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Lookup NU author(s): Dr Sara GanassinORCiD, Dr Judith ReynoldsORCiD, Ashleigh Regan
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC-ND).
© 2026 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group. Doctoral education in the UK lacks guidance and institutional policies about how supervisors can effectively support doctoral students conducting research that involves more than one language, and there is little empirical research on supervisors’ experiences. This paper reports on the qualitative component of a mixed-methods study on ‘Researching Multilingually’ awareness and practice amongst doctoral supervisors in a Humanities and Social Sciences Faculty of a research-intensive British university. Following training workshops for supervisors, focus groups explored ten supervisors’ experiences of and attitudes towards supporting doctoral students working across languages in their research. Thematic analysis of the focus groups shows that supervisors’ awareness of linguistic diversity in the doctoral research space is often implicit or emerging, with little consideration of multilingualism as a pedagogical or epistemological dimension of research practice. However, supervisors are willing to engage more fully when supported by a structured reflective framework for implementing a researching multilingually approach, accessible resources, and institutional recognition. Participants suggested that the promotion and content of materials relating to Researching Multilingually needed to be accessible, particularly to supervisors in non-language-related disciplines. Overall, our findings reframe ‘Researching Multilingually’ not just as a research practice, but also as a valuable pedagogical resource for supervision across disciplines.
Author(s): Ganassin S, Reynolds J, Regan A
Publication type: Article
Publication status: Published
Journal: Language, Culture and Curriculum
Year: 2026
Pages: Epub ahead of print
Online publication date: 03/05/2026
Acceptance date: 24/04/2026
Date deposited: 11/05/2026
ISSN (print): 0790-8318
ISSN (electronic): 1747-7573
Publisher: Routledge
URL: https://doi.org/10.1080/07908318.2026.2666554
DOI: 10.1080/07908318.2026.2666554
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