Channel View Publications / Multilingual Matters’ 2023 Roundup

As 2023 draws to a close, we look back at all the big moments for the CVP/MM team over the past year.

As ever, we had a busy year for new books with plenty of exciting titles to keep you reading right through 2024! To name just a few, on the Multilingual Matters side we had Quality and Equity in Education edited by Michael Byram, Mike Fleming and Joseph Sheils, Making Connections by John Corbett, Hugo Dart and Bruno Ferreira de Lima, A Panorama of Linguistic Landscape Studies by Durk Gorter and Jasone Cenoz (which is available open access), the second edition of Teaching Languages to Students with Specific Learning Differences by Judit Kormos and Anne Margaret Smith, Spanish So White by Adam Schwartz (including our first ever foray into audiobooks!) and Political Activism in the Linguistic Landscape by Philip Seargeant with Korina Giaxoglou and Frank Monaghan.

Meanwhile, a couple of the key titles this year under the Channel View Publications imprint were Changing Practices of Tourism Stakeholders in Covid-19 Affected Destinations edited by Erdinç Çakmak, Rami K. Isaac and Richard Butler and Control, Abuse, Bullying and Family Violence in Tourism Industries by Elisa Zentveld.

We also continued with our online events, originally established in 2020 during the pandemic, when we weren’t able to attend conferences and wanted another way to promote our books. It’s been great to be able to include Q&As at the end of our events so that anyone watching can have the opportunity to ask an expert in their field a question.

This year we’ve had events with authors Gary Barkhuizen and Chika Takahashi about their books in our Psychology of Language Learning and Teaching series, JPB Gerald speaking about his book Antisocial Language Teaching and Adam Schwartz with his book Spanish So White. These events have been a valuable addition to our calendar and we appreciate everyone who has joined us and asked thoughtful questions of our speakers. We’ll be bringing you some more events with our authors in 2024, so watch this space…

2023 has felt like the first year where we’ve got back to a full conference schedule after tentatively dipping our toe back in the water last year. On the Channel View Publications side we’ve attended CAUTHE, ATLAS and the Surrey conference, while on the Multilingual Matters side we’ve been to AAAL, The Forum on Education Abroad, IATEFL, the Postgraduate Researcher Conference, Language Policy Forum, AILA, BAAL, InDialog, ALAPP, EuroSLA, Better Bilingual EAL Celebration Event and NALDIC. It’s been lovely to reconnect with our authors, friends and fellow publishers and we’re looking forward to another jampacked year in 2024!

Now that most of our staff don’t live in Bristol (we’re spread out from Dunblane in Scotland to Dawlish in Devon), we don’t get to see each other as much as we’d like. To go some way towards remedying this, we’ve established in-person meetings held every couple of months that we all attend in Bristol, with an obligatory lunch together, of course.

In October we announced the creation of the Channel View Publications / Multilingual Matters Open Access Fund. Each year we will fully fund at least one open access publication to support authors who wouldn’t otherwise be able to fund open access publication for their work. We’re really proud of this initiative and hope it will increase visibility, dissemination, use and impact of top-quality academic research, particularly for research originating in Low to Middle Income Countries and scholars working outside of traditional academic institutions.

Also in October, we had some very exciting news – Laura had a baby! Luckily we didn’t have to wait too long to meet Nicholas, as she brought him into the office to visit us when he was just a couple of weeks old!

It’s been a good year for Channel View Publications / Multilingual Matters and we’d like to thank you all for your support and wish you a very merry Christmas and happy new year!

Sociolinguistics Symposium 24 in Ghent

In this post Anna writes about her recent trip to Ghent in Belgium with Rosie for this year’s Sociolinguistics Symposium, our first in-person conference since February 2020.

This was my first in-person conference trip in nearly 3 years, and Rosie’s first (of many!) conferences for MM. It was lovely to see so many familiar faces and meet people for whom this was also their first conference. In fact, it was so exciting that we forgot to take many photos!

There was lots of interest in brand new titles Multilingual Perspectives on Translanguaging edited by Jeff MacSwan and Struggles for Multilingualism and Linguistic Citizenship edited by Quentin Williams, Ana Deumert and Tommaso M. Milani, but delegates were very enthusiastic about all of our list; after over two years of sitting at home sending emails, it was really great to be reminded of why we do what we do.

We both fell in love with Ghent and definitely would have stayed for longer had we realised Ghent Festival was starting just as we left, but we did manage to squeeze in a bit of live music on the last evening of the conference. Other highlights included the local beer and a delicious vegan tasting menu. Oh and Bookz & Booze, which is definitely a possible future direction for MM.

