This is a hybrid event! For those attending in- person please come to Room UG02, Upper Ground Floor, University of Westminster, 309 Regent Street London W1B 2HW. The Zoom link will be sent to everyone else prior to the debate.

Universities in the UK are multilingual environments composed of communities of UK, European and International Students and Staff from across the world. Yet, the monolingual and monocultual dominance of English is largely unquestioned in institutional attitudes, practices and policies.

The dynamics of the research student-supervisor relationship is the focus of recent work with topics including research independence, decentred doctoral pedagogy and decolonising doctoral supervision. The current national Next Generation SuperVision Project (RSVP) aims to “transform supervision culture and practice.” There is, however, little or no explicit reference to the place of language in institutional documentation. Should, for example, the Concordat to Support Research Integrity which aims to provide a national framework for good research conduct and its governance acknowledge the place of language work?

Alongside learning and teaching more generally, this Debate asks what is the current place of multilingualism and plurilingualism in the supervision of doctoral research and in the research which they produce? What does language work – or the lack of it – tell us about hierarchies of power in supervisory practice and access to and the production and dissemination of knowledge? Should assumptions concerning linguistic and cultural diversity in research be challenged? What is the evidence for the UK’s ‘world-leading research’ claims if doctoral and post-doctoral research is produced almost exclusively in English and based on a predominantly English-language knowledge base?

The Debate emerges from preliminary Language Acts and Worldmaking research into the place of languages in doctoral research, asking doctoral researchers such questions as: Does your research suffer because of your lack of language skills? Is it enhanced because of your language competence? Does your supervisor’s language competence – or lack thereof – influence the direction your research is taking (for example regarding choice of sources, fieldwork, secondary literature used)?

Panel:

Professor Catherine Boyle, Latin American Cultural Studies and Head of Department of Languages, Literatures and Cultures, King’s College London; Centre for Language and Acts and Worldmaking, KCL.

Dr Margherita Sprio, Reader in Film and Visual Culture and Director of the Graduate School, University of Westminster.

Dr Tian Yan, Senior Education Developer (Doctoral Supervision), University of Exeter.

Dr Alex Pavey, Associate Director (Policy and Operations), King’s Doctoral College.

With Doctoral Researchers from University of Westminster and King’s College London.

Chair: Professor Emerita Debra Kelly, French and Francophone Studies, School of Humanities, University of Westminster; Centre for Language Acts and Worldmaking, KCL

A drinks reception will take place 7:30–8pm for those able to attend in-person