Event: New Technologies in Intercultural Communication

You are invited to join us on Monday, December 08, at Macquarie University for a workshop to explore New Technologies in Intercultural Communication.

Description: Digital technologies are in the process of fundamentally reshaping communication. There are significant opportunities: chatbots can personalize language teaching in a way unimaginable until recently and machine translation promises to widen participation for ever more people, regardless of their language proficiency. Yet these opportunities come with the harms caused by screen addiction, surveillance, and environmental destruction.

In this one-day research symposium we move beyond both the hype and the fearmongering to examine the real-life use of digital technologies in multilingual and intercultural communication. How can digital technologies help to bridge language barriers to social participation? What new barriers do they create? And what research agenda do we need to harness technological transformation for social inclusion in our linguistically and culturally diverse society?

Attendance is free but places are limited. To secure your place, sign up for the event at https://events.humanitix.com/new-technologies-in-intercultural-communication or scan the QR code.

Date and venue

Monday, Dec 08, 2025
Macquarie University, Wallumattagul Campus, Ryde

Program [updated Nov 21, 2025]

09:30-10:00      Arrival, Meet & Greet
10:00-10:30      Welcome
10:30-11:15      Earvin Cabalquinto (Monash U), The myth of digital inclusion: Locating non-digital influences in the migrant’s home
11:15-12:00      Julia Kantek and Thilakshi Mallawa Arachchi (WSU), Sustaining livelihoods in ‘the shadows’: International students’ use of GenAI as digital shadow care support
12:00-13:00      Lunch break
13:00-13:45     Ana Sofia Bruzon (MQ), Using tech in bilingual transnational parenting
13:45-14:30      Hye Eun Chu (MQ), Bridging Language and Inquiry in Diverse Science Classrooms
14:30-15:15      Yeong-Ju Lee (MQ), Social Media and Language Learning
15:15-15:45      Coffee break
15:45-16:30      Laura Smith-Khan (UNE), “Connectivity is the central thing”: Developing legal literacy post-migration
16:30-17:00      Closing panel: Gerard Goggin (UWS) and Ingrid Piller (UHH&MQ), moderated by Sarah McMonagle (UHH)
17:00-18:30      Reception & networking

Abstracts and bio blurbs

Earvin Cabalquinto (Monash U), The myth of digital inclusion: Locating non-digital influences in the migrant’s home

Abstract: The home is a vital space for shaping an individual’s personal, familial and social relations and growth. In an increasingly digital and global economy, such domestic terrain has been reconfigured into a highly mediated and transnational space. For migrants and their networks who constantly navigate their marginalised position in contemporary societies, a home at a distance embodies the paradox of cross-border and virtual mobility. Homing necessitates digital media use, a tactic for coping with the pains of physical separation. Yet, everyday connections, impacted by intersecting social, economic and political factors, become a source of frustrations and discomfort. In this provocation, I offer a critical reflection of the principles, dynamics, and contradictions of digital inclusion by unlocking the migrants’ mediated home. I draw key insights from more than ten years of multi-sited interviews and visual ethnography among the Filipino diaspora in Australia and their local and transnational networks. Significantly, I attempt to locate and centre the asymmetrical non-digital factors – personal, cultural, economic, and political – that deeply impacts the enactment, embodiment and negotiations of the home among migrants and their distant networks. In sum, the presentation provides a critical vantage point to further rethink digital inclusion by disrupting one-size-fits-all and geographically-bounded solutions and foreground situated, relational, and transnational approaches for understanding and redressing intertwined social and digital inequalities.

Bio: Dr Earvin Charles B. Cabalquinto is an Australian Research Council (ARC) Discovery Early Career Research Award (DECRA) Research Fellow and Senior Lecturer in the School of Media, Film and Journalism at Monash University, Australia. He has held Visiting fellowships in Lancaster University, United Kingdom (2019), University of Jyväskylä, Finland (2021), Canada Excellence Research Chair (CERC) in Migration and Integration, Toronto Metropolitan University, Canada (2024), and Asia Research Institute, National University of Singapore (2025). He is the author of (Im)mobile Homes: Family Life at a Distance in the Age of Mobile Media” (Oxford University Press). He is the co-author of Philippine Digital Cultures: Brokerage Dynamics on YouTube (Amsterdam University Press). He sits in the editorial board of top journals, including the International Journal of Cultural Studies, Convergence:  The international journal of research into new media technologies, and Journal of Global Ageing. His research on the impacts of digitalisation on migration has been widely published in top-tier journal outlets and specialised edited collections.  His research agenda is driven by critically exploring the dynamics and impacts of digital inclusion and exclusion among migrants and their networks who navigate an increasingly digital and global society. To know more about his projects and outputs, visit www.ecabalquinto.com.

