Over the years Brighton and surrounding areas have welcomed groups of refugees and migrants from across the world. A number of these migrant communities are bilinguals/multilinguals speaking their heritage languages as well as English. However, their heritage languages are minoritized and deprioritised against the English Language leading to a possible loss of their heritage languages or being subject to discrimination in several contexts. Increasingly, students of English language courses, who are predominantly monolingual English Language speakers, are unaware of the ways in which multilinguals maintain and revitalise their heritage languages to strengthen and maintain their multilingual identity.

This project was built on a partnership with Diversity Lewes, offering a platform to migrant communities in Brighton and Lewes, to narrate stories and experiences in maintaining and revitalising minoritized languages (in a process that can be referred to as languaging). To enable this, the project has brought students from our English Language courses and the wider bilingual migrant communities in Brighton and Lewes together, through guest teaching of a range of minoritized languages, and a series of podcasts recorded with the speakers.

The podcasts were designed and recorded by Amelia Stephen and Albert Hopper (students of BA English Language and Linguistics). This blog designed and podcasts contextualised by Katherine Moore Osorio (student of BA English Langauge and English Literature).

Introduction to the Podcasts:

Langauges Discussed

Ukrainian

Swahili- Samia

Tagalog

Patois

Funded via the AHRC Impact Acceleration Account (IAA)