Stikkord: Hilde Thyness

The autumn 2021 and winter 2022 have been very busy, therefore some delay in getting this newsletter out. A lot of the work is quite invisible, reading, writing, and editing, but there are also some events to report from.

In September, several exciting activities took place. Jannis Androutsopoulos visited us for a writing retreat (see picture and stay tuned for the result!), and Kristin carried out a digital PhD course on methodology Researching digital literacy practices – with 9 participants from Norway, Zambia and Iran/Luxembourg. Thanks to all participants for interesting discussions and reflections!

As part of the PhD course, but also as an independent event, we organized the digital seminar Digital languaging in the family– a seminar about online language practices in family contexts with thought-provoking presentations by Xiao Lan Curdt-Christiansen, University of Bath, Fatma Said, Zayed University, Sabine Little, Sheffield University, Maria Obojska, Universtiy of Luxembourg, Åsa Palviainen, University of Jyväskylä, Andreas Stæhr with Lian Malai Madsen, Astrid Ag and Janus Spindler Møller, University of Copenhagen. Slides from the presentations can be found here. The seminar ended with an interesting panel discussion with the participants Jannis Androutsopoulos, University of Hamburg/MultiLing University of Oslo, Ana Deumert, University of Cape Town/Inland Norway University of Applied Sciences, Elizabeth Lanza, MultiLing University of Oslo and Li Wei, University College London. More than 70 participants from different countries on different continents registered for the event, demonstrating how we can meet across borders in digital ways. A big thanks to everyone involved!

In December, Ana Deumert was welcomed as professor II to INN in a digital seminar where Hilde and Kristin participated. Some of her work time will be used to support Hilde’s PhD work. Thank you so much, Ana! We have also included Florian Gorqaj as research assistant to the project – welcome, Florian!

In the autumn, the local DigiMulti team participated in the annual writing retreat of the research group that we are part of, Language Didactics in Multilingual Contexts. There, Hilde and Kristin started drafting a paper based on the presentation at the 17th Conference of the International Pragmatics Association. It has now been submitted for peer review.

In November, Kristin also participated in a workshop by the Horizon 2020 project MATILDE in Sør-Fron community with representatives from various local stakeholders and citizens to discuss policy measures to enhance inclusion with a specific focus on rural and mountain regions. The workshop was followed up by a roundtable discussion in March in which Kristin also took part. It is interesting and important to discuss how research results can be used to develop specific actions with the perspectives from different parties involved.  

In the new year, there has been another writing retreat with Jannis Androutsopoulos, in February. The same month, Kristin lectured at the MultiLing Winter School organized by Haley de Korne, Oliwia Szymanska and Michela Iacorossi. This year’s topic was Communication in the multilingual workplace. Kristin presented “Digital interaction and multilingualism at work. Lithuanians in rural Norway”, and took part in the panel on research-practice relationship.

«To round up the newsletter, we will present some of our plans for the spring and summer. Hilde will present at both Nordand on Iceland in May, a presentation titled: “Teachers’ negotiation of their responsibility for inclusion of multilingual parents” and at the Sociolinguistic Symposium (SS24) in Ghent in July ““We get to know each other better”. Mediagrams for enhanced social inclusion?”. Kristin will also present at SS24, under the title “Constructing multilingual workplace identities in digital communication”, and will moreover give a guest lecture at the University of Bern in April with the title “Multilingual texting in a Senegalese context. Negotiating voices and relationships”. Toward the end of April, DigiMulti will host two guests, Åsa Palviainen and Xiao Lan Curdt-Christiansen. Among the activities is a nexus analysis workshop and a discussion of Hilde’s presentation of an article in preparation. We really look forward to finally realize this visit, which has been postponed because of the covid-19 pandemic.

As we are writing this newsletter, there is war in Europe, and we cannot but hope for peace. From the DigiMulti understanding, Lithuanian work migrants’ linguistic repertoire provide a valuable resource when Ukrainian refugees come to different communities in Inland Norway, and we see that this can be part of the resources mobilised for inclusion of the newly arrived.