Julia Kantek & Thilakshi Mallawa Arachchi, Sustaining livelihoods in ‘the shadows’: International students’ use of GenAI as digital shadow care support

Abstract: International students are navigating a multitude of structural challenges, including rising living costs, shifting visa conditions, and an intensifying housing affordability crisis. These pressures unfold within a broader post-welfare context, marked by reduced government support for temporary migrants and limited investment in student services. This paper explores how international students use Generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI) to navigate these challenges. Drawing on focus groups (N=3) and interviews (N=21), we reveal how ChatGPT (and similar GenAI tools) function as digital shadow care infrastructures, helping students ‘get by’ and navigate everyday precarity (legal, financial, and emotional). By situating GenAI within students’ broader care assemblages, this study contributes to digital migration scholarship, highlighting how GenAI tools ‘fill the cracks’ left open by inadequate formal supports, as well as identifying the factors that shape GenAI use within these contexts. Overall, we argue for policies that not only recognise these shadowed practices, but educate and empower migrants to use AI tools safely and effectively.

Western Sydney University Research team: Dr Julia Kantek, Dr Donna James, Dr Thilakshi Mallawa Arachchi & Distinguished Professor Gerard Goggin

Bio: Dr Julia Kantek is a Lecturer in the School of Social Sciences at Western Sydney University. Julia has developed research expertise at the intersection of youth sociology, migration studies, and diaspora engagement. Her work explores the ways various transitions (such as those induced by migration, education, and work) shape belonging, identity formation, and wellbeing. Julia is currently co-leading two funded projects through the Young & Resilient Research Centre and the Institute for Culture & Society at Western Sydney University. One explores how digital technologies function as infrastructures of care for migrants, while the other investigates how young people from Western Sydney navigate work-related aspirations and transitions.

Bio: Dr Thilakshi Mallawa Arachchi is a researcher, educator, and activist with a passion for justice, working to nurture caring, connected communities through collective action. Her interdisciplinary background spans digital media studies, media literacy, migration, feminism, higher education, and climate activism. She completed her PhD at Western Sydney University in March 2025, investigating how cultural institutions, such as public libraries, can co-design equity-centred social media literacy education interventions with women from refugee backgrounds.

Ana Sofia Bruzon, Using tech in bilingual transnational parenting

Abstract: Against the background of the digitisation of all spheres of life, including childhood, this project asks how transnational parents use new technologies to support their children’s heritage language learning and use. Guided by a conceptual framework based in language policy and a sociolinguistic ethnographic approach, interview, questionnaire and observational data were collected from 17 Spanish-speaking families in Australia to examine digital technology use in the family, particularly in relation to heritage language maintenance.

Findings show that each of three focal technologies – TV and film, digital communication platforms, and learning apps – has a primary purpose which is not related to heritage language maintenance but results in specific affordances and constraints for heritage language learning and use. The primary purpose of TV and film is to provide entertainment. This allows for beneficial linguistic input in Spanish but is also constrained by child language proficiency and resistance against particular shows and language choices. Similarly, digital communication platforms serve the primary purpose of connecting with geographically dispersed kin. This provides valuable interactional opportunities in Spanish for children but is limited by the inability of distant kin to engage in child-centred communication strategies and is also subject to practical constraints such as time differences. Finally, learning apps are largely brought into the home by school requirements and serve the primary purpose of learning. Learning apps offer precious explicit and implicit Spanish language learning opportunities but parents worry that they expose children to harms such as excessive screen time.

Overall, the project constitutes a novel contribution to the fields of family language policy and heritage language maintenance by concluding that digital technologies constitute a double-edged sword: their value in supporting multilingual practices in a monolingual society is significant but countervailed by limitations inherent in these technologies, particularly as they relate to broader developmental harms.

Bio: Ana Sofia Bruzon is a PhD candidate in the Department of Linguistics at Macquarie University, Sydney, and a member of the Language on the Move research team. Her research interests include education policy and practice, digital technology in education, and the intersection of language, education and law.

Her PhD focuses on heritage language maintenance, language and education policy, and the digital practices of transnational families. The thesis examines how transnational parents use new technologies to support their children’s language learning and education. Her MRes research, published as Piller, Bruzon, and Torsh (2023), focused on language and education policy and practice, investigating the online linguistic practices of multilingual schools. Ana has a background in law and is a member of the State Bar of California in the U.S., where she practised as an immigration, real estate, and family lawyer. Ana is fluent in English, Spanish, and Italian.

