The potential of ethnographic drama in the representation, interpretation, and democratization of sociolinguistic research

Citation

Blackledge A & Creese A (2022) The potential of ethnographic drama in the representation, interpretation, and democratization of sociolinguistic research. Journal of Sociolinguistics. https://doi.org/10.1111/josl.12546

Abstract
In this paper, we discuss the affordances of an approach to the representation, interpretation, and democratization of sociolinguistic research, which utilizes the tools and methods of the theatre. Taking as an example a team ethnographic research project conducted across four cities in the UK, we discuss the process of creating drama from material observed as social practice. Drawing on observations in a welfare advice centre in a Chinese community centre, and a city-based volleyball team, we propose that theatre techniques enable audiences and academic researchers to see communicative encounters in a new light. We propose that ethnographic drama offers three opportunities in particular: (i) it has the potential to make available outcomes of research beyond the academy; (ii) it has the potential to discover understandings of ethnographic material which remain latent in accounts that do not involve performance; and (iii) it has the capacity to democratize voice, privileging the voices of research participants rather than those of academic researchers. Ethnographic drama thus offers considerable potential in the representation, interpretation, and democratization of sociolinguistic research.

Keywords
ethnographic drama theatre; interpretation; representation; sociolinguistics

Notes
Output Status: Forthcoming/Available Online

Journal
Journal of Sociolinguistics

• Published version