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In recent decades, scholars have documented how globalisation and mobility have changed our relationship with linguistic, social and cultural norms. Yet in most educational contexts, evaluation systems still tend to support the teaching of homogeneous knowledge mastered by all, and to portray linguistic standards as key for social mobility. Drawing on qualitative interviews conducted with students on an international and multilingual higher education programme, this paper examines what the students claim they learn from a programme premised instead on the circulation of a multiplicity of norms, standards and practices. The interviews, conducted on the basis of a co-inquiry approach, suggest that the students learn to 1) deal productively and agentively with tensions, 2) rethink their positions and 3) open up to unexpected experiences when teachers support them in navigating multiple norms. In conclusion, the paper highlights how the research elucidates two kinds of norms at play in the programme, institutional and lived norms, and the relationship between them. It also reflects on the utility of discussing multilayered norms (Canagarajah 2006) openly in a globalised higher education context. Résumé: Ces dernières décennies, les chercheurs ont montré comment la mondialisation et la mobilité modifient nos rapports aux normes linguistiques, sociales et culturelles. De nombreux contextes éducatifs cependant mettent toujours l’accent sur l’enseignement de standards linguistiques, considérés comme une clé de la mobilité sociale. Les systèmes d’évaluation encouragent par ailleurs l’enseignement de connaissances homogènes, maîtrisées par tous et identiques pour tous. Dans cet article, nous nous appuyons sur des entretiens qualitatifs réalisés dans un Master international et multilingue caractérisé par la circulation de normes, de standards et de pratiques linguistiques multiples. Les entretiens, réalisés en coenquête, révèlent que les étudiants ne considèrent pas l’exposition à des pratiques et normes multiples comme un frein à leurs apprentissages. Ils estiment au contraire que cette exposition leur apprend 1) à gérer les tensions de manière productive, 2) à repenser leurs positions et 3) à s’ouvrir à de nouvelles expériences, surtout lorsque les enseignants soutiennent leur réflexion autour des normes. En conclusion, l’article rend plus explicite deux types de normes en jeu dans le programme — les normes institutionnelles et les normes vécues, et leurs relations. Il montre également certaines vertus à discuter ouvertement de la complexité des normes (Canagarajah 2006) dans un enseignement supérieur international et mondialisé. In den letzten Jahrzehnten habe Forscher sich verstärkt der Frage zugewandt, wie Globalisierung und steigende Mobilität unsere Beziehungen zu sprachlichen, sozialen und kulturellen Normen verändert haben. Dennoch fußen Bewertungssysteme in den meisten Bildungskontexten noch immer auf der Vermittlung und Überprüfung homogener Wissensbestände, sowie auf definierten sprachlichen Standards als Schlüssel zur sozialen Mobilität. Ausgehend von qualitativen Interviews, die mit Studierenden im Rahmen eines internationalen und mehrsprachigen Hochschulstudienganges geführt wurden, analysiert dieser Beitrag die Lernerfahrungen der Befragten in einem Masterprogramm, welches durch eine Vielzahl von Normen, Standards und Praktiken gekennzeichnet ist. Die Auswertung der Interviews durch partizipatorische Methoden legt nahe, dass Studierende lernen, 1) produktiv und bewusst mit Spannungen umzugehen, 2) ihre eigenen Positionierungen zu hinterfragen und 3) sich auf unerwartete Erfahrungen einzulassen, unter der Voraussetzung, dass Lehrende sie dabei unterstützen, Orientierung in den vielfältigen Normerwartungen zu finden. Dieser Beitrag macht zwei für den Studiengang relevante Arten von Normen explizit: institutionelle und gelebte Normen sowie ihre Beziehungen zueinander. Er reflektiert des Weiteren einige der positiven Auswirkungen, die durch eine offene Diskussion über multiple Normen (Canagarajah 2006) in internationalen und globalisierten Hochschullandschaften stimuliert werden kann.

This paper investigates smaller-scale transitions that are part of the longer-term processes of subjective transformation and adaptation to new professional competencies for learners in the field of vocational education. On the conceptual level, it proposes to view transitions as intermediate states in situated trajectories of learning. The notion of trajectory aims to capture that (a) learning occurs through situated and highly contextualized micro activities and (b) that these activities occur within historical sequences of events, which come to form over time dynamic trajectories. The ingredients constitutive of a trajectory of learning are first defined. The notions presented are next applied to the empirical analysis of one sequence of learning, in which we show the transitions undergone by one object of knowledge as it is being taught to different apprentices in a workshop. On the theoretical plane, the paper thus proposes to view transitions as microdynamics of change. On the methodological plane, it contributes to identifying possible empirical sources and methodological frames to study micro-transitional phenomena.

