Supporting multilingualism and community language needs

  • Yaron Matras (Participant)

Impact: Societal impacts, Health impacts, Technological impacts

Narrative

This research by Professor Yaron Matras has impacted on the way local services communicate with minority populations by encouraging them to re-assess language needs. It has had its effects in the fields of health and welfare, education, and policy making in relation public services. In particular it has demonstrated the need to base language policy on reliable mechanisms of data collection and the assessment of such data. One of the key outcomes was the establishment of the world’s largest online language archive, Multilingual Manchester. The research also highlighted the existence of relatively unknown languages such as Kurdish and Romani in Manchester. It has also helped explain communication patterns among people who speak related dialects, such as immigrants from different Arabic-speaking countries, and has shed new light on the way in which people who are multilingual make use of their languages.
Impact date2014
Category of impactSocietal impacts, Health impacts, Technological impacts
Impact levelBenefit

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