Prof Catherine Travis launches “Life in a New Language” at ALS2024

The annual conference of the Australian Linguistic Society (ALS) is a gathering of like-minded academics and presents a wonderful opportunity to see old friends and meet new ones, and to be intellectually encouraged to engage with language in all its forms and context. This year’s conference at the Australian National University was no different and offered an exciting program.

Our new book Life in a New Language featured prominently, including receiving a second launch (to learn more about the first launch, go here). At ALS, our book was launched by Professor Catherine Travis, the Chair of Modern European Languages in the School of Literature, Languages, and Linguistics at the ANU.

Catherine’s reflections on the book were a thoughtful heart-warming invitation to read Life in a New Language. This is part of Catherine’s testimony:

Many of the stories told are very familiar to me, as I’m sure they will be to all of you – many of you are migrants to Australia, and may have had similar experiences yourselves, and all of you will have been made aware of these kinds of experiences from migrants in your own families, close friends and colleagues.

And the message equally rings true to me, as I hope it will to you. I will just highlight three elements here.

Migrants are too often seen through a deficit lens – what is highlighted is their lack of English that adheres to a standardised norm; their lack of appropriate qualifications; their lack of local experience. This is in contrast to what they bring, which is their multilingual repertoire, qualifications in different settings, and their international experience. We need to address this deficit narrative and recognise that migrant families are raising the multilingual communication mediators of the future; and we need to support them in that endeavour, as our future depends on it.

Life in a New Language already has a veritable fan club

The responsibility for communication is too often placed on the migrant. As the authors state, language is viewed as a “cognitive skill, the level of which can be measured through proficiency tests. But it is also a communicative tool that interactants share to collaboratively achieve common goals” (p.124). This perspective shifts the burden of responsibility onto both parties involved in the interaction, and the authors call for more attention to be given to what it means to communicate well in a linguistically diverse society, to be more aware of the importance of inclusive communication.

And, crucially, the conversation needs to be taken out of the academy. This book goes a long way to doing that, as a highly readable and rich account of migrant stories. I hope that it is read widely, that the migrant stories here are heard, and are listened to.

Life in a New Language is an ethnographic data-sharing and re-use project and so it was also appropriate that we engaged strongly with the themed session on The Wealth of Resources on Migrant Languages in Australia organised by Professor Heike Wiese (Chair of German in Multilingual Contexts in the Humboldt University in Berlin), her doctoral researcher Victoria Oliha, and Dr Jaime Hunt (University of Newcastle).

This themed session aimed to provide a centralised forum for researchers on migrant languages in Australia to connect and present their findings as well as spark a conversation around the resources created through their projects. The following central questions were discussed:

• What empirical resources on migrant languages in Australia have been created? How can we make these resources accessible to the wider research community?
• From what theoretical and conceptual perspectives have migrant languages in Australia been studied? How can such studies inform each other?
• What methods have been used to study migrant languages in Australia? What can we learn from each other methodologically? What new methods could we use to gain further insights?

It is wonderful for Life in a New Language to be part of this conversation. As one of our biggest fan says in this unboxing video: “it teaches you how people develop.”

Some members of the Philippines delegation in the Banquet Hall during lunch

Editor’s note: the 21^st AILA World Conference, celebrating the 60th anniversary of the Association Internationale de Linguistique Appliquée (AILA; “International Association of Applied Linguistics”), took place in Kuala Lumpur last week, hosted by the Malaysian Association of Applied Linguistics.

With several members of our team in attendance, we were able to bring you daily updates: Day 1, Day 2, Day 3, Day 4. Due to return travel and catch-up responsibilities, the final day report has been slightly delayed. We hope you find it useful nonetheless.

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Notable highlights of the final day relate to Enric Llurda’s keynote about native-speakerism, a symposium featuring rising stars in Applied Linguistics, a book prize, multilingual catch-ups, and the changing of the guards.

