MULTIPLEtalkS is a monthly informal get-together in which a researcher discusses a piece of their own work with other Multiples researchers. During these events we kill multiple birds with one stone: the speaker gets valuable input and feedback on their work, junior and senior Multiples researchers get to exchange ideas, we cross the bridge between the two campuses, and we have lunch!

Every MULTIPLEtalkS speaker is joined by a booster who helps along and takes notes as well as a discussant who wraps up the discussion. Check out all the details on our Multiples blog .

Weekly events

2022

Writing/working group

Two or three times a week @ ONLINE (covid) or alternating @ Blandijn @ Mercator | e-mail seppe.goddaert@ugent.be or greet.debaets@ugent.be

To cater to everyone's needs:

We start the session by checking who will be focussing on either writing, working or if there is anyone in need of personal feedback
Based on this we decide:

◦ the brief/debrief structure: in group or two-by-two

◦ the duration of the writing/working intervals

◦ if applicable, a time for feedback (during or after the session)

We would calculate 5-10 mins for each brief/debrief and keep a break separate from the brief/debrief of 10 minutes before starting another round.

Suggestions are of course very welcome and highly appreciated :-).

Past events

2022

Postponed until further notice - 31/05/2022, 11:00 @ Blandijn (1.12):

Talk by Ana Pellicer Sanchez (University College London, Institute of Education): Developing second language vocabulary through reading: An examination of readers’ eye movements

Reading is an important source of second language (L2) vocabulary growth. Previous studies have shown that new vocabulary can be learnt incidentally from reading and that knowledge of different aspects of lexical knowledge can be developed. This presentation will first provide an overview of existing eye-tracking research on vocabulary learning from reading and will present results of recent studies exploring the effect of a variety of factors (e.g., frequency of exposure, instruction, spacing, coverage) on novel word learning from reading. It will then discuss the empirical evidence available exploring the relationship between eye movements and learning gains.

20-21/12/2022 @ Mercator, room A1.04

6th LinGhentian Doctorials

A PhD conference organised by and for PhD students of linguistics at Ghent University. The LinGhentian Doctorials are not only an opportunity to present your own research to your colleagues and get feedback, they also serve the purpose of getting to know your fellow PhD students from other Departments. Many MULTIPLES researchers are involved in the organizing committee and as presenters.

28/11/2022, 11:00-13:00 @ Auditorium M, Jozef Plateaustraat 22, 9000 Gent and @ online

Keynote in the seminar series on multilingualism: prof. Kristina Hultgren (The Open University) - The hidden drivers of English as an academic language in Europe: Retheorizing the rise of English as an outcome of higher education governance reforms

Information and registration page (deadline: 25/11/2022)

Organised in collaboration with the ENLIGHT partners. Your host will be prof. Stef Slembrouck

25/11/2022, 12:30 @ Mercator, A1.04

MULTIPLEtalkS

Every MULTIPLEtalkS speaker is joined by a booster who helps along and takes notes as well as a discussant who wraps up the discussion. Check out all the details on our Multiples blog .

Our speaker was Haiyan Huang: The struggles and skills of conducting ethnographic studies

Ethnography is a frequently used research method. It has many supporters but is also heavily criticized. As a doctoral student, I actively chose this method for my thesis. It has given me many advantages but, at the same time, triggers constant feelings of uncertainty and even guilt.

Do you use ethnography for your research, and why (not)? If so, what kind of fieldwork do you conduct and what difficulties have you encountered or are you expecting to face? How do you reflect on your positionality as an ethnographer? What skills (e.g. note-taking) do we need? What can we mean for our participants? These are some of the questions that we will explore together in my talk.

Based on my ethnographic work, I would like to discuss the (dis)advantages of, as well as the practical skills needed for, ethnographic studies.

Joining this talk were Laurence De Backer as booster and Sofie Decock as discussant.

