MILE5000 Chap.2 A Transdisciplinary Framework for a Multilingual World
A Transdisciplinary Framework for a Multilingual World
A collective statement from fifteen researchers
The supplementary reading for the opening week was written jointly by researchers from sociocultural theory, language socialisation, identity research, complex dynamic systems, usage-based linguistics and several other traditions.
They argue that globalisation, digital technology and mobility have made multilingual life ordinary for many learners, and that research should start from learners' social and local worlds before asking questions that run from neurobiology to ideology.
They call the proposal transdisciplinary because it is organised around problems and keeps each discipline's perspective in dialogue rather than merging them.
Three levels that shape learning
Borrowing from an ecological model of human development, the framework distinguishes a micro level of social activity, where individuals bring neurobiological, cognitive and emotional capacities to interaction; a meso level of institutions and communities such as families, schools and workplaces, where identity, investment, agency and power take shape; and a macro level of ideological structures, covering what people believe and the cultural, political, religious and economic values they hold.
None of the levels exists on its own, and all are changing.
Ten themes and four choices
From the levels the authors derive ten themes, among them that language competence is complex and holistic, that learning is situated and gated by attention and social access, that it is identity work, that ideologies run through every level, and that emotion matters throughout.
They also make four choices explicit: avoiding deficit labels, declining to rest the field on a critical period, sharing a view of language built on meaning, embodiment and emergent patterning, and committing to educational goals.
What the authors admit
They note that their institutional affiliations lie only in the United States and Canada, that they say little about teachers, that theories treating language as formal rules were left out, and that the proposal is provisional.
They also say not every study must cover every level, which is how the framework is best used in a master's project.
What this chapter covers
- 01
Why the authors call for a transdisciplinary approach
- 02
Micro, meso and macro levels of influence
- 03
Multilingual repertoires and semiotic resources
- 04
Identity, investment and imagined communities
- 05
Ideologies, including the monolingual native-speaker benchmark
- 06
The ten themes in outline
- 07
Ecological validity as a standard for research
Worked example · free
Find what a single-level study leaves out
- 1Place the proposed study at its level.
- 2Name one omitted factor at each of the other two levels.
- 2Judge which omission matters most and why.
Key terms
- Transdisciplinarity
- An approach organised around a real-world problem that keeps several disciplinary perspectives distinct but in dialogue, rather than working within one discipline's allegiances.
- Micro Level
- The level of social activity at which individuals bring neurobiological, cognitive and emotional capacities to interaction with others.
- Meso Level
- The level of institutions and communities, such as families, schools and workplaces, where identity, investment, agency and power are shaped.
- Macro Level
- The level of ideological structures, such as systems of belief and values of a cultural, political, religious or economic kind, that permeates the other two.
- Multilingual Repertoire
- The set of meaning-making resources a person draws on across languages and modes, which adapts to context and use.
- Imagined Community
- A community a learner hopes to join because it seems to promise better opportunities, which can shape investment in a language.
- Ecological Validity
- The fair and credible representation in research of the possibilities and constraints learners actually face.
- Monolingual Bias
- The treatment of monolingualism as the norm, which the framework argues sets learners up for failure when native monolingual speakers are the benchmark.
A Transdisciplinary Framework for a Multilingual World FAQ
What does transdisciplinary mean in this framework?
It means organising research around a problem that people face, here learning and living with several languages, rather than around one discipline. Each disciplinary perspective is treated as valid and kept distinct, but the perspectives are brought into dialogue so that patterns can be connected across levels and time scales.
Do I have to cover all three levels in my project?
No. The authors say explicitly that they do not expect every study to investigate every dimension, and that trying could leave novice researchers exposed. Use the levels to identify what a focused study leaves out, then state those omissions as limits or as directions for further research.
Why does the framework reject the native speaker as a benchmark?
Because it holds that multilingual competence differs in kind from monolingual competence. Judging learners against an idealised monolingual native speaker therefore measures them on the wrong scale and, in the authors' words, sets them up for failure. The critique connects to their wider argument that ideologies shape research as well as learning.
What is an affordance in this framework?
An affordance is an action possibility that a level offers a learner, such as a chance to join a conversation or a community, which can be taken up, negotiated or blocked. The framework uses the idea to explain why access to learning opportunities is never guaranteed, even when the opportunities appear to exist.
Assessment move
Write a half-page profile of one real or imagined learner you know well, then annotate it with one factor at each of the three levels. Keep the annotated profile beside you while reading the empirical chapters, and for each study note which level it measures and which levels it leaves out; those notes become ready-made limitation and extension points.
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