Robert A Troyer | Western Oregon University (original) (raw)
Websites by Robert A Troyer
Free, fully searchable corpus of over 550 published journal articles and book chapters in the fie... more Free, fully searchable corpus of over 550 published journal articles and book chapters in the field of Linguistic Landscape studies--hosted on Lancaster University's CQPweb corpus server.
Free, searchable bibliography of over 1,450 references to publications in the field of Linguistic... more Free, searchable bibliography of over 1,450 references to publications in the field of Linguistic Landscapes studies. Hosted on Zotero.
Papers by Robert A Troyer
The Bloomsbury Handbook of Linguistic Landscapes, 2024
This chapter explains videography for a range of qualitative and ethnographic Linguistic Landscap... more This chapter explains videography for a range of qualitative and ethnographic Linguistic Landscape (LL) data collection. Based on previously developed frameworks (cf. Troyer & Szabó 2017), this contribution provides a comprehensive review of recent LL studies that utilized videography and concludes that despite the potential benefits, LL researchers have yet to fully embrace these methods. The authors demonstrate videography through two contrasting case studies. The first study describes a project in which video-recorded walking interviews afforded the exploration of students’ perspectives on changes to a university’s LL policies. The second case study explains how LL researchers leveraged recent advances in immersive 360° video production to engage students in documenting and reflecting on educational developments in secondary schools. The authors conclude by encouraging readers to apply videographic methods more broadly, suggesting a range of techniques from recorded explorations of local LLs to incorporating 360° Head Mounted Displays in virtual, collaborative interactions.
MANUSYA: Journal of Humanities, 2022
Previous research has demonstrated that the increasing importance of Mandarin in education and pu... more Previous research has demonstrated that the increasing importance of Mandarin in education and public life has led many younger Chinese-Malaysians to regard Mandarin as their mother tongue and part of their cultural identity rather than a heritage language. Fewer studies have documented the language repertoires of middle-aged and older Chinese-Malaysians. This paper presents a qualitative study of Mandarin use conducted with six Chinese-Malaysians aged 40 and older. The participants reported extensive use of Mandarin in the domains of home, work, religion, and cultural maintenance, which were served by a heritage language in the past. This indicates that the use of Mandarin by the older generation Chinese-Malaysians to engage with the contemporary linguistic world is influenced by hegemonic local and global factors. This study therefore highlights the significance of Mandarin as both an element of cultural identity and an instrument of heritage language loss.
Spatializing Language Studies: Pedagogical Approaches in the Linguistic Landscape, 2023
Agency has been an ongoing topic of concern in Linguistic Landscape (LL) studies since the field’... more Agency has been an ongoing topic of concern in Linguistic Landscape (LL) studies since the field’s emergence while more recently notions of top-down vs. bottom-up power have been questioned in favor of more nuanced appreciations of the multiple factors that influence a local LL actor’s selection and emplacement of public language. Agency in public schools in the United States exists at the nexus of policy (determined at national, state, and local district levels) and the many decisions made by administrators at individual schools while teachers and support staff, students, and other stakeholders act according to and sometimes against explicit and implied policies. Previous studies of the LL of schools (schoolscapes) have demonstrated the role that public displays of language play in constructing identities, agency, diversity, and ideologies that affect multilingualism and literacy practices. This chapter reports findings of a mixed-methods study of all three elementary schools and the two secondary schools in a mid-sized public school district in Oregon. The combination of photographs, video-recorded walking tours led by schoolscape actors, and interviews with teachers and administrators documents the district’s schoolscapes and provides insight regarding their composition. This data leads to a classification of the functions of schoolscape signage and comparisons across the three elementary schools and across educational levels in terms of languages present, attitudes, policies, and agency. A Nexus Analysis focuses on the ideological positioning of Spanish relative to English and the construction of collective identities primarily as they affect English Language Learners and Spanish heritage speakers in the district.
