Sweet voice and round taste: Cross-sensory metaphors and linguistic variability

Sweet voice and round taste: Cross-sensory metaphors and linguistic variability

Date: 9 May 2018
Time: 12.30 – 2pm
Location: Jesus College – Ship Street Lecture Centre, Oxford

How do we define a sound or a taste for which our language does not have a dedicated word?

Typically, we borrow words from another sensory modality. Wines, for example, are often described by words that belong to other sensory perceptions: a “soft flavour” borrows the adjective soft from the domain of touch, and a “round taste” borrows the adjective round from the domain of sight.

It remains an interesting open issue to what extent these cross-sensory metaphors are universal across languages, and to what extent they are language-specific.

Dr Francesca Strik Lievers will address these questions and provide an overview of the latest scientific discoveries in the field, using examples taken from different languages. Her talk will be followed by an opportunity for questions.

The event is organised and hosted by Creative Multilingualism in collaboration with TORCH. Creative Multilingualism is a research programme led by the University of Oxford and funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council as part of the Open World Research Initiative.

Participation is free and open to the public. Lunch will be provided.

Book ticket: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/sweet-voice-and-round-taste-cross-sensory-metaphors-and-linguistic-variability-tickets-45371843405

Dr Sofie Bager-Charleson

Affiliation: Metanoia Institute

Sofie Bager-Charleson is a Senior Fellow and the Director of Studies (Management) on the MPhil/PhD in Psychotherapy at Metanoia Institute. She has published widely in the field of research reflexivity, including the text book Practice-based Research in Therapy: A Reflexive Approach (Sage, 2014). She is the founder of the Metanoia Research Academy, and the cofounder of IMPACT, a research network at the Metanoia Institute aimed to encourage the generation and exchange of ideas and knowledge within and beyond the Institute. Sofie also practises as a UKCP and BACP registered psychotherapist and supervisor, with a PhD in narrative research into family attachment (Lund University, Sweden). Some of her recent publications are:

Bager-Charleson, S., du Plock, S., McBeath, A (2018 in press) “Therapists have a lot to add to the field of research, but many don’t make it there”. A narrative thematic inquiry into counsellors’ and psychotherapists’ embodied engagement with research. Journal for Language and Psychoanalysis, 7 2018
Bager-Charleson, S., Dewaele, J., Costa, B. & Kasap, Z. (2017) A Multilingual Outlook: Can Awarness-Raising about Multilingualism Affect Therapists’ Practice? A Mixed-Method Evaluation. Language and Psychoanalysis, 2017, 6 (2), 56-75.
Bager-Charleson & Kasap, Z. (2017a) Embodied Situatedness and Emotional Entanglement in Research. Counselling and Psychotherapy Research, Volume 17, Issue 3, pp 190– 200.
Bager-Charleson, S. (2017b) Countertransference in Research: An intersubjective reflexive approach. In Valeri, P. Introduction to Countertransference in Therapeutic Practice: A Myriad of Mirrors pp. 167-185.
Bager-Charleson, S. (2015) Relational reflexivity in therapy-based research’, In Goss, S. and Stevens, C. Making Research Matter. London: Routledge
Bager-Charleson, S. (2014) Practice-based research in therapy – a reflexive approach. London: Sage

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Email: sofie.bager-charleson@metanoia.ac.uk

“‘I was seeing more of her’: international counselling trainees’ perceived benefits of intercultural clinical practice” by Lorena Georgiadou

Abstract

Counsellor education in Britain is steadily turning into a multicultural environment. The limited relevant literature focuses on the challenges that ‘culturally different’ and international trainees may encounter. The aim of this paper is to elucidate a rarely exposed aspect of international counselling trainees’ training experience, namely, the benefits they identify in practising across languages and cultures during placement. The illustration of this positive perspective is pertinent to the profession, as it expands existing knowledge on international trainees’ experience of clinical practice and it challenges the prevailing conceptualisation of this situation as potentially problematic. It is argued that a shift towards a more holistic understanding of this population’s counselling experiences is likely to have particularly useful implications for counsellor education and the profession more broadly.

http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/03069885.2014.996735?journalCode=cbjg20

