Multilingual Writers Research Articles

The relationship between L2 students’ writing experiences and their perceived poetry writing ability

This paper looks at how L2 students’ writing experiences relate to the way they think they can write poems and to further investigate if any types of writing experiences contribute to their perceived poetry writing ability. The paper starts by bringing up the value of introducing poetry writing to L2 students. Then, the literature review section highlights the characteristics of L2 poetry and the values of writing poetry in L2 writing classrooms. For the methodology, semi-structured interviews were used to elicit the participants’ understanding of their writing experiences. Additionally, a rating scale was used for the participants to identify their perceived capability of writing poetry. All 18 participants who were from regions that included countries from Eastern Asia, Middle East, or Africa, were L2 students from an M.A. TESOL program located in the USA. Through a hierarchical cluster analysis, the findings categorized these students as having five different types of writing experiences. Through a Pearson correlation test, the researcher also examined if any of the specific writing experiences were found to correspond either positively or negatively with the perceived poetry writing ability. The data suggest that if students recall more grammar and structured writing experiences, they are more inclined to perceive that they have a lower perceived poetry writing ability. Finally, the study seeks to contribute to educators’ understanding about the potential of poetry writing instruction in L2 writing classrooms. It can trigger the exploration for L2 students to find their own personal purposes of writing as multilingual writers.

Using mind maps to reveal and develop genre knowledge in a graduate writing course

Mind maps have an established reputation in education as a means for revealing students' prior knowledge and schema, as well as any changes that occur through instruction and practice. This study, which took place in a credit-bearing, genre-based writing course for graduate multilingual (L2) writers, compared the extensiveness, depth and accuracy of maps created by 47 students before and after instruction for the book review and literature review genres. Post-instruction mind maps showed significant advances in the extensiveness and depth of students’ formal textual knowledge, and some evidence of progress in the rhetorical and process dimensions (Tardy, 2009) of their understandings. Students’ reflective comments provided support for the view that map construction helped to raise their awareness of textual and rhetorical components of conceptual knowledge, and that it also boosted their motivation and sense of self-efficacy. On the basis of these findings, a number of suggestions are made for using mapping as an instructional tool to improve students’ awareness of and ability to synthesise the multiple dimensions of genre knowledge.

The Contribution of Lexical Diversity to College‐Level Writing

This article reports on a study that investigated the extent to which lexical frequency and lexical diversity contribute to writing proficiency scores on monolingual English‐speaking writers’ and advanced multilingual writers’ academic compositions. The data consist of essays composed by 104 multilingual English learners enrolled in advanced second language writing courses at various intensive English programs and 68 monolingual English‐speaking university students in a first‐year composition course. Three independent raters evaluated the essays according to the TOEFL iBT independent writing rubric. Results from a binary logistic regression reveal that lexical diversity has a significantly greater impact on writing score than lexical frequency. Post hoc analyses show that lexical frequency has only a moderate relationship to lexical diversity, suggesting that diversity of mid‐frequency vocabulary may be more important to writing proficiency than the use of more sophisticated terms that occur less frequently in natural language. Implications for practice suggest that it is not enough to simply teach vocabulary words in the second language composition classroom, but also to guide learners in how to employ these words in a varied manner in their writing.

Scaffolds

Scaffolds

Admitted or Denied: Multilingual Writers Negotiate Admissions Essays

AbstractThis article presents data from a collection of yearlong case studies on resident multilingual writers’ college admissions essays. The focal student in this piece revealed the challenges that such writers face in presenting themselves to college admissions officers. Exploring these cultural and linguistic conflicts, this analysis uses Goffman's performance theories, which argue that writers (re)construct identities in response to changing social cues. Literacy educators, researchers, and policymakers can use these insights to help resident multilingual writers balance the demands of academic audiences with their preferred forms of representation.

Self-Directed Language Development: A Study of First-Year College Writers

Students in first-year composition (FYC) courses are expected to control the mechanics, vocabulary, style, and grammatical accuracy of their writing. Yet language development support, particularly that of grammar instruction in US FYC courses, has largely disappeared in recent decades, due in part to suppositions that students implicitly know grammar. This assumption is problematic given the increasing number of multilingual writers enrolling in US schools with observed needs for explicit language instruction. The present study explores whether first- and second-language writers of English perceived a need for language instruction and whether they wanted or expected it. Students from 12 sections of FYC were asked in surveys and interviews about their prior language learning experiences and current self-perceived language needs and then were asked to complete one of two self-directed language development projects (LDPs): an online, self-selected grammar and usage study project or journal entries focusing on vocabulary/style in texts they had read. Student work was collected, analyzed, and supplemented with students’ end-of-term observations and preferences about self-directed LDPs. Our findings reveal that students overwhelmingly wanted and expected language instruction and were largely positive about both types of LDPs, but they felt that language instruction should be offered in multiple delivery methods beyond just self-study. With these findings in mind, we offer pedagogical suggestions for addressing the perceived and real needs for language development of linguistically diverse FYC students.

Global English and Multilingual Writers in the Workplace

Global English and Multilingual Writers in the Workplace

Placement of multilingual writers: Is there a role for student voices?

