Chatwara Suwannamai Duran

“I Want to Do Things With Languages”: A Male Karenni Refugee’s Reconstructing Multilingual Capital

ABSTRACT This article discusses how a male Karenni refugee in the United States has constructed multilingual capital along the way of his multiple movements across national borders. As a member of an ethnic minority group in three different countries (Burma, Thailand, and the United States), he has invested in learning multiple languages throughout the movements. Based on a two-year ethnographic study on the participant’s multilingual practices, I argue that being multilingual is a fundamental part of his transnational identities, economic security, and agentive acts. His roles outside formal classroom settings as a language broker, refugee, and an ESL tutor have been shaped by a continuum, or horizontal relationship of languages. The study suggests the inclusion of adult students’ transnational identity and multilingual practices outside a language classroom. In addition, a career that requires multilingual skills and transnational knowledge should be encouraged and created for newcomers.

Reading Pennycook Critically 10 Years Later: A Group's Reflections On and Questions About Critical Applied Linguistics

As we, an instructor and her students, read through Alastair Pennycooks Critical Applied Linguistics (2001) in a PhD seminar by the same name, we found ourselves contrasting and comparing the insights provided in that book with those in other critical texts and wondering what the ten years since the works publication had meant. This article is a collection of such reflections, one that is guided by our belief that activities relating to language use, change, and teaching are inherently political and dynamic, and that therefore we must be prepared for the challenges that operating within this paradigm always brings. After a brief introduction to the work itself, we present our thoughts on what critical approaches do—in particular what Critical Applied Linguistics as proposed by Pennycook intends to do—the relationship between the critical and linguistics, the possibility of change through the critical, and the role of questioning and skepticism in forging a different reality.

‘But, We Are Karenni. We Are Not Burmese.’ Historical Contexts and Lived Experiences of Karenni Refugees from Burma

This chapter reviews the historical contexts of the Karenni people from Burma, including their linguistic and cultural backgrounds. The chapter also explores the cause of their flight from their homeland, their refugee experiences in Thailand, and their current situation in the USA. Insights from the refugee participants are presented.

Digital Literacy in the Karenni Families

This chapter presents how digital devices that have been widely used among these newcomers enable new learning and understanding in the recently arrived refugee community.

Life, Liberty, and (the Pursuit of) English

This chapter predominantly discusses the ideology of acquiring English that comes with resettling in an English-dominant society. The chapter shows that the participants’ attitudes toward English and English learning lead to frustrations, struggles, and hopes. The data analysis discusses how adults and children ‘talk’ about and ‘do’ things with English differently due to the perceived hierarchy of English and English literacy. Such perceptions are shaped by different ideological factors in their receiving context.

Revisiting Transnationalism and Key Resources

This chapter emphasizes transnational and community resources on which refugee adults rely and explains how they use these resources to establish their own ethnic-based support networks.

Introduction: Refugee, Language, and Literacy

This chapter discusses the current key issues and questions related to language and literacy studies due to an increasing number of refugees, whom the author characterizes as transnational agents. The term ‘refugees’ is also defined legally, socioculturally, and historically. In addition, terms used to approach refugees’ language and literacy practices, such as multilingual repertoires, ideology and hierarchy, and translanguaging are discussed.

The Three Families

This chapter describes the processes involved in selecting the research site, how the author approached the refugee participants, and how the relationships between the participants and researcher were established and maintained. The chapter also introduces the three participant families, their stories, biographical information, insights, and their circumstances during the data-collection period.

Karenni Youth, Multilingual Practices, and Transnational Literacy

The chapter focuses on the participants’ transnational multilingual repertoires and how they utilize both previously and recently acquired languages in various ways and settings. The discussion also includes how linguistic practices such as translanguaging serve as an alternative in communication and in situations that require English language and literacy.

Conclusion and Implications

In this chapter I revisit some key terms and summarize the recently arrived Karenni refugees’ transnational trajectories and their accumulating, existing, and emerging language and literacy skills as part of their refugee experiences. The chapter highlights the pedagogical and practical implications, especially for educators, service providers, practitioners, and resettlement agencies.