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.

Remembering Vadim Levanov: playwright and producer of new Russian plays (1967-2011)

A journalist from Togliatti, Valera Trubin, recently contacted me and asked whether I would be willing to contribute to a book of testimonials about Vadim Levanov.

What are the Yoruba Sonnets? Interview with Lekan Babalola

Ahead of the Yoruba Sonnets concert at Wolfson College, Oxford on 15 February, we spoke to Grammy Award-winning Lekan Babalola about the upcoming performance and what inspired him to pair ancient Nigerian verse with the contemporary sound of Western Funk.

What are the Yoruba Sonnets?

Dance Ahead performing at the Performing Languages conference

What does it mean to perform language?

‘I don’t understand anything you’re saying when you say it, but even if you had no translator, I would follow you to a cult compound and never leave.’

Illustration of an Elegy written in a country churchyard

Gray's "Elegy" in translation: a multilingual digital humanities project

Thomas Gray's "Elegy Written in a Country-Churchyard" (1751) is, according to the Digital Miscellanies Index, the most anthologized poem of the eighteenth century and one of the most widely and frequently translated, paraphrased, and imitated poems in the English language. With to date at least 266 translations into at least 40 languages, the "Elegy" has inspired translators ever since the earliest translations into Latin appeared in the early 1760s.

Poetry in Translation, Poetics of Translation

How can translation make an ancient text speak to present day experiences? Bereavement is universal, but the expressions of loss differ widely, perhaps because loss itself is of various types.

RTKAL performing at Creative Multilingualism Conference

Patois and grime: language and identity

As part of my postdoc at Oxford, I was involved in organising ‘Languages in the Creative Economy’ for Strand 4 of Creative Multilingualism, in collaboration with Professor Rajinder Dudrah and Dr. Daniel Tyler-Mctighe, which took place at the Birmingham Rep Theatre on 30 November 2018. Here, I want to reflect on a provocation by the grime artist RTKAL.

Sea calligram poem from Museu Valencià d'Etnologia

Finding poetry in a new language

This morning, instead of going to Oxford School of English, where I usually teach, I walked the short distance from my house to St. Anne’s College to meet Kate Clanchy and a group of her student-writers from Oxford Spires Academy.

Montage of photos from the Languages in the Creative Economy Symposium

Languages in the Creative Economy: On Equality, Inequality and Unequality…

On Friday 30 November, a diverse group of theatre-makers, performers and academics met in a rehearsal room at the Birmingham REP theatre to think about the relationship between creativity and multilingualism in the context of the performing arts. The atmosphere was informal and unstructured – a rather different dynamic from most academic events, and one which certainly created a space for stories to be told, voices heard and dialogues staged.

You had me at Whagwan image by Id-iom via Flickr

Chicken Merry Hawk Deh Near!

The title of this piece, ‘chicken merry hawk deh near!’, is an old Jamaican proverb, meaning ‘every cloud with a silver lining has its dark cloud’, or ‘even in the happiest of times one must be watchful’.

Korean pop: BTS and fan translation

That digital technology is changing the way we live is a truism often repeated but rarely do we hear it mentioned in the same breath as democratization or promotion of minor languages. But the nature of digital innovation is more multifarious and mysterious than one might have been led to expect in recent years.

THE BIRDS: using theatre to explore multilingualism

Did you know that corvids, the crow family, are native to every single continent, and found everywhere except the polar ice caps? Consider how many languages they must encounter throughout the world, how many different names they must have.

Imagine five nests, all belonging to different species of birds, all with their own unique language skill set, and primary school children being encouraged to meet them, join them, learn their language and teach the birds elements of their own home language.

Guide to directing foreign-language plays

Dear future theatre directors!

Here are a few thoughts about directing foreign-language dramas. I have tried to be honest about my experience as a play director and translator of new Russian plays. I hope to be encouraging, while also being realistic.

Do: