35.1194, Review: Essays in Linguistic Ethnography: Blackledge and Creese (2023)

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LINGUIST List: Vol-35-1194. Wed Apr 10 2024. ISSN: 1069 - 4875.

Subject: 35.1194, Review: Essays in Linguistic Ethnography: Blackledge and Creese (2023)

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Date: 10-Apr-2024
From: Eric ALVAREZ [eric.alvarez.perez at gmail.com]
Subject: Applied Linguistics: Blackledge and Creese (2023)


Book announced at https://linguistlist.org/issues/34.2702

AUTHOR: Adrian Blackledge
AUTHOR: Angela Creese
TITLE: Essays in Linguistic Ethnography
SUBTITLE: Ethics, Aesthetics, Encounters
PUBLISHER: Multilingual Matters
YEAR: 2023

REVIEWER: Eric ALVAREZ

SUMMARY

Adrian Blackledge and Angela Creese’s “Essays in Linguistic
Ethnography: Ethics, Aesthetics, Encounters” investigates novel
pathways that add depth to comprehending the intricacies of social
encounters between distinct groups of people. The authors advocate for
an approach in linguistic ethnography that shifts away from the
viewpoint of the researcher. Instead, the authors seek to balance
accounts of the complexities of people’s lives by amplifying the
voices of collaborators, participants, and researchers. The essays
consider methods of presenting research from arts and philosophy that
convey the ambivalence and the multiplicity of perspectives found in
the field more effectively than conventional academic writing. Through
a polyphonic approach to ethnographic writing, Blackledge and Creese
aim to represent the “experiential, aesthetic, emotional, moral and
ethical values people bring to encounters with others” (p.3). The
essays show how new, less deterministic ways of writing
ethnographically level the often-implicit hierarchical
researcher-participant-collaborator dynamics. The implications are
significant, as Blackledge and Creese take ethnography, and the
curious reader, into the unknown to “disrupt the orderly logic of the
ethnographic account” (p.4). At the crossroads of linguistic
ethnography, art, and philosophy, this polyphonic collection of essays
is suited to an interdisciplinary audience (students and researchers)
seeking new ways to explore, analyze, and balance accounts of everyday
social encounters between people.

The book delves in various facets of the TLANG research project
through 12 essays which are divided into three sections.

Part 1, Encounters in Linguistic Ethnography, establishes the book’s
orientation and includes the first two essays.

Essay 1, “Linguistic Ethnography”, introduces the reasoning,
structure, and guiding principles of the book. For example, that
“Analysis of human relations (…) must account for multiplicity and
ambivalence” (p.3). This essay also summarizes the collection “that
bring[s] to bear thought and practice developed in the arts and in
philosophy” (p.3), providing theoretical insights and practical
perspectives of linguistic ethnography. In Essay 1, the goals and
framework of the TLANG project which “studied encounters between
people in contexts of social and linguistic diversity” (p.6) are
outlined, highlighting the primary research outcomes. The authors
refer to four different books that were generated as creative outputs
of the TLANG project, and that also serve as anchors in the ensuing
essays. Next, Blackledge and Creese identify eight researchers whose
“reflexive methodological accounts” (p.13) introduce the final four
essays.

Essay 2, “Developing an Ethical-Aesthetic Perspective in Linguistic
Ethnography”, discusses the theoretical underpinnings in Part 2 and
Part 3. It engages with the ethical-aesthetic approach which provides
a way “to represent multiple voices without the insistence on the
imposition of meaning or explanation (stepping) back from the
authoritative, authorial voice of the academic researcher, allowing
space for the inclusion of the of the voices of the others” (p.18).
Blackledge and Creese tackle issues of responsibility, temporality,
and spatiality, articulating an approach that balances traditional
hierarchies in the research process, heightens the voices of the
researchers and the researched, and cultivates a perspective that
refrains from explaining others’ cultures. The authors embrace the
ambiguity and the complexity of everyday life, advocating for creative
writing practices that depict the incompleteness of observed social
interaction. Specifically, poetry and theater are rich mediums through
which social and linguistic experiences can be represented in all
their multiplicity and ambiguity. Indeed, “in adopting ethnographic
poetry and ethnographic drama to represent the voices of participants
in research, we have found the means to produce those voices as vital,
vibrant and visible” (p.20-21).

Part 2, Enacting Linguistic Ethnography, details the process of
writing and performing linguistic ethnographic research that
creatively represents social practices. Five essays explore how
research results were transformed through creative curation into
poetry and theater.

