I am very happy to announce that I will be taking part at the AHRC-funded “Researching Multilingually” seminar, which will be held in Manchester on 22nd – 23rd May 2012.

The paper I will present is titled Representational Positions in Bilingual Research, and it draws on some methodological insights from my doctoral dissertation. My research was situated in a language school in Greece, where Greek and English were used in equal measure and with differing degrees of competence. This made it difficult for me to present my data in a way that was consistent, accurate and easily accessible to the English-speaking audience to whom the dissertation is addressed.

Some questions that I had to consider included:

• To what extent is the translation of the data an analytical act, and how can it be made transparent?
• Is it ethical to ‘correct’ the language of my participants so as to protect them from embarrassment, or does this impinge on the authenticity of the data?

In the paper, I will argue that there is a range of alternatives when it comes to the representation of the data, and using my own data as examples, I will make the case for a flexible and transparent positioning.

An extended abstract for the presentation can be downloaded here, and you can find more information about the Researching Multilingually project in their website.

Update 30th May 2012: I have posted some information about the seminar and my presentation here.

Featured Image: The Researching Multilingually project banner, used with permission.