In this episode of the Language on the Move Podcast, Tazin Abdullah speaks with Dr. Jia Li, Professor of Applied Sociolinguistics at Yunnan University, China.
Tazin and Jia discuss crisis communication in a linguistically diverse world and a new book co-edited by Dr. Jia Li and Dr. Jie Zhang called Multilingual Crisis Communication that gives us insights into the lived experiences of linguistic minorities affected during the Covid-19 pandemic.
Multilingual Crisis Communication is the first book to explore the lived experiences of linguistic minorities in crisis-affected settings in the Global South, particularly during the Covid-19 pandemic. China has been selected as a case of inquiry for multilingual crisis communication because of its high level of linguistic diversity. Taking up critical sociopolitical approaches, this book conceptualizes multilingual crisis communication from three dimensions: identifying communication barriers, engaging communication repertoires, and empowering communication justice.
Comprising eight main chapters, along with an introduction and an epilogue, this edited book is divided into three parts in terms of the demographic and social conditions of linguistic minorities, as indigenous, migrant, and those with communicative disabilities. This book brings together a range of critical perspectives of sociolinguistic scholars, language teachers, and public health workers. Each team of authors includes at least one member of the research community with many years of field work experience, and some of them belong to ethnic minorities. These studies can generate new insights for enhancing the accessibility and effectiveness of multilingual crisis communication.
This book will be of interest to academics and postgraduate students in the fields of multilingualism, intercultural communication, translation and interpreting studies, and public health policy.
This volume brings together 23 contributors and covers a range contexts in which crisis communication during the COVID19 pandemic has been investigated. Focusing on China owing to a high level of linguistic diversity, this book uses critical sociopolitical approaches, to identifying communication barriers, engaging communication repertoires, and empowering communication justice.
Advance praise for the book
‘Setting a milestone in critical sociolinguistic and applied linguistic studies, this volume offers critical insights into overcoming communication barriers for linguistic minorities during crises, promoting social justice, and enhancing public health responses through inclusive, multimodal, and multilingual strategies. It also serves as testimonies of resilience, courage and kindness during the turbulent time’ (Professor Zhu Hua, Fellow of Academy of Social Sciences and Director of International Centre for Intercultural Studies, UCL, UK)
‘The global pandemic has brought to the fore the key role of multilingual communication in disasters and emergencies. This volume contains cutting edge ethnographic studies that address this seriously from the perspective of Chinese scholars and minoritized populations in China. A decisive contribution to the burgeoning field of multilingualism and critical sociolinguistics in times of crisis.’ (Professor Virginia Zavala, Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú, Perú)
Related content
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This is so incredible and relatable to what I found out about the language of news reports in health crisis situations when I conducted my PhD research on discursive framing of news reports on epidemic diseases in Nigeria.
Thank you for sharing, Moses! It sounds very interesting and so relevant to this field of research. 🙂
We are very glad to hear that you find our study relevant and helpful, Moses. Your study sounds fantastic! We are expecting to read your study in a new future.
Excellent to hear that this topic is well covered. Closely related work figures In the Handbook of Linguistic Human Rights (ed. Tove Skutnabb-Kangas and myself, Wiley, 2023) in a chapter by two scholars entitled ‘Disaster linguicism as deprivation of the victims’ Linguistic Human Rights’
Shinya Uekusa is a Lecturer in Sociology at the University of Canterbury, New Zealand/Aotearoa. He co-edited A Decade of Disaster Experience in Ōtautahi Christchurch: Critical Disaster Studies Perspectives (Palgrave Macmillan/Springer Nature, 2022) with Steve Matthewman and Bruce Glavovic. His main research interests are in the sociology of disasters, particularly social vulnerability and resilience to disasters, crises and climate change, focusing on socially disadvantaged groups such as (im)migrants, refugees and linguistic minorities. https://researchprofile.canterbury.ac.nz/Researcher.aspx?researcherid=5433592
Steve Matthewman is an Associate Professor in Sociology at the University of Auckland, New Zealand/Aotearoa. He published Disasters, Risks and Revelation: Making Sense of Our Times in 2015. His current research project looks at the rebuilding of Christchurch following that city’s earthquakes. His edited collection on COVID-19 was published in 2021. http://www.arts.auckland.ac.nz/people/smat028.
Thank you for these great resources, Phillip! 🙂
Thank you very much for your encouragement, Prof. Phillipson. Surely we have cited many of Uekusa’s and Mattewman’s studies in our edited volume. In particular, I personally find it insightful to critique the neoliberalization of individual resilience when it comes to crisis communication. Many of our chapters also address the issues of social vulnerability confronting linguistic minorities at periphery. Thank you again for connecting us for the shared research interests. We hope to be able to work together with those disaster scholars in one way or another in future.