Rosie’s heading to EuroSLA in Fribourg soon, and we’re looking forward to catching up with authors and book-buyers in cities around the world in 2023!

The Role of Interpreting in Difficult International Negotiations

This month we are publishing Essays on Conference Interpreting by James Nolan. In this post the author explains the role of interpreting in difficult international negotiations.

Commonalities and Groups

Negotiating difficulty stems from adversarial positions between two countries or from distances between them in the global geopolitical arena that make it hard to bridge the communication gap.

Although bilateral treaties still serve their purpose, diplomatic relations are increasingly multilateral, channeled in multiple languages through contacts in diverse forums, encompassing far-reaching global issues and broad areas of common ground. In conferences dealing with many areas of knowledge, trade, science, industry or culture, diverse nations often adopt similar public positions and countries align themselves in categories according to geographical and economic realities, regional affinities or shared negotiating postures.

Countries may form coalitions based on similar interests, shared cultural and linguistic origins, similar circumstances, shared perspectives on common problems, or strategic alliances. Even on vital national security interests and problems as daunting as global climate change or pandemics, consensus positions are often possible and compromise solutions often temper sovereignty. The contents of public statements made in debate at global conferences cut across cultural, political, geographic and linguistic lines, and deliberations focused on existential threats, such as climate change, have revealed a vast area of common ground which, by its urgency, eclipses many individual differences in national negotiating postures, as failure to address such threats could imply futility for all other issues and efforts.

The interpreter’s role differs significantly when interpreting in a bilingual setting, be it in a bilateral encounter or legal dispute, or when interpreting into two target languages. In a one-on-one conversation the parties may be sharing the same stage but pursuing divergent aims that shape the public postures they adopt and their expectations of how interpreters should perform. The interpreter is occupationally vulnerable to counter-pressures from his two clients. No matter what he does, one party is apt to be displeased. Accordingly, in many bilateral encounters each party provides its own interpreter, placing each interpreter in a less ambivalent position and reducing role strain.

Identifying with the Principal

When making a speech or argument to an international audience, speakers customarily address the chairperson or presiding officer of the conference, invoking general principles that set the scene and strengthen the argument, and the speech generally embodies a point of view that is in some measure regional or global. For the interpreter, giving a convincing rendition of this type of speech means adopting an impartial attitude while also knowing how to identify with the principal sufficiently to make the interpretation performance effective in terms of advocacy.

James Nolan

j.nolan@aiic.net

For more information about this book please see our website.

If you found this interesting, you might also like English for Diplomatic Purposes edited by Patricia Friedrich.

Digital Conferences and a Virtual Book Fair

Having posted on the blog earlier in the year about our busy upcoming conference season, unfortunately the outbreak of coronavirus worldwide has forced many of these events to be postponed or cancelled. We always look forward to catching up with our authors and other contacts and it’s a real shame that these important gatherings won’t be going ahead, but given the circumstances, it’s a wise decision for the organisers to have made.

So that our authors and customers don’t miss out from a book-buying perspective, we are holding a ‘virtual book fair’ this conference season (originally the brainchild of publisher Trevor Ketner who started the hashtag #AWPVirtualBookfair on Twitter after many presses were forced to pull out of the Association of Writers & Writing Programs conference). If you were hoping to grab a bargain at a forthcoming conference and now won’t be able to, you can use our code SPECIAL40 at the checkout on our website to get 40% off your order.

CAUTHE 2020, Auckland University of Technology (AUT), Aotearoa/New Zealand

In February Sarah made her annual trip to the other side of the world for CAUTHE, held this year at Auckland University of Technology (AUT) in Aotearoa/New Zealand. In this post she fills us in on her best CAUTHE experience ever!

Tihei mauri ora, tihei mauri ora
Ngā iwi o te motu e
Tü ake, karangatia
Tü ake, manaakitia
Ngā iwi, kia ora rā
Ngā iwi, kia ora rā

I haven’t been able to stop singing the conference Māori welcome song since I’ve been back! It was beautifully performed on the first morning by the AUT staff, led by Valance Smith, and all delegates were encouraged to join in each day of the conference. That was only one of the highlights of the conference’s opening morning! Delegates were invited to take part in a musical activity (Boom Time) which was a lot of fun even if you are rhythmically-challenged 😃

Alison Phipps then provided the opening keynote. We are proud to call Alison a friend of our company as well as a series editor and author. Her keynote on inhospitable hospitality and the treatment of refugees was in equal parts stunning, disturbing, breathtaking, uncomfortable and moving. It generated a lot of discussion during the following days and was an amazing start to a brilliant conference.

