Sharing research methods in Applied Linguistics: the Arqus student co-designed project “AL4ALL”

From November to December, the Arqus project “AL4ALL: Applied Linguistics for ALL” organised 12 online seminars on current research methods in Applied Linguistics. 12 speakers participated in the seminar series and presented their research: 10 PhD students and young researchers from different universities of the Arqus Alliance: Granada (Spain), Graz (Austria), Leipzig (Germany), Maynooth (Ireland), Minho (Portugal), Vilnius (Lithuania). In addition, 2 PhD students from the University of Zaragoza (Spain) and the Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz (Germany) presented their studies.

The project was led by an international team of students: Angelica Peccini (Vilnius University), Barbara Hinterplattner and Alma Ibrahimpašić (University of Graz). AL4ALL sought to provide a space for fruitful discussions, exchange of ideas as well as growth in all stages of education in PhD studies. In doing so, AL4ALL aimed to spur the potential of Applied Linguistics and other methods in order to bridge the gap between different fields of research.

The seminars were open to the public upon registration. The presentations covered a wide range of topics and methods: forensic linguistics, task-based language teaching, content analysis, aesthetic categorisation in literature, critical discourse analysis; cognitive grammar teaching, dialectology and language attitudes, conceptual variation, ecology, multimodal corpus analysis, text mining and third language acquisition. The complete programme can be found here.

Furthermore, extra room was dedicated to the implementation of software used for research in linguistics: relevant tools were shown in action and on one occasion, the attendees themselves were invited to test a tool for data analysis.

The organisers would like to thank all the attendees who joined the seminars from all over the globe and brought to the table valuable insight and constructive feedback as well as their own experience. Above all, we thanks the presenters, who dedicated their time and shared their research: Nikol Stopić, Department of English Studies (University of Graz), Richard Udes, Faculty of Philology, Institute of Applied Linguistics, Center for Multilingual Studies (Vilnius University), Madeeha Naz, Department of Communications and Media Studies (Leipzig University), Tomas Riklius, Faculty of Philology (Vilnius University), Carmen Ortega Robles, Department of English and German Philologies (University of Granada), Jorge López Parreño, Faculty of Philology, Spanish Department (Vilnius University), Vusala Maharramova, Institute for Slavic, Turkic and Circum-Baltic Studies (Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz), Santiago Chambó, Doctoral School of Humanities, Social Sciences and Law, Faculty of Translation and Interpreting (University of Granada), Carlos Alberto Murillo Miranda, ELT Research and Methodology Department (University of Graz), Paula Wood Borque, Department of English and German Philology (University of Zaragoza), Anna Meyer, English and American Studies (University of Graz), Deepak Singh, School of Modern Languages, Literatures and Cultures (Maynooth University).

This project was one of the winning proposals presented by the Vilnius University Kaunas Faculty and the University of Graz for the 2023 call for student co-designed projects launched by the Arqus European University Alliance. If you wish to join the second edition as co-organizer, presenter or attendee, please reach out to Angelica Peccini: angelica.peccini@knf.stud.vu.lt.