Teaching the sociolinguistics of heteroglossia (2019)

DOI: 10.1111/josl.12338 R E V I E W E S S AY Teaching the sociolinguistics of heteroglossia Eva Codó A N IN TRO D UC T IO N TO MU LT ILINGUALISM : LANGUAGE I N A CH A NG I NG WO R L D Florian Coulmas Oxford: Oxford University Press (Oxford Textbooks in Linguistics). 2018. xix + 320 pp. Pb (9780198791119) £19.99. R ES E A RCH ING MU LT IL ING UA L ISM : CRITICAL AND E THNO G R A P H IC P E R S P E C T IV ES Marilyn Martin-Jones  |  Deirdre Martin London: Routledge. 2017. xiii + 283 pp. Hb (9780415748421) £120,00, Pb (9780415748421) £34.99, Ebook (9781315405346) £17.50. Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Spain Correspondence Eva Codó, Departament de Filologia Anglesa i de Germanística, Carrer de la Fortuna, s/n, 08193, Bellaterra, Barcelona, Spain. Email: [email protected] The goal of book reviews is, usually, to evaluate the novelty, rigour, and scientific contribution of recently published volumes to their field(s) of research. Yet, what I aim to do here is fairly different: I want to discuss the adequacy of Florian Coulmas’ An Introduction to Multilingualism: Language in a Changing World, and Marilyn Martin-­Jones and Deirdre Martin's Researching Multilingualism: Critical and Ethnographic Perspectives as teaching tools. The logical question to follow is what kinds of courses these two volumes may be relevant for. The most obvious answer, if we consider the titles, is any course on multilingualism. In fact, this is the only word shared by the two volumes. However, we must take into account that in some academic contexts, and especially at the undergraduate level, linguistic content is parcelled into separate language-­specific degrees. In those contexts, courses on multilingualism may have a complicated fit and not exist, or they may be offered with some kind of qualifying expression in the title, like “Multilingualism in…,” which will set specific constraints on | 186    © 2019 John Wiley & Sons Ltd wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/josl Journal of Sociolinguistics. 2019;23:186–199. CODÓ    |    187 content. In such a scenario, is there no academic space for the two volumes under review? I would cer- tainly not agree with that assumption. Instead, I want to argue that no contemporary studies of language (in general) or of any specific language in particular, be it from an acquisitional, educational, psycho- linguistic, pragmatic, or social perspective, can proceed without a good understanding of the realities and dynamics of language contact and multilingualism, both collective and individual. This is also the stance adopted by Coulmas, who extends the relevance of multilingualism research to disciplines that have traditionally overlooked language matters, such as sociology, geography, and political science. This is not a mainstream position in the field, but a necessary direction if we are to foster transdisci- plinary dialogue. I will come back to this point at the end. There is content in both books that could be incorporated into course syllabi across not just the linguistic disciplines, but also the social sciences. Despite their potentially broad appeal, however, the two books speak more centrally to students and researchers in the fields of what is usually known as sociolinguistics in Europe (understood loosely to include related disciplines such as language policy) and linguistic anthropology or sociology of lan- guage in North America (also taken loosely to include, among others, some aspects of the anthropology of education). In these disciplines, the need to adopt a multilingual angle is an epistemological must; in fact, I would argue there is no way in which contemporary sociolinguistics, which has placed mobility and fluidity at its analytical centre, can be conceptually disentangled from the study of multilingualism. Both publications defend that multilingualism is not a discipline in the classic sense, with its de- fined methods and procedures, but a space of interaction and intersection of disciplines and traditions. Coulmas opens his introduction by stating that “multilingualism is a wide canvas, too wide to be painted by the brush of a single discipline” (p. xvii). Because of its wide scope and transdisciplinary nature, lecturers of multilingualism often find themselves not knowing where to start. I have often asked myself questions like the following: Is it better to give students a historical perspective of the field first? Is there an overview that is relatively short and accessible for novice researchers? Would it not be more attrac- tive for students to be introduced to cutting-­edge contemporary research straight away? Will this be too challenging? Admittedly, these kinds of reflections are shared by colleagues working in other fields; mapping out a research space is never easy. Yet, there are spaces whose contours are fuzzier than others. This is the case with the study of multilingualism—as vast as social life itself. Coulmas also refers to this in his methodological chapter (12): “[…] a unified theory of multilingualism does not exist, nor do we have a standardised methodology or a generally agreed upon canon of methods” (p. 257). In my experience, lecturers’ difficulties in approaching the scientific space of multilingualism research may not just be connected to figuring out “what” to teach but also the best way to introduce the many “hows” of this kind of research, in particular from critical and ethnographic perspectives. A colleague once said to me, in a comment tainted with doses of helplessness (and maybe frustration), “students either ‘see it or they don't.’” My colleague's “seeing” pointed at an innate (and probably hard to teach) sensitivity on the part of students for ambivalence, complexity, and connection in analysing social life, but also in relation to issues of researcher reflexivity, positionality, and impact in the field. But surely this “sensitivity” can be taught, or at least “awakened.” But how? What is the best way to train our students to look in a particular way, to defy what in some cases are engrained positivist epis- temologies? Both books show that, in the study of multilingual policy and practice, there are many intersecting paths and alleyways involving different speeds and navigation instruments, and that there are, of course, multiple destinations. It would be challenging to give our students a roadmap; it would probably turn out to be of no use. What we can do, instead, is give them the tools to create their own roadmaps; this is what the two volumes aim to do. For this reason, they will make life a bit easier for lecturers, students, and early-­career researchers alike. Researching Multilingualism and An Introduction to Multilingualism stand in a complementary relationship to each other, and should certainly fulfil distinct roles as teaching materials. Coulmas’  | 