Linguistic Soundscapes of the Diver[City]: Spaces for being, belonging and envisioning a new society

• In Event: Diverse Methodological Perspectives on Language in Sociopolitical Context

Proposal

Urban cities are inhabited by vibrant communities that share their cultures and languages. In this presentation, I will elucidate on how linguistic landscapes in the form of sound recordings evidenced the social cultural and linguistic diversity of a city and how it creates spaces that envision a new society. This research provides insights into the sociolinguistic dynamics and nature of society, as well as how the languages and cultures are present in public spaces, thus highlighting the diverse forms of knowing and being.
This research was guided by three distinct concepts: 1) complexity theory as a field of study that seeks to understand the inherent uncertainty and non-linearity complexity of systems and how they evolve over time. It is concerned with understanding the behaviour of complex systems, and how they can be modelled and analyzed to gain insight into their behaviour. (Grobman, 2005). 2) Plurilingualism as a theory and educational approach look at people’s language(s) repertories and how they use them at any given moment to communicate (Piccardo & Ortega, 2018). The use of these languages at is aimed toward valuing even the most partial knowledge or variations of any language. Therefore, “Plurilingualism is a unique, overarching notion, implying a subtle but profound shift in perspective, both horizontally, toward the use of multiple languages, and vertically, toward valuing even the most partial knowledge of a language […] as tools for facilitating communication.”(Piccardo & Puozzo, 2015, p. 319). 3) The concept of a Pluriversal Politics refers to a world in which multiple realities exist, rather than the current reality shaped by extrativism, globalization, and neoliberalism, which suggests that any alternative is limited or even impossible and constructed in its own dominant language. Here, it is envisioned that politics are based on the existence of multiple universes and thus a diversity of realities (Escobar, 2020).

I was interested in understanding how diversity is performed in the city and as such, I immersed myself in the different spaces and streets of the city (this project ~ Belfast, Northern Ireland, United Kingdom) through long walks to capture the diverse images, voices and sounds to understand the different plural dimensions between human beings, cultures and languages. In doing so, I used audio-visual research approaches such as sound ethnography, walking methodology, and linguistic landscaping as soundscape walking methodology (SWM). I documented my experiences by using audio recording devices, photographs and field notes. Then, I mapped out the collected data on a public digital multimedia and multi-modal platform as a form to create a Pluriversal awareness of the city, specifically to celebrate those languages other than English and how they cohabit.
Findings from the data suggest that the city is not an isolated and siloed space but a sentient living being in which languages and cultures emerge, interweave and synergically live together bringing life to communities and providing spaces for learning and understanding about others. Also, the city was experienced as a space for diverse cultural and linguistic engagement, recordings, photos and videos evidenced how the city represents a safe space to exercise linguistic and cultural freedom. The digital online map serves as a virtual platform to amplify cultural and linguistic experiences and visitors can view and hear how languages and cultures are performed and enacted in everyday life.

This platform utilized data to evidence that the city is a sentient being, a living organism that has the ability to experience and perceive consciousness, including the capacity to feel, perceive, and respond to stimuli (Pink, 2015). The digital platform (virtual map) represents the city in a plural state that I have called the Diver[city], a space and place that acknowledges, welcomes and celebrates all who inhabit the city. It creates and recreates an intelligent system that is advanced enough to exhibit behaviours and responses that are similar to any human conscious being, thus mirroring reality into virtuality.
The city as a symbolic representation of our connection with others, their languages, cultures and lives as experienced by senses (hearing, feeling and remembering) represents ongoing and almost infinite connections and possibilities of being while interacting with others within the realms of the city. In a sense, the city becomes like " [a] system [that] can be described as a set of entities that are related to one another and influence one another, and a state of the system is the set of properties of its components at any particular moment in time." (Giuastello et al., 2009, p.244). It was learned that “the global is associated with space, capital, history and agency while the local, conversely, is linked to place, labor, and tradition — as well as with women, minorities, the poor and, one might add, local cultures.” (Escobar, 2001, p. 155). What this means is that the city, as space for diverse forms of engaging with languages and cultures, presents an opportunity for education to engage language issues not only in the confines of the classroom but also how they are played in society and the everyday life.

Ultimately, this research hopes to motivate researchers at the intersection of applied linguistics and comparative international education to understand how cultures and languages are performed in different urban spaces and how the lived experiences of those who inhabit the city can create social injustice awareness, especially for the most marginalized communities in superdiverse contexts. In the end, this novel approach to collect and present data on a digital online map, might help uncovering how economic, cultural and social factors might have an impact on education. A virtual digital map that mirrors reality might interest comparative international education as a way to understand how languages and cultures interweave in urban spaces. Perhaps this virtual/real sociocultural awareness might influence educational policies and practices in different contexts by promoting cross-cultural understanding of communities, thus contributing to a deeper understanding and appreciation of cultural diversity, fostering a new global society through grassroots cooperation.

Author

• Yecid Ortega, Queen's University Belfast