Hye-Eun Chu, Bridging Language and Inquiry in Diverse Science Classrooms

Abstract: Science classrooms are becoming increasingly multilingual and digital, raising urgent questions about how to integrate inquiry-based learning with language support. This presentation synthesises four studies that examine these challenges across Korean and Australian contexts. A survey of 144 Korean teachers revealed strong self-efficacy in inquiry teaching but low confidence in supporting the language needs of culturally and linguistically diverse (CLD) students. Classroom observations in Korea showed that CLD students, despite linguistic difficulties, contributed creative and reflective ideas during model co-construction, enriching group learning. An intervention with Korean elementary students developed a Digital Science Text Reading Literacy (DSTRL) program, which significantly improved their abilities to search, read, and evaluate multimodal science texts. Finally, interviews with Australian and Korean physics teachers highlighted both enthusiasm and concerns about Language-Focused Teaching (LFT), balancing benefits for engagement and conceptual learning against practical constraints. Together, these findings call for teacher professional development that embeds language as integral to inquiry and leverages digital tools for inclusive participation.

Bio: Dr Chu is a Senior Lecturer in Macquarie’s School of Education. Her research has focused on several key areas, including monitoring students’ understanding of science concepts, implementing formative assessment in science classrooms, interdisciplinary approaches to teaching science, affective factors affecting science learning, and the integration of the arts into the teaching of science and related subjects (STEAM). Additionally, she has conducted research in conceptual development in science learning, tracking students’ concept development through text (language) analysis, interdisciplinary teaching of environmental literacy with science, and the influence of student beliefs on science learning. Recently, her work has expanded to include studies on the application of AI in education.

Yeong-Ju Lee, Social Media and Language Learning

Abstract: This presentation draws on my new book ‘Social Media and Language Learning: Using TikTok and Instagram’ (Lee, 2025), which investigates how visual and multimodal technologies transform informal language learning and intercultural exchange. The book analyses two studies: a comparative analysis of online data from Instagram and TikTok posts, and a multiple case study based on ethnographic data of narratives from international students in Australia. These studies show how learners use multimodal features such as sound, captioning, and visual composition to create and share meaning across linguistic and cultural boundaries. Based on these findings, in this presentation I will discuss how social media platforms have become everyday spaces where linguistic agency, creativity, and belonging are negotiated in transnational contexts. I will also consider how AI-driven features in social media such as automatic captioning, real-time translation, and personalised content feeds are creating new opportunities while posing pedagogical challenges for multilingual learning.

Reference

Lee, Y.-J. (2025). Social media and language learning: using TikTok and Instagram. Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003543541

Bio: Yeong-Ju Lee obtained her PhD from the Department of Linguistics at Macquarie University in Australia. She teaches courses in Applied Linguistics, TESOL, and Literacy. Her research interests include digital language learning and teaching, especially on social media and AI. She is a Chief Investigator of the Data Horizon Research Centre-funded project on a customised AI chatbot for language learning at Macquarie University, and the Teaching Development Grant-funded project on AI and literacy at Australian Catholic University.

Laura Smith-Khan, “Connectivity is the central thing”: Developing legal literacy post-migration

Abstract: Developing a sound understanding of the law is essential for social participation and access to justice, and in the context of migration, can form a crucial part of integrating and flourishing in a new country. Yet there can be a range of challenges for new arrivals when it comes to developing legal literacy, and for service providers seeking to assist them. This presentation will share emerging findings from pilot research on Australian government and non-government service providers’ efforts to help educate the public about Australia law, legal processes and legal services. Drawing on an examination of research interviews, survey responses and public texts, the preliminary findings indicate that while online resources and technology are one element of such efforts, human connectivity and care remain crucial.

Bio: Dr Laura Smith-Khan is a Senior Lecturer in Law at the University of New England, Australia and an external affiliated member of the Centre for the Social Study of Migration and Refugees (CESSMIR), Gent University, Belgium. Her research is interested in the participation of minoritized groups in legal settings, especially migration processes. She was the 2022 recipient of the Max Crawford Medal, Australia’s most prestigious award for achievement and promise in the humanities. She is co-founder and co-convener of the Law and Linguistics Interdisciplinary Research Network, a member of Language on the Move and Next Generation Literacies and serves on the editorial boards of Multilingua and the Australian Journal of Human Rights.

Dr Smith-Khan has written extensively on language and credibility in Australia’s asylum procedures. Beyond her continuing work in this area, she has undertaken research on the education and communicative practices of migration practitioners, on media representations of migration, and on disability rights in forced migration. Aiming for impact, her research has been cited and adopted by the EU Agency for Asylum, the Australian Human Rights Commission, UNHCR and UNESCO, and is used in undergraduate and postgraduate teaching. She has tertiary qualifications in both law and linguistics and has been admitted to practice as a lawyer.