188       CODÓ Introduction is a textbook, and is conceptualized and designed as such. It contains a general charting of the field, its main concepts, issues, and angles, both accessible to the novice, but also of interest to the more expert reader. It engages with lay uses of key terms, such as native speaker or mother tongue, and problematizes common sense. With a plethora of examples from all over the world, and a profusion of data and figures, it goes far beyond what is usually expected of an introductory textbook. Its coverage is broad, but not to the expense of depth and complexity. Readers not only get the lay of the land. The book is written in a way that awakens curiosity, and engages thinking and debate. The author does not shy away from controversial issues, nor does he try to provide final answers to thorny questions; rather, he likes challenging handed-­down truths with empirical evidence and complexifying matters. For this reason, it can be used with students at different levels of expertise. Martin-­Jones and Martin's edited volume, Researching Multilingualism, by contrast, is not labelled as a textbook and it certainly is not one in the classic sense, but it seems to be a textbook in concep- tualization, in that it aims to introduce novice researchers to ethnographic and critical approaches to multilingualism. It is true that Coulmas’ volume, as a textbook, is more inclusive epistemologically than Martin-­Jones and Martin's, focused on what could broadly be defined as one research tradition. Martin-­Jones and Martin's volume, however, albeit located in one paradigm, does open up to tradi- tions and authors often not considered ethnographic. Such is the case of narrative analysis, Busch's biographical approach to the multilingual repertoire (Busch, 2015), or scalar analysis. The textbook-­ like soul of this volume is also evidenced by the introduction. This is one of the shortest (but clearest) overviews of the evolution of ethnographic sociolinguistics that I am aware of. Both volumes share a heteroglossic imagination of multilingualism. That is, they decentre the idea of named languages and focus, instead, on speakers’ linguistic resources, be they varieties, scripts, registers, styles, accents, or named languages, and their interaction with other semiotic means of expression. For this reason, in order to be faithful to the spirit of both books, I have given this review the title “Teaching the sociolinguistics of heteroglossia.” Conceptually, heteroglossia (Bakhtin, 1981) allows us to capture and represent better the fluidity, interdependence, and interconnexion of different discourses, stances, and forms of contemporary semiosis (linguistic and otherwise); overcome the separatedness, boundedness, and countability of language that multilingualism evokes; and supersede normative assumptions about what can be counted as the “lingual” in multilingualism. Despite their complementary nature, each of the two publications reviewed is distinct in terms of design, content, and aimed contribution. For this reason, it is necessary to examine them separately before they can be appraised jointly at the end of this review. I will first turn to Florian Coulmas’ An Introduction to Multilingualism: Language in a Changing World. The subtitle is programmatic; it specifies what the author means by multilingualism, i.e. the study of language in a changing world. That is, Coulmas does not aim to map out a particular approach to multilingualism, but the whole of it. His take is similar to Verschueren's (1999) pragmatic perspective on language. Coulmas’ point is that no phenomenon linked to the study of multilingualism can obliterate the social perspective. This agenda is perhaps most visible in Chapter 5, “The polyglot individual,” where the author challenges long-­held assumptions in the field of language acquisition with socially informed data. Coulmas’ book is organized into 12 chapters. Chapters 1–4 introduce linguistic diversity in the world, and the different methodological/theoretical tools and lenses used to measure and analyse it. The first three chapters contain, basically, conceptual discussion and description. In Chapter 4, the key analytical axes of power and inequality are discussed. Chapters 5–9 engage with an account of multilingualism from different angles and in different spaces: the individual speaker, institutional re- gimes, city and country levels, and the internet. Chapters 10–11 examine contact, and delineate factors of integration of separation of languages and societies, respectively. Finally, Chapter 12 offers some methodological guidelines for researchers of multilingualism. Each chapter includes a chapter table of CODÓ    |    189 content first, and a set of five questions for in-­class discussions or project assignments, as well as four recommended texts for further reading on the topic. The questions are varied. Some compel students to investigate empirically or analyse their immediate sociolinguistic realities; others are focused on testing their understanding of the issues and topics discussed. Each chapter starts with a discussion of each topic at a low level of complexity, either by drawing on real-­life examples (e.g. Chapters 4 and 5) or by delineating main ideas and issues (e.g. Chapters 6 and 12). Then, gradually, each topic is complexified. Chapter 1, “The polyphonic world,” introduces readers to linguistic diversity in the world. It does so from a classic geographical perspective, focusing on continents first and then countries, and using easy-­to-­grasp descriptors, such as the linguistic diversity index (LDI), resulting from the division of a territory's proportion of the world's languages by its proportion of the world's population. In view of the disparity of results, it points to some of the historical, economic, and sociopolitical factors that have worked (and continue to work) to favour or limit linguistic diversity. The chapter also engages with on-­going controversies, such as the genetic classification of languages, linguistic diversity as an obstacle for the prosperity of a country, and the unfeasibility of separating, naming, and counting languages. The chapter ends with a strong statement acknowledging the pivotal role of the notion of inequality in understanding diversity. Chapter 2, “Multilingualism is…, twenty definitions and more,” is perhaps the most original in the book. The author aims to illustrate the multiple angles and facets of multilingualism by discussing 20 definitions provided by scholars working in different sociopolitical and disciplinary contexts—and the lines along which they differ. The chapter begins with a brief historicization of interest (social and scientific) in multilingualism. This is done through the analysis of its first written appearance ever, and the examination of the history of its inclusion (if at all) in the best-­known dictionaries