Blog

Our research proceeds from the premise that there’s more to languages than their practical benefits for communicative transactions.

This is not just about ‘added’ value. Languages are our key medium for self-expression, and as such they’re at the heart of individual and collective cultural identity. That gives them immense creative potential which is fundamental to our lives as human beings. While being inextricably connected with practical use, that creative potential is also an invaluable resource in its own right.

Our research programme was designed to develop a new paradigm for Modern Languages that is predicated on the intrinsic connection between multilingualism and creativity. This connection is embedded in our linguistic heritage, our linguistic development, and our communicative lives. It can give learners confidence in their innate ability as linguists, and it makes language learning lastingly rewarding. It also holds the key to establishing a common identity for the subject of Modern Languages across educational sectors.

In this section, we feature articles, videos and podcasts that give insights, snapshots and personal perspectives on the many ways in which languages and creativity interact and cross-fertilise each other.

School presentation: foreign languages are not as foreign as we think

We spoke to a large audience of year-9 students at The Cherwell School in Oxford about the empowering fact that foreign languages are not as ‘foreign’ as we think.

The talk was inspired by our strand’s work on exploring and encouraging mutual intelligibility across languages, aimed at increasing awareness of the following issues:

1) Multilingualism is not unusual – it’s what most speakers experience in their life.

Children singing at the multilingual concert

Film: We are Children of the World

Watch the film below to relive the joyful, uplifting singing from the 500 children who took part in the first ever performance of Lin Marsh’s We are Children of the World and hear from the team who made it all happen: Lin Marsh, composer, Jon Cullen, Musical Director, and Professor Katrin Kohl, lead researcher on the Creative Multilingualism project which commissioned the composition.

Creative translation in the classroom

The Stephen Spender Prize for poetry in translation has just closed for the fifteenth time, with over thirty languages represented. The prize is one of the ways in which the Stephen Spender Trust celebrates multilingualism, along with our education programmes.

Creative Multilingualism (OWRI) funded projects

In Spring of this year, we ran an OWRI funding call for projects related to the following areas:

1) Interaction between linguistic diversity and cognitive creativity

2) Creativity at the interface between languages and STEM

3) Linguistic creativity in the performing arts

4) Multilingual Performance in Schools

Thank you to everyone who submitted an application. We're delighted to announce that the following projects have been successful in their bid for funding (see below for details of each project).

On the road: Prismatic Translation’s Swahili workshop

Swahili is spoken by up to 100 million people worldwide. The language is mostly spread across the African Great Lakes region and other parts of eastern and south-eastern Africa. Surprisingly though, I experienced Swahili first-hand not in Africa (my home continent), but rather as a Postdoctoral Research Assistant in a classroom at Oxford Spires Academy in England in April 2018.

Multilingual poetry workshops with the London Centre for Languages & Cultures

In June, Laura Lonsdale and I once again went to London for some Creative Multilingualism workshops with Year 10 students, this time at the Westminster Academy, and with students also from Pimlico Academy, Lady Margaret School, Sacred Heart Academy, and Hammersmith Academy. Altogether we had 35 students and five teachers.

Multilingual concert at Sheldonian Theatre

We are Children of the World: 27 June 2018

Yesterday, we were delighted to host 500 school children from across Oxford to sing We are Children of the World in the Sheldonian Theatre as part of the Oxford Festival of the Arts.

How I produced my first ever (multilingual) school play

In 2016, I took part in the Pilot project for the Multilingual Performance Project (MPP). I attended a workshop for teachers focusing on drama games then tried the ideas with my primary school classes and ran an after-school drama/MFL club. Children responded well to the activities and I enjoyed using fun activities to improve my teaching.

Multilingual song to celebrate linguistic diversity

On 27 June 2018, Creative Multilingualism will be holding a concert with 500 school children from Oxford. The pupils will be performing a specially commissioned choral piece composed by Lin Marsh, called We are Children of the World. The composition weaves in snatches of songs in Mandarin, Punjabi, Urdu, Arabic, Polish, Swahili and Portuguese. It aims to highlight Oxford's hidden multilingualism and celebrates the rich diversity of languages spoken in our schools and communities.

Image of inscription: A Translation from one language to another

A Tale of Two City Guides: multilingual identity, writing, and translation

I’ve been a writer for as long as I can remember. I have been writing pretty much non-stop since I was a child, for the simple reason that I love it. Writing is not just what I do, it’s what I am.

How curiosity led me to learn 7 languages

I grew fond of foreign languages at an early age. I was born in Odessa, Ukraine, a multicultural, Russian-speaking city which was formerly part of the USSR. I attended a school with a Ukrainian syllabus as well as intensive English language tutoring. My parents weren’t afraid of setting me this linguistic challenge, and they weren’t mistaken – I never became confused by studying in a different language from what I spoke at home.

Oxplore: answers to your language questions

Researchers from our Metaphor strand recently took part in a live debate organised by the outreach initiative Oxplore on the topic of languages.