Welcome to CIEN Research Group Website
The issues studied by CIEN research team are concerned with bilingual and multilingual language use and practices from a critical sociolinguistic perspective. The group addresses questions that have a practical and theoretical importance for understanding language and society. Language is understood both as a non-neutral system but also as a form of social action, that has material consequences in people’s everyday life. Multi-sited ethnography is the main methodological tool together with various kinds of qualitative data which are key to understanding social (in)equality.
We address questions that have important applications for public policy, language planning, education, training courses in intercultural communication and the fostering of understanding between autochthonous and migrant populations in the Catalan and Spanish contexts.
- How do individual and institutional ideologies about language and society shape bilingual and multilingual practices?
- What is the role of language and multilingualism in the new economy?
- How is globalization shaping new language practices in society?
- How is multilingualism managed in private, public and non-governamental organizations?
- How does language function in the exercise of agency, power and institutional control?
- Ethnographic research is the basis for advancing a conceptual framework and formulating questions that seek to improve our understanding of social processes where language plays a key role.