Marcia Farr | Ohio State University (original) (raw)

Books by Marcia Farr

FROM MAO TO NOW: China's Modern History (1949-2019) in a Life Story, 2020

Although this book tells the story of one man’s life, it simultaneously describes the changes occ... more Although this book tells the story of one man’s life, it simultaneously describes the changes occurring in China during the past seven decades. Starting with the success of Mao's Revolution and the establishment of the People’s Republic of China in 1949, through the Cultural Revolution of 1966 – 1976, up to the present entrepreneurial milieu in China, this book traces China’s recent history through the personal odyssey of one man, showing how he and his family dealt with the tightening and eventual loosening of its economy. Born in 1963 in a cave in Shanxi Province, Jackie Zhang went to school during the Cultural Revolution but soon dropped out. On his own he learned English from a Radio Australia course. Through constant repetition of material from the radio program he became fluent in English, which permitted him to leave a secure but unpleasant job as a machinist and become a tour guide. This transition led to additional transitions, as China became a supplier of goods and services to the world. Businessmen on his tours solicited him to work with them, first to represent an international consulting firm in China and then to locate reliable production facilities in China. Today Jackie Zhang is a successful businessman who has his own export business and shares his expertise in lectures at a university in Beijing. He also continues to enjoy guiding tours.

Papers by Marcia Farr

Oral Tradition, 2004

What Américo Paredes (1993) once called Greater Mexico now exists all over the United States. Tha... more What Américo Paredes (1993) once called Greater Mexico now exists all over the United States. That is, the Mexican diaspora (perhaps Cuauhtémoc's true revenge) is evident from Alaska to Georgia, and everywhere in between. This presence of Mexicans is particularly notable in Chicago, the global Midwestern city, which now counts a million persons of Mexican descent in its metropolitan area (U.S. Census 2000). Mexicans, like all peoples, bring their oral traditions with them in such transnational migrations. Mexican oral traditions rely on a wide range of genres, from the more canonical corridos (narrative folk songs with poetic structuring; see Herrera-Sobek 1990, Limón 1992), proverbs (Dominguez Barajas 2002), riddles, and jokes to varying types of informal narratives. The richness of these oral traditions illustrates the creativity and high value placed on rhetorical competence (Briggs 1988) within Mexican cultures and the importance of the poetic in Mexican verbal art and life. Although demographers, sociologists, and anthropologists have studied transnational Mexican communities, little work has focused on oral traditions within these populations (Farr 1994, 1998, 2000, in press; Guerra 1998). Oral traditions, of course, can be performed in public, more formal settings, or in private, more intimate ones. The commercialization of corridos on CDs enables their almost constant public performance on Spanish language radio stations. At the other extreme are the intimate contexts of family and home, in which oral traditions live on the tongues of and in the space between persons, contexts that are often out of the range of interested researchers. My deep involvement with a social network of Mexican families, both in Chicago and in their rancho (rural hamlet) in northwest Michoacán, over the last decade and a half has given me access to such intimate contexts, and especially to all-female conversations within them. The developing awareness over recent decades of the reflexivity of ethnography allows us to recognize the effect of gender and other identities on the research process. In this respect, my gender has been significant in opening access to the rich

Research in The Teaching of English, 1985

Journal of Pragmatics, Apr 1, 2011

Chicago, like other major U.S. cities, has both a historical and a contemporary reality of extens... more Chicago, like other major U.S. cities, has both a historical and a contemporary reality of extensive plurilingualism. I use the term plurilingual for the use of more than one language, or variety of a language, by an individual speaker (Clyne, 2003, 2005). This term then includes bi/multilingualism, as well as bi/multidialectalism, or their combination, capturing how speakers actually use multiple languages and dialects of those languages. The term as it is used here realistically acknowledges differing competence across language varieties, potential diglossia, and the social meanings of code-switching (Gumperz, 1982; Myers-Scotton, 1993). Such plurilinguistic practice allows speakers to articulate ''fine shades of identity.. .by delicate and moment-to-moment evolving variation between varieties of language, including accents, registers, styles, and genres'' (Blommaert, 2006:245) of whatever languages they know. Garcia and Menken (2006) argue that a plurilingual perspective ''acknowledges the dynamism of.. .speech communities, where members of dominant and non-dominant groups, often speakers of nonstandard varieties of both English and.. .[their community language] communicate with each other'' (Garcia and Menken, 2006:170).

