwan announced a bilingual education policy. Since then, bilingual teacher development has been a national priority, which has created anxiety and concerns among local Taiwanese teachers, who are expected to teach in the English medium. By extending the core values, design principles and inspired practices from New London Group’s (1996) pedagogy of multiliteracies (PoM), we present how a local Taiwanese teacher in a Grade 1 content and language integrated learning mathematics class successfully leveraged translingual and trans-semiotic resources in an English-as-a-foreign-language context, which in turn facilitated learners’ multilingual production. The findings show that trans-semiotizing helps bilingual teachers effectively deliver and support content learning, whereas translanguaging enables bilingual teachers to create a positive environment which encourages learners’ multilingual production. This study provides an opportunity for Taiwan’s educators to productively navigate problems arising from the bilingual education policy and nativespeakerism in Taiwan through creatively adapting the PoM. This study concludes with directions for bilingual teacher education.

Multilingualism on the Berlin Stage: The Influence of Language Choice, Linguistic Access and Opacity on Cultural Diversity and Access in Contemporary Theatre

This article analyses how language choice, linguistic access and opacity in multilingual productions influence theatre institutions’ (inter)cultural and socio-political engagement as well as audiences’ access to and encounters with linguistic and cultural diversity. It uses multilingualism, and the associated use of unfamiliar languages, as a prism for revealing how language use is deeply embedded in historical contexts as well as linked to ethical considerations and the cultural politics in linguistically diverse metropolitan societies. The analysis of recent, pre-COVID productions in Berlin shows how institutions approach the emergent technical and economic strategies and their socio-political implications when staging multilingual theatre, how the choice of performing and supertitling language(s) interrelates with existing language hierarchies and associated privileges of access and how complex dramaturgical approaches to potentially unfamiliar languages can raise broader questions about the ethics of intercultural encounter. Selected case studies illustrate how theatres that embrace the use of unfamiliar languages negotiate the ethical objective of facilitating access and smooth communication in (inter)cultural encounter versus appreciating and embracing linguistic and the associated cultural diversity.

Translanguaging space and translanguaging practices in multilingual Russian-speaking families

Translanguaging is seen both as a threat and as an opportunity for minority language development and transmission. While the theme of translanguaging has been explored especially in a context of migration, the novelty of this study lies in its investigation of the multiple contexts in which translanguaging is examined. In order to understand the nature of translanguaging, we adopt a novel interdisciplinary approach and view it in all its complexity, including liminal spaces of linguistic landscape. Family language policy affects the home linguistic environment. Our purpose is to investigate language choices by multilingual Russian-speakers in Cyprus, Sweden and Estonia, immigrant and minority settings, and try to understand how they are reflected in the multilingual interaction of the families. Using ethnographic participant observations and oral spontaneous multilingual production, our study attempts to describe how communication is managed through translanguaging practices among multilingual Russian-speaking families members in the cultural and linguistic environments of the three countries. By looking closely at the complexities of translanguaging space, it is our ambition to gain new insights about how it is organised and how translanguaging becomes a valuable linguistic resource in multilingual families. Our results indicate that translanguaging practices can be used in family conversational contexts and contribute to the creation of a rich and positive family repertoire. A new norm of Russian has been developed in all the three settings. A language shift can happen more quickly than expected, and, thus, it is important for parents to provide many opportunities for practising Russian as the L1.

Sound Patterns as Connectors: An Experimental Production of Three Sisters

The actor is tasked with embodying text in order to portray the characters’ intentions. This article shows that such a complex task escalates when the actor performs in a second language. In South Africa, where eleven official languages are embraced, the multiplicity and crossover of spoken languages is a daily challenge for actors and theatre makers, leading to a preference for physical performances, which limits the use of text. The production of embodied sound patterns embedded in a text informed the creative process of an experimental production of Chekhov’s Three Sisters. It was created with a second-language cast (speakers of Setswana and Afrikaans) whose over-arching goal was to consider the embodied patterns of pre-linguistic expression as a theatre-making tool. When reflecting on their work, the actors indicated that their explorations facilitated a connection with the text in English and generated the relevant dynamics for the play’s sociopolitical themes to be adequately ‘translated’ to a contemporary multilingual South African context. Karina Lemmer is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Performing Arts at Tshwane University of Technology in Gauteng, where she teaches acting and voice. She has directed a number of multilingual productions, including Buried Voices (2018) and Motlotlegi (2019), and has published in the Voice and Speech Review (2018).