of some of the world's major languages. Some intriguing disparities become visible, to which the author provides tentative explanations. The expert definitions are then provided and classified into four categories: multilingualism as capacity; practice; attitude and ideology; and object of theorizing. Terminological differences with related words, such as plurilingualism, bilingualism, and multilinguality, are briefly addressed. The third chapter, “Descriptive and theoretical concepts,” engages with concepts employed to anal- yse different facets of multilingualism, understood as fluid and dynamic. It begins by reviewing the notion of language itself, and concludes that “what counts as language is historically-­contingent and discipline-­dependent” (p. 47). The rest of the chapter is devoted to discussing the origins, meanings, and evolution of key terms in bi-­/multilingualism research. They are the following: variety, diglossia and heteroglossia, patois, pidgin, code, code-­switching, bilingual, native speaker, and mother tongue. Chapter 4, “Power, inequality and language,” focuses on the issue of language choice. It begins with a brief discussion of three contemporary language policy contexts, those of Indonesia, Catalonia, and Ukraine. The chapter is structured around five heuristic questions that help bring to the fore the many angles from which issues of language choice can be examined. It discusses issues such as in- dividual vs collective rights; language ideologies; linguistic nationalism; official language regimes; legitimate language; democracy, justice, equality, and language; changing valorization of linguistic diversity; and language and privilege. In Chapter 5, “The polyglot individual,” the focus is on the individual who “has command, to var- ious degrees, of two or more languages” (p. 81). The chapter opens with the biographical narratives (and in some cases, personal reflections) of four multilingual writers. Their lives and experiences are drawn on to debunk everyday myths regarding multilingual acquisition and language proficiency (e.g. that it is impossible to acquire native-­like pronunciation in adulthood), but also to problematize key notions in some applied linguistic scholarship, such as those of mother tongue, native speaker,  | 190       CODÓ dominant language, etc. The thesis of the chapter is that there are multiple socio-­relational and ideo- logical factors that come into play in multilingual language acquisition, as well as a high degree of individual variation, which make categorical and cause-­and-­effect explanations unwarranted for by research. Chapter 6, “Multilingual (international) institutions,” centres on institutions, with a necessarily selective approach to them, given the possible range of contexts. The running theme is that of regimes of language, which are examined in schools on the one hand, and international organizations on the other. In the first part, different types of bilingual programmes are reviewed, depending on goals and target population, and in the second part, the language policy of different international organizations is discussed to show the degree of existing variability, and to argue that language policy is the outcome of pragmatic considerations and the historical context of creation of each organization. Chapter 7, “Talk of the town,” takes the city as the analytical unit. It follows contemporary soci- olinguistic scholarship which, drawing on urban geography studies, has brought neighbourhood and city life under close sociolinguistic inspection. Following the book structure, the chapter begins by discussing multilingualism in Brussels. It continues by justifying its focus on the city, linking it to the origins of sociolinguistics as a discipline, to then take up the concept of superdiversity as the new nor- mativity (as opposed to normative monolingualism and methodological nationalism). The following section is an attempt to unpack different city language profiles by means of a number of social and lin- guistic variables. The author aims to debunk the myth of the larger the more varied, and convincingly does that by drawing on data from large, medium, and small cities from all five continents. In Chapter 8, titled “Multilingual (multiethnic) countries,” the inspection of multilingualism takes a state governance perspective. The chapter compares the multilingual make-­up of different coun- tries and evaluates their language regimes, drawing on the in-­depth case analyses of Singapore and Switzerland. The impact of European colonial expansion in relation to the shape of contemporary offi- cial multilingualism of countries in Africa, Asia, Oceania, and America is discussed, providing details of the wide range of existing possibilities for language policy and official recognition. Other analytical axes discussed are: (1) the complex relation between demographic group strength and language power and status; (2) linguistic minorities (issues, definition, and types); and (3) the connection between “national multilingualism” (and minority protection) and a country's wealth. The chapter ends with a strong statement permeating the whole book: “there is hardly a state that is not in one sense or another multilingual” (p. 179). Chapter 9, “Diversity in cyberspace,” takes Coulmas’ account of multilingualism to the contem- porary research space par excellence: the internet. This is a theme/context of research which is also explored in Chapters 9, 10 and 11 of Martin-­Jones and Martin's book. The chapter is structured around the discussion of the impact of the worldwide web on linguistic diversity. The chapter then moves on to considering the multiple changes in literacy practices brought about by computer-­mediated com- munication (CMC) and discusses early difficulties related to non-­English script representation. The final sections address the question of whether the internet favours or damages minority/endangered languages. The following two chapters attempt to draw an analogy between situations of social and linguistic contact, moving back and forth from one type to the other while placing emphasis on one in each chapter. Thus, Chapter 10, “Integration and separation: Language,” focuses on linguistic contact, in particular, the incorporation of alien lexis into a language. Drawing on a plethora of examples, it discusses both openness to lexical innovation and linguistic purism as sociopolitical and historically contextual phenomena. The second part deals with processes of differentiation and institutionalization of language varieties as distinct named languages. Finally, the chapter delves on the recent theoretical challenging of the notion of language as a bounded object. It reviews the emergence and affordance CODÓ    |    191 of concepts such as crossing, multi-ethnolect, polylingual languaging, translanguaging for grasping a sociolinguistics defined by