Written Communication, 1993

The style of discourse underlying writing instruction in this country, which has been termed essa... more The style of discourse underlying writing instruction in this country, which has been termed essayist literacy by Scollon and Scollon and others, is grounded historically and culturally in the development of Western civilization. This style of discourse is the register of English used in academic situations, and it also has been found to be characteristic of some educated (especially male) mainstream speakers in other contexts. Because this register often differs from the naturally acquired discourse styles of students from nonmainstream groups, many such students face difficulties in writing instruction that mainstream students do not face. Given the importance of the essayist literacy register in this society, it is important (a) to make the characteristics of this discourse style explicit in order to increase the likelihood that writing instruction will be clear and available to all students, and (b) to learn about other discourse styles that are already known and used by students from a range of communities. A conceptual framework from the ethnography of communication is presented for studying verbal performances in different cultural contexts, and two examples of persuasive oral performances from ongoing research among Mexican immigrants are analyzed within this framework.

College Composition and Communication, Dec 1, 1988

Both a theoretical framework and some practical suggestions are included in this book intended to... more Both a theoretical framework and some practical suggestions are included in this book intended to help educators improve the teaching of writing to high school students who are native speakers of nonstandard English dialects. The first chapter includes a brief background on the problem of writing in American schools, with special focus on the present writing achievement of nonstandard-dialect-speaking students. The second chapter reviews research on language variation, emphasizing factors related to the acquisition of literacy. Applying insights from recent research on both language variation and writing instruction, the final chapter presents specific suggestions for teaching writing to the special students under consideration. An extensive bibliography is included.

Routledge eBooks, Jan 3, 2005

... Individualism and Identity in Mexican Ranchero Speech 29 Marcia Farr 3 Sociocognitive Aspects... more ... Individualism and Identity in Mexican Ranchero Speech 29 Marcia Farr 3 Sociocognitive Aspects of Proverb Use in a Mexican Transnational Social Network 55 Elías Domínguez Barajas 4 Successful and Unsuccessful Literacies of Two Puerto Rican Families in Chicago 78 ...

English Journal, Apr 1, 1983

Review of Research in Education, 1986

Why is learning to write often so difficult, whereas learning to speak one's native lang... more Why is learning to write often so difficult, whereas learning to speak one's native language is not? Why do students from ethnic minority communities generally have even more difficulty in this process than middle-class, "main-stream" students? To begin answering these ...

Routledge eBooks, Dec 4, 2009

Preface List of Contributors 1: Introduction: Ethnolinguistic Diversity in Language and Literacy ... more Preface List of Contributors 1: Introduction: Ethnolinguistic Diversity in Language and Literacy Education, Marcia Farr, Lisya Seloni, and Juyoung Song Part I: Ethnolinguistic Diversity in the United States 2: Common Myths and Stereotypes Regarding Literacy and Language Diversity in the Multilingual United States, Terrence G. Wiley & Gerda de Klerk 3: Language, Education,and Literacy a Mexican Transnational Community, Marcia Farr 4: "I'm Speaking English Instead of My Culture" - Portraits of Language Use and Change among Native American Youth, Teresa L. McCarty, Mary Eunice Romero-Little, Larisa Warhol, & Ofelia Zepeda 5: Diverse Literacy Practices among Asian Populations: Implications for Theory and Pedagogy, Alan Hirvela Part II: Integrating Ethnolinguistic Diversity into Schooling 6: Dialect Awareness, Cultural Literacy, and the Public Interest, Walt Wolfram 7: Ethnosensitivity in Time and Space: Critical Hip Hop Language Pedagogies and Black Language in the US, H. Samy Alim & John Baugh 8: Standardized Assessment of African-American Children: A Sociolinguistic Perspective, Anne H. Charity Hudley 9: Latino Language Practices and Literacy Education in the U.S., Ofelia Garcia 10: Language, Literacy, and Pedagogy of Caribbean Creole English Speakers, Shondel Nero 11: From Outside Agitators to Inside Implementers: Improving the Literacy Education of Vernacular and Creole Speakers, Angela E Rickford & John R. Rickford Afterword: Mariko Haneda

