Peter I. De Costa

Reconceptualizing Language, Language Learning, and the Adolescent Immigrant Language Learner in the Age of Postmodern Globalization

The massive shift in migration patterns brought about by globalization has heavily impacted the language learning experience of adolescent immigrant learners. Given these changes wrought by globalization, this paper argues for a reconceptualization of language, language learning, and the adolescent immigrant language learner. In line with poststructural concerns that have framed recent SLA research on immigrant learners, particular emphasis is given to how a Bourdieusian framework offers constructs to better understand globalized linguistic flows. Such a framework, which views language as a form of capital, allows for a better understanding the consequences of globalization and the commodification of languages. Relatedly, to recognize the linguistic resources available to immigrant learners in the twenty-first century, the paper calls for a reconstitution of language along ideological, semiotic, and performative lines as well as a reframing of language learning through an ideology and identity lens. As a result of this linguistic reconceptualization, globalized adolescent immigrant language learners should be viewed as social actors who possess and are in the process of developing symbolic competence (cf. Kramsch and Whiteside 2007, 2008; Kramsch 2009).

Ethics in applied linguistics research: Language researcher narratives

The paradigmatic case of ethical professional practice is the horkos commonly known as the Hippocratic Oath (Edelstein, 1943). Essentially, this involves invoking a curse on violators of commitments made in swearing an oath (or on those who swear insincerely). Originating in Ancient Greece, the Hippocratic Oath is associated with physicians swearing to practice medicine honestly and is the historical source of many formal procedures for ethical practice in western, and a variety of other, cultural traditions.

Research tasks on identity in language learning and teaching

The growing interest in identity and language education over the past two decades, coupled with increased interest in digital technology and transnationalism, has resulted in a rich body of work that has informed language learning, teaching, and research. To keep abreast of these developments in identity research, the authors propose a series of research tasks arising from this changing landscape. To frame the discussion, they first examine how theories of identity have developed, and present a theoretical toolkit that might help scholars negotiate the fast evolving research area. In the second section, they present three broad and interrelated research questions relevant to identity in language learning and teaching, and describe nine research tasks that arise from the questions outlined. In the final section, they provide readers with a methodology toolkit to help carry out the research tasks discussed in the second section. By framing the nine proposed research tasks in relation to current theoretical and methodological developments, they provide a contemporary guide to research on identity in language learning and teaching. In doing so, the authors hope to contribute to a trajectory of vibrant and productive research in language education and applied linguistics.

Why English?: Confronting the hydra

perhaps produced in a hurry. In sum, this book provides a kaleidoscopic series of snapshots of Chinese diaspora communities from around the world. It is not without its weaknesses but researchers and postgraduate students working on the Chinese diaspora in general and the language issues which pertain to it in particular will nevertheless find at least some of the material in this volume of interest.

Tracing Academic Literacies across Contemporary Literacy Sponsorscapes: Mobilities, Ideologies, Identities, and Technologies.

Locating itself broadly within the ‘sociolinguistics of mobility’ (Blommaert, 2014) and taking heed of Stornaiuolo and Hall’s (2014) call to ‘trace resonance’ in writing and literacies research, this article works to trace academic literacies across the emerging ‘literacy sponsorscapes’ (Wargo, 2016a) of contemporary culture. Despite its variance and recent resurgence (Lillis and Scott, 2007), academic literacies continues to be reduced to: (1) an instrumentalist and pragmatic pedagogy, and (2) the ability to navigate academic conventions and practices of higher education (Lea and Street, 1998), in particular the writing classroom (Castelló and Donahue, 2012). This centred focus, however, is limiting, and silences the more innocuous and less tangible sponsors of academic literacies: mobilities, ideologies, identities, and technologies. Set against the backdrop of globalization, and grounded in two case studies, this article considers how academic literacies are not an ‘and’ but an ‘elsewhere’, thereby emphasizing the importance of sociolinguistic space in academic literacy development. In it, we chart new directions for scholarship and underscore how ideologies shift with mobilities (Pennycook, 2008; Pennycook, 2012), are indexed by identities (De Costa and Norton, 2016; Hawkins, 2005), and extend through technologies (Lam, 2009; Rymes, 2012). By outlining a literacy sponsorscapes framework for studying academic literacies, this article highlights the purchasing power of seeing academic literacies not solely as a field or set of practices, but rather as a locating mechanism for studying a range of hybridized repertoires that are shaped and constituted by the physical and social spaces that contemporary youth inhabit.

