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Plurilingual Administrative Literacy: Comprehension Challenges in State-Citizen Correspondence

Project management
Alexandre Duchêne, Philippe Humbert
All residents of Switzerland are required to interact with the administrative authorities through written correspondence, necessitating the development of a degree of "administrative literacy" which will often involve plurilingual communication. This research project focuses on the understanding and drafting of written correspondence with social security bodies such as the unemployment, disability, AVS, and family allowance services.

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Family Language Policies e sviluppo del linguaggio in comunità poco servite

Il caso delle famiglie dell’Africa subsahariana in Svizzera
Project management
Amelia Lambelet, Martina Zimmermann, Chiara Bemporad
Le famiglie migranti sono chiamate a operare delle scelte sulla lingua o le lingue da utilizzare nella loro vita quotidiana. Negli ultimi decenni, queste decisioni sono state analizzate approfonditamente nel quadro degli studi sulla family language policy (FLP). Le prime ricerche si sono concentrate sulla pianificazione linguistica esplicita e manifesta in famiglie occidentali del ceto medio, un gruppo mirato considerato troppo elitistico.

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Lichtenauer Karine

Veröffentlichungen

In Vorb. Coordination de séquences didactiques pour le projet SMILE sur la base de travaux d’étudiant-es 

2024. « Pavillon Le Corbusier », In Babylonia SMILE

2024. Lichtenauer, K. & Anita Thomas. « Corpus d’apprenant-es : un « basquette » de ressources pour l’enseignement des langues étrangères / Learners Corpora : a « basquette » of Ressources for Foreign Language Teaching » ». In Babylonia 2/24, 8 – 13. 

2023. Loder Büchel, L. & K. Lichtenauer. « Another day, another museum ». In Babylonia 2/23, 8 – 9. 

2023. Loder Büchel, L. & Lichtenauer, K. « General Considerations for Foreign Language Instruction with Museum Visits ». In Babylonia 2/23, 72 – 79. 

2022.  Lichtenauer, K., & Laura Loder Büchel. « Visiting a museum : des points communs aux points de rencontre » », avec Laura Loder Büchel. In Babylonia 3/22, 8-10.

2021. « Marthe Gosteli », In Teaching Tasters 2021/1 (https://babylonia.online/index.php/babylonia/TT)

2021. « Des mots pernicieux aux formules mernicieuses. Pratiques inclusives et signalisation du genre: quels choix ont été réalisés pour le présent numéro de Babylonia ». In Babylonia 3/21, 110 – 116.

2020. Loder Buechel, L., Lichtenauer, K. „Grading and Gathering Evidence in Swiss Elementary and Lower Secondary School English Language Classrooms“. In: Mickan, P. & Wallace, I. (Hrsg.). Handbook of Language Education Curriculum Design. New York : Routledge.

2018. Chételat, D., Lichtenauer, K. „Le Concept général pour l’enseignement des langues en Suisse, impact d’un rapport d’expert sur les politiques éducatives relatives à l’enseignement des langues étrangères (langues nationales et anglais)“. In Babylonia 3/2018, 30 – 33. 

2017. „Compréhension entre communautés linguistiques : textes fondamentaux et mise en œuvre“. In Enjeux pédagogiques 27, Bienne : Haute Ecole Pédagogique HEP-BEJUNE, 13 – 14. 

2015. De Pietro, J.-F., Gerber, B., Leonforte, B. & Lichtenauer, K. „Quelle place pour les approches plurielles 
dans les nouveaux plans d’études des trois régions linguistiques de la Suisse?“. In Babylonia 2/2015, 59 – 65.

Koordination & Herausgabe 

Pragmatique et enseignement des langues étrangères, Babylonia 1/26. Avec Anna Ghimenton & Elisabeth Peyer, en préparation.

Corpus d’élèves en langue étrangère / Korpora von Fremdsprachenlernenden, Babylonia 2/24. Avec Anita Thomas. Numéro : https://babylonia.online/index.php/babylonia/issue/view/44, Podcast CeDiLe : https://cedile.ch/de/lernerkorpora-einblick-in-babylonia-2-2024-podcast 

Vivre les langues au musée II / Sprachen im Museum erleben II, Babylonia 2/23. Avec Laura Loder Büchel.
Numéro : https://babylonia.online/index.php/babylonia/issue/view/31, Podcast CeDiLE: https://cedile.ch/de/living-languages-at-museums-part-ii-insight-from-babylonia-2-23-podcast 

