Language, literacy and diversity. Moving words Book Review (original) (raw)
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This review of research offers a synthesis and analysis of research studies that address issues of language and literacy practices and learning in transnational contexts of migration. We consider how theoretical concepts from transnational migration studies, including particular Boudieusian-inspired concepts such as transnational social field, capital, and habitus, as well as sociolinguistic studies of language and transnational space, might inform and extend the field of literacy research. We mobilize these concepts in relation to each other as interpretive frames for discussing an emerging body of empirical studies that address various aspects of language and literacy practices as they are intertwined with issues of cross-border relations and mobility. Studies reviewed examine practices in families and communities, practices among youth and within educational settings, and practices with transnational media (broadcast and digital communications). We argue that as a whole these studies show the important role of language and literacy practices in constructing and maintaining social relations across borders, and in how migrants navigate and position themselves in various social fields within and across national boundaries. We consider the intergenerational process in the family in mediating participation in these social practices, how language ideologies at multiple scale levels influence family and youth practices, and the variable ways in which institutional structures of schooling position the transnational affiliations and linguistic resources of migrant students.
Language, Literacy and Education In Diverse Contexts: Theory, Research and Practice
3L Language Linguistics Literature, 2006
The articles in this first volume are articles situated in diverse social and institutional environments both in Australia and Malaysia. Here, the scholars discuss literacy, language and education issues from their academic experience in multilingual and multicultural contexts of schools, higher education and cultural communities such as digital and culture consuming communities. Contributors engage in literacy issues emerging from the diversity of communities straddling overlapping local-global contexts as well as communities of practice distinguished in terms of class, ethnicity, religion, spirituality and ideology. These are affiliated through common values and interests which transcend the divides of ethnicity, class, religion and gender. The contributors are interested in the questions of what, why and how individuals, families, communities and institutions view literacy practices and events. Most of the articles focus on the sociopolitical and sociocultural conditions which shape and construct particular views of literacy. They examine the choices, risks, constraints and consequences of literacies that individuals, communities and institutions are socialized into or consciously choose to belong to in line with particular identities and affiliations.
International Journal of the Sociology of Language, 2020
The idea for the special issue emerged a few years ago when the guest editors, Kamilla Kraft and Mi-Cha Flubacher, started discussing the different possible directions of language, work and migration studies that have dominated the fields of sociology of language, sociolinguistics, linguistic anthropology, and applied linguistics. These studies have become increasingly accentuated in the context of tightened language policies (Extra et al. 2009) and securitization (e.g. Khan 2016) for migration as well as migrant populations – i.e. the legally stipulated learning of the locally dominant language and related sanctions in the case of refusal to comply. Though perhaps keeping with a rather crudely binary distinction, we started musing on how, on the one hand, some scholars appear to have treated language – e.g. in the form of language learning or/and the use of multilingual repertoires – as empowering for migrants and migrant workers. For instance, and especially in applied linguistics or second language teaching, a plethora of studies have been conducted with the intention to improve learning conditions and/or learning material with the aim to empowering individuals with migrant backgrounds to achieve greater social and professional opportunities (e.g. Darvin and Norton 2015; Goldstein 1997; Holmes et al. 2009; Yates 2014). On the other hand, critical studies on language seem to have treated the domain of “language learning” as representative and constitutive of systems that (re)produce in- equalities within societies. In this critical reading, migrants who are “forced” to learn the locally dominant language are treated as language-less and deficient subalterns compared to their local counterparts, resulting in the introduction of exploitative measures of self-discipline for said learning. The thrust of this latter line of thinking is to provide a social critique and push for broader social change that is not conditioned on the basis of the assimilation and activation of disenfranchised individuals. In this we inscribe the contributions of this special issue in a line of research that critically questions and nuances promises of and investments in language at the intersection of empowerment and inequality (e.g. recently Bae and Park 2019; Duchêne and Daveluy 2015; Flubacher et al. 2016; Kraft 2020; Muth and Suryanarayan 2019; Norton 2013; Strömmer 2016; Tabiola and Lorente 2017; Zimmermann 2019).
Journal of the European Second Language Association, 2017
Taking a point of departure in multidisciplinary research related to ethnicity, gender and functional dis/ability, this paper presents a conceptual framework where center staging languaging and identity-positionings are central. Building upon empirically framed results from ethnographical projects across timespaces, it discusses how languaging opens possibilities for discussing learning and identity-positionings that take place in and via the deployment of one or more language varieties and modalities. This is conceptually made possible by going beyond dominating, dichotomizing positions related to language, language learning methods, and the organization of language learning. The study argues that scholars inherit and live with dichotomizing positions within scholarship that in turn create specific framings for children and adults in institutions for learning. The paper discusses the case of research and the organization of language issues related to bilingualism and diversity education as specific instances of a dominating dichotomy. It illustrates how going beyond this dichotomy makes visible languaging and identity-positionings that open new ways of understanding participation and inclusion. Such a position builds upon critical humanistic thinking where sociocultural and decolonial framings are central. Going beyond the mainstream allows for new ways of conceptualizing research in the areas of language and identity where social practices are center staged. To make visible languaging thus implies that issues related to identity are focused in terms of performative processes.