Shakespeare and Asian Cultural Diversity: Encounters between East Asia and Southeast Asia on Shakespearean Stage

This study discusses the ways that Shakespeare’s stories have captured the imaginations of East Asians and Southeast Asians on stage. Encounters between East Asia and Southeast Asia on Shakespearean stage place an emphasis on relevance and inclusivity within the stories. Their encounters are designed to speak to the extraordinary moments that call for multicultural and multilingual Asian productions. This study presents as exemplary cases two productions: Desdemona (2000) and Lear Dreaming (2012). Their retellings of Othello and King Lear are suggestive of what human beings resort to in order to maintain power over others, but at the same time give prominence to psychological and humane themes. These two Asian versions spring from the interest in stories about powerful families in conflict who are driven by ambitions, loyalties, and vendettas, while making decisions that affect each other. Desdemona and Lear Dreaming reinvent Shakespearean stories being told with new Asian twists and turns. Their stage practice is bound up with the ultimate examination of how Asian performing artists and Shakespearean characters are intertwined. Encounters between East Asian and Southeast Asian art forms have a direct bearing on how Asian cultural diversity is depicted on stage. They value the traditional contents of Asian performance styles, but at the same time go beyond classical values by employing modern technology such as visual and graphic arts. The integration of traditional and modern staging modes is set to redefine what Shakespeare’s stories mean to our own time and how they are relevant to contemporary audiences.

Moving between Mauritius and the World (or Not)

Abstract Contemporary literature from Mauritius, a heterogeneous multilingual production, is entangled within a complex transnational topology, where several increasingly recognized authors have deployed multiple identities through personal and editorial mobility. They benefit from (and participate in) the diversification of publishing structures, instances of dissemination, and audiences, while others hold very little symbolic capital. This paper discusses several key issues to understand the island’s multifaceted and unequal literary microcosm. It traces certain historical, linguistic and cultural predispositions of the Mauritian text today, addresses the reasons and implications of literary scale-shifting beyond the local, examines the modalities of trans/international recognition, and raises the issues at stake when translating these works. The island is hereby considered as a paradigmatic example of an emerging literary space on the postcolonial “periphery”, both contributing to challenging established canons, while remaining tributary to persisting hierarchies in the global literary system.

A Machine Learning and Augmented Reality based Framework for Multilingual Product Identification in Retail using Mobilenets and Vuforia

In the modern world, Machine Learning and Augmented Reality have taken the retail industry by storm. Machine Learning and Augmented Reality have provided a major boost to the industry of interactive retail by providing features such as real-time product detection and identification. The proposed research aims at overcoming several challenges in the present scenario which include the time consuming process of standing in long queues while purchasing the products at supermarkets, personalizing the shopping experience in order to maintain the privacy of the users, helping the customers to maintain their specified budgets, reducing the high labor costs and overcoming the language barriers while pertaining to selling products to groups with different linguistic backgrounds by combining the real-world interaction of Augmented Reality and Machine Learning-based product identification. This proposed research work aims at providing the customers with a futuristic shopping experience while maintaining their specified budgets. The Machine Learning-based object detection approach detected the products with around 96% accuracy and the Vuforia-based Augmented Reality approach detected objects with maximum accuracy.

Conflict adaptation during multilingual language production as evidenced by the n-3 effect

AbstractSeveral multilingual language production models assume that language control is instigated by conflict monitoring. In turn, conflict adaptation, a control process which makes it easier to resolve interference if previously a high-interference context was detected, should also occur during multilingual production, as it is triggered by conflict monitoring. Because no evidence has been provided for conflict adaptation in the multilingual production literature, we set out to investigate this process using the n-3 effect. Our study showed that the n-3 effect can be observed during multilingual production, and thus provides evidence for conflict adaptation during multilingual production.

Coarse Alignment of Topic and Sentiment: A Unified Model for Cross-Lingual Sentiment Classification.