Vivre les langues au musée I / Sprachen im Museum erleben I, Babylonia 3/22. Avec Laura Loder Büchel 
Numéro : https://babylonia.online/index.php/babylonia/issue/view/24, Podcast CeDiLE : https://cedile.ch/de/sprachen-im-museum-erleben-einblick-in-babylonia-3-22-podcast 

Project SMILE (Swiss Museums in Language Education). Avec Laura Loder Büchel. 
Page Internet : https://babylonia.online/index.php/babylonia/issue/view/26 

Lichtenauer, K. (Coord.), Chételat, D. (Coord.), Brohy, C., Chesini, C., Egli Cuenat, M., Gerber, B., Kappler, D., Klee, P., Loder-Büchel, L., Wirrer, M. (2017). Gute Praxis im Sprachenunterricht – Beispiele für den Unterricht der Landessprachen und des Englischen in der obligatorischen Schule. Mit der fachlichen bzw. regionalen Expertise von Bossart, M.-N., Brauchli, B., Egli Cuenat, M., Jörimann Vancheri, B., Kuster, W., Le Pape Racine, C., Manno, G., Nadig, S. Schweizerische Konferenz der kantonalen Erziehungsdirektoren (EDK). https://sprachen.educa.ch/de/gute-praxis [4.1.2018].

How do you speak Swiss? Consensus Democracy, Multilingualism and Political Participation

Project management
Raphael Berthele
Team
Naomi Shafer
This interdisciplinary research project focuses on the relationship between multilingualism and plurilingualism, political institutions and legal conditions in Switzerland.The Swiss Confederation is a federal state with four national languages. Switzerland's political culture is based on consensus and the often lengthy negotiation of compromises. Recently, however, political positions and public discussion seem to become increasingly polarised.

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A critical historiographic analysis of discourses of language “rise” and “decline”: emergence, circulation and impact in (inter)national spaces

Project management
Zorana Sokolovska, Maria Rosa Garrido Sardà
The goal of this research project is to examine language ideological debates throughout the period 1970-1990 in two international organisations, the Council of Europe and the European Union, from a critical sociolinguistic perspective. Their discourses on multilingualism and their recommendations for language teaching have shaped language policy in education in many European contexts since.

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Discourse, Disability and Inequality

Developing a Sociolinguistic Approach to Disability
Project management
Philippe Humbert
How do I find out if a train is wheelchair-friendly? Should I talk about my "disability" at job interviews? What types of educational support are available for disabled children, and who should I contact to apply for it? Are the toilets in this restaurant accessible? To find answers to these kinds of questions, people with disabilities develop a range of social and linguistic practices that are often unknown to the general public, as do their friends and family.

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Language debates in the making of Europe

Discursive genealogy, language ideologies and (post) national constructions at the Council of Europe
Project management
Zorana Sokolovska
This thesis traces a discursive genealogy of the language debates at the Council of Europe. Through a sociolinguistic and discursive approach to international institutions, different institutional texts produced between 1949 and 2008 are examined in their socio-historically situated conditions of production.

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Documenting Francophonie without borders

The Power of words and numbers
Project management
Philippe Humbert
The 19th century saw a proliferation of scientific documentary works contributing to the production of knowledge about languages and their speakers around the world. These included linguistic corpora, ethnographic reports, maps and language statistics comprising a set of research data which was subsequently used by Western governments to define geopolitical borders, to legitimize the construction of nations and to determine those language practices that would come to be recognised as...

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Tales from the field

Team
Alexandre Duchêne, Maria Rosa Garrido Sardà, Patricia Lambert, Kevin Petit Cahill, Zorana Sokolovska
The project offers a space for methodological reflections about critical ethnographic sociolinguistic research based on researchers’ experiences. On a dedicated website, the team makes available a collection of personal tales about specific problems that raise questions for the researchers, which are seen as opportunities to make sense of, and lead toward a better comprehension of, the phenomena, institutions and actors that are studied.  

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Multilingualism in a public health crisis

Project management
Alexandre Duchêne, Renata Coray
Team
Emeline Beckmann, Alejandro Santano Suárez

Scientific partner: Stefano Losa, Daniela Kappler, SUPSI-DFA

This research project performs a retrospective analysis of the challenges posed by Swiss multilingualism during the Covid-19 pandemic. Continuous communication with the population is necessary in times of crisis – indeed, communication is an essential aspect of crisis management, be it to provide information about the current situation, health issues and distancing rules, or to explain work-related rights and obligations, access to emergency financial aid, and even educational matters....

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