Reterritorializing Linguistic Landscapes, 2020
Conflict, Exclusion and Dissent in the Linguistic Landscape, 2015
World Englishes, 2012
Previous work on the role of English in multilingual advertising has shown that the language is u... more Previous work on the role of English in multilingual advertising has shown that the language is used to index concepts of cosmopolitanism, globalization and modernity. The growing field of linguistic landscape studies (or geosemiotics or semiotic landscapes) has combined sociolinguistics with concerns of place and space in the public sphere to demonstrate the functional and symbolic uses of English in a variety of public discourses. This paper builds on Huebner's study of public signage and English in Bangkok by expanding the landscape covered to include Thai online newspapers, which have increased in numbers of publications and viewership. Approaching these web sites as spaces in the public sphere that engage millions of Thai Internet users reveals the multilingual character of this online environment. The results show that Thai website advertising often favors the use of English over other languages in interesting and perhaps surprising fashion.
In ethnographically oriented linguistic landscape studies, social spaces are studied in co-operat... more In ethnographically oriented linguistic landscape studies, social spaces are studied in co-operation with research participants, many times through mobile encounters such as walking. Talking, walking, photographing and video recording as well as writing the fieldwork diary are activities that result in the accumulation of heterogeneous, multimodal corpora. We analyze data from a Hungarian school ethnography project to reconstruct fieldwork encounters and analyze embodiment, the handling of devices (e.g. the photo camera) and verbal interaction in exploratory, participant-led walking tours. Our analysis shows that situated practices of embodied conduct and verbal interaction blur the boundaries between observation and observers, and thus LL research is not only about space- and place-making and sense-making routines, but the fieldwork encounters are also transformative and contribute to space- and place-making themselves. Our findings provide insight for ethnographic researchers and enrich the already robust qualitative and quantitative strategies employed in the field.
Much Linguistic Landscape scholarship relies on visual data collection, primarily the use of stil... more Much Linguistic Landscape scholarship relies on visual data collection, primarily the use of still photography; however, the field has yet to address the theoretical underpinning of such visual and spatial representation. Furthermore, digital video is currently as easy to capture and share as digital photographs were when Linguistic Landscape studies first became prominent in the early 2000s. With these two points in mind, this article first grounds the documentation and analysis of the Linguistic Landscape in a theory of visual representation; it then provides a framework for videographic methodologies drawing on recent work in the related fields of anthropology and cultural geography. An example study utilizing non-participatory videography is summarized in which digital video recordings were used to capture and convey the Linguistic Landscape.
Keywords: methodology, videography, technical images, visual representation
Conflict, Exclusion and Dissent in the Linguistic Landscape, 2015
Though Linguistic Landscape (LL) studies have become increasingly common, there are few studies o... more Though Linguistic Landscape (LL) studies have become increasingly common, there are few studies of rural US cities and few that specifically address the role of Spanish in the US. This research analyzed the LL of a small town in Oregon (population 8,590) that is unique for having a very high per capita percentage of Latino/Hispanic residents (35%). Quantitative analysis of signage along the length of the two main streets and shopping areas revealed that only 11% of the visible tokens displayed Spanish, and these were almost entirely in the very limited domains of restaurants, convenience stores, and general goods. In terms of authorship, businesses (both local and national) were more likely to display Spanish than individuals, organizations, and government agencies. Quantitative analysis was followed by an ethnographic study of LL actors/agents which consisted of eight interviews with representatives of city government, Hispanic business owners, and Anglo-American business owners who did and did not display Spanish. Themes that emerged from these interviews included lingering conflict surrounding the public use of Spanish (spoken or written), unawareness of the significance of language choice in the LL, and Hispanics' reluctance to speak out in any form from being interviewed to acknowledging or discussing conflict to using Spanish in public. These quantitative and qualitative methods combine to explain why in a small town in which one-third of the residents prefer Spanish as their home language, this language is relatively inconspicuous in the Linguistic Landscape.
Previous work on the role of English in multilingual advertising has shown that the language is u... more Previous work on the role of English in multilingual advertising has shown that the language is used to index concepts of cosmopolitanism, globalization and modernity. The growing field of linguistic landscape studies (or geosemiotics or semiotic landscapes) has combined sociolinguistics with concerns of place and space in the public sphere to demonstrate the functional and symbolic uses of English in a variety of public discourses. This paper builds on Huebner’s study of public signage and English in Bangkok by expanding the landscape covered to include Thai online newspapers, which have increased in numbers of publications and viewership. Approaching these web sites as spaces in the public sphere that engage millions of Thai Internet users reveals the multilingual character of this online environment. The results show that Thai website advertising often favors the use of English over other languages in interesting and perhaps surprising fashion.