Cross-lingual sentiment classification (CLSC) aims to leverage rich-labeled resources in the source language to improve prediction models of a resource-scarce domain in the target language. Existing feature representation learning-based approaches try to minimize the difference of latent features between different domains by exact alignment, which is achieved by either one-to-one topic alignment or matrix projection. Exact alignment, however, restricts the representation flexibility and further degrades the model performances on CLSC tasks if the distribution difference between two language domains is large. On the other hand, most previous studies proposed document-level models or ignored sentiment polarities of topics that might lead to insufficient learning of latent features. To solve the abovementioned problems, we propose a coarse alignment mechanism to enhance the model's representation by a group-to-group topic alignment into an aspect-level fine-grained model. First, we propose an unsupervised aspect, opinion, and sentiment unification model (AOS), which trimodels aspects, opinions, and sentiments of reviews from different domains and helps capture more accurate latent feature representation by a coarse alignment mechanism. To further boost AOS, we propose ps-AOS, a partial supervised AOS model, in which labeled source language data help minimize the difference of feature representations between two language domains with the help of logistics regression. Finally, an expectation-maximization framework with Gibbs sampling is then proposed to optimize our model. Extensive experiments on various multilingual product review data sets show that ps-AOS significantly outperforms various kinds of state-of-the-art baselines.

The relationship between inhibitory control and speech production in young multilinguals

Abstract Speech production in multilinguals involves constant inhibition of the languages currently not in use. In relation to phonological development, higher inhibitory skills may lead to the improved suppression of interference from the remaining languages in one’s repertoire and more accurate production of target features. The participants were 20 sequential multilingual learners (13-year-olds with L1 Polish, L2 English, L3 German), acquiring their L2 and L3 by formal instruction in a primary school. Inhibition was measured in a modified flanker task (Eriksen & Eriksen 1974; Poarch & Bialystok 2015). Multilingual production of voice onset time (VOT) and rhotic consonants was tested in a delayed repetition task (e.g. Kopečková et al. 2016; Krzysik 2019) in their L2 and L3. The results revealed that higher inhibitory control was related to increased global accuracy in the L2 and L3 production. Moreover, higher inhibitory control was also linked to higher accuracy in the overall L2 production, but there was no significant relationship with the L3 accuracy. These findings suggest that inhibition may play a role in phonological speech production, however, it may depend on one’s level of proficiency.

Language and Neuropsychiatric Disorders: An Analysis of Communication among Trilingual Schizophrenics in Nakuru Level Five Hospital in Nakuru County, Kenya

The main objective of this study was to describe the thought disturbance manifestation in code-switching patterns of trilingual schizophrenics in Nakuru Level Five Hospital. Schizophrenia is a grievous and chronic mental disorder that affects the way a person thinks, behaves and feels. Schizophrenia victims may appear like they have lost touch with reality. Sometimes these patients seem perfectly fine until they talk about what they are really thinking. They may not make sense when they talk. The symptoms can be observed directly in their language, most importantly, disorganized language. Disorganized language is a spoken language that fails to communicate effectively or follow a coherent discourse plan. It is a manifestation of positive formal thought disorder, or it reflects an underlying impairment of verbal thought. The diagnosis of schizophrenia relies entirely on language. A purposive sample of six respondents consisting of three females and three males of diverse age groups was investigated. Using a phenomenological qualitative research design, data was collected, compiled, described and analyzed underpinned by the un-Cartesian Linguistic Theory and the Multilingual Production Model. The main instrument of data collection was Thematic Apperception Test, open-ended interviews, audio recording and observation. Results from this study indicate that trilingual schizophrenics manifest illogical triadic code switch patterns involving mother tongue, Kiswahili and English resulting in a deviant language in code-switching patterns. This study will benefit scholars in linguistics, medical practitioners and the general public.

“I fear I am not in my perfect mind.” Jan Klata’s King Lear and the Crisis of Europe

In his Shakespearean productions Jan Klata tends to radically experiment with sets, texts, and contexts. He puts the plays in culturally and politically specific locations, experiments with bi- or multilingual productions, and incorporates other texts into the Shakespearean frame. In this way, he uses Shakespeare as a means to address contemporary problems and tensions that are vital for his geopolitical reality, exploring the issues of national identities, the cultural legacy of Europe and its nations, as well as past conflicts and present crises. Klata’s King Lear (Narodowy Teatr Stary, Kraków, 2014), set in the religious context of the Catholic Church and using mostly Polish language, with only decorative additions in foreign languages, does not engage in European politics with the same directness and force as his earlier productions. And yet, as I wish to argue, this performance is also strongly concerned with European identity, and may, therefore, be seen as a valid voice in the discussion on how Shakespearean productions help to understand our current-day reality.