Debunking native-speakerism in Applied Linguistics

Professor Enric Llurda was the final keynote speaker for this year’s conference with a timely topic on “Native-speakerism and standards in Applied Linguistics.” In this talk, foregrounded by his personal experiences, Professor Llurda explored native-speakerism and its definition and manifestation and the question of how it can be overcome. Llurda’s talk was very interesting in two respects: a timely celebratory reminder and a timely advocacy reminder. While Llurda lamented the ongoing devaluing of Other Englishes particularly in the global north, there is much to celebrate in the global south scholarship in terms of the recognition and validation of emerging varieties of English especially in post-colonial global south countries in Southeast-Asia. There is certainly more room for applied linguists to expand the work and advocate for the legitimacy of more emerging varieties of English.

Rising stars in Applied Linguistics Are Unpacking the Complexity of Multilingual Valorization

The Rising Stars of the Symposium “Unpacking the Complexity of Multilingual Valorization: Insights from Chinese-speaking Communities” with their mentors

One of the last symposiums of the conference, chaired by Professors LI Jia and ZHANG Jie, both key members of the Language-on-the-Move team, showcased diverse works of postgraduate students under their supervision. The symposium was titled “Unpacking the Complexity of Multilingual Valorization: Insights from Chinese-speaking Communities.”

This was one of the most inspiring symposia for me not only because it featured postgraduate research work (for all presenters this was their first presentation at an international conference), but because of the students articulate and incisive presentations. The topics covered in this symposium was quite diverse as can be seen in the list below:

The discussant for the symposium was Distinguished Professor Ingrid Piller, who had been the PhD supervisor of Professors LI Jia and ZHANG Jie, which means that the presenters were her “academic grandchildren” of sorts. Ingrid congratulated both the presenters and chairs, and praised them for approaching these under-researched multilingual contexts with great conceptual and methodological sophistication, with incisive analyses, and with a lot of passion to apply linguistics research to further the common good.

Winning a good book

Delegates from the Philippines catching up during the conference

Lunch throughout the conference was fabulous and rounded out by lucky draws. I was particularly delighted that an early career researcher from the Philippines, Krizza Mae Balisong (University of Santo Tomas), won Linguistic Diversity and Social Justice on Day 5.

Multilingual catch-ups and local experiences

As has been said in previous reports, there were close to 2,000 attendees at the conference. And it really was impossible to attend all the sessions and meet everybody. As an applied linguist based in Sydney, Australia, one of the rewards I find in attending such a large conference is being able to meet long-standing colleagues and emerging scholars doing great applied linguistics work in the Philippines. Lunch times and coffee breaks were, therefore, organised to ensure one maximises these opportunities. It is in these liminal spaces that one gets to catch up and discuss new collaborations.

In addition, being based in an English-dominant country like Australia, I rarely have a chance to exercise my other linguistic identities of being a Tagalog-, a Cebuano-, and a Hiligaynon-speaker and discuss ideas in these languages. The AILA conference gave me that opportunity, and I managed to practice rarely used expressions. One of these is “buwis buhay” [tax life] (Laying one’s life for someone/something). In this context, this was often used in navigating the busy roads of Kuala Lumpur. In one usage, this was particularly used in reference to crossing the busy road to get to the much-coveted Musang King store.

Changing of the guards

Like every other participant, I am deeply grateful to the conference organizers from the Malaysian Association of Applied Linguistics, whose incredibly hard work over years of preparation made this success possible. In the closing ceremony, they must have been glad to pass the baton on to the Canadian Association of Applied Linguistics, who will host the AILA World Congress 2027 in Vancouver.
Missing #AILA2024?
The Language on the Move Day 5 report is now up: native speakerism, rising stars, and multilingual networking

So, #AILA2024 ended on this critique of native-speakerism by Enric Llurda, and then you walk into the nearest bookstore and see this: “How to sound like a native Korean speaker” pic.twitter.com/3nDLCNwIx6

— Language on the Move (@Lg_on_the_Move) August 16, 2024

Professor García (r) and members of the Language on the Move team during ISB14

The concept of translanguaging has been gaining increasing popularity but, at the same time, continues to confuse students, teachers, and researchers. In this interview, Professor Emerita Ofelia García, a key proponent of translanguaging, explains what it is all about.