Essay 3, “Polyphony”, refers to an artistic result of the TLANG
project where everyday practices are presented in a Birmingham market.
This essay underscores an approach to writing ethnographically that
allows multiple voices to be represented independently. Following
Bartlett (2012), Blackledge and Creese propose that “Polyphony refers
to the multifractal coherence that is achieved through the
representation of multiple voices and world views within a single
text” (p.34). The authors seek to do away with interposing authorial
comment to attenuate the often-privileged perspectives of researchers.
As such, they address “the question of narrative authority and
discursive hierarchy” (p.35). This essay proposes that
ethnographically collected and curated voices can stand alone,
underscore mundane daily experiences, and represent the coexistence of
linguistic and cultural differences found in the various social
encounters of everyday life.

Essay 4, “Poetry”, examines the potential of poetic approaches in
ethnographic writing. This essay aligns with the idea that poetry
infuses ethnographic narratives with the rhyme and rhythm of daily
life. Indeed, “Ethnographic poems rely on a belief in the ability of
poetry to speak to something universal, or to clarify some part of the
human condition” (p.59). For example, in Blackledge and Creese’s book
Voices of a City Market: An Ethnography, poems capture the
multilayered, pluri-sensory experiences in a market. Moreover,
following Burnside (2019), the authors advance that poetry provides a
medium through which the cacophony of time can be re-lived as the
melody of an unfolding social encounter. In ethnographic research, not
only does the poem hold the capacity to introduce novel perspectives
and unique modes of expression, but it also does so while maintaining
“the same responsibility to technical features as does any other poem”
(p.60).

Essay 5, “Ethnographic Drama”, investigates how performance may
enhance understanding, and elevate how social life is portrayed.
Performance “allows research participants to speak on their own
behalf, without interpretative intervention” (p.77). The authors argue
that ethnographic drama which “employs techniques of theatre
production” (p.76) may be a strong vector for engaging the public with
research results. Indeed, “Performative ways of enacting observed
social practice challenge existing means of representing the world”
(Denzin & Lincoln, 2005; cited by Blackledge and Creese, 2023).
Referring to Interpretations – An Ethnographic Drama, Blackledge and
Creese advance that performing research findings may inspire audiences
to think critically, but curation and creation are necessary to
transform observed social encounters into ethnographic drama. Finally,
the authors argue that unlike the classic academic report,
ethnographic drama encompasses a broader range. That is, when social
practices are performed their interpretative possibilities are given
“an exponential quality” (p.14).

Essay 6, “Performance”, applies ethnographic drama’s potential by
observing a volleyball team during their activities since their
“social practice (is) not only polyphonic and polyrhythmic, but also
polysemiotic” (p.90). The authors refer to Volleyball – An
Ethnographic Drama, to investigate Brechtian (1978) theatrical
techniques where the estrangement of characters allows audience
members to understand that they are watching excerpts of human
exchanges. Some methods involved researchers consistently being on
stage and engaging in diverse activities. Moreover, Blackledge and
Creese argue that careful curation of social encounters using
theatrical techniques like shadowing, choreography, and speech renders
the audience unable to see that they are observing the real world,
thus creating a need for the audience to scrutinize everyday life with
a discerning perspective.

Essay 7, “Politics”, concludes Part 2. It details observations in a
major state-of-the-art city library during a period of political
tension. Blackledge and Creese in the play Ode to the City – An
Ethnographic Drama, depict the social world to the audience through
four characters, insisting that “ethnographic drama is (…) a creative
curation of field notes, transcripts, audio-recordings,
video-recordings, conversations and observations” (p.114). The authors
evoke issues of economics, power, and politics. Following Brecht
(1978) Blackledge and Creese suggest that “The task of theatre is to
show the world as it changes, and also how it may be changed” (p.122).
Moreover, for the linguistic ethnographer transformation entails
turning their research outcomes into ethnographic drama through an
artistic writing process. Curation of these rich sources of data thus
engender a dramatic form of creative non-fiction.

Part 3, Relations in Linguistic Ethnography, shifts focus to
researcher subjectivity in five essays, showing how researchers
portray research team relations and research participant relationships
through the ‘research vignette’, or “mini auto-ethnography” (p.127).

Essay 8, “Relational Ethics”, is grounded on the work of the French
philosopher Emmanuel Levinas. This essay provides a point of departure
to understand human interaction in everyday encounters. According to
Blackledge and Creese “For Levinas, individuals no longer serve
themselves but are bound to the Other relationally” (p.134).
Individuals thus attain their uniqueness and ethical character through
their interactions with others. This essay thus accounts for
“compassion, humanity, empathy, and understanding” (p.15) in human
encounters throughout the research process. The authors advance that
relational ethics allows to develop an awareness beyond mundane
encounters, and that their ethnographic research continually showed
how individuals actively sought connection and engagement. Finally,
the authors propose a theoretical approach that directs the analysis
of research issues at the crossroads of relations and relationships.