"This paper presents a discourse analysis framework that can be applied to the dialogue in fictio... more "This paper presents a discourse analysis framework that can be applied to the dialogue in fiction. Based on an elaboration of Halliday’s functional approach to conversational interaction combined with traditional conversation and discourse analysis and speech act theory, the framework posits a hierarchical categorization of opening and responding speech moves. When applied to fictional dialogue, this analytical method offers a descriptive apparatus that can be simple or complex depending on one’s needs (i.e., pedagogical or research oriented) while also providing insight for interpretation of character interaction. The major strength of the approach is its ability to capture not isolated speech acts, but the interactive nature of conversation—the verbal dance of dialogue between characters in a narrative. Initiating and continuing speech moves (both verbal and non-verbal) with various discourse functions are followed by responding moves that can be grouped into the two broad classes of supporting or confronting. Quantitative analysis of such description provides empirical support for readers’ intuitions about conversational exchanges.
As a sample analysis, the framework is applied to all of the dialogue in the short story “What You Pawn I Will Redeem” by Sherman Alexie (2004). This particular story, with its fourteen distinct conversational interactions between the main character and a variety of other characters of differing degrees of status and solidarity, provides an ideal demonstration of the proposed method of analysis. The main character, a homeless Native American Indian in Seattle, Washington, exhibits distinctly different patterns discourse or conversational styles in his interactions with friends, strangers, and acquaintances of higher status. Such discoursal indications of power and solidarity are not only inherent in the dialogue, but central to the story’s broader themes of the individual’s role in society as well as distinctly Native American concerns for heritage and preservation of cultural identity. In keeping with the descriptive perspective of conversation analysis though, generalizations about interaction in different situations should only serve as guidelines—likewise, the power of stylistic analysis lies in its ability to help interpret the linguistic subtleties of a given text. This study demonstrates that analysis of the discourse functions of speech moves in the dialogue of fictional narratives serves the purposes of explication which are central to stylistics and literary study. "
Within the Southeast Asian region, Malaysia, Singapore, and the Philippines maintain the largest ... more Within the Southeast Asian region, Malaysia, Singapore, and the Philippines maintain the largest communities of writers of locally produced English fiction. The English used to in Malaysia and Singapore can be regarded as one variety, distinct from Philippine English and other more widely used varieties. This research analyzed 39 contemporary works of literary short fiction which depicted interaction between parents and their pre-adolescent children. The stories were written in English by local authors in Malaysia, Singapore, the Philippines, and North America. Stylistic analysis employing a framework of discourse (speech) moves and acts was applied to all of the parent-child dialogues in the stories. This analysis describes how authors depict these relationships through the literary representation of verbal and non-verbal communication.
Quantification and detailed analysis of the data reveal differences in how parent-child interactions are portrayed by authors in different cultures. Though universal aspects of parent-child discourse were found, the Malaysian and Singaporean dialogues were oriented toward hierarchical status relationships, the North American stories portrayed relationships which were oriented toward egalitarian parenting while the Filipino stories demonstrated a balance of the two values but with the most interactive conversational style. This research demonstrates how Stylistics and contemporary English world literature can be used for cross-cultural comparisons and exploration of the sociosemiotic function of literature.