FROM MAO TO NOW: China's Modern History (1949-2019) in a Life Story, 2020

Oral Tradition, 2004

Research in The Teaching of English, 1985

Journal of Pragmatics, Apr 1, 2011

Written Communication, 1993

College Composition and Communication, Dec 1, 1988

Routledge eBooks, Jan 3, 2005

English Journal, Apr 1, 1983

Review of Research in Education, 1986

Routledge eBooks, Dec 4, 2009

Discourse Processes, 1995

ED321598 - Learning Literacy Lyrically: Informal Education among Mexicanos in Chicago.

Prepared as part of a series applying' recent research in oral and written communication instruct... more Prepared as part of a series applying' recent research in oral and written communication instruction to classroom practice, this booklet describes several classroom-based studies that have examined children's writing development and synthesizes what they have shown about the process. The first section of the booklet analyzes the term "writing development"; presents a model of literacy acquisition and use devised by J.C. Harste, C.L. Burke, and V. Woodard; and /discusses the work of D.H. Graves and his associates in this area. The second section discusses children's transition from oral to written language and reviews the research conducted by M.L. King and V.M. Rentel. The third section examines how written language growth is related to teaching and discusses King's, Rentel's, and Graves' findings on instructional approaches and S. Sowers's work with the concept of scaffolding. (FL)

One segment of a larger study examined literacy activities occurring within the homes of immigran... more One segment of a larger study examined literacy activities occurring within the homes of immigrant families in Chicago's Mexican-American community. During the first year and a half of fieldwork, literacy practices seemed minimal and Infrequent. However, further analysis indicated that such practices were occurring, and were woven into the fabric of family life. Within the community and the home, a variety of print in English and Spanish was available. Literacy was found not to be taken for granted, but was actively taught by parents. Literate adults within the social network were held in high regard. Proficiency in literacy appeared to be linked to childhood opportunity for schooling, with a clear trend toward increased literacy with each new generation. Even older adults indicated great interest in some literary texts. It was concluded that these families, especially as a social network, have considerable expertise with literacy, routinely handling literacy demands in this as well as other domains, and consistently indicating interest in improving their literacy skills. However, it is noted that development of literacy extension efforts must take into consideration the community's perception of the place of literacy in its life and respect its cultural values. A 58-item bibliography is included. (MSE) (Adjunct ERIC Clearinghouse on Literacy Education)

Ablex Pub. eBooks, 1985

The Social Foundations of Children's Early Writing Development Individual Differences in Emer... more The Social Foundations of Children's Early Writing Development Individual Differences in Emerging Writing Kindergarteners as Writers and Readers Children's Writing in an Elementary School Postal System Learning to Write in A Workshop: A Study in Grades One through Four Author Index Subject Index

Language in Society, Mar 1, 1985

Review of Research in Education, 1986

Why is learning to write often so difficult, whereas learning to speak one's native language ... more Why is learning to write often so difficult, whereas learning to speak one's native language is not? Why do students from ethnic minority communities generally have even more difficulty in this process than middle-class, "mainstream" students? To begin answering these questions, it is necessary to explore what is known about (1) the language of nonmainstream cultural groups in contrast to the language of the mainstream middle class, and (2) the nature of writing, and the learning of writing, as one kind of language in context. This chapter will review what we know about writing, and the learning of writing, from the standpoint of language variation, that is, how language differs among users in its structure and in its use. Language variation, of course, can be viewed in both individual and group terms; here the focus will be on the latter, especially as it is reflected in ethnic and cultural identity. Because writing is seen here as one mode, or channel, in which to use language, and because relatively little research on cultural variation in language has focused on writing directly (most of it has focused on spoken language), some of the work to be reviewed deals with cultural variation in oral language. Research on cultural variation in language is important for research on writing for two reasons: first, because it provides a foundation upon which future work on cultural aspects of writing can be built. Second, knowledge about variation in language, both oral and written, has significant implications for the teaching and learning of writing. While it is clear that there are problems in the teaching and learning of writing in classrooms across the country (Applebee 1981, 1984), it is also clear that these problems are more serious