mobility and fluidity. The next chapter, 11, adopts the same title as 10, but focuses on social instead of linguistic contact, and its effects (“Integration and separation: Society”). This chapter brings together ideas and lines of argument already discussed in earlier chapters, although in a scattered manner. They cluster around the following themes: the role of the nation-­state under conditions of globalization, migration and so- cial incorporation, linguistic nationalism vs linguistic pluralism, language and territoriality, minority recognition (indigenous and migrant), individual vs group rights, and plurality and equality in liberal democracies. Chapter 12 delineates research methodologies for the study of multilingualism. It discusses dif- ferent types of data and of data-­gathering procedures, and outlines some the methodological issues that must be considered (such as, for example, data transcription). Explanations are brief, as befits a chapter of this nature, but cover most relevant aspects. The author advocates a mixed-­or multi-­ method approach, drawing on both quantitative and qualitative data for enhanced comparability and generalizability. Overall, this book is an excellent tool for raising students’ awareness of the complexity and flu- idity of contemporary multilingualism. In general, I found Chapters 10–11 less inspiring than the rest. Chapter 10 does not seem to add substantially to the main arguments presented, and Chapter 11 repeats some of the previous reflections on the nation-­state ideological apparatus. Chapter 12, in turn, contains a rather shallow representation of methodological issues. The author departs from the assumption that research on multilingualism should proceed following two axes: gradualness (mul- tilingualism as a continuum of competence and use) and comparatism (comparing positions on that continuum). With this programme in mind, Coulmas defends a mix-­methods approach that integrates quantitative and qualitative research techniques. There are several problems with this. The first one has to do with the research programme. Coulmas’ is a particular take on the field, but one among many. Second, a seemingly recipe-­like approach misses the point that the author is trying to make throughout the book, namely that there is no unified body of theory or methods in multilingualism research. Third, it overlooks the fact that methods are always dependent on questions. Fourth, his suggestion that a mixed-­methods approach is the best way to “combine information of different sorts” (p. 261) is also problematic. For one thing, mixed-­methods have been questioned on the grounds of the epistemological incompatibility of the paradigms involved. There are alternative ways in which different research methods can be integrated. One of them is ethnography, which is, by nature, multi-­ methodological. In that respect, I found Coulmas’ view of qualitative research in general, and ethno- graphic research in particular, questionable. In relation to the value of ethnography, for example, he claims on page 264 that “in-­depth expert interviews, group discussions and participant observation are often decisive prerequisites for determining relevant research questions […] and help to inter- pret survey results.” He seems to conceptualize qualitative/ethnographic research as exploratory or supplementary to quantitative research, which is not accurate. In relation to participant observation, to mention another problematic claim, researchers are recommended to spend time with their com- munities or groups of study to “reduce the risk of influencing the object of investigation, that is, the ‘observer paradox”’ (p. 264). The positivist framing of these recommendations is clearly at odds with the interpretivist grounding of ethnographic research. Given the availability of publications on research methods for the study of bi-/multilingualism (see Wei & Moyer, 2008, which although in need of updating is still one of the most comprehensive), the reader is left wondering whether this chapter should be there. In terms of content, what makes this book attractive for teaching is its radical contemporaneity (in- cluding recent sociolinguistic scholarship on, e.g., the de-­construction of languages, urban geography,  | 192       CODÓ superdiversity, etc.) combined with a detailed historicizing sense of how multilingualism as an object of inquiry got constructed by the ideological regime of the nation-­state, which produced key concepts in modern linguistics, such as the native speaker. However, I must point out that, despite efforts to the contrary, the general narrative that is told on multilingualism comes across as fairly ethnocentric. At different points, multilingualism as a social reality is presented as recent. For example, on page xix, it is said “…it will become clear that nowadays multilingualism is not an exotic occurrence.” To whom is this “nowadays” relevant? We all know that in large parts of the world multilingualism has never been “exotic.” On page 27, the text states “…it was the drawn-­out process of decolonisation as one of its lasting consequences that produced the phenomenon we now call ‘multilingualism.’” And later on the same page, “it was in this context that multilingualism became a matter of general interest…” What Coulmas seems to be depicting is, on the one hand, the recent history of European demographics (with the sustained increase over the 20th century of racial, ethnic, cultural, religious, and linguistic diversity), and on the other, the evolution of western scholarly thought on multilingualism. To present this as a universal phenomenon is deeply problematic. Another of the book's lines that I would like to challenge is that of the generalized acceptance and valuing of multilingualism. In my opinion, this has two problems. The first one is that the author seems to transpose what happens in academic circles (normalization and positivization of multilingualism) to everyday life, where the value of multilin- gualism is contextual and unequal across genders, classes, races, and languages. The second one is that he seems to conflate the symbolic-­discursive level with the legal-­material one, when they are in fact distinct. What we actually see on a regular basis in most western democracies is that discourses of tolerance, inclusiveness, and appreciation of diversity coexist with exclusionary legal frameworks that, for example, demand nation-­state language skills from migrants in order to be able to access citi- zenship (Bruzos, Erdocia, & Khan, 2018). Overall, I would say that the picture that emerges from the book is of somewhat naïve enthusiasm for multilingualism and its role/status in the world today that, I would argue, needs modulation. While Coulmas’ book is an excellent overview of angles and issues, it lacks in-­depth analysis of original empirical data, and methodological