Research Kris Peeters

Abstract

Intercultural competence (IC) means having knowledge of own and other cultures, maintaining attitudes of openness and respect towards others and valuing diversity, and having the necessary skills to communicate and interact effectively and efficiently with others from a different cultural background. IC is considered essential for individuals to succeed in an increasingly globalized world. However, the current assessment tools and frameworks for intercultural learning are facing criticism from experts in the field for being conformist and unethical. Despite the urgent need for better assessment measures, no effective tool has been developed yet. This research project aims to address this issue by developing an intercultural competence assessment tool based on feedback from critics and in line with EU policies on intercultural education. A start-up coaching and consultancy company will be founded in the field of intercultural education to valorize the application towards secondary and higher education institutions. The tool has two main purposes: to aid students in their intercultural learning process in an engaging and interactive manner, and to assist teachers and educational institutions in developing a suitable intercultural learning curriculum. The tool will generate data to enable teachers to assess both students' intercultural competence and the learning process itself. This feedback will enable teachers to adapt and improve their intercultural activities and course content. The one-year project not only involves developing a functional mobile/desktop app, but also a set of IC coaching packages offered to teachers and educational institutions. The start-up company will initially target secondary and higher education institutions in the first two years, while at the same time examining and expanding to multinational companies and other organizations within 2-3 years.

Researcher(s)

• Promoter: Peeters Kris

Research team(s)

• Translation, Interpreting and Intercultural Studies (TricS)

Project type(s)

• Research Project

Abstract

The valorisation manager facilitates the growth of research and valorisation potential in the Department of Applied Linguistics / Translation and Interpreting by, among other things: (i) stimulating co-operation with industry and cultural stakeholders, and building a network with private and public sector partners; (ii) mapping, describing and protecting a knowledge and IP portfolio of potential interest to industry. (iii) proactively exploring new opportunities for collaboration and valorisation with a specific focus on the impact of rapidly evolving technology on new research and valorisation opportunities in Translation and Interpreting Studies; (iv) facilitating the process of identifying valorisation partners, defining projects and closing agreements.

Researcher(s)

• Promoter: Peeters Kris
• Fellow: Meulemans Catherine

Research team(s)

• Translation, Interpreting and Intercultural Studies (TricS)

Project type(s)

• Research Project

Abstract

The Joyce in Translation Centre (JTC) is a centre of documentation and scientific expertise concerning James Joyce's work in translation. JTC's aims are to collect and digitize all Joyce translations, to collect all scholarly publications on Joyce in translation, and to bring together an international team of researchers, both Joyce scholars and translation scholars. in the long term, JTC's ambition is to provide the scholarly community with a comparative, digitized, open-source database of annotated translations and retranslations, aligned with the source texts at the sentence level. As such, JTC will constitute (a) a unique platform of scholarly information for Joyce scholars and translation scholars alike; (b) a virtual place for scholarly networking on Joyce translation; (c) a way of opening new research collaborations and paths of investigation, notably by the introduction of digital humanities tools and semi-automated corpus analyses.

Researcher(s)

• Promoter: Peeters Kris

Research team(s)

• Translation, Interpreting and Intercultural Studies (TricS)

Project website

Project type(s)

• Research Project

Abstract

The aim of the APATCHE project is expressed by its acronym and title. It is to "Add Plurilingual Approaches to language Teacher Competences in Higher Education", by raising awareness through various publications, dissemination events, a methodology for curriculum development and an online training course. Plurilingual approaches to language learning and teaching are approaches that value all languages present in the increasingly multilingual international classroom in higher education (HE) as a single, comprehensive set of competences. The APATCHE project wishes to raise awareness of the importance of such a plurilingual approach and to provide the necessary means of introducing them in HE all over Europe. To that end, we shall try to answer three questions, namely What is it?; Why is it needed?; and How can we implement it? (1) With respect to the 'What?' question, our objective is to raise awareness of, and to collect, provide and disseminate knowledge on the importance of plurilingual approaches in HE (and knowledge construction in general), embracing national languages as well as English as the predominant lingua academica and allowing for learners to develop language skills more effectively, while increasing autonomy and motivation, and fostering positive intercultural attitudes; the advantages of plurilingual learning as compared to monolingual approaches; the importance, for reasons of dissemination and societal impact, of scientific knowledge development in local and national languages as well as in English; necessary skills and attitudes to be developed and fostered; ways to develop these. (2) With respect to the "Why?" question, our objective is to raise awareness of the need for, and usefulness of plurilingual approaches in HE, both in (foreign) language classrooms and in multilingual classrooms in which languages are not in themselves the object of instruction, but a means of deepening conceptual knowledge, of enhancing student motivation and learning effectivity, and of increasing the ability for future graduates to communicate scientific knowledge to citizens and create future impact in European societies. (3) Related to the "How?" question, our third objective is to create ways of allowing HE teachers to familiarize themselves with possible methods and scenarios to bring plurilingual approaches into the HE classroom and to acquire the necessary competences to do so.