This is a short paper written for the collection titled "Unfolding Linguistics" which was publish... more This is a short paper written for the collection titled "Unfolding Linguistics" which was published in honor of the retirement of Sudaporn Luksaneeyanawin in 2007. After completing her Ph.D. in Linguistics at The University of Edinburgh in 1983, Dr. Luksaneeyanawin provided years of invaluable service and scholarship to Chulalongkorn University serving as Chair of the Linguistics Department, Director of the Centre for Research in Speech and Language Processing, and Director of International Postgraduate Program in English as an International Language to name but a few titles. Her tireless work as a scholar is a lasting inspiration, and her advice and insight as one of my dissertation advisors was essential to my development as a scholar. For more info on her see http://ling.arts.chula.ac.th/sudaporn.htm
The rationale for this study lies in the apparent dissonance between the writing standards set by... more The rationale for this study lies in the apparent dissonance between the writing standards set by the Oregon Department of Education and the teaching methods employed by Oregon’s high school English language arts teachers. This dissonance is a result of a misalignment of ODE standards and English teachers’ current methods of instruction. The study questions whether or not the ODE has adopted a set of standards that educators (most of whom have graduated from Oregon’s colleges and universities) have not been prepared to help students meet. The standards assessed concern the teaching of stylistic elements in writing (syntactic maturity and the conventions of Standard Written English). The source of variance, as addressed in the Introduction and Background, lies not in the attitudes or ambitions of policy makers or teachers, but in the historical development of the English language arts curriculum in America, a curriculum that has fostered differing interpretations of the role grammar instruction should play in the English classroom.
The study used a stratified sample of Oregon’s secondary English language arts teachers and a combination of quantitative (survey) and qualitative (interview) research instruments to gather data with the goal of describing the subjects’ current composition pedagogy, particularly concerning teaching for syntactic growth and understanding of the conventions of Standard Written English. The data obtained were compiled to present findings concerning several issues including current practices in composition pedagogy, factors that influence teachers’ instruction, and the degree to which Oregon’s secondary English Language Arts teachers are providing instruction that will help their students meet the state’s writing standards.
The results confirmed that a significant degree of dissonance does exist between the ODE’s writing standards and the practices of the thirty-one teachers studied. While the quantitative data showed that the teachers agreed that style and SWE conventions are important to the teaching of English and writing, the qualitative data demonstrated that the degree to which these elements of the curriculum were successfully taught varied from teacher to teacher and school to school. The conclusion drawn was that roughly 25% of the teachers were providing significant instruction in these areas, 50% were providing some instruction, and 25% were providing little to no instruction in the stylistic and conventional aspects of writing.
Book Reviews by Robert A Troyer
Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development, 2023
Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development, 2019
![Research paper thumbnail of BOOK REVIEW of [Blackwood, R., Lanza, E., & Woldemariam, H. (Eds.) 2016. Negotiating and Contesting Identities in Linguistic Landscapes.] Manusya: Journal of the Humanities, 2016 (Special Issue 22): 88-93. http://www.manusya.journals.chula.ac.th/html/issue_detail.php?issue=70](https://attachments.academia-assets.com/49767087/thumbnails/1.jpg)
](Manusya: Journal of the Humanities, 2016
Free, fully searchable corpus of over 550 published journal articles and book chapters in the fie... more Free, fully searchable corpus of over 550 published journal articles and book chapters in the field of Linguistic Landscape studies--hosted on Lancaster University's CQPweb corpus server.
Free, searchable bibliography of over 1,450 references to publications in the field of Linguistic... more Free, searchable bibliography of over 1,450 references to publications in the field of Linguistic Landscapes studies. Hosted on Zotero.
The Bloomsbury Handbook of Linguistic Landscapes, 2024
This chapter explains videography for a range of qualitative and ethnographic Linguistic Landscap... more This chapter explains videography for a range of qualitative and ethnographic Linguistic Landscape (LL) data collection. Based on previously developed frameworks (cf. Troyer & Szabó 2017), this contribution provides a comprehensive review of recent LL studies that utilized videography and concludes that despite the potential benefits, LL researchers have yet to fully embrace these methods. The authors demonstrate videography through two contrasting case studies. The first study describes a project in which video-recorded walking interviews afforded the exploration of students’ perspectives on changes to a university’s LL policies. The second case study explains how LL researchers leveraged recent advances in immersive 360° video production to engage students in documenting and reflecting on educational developments in secondary schools. The authors conclude by encouraging readers to apply videographic methods more broadly, suggesting a range of techniques from recorded explorations of local LLs to incorporating 360° Head Mounted Displays in virtual, collaborative interactions.