Exploring identity in SLA: A dialogue about methodologies

A panel discussion presented at the Second Language Acquisition Graduate Student Symposium on 17 April 2010 at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Examining the English language policy for ethnic minority students in a Chinese university: a language ideology and language regime perspective

ABSTRACT We focus on the learning of English in a Chinese university in Jiangsu and the university’s preferential language policy, which allowed Uyghur minority students from Xinjiang to be enrolled despite their lower scores in the entrance examination. Guided by the constructs of language ideologies [Kroskrity, P. V. (2000). Regimes of language: Ideologies, politics, identities. Santa Fe, NM: School of American Research Press] and language regimes [Sonntag, S. K., & Cardinal, L. (2015). Introduction. In L. Cardinal & S. K. Sonntag (Eds.), State traditions and language regimes (pp. 3–26). Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press], we adopted an ethnographic approach [McCarty, T. L. (2015). Ethnography in language planning and policy research. In F. M. Hult & D. C. Johnson (Eds.), Research methods in language policy and planning: A practical guide (pp. 81–93). Malden, MA: Wiley Blackwell] to investigate how Uyghur students viewed their English learning and how the university responded to macro-level national language planning decisions to foster social harmony. Our findings revealed that the minority students were marginalized in their study of English and disadvantaged compared to Han students. Consequently, we argue for a consideration of the impact of power inequalities in relation to English language learning. Such a critical perspective entails (1) acknowledging the disadvantaged position from which these minority students began their formal education because English was a third language for them [Yang, J. (2005). English as a third language among China’s ethnic minorities. International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism, 8(6), 552–567] and (2) recognizing that access to English education is not equitable because students who attend schools in economically developed provinces such as Jiangsu are more likely to get a better education in English than those from a less developed province such as Xinjiang.

Unpacking the Ideology of Cosmopolitanism in Language Education: Insights from Bakhtin and Systemic Functional Linguistics

In line with what Hull and Stornaiuolo (2010) describe as a cosmopolitan turn in the social sciences and given the growing interest in cosmopolitanism as a result of neoliberalism (Bernstein et al., 2015) and the global rise in the use of English (Seargeant, 2012), this article investigates the ideology of cosmopolitanism by drawing on the constructs of heteroglossia and dialogue (Bakhtin, 1981; Blackledge & Creese, 2013) and Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL). Using the SFL Engagement framework (Martin & White, 2005) to analyze how cosmopolitanism is constructed in political speeches, official educational documents, and classroom interactions in Singapore, we also examine the ways in which cosmopolitanism is mediated in these discourses and how it impacts the varieties of English that are valued in society and school. Following the analyses of our data, we call for a development of dialogical cosmopolitanism (Canagarajah, 2013), which conceives of cosmopolitanism as a negotiated process and values linguistic hybridity. The article closes with a discussion of the pedagogical implications of the study and highlights that in order to nurture cosmopolitan dispositions among students in language classrooms, some degree of curricular flexibility, tolerance for uncertainty, and deregulation needs to be undertaken.

Ideologizing age in an era of superdiversity: A heritage language learner practice perspective

Abstract SLA research on age in naturalistic contexts has examined learners’ ultimate attainment, while instructed research has emphasized the rate of learning (Birdsong 2014. Dominance and age in bilingualism. Applied Linguistics 35(4). 374–392; Muñoz 2008. Symmetries and asymmetries of age effects in naturalistic and instructed L2 learning. Applied Linguistics 29(4). 578–596). However, both streams of research, which view age as a biological construct, have overlooked this construct through an ideological lens. To address this gap, and in keeping with Blommaert’s (2005. Discourse. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press) call to examine language ideologies and related ideologies in an era of superdiversity, our paper explores the ideology undergirding age-based research and examines it in conjunction with the practice-based approach to better understand the use of Burmese as a heritage language, a language characterized by a hierarchical and an age-determined honorific system. Drawing on data from a larger ethnographic study involving Burmese migrants in the US, analyses of the bilingual practice of address forms of generation 1.5 Burmese youth demonstrated that age was relationally constructed. While these youth strategically adopted ‘traditional’ linguistic practices ratified by Burmese adults when interacting with their parents, such practices were invoked and subverted in interactions involving their siblings and other Burmese adults less familiar to them. In focusing on the social and linguistic struggles encountered by these transnational multilingual youth, this paper also addresses the complexities surrounding heritage language learning.

Research in the Doctoral Program in Second Language Acquisition at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Faculty and graduate students in the Doctoral Program in Second Language Acquisition (SLA) at the University of Wisconsin-Madison engage in a broad spectrum of research. From Professor Sally Magnans research on study abroad and Professor Monika Chavezs work in foreign language policy through Professor Richard Youngs examination of language-in-interaction, Professor Jane Zuenglers investigation of language socialization, Professor Diana Frantzens research in second language (L2) vocabulary acquisition and linguistic analysis of literature, to Professor Catherine Staffords investigation of processes involved in Spanish-English bilinguals’ acquisition of a third language (L3), our research interests encompass much of the SLA field.