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Transcultural Devon: Creating, Analysing and Subtitling Interviews in the Context of Migration

Module description

If you’ve experienced what it feels like to live in a culture you didn’t grow up in, and to develop a second language, this module will build on that experience. You will learn what it feels like to migrate to the UK. You will use your language skills to contribute to a living archive of stories of migration in different languages, gathered in the community around you, here in Exeter. You will reflect on the experiences of migration and ways of talking about it, you will learn how to carry out, video and subtitle an ethnographic interview.

Please note that students in need of credits for a specific language should specialize accordingly in the assessments.

Module aims - intentions of the module

This module will help you to understand the experience of migration to the UK, and how people tell their stories about it in their first language. Using methods drawn from ethnography, you will design interviews to draw out those stories, and develop your spoken Modern Foreign language and broader communication and interpersonal skills through that interviewing work. You will also acquire some basic technical understanding of how to video-record interviews, and you will acquire subtitling skills. The module will provide you with the opportunity to work with the local community (via a Community Liaison Officer who will help to identify suitable subjects for interview), and to increase social cohesion and well-being by listening to and making available others’ stories in their first language. Finally you will leave a lasting legacy for future students because your interview work will contribute to a digital archive (in process at http://transculturaldevon.exeter.ac.uk/).

Intended Learning Outcomes (ILOs)

ILO: Module-specific skills

On successfully completing the module you will be able to...

• 1. Understand key issues surrounding the experience of migration to the UK, specifically Devon
• 2. Understand the ethnographic approach to Modern Languages

ILO: Discipline-specific skills

On successfully completing the module you will be able to...

• 3. Demonstrate improved oral and aural use of your chosen Modern Foreign language
• 4. Implement subtitling skills (and use software)

ILO: Personal and key skills

On successfully completing the module you will be able to...

• 5. Demonstrate interpersonal communication skills: interviewing and listening
• 6. Understand the role of digital culture in the broader social context

Syllabus plan

While the syllabus may vary from year to year, the following is an indicative outline of the main topics:

• The digital archive
• Ethics and ethnography
• Migration, identity and self-narration
• Migration to Devon
• On interviewing, filming and editing
• Subtitling techniques

Learning activities and teaching methods (given in hours of study time)

Details of learning activities and teaching methods

Formative assessment

Summative assessment (% of credit)

Details of summative assessment

Details of re-assessment (where required by referral or deferral)

Re-assessment notes

Deferral – if you miss an assessment for certificated reasons judged acceptable by the Mitigation Committee, you will normally be either deferred in the assessment or an extension may be granted. The mark given for a re-assessment taken as a result of deferral will not be capped and will be treated as it would be if it were your first attempt at the assessment.

Referral – if you have failed the module overall (i.e. a final overall module mark of less than 40%) you will be required to submit a further assessment as necessary. If you are successful on referral, your overall module mark will be capped at 40%.

Indicative learning resources - Web based and electronic resources

• ELE:
• http://transculturaldevon.exeter.ac.uk

Indicative learning resources - Other resources

• Anderson, Bridget, 2019, ‘New Directions in Migration Studies: Towards Methodological Denationalism’, Comparative Migration Studies
• Barton, David, Trusting, Karin, Beyond Communities of Practice: Language, Power and Social Context, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005)
• Bassnett, Susan, Translation Studies (London; New York : Routledge, 2014)
• Bhabha, Homi K., The Location of Culture (London; New York : Routledge, 2004)
• Bottignolo, Bruno, Without a Bell Tower: A study of the Italian immigrants in South West England (Rome: Centro studi emigrazione, 1985)
• Braidotti, Rosi, Transpositions: On Nomadic Ethics (Cambridge, UK ; Malden, MA : Polity Press, 2006)
• Díaz-Cintas, J., Remael, A., Audiovisual Translation, Subtitling (Translation Practices Explained) (Routledge, 2014)
• Fortier, Anne-Marie, ‘On (not) speaking English : colonial legacies in language requirements for British citizenship’, Sociology, Vol. 52, No. 6, 01.12.2018, p. 1254-1269.
• Grønseth, Anne Sigfrid (ed.), Being Human, Being Migrant: Senses of Self and Well-Being (Berghahn, 2013)
• Skinner, J (ed.), The Interview: an ethnographic approach (London ; New York : Berg, 2012)
• Summerfield, P. (2004), ‘Culture and Composure: Creating Narratives of the Gendered Self in Oral History Interviews’, Cultural and Social History, 6, pp. 69–70
• Svašek, Maruška (ed.), Emotions and Human Mobility: Ethnographies of Movement (Routledge, 2012)

Key words search

Transcultural; Subtitling; Migration; Community; Devon