Essay 9, “Responsibility and Trust”, considers the key notion of
‘moral spacing’ in business and cultural heritage locations. Indeed,
“’Moral space’ requires attention to the stance people take towards
one another (and is) not easily synthesisable in a linguistic or
social analysis of stance” (p.148). Blackledge and Creese delve into
what responsibility is from the relational ethics paradigm discussed
in Essay 8 above, proposing that responsibility is an orientation to
others rather than to an obligation. In the field, moral possibilities
abound in researcher-researched relationships. Other than requiring an
openness to distinct world views, the authors show how navigating
difference or diversity, or needing to make quick decisions, required
both ethical and moral evaluations.

Essay 10, “Strangeness and Proximity”, studies ethics in relation to
the plurality and presence of others. Accordingly, “Plurality is not
made possible through ‘fraternity – a common identity or a
cosmopolitan sense of sameness – but relies on the preservation of
distance and strangeness” (Biesta, 2014: 21; cited by Blackledge &
Creese, 2023: 161). Based on research from a study in the TLANG
project, political categories were found not be conducive to
harmonious field relation development. The authors return to the idea
of making the strange familiar advancing that “proximity does not
erase strangeness but maintains plurality and difference” (p.16).
Blackledge and Creese suggest that strangeness is primordial and that
it enriches the social encounter. Strangeness is therefore not to be
sugar-coated and made easy to understand; instead what is needed are
approaches “which build a relational ethics which works with the
concept of individual uniqueness” (p.173).

Essay 11, “Difference”, underscores philosopher Pierce and Levinas’
“theoretical insights into the way difference is conceptualized”
(p.191) by discussing cross-disciplinarity, ethics, and the production
of knowledge from an anti-subjective framework. Drawing on expertise
from researchers in “law, business and entrepreneurship, and sport,
exercise and public health” (p.16), Blackledge and Creese delve into
notions of responsibility-vulnerability-susceptibility when
researchers are faced with traumatic accounts in a semi-legal context.
The authors look at the construction of meaning as a shared, and
essential process in team research.  Blackledge and Creese argue for
an ethical viewpoint when introspecting on the potential ramifications
of research and the human impact of those ramifications. Indeed, in
encountering difference, the researcher-researched distinction is a
critical alterity, and shared vulnerability.

Essay 12, “Movement and Affect”, focuses on investigating ambiguity
and doubt in written depictions of beliefs, feelings, behaviors,
perceptions, and other conceptions in linguistic research. Blackledge
and Creese “believe that the creative arts, and ethnographic drama in
particular, offer a promising direction for reporting, representing,
and interpreting ethnographic research findings” (p.196), or writing
which is less deterministic. Moreover, the authors delve into the
significance of the mundane, or “irrelevancies” (p.16) based on their
field notes as participant-observers in sports environments in the
TLANG project. The ordinary, undramatic nature of daily life, for
example, led researchers to reflect on ephemeral instants in
ethnographic studies, and led others to their participation in the
sport under investigation.

EVALUATION

Blackledge and Creese accomplish what they set out to do with their
collection of 12 essays in linguistic ethnography. First, the authors
creatively curate their research outcomes into “less deterministic
forms of writing” (p.208) such as  poetry and theater. By drawing on
methods from artistic and philosophical paradigms the complexities of
diverse social encounters come to be understood at a deeper level not
only by readers/spectators, but also by researchers. Indeed,
anthropologists studying child pragmatics for many decades have argued
that a multidisciplinary approach allows “researchers, more than other
groups (to be) sensitive to the range of knowledge that appropriate
languages use demands” (Ochs, 1979:7). Moreover, the authors’ goal of
balancing the power relations that may exist in the
researcher-researched relationship is also met as all collaborators,
participants, and researchers’ voices are given a fair platform where
one (typically scientific) voice is not superior to another. Next, the
aim of shifting away from the conventional academic report is
attained. Clearly, through creative curation of their research
outcomes for example into poetry and theater, Blackledge and Creese
maintain both the ambivalence and the multiplicity of views found in
real-world social encounters. Specifically, the polyphonic approach
was key in depicting the lived emotional, and ethical values that come
together when people encounter others.