17/11/2022, 16:00 @ Mercator, A1.04

Public PhD Defense

Sofie Verliefde (UGent): Interpreter-mediated police interviewing cum drafting: interpreters’ access to and handling of the written record | supervisor: prof. dr. Bart Defrancq

7/11/2022, 11:00 @ Mercator, A1.04

Public PhD Defense

Elisa De Cristofaro (UGent): Discourse markers in Italian: a multi-perspective approach in L1, L2 and heritage language | supervisor: prof. dr. Linda Badan

27/10/2022, 15:00 @ Mercator, A1.04

Public PhD Defense

Griet Boone (UGent): Eine harte Nuss? A longitudinal investigation of L2 learners’ phrasal development in German | supervisor: prof. dr. June Eyckmans, co-supervisor: prof. dr. Sofie Decock

17/10/2022, 12:30 @ Plateau-Rozier 0.1, room Simon Stevin

MULTIPLEtalkS

Every MULTIPLEtalkS speaker is joined by a booster who helps along and takes notes as well as a discussant who wraps up the discussion. Check out all the details on our Multiples blog .

Our speaker was Shauny Seynhaeve: Replication research in social sciences

Having spent most of 2022 on a study based on Piet Van Avermaet and his colleagues’ OKANS report, I would like to use this fourth session of the MULTIPLEtalkS to discuss the topic of replication research. After an introduction on replication research, I will introduce you to the OKANS report and its relation to my project. Then, I would like to have a reflection about replication studies in the context of social sciences: what are their strengths and weaknesses?

Joining this were Seppe Goddaert as booster and Piet Van Avermaet as discussant.

7/10/2022, 9.30AM – 12.30PM @ Mercator, B2.10

Talk by prof. Albert Weideman (University of the Free State) and Prof. Constant Leung (King’s College, London): applied linguistics theory and (multilingual) language assessment

Please register for free.

23/09/2022, 12:30 @ Mercator, A4.04

MULTIPLEtalkS

Every MULTIPLEtalkS speaker is joined by a booster who helps along and takes notes as well as a discussant who wraps up the discussion. Check out all the details on our Multiples blog .

Our speaker was Sophie Decroupet: Receiving and handling feedback as a researcher

In this third MultipleTalks, I invite you to join in in a collective reflection on how we receive and handle feedback. In any academic career, but especially during the PhD journey, being able to process feedback is a skill on its own. We receive feedback from our supervisors, DBC members, reviewers and editors of journals, and others. This allows us to better our research and writing.

But how do we handle feedback? How do we sort through and identify the feedback that is useful to us? What do we do when we receive contradictory advice? How do we keep a cohesive article or thesis while being receptive to the comments we receive? And what can you do when you need feedback, but are not getting any?

I will share examples from the feedback that I have recently received and invite you to share your own experiences. Through discussing these questions, I hope that we will be able to help each other.

Sofie Verkest was booster and Geert Jacobs joined as discussant.

26/08/2022, 12:30 @ Blandijn, Camelot

MULTIPLEtalkS

Every MULTIPLEtalkS speaker is joined by a booster who helps along and takes notes as well as a discussant who wraps up the discussion. Check out all the details on our Multiples blog .

Our speaker was Mari Alger: Uncovering and understanding the emotional journey of language learning

Following in the steps of Laurence De Backer, the speaker who presented at the first MULTIPLEtalkS, I too will walk you through (a series of) methodological obstacles I have recently stumbled across in the early stages of my third research paper. By sharing some illustrative examples from data on how students in my English Vocabulary class experienced a newly launched podcast project, I’d like to demonstrate just how tricky it can be to research the notoriously elusive topic of emotions in language learning. While we can never truly know what it is like to walk a mile in someone else’s shoes, a person’s account of their own journey can be invaluable in such an undertaking. However, sometimes one is not fully aware of the route they took, or they might not be able or willing to comprehensively describe it. What is more, the person listening to the story may (unintentionally) misinterpret it. Regarding this final point, as the teacher of the course I am undeniably involved in the research context, so I’ll also be exploring how my own emotions and experiences come into play when analysing the data.

Seppe Goddaert was the booster and Sarah Haas joined as the discussant.

13-16/07/2022 @ ghent, @ online

Sociolinguistics Symposium 24 | inside and beyond binaries

SS24 is organized by Ghent University in close collaboration with the Belgian sociolinguistic community. Many MULTIPLES researchers are involved in the organizing committee.