Professor García answers four main questions:

1. What is translanguaging?
2. How is translanguaging different from codeswitching?
3. What are the pedagogical implications of translanguaging?
4. How can we engage those who are uncomfortable with translanguaging because to them it distracts from the objective of ensuring that language learners learn languages as proficiently as they can for full social and economic participation in society?

I conducted the interview on the sidelines of the International Symposium on Bilingualism, where Professor García delivered a keynote talk on Studying bilinguals and their education: A translanguaging-informed critique of research.

The inspiring and compelling keynote left me with many questions based on my own experience as a scholar and a multilingual, who has been seeing the ways I move in and out of the multiple languages in my repertoire through the lens of codeswitching (Lising et al., 2020).

I hope you will find the 20-minute interview helpful in your quest to understand the complex ways in which multilinguals navigate their diverse linguistic repertoires.

Reference

Lising, L., Peters, P., & Smith, A. (2020). Code-switching in online academic discourse: Resources for Philippine English. English World-Wide, 41(2), 131-161.

Loy is perfectly placed to model this balance, as she was recently recognized with a 2022 Lighthouse Award for a staff member who, in an exemplary fashion, models the values of the Faculty of Medicine, Health, and Human Sciences at Macquarie University.

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So proud of the special issue of Multilingua devoted to family language policy I guest-edited together with supportive colleagues

Balancing academic responsibilities of teaching, research, and service has become increasingly challenging under conditions of social acceleration. Of course, academics are not alone in having to deal with the speeding up of our lives under neoliberal capitalism, as I showed in a study with Filipino migrant workers in Australia.

Three of the key strategies I use to keep everything together while inspiring students and achieving excellence with grace are:

1. I always remember that as academics we are first and foremost teachers, so our main role is to inspire minds and hearts.
2. I strive to create synergies in my work by making sure my tasks and roles align with my passion and skills.
3. I surround myself with like-minded colleagues who can do the work with me and can spur me on to achieve our individual and collective goals.

In the following, I will show what I achieved in 2022 guided by these principles.

Teaching to inspire minds and hearts

One of the units I convene is “Professional and Community Engagement (PACE).” PACE is one of the hallmarks of a Macquarie University’s education. It places students in a work environment so that they can gain professional experience.

PACE provides students with an opportunity to experience a work environment and enhance their employability. Academics also derive benefits, as PACE provides a platform to connect research and teaching. In 2021, when I first convened this unit, I started an initiative where I invited colleagues in my department and beyond to host PACE students to work with them on their research.

In addition to organizing the work experience for all Linguistics students in our Department, I hosted six students this year, who were interested in finding out how sociolinguistic research is conducted. Together, we worked on a corpus study of migrant English in the media. This provided the students with an appreciation of what sociolinguistic research entails and constituted valuable research assistance for me.

Maybe some of my PACE students will progress to undertaking research degrees. Supervising higher degree research is another of my passions, where I achieve synergies between teaching and research.

Heritage language maintenance in Australia

As with teaching, collaboration is at the heart of my research endeavors.

One of my key publications this year was a special issue of Multilingua devoted to “Multilingual family language policy in monolingual Australia: multilingual desires and monolingual realities,” which I co-edited with my colleague, Dr Hanna Torsh.

This publication has a long history – and patience is another academic virtue! – and goes back to 2019. Back then, I was awarded a small research grant by the Australian Linguistics Society (ALS) for a research project entitled, “Understanding migrants’ multilingual practices: Evidence from Filipino families.” This project aimed to investigate heritage language maintenance practices of Filipino migrant families in Sydney.

On the back of data collection for the project, I co-hosted a themed panel devoted to “Linguistic diversity in Australian migrant families” at the 2019 ALS annual conference. The presentations at that panel eventually transformed into the articles that make up the special issue (for a full list of the contributions, see the reference below).

