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.

Oxford Lieder Festival: languages as performance

One of the obvious advantages of anniversaries is that they can allow academics to tap into public interest in a particular topic, event, or historical personality. To be sure, it can sometimes be hard to cut through received wisdom, popular myths, and reductive interpretations, but anniversaries do offer a brief moment to change the terms of the debate, or convey new research in an intelligent and accessible way. For scholars of Russian culture, 2017 has been something of a boon.

Why Yorkshire, Cockney & New York accents aren’t out of place in Iannucci’s ‘The Death of Stalin’

It’s said that a heckler once interrupted Nikita Khrushchev in the middle of a speech denouncing the crimes of Joseph Stalin, shouting, “As a colleague of Stalin’s, why didn’t you stop him?” Unable to see the heckler, Khrushchev barked, “Who said that?” No one in the audience moved, and after a few moments of tense silence, Khrushchev quietly added, “That’s why.”

Oxford pupil wins Foyle Young Poets competition

A pupil from the Oxford Spires Academy has been chosen as one of the winners of the Foyle Young Poets competition.

Flights of fancy: birds and multilingualism

One bird. Five continents. A hundred different stories.

Are little deers jumping in your heart? (And other multilingual metaphors)

During Oxford's Curiosity Carnival, a citywide celebration and sharing of research, the Creative Multilingualism team set out to collect as many multilingual body part metaphors as possible.

Creative Multilingualism stands at Curiosity Carnival

Creative Multilingualism at Curiosity Carnival

On 29 September 2017, the Creative Multilingualism team joined almost 500 other researchers at Curiosity Carnival to help celebrate and share the exciting research taking place at the University of Oxford with the people of Oxford. Over 9,000 visitors took part in the event, which was spread across the city at different venues.

Inspiring pupils: multilingual creative writing

Kate Clanchy runs a Poetry Hub at the Oxford Spires Academy, a city school where the majority of pupils have English as an additional language and 32 languages overall are spoken. Last year, Creative Multilingualism's Prismatic Translation strand worked with the Poetry Hub to hold a creative writing workshop in Arabic with award-winning Iraqi poet, Adnan Al-Sayegh.

My word is ...

To celebrate European Day of Languages, we spoke to staff and students at the University of Oxford and asked them to share their favourite word in a European language. Watch the videos below to find out which words they chose and why.

What's your favourite word?

We'd love to hear what your favourite word is. Find us on Facebook and Twitter to share your word using the hashtag #mywordis.

Language Lives: what's the best way to learn a language?

In this Language Lives podcast, student Nathaniel Hunt shares his different experiences of learning languages, and explains why he can always remember the French word for 'badger'.

Where next?

More Language Lives

How I discovered the best motivation for learning a language

My language learning ability didn’t get off to a great start. Aged nine I wanted to wish my older cousin a happy new year, and even though I saw her practically every day, the way I felt I could best express my dearest wishes for the start of 1999 was to of course hand-make her a card. In Spanish. Even though she is English. I thought she would probably love this though, because she was studying Spanish in secondary school. So I phoned my uncle, who was about to marry a Venezuelan lady later that year, and Aunty Carolina reliably informed me that ‘Feliz año nuevo’ was the way to go.

Inventing (the) English: Racism, Multilingualism and Medieval Studies

This article was originally published on the Meny Snoweballes blog by Rachel E. Moss

Tweet about multilingualism

EBacc – passport to success in the global economy?

According to School Standards Minister Nick Gibb, the English Baccalaureate (EBacc) is designed to “ensure our pupils are able to compete with educational high performers in a global economy”. Inclusion of a language in the EBacc indicates the government’s commitment to giving young people the language skills they will need if they are to operate successfully in a global environment. But the reality is that language learning in UK schools continues to decline.