Language Acts and Worldmaking is a flagship project funded by the AHRC Open World Research Initiative, which aims to regenerate and transform modern language learning by foregrounding language’s power to shape how we live and make our worlds. The ‘Digital Mediations’ strand on the project explores interactions and tensions between digital culture and Modern Languages research.

We examine how digitally mediated culture—whether emerging as born digital artefacts or digitised remediations of pre-digital objects—is constructed, and ask what kinds of ‘translation’ are enacted as information enters and leaves the digital sphere. We research the interactions from multiple perspectives, reviewing methodologies for studying digital content from a multilingual perspective, while appraising the extent to which digital data, as a complex cultural product in its own right, represents a meaningful record accessible to Modern Languages research and learning.

King’s lead researchers: Paul Spence; Renata Brandao

Associated organisations: Queen Mary, University of London; Open University; University of Westminster