reflection. It may work well for undergraduate courses in language, linguistics, and education degrees, and in undergraduate as well as graduate courses across the social sciences. Graduate-­level students in linguistics, education, and anthropology will probably require less of an overview, and a more thorough examination of theories, methods, and data. This is what the volume by Martin-­Jones and Martin offers. Researching Multilingualism: Critical and Ethnographic Perspectives is a collection of 17 papers aimed at delineating a “new sociolinguistics” (p. 157) which explores “late modern forms of multilin- gualism” (p. 156). This goal is difficult to infer from the title, which could certainly be more explicit as to the book's content. The volume is organized into five interconnected parts, preceded by an introduc- tory chapter by the two editors. Part 1 is devoted to research on trajectories, multilingual repertoires, and identities. Part 2 focuses on researching discourses, policies, and practices on different scales. Part 3 deals with multilingual communication and multisemiocity online. Part 4 has a methodological orientation. It discusses voices, representation, and reflexivity. The final part (5) engages with the concept of ethnographic monitoring, borrowed from Dell Hymes, to discuss the ways in which eth- nographers can contribute to social transformation. All parts contain between three and four chapters, except Part 5, with only two. The contributor list includes an interesting combination of early-­career and more established researchers working in different geographical spaces. It must be noted that the editors have carefully avoided thematic overlap among the chapters, and that they all follow a very similar structure. First, the relevance of each for the book's theme is presented, then the specific par- adigm/issue addressed is introduced from a historical perspective. After that, current research lines in that paradigm/topic are outlined. Finally, empirical data is furnished. There are multiple intersections CODÓ    |    193 among the book chapters, but as I said, relatively little overlap. In some cases, as in Part 3, each chap- ter covers a small part of the same field in such a carefully delineated way that makes all pieces fit together. This book will be particularly relevant for advanced students (MA or PhD). Of particular in- terest to them will be the detailed and reflective insights into recent research projects and experiences. The book can be used as a unit or each chapter separately. The volume opens with Martin-­Jones and Martin's overview of the evolution of sociolinguistic studies on multilingualism since the 1960s. This is a more focused mapping of the field than Coulmas’, although there are of course many theoretical links between the two books. Coulmas’ book is epis- temologically broader. Also, chapters in Coulmas’ are organized around a theme, space, or aspect of multilingualism research (definition of multilingualism, theoretical concepts, methods, etc.), and not articulated around specific approaches or methodological issues, for which this opening chapter acts as necessary framing. This introduction discusses two interconnected processes: first, the mainstream- ing of ethnographic research in social approaches to multilingualism, and second, the diversification of contexts and methods. The editors introduce key moments, authors, and schools of thought, putting the emphasis on post-­structuralist and critical perspectives, and weave them skilfully together with the contents of the volume. Sketching the 60-­odd year history of a field in four pages is tremendously chal- lenging, and Martin-­Jones and Martin do so in a way that is clear and at the same time acknowledges complexity and intersection. The mapping of contemporary research follows three axes: a changing political economy; new technology-­mediated forms and spaces of communication; and demographic superdiversity (Vertovec, 2007). Of particular interest is their discussion of the key “conceptual com- passes” (p. 8) of mobility, trajectories, and time/space scales for studying multilingualism in con- temporary life. Even more illuminating is their account of the “process of differentiation” (p. 11) of ethnography, which discusses new ethnographic methods; the cross-­fertilization between ethnography and other paradigms (such as narrative analysis); the nature/scope of ethnography itself (reflected in the range of labels available for differently accented ethnographic endeavours); and the novel types of data employed in ethnography. After this introduction, Part 1 begins. Mike Baynham and Anna De Fina's chapter (2) focuses on narrative analysis. Narratives are pre- sented as central to an understanding of experiential sense-­making, identity formation, and the con- struction of agentive, empowered selves in processes of displacement and geographical relocation. Although the chapter focuses on narratives produced by (multilingual) transnational migrants, multi- lingualism is backgrounded rather than examined. The authors situate current approaches to narrative as practice-­oriented and ethnographic. They also discuss the affordances and limitations of different procedures/contexts for gathering data (in naturally occurring vs research-­oriented events; and in in- stitutional vs community contexts) by drawing on examples from published work. The chapter un- derlines the ubiquity of narrative in social life, where narrative moments are key tools for interactive and dynamically co-­constructed meaning making, “giving a kind of intensifying affective focus to the recounting of the everyday” (p. 40). The chapter is a good cartography of authors, data, and lines of research for novice researchers. The speaking subject is also the focus of Chapter 3, where Brigitta Busch outlines her Spracherleben framework aimed at comprehending “the lived experience of language” (p. 53). She distinctively conceptualizes language “primarily as an intersubjective bodily emotional gesture which relates the experiencing/speaking subject to the other and to the world” (p. 52). In her fram- ing, embodied emotions, like shame or desire, are viewed as mediators between discourses/ideolo- gies about language and the actual shape of an individual's repertoire, conceptualized as “a space of potentialities linked to life trajectories” (p. 53). The chapter ends with a discussion of multimodal methods for collecting language biographies, such as language portraits or body silhouettes drawn by research participants.  | 194       CODÓ Kamran Khan (Chapter 4) discusses single case ethnography through his investigation of one mi- grant's (W) journey to British citizenship. He anchors his research design in the tradition of ethnog- raphy with elements of case study research. He adopts Foucault's (1991) polyhedron of intelligibility as ontology. This concept allows him to simultaneously keep his analytical unit (citizenship journey) in focus while situating it in a socio-­historical, and political context, which also becomes the object of analysis, as well as bringing other voices and perspectives into the picture. This form of analysis, which constructs interpretation grounded on multiplicity, “was rooted in the everyday life and lan- guage practices of W yet resonated with policy and broader sociopolitical issues” (p. 68). Khan con- ceptualizes his study as a form of collaborative critical analysis, explaining the concrete ways in which he and his participant shaped the trajectory of this piece of research. Finally, the author reflects on the pitfalls and dangers of single-­case studies (unclear unit of analysis, lack of direction/focus, and need for a back-­up plan if central informant abandons) and discusses how he navigated them. In Chapter 5, Martina Zimmermann discusses the benefits and limitations of multi-­sited ethnogra- phy through an account of her own research on student mobility in Switzerland. Zimmermann takes readers step-­by-­step through her journey to figure out relevant spaces for data collection and informant types, as well as connections and circulations among them. She provides an illuminating account of how her research design involved her into some of the same geographical and institutional transitions (across language regions and educational institutions) as her informants. She concludes by arguing that multi-­sited ethnography may be of a more ephemeral nature than traditional ethnography and may entail differing levels of engagement with spaces, people, and discourses, while simultaneously allowing for a more in-­depth understanding of processes and trajectories, and a complexification of research questions. Part 2 opens with a chapter (6) by Francis M. Hult on the affordances of nexus analysis (NA) for educational research. Described as a meta-­methodology, NA is said to offer a theoretical and meth- odological framework for integrating the “principled eclecticism” (p. 92) that investigating education (multidimensional and transdisciplinary in nature) requires. NA works with the idea that classrooms and schools are points of intersection of discursive flows operating at various scales. Central to it is the concept of social action, understood as simultaneously encapsulating the synchronic and the diachronic. Social actions are made sense of in relation to three types of intersecting discourses (and their evolutions): the historical body, the interaction order, and discourses in place. These largely correspond to the angle, focus, and data employed in/by linguistic anthropology, interactional socio- linguistics, and critical discourse analysis, respectively. The focus of Chapter 7, by David Cassels Johnson, is on critical ethnography of language policy (LP). Johnson aims to pin down the notion of criticality in critical LP. He argues for the need to sys- tematically interrogate the ethics, positionality, and ideological bias of the researcher in LP studies. He contends that critical scholarship of LP should aspire to shed light on social inequality, but also construct more dialogical and participatory forms of research, where “both the researcher and the par- ticipants are responsible for knowledge production” (p. 110). In this enterprise, Johnson reflects about his own critical analyses of bilingual programmes in the US, and ponders about the feasibility and de- sirability of LP scholars’ social activism. He introduces ELPEAR, a model for language policy action research in education that seeks to engage all stakeholders throughout the LP cycle in interrogating, assessing (and changing if necessary) LP design, interpretation, appropriation, and implementation. Chapter 8, written by Petteri Laihonen and Tamás Péter Szabó, presents a visual and semiotic frame- work for researching multilingualism in education. The authors offer an introduction to the field of schoolscape study. They include data from their own research in Hungary and Romania, and illustrate the affordances of specific methodologies, such as the walking tour or tourist guide technique. This technique consists in a teacher showing the researcher around the school, and being asked questions on CODÓ    |    195 the meaning, rationale, and process of production of elements of the school landscape. Szabó's study of four Hungarian schools focused on how different organizational cultures were revealed through each school's approach to: (1) nation-­state discourses; (2) arrangement of classroom furniture; (3) transgres- sive signs (graffiti); and (4) language use and representation. Laihonen and Tódor (2017) investigated the changing approach to Hungarian language and Romanian national symbols in Hungarian minority schools in Romania. They concluded that the schoolscapes indexed a process of re-­Hungarization underway in relation to the Communist period, where Romanian was the language of instruction, and symbols of Hungarian-­ness were not allowed. The chapter ends with a brief comparison of schools- capes in Hungarian minority education across national borders in Eastern Europe. Part 3 walks the reader through the investigation of multilingualism in online communication. The opening chapter (9) is authored by David Barton and Carmen Lee. The authors put forth a practice-­ based perspective which tries to decipher how and why people use different linguistic resources and what it means to them. Barton and Lee illustrate their approach through a focused discussion of three case studies on computer-­mediated communication (CMC) on different technological platforms (instant messaging, Flickr, and web 2.0 spaces). Their method, which they refer to as “connective ethnography” (p. 151), blends offline and virtual ethnography, and includes innovative data collection instruments such as electronic logbooks or technobiographies. In Chapter 10, Sirpa Leppänen and Samu Kytölä continue the investigation of CMC, but with a narrower focus on interest-­driven social media, conceptualized as “interconnected both translocally and ‘rhyzomatically’ across nations, ethnicities, languages, genres, and formats” (p. 158). The con- cepts of resemiotization and entextualization, as well as the metaphor of the rhizome, are central to their understanding of CMC, as they focalize the fluid processes of circulation, creative refashioning, and dis-­/re-­embedding of multimodal and multisemiotic social media content. As with the rest of the chapters, Leppänen and Kytölä also illustrate their multidimensional approach by zooming in on two studies of social media discourse. One features professional footballers’ tweets, and the other one analyses shredding, the practice of creating parodies of famous bands or singers. In the first case, the emphasis is on the use and evaluation of heteroglossic resources, which the authors