Objetives

  1. To investigate the nature and development of the plurilingual practices of university students, as well as their individual and contextual drivers and deterrents. (Research Objective 1).
  2. To investigate the nature and development of attitudes towards languages and interculturality (i.e. International Posture and Intercultural Sensitivity) of university students, as well as their individual and contextual drivers and deterrents. (Research Objective 2).
  3. To make research-based recommendations for higher education plurilingual language policies considering issues of inclusion, equity, diversity and interculturality in the classroom, and to test the effectiveness of those recommendations. (Transfer Objective 3).

Methodology

The project will be developed with an interdisciplinary perspective combining four approaches: (1) sociolinguistics, which investigates the relationship between language practices and social context, language in the context of an individual linguistic, social and educational trajectory, and the effects of language policies on language use; (2) educational sociolinguistics, which explores the relationship between language practices and attitudes and speakers’ educational context as a space of socialization and interactions; (3) language acquisition, which investigates language development in an additional language and individual and contextual factors affecting it; and (4) social psychology, which investigates attitudes towards languages and the international community (i.e International Posture and intercultural sensitivity) and the role of social networks.

The use of complementary theoretical frameworks and disciplinary approaches requires the application of a mixed-methods approach that includes both quantitative and qualitative methodologies. The succesful application of these methods is guaranteed by our team’s expertise in: (a) sociolinguistics and educational sociolingüistics, with an emphasis on the ethnographic exploration of language practices, language attitudes and identity affiliations; (b) language acquisition, with a focus on development of English and differences triggered by learning contexts; and (c) social psychology, with a focus on interculturality, motivation, self-concept, and networks.

We will conduct a case study of a group of students that exemplify the population of our interest. Our qualitative collection methods have been previously employed in sociolinguistic and educational studies on attitudes and language practices. Such an approach will be enriched with methods used in experimental quantitative research employed in social psychology and language acquisition. The design will include a control group, questionnaires and the collection of language data. It will include a longitudinal component to document the development (or lack, thereof) of language attitudes, in general, towards English and towards the international community. The qualitative and quantitative analysis of linguistic landscape data will contribute to the study of context.

The richness of our methodological apparatus is provided by a wide variety of not only collection methods but also analysis: (1) thematic analysis of interviews; (2) descriptive statistics applied to questionnaires, linguistic landscape data, and the social network generator; and (3) inferential statistics applied to questionnaires and language data. This multifaceted approach facilitates (a) triangulation of data, (b) the exploration of individual and contextual drivers and deterrents, and (c) the well-grounded achievement of our transfer objective. 

Ethics and informed consent

This project has received the ethics review certificate issued by the Institutional Committee for Ethical Review of Universitat Pompeu Fabra (#322, 24-March-2024). Link to the document here.

To participate in the project, the consent form must be filled in and sent to the research leader, Mireia Trenchs. The consent forms will be available here when data collection starts.