The first day finished with the welcome reception and another moving performance, this time from the AUT student choir who performed Māori songs and finished with a haka.

The rest of the conference didn’t disappoint, with impressive paper presentations and other great keynotes from John Barrett, the founder of Kapiti Island Tours, on valuing people and community over profit, and from Iis Tussyadiah on AI and smart technologies.

On the second day I co-hosted a workshop on the role of the book with two more of our series editors and authors, Ian Yeoman and Una McMahon-Beattie. It was a fun experience and I hope the attendees found it helpful!

Huge credit and many thanks go to the conference organisers, Tracy Harkison, David Williamson, Glen Bailey (and many others!) for putting on the best CAUTHE I’ve attended!

Post-conference, I visited Wellington and Christchurch where I enjoyed the hospitality of Ian Yeoman and his wife (and dogs!) and Michael Hall and his family (thanks again for the chocolate!), and on my return to Auckland took a day trip to Tauranga.

Already looking forward to next year’s conference in Fremantle!

Sarah

NABE 2020 in Las Vegas!

Laura receiving the NABE 2020 Exhibitor of the Year Award

I have just got back to the office from the 49th annual National Association of Bilingual Education (NABE) conference, which this year was held in glittering Las Vegas! The conference certainly got off to a sparkling start for Multilingual Matters as we were awarded the NABE Exhibitor of the Year award, which I was very excited to accept on behalf of the company at the ribbon-cutting opening ceremony. The ceremony had a bit of an Oscars/Grammys awards feel to it, as Elvis made an appearance! Fortunately, I kept my speech shorter than many heard at the Oscars! We are delighted to have been honoured with this award, having a long history of exhibiting at NABE and very much support the association’s mission of ‘advocating for educational equity and excellence for bilingual/multilingual students in a global society’.

The conference itself was a busy one and I was especially pleased at how many delegates seemed to find just the book they were looking for, to help them with their teaching, research or other work, at our stand. We are rare at the NABE conference in being an exhibitor presenting academic research to the delegates and it was nice that so many appreciated what we bring to the conference. Among the popular titles were Deborah K. Palmer’s book Teacher Leadership for Social Change in Bilingual and Bicultural Education, the 2nd edition of What Teachers Need to Know About Language by Carolyn Temple Adger, Catherine E. Snow and Donna Christian and our enduringly popular textbook Foundations of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism by Colin Baker and Wayne E. Wright. We’re hoping to get the 7th edition of this textbook out in time for NABE 2021, as it’s sure to be a big hit there. Next year’s conference is to be held in Houston, Texas and will be the 50th edition so with both our new textbook and NABE’s anniversary to celebrate, it’s sure to be a good one! We’re looking forward to it already!

Laura

Conference Season 2020

2020 has well and truly begun and we’re looking forward to the arrival of spring, not only for the (hopefully) slightly warmer weather, but also because it marks the beginning of our busy annual conference season.

Sarah at the recent CAUTHE conference with our raffle winner

In fact, Sarah has already been flying the flag for CVP at the CAUTHE conference in Auckland, New Zealand earlier this month, where she was able to have her yearly catch-up with our tourism contacts down under. Laura will be the next to head off, beginning our season of US conference travel with NABE in Las Vegas next week. Next on the schedule is GURT in Washington DC, which Anna will be attending in March. Following hot on her heels Tommi and Laura will be off to the back-to-back AAAL and TESOL conferences held this year in Denver. Then as April rolls around, it will be time for Laura to set off again (although not so far afield this time) for IATEFL in Manchester, our first UK conference of 2020.

As we head into summer, Sarah will be making the trip up north to attend the TEFI conference in York in June. Unfortunately the Sociolinguistics Symposium planned to take place in Hong Kong in June has had to be postponed until 2021, due to the coronavirus outbreak. We’re looking forward to catching up with everyone there next year instead. We then continue our summer travel with EuroSLA in Barcelona, Spain in July, followed by AILA in Groningen, Netherlands the following month.

As well as all these major conferences, we sometimes pop to smaller, more local meets and book launches, and send unattended displays far and wide, so wherever you’re heading this year, look out for our books!

