Language, Place, and the Body in Childhood Literacies

Khawla Badwan is Reader in TESOL and Applied Linguistics at Manchester Metropolitan University, UK.Ruth Churchill Dower is a PhD scholar at Manchester Metropolitan University, UK, exploring young children's nonlingual ways of being through experiments in movement.Warda Farah is a Social Entrepreneur, Speech & Language Therapist, Writer and Consultant.Rosie Flewitt is Professor of Early Childhood Communication at Manchester Metropolitan University, UK.Abigail Hackett is a Professor of Childhood and Education at Sheffield Hallam University.Rachel Holmes is a Professor in the Education and Social Research Institute of Manchester Metropolitan University, UK.Christina MacRae is a Visiting Research Fellow at Manchester Metropolitan University.Vishnu KK Nair is a Lecturer in the School of Psychology and Clinical Language Sciences at University of Reading. David Ben Shannon is a Lecturer in the School of Education at the University of Sheffield.

'This exemplary book goes far beyond simple meanings and interpretations about language, to reconceptualise language as multimodal and embodied in spoken and signed words, created with machines and symbols, danced, painted … and always connected to place. The interdisciplinary authors are academics, pedagogues, located in communities and various practitioners who give us new insights into how children create their own language in their unique learning ecologies and share what this actually looks like in their lifeworlds.'- Nicola Yelland, Professor of Early Childhood Studies, University of Melbourne, Australia'If “it takes a village to raise a child,” this book powerfully shows that it is not only the people in the village, but the land, objects, and the whole host of non-human beings there who shape this development. The book demonstrates that language and cognition are embodied, shaped by an ecology of expansive social and material resources. How children draw from all the resources in their environment to think and talk in creative, spontaneous, and unorthodox ways suggests a complex language development. Judging their communication as deficient stems from our limited ideological assumptions. This book educates scholars to expand their perspectives by listening to the more-than-human communication “out of the mouth of babes and infants”!'- Suresh Canagarajah, Evan Pugh University Professor, Pennsylvania State University, USA'If you are interested in how, why and when children communicate, you will be informed, provoked, stimulated and engaged by this collection of papers. Rejecting simple and reductive approaches, the authors collectively show that children’s languaging practices are full-bodied, material, placed, unpredictable and delightfully opaque and slippery.'- Pat Thomson, Professor of Education, The University of Nottingham, UK

• ContentsBook Series Editors’ ForwardForeword: Warda FarahSECTION I: Introduction1 IntroductionKHAWLA BADWAN, RUTH CHURCHILL DOWER, WARDA FARAH, ROSIE FLEWITT, RACHEL HOLMES, ABIGAIL HACKETT, CHRISTINA MACRAE, VISHNU NAIR, DAVID BEN SHANNONSECTION II: Language as bodily and material2a Language as bodily and materialROSIE FLEWITT, RACHEL HOLMES, CHRISTINA MACRAE2b Making time for unruliness in the special education classroom: Resisting the narrowing of neurotypicality in EnglandYVONNE WILLIAMS and DAVID BEN SHANNON2c Letting things become what they want to become: Uncertainty, improvisation, and resisting the tyranny of talkCHARLOTTE ARCULUS2d Facilitating expressive language through body movements: Clinical implicationsMAYA LEELA2e Speech Bubbles: How play, joy, and storytelling open up expansive possibilities for languageADAM POWER-ANNAND with ABIGAIL HACKETT2f Coming together: Roundtable discussion on language as bodily and materialCHARLOTTE ARCULUS, RACHEL HOLMES, MAYA LEELA, CHRISTINA MACRAE, ADAM POWER-ANNAND, DAVID BEN SHANNON, YVONNE WILLIAMSSECTION III: Place and language3a Place and LanguageWARDA FARAH, VISHNU NAIR, DAVID BEN SHANNON3b Researching language and place: What is the evidence base?ABIGAIL HACKETT and DAVID BEN SHANNON3c Rituals, vocalisations and creating comfortable spaces: A spatialised view of young children’s language in museumsABI HACKETT, CHRISTINA MACRAE, DAVID BEN SHANNON, ROBERT CHESTER, LUCY COOKE, ESTHER HALLBERG, GEORGINA SIMMONS, LAURA SMITH-HIGGINS, SALLY TOON3d Spaces of Reprieve: An emancipatory practice centring Black and Brown children labelled with communication difficultiesWARDA FARAH and VISHNU NAIR3e The entanglement between signed language, embodiment, and placeLEALA HOLCOMB3f Coming together: Roundtable discussion on place and languageWARDA FARAH, ABI HACKETT, LEALA HOLCOMB, VISHNU KK NAIR, DAVID BEN SHANNONSECTION IV: Language beyond meaning4a Language beyond meaningKHAWLA BADWAN, RUTH CHURCHILL DOWER, ABIGAIL HACKETT4b Beyond ‘deficit’ or ‘lack’: Enjoying the richness of language and meaning-making in a complex early childhood classroomWILLOW SPENCER, JESS CLARKE, DAVID BEN SHANNON4c How might body-listening open up space for body-languaging?RUTH CHURCHILL DOWER4d Who chooses my words?ANDREA LEE4e Listening BodyLOUISE KLARNETT4f Coming together: Roundtable discussion on language beyond meaningRUTH CHURCHILL DOWER, ABIGAIL HACKETT, ANDREA LEE, DAVID BEN SHANNONSECTION V: Rights of the Talker5. The Rights of the Talker. A manifesto for chattering, whispering, translanguaging, not-speaking, non-verbalising, screeching, signing, clicking, twirling, stimming, assistive technology-ing, jumping, shouting, grasping, gasping, dancing, drawing, repeating, refusing, gesturing, glancing, smirking, eye-rolling, whistling……ABIGAIL HACKETT, KHAWLA BADWAN, RUTH CHURCHILL DOWER, ESTER EHIYAZARYAN-WHITE, WARDA FARAH, ROSIE FLEWITT, KAREN GRAINGER, RACHEL HOLMES, CHRISTINA MACRAE, VISHNU NAIR, DAVID BEN SHANNON