The Centre for Literacy and Multilingualism (CeLM) is happy to announce it’s Seminar Series for Spring 2026. Please find further information below, and please consider sharing this email within your networks. Future regular updates on our work and events will be posted on our LinkedIn page. If you would like to join any (or all) of our seminars, please complete our online registration form.
Dr Eirini Sanoudaki (Bangor University)
October 16th, 2025. 4.00pm – 5.00pm (Health Theme)
Bilingual Development in Children With Developmental Conditions: Insights from Wales.
While research on bilingualism has made significant progress in recent decades, relatively little is known about bilingual development in individuals with disabilities or developmental conditions. This gap in the literature has often led to recommendations against bilingual exposure for children with such conditions. This talk will present recent work from the Child Bilingualism Lab, which examines language development in bilingual children both with and without developmental conditions. Based in bilingual Wales, researchers in the lab have been investigating bilingual development in neurotypical children as well as those with diagnoses such as Down syndrome, Rett syndrome, and autism, for over a decade. In addition to empirical research, the lab engages in intervention and outreach activities aligned with the Welsh Government’s goal to increase the number of Welsh (bilingual) speakers.
Professor Kimberley Campanello (University of Leeds) & Dr Nicoletta Asciuto (University of York)
January 15th, 2025. 4.00pm – 5.00pm (Literacy & Literature Theme)
Health, Creativity and the Craft of Translation
What happens when we translate literature? What decisions and negotiations do we make as translators and readers? How can this type of decision-making be seen to affect one’s own writing so much that it gets to influence one’s activities, or even one’s life? In this joint session, we will explore how bilingualism and the work of translation might relate to creativity, by discussing our personal and professional experiences with literary translation.
Kimberly Campanello will examine her process and practice translating a complex, journeying canonical text – Dante Alighieri’s (1265-1321) Commedia. The particularity of her process induces a kind of ‘paradoxical kinesia’, a reversal of my Parkinson’s symptoms. Through examples from the text and her process logs and notes, she will attempt to account for the salutary effects of approaching translation in this way. She will raise the possibility that these positive effects have something to do with her approach to the process, which is place-based, cross-temporal and focused on figurative language, parataxis, circumlocution, and what she calls ‘slippery etymology’. She will ask us to consider whether writing opportunities for PwP and others could be designed with a focus on process, duration, complexity, and ‘estrangement’ via multi-languaging, as this could potentially maximise benefits for her as well as for others.
Nicoletta Asciuto will speak about her experience teaching the theory and practice of translating literature as a third-year option module in an English Literature degree. She will discuss her pedagogy and how her module effectively enables a certain “internationalisation” of the curriculum as well as of the student population. Even though she is still to collect reliable data on this yet, she would like to put forward the idea that translation work in bilingual / multilingual students not only enables creativity, but also empowers students to test their own creative potential in a more controlled environment, which in turn she has seen to help manage students’ anxieties, with improvements on mental health. She will also briefly explain her own approach to translation, including translating Kimberly Campanello’s work into Italian.
This joint session also wants to test the grounds for future research using creative, literary translation as a basis to better understand the workings of the human brain. In particular, we are interested in the direct implications of translation work for mental health in bilingual/multilingual people, and in people with Parkinson’s.
Dr Cecile Boulaire (Université de Tours)
May 6th, 14.00-15.00 (Literacy & Literature Theme)
Lisons aux nourrisons / Let’s read to babies: reading picture books in neonatal units
In this talk, children’s literature researcher Dr Boulaire will introduce her collaborative project investigating the effectiveness of book mediation activities with parents and carers of premature babies, working with speech therapists, neonatal doctors, librarians and community reading groups.
Dr Vishnu Nair & Dr Emma Pagnamenta (University of Reading)
May 21st, 16.15-17.00 (Health Theme)
Family language policy and professional advice on heritage language use in the context of communication disability
Family language policy has been understudied with families of children who have communication disability. Understanding how parents apply professional advice on heritage language use and their attitudes and ideologies is crucial for supporting children’s language development.
Aim: To gather perspectives on parental attitudes, ideologies and strategies on the use of heritage languages and on professional advice on heritage language use in the context of communication disability.
Method: Public involvement with three multilingual parents informed our study design and methodology. We worked with community researchers to recruit parents of children with communication disability. One-to-one semi-structured interviews, carried out with interpreters as needed, were transcribed verbatim and analysed using reflexive thematic analysis.
Results: 13 multilingual parents of diverse ethnicities representing different communities and 13 different languages participated. All were first-generation immigrants. Parents value using heritage languages but there are complex family language policies in the context of communication disability, with these policies being different for a child with communication disability. Often parents are making decisions to only use one language, but language policies are dynamic in response to communication needs. Some parents make decisions to only use the societal language, often relating this to the complexity of language acquisition, school and support received only in English. Some parents of older children experience changes to language policy to include heritage language later in their child’s life. Professional advice on heritage language use is variable, and parental perspectives on this advice is influenced by shared understanding and trust.
Conclusions: Family language policies in the context of communication disability are dynamic, reflecting the nature of the communication needs of the child, support and professional advice received. Professionals need to embed exploration of family language policies, tailored advice and education about multilingual language development in the support they provide.