Authorial voices and scholarliness in participatory sociolinguistic research:An invitation to rethink the concept of academic language

Abstract

Participatory research redefines the concept of researcher, extending it to people who were previously not considered researchers. In this way, it also challenges the enregisterment of academic voice. This paper employs the concept of enregisterment to offer new insights into the relationship between participatory research, academic language and ultimately scholarly publishing. We argue that scholarliness of participatory sociolinguistic work rests on four pillars: i) reflexivity, ii) systematicity, iii) dialogicity, and iv) social responsibility, rather than on features conventionally associated with scholarly voice, such as objectivity, neutrality, factuality, theoretical grounding, evidence-based argumentation, and formal style. Currently, professional researchers committed to participatory sociolinguistics follow two tracks in their careers: they either write articles about their collaboration with non-professionals, or they present the research outcomes of such research. The project presented here differs from both of these approaches insofar as trained researchers undertake writing with, and not about, non-academic research collaborators. A group of academics invited local civic participants from a marginalised post-industrial small-town setting in Hungary, some of whom were racialised bilinguals, to collaboratively edit and write a linguistic-ethnographic journal. In our collaborative activities, it is the activity itself that is guided by the above four epistemological principles, without the obligatory enregisterment of scholarliness in the writing. Based on this work, we formulate our vision for a journal in participatory sociolinguistics with a global reach, thus exploring opportunities for scholarly voices of non-professional researchers to flourish internationally as well.