Shining My Light on Bilingualism and Fulbright. Olga Aleksandrovna Litvinova

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      As I said, one of the reasons why I chose to conduct this interview project was my love for journalism where being able to talk to your interviewees effectively and reporting facts in the manner fit for a specific target audience and publication is key. Being exposed to various types of journalism (particularly political) facilitated my learning in my senior years at university to such an extent that I was secretly dreaming of pursuing a career in this domain. This never happened, but every once in a while I would pick up books on journalism.

      In the attempt to become a better interviewer for a couple of projects I had in mind, I started reading one by a journalist Dean Nelson called Talk to Me: How to Ask Better Questions, Get Better Answers, and Interview Anyone Like a Pro (Nelson, 2019). One phrase he used stuck in my mind, «Asking good questions keeps us from living in our own echo chambers». What the author means is that in investigating other people’s perspectives on some issues we revisit and reevaluate our own. Nelson goes on to say that one doesn’t even have to be a professional journalist to interview others as asking questions is essentially what we do almost on a daily basis. If we are trained to formulate our questions correctly, that would be able to «draw out personalities and understandings».

      Actually, interviews («qualitative interviewing», Rubin and Rubin, 2005) are a popular qualitative research tool in social sciences, including applied linguistics. This is especially the case for studies «that aim to investigate participants» identities, experiences, beliefs and orientations’ (Talmy, 2010). In the late 1960s and early 1970s narratives became an object and «a legitimate means» of doing research in history, education, anthropology, etc. (Briggs, 1986). Interviews were thought of as an effective way of eliciting different types of narratives to be investigated. This process is referred to as narrative inquiry. Of special interest have been so-called «personal speakers experiences» which draw on stories about «real, imagined, or possible events» (Pavlenko, 2007). Linguistic autobiographies as a subtype of such narratives have been one of the most common tools to study bilingualism. Different groups of bilinguals have been studied over the decades and there are a lot of papers presenting an overview of such research (e.g., Mann, 2010).

      Among a huge number of studies, there were two books that I found truly inspirational for my own research into bilingualism. The first one was by a British linguist David Block called «Multilingual Identities in a Global City: London Stories» (Block, 2006). What I loved a lot about this book that despite being rigidly structured and presenting an extensive literature review on bilingualism and second language identities in particular, it had some storytelling elements as well following different individuals (immigrants, students, teachers, etc.) as they were living through their own unique linguistic experiences with London as a platform for their adventures (with obvious ups and downs). The author was able to provide the context for all the interviews and grouped them either according to the participants’ country of origin or occupation. To me, this research appeared to be an engaging attempt to humanize bilinguals while still examining their life stories through a research lens.

      Another book that fascinated me was by Alastair Pennycook and Emi Otsuji titled «Metrolingualism. Language in the City» (Alastair, Otsuji, 2015). Metrolingualism «describes the ways in which people of different and mixed backgrounds use, play with and negotiate identities through language» with the focus being «not on language systems but on languages as emergent from contexts of interaction». Sydney, the city where the research is undertaken, acts as a backdrop for new language identities transformed by «global and local practices». The authors draws a lot of attention to their diverse participants’ everyday experiences making these individuals seem like actors on the vibrant multicultural Sydney stage where multilingual street signs also serve as an essential element of the action.

      Besides being a linguist and a language teacher, I am a keen traveler as well. So, I instantly fell in love with the idea of analyzing bilingualism as it is incorporated into a city’s texture as well as its soundscape and landscape. As I knew I would be living very close to NYC, I couldn’t help thinking about using its multiculturalism as a platform for my own explorations of language practices there. For sure, I would not be the first person to have attempted that, so in order to make my work more original, I wanted to incorporate my future home state, New Jersey, and my host university town into the picture. As I was hoping to be able to travel to other places across in the U.S., that would make sense to include them into my narrative as well.

      Even before starting this project I had an idea to make it into something not purely scientific. I agree that autobiographic narratives «are interesting and thus have aesthetic value and can engage the readers. They are accessible and thus can appeal to larger audiences» (Pavlenko, 2007). So, the purpose of my interview project was to collect linguistic СКАЧАТЬ