Language Acts and Worldmaking: How and Why the Languages We Use Shape Our World and Our Lives

This book is a collection of reflective narratives on research, theory, and practice from the Language Acts and Worldmaking project, funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council's Open World Research Initiative. It explores the role of language teachers as mediators between languages and cultures, worldmaking in modern languages, translation and the imagination, languages and hospitality, digital mediations, and the impact of living in multilingual cities. The book aims to bridge the gaps between those who teach and research languages and those who learn and use them in everyday contexts, put research into the hands of wider audiences, share a philosophy, policy, and practice of language teaching and learning, provide the research, experience, and data to enable informed debates on current issues and attitudes in language learning, teaching, and research, showcase exciting new work that derives from different types of community activity, and disseminate new research in languages that engages with diverse communities of language practitioners.

Format: Paperback / softback
Length: 272 pages
Publication date: 17 February 2022
Publisher: John Murray Press

Collectively authored by the Language Acts and Worldmaking team, this defining volume offers reflective narratives on research, theory, and practice over the course of the flagship project of the same name, funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council's Open World Research Initiative. It returns to the project's key principles—that our words make worlds and we are agents in worldmaking—analyses the practices and outcomes of collaborative working, and looks to the future by offering concrete ideas for how the work they have done can now continue to do its work in the world.

Focusing on the key research strands, this volume looks at the role of the language teacher as a mediator between languages and cultures, worldmaking in modern languages, translation and the imagination, languages and hospitality, digital mediations, and how words change and make worlds. Critically, it analyses the impact on communities of living in multilingual cities, and the ways in which learning a first language, and then a second, and so on, plays a crucial role in our ability to understand our culture in relation to others and to appreciate the ways in which they are intertwined.

Specific aims are to:

• propose new ways of bridging the gaps between those who teach and research languages and those who learn and use them in everyday contexts, from the professional to the personal.
• Put research into the hands of wider audiences.
• Share a philosophy, policy, and practice of language teaching and learning that turns research into action.
• Provide the research, experience, and data to enable informed debates on current issues and attitudes in language learning, teaching, and research.
• Share knowledge across and within all levels and experiences of language learning.

Weight: 278g
Dimension: 216 x 135 x 23 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9781529372304