10/06/2022, 11.00-12.00, room 'Camelot' (third floor, Blandijnberg 2)

Talk by Hu Chen (Zhejiang Gongshang University, China): International intelligibility of Chinese English (and puzzles over the prosody of Mandarin Chinese)

As over 400 million people are learning and speaking English as a foreign language in China, Chinese English is known for its distinct Chinese accent. The present study empirically investigates the overall intelligibility of Chinese English to international listeners from Kachru's Three Circles. Meanwhile, the validity of Jenkins’ Lingua Franca Core (LFC) is examined. At the end of the talk, the speaker also wants to invite exchanges on some longstanding puzzles over the prosodic/metrical structure of Mandarin Chinese, which is a typical syllable-timed tonal language.

8/06/2022, 15:00 @ Ghent, Mercator A (1.04)

Public PhD defense

Ana Moreno Bruna (UGent): Language learning and intercultural learning abroad: the impact of pedagogical guidance during Erasmus+ stays | Supervisor: prof. dr. Patrick Goethals

31/05/2022, 16:00-18:00 @ Ghent, Vandenhove-paviljoen (Rozier 1)

Public PhD defense

Marie Jacobs (UGent): Language, legal counselling and asylum: A linguistic ethnography of immigration law firms in Belgium | supervisor: prof. dr. K atrijn Maryns

20/05/2022, 12:30 @ Mercator, A1.04

MULTIPLEtalkS

Every MULTIPLEtalkS speaker is joined by a booster who helps along and takes notes as well as a discussant who wraps up the discussion. Check out all the details on our Multiples blog.

Our speaker was Laurence De Backer: an emic take on news metaphors: how I turned a methodological obstacle into an opportunity.

To kick off our monthly MultipleTalkS, I will narrate the story of how I turned an unanticipated methodological obstacle into a research opportunity. My PhD project explores the persuasive function of metaphorical language and framing in news media communication, and uses the topic of Latin American migration in a Spanish language, US-based newspaper as its empirical case study. Innovatively, I tackle this subject using a holistic approach, combining a linguistic focus on news texts with careful attention to media production and reception. For this talk, I will hone in on discursive production, and my attempt to set up a method allowing me to explain the particular form, frequency and functions of news metaphors from the perspective of real media producers. My talk will focus on how, in the face of unforeseen circumstances, adopting an attitude of ‘improvisational flexibility’ (Cerwonka & Malkki, 2007, pp.24-25, 79) allowed me to reframe my original research design and prompted me to formulate innovate research questions.

Ella van Hest was booster and Sarah Van Hoof joined as discussant.

24/02/2022, 13:00 @ Teams

Research @ The Movies | Caroline Staquet (UGent): “Research as a battlefield. Tracing back the genealogy of CLIL scientific controversies in European institutional discourses.”

25/01/2022, 15:30 @ Mercator A @ ONLINE

Public PhD defense

Sibo Kanobana (UGent) : Serving the White Order. Making Bilingual Security Workers in Brussels. | supervisor: prof. dr. Sarah Van Hoof; co-supervisor: prof. dr. Alfonso Del Percio

About

MULTIPLES is concerned with the study of language and discourse as aspects of social life. It engages with the applied and educational dimensions of this field and does so with particular reference to contemporary multilingualism. We connect researchers with backgrounds in various linguistic disciplines, including Sociolinguistics, Language Acquisition (first, second and foreign), Language Teaching and Learning, Language in Education, Discourse Analysis, Linguistic Anthropology, Translation and Interpreting studies.

Research extends into a range of institutional and professional contexts of language use (educational, social welfare, business, media), as well as specific niche interests (e.g. Sign Language studies). We take note of the challenges of language learning, multilingual provision and language professionalization in today’s globalized, multilingual society as inviting an empirical programme of both description, interpretation and explanation of practices and processes, as well as a sustained pedagogical effort which spreads across areas of language acquisition, learning and mediation.

Research activities are organized into two closely linked, multidisciplinary research and knowledge clusters:

Language in society
Language learning

MULTIPLES fosters collaboration across both clusters and invites the sharing of ideas and methodologies to create productive and effective academic partnerships.

Researchers