Cross-Language Dynamics: Reshaping Community

This programme aims to develop a new Modern Languages (ML) research paradigm capable of re-conceptualizing the relationship between language and community for the benefit of a more open world. It addresses questions of whether and how the languages we speak define the communities we align with, and how language community boundaries may be made more porous. It identifies 3 intersecting community configurations attributing different roles to language, and attracting distinct methodologies: the multilingual, the transnational and the translingual. In each case, it investigates ties and disjunctions between language and nationhood, and the dynamic of top-down institutional and grassroots networking dimensions of community-building. Tackling these issues across all 3 configurations, each corresponding to a research strand, it aims to recast ML agendas, reshape adjacent disciplinary priorities, offer insights to policy-makers, and invest the civic university with new purpose. Three core institutions will each lead a research strand: Manchester (multilingual), Durham (transnational), and the School of Advanced Study (SAS), University of London (translingual). We draw on pockets of excellence at 9 other HEIs. Our main languages represent some of the world's largest language communities. They also have the capacity to traverse the strands: Arabic, Chinese, German, Russian, and Spanish are at once community languages, the glue binding transnational networks, and a medium through which language communities embrace translingual values. Related cross-cutting patterns characterize 8 international cities which provide nodal points for our research. We will link stakeholders to relevant strands: city councils to multilingualism; foreign policy think tanks and cultural diplomacy institutions to transnationalism; translation networks and media, arts and cultural organizations to translingualism. Within a new arena of collaboration, we will facilitate dialogue between ML's different branches, with allied humanities disciplines and with stakeholders. Reconciling their responses to a focused set of questions, we aim to forge a groundbreaking paradigm for theorizing the language-community relationship. Pedagogy initiatives centre on mobilizing the linguistic resources of minority communities for societal cohesion purposes. We will generate training activities integrating our programme's multiple disciplinary approaches and our main languages, targeting PGRs via doctoral consortia. RAs will benefit from a step change in career preparation via project partner placements and Digital Humanities skill sets. Outputs include a database capturing urban linguistic landscapes, monographs and edited volumes re-conceiving the language-community relationship, a film, a prospectus for future ML research, and publications summarizing the outcomes of cross-strand dialogues and single-strand research. We are commissioning an opera inspired by the aspiration to transcend language difference through music. Outputs co-produced with project partners include reports for city councils and arts organisations; briefings on the politics of transnational language communities; advice packages for translator networks and SMEs operating across language communities. We will produce a report on revitalizing ML curricula by unifying our field around a coherent set of themes and approaches. Combining significant scale with a focused agenda, our programme will maximize impact and sustainability. Its legacies will be to (i) transform ML's profile within the humanities (ii) initiate long-term improvements to community relations and intercultural understanding; (iii) raise public consciousness about language's potential within cultural and creative arts communities; and (iv) develop ML curricula which overcome the language/content dichotomy and emphasize community-based learning. They will be secured via a Centre for the Interdisciplinary Study of Language and Community.