Anik Nandi is a guest researcher at the Leiden University Centre for Linguistics. Anik Nandi specialises in interdisciplinary approaches to study language policy and literacy practices in multilingual societies.

More information about Anik Nandi

Fields of interest

• Multilingualism
• Language policy and planning
• Minority languages
• Ethnography
• Educational Sociolinguistics
• Critical Theories

Research

My current research brings together work in both critical theories and language policy. Drawing on ethnographic mixed methods and discourse-analytical tools, I analyse the complex association between governmental policies and how these policies are interpreted, appropriated, implemented and negotiated by a diverse range of social actors (i.e., policymakers, teachers, parents, students and other members of the civil society) on the ground, opening up ideological spaces for the use or non-use of certain languages. Since language policies are socially situated and context-specific, I strongly believe that a lot can be learnt – either negatively or positively – comparing different societies. I have been studying different forms of language governance mainly in four very different geopolitical settings: India, Spain, Latin America and the United Kingdom.

Curriculum vitae

I earned my Ph.D. in 2017 in Sociolinguistics from the School of Social Sciences at Heriot-Watt University (Edinburgh, UK) as a prestigious James Watt Scholar. While my doctoral research (2012-16) offered new insights into the understudied domain of family language policy in contemporary Galicia (North-western Spain), my postdoctoral research (2017-19) at Queen’s University Belfast (Northern Ireland) focussed on educational policies and inclusion practices with regard to migrant newcomer children in Northern Ireland and Scotland. Before joining Queen's, I was directly involved in language planning activities in the Galician language context and worked closely with the policymakers and practitioners at the General Directorate of Language Policy of the Autonomous Government of Galicia. My work frequently features in the Galician media and I have had several television appearances and interviews with local radio stations and newspapers about my research on Galician.

In addition to my current role at LUCL, I am working as a Senior Research Associate in the Sociolinguistics Division of the Real Academia Galega (Spain). I am co-PI on one of its work packages focusing on the impact of language policy in the intergenerational transmission of Galician.

I am also External Research Collaborator at the research centre attached to the UNESCO Chair on World Language Heritage at the University of the Basque Country (Spain).  

During my PhD, I was an active member of the Language Policy Working Group of the EU funded COST Action on New Speakers in a Multilingual Europe: Opportunities and Challenges (2013- 2017). As part of this research network, I developed links with 300 key researchers across the 28 European countries which were part of the Action. Later, while at Queen’s, I worked simultaneously as a Consultant in a sociolinguistic project ‘Sowing the seeds at Semente: Grassroots revitalization and language activism in contemporary Galicia’ (2017-19) funded by the Smithsonian Centre for Folklore and Cultural Heritage (Prof. Bernadette O’Rourke, the University of Glasgow as PI). 
 

Key publications

Journal Articles:

Carruthers, J. and Nandi, A. (2020). Supporting Speakers of Community Languages. A Case Study of Policy and Practice in Primary Schools. Current Issues in Language Planning. https://doi.org/10.1080/14664208.2020.1838748

Reyna, F.; Manterola, I. and Nandi, A. (2019). ‘Educación plurilingüe con lenguas minoritarias en contextos de diáspora y su impacto en las políticas lingüísticas en familias neo-hablantes: el caso del gallego en Argentina’, Lengua y Migración/Language and Migration, 11 (2), 107-134. DOI: https://hdl.handle.net/10017/41213

Nandi, A. (2019). ‘Política lingüística familiar. O papel dos proxenitores pro-galego na transmisión interxeracional’, Estudos da Lingüística Galega, 11, 77-101. DOI: https://dx.doi.org/10.15304/elg.11.5064

O’Rourke, B. and Nandi, A. (2019). ‘New speaker parents as grassroots policy makers in contemporary Galicia: ideologies, management and practices’, Language Policy, 18, 493–511. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10993-018-9498-y

Nandi, A. (2018).  ‘Parents as stakeholders: Language management in urban Galician homes’, Multilingua: Journal of Cross-Cultural and Interlanguage Communication, 37 (2), 201-223. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/multi-2017-0020  

Nandi, A. (2017). ‘Language Policies and Linguistic Culture in Galicia’, LaborHistórico, 3 (2), 28-45. DOI: https://dx.doi.org/10.24206/lh.v3i2.17124

Book Chapters:

Nandi, A. and Devasundaram, A. I. (2017). ‘Contesting the Conventionalising of Castilian: The Role of Galician Parents as Counter-Elites’. In Lauchlan, F. and Parafita-Couto, M. C. (Eds), Bilingualism and Minority Languages in Europe: Current trends and developments. Newcastle upon Tyne, United Kingdom: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, pp 12-33.