classify as “nego- tiable and ambivalent” (p. 163). In the second study, shredding is analysed as a prosumer, participa- tory practice consisting of multiple stages of content resemiotization and juxtaposition. The authors claim that these practices are iconic of contemporary cultural and semiotic superdiversity. In Chapter 11, Aoife Lenihan and Helen Kelly-Holmes present a different angle for studying online multilingualism, centred not on investigating individual communicative practices, as in the previous two chapters, but on language availability in dialogic and monologic web spaces. The focal method- ology is virtual ethnography. The authors offer a discussion of key issues for novice researchers, such as ethical concerns, and consider different degrees of ethnographic engagement with sites. Two case studies are presented. One examines the linguistic offer of one corporate website, where virtual eth- nography blends with linguistic landscaping methods, and the other one inspects the introduction of Irish on Facebook through the crowdsourcing of translation. Ideas for further research are provided, such as the impact of Google Translate on linguistic diversity, or the practice of funnelling multilin- gual users into monolingual “bubbles.” Part 4 shifts the focus towards reflexivity and representation. Chapter 12, written by Marilyn Martin-­Jones, Jane Andrews, and Deirdre Martin, makes a case for incorporating reflexive practice into ethnographic project design and implementation, especially in multilingual contexts. Using data from published ethnographies, the authors show how establishing a dialogue between researchers’ identities and histories, and their (different) ways of engaging with sites, languages, cultural practices, and actors enhances the interpretive process. They argue for the crafting of multi-­vocal ethnographies that foster equality among team members and incorporate participants’ agendas.  | 196       CODÓ Angela Creese, Jaspeer Kaur Takhi, and Adrian Blackledge pursue the theme of reflexivity further in Chapter 13. They report on the use of researcher vignettes as a tool for “strategic reflexivity” (p. 212) in heterogeneous research teams. Vignettes make visible the ways in which researcher sociocul- tural bodies shape their positionality in the field, and their forms of access to participants’ worlds. Through the analysis of two vignettes, they illustrate how these narratives foreground emotions, lim- itations, and dilemmas, both individual and collective, and have the potential for strengthening data interpretation. Unfortunately, no analytical slices are provided to show how this is done. Vally Lytra, Eve Gregory, and Arani Ilankuberan take up the theme of voice and representation in researching children's identity and literacy practices in faith settings in the UK. The specificity of doing research on faith, usually conceived as a private domain, and with underage participants encour- aged them to develop alternative, collaborative, and child-­friendly methodologies for data collection and representation. Their goal was to make children's perspectives “visible and audible” (p. 216). Scrapbooking constituted a fertile format to represent children's experiences of being and becoming members of their faith communities. Their emerging identities were indexed by their syncretic liter- acies, elaborated through the complex interweaving of multilingual, multiscriptal, and other (visual) semiotic resources. Interpretive, reflexive talk on the meanings of scrapbook compositions was then produced by children in collaboration with researchers. The final chapter in this part, by Sabina Vakser, explores issues of transcription and represen- tation of multilingual data. Drawing on her research with/on three Russian-­speaking families in Melbourne, Vakser discusses her dilemmas and choices in relation to multiple aspects of data tran- scription and representation (language (un)differentiation, script choice, translation, meaning in- terpretation, etc.), along with their ideological significance. She argues that researchers need to be reflexive and transparent in relation to transcription choices because these index the construction of changing dynamics of stance in relation to languages as multi-­centric realities and (dis)similar informant trajectories (e.g. having been raised in Australia to Ukrainian parents vs having migrated from Russia as an adult). The two concluding chapters in this collection draw on Hymes’ concept of ethnographic moni- toring to discuss modes of researcher intervention in the field. This was briefly discussed in Chapter 7 already. Haley de Korne and Nancy H. Hornberger build on their ethnographic experience with minority language education in different geographical contexts to argue that researchers need to adopt a context-­sensitive approach to countering language-­based social injustice. This means working to- gether with communities to understand local histories and ecologies of inequality. It also means un- derstanding what is doable and sustainable in specific contexts, and what the stakes are and for whom. The researcher's role should be closer to that of community facilitator than to that of external “expert” advisor. Jan Van der Aa and Jan Blommaert make similar arguments in the final chapter (17). This time the focal field is not minority education but social work, and their theoretical framing emphasizes complexity, superdiversity, and change. The authors argue that ethnographers can only help bring about social change if they sustain long-­term engagements with social institutions and deploy full par- ticipation in institutional life. They shed light on constraints and possibilities by providing a detailed account of their experience with two such sites in Belgium, and the ways in which they were able to have short-­term and medium-­term impact on practices and procedures. All in all, this is a volume rich in nuances and research accents. It illustrates what is done, but also points towards what could be done, and in some cases, should be done. I find Chapters 4 and 5 particularly useful for novice researchers. The engaged detail and honesty of Khan and Zimmerman in discussing the initial conceptualization of their projects, the decisions that changed the project's direction and their rationale, constitute a unique window for students to grasp what it means to do ethnographic research. CODÓ    |    197 Any collection that aims to chart out a field will inevitably leave lines of research, authors, and geographical realities out of it. It would be unrealistic to think otherwise. And as I said earlier, Martin-­ Jones and Martin do a good job in this respect. However, for me there is a gap that needs mentioning, and that is on political economy. Certainly, a section is devoted to it in the introduction (pp. 6–7), al- though, interestingly, through a narrative that backgrounds