MANUSYA: Journal of Humanities, 2022
Previous research has demonstrated that the increasing importance of Mandarin in education and pu... more Previous research has demonstrated that the increasing importance of Mandarin in education and public life has led many younger Chinese-Malaysians to regard Mandarin as their mother tongue and part of their cultural identity rather than a heritage language. Fewer studies have documented the language repertoires of middle-aged and older Chinese-Malaysians. This paper presents a qualitative study of Mandarin use conducted with six Chinese-Malaysians aged 40 and older. The participants reported extensive use of Mandarin in the domains of home, work, religion, and cultural maintenance, which were served by a heritage language in the past. This indicates that the use of Mandarin by the older generation Chinese-Malaysians to engage with the contemporary linguistic world is influenced by hegemonic local and global factors. This study therefore highlights the significance of Mandarin as both an element of cultural identity and an instrument of heritage language loss.
Spatializing Language Studies: Pedagogical Approaches in the Linguistic Landscape, 2023
Agency has been an ongoing topic of concern in Linguistic Landscape (LL) studies since the field’... more Agency has been an ongoing topic of concern in Linguistic Landscape (LL) studies since the field’s emergence while more recently notions of top-down vs. bottom-up power have been questioned in favor of more nuanced appreciations of the multiple factors that influence a local LL actor’s selection and emplacement of public language. Agency in public schools in the United States exists at the nexus of policy (determined at national, state, and local district levels) and the many decisions made by administrators at individual schools while teachers and support staff, students, and other stakeholders act according to and sometimes against explicit and implied policies. Previous studies of the LL of schools (schoolscapes) have demonstrated the role that public displays of language play in constructing identities, agency, diversity, and ideologies that affect multilingualism and literacy practices. This chapter reports findings of a mixed-methods study of all three elementary schools and the two secondary schools in a mid-sized public school district in Oregon. The combination of photographs, video-recorded walking tours led by schoolscape actors, and interviews with teachers and administrators documents the district’s schoolscapes and provides insight regarding their composition. This data leads to a classification of the functions of schoolscape signage and comparisons across the three elementary schools and across educational levels in terms of languages present, attitudes, policies, and agency. A Nexus Analysis focuses on the ideological positioning of Spanish relative to English and the construction of collective identities primarily as they affect English Language Learners and Spanish heritage speakers in the district.
Reterritorializing Linguistic Landscapes, 2020
Conflict, Exclusion and Dissent in the Linguistic Landscape, 2015
World Englishes, 2012
Previous work on the role of English in multilingual advertising has shown that the language is u... more Previous work on the role of English in multilingual advertising has shown that the language is used to index concepts of cosmopolitanism, globalization and modernity. The growing field of linguistic landscape studies (or geosemiotics or semiotic landscapes) has combined sociolinguistics with concerns of place and space in the public sphere to demonstrate the functional and symbolic uses of English in a variety of public discourses. This paper builds on Huebner's study of public signage and English in Bangkok by expanding the landscape covered to include Thai online newspapers, which have increased in numbers of publications and viewership. Approaching these web sites as spaces in the public sphere that engage millions of Thai Internet users reveals the multilingual character of this online environment. The results show that Thai website advertising often favors the use of English over other languages in interesting and perhaps surprising fashion.
In ethnographically oriented linguistic landscape studies, social spaces are studied in co-operat... more In ethnographically oriented linguistic landscape studies, social spaces are studied in co-operation with research participants, many times through mobile encounters such as walking. Talking, walking, photographing and video recording as well as writing the fieldwork diary are activities that result in the accumulation of heterogeneous, multimodal corpora. We analyze data from a Hungarian school ethnography project to reconstruct fieldwork encounters and analyze embodiment, the handling of devices (e.g. the photo camera) and verbal interaction in exploratory, participant-led walking tours. Our analysis shows that situated practices of embodied conduct and verbal interaction blur the boundaries between observation and observers, and thus LL research is not only about space- and place-making and sense-making routines, but the fieldwork encounters are also transformative and contribute to space- and place-making themselves. Our findings provide insight for ethnographic researchers and enrich the already robust qualitative and quantitative strategies employed in the field.
Much Linguistic Landscape scholarship relies on visual data collection, primarily the use of stil... more Much Linguistic Landscape scholarship relies on visual data collection, primarily the use of still photography; however, the field has yet to address the theoretical underpinning of such visual and spatial representation. Furthermore, digital video is currently as easy to capture and share as digital photographs were when Linguistic Landscape studies first became prominent in the early 2000s. With these two points in mind, this article first grounds the documentation and analysis of the Linguistic Landscape in a theory of visual representation; it then provides a framework for videographic methodologies drawing on recent work in the related fields of anthropology and cultural geography. An example study utilizing non-participatory videography is summarized in which digital video recordings were used to capture and convey the Linguistic Landscape.