The Deliberate Non-Subtitling of L3s in Breaking Bad: A Reception Study

This paper presents the results of the first empirical reception study on the deliberate non-subtitling of L3s in the multilingual TV series Breaking Bad. Multilingual films and TV series are on the increase both in terms of success and penetrating wider audiences in a global market. This puts the focus on how multilingualism is conveyed to the audience and how audiences respond to it. While the translation strategies used in multilingual productions have received some attention, audiences’ reactions to them have only been investigated through an analysis of comments posted on an online movie message board. This study presents the results of a survey on the perception of and response to non-translation of L3 segments in a multilingual prestige TV series among hearing viewers. It shows that audiences are not only acutely aware of deliberate non-translation but also actively seek to identify motivations for it, which are context-sensitive and largely coincide with the filmmakers’ motivations for this practice. On the translation-theoretical side, this paper suggests that Corrius and Zabalbeascoa’s (2011) framework for the translation of L3s in dubbing would benefit from a supplement for other translation modes. On the applied side, the findings of this empirical reception study can inform agents in the international film and TV industry about audiences’ viewing preferences and potentially change AVT practices.

El análisis de la variación lingüística en el doblaje de la serie Jane the Virgin

El proceso de traducción de un texto audiovisual multilingüe presenta dificultades añadidas a la complejidad ya propia de este tipo de formato. En este artículo se aborda el doblaje de productos multilingües, que constituye un ámbito traductológico con un gran potencial académico y al que, hasta el momento, no se le ha prestado la debida atención (Díaz Cintas 2014; Sanz Ortega 2015). El objetivo principal de este estudio es analizar los mecanismos utilizados para abordar el multilingüismo de la serie Jane the Virgin durante su doblaje. Más concretamente, analizaremos el tratamiento que se hace del discurso de los personajes, los insertos y las canciones en dos versiones dobladas de este producto audiovisual: la destinada al mercado español y la creada para el mercado latinoamericano.

Voorkeurstrategieë in die Noord-Sotho-vertaling van Terminologie van het tolken

Cornelius and Pienaar (2017) point out that there is a need for standardised interpreting terminology in South Africa, not only in the indigenous languages, but also in English and Afrikaans. In order to bridge this gap and to contribute to the standardisation of interpreting terminology, these authors decided to translate the 2008 publication by Salaets, Segers and Bloemen, with the Dutch title Terminologie van het tolken , published by Vantitlt in Nijmegen, in Afrikaans and in English, and to provide translation equivalents of the terms in one Nguni (Zulu) and one Sotho language (Northern Sotho). The original Dutch was adapted accordingly. The title of this multilingual product is Interpreting terminology / Terminologie van het tolken / Tolkterminologie / Mareo a botoloki /Amatemu okutolika (Pienaar & Cornelius 2018). The first phase of the project is reported in Cornelius and Pienaar (2017), consisting of the following actions: (1) expanding the original lemma list to include interpreting terms with high frequency of use in South Africa, whilst at the same time also limiting the original lemma list to only those terms that are in use and relevant in a South African context, (2) translating the dictionary articles into Afrikaans and English, (3) localising the content for the South African user, including the additional comments and examples, and (4) adapting the original Dutch to reflect resulting localised content. In this article the focus is on the second phase of the project, namely the provision of translation equivalents in Zulu and Northern Sotho. Finding translation equivalents in Northern Sotho proved to be particularly difficult. In contrast to standardised languages such as English and Afrikaans, the lack of a Northern Sotho standard variety forced the translators who collaborated on the project to act mainly as terminologists, and not translators, as they were continuously confronted with problems relating to zero equivalence (lexical/linguistic gaps). Despite similarities and overlap, translation and terminology represent different knowledge domains. Problems translators grapple with can of course be terminological in nature, for instance when confronted with instances of lexical or linguistic gaps, where the target language lacks a translation equivalent for a source language term. Different approaches to terminography can be followed (Alberts 2017). In order to assist with the standardising of interpreting terminology, whilst also contributing to language development in Zulu and Northern Sotho, the traditional subject-oriented methodology was preferred in Interpreting terminology . This approach focuses on the concept, and the relationship between concepts and conceptual systems. Standardised terms and concepts enable effective communication and knowledge transfer in a particular domain. This approach typically involves eleven steps. In this article we demonstrate how the decision to include translation equivalents in Northern Sotho, in particular, resulted in some disruption of the steps and the order in which the steps were executed, and we highlight some of the stumbling blocks the Northern Sotho translators had to contend with. These translators resorted to a number of strategies to solve these problems, including generalisation, paraphrasing and borrowing.