Sociolinguistics in Connection

Academic meetings are a great way to facilitate research collaborations, and as the outcome of the 2019 panel was published, we hosted another event that will hopefully lead to new research projects further down the track.

This event was a symposium devoted to “Sociolinguistics in connection: Towards a healthy and resilient society.” Funded by Macquarie University’s Linguistics Department’s Research Community Incubator Scheme, the symposium was intended to strengthen the Department’s applied sociolinguistics cluster.

Together with my co-organizers Dr Agi Bodis, Dr Jean Cho, A/Prof Peter Roger, and Dr Hanna Torsh we assembled around 30 colleagues from across the university and other universities in the Sydney region for an inspirational day of lightning talks and academic speed dating.

Snapping a group photo during the “Sociolinguistics in Connection” symposium

The aim of the symposium was to deepen and expand existing research strengths by providing a platform for colleagues from various disciplines who do research at the intersections of language, healthcare, and education in our linguistically diverse society.

Surrounding yourself with like-minded colleagues

In work as in life, it is essential that we surround ourselves with colleagues who support us and spur us on so we can become better versions of ourselves as researchers, teachers, and administrators. I have been very fortunate in my mentors, peers, and mentees. Distinguished Professor Ingrid Piller has been a constant and consistent mentor and support in all my academic endeavors since 2008. She has also created the Language on the Move research group, which has inspired so many of us to conduct research that actually improves people’s lives.

I must also mention Emeritus Professor Pam Peters, who has supported my corpus linguistics research related to diverse Englishes, particularly in Australia and the Philippines.

Maintaining focus on students and community

I started off this blog post by saying that one of the challenges with working in today’s academia is balancing one’s teaching, research, and service duties. What this year’s endeavors and experiences have taught me is that if we remain focused on the heart of our profession – our students and our community – we will always be inspired to do more and do better.

References

Ellis, E. M., & Sims, M. (2022). “It’s like the root of a tree that I grew up from….”: parents’ linguistic identity shaping family language policy in isolated circumstances. Multilingua, 41(5), 529-548. doi:10.1515/multi-2021-0100
Lising, L. (2021). ‘Speak English!’: social acceleration and language learning in the workplace. International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism, 1-14. doi:10.1080/13670050.2021.1955499
Lising, L. (2022). “I want her to be able to think in English”: challenges to heritage language maintenance in a monolingual society. Multilingua, 41(5), 549-569. doi:10.1515/multi-2021-0106
Rubino, A. (2022). Family language policy and dialect-Italian dynamics: across the waves of Italo-Australian migrant families. Multilingua, 41(5), 571-589. doi:10.1515/multi-2021-0095
Taylor-Leech, K. (2022). Transnational identities, being and belonging: the diverse home literacies of multilingual immigrant families. Multilingua, 41(5), 591-609. doi:10.1515/multi-2021-0092
Torsh, H. I. (2022). ‘Maybe if you talk to her about it’: intensive mothering expectations and heritage language maintenance. Multilingua, 41(5), 611-628. doi:10.1515/multi-2021-0105
Torsh, H. I., & Lising, L. (2022). Multilingual family language policy in monolingual Australia: multilingual desires and monolingual realities. Multilingua, 41(5), 519-527. doi:10.1515/multi-2022-0103

(Image credit: Komisyon sa Wikang Filipino)

August is celebrated in the Philippines as Buwan ng Wika (language month).

This celebration began in 1946, shortly after the then Philippine President Manuel Quezon declared Tagalog as the basis for the creation of a national language (later termed Filipino). Initially, the annual events celebrated the unification of the archipelago of 183 languages through the national language. More recently, the focus has been on recognizing and celebrating the many languages of the Philippines.

This year’s theme declares Filipino at mga Wikang Katutubo sa Dekolonisasyon ng Pag-iisip ng mga Pilipino (Filipino and other Indigenous languages for the decolonization of the Filipino people’s way of thinking). This theme is an extension of UNESCO’s declaration of 2019 as the Year of Indigenous Languages and points to the upcoming decade of action for the world’s Indigenous Peoples and Languages.