The book will surely be an asset to researchers and students across
disciplines that work with and report on human social encounters in a
diverse range of field sites. The masterfully written collection of
essays will also be an invaluable addition to research methods
seminars/courses across disciplines such as applied linguistics,
sociolinguistics, and of course linguistic anthropology (to name a
few). Critically this is because in ethnographic studies, researchers
are typically immersed in a field imbued with their affective and
cognitive investment (Bertucci, 2007), emotions that should be
analyzed and integrated into the research process (Ghasarian, 2004).
Overall, while the book remains reader friendly, and while the
theoretical concepts are well explained it is nevertheless an
intellectually dense œuvre. It is therefore most likely accessible to
scholars already familiar with research in ethnography, art, and
philosophy. Notwithstanding, the essays organically complement each
other. However, even if the essays “are theoretically and
methodologically linked (the authors) do not attempt to impose on them
an overall coherence” (p.16) which shifts away from the traditional
academic report. Through the creative curation of their research
outcomes Blackledge and Creese invite readers to feel, see, smell, and
think etc. deeply about the embodied social interactions of people in
various multi-diverse field sites in the U.K. including a market, a
library, and a community center.

Blackledge and Creese meet their goals by providing a captivating
account of the ethics and aesthetics of investigating mundane social
encounters. Specifically, the authors reflect on the scientific need
of a realistic, reflexive, situated, and polyphonic writing of the
relationships between researchers and the researched (Prigent, 2021)
by adopting contemporary writer-researcher postures (Buliard, 2022).
In doing so, the authors demonstrate how everyday gatherings could be
and perhaps should only be understood within their interactional,
dialogic context (Bakhtin, 1981)--in other words, how social and
linguistic experiences may be richly represented in all their
multiplicity and ambiguity. At the crossroads of linguistic
ethnography, art, and philosophy, this polyphonic account is suitable
for interdisciplinary scholars seeking novel ways to explore, analyze,
and level accounts of everyday human encounters. The collection thus
contributes invaluable insight regarding research-based creative
practice through the production of theater, poetry, and research
vignettes. In this sense, Blackledge and Creese’s compelling and
creative curation Essays in Linguistic Ethnography paves a new path,
representing a significant polyphonic advancement in the field of
linguistic ethnography.

REFERENCES

Bakhtin, M.M. (1981). The Dialogic Imaginations: Four Essays, ed. M.
Holquist. Austin, TX: University of Texas Press.

Bartlett, T. (2012). The Concepts of Voice, Heteroglossia and
Polyphony in Literature, Sociology and Linguistics: An SFL
Perspective. Cardiff: University of Cardiff.

Bertucci, M. (2007). Chronique “linguistique”. Le chercheur et son
terrain : peut-on parler d’un “objet de recherche ” en sciences
humaines et sociales ? Le français aujourd’hui, vol. 159 (pp.
113-118). https://doi.org/10.3917/lfa.159.0113

Biesta, G. (2014). Making pedagogy public: For the public, of the
public, or in the interest of publicness? In J. Burdick, J.A. Sandlin,
and M.P. O’Malley (eds) Problematizing Public Pedagogy (pp. 15-25).
New York: Routledge.

Brecht, B. (1978). Brecht on Theatre. London: Bloomsbury Academic.

Buliard, M. (2022). Écrire l’enquête, situer l’enquêteur : pour une
anthropologie scientifique, éthique & politique. Acta fabula, vol. 23,
n. 5, Notes de lecture.
https:///www.fabula.org/acta/document14421.php.

Burnside, J. (2019). The Music of Time: Poetry in the 20th Century.
London: Profile Books.

Denzin, K.N. and Lincoln, Y. (2005). The discipline and practice of
qualitative research. In N.K. Denzin and Y. Lincoln (eds) The
Routledge Handbook of Qualitative Research (pp. 1-32). Thousand Oaks,
CA: Sage.

Ghasarian, C. (2004). De l’Ethnographie à l’anthropologie réflexive.
Nouveaux terrains, nouvelles pratiques, nouveaux enjeux. Paris :
Armand Colin.

Ochs, E. (1979). What Child Language Can Contribute to Pragmatics. In
E. Ochs and B. Schieffelin (eds) Developmental Pragmatics (pp. 1-17).
New York: Academic Press.

Prigent, S. (2021). L’anthropologie comme conversation. La relation
d’enquête au cœur de l’écriture. Toulouse : Anacharsis.

ABOUT THE REVIEWER

Eric Alvarez holds a Ph.D. in linguistics from Sorbonne Nouvelle
University, and he is also a translator. His thesis, based on
ethnographic data collected in a bilingual environment, examines
aspects of the acquisition and socialization into the use of heritage
Spanish by a third-generation child. He shows through a
multidisciplinary perspective how linguistic and cultural practices
reveal how identities are constructed through the multiple voices
echoed across space and time.



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