Engaging with spaces of linguistic partial understanding in multilingual linguistic ethnography

Abstract This paper gives an account of the impact of spaces of linguistic non-understanding and spaces of linguistic partial understanding in the first author’s linguistic ethnographic doctoral study of lawyer-client communication within UK immigration legal advice meetings. The paper uses the researching multilingually framework as a lens for exploring how the researcher’s positionality as a native speaker of English, an elementary-level learner of Arabic, and a non-speaker of other languages she encountered were material to the research process. Data in the form of researcher reflections, notes and records made about the impact of language(s) at different stages of the project is drawn on to examine the role of linguistic support – in the form of input from translators – at each stage, and the exercise of linguistic reflexivity in relation to this dimension of the research. The paper argues for the need, when doing ethnographic research in contexts of linguistic unpredictability, to be reflexive about the literacy practices and language ideologies of people involved in linguistic support, since these are also part of the language ecology that shapes the process of knowledge production. Thus, linguistic reflexivity is part of a practice of epistemological accountability in multilingual linguistic ethnography.