The Special Broadcasting Services (SBS) in Australia, particularly it’s SBS Filipino segment, also celebrates Buwan ng Wika. It’s a way to pay homage to Filipino migrants in Australia.

For this year’s Buwan ng Wika, I have been interviewed by Nikki Alfonso-Gregorio about naming practices in the Philippines. You can listen to the interview here.

Before colonization, only given names were common and surnames were not formalized. These given names were based on nature, and cultural and spiritual beliefs. This is still true of given names today, although other themes have been added, including those that reflect love of God, love of family, love of literature and the entertainment industry, and love for creativity.

Family names arrived in the Philippines with the Claveria decree of 1849, which required Filipinos to adopt family names. To learn more, head over to the SBS website.

Dr Loy Lising (2nd r.) with members of the SABA collective at the Annual Hazara Academic Awards Night 2021

Editor’s note: Members of the Language-on-the-Move research team undertake numerous forms of service and community outreach throughout the year. We often speak at community events about aspects of intercultural communication, language learning, and bilingual education. In this post, Dr Loy Lising shares a brief report of the Fourth Annual Hazara Academic Awards Night. She attended the event as an invited keynote speaker about heritage language maintenance.

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Hazaras are a persecuted ethnic minority group in Afghanistan and many have resettled in Australia. Young Hazara Australians have formed an organization called Saba, which is dedicated to inspiring Hazara Australians to pursue their dreams through education.

As part of these efforts, SABA celebrates an Annual Awards Night in honor of community members who have performed exceptionally well in their high-school leaving exams or their university degrees.

This year’s Annual Hazara Academic Awards was featured on ABC News and you can watch short interviews with some of the young achievers who are set to become community leaders and role models for the next generation.

In addition to the awards and cultural performances, the program for the night included a speech about the importance of heritage language maintenance. It was a great honor for me to deliver that speech as a representative of the Language-on-the-Move team and of Macquarie University, where many SABA members study for their degrees.

My task for the evening was to speak about the importance of bilingualism in ensuring community cohesion across generations. At the same time, the evening was a great opportunity to hear powerful stories of resilience, determination, and success.

I sincerely congratulate the awardees on their achievements and thank the Hazara community and particularly the Saba group for letting me share their special night.

Image 1: Infographic in Tagalog on ways to prevent the spread of COVID-19 infection

Editor’s note: Timely and equitable access to information for linguistically diverse populations continues to be a major linguistic challenge of the COVID-19 pandemic. In this latest contribution to our series of language aspects of the COVID-19 crisis, Loy Lising introduces three grassroots initiatives to improve multilingual service provision in the Philippines. The call for contributions to the series continues to be open.

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The Philippines is a highly linguistically diverse country with Ethnologue listing 182 languages in use there. However, with Filipino as the constitutionally enshrined national language and English as the official second language, most of these languages are often relegated to the periphery when it comes to national activities. Their subordinate status has become salient with the COVID-19 pandemic, as it has become apparent that state public health information in Filipino and English fails to reach all the ethnolinguistic groups in the archipelago. Various NGOs and grassroots groups have stepped into the breach.

Since the initial case of COVID-19 in the Philippines in early February 2020, various grassroots-driven efforts have developed, and I, together with colleagues from the University of the Philippines, Kristina Gallego and Jesus Hernandez, are currently working to catalogue these and assess their effectiveness. As part of our ongoing investigation, we are surveying the availability of and access to COVID-19 information and prevention materials disseminated on social media since the lockdown of the capital region Metro Manila on 15 March 2020. In addition, we are interested in finding in what Philippine languages these materials are available. Our preliminary investigation has shown that insofar as COVID-19 infection prevention efforts in other Philippine languages are concerned, much of the work done are grassroots-generated rather than state-initiated, as in the following three examples.

Project #CAMPana

Through the Project #CAMPana of the College of Allied Medical Professions in the University of the Philippines, infographics on the prevention of the spread of COVID-19 were disseminated in various social media platforms immediately after the first occurrence of the virus in the country. One of these (Image 1) is an infographic for adults in Tagalog.