Keywords: methodology, videography, technical images, visual representation
Conflict, Exclusion and Dissent in the Linguistic Landscape, 2015
Though Linguistic Landscape (LL) studies have become increasingly common, there are few studies o... more Though Linguistic Landscape (LL) studies have become increasingly common, there are few studies of rural US cities and few that specifically address the role of Spanish in the US. This research analyzed the LL of a small town in Oregon (population 8,590) that is unique for having a very high per capita percentage of Latino/Hispanic residents (35%). Quantitative analysis of signage along the length of the two main streets and shopping areas revealed that only 11% of the visible tokens displayed Spanish, and these were almost entirely in the very limited domains of restaurants, convenience stores, and general goods. In terms of authorship, businesses (both local and national) were more likely to display Spanish than individuals, organizations, and government agencies. Quantitative analysis was followed by an ethnographic study of LL actors/agents which consisted of eight interviews with representatives of city government, Hispanic business owners, and Anglo-American business owners who did and did not display Spanish. Themes that emerged from these interviews included lingering conflict surrounding the public use of Spanish (spoken or written), unawareness of the significance of language choice in the LL, and Hispanics' reluctance to speak out in any form from being interviewed to acknowledging or discussing conflict to using Spanish in public. These quantitative and qualitative methods combine to explain why in a small town in which one-third of the residents prefer Spanish as their home language, this language is relatively inconspicuous in the Linguistic Landscape.
Previous work on the role of English in multilingual advertising has shown that the language is u... more Previous work on the role of English in multilingual advertising has shown that the language is used to index concepts of cosmopolitanism, globalization and modernity. The growing field of linguistic landscape studies (or geosemiotics or semiotic landscapes) has combined sociolinguistics with concerns of place and space in the public sphere to demonstrate the functional and symbolic uses of English in a variety of public discourses. This paper builds on Huebner’s study of public signage and English in Bangkok by expanding the landscape covered to include Thai online newspapers, which have increased in numbers of publications and viewership. Approaching these web sites as spaces in the public sphere that engage millions of Thai Internet users reveals the multilingual character of this online environment. The results show that Thai website advertising often favors the use of English over other languages in interesting and perhaps surprising fashion.
"This paper presents a discourse analysis framework that can be applied to the dialogue in fictio... more "This paper presents a discourse analysis framework that can be applied to the dialogue in fiction. Based on an elaboration of Halliday’s functional approach to conversational interaction combined with traditional conversation and discourse analysis and speech act theory, the framework posits a hierarchical categorization of opening and responding speech moves. When applied to fictional dialogue, this analytical method offers a descriptive apparatus that can be simple or complex depending on one’s needs (i.e., pedagogical or research oriented) while also providing insight for interpretation of character interaction. The major strength of the approach is its ability to capture not isolated speech acts, but the interactive nature of conversation—the verbal dance of dialogue between characters in a narrative. Initiating and continuing speech moves (both verbal and non-verbal) with various discourse functions are followed by responding moves that can be grouped into the two broad classes of supporting or confronting. Quantitative analysis of such description provides empirical support for readers’ intuitions about conversational exchanges.
