"Use what you've got": A participatory workshop on overcoming language hierarchies

These slides were presented by Daniel Calvert, from the University of Stirling, at the UNESCO RILA Spring School: The Arts of Integrating 2024 (Word Springs) on 20 May 2024. For more information about the event, please visit https://www.gla.ac.uk/research/az/unesco/events/springschool/

1. “Use what you’ve got”:
a participatory workshop on overcoming
language hierarchies

2. Overview of the session:
•Introducing ourselves and our language repertoires
•Brief overview of research on language hierarchies
•Group discussions: card-cluster activity

3. What’s in your linguistic repertoire?
Your linguistic repertoire can include …
•any language(s) or language varieties you spoke growing up
•any language(s) or language varieties you acquiredas an adult
•any other language(s) you know or use a bit of

4. “Using what you’ve got”
to overcome language
hierarchies

5. Bringing people together: exploring
the inclusionof language-
minoritisedspeakers in services
supporting those with a refugee or
migrant background

6. language minoritisationoccurs when “the environment
organizes a particular regime of language, a regime which
incapacitates individuals”
Blommaert et al. (2005, p. 198)

7. Policymaking
for inclusion:
ESOL provision
(English for Speakers
of Other Languages)
interpreting and
translation support

8. English
all other languages

9. Refugees in Scotland have
described this experience of
inclusion as
a ‘process of unbecoming’,
whereby people feel obliged
to lose some or all oftheir
previous identities in an
attempt tointegrate
Baillotet al. (2022, p. 17)
an alternative to top-down, monolingual policymaking is “small-scale, bottom-
up social inclusion processes” (Musgrave and Bradshaw 2014, p. 199)

10. Research
methodology
(Calvert,
forthcoming)
•semi-structured interviews with
professionals at five refugee-and
migrant-support organisations
•reflexive thematic analysis (Braun
and Clarke 2022)

11. Theme 1
translanguaging brings
people together

12. Theme 1 example: registering a learner for ESOL classes
(Research participant: PW)
“Do you live here?
((pointing downwards))
Here in Glasgow?”
“Do you go to college?”
simplified English + gestures
use of images
Translanguaging strategies:
“؟كمسا ام”
bits and pieces of English and Arabic

13. Theme 2
community-led
services are more
inclusive

14. “When you hear somebody on the line
that talks your language, suddenly it
makes it easier, it makes you relax a little
bit more […] I think there is almost a
bond of trustwhich can be established
straight away, just because of the
language, and that gives people
confidence.”
Theme 2 example: coproducing an Afghan telephone advice service
(Research participant: JT)
“social anchoring”: a way in which migrants support
each other to gain “footholds” in a new society
(Wilkins 2023, p. 1851)

15. Theme 3
interpreting
and translation
are part of the
solution

16. Theme 3 example: community consultation meetings
(Research participant: KF)
meeting outcomes:
“awareness of other people’s points of view
[…] getting to know people, then saying ‘hi’
in the streets […] making connections and
maybe easing the tensions between ethnic
groups […] feeling empowered as well,
because for example now you realise
somebody’s interested in your culture or in
what you have to say […] this awareness of
being a collective voice.”
intercultural dialogue can
“promote peaceful and
inclusive societies for
sustainable development”
(UNESCO cited in Phipps
et al. 2022, p. 10)

17. Recommendations
for inclusion of
language-
minoritised
speakers
Firstly, inclusion can be achieved when people are
willing to draw on their full linguistic repertoires.
Secondly, organisations wishing to foster inclusion
should be as linguistically diverse as the
communities they serve.

18. Over to you: card-cluster activity
Individual reflection (5 minutes):
1. How have you experienced language hierarchies in your life or work?
2. What have you found that helps with overcoming these hierarchies?
Responding to the questions above, put one statement on each card
(in any language). For example:
an experience
an idea
a question
a feeling
a drawing
Each person should have six index cards and a pen or pencil.

19. Card-cluster discussion (20 mins):
1.One person in your group talks about one card and places it
in the centreof the table.
2.If another person has a card that seems related in some way,
say why and put it next to this card.
3.Keep adding cards until no one in the group has any cards
left relating to this emergent theme.
4.Start with a new theme and repeat steps 1 to 3.
5.Keep going until all your cards are grouped into themes.
6.Decide on a name for each theme and put it on a sticky note.
You can have any number of themes.
You can regroup the cards at any time.

20. [email protected]

21. References
•Calvert, D. (forthcoming) Supporting migrant inclusion: the role of linguistic diversity incommunity-led
organisations.Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies.
•Baillot, H., Kerlaff, E.K. and Espinoza, M.V. (2022) The Role of Social Connections in Refugees’ Pathways to
Social and Economic Inclusion. Research Report 2020–2022. AMIF New Scots Integration Reports.
Edinburgh: Queen Margaret University. Available: https://miscintegrationresearch.org/publications
•Blommaert, J., Collins, J. and Slembrouck, S. (2005) Spaces of multilingualism. Language &
Communication, 25, pp. 197–216.
•Braun, V. and Clarke, V. (2022) Reflexive Thematic Analysis: A Practical Guide. London: SAGE Publications
Ltd.
•Musgrave, S. and Bradshaw, J. (2014) Language and social inclusion: Unexplored aspects of intercultural
communication. Australian Review of Applied Linguistics, 37 (3), pp. 198–212.
•Phipps, A., Aldegheri, E. and Fisher, D. (2022) The New Scots Refugee Integration Strategy: A report on the
local and international dimensions of integrating refugees in Scotland. Glasgow: University of Glasgow.
Available: https://www.gla.ac.uk/news/headline_900327_en.html
•Wilkins, A. (2023) The politicisation of social anchoring: language support and community building within
Vietnamese refugee-led organisations in London. Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 49 (7), pp.
1845–1863.