the ideological rationalities underpinning certain actions. On page 6, for example, it is claimed that “state control over capital has been eroded in the face of the rapid expansion of capitalism,” obliterating the deliberate, ideological retreat of states from regulating financial flows to augment the profits of capital. The hegemony of neoliberal- ism as economic doctrine, but also as a form of social governance and moral regime is not discussed anywhere, nor are the multiple processes begot by it (precarization, insecuritization, etc., see Sennet, 1998), as well as the many ways in which language and multilingualism are linked to them. In fact, the actual word neoliberalism is erased not only from the introduction, but from the whole book (it appears only once). This is indeed surprising. The authors’ apparent discomfort with a discussion of current economic conditions transpires overall. No chapters address the interweaving of language with contemporary work logics, institutional neoliberalization (see Codó, 2018), or forms of subjectifica- tion aligned with market-­driven rationalities (Martín Rojo, 2018). I am convinced that some addition in this regard would have made this otherwise excellent publication an epistemologically more com- plete collection. To conclude, what do we get from these two volumes? We have already appraised their suitability as teaching materials, and suggested ways in which they can be used and combined. It goes without saying that each course and institutional context is unique, and that it is the lecturer who can best decide. In comparison, Coulmas’ book favours conceptual definition, macro-­linguistic quantification, analysis of policy, and examination of written material in the public space, whereas Martin-­Jones and Martin's publication focuses on methodological reflection, as well as analysis of interactional and narrative data. Surprisingly, there is not much thematic overlap between the two books, except for digital/online communication (Chapter 9 in Coulmas, Part 3 in Martin-­Jones and Martin). It is true that both publications discuss multilingual education (Chapter 6, section 6.1 in Coulmas, and Part 2 in Martin-­Jones and Martin), although each perspective is quite distinct. Coulmas’ account is general, and reviews models, policies, and problematics. By contrast, the chapters in Part 2 of Martin-­Jones and Martin's book focus on specific educational and sociolinguistic spaces. The area of language and work is blatantly overlooked by either publication, which is noticeable given the existing body of work on multilingual policy and practice in various professional contexts (see as an example, Lønsmann & Kraft, 2017), as is research on language in legal and bureaucratic settings (see Maryns, 2017) and the growing body of knowledge on new speakers in minority contexts (see, among others, Costa, 2015, and O'Rourke & Pujolar, 2015). In terms of what is shared, I would underline that both volumes point researchers towards some of the “hot” debates in the discipline, such as the diversification of diversity, and how to analytically and methodologically engage with it. A connected discussion, especially focal in Martin-­Jones and Martin's volume, is the need to update our methodologies in the light of the new (or not so new) spaces of interaction, and their liquid nature, to adopt Bauman's (2000) terminology. Although this is not alien to ethnography but rather intrinsic to it, as the context of study has always defined the method, it is true that these “new” spaces pose new ethical challenges. These challenges are, in turn, tied to larger sociocultural processes, such as the blurring of the public and the private, the professional and the lay, work and leisure, as well as the mutability of age, gender, race, and many other social variables, in the virtual age. In that sense, the ethical questions our ethnographies compel us to engage with are not disconnected from or ignorant of larger social debates.  | 198       CODÓ I would like to finish off by pointing out one distinctive contribution of each publication to current sociolinguistic scholarship, not necessarily in the form of finalized knowledge but as new avenues for thinking (and doing). In the case of Coulmas’ book, I would underline the plea the author makes for engaging in more transdisciplinary debates within the social sciences. Coulmas convincingly argues for this throughout his book, but in particular in Chapters 7 and 8. In Chapter 7, he defends a closer and deeper dialogue and cross-­fertilization with urban planning and geography. In my view, this is still much needed in sociolinguistics. There has certainly been a lot done in this respect (as the chapter shows) and space has gained centrality in multilingualism research. Yet there are other geographical concepts which remain unexplored, like the concept of infrastructure, that may shed distinct light on issues and processes in the fields of language management, policy, and planning. In Chapter 8, in turn, Coulmas stresses the need to encourage more debate with political scientists. Again, conceptualizing multilingualism, and language policy more broadly, in relation to forms of governance can prove a fruitful new lens for analysing issues of sustainability, justice, and (in)equality. As for the volume ed- ited by Martin-­Jones and Martin, I would stress the relevance of Part 5, on ethnographic monitoring (I would also include here Chapter 7, which has similar concerns). The three chapters (Chapter 7 and the two in Part 5) touch upon an unresolved issue in critical and ethnographic studies: What are we to do of academic critique? This has two related lines. One is what is or should be the relationship between academics and the professionals with whom we engage in our fieldwork? And more broadly, what can or should be the relationship between academia and social activism? The second line has to do with how to conceptualize the impact of our research. This is increasingly relevant for those of us who undertake research in the humanities and the social sciences, especially from qualitatively oriented perspectives, as funding bodies require that research has “practical” impact that can be measured and showcased. How does this sit in with slow-­cooking and longue durée ethnographic research? I have no final answer for that, nor do the authors of the three chapters mentioned. Their texts, however, offer an honest account of constraints and possibilities that I am sure all readers will find illuminating. ORCID Eva Codó  https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0884-6807 R E F E R E NC E S Bakhtin, M. (1981). The dialogic imagination: Four essays. M. Holquist (ed.). Austin, TX: University of Texas Press. Bauman, Z. (2000). Liquid modernity. London, UK: Polity. Bruzos, A., Erdocia, I., & Khan, K. (2018). 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