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.

Celebrating linguistic diversity through multilingual poetry

Earlier this year, Prof. Jane Hiddleston and Dr Laura Lonsdale ran three workshops for Year 10 pupils from two East London schools, Haggerston School in Hackney and St Paul’s Way Trust School in Tower Hamlets, where a very high proportion of students speak more than one language.

Language Lives: how jazz can help you understand Ancient Greek poetry

In our latest Language Lives video, Imogen Stead, a student of Classics, explains why her favourite word is the Latin 'squamiger' and why playing trumpet in a jazz setting has helped her understand the rhythms of Ancient Greek poetry.

A poetry of disorder and mayhem: M. NourbeSe Philip

On 26 June the Tobago-born Canadian writer M. NourbeSe Philip read from her work and joined in discussion at TORCH as part of the Great Writers Inspire at Home series. NourbeSe’s great, fractured, multilingual poem Zong! commemorates 133 slaves murdered by the crew of the ship Zong in 1781, and the court case which ensued when the ship-owners tried to make an insurance claim for the loss of their ‘property’.

Creative Multilingualism in opera and song: Roderick Williams visits Oxford

Earlier this year, Oxford was lucky enough to host a visit by Roderick Williams, the leading British baritone.

Ackley Bridge: English, Hindi-Urdu and Bollywood languages on the telly

Ackley Bridge, Channel 4’s new TV drama set in a fictional town in Yorkshire, follows the lives of school pupils, teachers and their families, as two previously segregated schools – one largely white British and the other British Asian – are merged together under one new academy in an attempt at social integration. The programme has opened to mostly favourable reviews, especially on social media, as it enters its fifth episode this week.

Helping to balance the European argument – John le Carré speaks out for language learning

On the occasion of an award ceremony for German teachers, bestselling espionage writer John le Carré highlighted the role that language learning plays in fostering an appreciation of clear language – and truth. Teachers help “to balance the European argument, to make it decent, to keep it civilised”.

LinguaMania Highly Commended in Public Engagement Awards

The Creative Multilingualism research team was delighted to be Highly Commended in the University of Oxford’s Vice-Chancellor's Public Engagement with Research Awards last night for LinguaMania, an event held in collaboration with the Ashmolean Museum earlier this year.

Life in a multilingual community

When I was working as an English language assistant as part of my year abroad in South Tyrol in northern Italy, I naively thought that talking about nationalities to a class of 11- and 12-year-olds would be a fairly harmless topic. Everything started off normally enough. I had pictures of everyone from Welsh footballer Gareth Bale to Canadian pop sensation Justin Bieber and all was well with the world. Then I asked the pupils about where they were from and things got a bit more complicated.

How subtitled films can help you learn a language

I have an indistinct memory of five-year-old me bashfully articulating my first English words. I was so fascinated by the mystery lying behind what I thought was a secret code that I would listen to my father’s music collection and try to translate the lyrics. Our English lessons at school involved doing boring and repetitive exercises and my friends rapidly lost their enthusiasm for languages, but mine was kept alive by music and some animated cartoons my mother used to buy me.

New MHRA-funded Research Associateship

We’re delighted to announce that Creative Multilingualism’s third strand (Intelligibility: Creating Intelligibility across Languages and Communities) has won its funding bid for an MHRA Research Associateship. The role was awarded by the Modern Humanities Research Association (MHRA) and is ‘designed to hasten the completion of research projects of special importance’.

INFOGRAPHIC: Which 3 words do you associate with languages?

Crossing linguistic borders: Debussy’s Pelléas et Mélisande

Although my academic involvement in Creative Multilingualism focuses primarily on a collaboration with the Oxford Lieder Festival, this year has seen a couple of operatic adventures too, and these have helped me to reflect both on my identity as a linguist, and on the relationship between language learning and creativity.