BabelBrain - Mapping multilingual ecologies
The Babel brain: Mapping multilingual ecologies (BabelBrain) is a research project focused on investigating multilingual practices within two understudied communities on the Iberian Peninsula: Galicia and Gibraltar. A common characteristic of both communities is that one of the languages involved is experiencing a decline in the number of speakers (Galician in Galicia and Spanish in Gibraltar).
The project aims to understand how multilingual individuals adapt to meet the communicative demands in contexts where language mixing (code-switching) is prevalent. It employs an interdisciplinary approach (linguistic, sociolinguistic, and psycholinguistic) and complements data collected in other funded projects focusing on communities in West Africa (Benin), Central America (Belize), and North America (Crossing Language Borders).
The BabelBrain Team: Upcoming Hires
The project is about to recruit its core team: two PhD students (PhD1 and PhD2) and one Postdoctoral researcher (Postdoc).
PhD1: Will focus on multilingual practices in Galicia.
PhD2: Will focus on multilingual practices in Gibraltar.
Postdoc: Will lead the psycholinguistic experimentation, examining individuals' sensitivity to multilingual speech patterns and its implications for language processing.
The links/calls for these positions will be announced here as soon as they are released.
The results from BabelBrain will advance a comprehensive theory of multilingualism and help counteract the common disparagement towards multilingual practices.