The infographic contains relevant information on the prevention of COVID-19 infection utilising a number of (non)linguistic modalities to make the information not only accessible but also interesting. These strategies include the use of images, colours, and mnemonics (in this image, LINIS). The Tagalog word linis means ‘clean’ or ‘being clean’ in English. In the image above, it is utilised as an easy-to-remember set of instructions to avoid contracting COVID-19: L is for linis (clean), I is for ilong (nose), N is for no, I is for iwasan (avoid), and S is for sabunin (to soap). The L instruction reminds readers to always clean frequently used objects; letter I instructs how to cover one’s nose and mouth when sneezing or coughing; letter N suggests refraining from touching one’s eyes, nose and mouth; letter I admonishes people to avoid crowded places; and S reminds readers to wash their hands or use sanitizers.

The other is an infographic for children available in eight Philippine languages: Tagalog, English, Cebuano, Ilonggo, Bikol, Iluko, Kapampangan, and Waray. Image 2 is an example in Cebuano.

Image 2: Infographic in Cebuano for children on ways to prevent the spread of COVID-19 infection

The infographic presents similar information but utilises, quite ingeniously, a strategy that makes the information not only accessible and interesting but also relevant to and attractive for children. The image juxtaposes the evil COVID-19 virus ‘crown’ image with a child superhero known as ‘Super Bata’, similar to Susana Distancia in Mexico. This clever strategy appeals to the children’s imagination and enjoins them to see themselves as superheros if they follow the eight strategies outlined in the pamphlet.

Language Warriors PH

The second grassroots effort is an initiative of the Department of Linguistics of the University of the Philippines in Diliman. They have created a working group called Language Warriors PH that aims to connect community translators and ‘language warriors’ across the Philippines to ensure COVID-19 related information is disseminated in as many indigenous languages as possible. This is a crucial step to ensure that especially those who are in the periphery, socially and geographically, have access to crucial information. This volunteer group, as of their May 08 report, has collected 927 COVID-19 related materials across 70 Philippine languages, dialects, and sociolects. The translated information spans topics on physical and mental health, socio-economic support, news and current affairs, and other miscellaneous information. The volunteer translators who have done the work of translating COVID-19 related information for various ethnolinguistic groups, which LWPH collect and help disseminate, include teachers, language enthusiasts, national government staff, local government unit staff, and private organization members.

Reading, Early Grades, Art and Language Education (REGALE)

A third truly outstanding effort worth featuring is the community-generated dictionaries for children produced by the Reading, Early Grades, Art and Language Education (REGALE) cluster from the College of Education of the University of the Philippines. In their efforts to ensure that children are kept up-to-date with information related to COVID-19 and its prevention, they have produced thus far four dictionaries for children: one in English, one in Tagalog, one in Cebuano, and the most recent one in Surigaonon. These dictionaries are also accessible in Filipino Sign Language, the link of which is embedded in the dictionary. In addition, and more recently, REGALE also produced video clips to further engage children in COVID-19 discussions. The first of these is now available.

Is public health information reaching the Philippine’s ethnolinguistic minorities?

Public dissemination of information in a multilingual ecology that is inclusive of all ethnolinguistic groups is always challenging, particularly one that involves so many languages. In the Philippines, the predominant use of Filipino and English across a number of national domains has always been motivated by the privileged position these languages hold in the country’s national language policy. The necessity, however, of ensuring the dissemination of potentially life-saving information at a time of a pandemic to as many ethnolinguistic groups as possible cannot be overemphasised. Thus far, in the country, we have seen various grassroots efforts, as exemplified above, rise to the challenge in bridging the information gap. My colleagues and I hope that once our research is concluded, we will be able to emphasize the role of grassroots efforts in the production of public health information across the archipelago to be able to influence state policies to improve information dissemination in all the languages Filipinos use and understand.

Language challenges of the Covid-19 pandemic

Visit here for our full coverage of language aspects of the COVID-19 crisis.