1 School of Education, University of Durham 7 th – 8 th July, 2010 Some introductory thoughts … (Richard Fay)

Our focus …. … is on the doing, i.e. the emerging practices of doing research multilingually more than the theorising about such practices ; … is on the practices, experience and reflections of the researcher (and, in this seminar, particular on the doctoral researcher) who undertakes research multilingually ; … is not on the related but different theme of Researching Multilingualism (which is a major interest of MOSAIC team at the University of Birmingham for example); … is on the affordances of researching multilingually but also the complexities of this often unremarked upon dimension of so much research undertaken within English-medium higher education (in all its internationalised character) especially by those involved in educational and other similar areas of human research. 2

3 Developing Researcher Competence (DRC) In some ways, a researcher’s competence in doing research multilingually (DRM) can be seen as part of their lifelong process of being/becoming an increasingly competent researcher … Seen in this way, DRM, like the broader DRC, is a process involving ALL those involved in researcher to some extent (e.g. Doctoral students and their supervisors, examiners and sponsors, participants and facilitating interpreters and translators, etc) Further, DRM might seen as one of the ‘hot-spots’ of growing awareness that develop during the lifelong DRC process …

4 Discussions of DRM focused … … (partly but not exclusively) on doctoral studies … … on all stages of the research process – i.e. not just on data generation and analysis but on all stages from initially thinking to publication … … (to some extent) on research undertaken multilingually but presented and examined largely in English …. … (to some extent) on an often under-explored methodological issue … … on both the multilingual researcher and the multilingual research study undertaken by a researcher and multilingual facilitators

5 My story … Although I am essentially a monolingual (English-speaking) researcher … … I am typically involved in international / intercultural (research) projects … and have collaborative research instincts (Bulgarian, Chinese, Greek, Spanish). My DRC has been / is being enriched but also challenged by such collaborative work … … including challenges arising from a proto-awareness of the bi-/multi- lingual aspects of research. This awareness brought to life with Vivien and Carol (and the changing dynamics of our collaborative activities) … … and broadened through discussions with colleagues, other student researchers, literature reviews etc. The awareness being further developed through narrative study of researchers’ and supervisors’ growing awareness of multilingual affordances and complexities.

6 Mapping the territory … Doing research multilingually: An exploratory seminar ( Durham University, School of Education, 7 th – 8 th July, 2010 ) Many researchers, both doctoral and post-doc, collect and/or generate data in one or more languages and present them in another. Such multilingual possibilities create both affordances and complexities but often the issues involved remain hidden and unspoken. This is partly a matter of translation: sometimes researchers analyse and then translate, sometimes they translate and analyse, and sometimes a combination of the two. The multilingual complexities also occur when, for example, researchers work with interpreters or other research facilitators, when they decide on the analytical procedures, and when drawing on literature in a variety of languages.