Showing papers in "Applied linguistics review in 2012"

Study abroad and the development of second language identities

Abstract: Much of the literature on study abroad outcomes focuses on language proficiency gains or on the influence of identity factors on opportunities for language learning. A smaller number of studies have looked at the influence of study abroad on participants’ identities and have highlighted outcomes that might be placed under the heading of second language identity. Based on a review of this literature and a qualitative, narrative-based study of nine Hong Kong students participating in thirteen- and six-week study abroad programmes, this paper examines the construct of second language identity and its susceptibility to development in study abroad. Three main dimensions of second language identity are identified, related to (1) identity-related aspects of second language proficiency, or the ability to function as a person and express desired identities in a second language setting, (2) linguistic selfconcept, or sense of self as a learner and user of the second language, and (3) second language-mediated aspects of personal competence. The study found that most of the students reported developments along all three of these dimensions, although there were variations among individuals that were related both to the duration of the programmes and individual goals and purposes.

Text trajectories, legal discourse and gendered inequalities

Abstract: Following Blommaert (2005), this paper examines what he calls a ‘forgotten’ context within Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) and Conversation Analysis (CA) – that of text trajectories. For Blommaert, a limitation of both CDA and CA is their focus on “the unique, one-time” instance of a given text and, by extension, the (limited) context associated with such an instance of text. Such a focus, according to Blommaert, ignores a salient feature of communication in contemporary societies – the fact that texts and discourses move around, are repeatedly recontextualized in new interpretive spaces, and in the process un-dergo significant transformations in meaning. The text trajectory investigated in this paper begins in a legal institution, more specifically, with a 2004 American rape trial, Maouloud Baby v. the State of Maryland. This legal case garnered much media attention and, as a result of such exposure, references to the case have appeared in both mainstream and social media outlets. Hence, as a ‘text’ that has displayed considerable movement across different contexts within the legal system and, subsequently, beyond the legal system to main-stream and popular forms of media, the Maouloud Baby trial constitutes fer-tile ground for the exploration of a text’s trajectory. Indeed, in keeping with Blommaert’s claims, I show how this trial’s ‘text’ undergoes significant transformations in meaning as it is recontextualized in different kinds of interpretive spaces ( both within the legal system and outside of it) and how these transformations in meaning reproduce larger patterns of gendered in-equalities.Keywords: text trajectory, sexual violence, language ideologies, language and the law, language and gender

The Production of Relevant Scales: Social Identification of Migrants During Rapid Demographic Change in One American Town

Abstract: This essay explores the question of relevant scale: which of the many potentially relevant processes – from interactional through local through global, from nearly instantaneous through those emergent over months, years or centuries – in fact contributes to social identification in any given case, and how do these heterogeneous processes interrelate? Contemporary answers to this question have moved beyond the detente of the “micro-macro dialectic,” in which purportedly homogeneous “macro” processes constrain events and actions, while being simultaneously constituted by “micro” events and actions. We review contemporary work on these issues, with particular reference to the use of language in social identification, and we argue that an adequate account must go beyond “micro” and “macro.” We illustrate our argument with data from a sevenyear ethnographic project in an American town that has received thousands of Mexican immigrants over the past decade, focusing on two types of narratives that residents tell about immigrants: stories about “payday muggings” in which immigrants are victimized, and stories about the town's historical trajectory and immigrants' role in it. These narratives emerge and move across different scales, and they are an important resource for residents as they socially identify themselves and others.

The language of development and the development of language in contemporary Africa

Abstract: Introduction Arguably, few issues so overwhelmingly preoccupy African governments and societies as the question of development. Many would agree that it is the single most articulated existential rationale of African governments. This is obviously because; it is the universally required and desired object of the masses of African citizenry. This has certainly been the case since the commencement of the era of African self-rule some fifty years ago. But ostensible desires and putative efforts have produced only limited and paltry results that meet the development challenges we face in Africa. The failure to match goals with achievements has, for years, haunted Africa minds. In equal measure, the lack of success in making headway in the development of African societies has kept interested parties close to the grindstone.

A neo-Hymesian trajectory in applied linguistics

Abstract: Rather than attempting a panoramic overview, this paper looks at knowledge construction in applied linguistics through the prism of a piece of data. It follows the analysis of this data into an academic argument, into a research training programme, and into professional development materials for teachers, and it argues that this empirically driven trajectory finds coherence in Hymes‟ writing on linguistics and ethnography.