roles. The efforts of a writer are always partially governed by the anticipated needs and desires... more roles. The efforts of a writer are always partially governed by the anticipated needs and desires of the reader, and of course a reader's efforts are always partially directed by the purposes and interests of the writer. Indeed, as Nystrand 6 points out, all written communication depends on some form of reciprocity between writer and reader. To succeed in one role, you need to have some understanding of the other. What has research conducted from these two points of view taught us? Below we assess what we know about young children's writing and reading in nonschool settings. We know, first, that many children do begin experimenting with writing and reading well before they meet literacy instruction in school, and indeed before they attend school at all. Teale and Sulzby, listing the conclusions they draw from studies to date, state the point in strong terms: "Literacy development begins long before children start formal instruction. Children use legitimate reading and writing behaviors in the informal settings of home and community." 7 The use of the word "legitimate" in this formulation is noteworthy, as it suggests that some observers may not find evidence of reading and writing activity in the behavior of the children Teale and Sulzby here refer to. Surely it is true that scholars, educators, and parents alike may be inclined to discount the young child's "pretend" reading or undecipherable scribbling as evidence of the onset of literacy development.

Pancho: "..lirico es el puro, eh, hablando vez, puro hablado, no hay nada, que no haya libros ni ... more Pancho: "..lirico es el puro, eh, hablando vez, puro hablado, no hay nada, que no haya libros ni nada." An interesting phenomenon has emerged from our ongoing ethnographic study in a Mexican-origin neighborhood in Chicago. Quite a few of the men (who are all from one particular rancho in the state of Guanajuato, Mexico) have become functionally literate essentially without formal schooling. Before discussing the details of this phenomenon, however, I'd like to describe the larger project briefly. The larger project, "The Mexican-Origin Language and Literacy Project," has as its overall goal the description of oral and written language patterns and uses-in both Spanish and English-which are typical of this community. Initially funded by the National Science Foundation (Linguistics Program), we also have received funding from the U.S. Census Bureau. In the NSF study, we are focusing on one social network of Mexicano immigrants which comprises approximately 45 people. A social network (Milroy, 1980/87; Hannerz, 1980) consists of one center person or family-the latter in our case-and all of their immediate intimates in terms of kin and friendship. Social networks have been studied in various working class communities around the world, and while they are probably important for many U.S. immigrant groups (as a support and survival mechanism), they seem to be particularly important for Mexicanos because of compadrazgo. Compadrazgo refers to the Mexican system of godparent-like relationships which functions as a reciprocal exchange network to facilitate economic survival and to provide

This paper explores ideological issues regarding definitions of literacy, showing how particular ... more This paper explores ideological issues regarding definitions of literacy, showing how particular definitions express ideologies that materially impact people’s lives. Research has progressed from early conceptions of literacy as a uniform cognitive ability or set of skills applied across contexts, to more grounded understandings of literacy as complex practices that differ across time and space. Theorists such as Szwed (1981) called for the study of “a plurality of literacies” in local contexts, and Street (1984) critiqued the monolithic and autonomous model if literacy, arguing for an ideological model of literacy. The New Literacy Studies examined literacy ethnographically, searching for local meanings embedded in particular literacy events (e.g., Heath, 1983). Collins and Blot (2003) critically synthesized ethnographic and historical studies of literacy, indicating that, for many literacy scholars, an ideological model is now well established.
Detailed studies now exist that describe various populations using written language for their own purposes, but most studies have not tackled the larger significance of this abundant description. In order to connect the micro-level of local practices with the macro-level of social, cultural, and political meanings, I propose to extend Street’s ideological model of literacy with the concept of language ideologies from linguistic anthropology (Schieffelin, Woolard, and Kroskrity, 1998; Kroskrity, 2000). I explore two dominant literacy ideologies that construct hierarchical social relations and then reinterpret some of my own earlier descriptive research on literacy practices among transnational Mexican families (Farr, 1994a,b) within this framework.