Researcher(s)

• Promoter: Peeters Kris
• Co-promoter: Ureel Jim

Research team(s)

• Translation, Interpreting and Intercultural Studies (TricS)

Project type(s)

• Research Project
• Education Project

Abstract

Intercultural competence (IC) is increasingly recognized as a core competence to be developed through formal education in order to prepare learners for a successful life and career in an intercultural world. These days, teachers and educational institutions are facing a challenging task of defining and assessing intercultural learning outcomes, especially as available IC assessment tools and frameworks are under fire by many experts in the field, who continuously stress the urgency to develop more valid and reliable measures to assess IC. So far, criticism by IC experts has been presented in the form of detailed feedback on available IC assessment tools accompanied by suggestions for the development of better assessment tools, yet, up to this date, and despite urgent calls on the matter, no attempts have been made to actually develop and test such a tool. Hence, the proposed CLAIM-Tool project aims to present a solution to an imperative and critical matter in intercultural education by producing an IC assessment tool based on the extant wealth of feedback from IC critics and in accordance with the EU policies on intercultural and plurilingual education. This project is an original work and a first attempt at developing a much needed IC tool, which, for the first time, combines theories and practice from both IC education and plurilingual education. It will contribute to a better understanding of IC assessment in foreign language education, which is an area of concern and much debate, and it will also contribute to better understanding of factors affecting IC assessment and the washback effect of conducting such type of assessment, which are two understudied areas in intercultural research. The CLAIM-Tool project will be carried out by an experienced researcher in the field of intercultural education, and in cooperation and under supervision of an expert supervisor who has a strong background in multicultural and plurilingual education.

Researcher(s)

• Promoter: Peeters Kris
• Fellow: Awad Hiltrud

Research team(s)

• Translation, Interpreting and Intercultural Studies (TricS)

Project type(s)

• Research Project

Abstract

This research project has to lead to the development of a three-dimensional open model which is able, on the basis of a shared and generally acceptable framework, 1) to draw up the boundaries of different forms of refraction within a single consistent taxonomy, inexistent today; 2) to develop and exploit new sub-corpora, underrepresented today in research on parody; and 3) to study and to compare for the first time in a consistent manner several forms of parodic discourse.

Researcher(s)

• Promoter: Pelckmans Paul
• Fellow: Peeters Kris

Research team(s)

• Antwerp Centre for Digital humanities and literary Criticism (ACDC)

Project type(s)

• Research Project

Abstract

This research proposal investigates a possible complement for the largely accepted theory of the "dilemme du roman" (G. May, 1963). A threefold criticism of May's theory -a) the concept of a "crise du roman" due to its official proscription in 1737 for invraisemblance and immoralism doesn't match its exponentially growing success; b) the lack of theoretical writings in favour of the novel leads to an imbalance in the confrontation between novel practise and contemporary novel criticism; and c) the a priori evacuation of parodical authors such as Caylus or Vade relies on a presupposition, namely that the novel has to formulate a serious answer to its proscription -leads to a triple hypothetical framework within which the role of parody in the novel debate about 1737 is evaluated: 1) the novel's success ensures it of another, more pragmatic legitimacy in the eyes of editors and public, which makes the aesthetic legitimacy less important; 2) the evolution of the novel is determined by the practise of novel writing itself rather than by theoretical precepts; and 3) the in criticism under- represented parodical corpus may have played a crucial role in the novel's response to its prohibition because it allows to criticise techniques that are found unbelievable (2) and because it permits an neutralising absorption of the proscription criteria in favour of the already achieved pragmatic legitimacy (1).

Researcher(s)

• Promoter: Rasson Luc
• Fellow: Peeters Kris

Research team(s)

• Antwerp Centre for Digital humanities and literary Criticism (ACDC)

Project type(s)

• Research Project