This paper discusses a research investigating identification and languages in a linguistic minority context in Canada. Workshops were organized to facilitate the participation of children (6 to 11 years old). The paper will describe the workshops and then discuss the challenges of transcribing, analysing and interpreting multimodal and multilingual data.
Ethnograpy has long been used in sociolinguistics and applied linguistics fields, as we can see by the rising number of ethnographic studies produced on a wide range of topics (Heller, 2002). Ethnographic approaches have been particularly popular amongst researchers interested in understanding the dynamic and use of languages of children and youth at schools (Galligani, 2010; Gérin-Lajoie, 2004; Jacquet, Moore, Sabatier, & Masinda, 2008; Pilote & Magnan, 2012; Selleck, 2013). These works are mostly based on traditional ethnographic methods such as interviews and participative observations. However, many recent works are trying to adapt these methods to the age, ability, characteristics, and realities of participants and informants (Levasseur, 2016; Moore, 2006; Perregaux, 2009; Pilote, 2004; Prasad, 2018; Savage, 2000). These studies also aim at facilitating a greater participation and offer a better context for the participants to express themselves, have their voices heard. This paper aims at presenting the methodological and analytical approaches adopted for a doctoral sociolinguistic research investigating identification discourses and language repertoires in a linguistic minority – yet plurilingual - context in Canada. The study was based on an 8 months ethnographic field work (2010-2011) in a French language school. In addition to other classic methods such as participative observations and interviews, workshops were organized to facilitate the involvement of children aged 6 to 11 years old, as the main informants. These workshops were designed to allow them to speak up and share their ideas, opinions, discourses and representations. Schoolchildren were thus asked to draw, participate in role plays, craft and discuss in small groups at lunch time on a periodical basis. This paper will briefly describe the workshops activities and then discuss the challenges and pitfalls of transcribing, coding, analysing and interpreting such multimodal and multilingual data set, on both methodological and ethical points of view