This commentary responds to the articles assembled for the thematic issue Self-identity on the move: methodological elaborations (IPBS, 51 (2), June 2017). The issue points in two directions. Firstly, the articles investigate the way individual self-identity develops in changing social and cultural environments, specifically in the contexts of family, youth and migration. Secondly, the special issue is also interested in methodological elaboration, more specifically the question of how one can generalize from individual case studies, especially when looking at complex, multiscale, semiotic processes. This commentary particularly addresses the second point and uses the various cases in this issue (i) to better understand something of the larger intellectual debate around the question of ‘generalizing from case studies’, and (ii) to reflect on writing as a tool for indexing generalization. The commentary highlights five textual moves the authors use to make their findings relevant beyond the specifics of the local study.

L’article part d’un constat : peu de travaux ont etudie les rela-tions effectives qui se nouent entre professionnels et benefi-ciaires dans les situations d’accompagnement de reconversion professionnelle. Il propose par consequent d’examiner l’accompagnement tel qu’il s’accomplit en situation reelle d’interaction. Dans un premier temps, la contribution releve quelques aspects generiques des situations d’accompagnement (caractere dialogique, ouvert et imprevisible, orientation vers un but, asymetrie des roles). Dans un second temps, l’article souligne la nature « prefigurative » des situations d’accompagnement (elles sont orientees vers l’avenir et vers des decisions concernant des actions futures) et propose quelques categories pour les analyser. Dans un troisieme temps, une situation d’accompagnement effective est examinee a partir de ces categories. Le contexte analyse est celui d’une entreprise de formation par le travail (milieu associatif), integrant les valeurs de l’economie sociale et poursuivant une double mission d’insertion et de formation de chomeurs de longue duree peu qualifies. L’analyse fine de l’interaction permet de relever certains aspects saillants de l’« activite sociale d’accompagnement » et de s’interroger sur certains dilemmes et controverses du metier. Sur le plan methodologique, des outils issus de la sociolinguistique interactionnelle sont mobilises.

When trainers or teachers in the field of initial vocational education explain abstract notions, refer to technical objects or emphasize the specificities of technical skills, they often call forth concepts and practices different from those that are directly salient in the training situations in which they engage. The aim of this paper is to contribute to a better understanding of the empirical realities associated with such phenomena by promoting a discursive and interactional approach of what we propose to term “analogical discourse”. Considering that analogies are performed and shared trough language and speech, we propose that concepts and methodological tools borrowed from the field of linguistics can be profitably applied to the analysis of analogical discourse. Not only can they reveal the dynamic and collective nature of analogies as they are performed, disseminated and sometimes negotiated amongst participants, but they can also help reflect about the complexities of vocational learning as it takes place in specific material, practical and socio-cultural environments. From that standpoint, the paper proposes to see analogies not only as related to conceptual development and cognitive dimensions of learning, but as a substantial contribution to the social, cultural and relational dimensions of it.

Cette contribution explore trois ouvertures récentes dans le champ de l’analyse du discours et des interactions : l’ouverture à la multimodalité, à l’histoire et à la corporéité et interroge les nouvelles épistémologies qui en résultent. L’article fait également le point sur une approche récente dans le champ anglo-saxon qui articule ces trois perspectives : la mediated discourse analysis. This contribution explores three recent developments in the field of discourse and interaction analysis : a new focus on multimodality, history, and the place and role of the body in social interactions. It investigates the new epistemologies these developments give rise to. It also presents and discuss mediated discourse analysis, a recent approach in the anglo-saxon field that seek to articulate these three entries.

In this study, we integrate visual and linguistic research to analyze the relationship between a city's regional, national, transnational, and European identities as the face of four cities depicts it. We explore the cultural identity of Brussels, Luxembourg, Munich, and Dortmund through the study of public signs found in these cities. We examine how the choice of language, layout, typography, accompanying images, and positioning of city signs reflect the tensions involving the change from a national or regional identity to a Pan‐European identity. Our methodology combines an ethnographic approach and neutral observations with interviews of city inhabitants. By combining interpretive analysis with a meta‐discursive approach to how signs are read and perceived, we consider both the production and reception ends of the signs.

The labels ‘post-modern condition’, ‘late modernity’, and ‘superdiversity’ (Vertovec 2007) are some of the terms used in the discourse of researchers in the social sciences and humanities to capture aspects of the transformations and new conditions evident in today’s developed societies. These transformations can be seen in a great many areas of social life but two examples suffice to give a glimpse of their extent.

Context is a central concept in the analysis of discourse and interaction in all the major research traditions in applied and sociolinguistics. Early linguistics did not display much sensitivity to it (Scollon, 1998, p. 80) and tended to study utterances in isolation and without reference to context. Today, however, there seems to be a general consensus around the idea that we understand utterances because they fit or make sense within particular situations. Studies of discourse and interaction include some orientation to context, if nothing else because “language is always produced by someone to someone else, at a particular time and place, with a purpose and so forth” (Blommaert, 2005, p. 39). Keywords: computer mediated communication; culture; discourse analysis; language and social interaction; linguistic anthropology; pragmatics

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