As a sample analysis, the framework is applied to all of the dialogue in the short story “What You Pawn I Will Redeem” by Sherman Alexie (2004). This particular story, with its fourteen distinct conversational interactions between the main character and a variety of other characters of differing degrees of status and solidarity, provides an ideal demonstration of the proposed method of analysis. The main character, a homeless Native American Indian in Seattle, Washington, exhibits distinctly different patterns discourse or conversational styles in his interactions with friends, strangers, and acquaintances of higher status. Such discoursal indications of power and solidarity are not only inherent in the dialogue, but central to the story’s broader themes of the individual’s role in society as well as distinctly Native American concerns for heritage and preservation of cultural identity. In keeping with the descriptive perspective of conversation analysis though, generalizations about interaction in different situations should only serve as guidelines—likewise, the power of stylistic analysis lies in its ability to help interpret the linguistic subtleties of a given text. This study demonstrates that analysis of the discourse functions of speech moves in the dialogue of fictional narratives serves the purposes of explication which are central to stylistics and literary study. "
Within the Southeast Asian region, Malaysia, Singapore, and the Philippines maintain the largest ... more Within the Southeast Asian region, Malaysia, Singapore, and the Philippines maintain the largest communities of writers of locally produced English fiction. The English used to in Malaysia and Singapore can be regarded as one variety, distinct from Philippine English and other more widely used varieties. This research analyzed 39 contemporary works of literary short fiction which depicted interaction between parents and their pre-adolescent children. The stories were written in English by local authors in Malaysia, Singapore, the Philippines, and North America. Stylistic analysis employing a framework of discourse (speech) moves and acts was applied to all of the parent-child dialogues in the stories. This analysis describes how authors depict these relationships through the literary representation of verbal and non-verbal communication.
Quantification and detailed analysis of the data reveal differences in how parent-child interactions are portrayed by authors in different cultures. Though universal aspects of parent-child discourse were found, the Malaysian and Singaporean dialogues were oriented toward hierarchical status relationships, the North American stories portrayed relationships which were oriented toward egalitarian parenting while the Filipino stories demonstrated a balance of the two values but with the most interactive conversational style. This research demonstrates how Stylistics and contemporary English world literature can be used for cross-cultural comparisons and exploration of the sociosemiotic function of literature.
This is a short paper written for the collection titled "Unfolding Linguistics" which was publish... more This is a short paper written for the collection titled "Unfolding Linguistics" which was published in honor of the retirement of Sudaporn Luksaneeyanawin in 2007. After completing her Ph.D. in Linguistics at The University of Edinburgh in 1983, Dr. Luksaneeyanawin provided years of invaluable service and scholarship to Chulalongkorn University serving as Chair of the Linguistics Department, Director of the Centre for Research in Speech and Language Processing, and Director of International Postgraduate Program in English as an International Language to name but a few titles. Her tireless work as a scholar is a lasting inspiration, and her advice and insight as one of my dissertation advisors was essential to my development as a scholar. For more info on her see http://ling.arts.chula.ac.th/sudaporn.htm
The rationale for this study lies in the apparent dissonance between the writing standards set by... more The rationale for this study lies in the apparent dissonance between the writing standards set by the Oregon Department of Education and the teaching methods employed by Oregon’s high school English language arts teachers. This dissonance is a result of a misalignment of ODE standards and English teachers’ current methods of instruction. The study questions whether or not the ODE has adopted a set of standards that educators (most of whom have graduated from Oregon’s colleges and universities) have not been prepared to help students meet. The standards assessed concern the teaching of stylistic elements in writing (syntactic maturity and the conventions of Standard Written English). The source of variance, as addressed in the Introduction and Background, lies not in the attitudes or ambitions of policy makers or teachers, but in the historical development of the English language arts curriculum in America, a curriculum that has fostered differing interpretations of the role grammar instruction should play in the English classroom.
The study used a stratified sample of Oregon’s secondary English language arts teachers and a combination of quantitative (survey) and qualitative (interview) research instruments to gather data with the goal of describing the subjects’ current composition pedagogy, particularly concerning teaching for syntactic growth and understanding of the conventions of Standard Written English. The data obtained were compiled to present findings concerning several issues including current practices in composition pedagogy, factors that influence teachers’ instruction, and the degree to which Oregon’s secondary English Language Arts teachers are providing instruction that will help their students meet the state’s writing standards.
The results confirmed that a significant degree of dissonance does exist between the ODE’s writing standards and the practices of the thirty-one teachers studied. While the quantitative data showed that the teachers agreed that style and SWE conventions are important to the teaching of English and writing, the qualitative data demonstrated that the degree to which these elements of the curriculum were successfully taught varied from teacher to teacher and school to school. The conclusion drawn was that roughly 25% of the teachers were providing significant instruction in these areas, 50% were providing some instruction, and 25% were providing little to no instruction in the stylistic and conventional aspects of writing.