Sangeeta Bagga-Gupta Professor Chair Academy HumES, Humanities, Social Sciences & Education

1. Sweden The Bounday-TurnReflections on Language, Culture and Identity through the epistemological lenses of time, space and social interactions in the 21st century Sangeeta Bagga-Gupta Professor Chair Academy HumES, Humanities, Social Sciences & Education Research group KKOM-DS, Communication, Culture & Diversity-Deaf Studies ‘Cultural Education and Civil Society: How can languages contribute?’ European Expert Seminar Leeuwarden/Ljouwert, Fryslân, The Netherlands 25-27 May 2011

2. Sweden European expert seminar policy? Seminar behaviours & backgrounds multilanguages multiliteracies multimodalities multidisciplinary multisites & multimobility • …language? • …identity? • …culture? • …discipline? • (inter)state=European? • (inter)national? Sangeeta Bagga-Gupta

3. WE (the experts) Common grounds for social scientists & humanists today? post-structuralist? non-modernist? non-positivist? non-ethnocentric? non-eurocentric? non / post / fluid… non-conformist? • Linguistics/sociolinguistics • Anthropologists • Educationists • Computer analysts • Cognitive scientists • Sociologists • European (?) languages • Etc, etc, etc • Different departments/institutions Sangeeta Bagga-Gupta

4. Sangeeta Bagga-Gupta

5. Theoretical frameworks Methodologies Theoretical-methodological harmony Assumptions Natural sciences paradigms dominate? Sangeeta Bagga-Gupta

6. Situated nature of meaning • Seminar? • Conference? • Workshop? • Symposium? • Language-in-action • Real-life-ways-with-words Sangeeta Bagga-Gupta

7. A cow produces about 18 liters of milk per 24 hours. How much milk does the cow produce during one week? Kalle goes to school and on an average he has 7 lessons a day. How many lessons does he have per week? Sangeeta Bagga-Gupta

8. How many days are there in a week? A cow produces about 18 liters of milk per 24 hours. How much milk does the cow produce during one week? Kalle goes to school and on an average he has 7 lessons a day. How many lessons does he have per week? Sangeeta Bagga-Gupta

9. Language comes to life in the real world and changes from words and sentences into discourse (Agar, 1994:6) Fluidity, Languaging, Translanguaging, Continnua, Chaining Dimensions of the Boundary-Turn Sangeeta Bagga-Gupta

10. The vast majority of studies that focus languages at best analyse what has happened and fail to highlight that social interaction in itself is a meaning making enterprise wherein human realities and identities are co-created. The far majority analyze either ‘idealized data in the form of isolated, fabricated sentences’ or discourses about attitudes or what human beings think about their language practices through interview and narrative based studies. (Bagga-Gupta, 2007) Sangeeta Bagga-Gupta

11. Fluidity of language identifications across time and space the example of Englishes • Different “recognized” English languages, British-English, American-English, Indian-English, Australian-English, etc • Distinct and are not considered different dialects of English • Different English dictionaries as well as the different English correction possibilities available in digitalized word programs • Annual ritual of the commonest used new words at the end of the year, “twitterati”, “unfriend/defriend”, “Youtube”, “Facebook”, “Spillcam”, “Vuvuzela” • These are not accredited as English language words by digitalized computer programs at the beginning of 2011 Sangeeta Bagga-Gupta

12. The horizontal division: language classification in syllabi • Swedish (first compulsory language) • Swedish as a second language • Swedish for immigrants • Swedish for the deaf/hard of hearing • English (second compulsory language) • Swedish Sign Language • Swedish Sign Language for hearing • Danish, Norwegian, Icelandic (neighbour languages) • French, German, Spanish (foreign languages) • Turkish, Arabic, Finnish, etc. (home languages) • Nationally recognised minority languages Sangeeta Bagga-Gupta

13. The horizontal division: language classification in syllabi • Swedish (first compulsory language) • Swedish as a second language • Swedish for immigrants • Swedish for the deaf/hard of hearing • English (second compulsory language) • Swedish Sign Language • Swedish Sign Language for hearing • Danish, Norwegian, Icelandic (neighbour languages) • French, German, Spanish (foreign languages) • Turkish, Arabic, Finnish, etc. (home languages) • Nationally recognised minority languages Sangeeta Bagga-Gupta

14. A woman’s father ”is Sami” and lives in Jockmock in the Arctic region that lies in the far north of Sweden. The woman’s mother ”is Swedish”, spent her childhood in Teheran, Iran and the mother has lived for the last 30 years in Stockholm in the east coast of central Sweden. The woman, who grew up in Jockmock has lived in a university city in central Sweden for the last three decades, is married to a man who grew up in west Sweden and whose father “is Swedish” and mother “is Norwegian”. The woman and her husband have three children who are today young adults. All three children were born and furthermore spent their growing up years in central Sweden. Sangeeta Bagga-Gupta

15. A woman’s father ”is Sami” and lives in Jockmock in the Arctic region that lies in the far north of Sweden. The woman’s mother ”is Swedish”, spent her childhood in Teheran, Iran and the mother has lived for the last 30 years in Stockholm in the east coast of central Sweden. The woman, who grew up in Jockmock has lived in a university city in central Sweden for the last three decades, is married to a man who grew up in west Sweden and whose father “is Swedish” and mother “is Norwegian”. The woman and her husband have three children who are today young adults. All three children were born and furthermore spent their growing up years in central Sweden. The woman and her family hold Swedish passports and “are white, blond, middle-class” citizens of Sweden. Sangeeta Bagga-Gupta

16. Fluidity – Identifications of human beings and cultural connections A woman’s father ”is Sami” and lives in Jockmock in the Arctic region that lies in the far north of Sweden. The woman’s mother ”is Swedish”, spent her childhood in Teheran, Iran and the mother has lived for the last 30 years in Stockholm in the east coast of central Sweden. The woman, who grew up in Jockmockhas lived in a university city in central Sweden for the last three decades, is married to a man who grew up in west Sweden and whose father “is Swedish” and mother “is Norwegian”. The woman and her husband have three children who are today young adults. All three children were born and furthermore spent their growing up years in central Sweden. The woman and her family hold Swedish passports and “are white, blond, middle-class” citizens of Sweden. Sangeeta Bagga-Gupta

17. SWEDEN Languages and learner-categories in the Swedish education landscape www.oru.se/humus/Sangeeta_Bagga-Gupta

18. Language Culture Identity Sangeeta Bagga-Gupta

19. Language Fluidity, Languaging, Translanguaging, Continnua, Chaining The ”doing of” cultures, identification processes Dimensions of the Boundary-Turn Culture Identity Sangeeta Bagga-Gupta

20. Observing & analyzing human behaviour TRANSCRIPTION AND INTERACTION ANALYSIS Sangeeta Bagga-Gupta

21. A child is born with 100 languages & we take 99 away from it • ”I am because I communicate” • ”There is no no communication” Sangeeta Bagga-Gupta

22. Adult-children ASL—English signed communication (Padden, 1996:92) Adult-teenagers SSL—Swedish signed communication (Bagga-Gupta, 2004:193-4) Line i. Pupil HOW SPELL A-U-T [pause] (Official public authority A-U-T what?) Line ii. Adult MEAN A-U-T-H-O-R-I-T-Y PUBLIC AUTHORITY A-U-T-H-O-R-I-T-Y [looks questioningly]  (Do you mean public authority?) Line iii. Pupil [Nods] A-U-T-H [pauses, looks questioningly] (yeah, A-U-T-H, it is spelled?) Line iv. Adult A-U-T-H-O-R-I-T-Y <AUTHORITY> PUBLIC AUTHORITY [points to what she has written on the board] (It is spelled A-U-T-H-O-R-I-T-Y; this is how it is written; this is how it is signed) Line i. Adult B-A-K-I-N-G S-O-D-A, B-A-K-I-N [while pointing to words on overhead projection], THAT SAME [picks up box of baking soda and points to <baking soda> on box while mouthing “baking soda”]. (Now baking soda, baking – right here on the screen is the same thing as this box in my hand.) Sangeeta Bagga-Gupta

23. Adult Hindi-English oral communication (Bagga-Gupta 1995:103) Hum logoko arrival ka time staff attendance register me likhna pardta hai (We are required to write down our time of arrival in the staff’s attendance register) Adult Edo-English oral communication (Kamwangamalu in Sridhar 1996:57) Dial enumber naa, n’uniform’en Mr. Oseni eghe a approve encontracti nii ne. But khamma ren ighe o gha ye necessary n’o submit-e Photostat copies oghe estimate n’o ka ya apply a ke pay era. You understand? (Dial this number, and inform Mr. Oseni that we approved the contract already. But tell him that it will still be necessary for him to submit Photostat copies of estimate that he first applied with before we pay him. You understand?) Sangeeta Bagga-Gupta

24. Who owns the problem when we analysts zoom into human language behaviors? • Whose logic? • Convenience? • Tradition? • Quantification/measurement • Etc • Purist position • Homogenizing position • Protectionist position • A political position communication Sangeeta Bagga-Gupta

25. Central concepts & assumptions Language: meaningmaking/wayswithwords Culture: waysofbeing/communitiesofpractice Identity: communitiesofpractice/waysofbeing Learning: socialisation/meaningmaking Sangeeta Bagga-Gupta

26. Curse of language teaching the assumption that language must first be developed before it can be used is one of the curses of language instruction, because it results in that … language instruction primarily becomes a matter of the development of skills and because the communicative linguistic actions and the pluralistic meanings that could be enabled in educational situations are left untouched (Tornberg, 2000:265, my translation) Sangeeta Bagga-Gupta

27. Communication Learning & meaning making in mundane everyday activities inside & outside classrooms (not just in reporting) ”We are because we communicate” Not language categories Not learning & individual development Not merely ”how” Not categories based on traits Communication = Culture = Learning = Identity Sangeeta Bagga-Gupta

28. Understanding complex communication Focusing upon how experienced members of different settings shows that meaning making processes rely upon the use of bridges, connections, chaining in the fluiditybetween different modalities, codes, etc. The doing of communication, culture & identities Sangeeta Bagga-Gupta

29. Paradox: democracy & equity The paradox of language policy The paradox of cultural policy The paradox of equity in civil societies Sangeeta Bagga-Gupta

30. Thank you! Sangeeta Bagga-Gupta

31. Illustration of ethnocentric monolingual labels for multilingual communities “Indish/Indiska” = The myriad of mutually unintelligible languages spoken and written with different orthographic systems Swedish, Danish, Finnish, English = Labels used for some other languages Swedish: “svenska” “pakistanish/ pakistanska”-Pakistan, “Spanish”-Mexico = other nation-states where multilingualism is accorded recognition both politically and culturally Sangeeta Bagga-Gupta