The strategic impact of META-NET on the regional, national and international level

This article provides an overview of the dissemination work carried out in META-NET from 2010 until 2015; we describe its impact on the regional, national and international level, mainly with regard to politics and the funding situation for LT topics. The article documents the initiative's work throughout Europe in order to boost progress and innovation in our field.Peer ReviewedPostprint (author's final draft

META-NET Strategic Research Agenda for Multilingual Europe 2020

In everyday communication, Europe’s citizens, business partners and politicians are inevitably confronted with language barriers. Language technology has the potential to overcome these barriers and to provide innovative interfaces to technologies and knowledge. This document presents a Strategic Research Agenda for Multilingual Europe 2020. The agenda was prepared by META-NET, a European Network of Excellence. META-NET consists of 60 research centres in 34 countries, who cooperate with stakeholders from economy, government agencies, research organisations, non-governmental organisations, language communities and European universities. META-NET’s vision is high-quality language technology for all European languages. “The research carried out in the area of language technology is of utmost importance for the consolidation of Portuguese as a language of global communication in the information society.” — Dr. Pedro Passos Coelho (Prime-Minister of Portugal) “It is imperative that language technologies for Slovene are developed systematically if we want Slovene to flourish also in the future digital world.” — Dr. Danilo Türk (President of the Republic of Slovenia) “For such small languages like Latvian keeping up with the ever increasing pace of time and technological development is crucial. The only way to ensure future existence of our language is to provide its users with equal opportunities as the users of larger languages enjoy. Therefore being on the forefront of modern technologies is our opportunity.” — Valdis Dombrovskis (Prime Minister of Latvia) “Europe’s inherent multilingualism and our scientific expertise are the perfect prerequisites for significantly advancing the challenge that language technology poses. META-NET opens up new opportunities for the development of ubiquitous multilingual technologies.” — Prof. Dr. Annette Schavan (German Minister of Education and Research

Translingual and Translational Practices as Rhetorical Care Technologies in COVID-19 Recovery

Drawing from an ethnographic study with Korean-speaking language minority communities in an urban metropolitan area in the United Sates, this study illuminates how multilingual transnational community workers and members cope with disaster recovery–specific technologies in the aftermath of COVID-19. Networking studies on language and cultural differences and studies on care rhetorics in feminist science and technology studies, this study examines how language minorities enact translingual and translational activities as care practices. By attending to racial, linguistic, and cultural differences and unequal power structures, this study identifies four emerging findings: 1) developing translingual attunements; 2) cultivating transmodal attunements; 3) producing translational attunements; and 4) enacting transcultural coalitional actions. These findings suggest multilingual transnational communities rhetorically negotiate disaster management technologies and unequal distributions of disaster relief resources by translating a wide range of forms and leveraging diverse translingual and transmodal resources. To disrupt technocratic textual regimes of disaster recovery, the author argues that more research should investigate diverse rhetorical strategies and caring practices performed by marginalized communities

Evaluating a Translingual Administration of the Early Grades Math Assessment (EGMA) in the Democratic Republic of the Congo

Translanguaging is a view around languages that normalizes diglossia without separation: the linguistic resources of the bilinguals are considered one integrated system. Translanguaging is also a language practice of bilinguals, who select features from their entire linguistic repertoire to make sense of the world around them. Translanguaging is widely used by students and teachers in the bilingual classroom, as it allows students to build upon their entire set of resources, enhance learning outcomes, perform identities, and develop their languages even further. However, translanguaging is rarely used in assessments of bilinguals. Assessments of bilinguals, especially large-scale tests, are typically monolingual in focus and not appropriate for a large portion of the population, who cannot perform as one or two monolinguals. While psychometricians and test developers have spent large amount of resources in developing and testing linguistic accommodations, their efforts are not entirely solving the problems faced by bilinguals. Translanguaging is a framework that may overcome the limitations of linguistic accommodations. However, there is few research on how to properly implement translanguaging in assessments, particularly, in content assessments. The purpose of this work was to evaluate the effectiveness and appropriateness of implementing a translingual administration of the EGMA assessment in the region of Mbandaka, in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Using a mixed-methods design, I looked at the effect of translanguaging on scores and the alignment of the framework with the classroom practices enounced by teachers. The results of this study show that the translingual version of the EGMA had a positive effect on the scores of girls who identified as bilinguals, and improved the reliability estimates of all the tasks. The results also show that the translingual EGMA is more appropriate for the context of Mbandaka, yet there are characteristics that prevent us from considering the test fully appropriate for the region. Further research must shed light on the particular aspects of the translingual administration that explained the improvements observed in this study. Future studies should also clarify potential routes to a better and more effective implementation of translanguaging in content assessments