Laura’s trip to Shanghai for the SCRELE Language Teaching for Young Learners Conference

At the end of September, I attended the Shanghai Center for Research in English Language Education (SCRELE) Conference on Language Teaching for Young Learners.

Annamaria Pinter's pre-conference workshop — Annamaria Pinter’s pre-conference workshop

The conference started with a day of workshops for local teachers and students. The morning session I attended was ran by Annamaria Pinter from the University of Warwick, UK. Her session was called ‘Listening to Children’s Voices’ and she spoke about the importance of engaging children in their learning, motivating them and giving them ownership of their studies, and the different ways in which teachers might do this. We participated in several classroom activities, such as questioning Annamaria about the items in her handbag and seeing how many English words we could make out of the letters in the word ‘chocolate’. I was beaten in this task by the Swedish attendee next to me!

During the afternoon session, I attended Jonathan Newton’s workshop on creativity in classroom language teaching. This was also an interactive session during which we discussed the different ways in which teachers can engage learners. This included thinking up unusual ways in which teachers might start a class or do the unexpected. I left the session enthused and inspired with all sorts of ideas…only to remember that I am not a teacher and won’t be putting these ideas into practice!

Rod Ellis' opening keynote — Rod Ellis’ opening keynote

Then, as the pouring rain began, so did the main conference. But we were not concerned, as we were told that in China rain at the start of an event is a good omen as it means that the event will run as smoothly as the rain! And that was true…the conference did run smoothly and was an interesting few days, filled full of talks on the topic of teaching languages to young learners. The conference organisers had invited an impressive array of keynote speakers: Rod Ellis, Maria Pilar Garcia Mayo, Anna-Maria Pinter, Xiaotang Cheng, Yafu Gong and Jonathan Newton, as well as two colloquia organised by Janet Enever and Yuko Goto Butler, and several sessions of papers.

During my time in Shanghai I was also able to squeeze in lunch with my long-standing contact, Huachu Liu and his colleague Angel, of the Shanghai Foreign Language Education Press. We have worked together with SFLEP over many years to enable some of our books to be available in local editions (at local prices) for Chinese readers. It was great to finally see where they are based and to enjoy chatting over a delicious lunch of local specialties.

All in all, it was a great trip to Shanghai, despite the pouring rain!

EuroSLA 2019 in Lund, Sweden

This year the annual EuroSLA conference took place in the beautiful university city of Lund, in southern Sweden. With temperatures unseasonably high and the sun shining, around 300 delegates descended on the city for a busy few days at the conference.

Lourdes Orteaga;s keynote — Lourdes Ortega’s keynote

The opening keynote was given in sign language, with a spoken recording, by Krister Schönström. He discussed why sign language research may be interesting to SLA researchers and vice versa and questioned if learning a second language in the visual modality, such as a sign language, is the same as learning a spoken second language. The ensuing keynotes, by Rob Schoonen, who spoke about language learners’ ability and measurement, and Lourdes Ortega, who gave us an overview of important research to-date, before stressing the need for a reatunement from traditional contexts to embrace equitable multilingualism in diverse contexts, also provoked much conversation and discussion among delegates during the coffee breaks and social activities. The conference was finally drawn to a close by Minna Lehtonen who spoke about the effect of learning and experience on the neurocognitive systems of bilinguals and balanced bilinguals.

Outside the conference 9-5, delegates were treated to a drinks reception at the university’s main hall, which is locally nicknamed ‘The White House’ due to its prominent stature and, of course, white walls. The conference dinner on the Friday night was in an equally impressive building, the Skissernas Museum, in which we enjoyed a tasty Smörgåsbord while seated among the colourful artwork and under a brightly lit mirrored ceiling.

Next year’s EuroSLA conference is the 30th anniversary meeting and will take place in Barcelona in early July. We are looking forward to it already!

Laura

I attended my third Critical Tourism Studies (CTS) conference last month and it was yet again a hopeful and optimistic experience – and included the usual singing and colouring 🙂

The week kicked off with a brilliant keynote from Alison McIntosh and Paul Lynch on the concepts of welcome and hospitality in relation to refugees and asylum seekers.

I managed to get to a few of the sessions – highlights included papers on Lego, homeless tours, Indigenous tourism, and air passenger shaming! And a brave and open dialogue around academia and careers from Catheryn Khoo-Lattimore, Keith Hollinshead and Meghan Muldoon.

The highlight of the evening activities was definitely dinner and the beautiful sunset at Café del Mar – thanks to the organisers, Ana and Kellee!

Sarah