Continually harvesting the crowds

PurposeThis paper aims to investigate how a small business is able to continually use entrepreneurial financial sources (i.e. crowdfunding) within and after a successful transformation from an entrepreneur. It additionally investigates how a market incumbent is able to successfully join the market of entrepreneurial financial resources.Design/methodology/approachTherefore, a comparative case study using qualitative and quantitative data as well as triangulation technique is conducted within the international board game (or tabletop) market at the crowdfunding platform Kickstarter. The US company CMON, which has developed from an entrepreneur to a small business and beyond, is compared with the German incumbent Pegasus. Based on an analysis of a set of key performance indicators suggested in the literature, qualitative and quantitative variables are deductively derived to measure their impact on the financial goal achievement, thereby showing their impact on the goal achievement. During the analysis, additional variables are identified inductively.FindingsAs a result, several qualitative components are found to be crucial, including oral storytelling and computer animated videos/images, a perfect multilingual product language, prototyped components, an active community and a depth and regularity in campaign updates. In quantitative terms, important components include having more product images than longer project descriptions, more optional buys than different but fixed project rewards, a big social network (on Twitter and Facebook), and the number of updates.Research limitations/implicationsBased upon the data and findings, this study invites for more research, especially in conducting a larger scale quantitative analysis using the developed framework to compare more cases within a branch, cases across branches and cases with different background stories.Practical implicationsBut to successfully run a crowdfunding campaign, entrepreneurs and incumbents can use the provided measures as a first design- and decision-roadmap, as well as copying the new business strategy of continually practicing crowdfunding for new products.Originality/valueDespite its limits, this paper offers the first in-depth qualitative and quantitative crowdfunding case study showing on the one hand a new business strategy about crowdfunding as well as providing a structured measure to compare crowdfunding project performance.

Multilink for bilingual language production

A major benefit of computational models is their ability to demonstrate which theoretical assumptions are truly necessary to explain a pattern of data. Dijkstra, Wahl, Buytenhuijs, van Halem, Al-jibouri, de Korte, and Rekké (in press) have impressively shown with Multilink that it is possible to account for a range of findings from bilingual lexical decision, word naming, and forward and backward translation tasks with an integrated lexicon, without lateral connections between translation equivalents, and without inhibition. In this commentary, we consider the applicability of the current model to other multilingual language production tasks, and note where the model's assumptions might need revision as its scope is expanded.

Language policy and practice in multilingual production workplaces

AbstractTransnational mobility results in a diversification of languages and cultures in the workplace. A common means of managing this diversity is to introduce language policies that often privilege English or the locally dominant language(s). In contrast, managing their everyday working lives may require employees to draw on a range of multilingual and non-verbal resources. Such tensions between policy and practice in multilingual workplaces may impact structures and processes of inequality and power in the workplace. By looking at two sites within logistics and construction, this article offers a critical look at multilingual policies and practices and their consequences for speakers within the workplace. The article investigates how language is conceptualised in language policies and enacted in language practice. From this point of departure we discuss how the tensions between policies and practices impact on the daily working life and professional opportunities of the workers. Our findings suggest that even though multilingual practices are crucial for the flow of everyday work interactions on the floor, the language requirements within the workplace mirror the repertoires and practices of high-status employees, and therefore their competence is valued more highly than the more multilingual repertoires of their subordinates. A consequence of this unequal valorisation of the different linguistic repertoires is the maintenance of existing hierarchies in the workplace and the creation of new ones.