Early Career Language Educators Experience Joy and Purpose in the Creation of Multilingual Classroom Ecologies

The goal of this phenomenological study was to intensely analyze and interpret the experiences of a select sample of early career language teachers as they reflected on their languaging interactions with their learners. To answer the research question: How do early career language teachers experience the creation of multilingual classroom ecologies?, four individuals participated by collectively providing 14 interviews, submitting 13 bi-weekly journals, and sharing 17 self-selected semiotic images over a two month time period. Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (Smith, 1996) was then employed using a double hermeneutic to uncover themes in each case by elucidating descriptions and then cohesively analyzing all sets of data. Findings included that each teacher experienced reported translanguaging moments as joy, purposeful connection, and the analysis of ecological factors. Subsequent major learnings included the following regarding the early career language teacher experience: 1) they felt joy when they were able to use or help students to use multilanguaging, 2) they associated the use of multiple languages as a way of supporting connections with and for students holistically, academically, culturally, and linguistically, and 3) they were both conscious of and conscientious with multiple facets of their ecological experience related to language use. The dissertation concludes with a call for further exploration of the experiences of language educators to forward our shared understandings of translinguistic practices within a multilingual educational context

“We are here, and we exist as English-speaking students” : A case study of international students’ experiences of inclusive language practices at the University of Helsinki

As a consequence of globalization, higher education institutions are becoming increasingly multilingual. Linguistic superdiversity is apparent within our communities, and education should view multilingualism as a valuable resource (Källkvist & Hult, 2020). Prior research has suggested that language barriers may pose issues for the inclusiveness of international students within higher education institutions (e.g., Xiao, 2021). One issue that the University of Helsinki is currently combating is finding language policies that successfully attain linguistic inclusion of all students within the university community. This is because the university has a role in both safeguarding the national languages of Finland (Finnish and Swedish) whilst also ensuring that the quality of education remains the same for non-Finnish/Swedish-speaking students. This study examines the issue from the perspective of 6 non-Finnish/Swedish-speaking students, who were interviewed about how they have experienced linguistic inclusion at the University of Helsinki. Linguistic inclusion, in this study, refers to language-related processes aiming for inclusiveness. To limit the scope of the research, students had to be first year master’s students, ensuring that they had on-going courses to share experiences from, but also prior university experience to compare to. The students reported that although their overall experience at the University of Helsinki has been inclusive, they have some suggestions based on their experiences to improving inclusiveness through language practices for international university students. Especially in matters relating to their education, the students reported that they would like information to be provided in English as a lingua franca. In more social contexts, such as attending events, the students do accept and even appreciate more translingual practices, as this allows students to become more included within the Finnish/Swedish-speaking communities. The University Student Union (HYY) is currently in the process of planning a new language strategy for 2023, for which the findings of this paper can provide some recommendations. The main feedback for HYY that the study provides is that all necessary information and training would be provided in all three languages and at least also in English, so international students working in organizations under HYY still have the same access to information as their Finnish/Swedish-speaking equivalents. The study still leaves some questions for future research to respond to, such as: what the main difficulties are in maintaining trilingual communication, how to balance between the responsibility of the institution and the student, and examining non-linguistic factors contributing to students’ experiences of inclusiveness

Translanguaging in Community College English as a Second Language: Exploring a Rubric for Teaching During the Covid-19 Pandemic

English language learners represent one of the fastest growing, and diverse, group of students in California community colleges. The successful adoption of translanguaging to English as a second language (ESL) classrooms may provide an equitable way for teachers to ensure students reach their academic goals and foster bilingual identity development. With the advent of the Covid-19 pandemic comes new challenges for ensuring continued access to learning for ESL students. The pandemic also calls into question the traditional norms of language teaching as students and teachers must move to digital spaces to learn and teach. Using a theoretical framework rooted in critical and culturally sustaining pedagogies, this qualitative study explores San Diego county community college ESL instructors’ understanding of translanguaging and teaching for equity through the lens of permission, authenticity, scaffolding, expectation, and outcomes, to form them P.A.S.E.O. rubric for translanguaging. This study also seeks to understand the immediate impact the Covid-19 pandemic has had on ESL teaching. Findings and implications reveal a variety of areas for continued inquiry, such as support for the continued development and use of the P.A.S.E.O. rubric for community college ESL and further support of college instructors in order to meet the needs of linguistically diverse students in community college