Researching Multilingually

On May 23rd, I had the privilege of attending the Researching Multilingually seminar that was organised by The University of Manchester, where I presented a brief talk about the various alternatives available for representing bilingual data in research output.

In a nutshell, my argument was that there are many different considerations (intentionalities) that need to be taken into account when deciding how to present data. Some of them necessitate a very transparent positioning, whereas others seem to suggest a need for measured opacity. Building on this, I argued for a flexible representational strategy, which involves selecting, from a range of representational positions, the one that is most appropriate for each instantiation of data. An abstract of my talk can be downloaded here, and the presentation is embedded below:

NB: I have inserted a number of slides in this version of the presentation, which I did not show at the seminar. I trust that they will usefully convey some of the information that I delivered orally on that day. I hope you’re not put off by the Greek title card, by the way; the rest of the presentation is in English. You might want to take a moment to consider why that must be the case.

I wish to acknowledge the incisive feedback from the audience, which has helped me to further develop my tentative thoughts. In particular, I want to thank Adrian Holliday (Canterbury Christ) for helping me to understand that by ‘standardising’ data, I am implicitly selecting and legitimising a standard, which is a political act in itself and therefore needs to be made transparent. Stavroula Pipyrou’s (Durham) caveats on tampering with data were also very cogent and highly appreciated. I stand by my point that ethical considerations must outweigh validity concerns when the two are in conflict, but Stavroula’s feedback has been useful in making me reflect on the implications that such modifications might have.

Above all, I want to thank Mariam Attia, whose organisational skills continue to impress, and whose encouragement and overall support continue to inspire.

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