For this session we hosted Emma Brooks who reflected on some data in the light of the following paper by Jurgen Jaspers:

https://www.academia.edu/38080136/WP248_Jaspers_2019._Advocating_heteroglossia_dominating_publics

Please find Emma’s abstract below:

Everyday heteroglossia: reimagining equality

The study of heteroglossic practices has been broadly embraced in the language disciplines during the last decade, though the continuous redefinition and extension of these, particularly in relation to the emergence of key disciplinary terms such as that of translanguaging, has prompted extensive, and heated debate. In this session I propose the reading of Jaspers’ considerations on the potential (and, certainly, unintended) consequences of such a focus (see reference and link). Against the background of Jaspers’ text,  I will share data from my own fieldwork in two antenatal consultations where the diabetes consultant draws on her broad linguistic repertoire to interact with patients. During the first, mediated consultation, the doctor moves between advising her patient on methods to control her gestational diabetes and teasing her about her diet and her English. The second appointment is conducted entirely in Urdu, where the heavily-pregnant patient is urged to seek medical attention at the first sign of labour. Using a heteroglossic lens, these consultations can be studied initially as exemplars of conviviality (Wessendorf, 2014), as well as creative and instinctive transdiscursivity (Baynham et al, 2017), where the doctor uses epistemic flattening to communicate across possible language divides and unfamiliar discourses. Interweaving these discussions, are glimpses of asymmetry between participants, a recurrent, occasionally problematised (ten Have, 1991), theme in the field of patient/doctor communication (see for example, Foucault, 2000; Cicourel, 1999),and echoing Kubota’s concerns that  “hybridity and related notions are neither neutral nor apolitical; they involve contextual and relational arrangements of power” (Kubota, 2014: 9).Observing both sides of Jaspers’ coin, I welcome contributions on the transformative and emancipatory potential of heteroglossia, whilst reflecting on the global and institutional contexts in which these interactions take place.