 

 

“Multilingualism and psychotherapy: exploring multilingual clients’ experiences of language practices in psychotherapy” by Louise Rolland, Jean-Marc Dewaele & Beverley Costa

Abstract

This study investigates bi- and multilingual clients’ self-reported language practices in counselling and psychotherapy. Quantitative and qualitative data were collected through an international web survey inviting adults who had experienced one-to-one therapy to describe their experiences. Analysis of responses by 109 multilingual clients revealed that clients did not always have an opportunity to discuss their multilingualism with therapists, and for some this inhibited their language switching. Others were assertive in their language choices, or benefited from working with a therapist who was either bilingual or skilled at creating an inclusive linguistic environment. Very few reported two main therapy languages, while nearly two thirds of participants reported short code-switches. These happened occasionally within sessions and were typically linked to difficulties in translation, expressing emotion, accessing memories or quotation. Over a third of respondents used a second or additional language as their main therapy language, nearly half of whom reported never switching to their first language in sessions, despite some using it daily for inner speech. The implications for therapy and further research are discussed, including the role of the therapist in inviting the client’s multiple languages into the therapeutic frame.

Link to original article

New issue of “Language and Psychoanalysis” Volume 6 Issue 1 Spring/Summer 2017

We are very pleased to inform you that Volume 6 Issue 1 of the open access journal “Language and Psychoanalysis” has gone online.

http://www.language-and-psychoanalysis.com/

This issue includes the following articles:

Robert D. Stolorow, Ph.D. & George E. Atwood, Ph.D.   The Phenomenology of Language and the Metaphysicalizing of the Real

Fernanda Carrá-Salsberg, Ph.D.   A Psychoanalytic Look into The Effects of Childhood and Adolescent Migration in Eva Hoffman’s Lost in Translation

David Hafner, Ph.D.   An Introduction to the Transference Unconscious 

Rina Stahl Freedman, Ph.D.   Cross-Cultural Treatment Issues in Psychoanalysis      

Giuseppe Iurato, Ph.D.   Book Review. Reading Italian Psychoanalysis

Anonymous Author, M. A.   Book Review. Language Disorders in Children and Adolescents  

 

The journal “Language and Psychoanalysis” is also currently accepting manuscripts for the next issue in Autumn-Winter 2017.

Manuscript submission due date: 30th September 2017

Prof Jean-Marc Dewaele

Affiliation : Birkbeck College, University of London

Jean-Marc Dewaele is Professor of Applied Linguistics and Multilingualism at Birkbeck, University of London. He has published widely on individual differences in psycholinguistic, sociolinguistic, pragmatic, psychological and emotional aspects of Multilingualism. He is the author of a monograph Emotions in Multiple Languages in 2010 (2nd ed in 2013). He is Vice-President of the International Association of Multilingualism and former president of the European Second Language Association. He is General Editor of the International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism. He won the Equality and Diversity Research Award from the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy (2013) and the Robert C. Gardner Award for Outstanding Research in Bilingualism (2016) from the International Association of Language and Social Psychology.

Dr Beverley Costa

Beverley Costa

Affiliation : Mother Tongue

Dr Beverley Costa, a psychotherapist, set up Mothertongue multi-ethnic counselling service in 2000. Mothertongue also runs a dedicated Mental Health Interpreting Service. In 2009 Mothertongue won The Queen’s Award for Volunteering. Beverley is an Honorary Research Fellow at Birkbeck, University of London and has written a number of papers and chapters on therapy across languages. Together with Jean Marc Dewaele, their paper: Psychotherapy across Languages: beliefs, attitudes and practices of monolingual and multilingual therapists with their multilingual patients, won the 2013 BACP Equality and Diversity Research Award.

She established “Colleagues Across Borders” in 2013 which offers pro bono peer support and training, via Skype, to refugee psychosocial workers based in the Middle East. She set up the Bilingual Therapist and Mental Health Interpreter Forum in 2010. This meets twice a year in London. She produced the world premiere of the play about a cross language couple “The Session in 2015 at The Soho Theatre, London. She is currently producing an Arts Council England funded play about interpreters.

Website : www.mothertongue.org.uk