Abstract Directed Self-Placement (DSP) is one placement model that has been implemented in various composition programs in the U.S. but has yet to be investigated thoroughly in second language writing settings. Central to DSP is the belief that, if students are given agency to help determine their educational trajectory, they will be empowered and more motivated to succeed (Crusan, 2011; Royer & Gilles, 1998). In this study, 1067 university L2 students completed both a voluntary self-assessment survey and the locally administered placement examination. We statistically compared the students’ placement exam scores and their responses to the final question as to which level of a four-course writing program they thought would best meet their needs. We also examined a stratified random sample of 100 students’ standardized test scores to see if there was a statistical relationship between those tests, our locally designed and administered placement test, and students’ own self-placement scores. We conclude that student self-assessment might have a legitimate role in our placement process, but it probably cannot be used by itself to accurately place large numbers of multilingual students into a four-level sequence.

Visuality in Academic Writing: Reading Textual Difference in the Work of Multilingual Student Writers

With the growth of the teaching of English globally and increasing numbers of students in English language medium universities, students in academic English classrooms can be expected to be literate in two or more languages. Multilingual writers in the university engage in high stakes academic writing even as they navigate differences among languages and academic writing systems. While research and pedagogies addressing the question of difference in the writing of multilingual students in English have focused primarily on verbal features, writing has come to be conceptualized in terms of multimodality. Writing is also a visual mode, and multilingual writers draw on their knowledge of different conventions and writing systems as they compose. To reflect on the visuality of writing, this article considers examples of textual difference in the English writing of multilingual university students in Lebanon. Multilingual approaches to teaching writing are developing quickly, but instruction in visual aspects of writing is still predominantly prescriptive. Instructors of academic writing have a responsibility to contextualize visual dimensions of academic writing, especially for multilingual writers. Qualitative studies will help understand the perceptions and experiences of multilingual academic writers as they negotiate all of the modes of writing, including the visual.

L’heterolinguisme en scene: français et arabe(s) à l’oeuvre dans ‘Junun’ de Jalila Baccar

Self-translators, multilingual writers who decide to translate one of their works, are a particularly stimulating case study in the research on heteroglossia. Every self-translation can actually be considered a hybrid heteroglossic work created by two texts in two different languages. This study examines the theatrical play Junun by the Tunisian playwright Jalila Baccar, written and played in Tunisian Arabic in 2001 and self-translated into French in 2003. At first, the functions of the different languages in the Arabic text have been analysed. These can stem from a realistic motivation (representing Tunisian reality), from a compositional motivation (constructing the literary work’s fictional world), or from an esthetic motivation (through intertextual references to other works). Subsequently, the translation strategies of the heteroglossia from the first text to the French version have been studied. Finally, this textual approach has been framed within the analysis of the relationship between context and the history of heteroglossia, in order to broaden the scope of potential extensions of this research.

Grammar Correction in the Writing Centre: Expectations and Experiences of Monolingual and Multilingual Writers

Although most writing centres maintain policies against providing grammar correction during writing tutorials, it is undeniable that students expect some level of grammar intervention there. Just how much students expect and receive is a matter of speculation. This article examines the grammar-correction issue by reporting on a survey of L1, L2, and Generation 1.5 (Gen 1.5) writing-centre attendees. Results reveal that while all groups expected grammar help, L2 students expected the most. In addition, L1 and Gen 1.5 writers reported receiving more grammar help than they expected. These findings suggest that tutors may not distinguish the language needs of L1 writers from those of Gen 1.5 and L2 writers; meanwhile, they may generally provide more grammar support to all tutees than writing-centre training and ideology recommend. The findings of this study may help writing centres craft more nuanced grammar policies and provide critical tutor training to better match students’ needs and expectations.

Preface, Developing International EFL/ESL Scholarly Writers

The Preface to this text explains why developing multilingual writers in academic, disciplinary, or professional (e..g., legal) context is important. The Forward is by Suresh Canagarajah.

Meaning-making across languages: a case study of three multilingual writers in Sápmi

ABSTRACTSápmi is a geographical area that runs across the Kola Peninsula in Russia to northern Finland, Norway and Sweden. All Sami languages have been going through a rapid language change process and many of the traditional language domains have disappeared during the last decades due to previous national and local language policies. Nevertheless, recent growth of positive attitudes towards Sami languages and culture both within and outside the Sami group has given new momentum to the language revitalisation process. At the same time, English is becoming more present in the Sami context through tourism, media and popular culture. This study investigates 15-year-old writers' meaning-making in three languages they meet on a daily basis: North Sami, the majority language Finnish/Norwegian/Swedish and English. Data were collected in schools where writers wrote two texts in each language, one argumentative and one descriptive. Using a functional approach, we analyse how three writers make meaning across three languages and two genres. Results show that writers made use of similar ways of expressing meaning on the three levels we investigated: ideational, interpersonal and textual, but also how the production differed between the texts, and how context and content interacted with writers’ meaning-making in the three languages.

Translingual oral and written practices: Rhetorical resources in multilingual writers’ discourses

Aims and objectives: This study investigates how three multilingual scholars enact translingual negotiation strategies in a variety of contexts. The purpose of the study is to identify how translingual oral and written literacy practices serve as rhetorical tools of language self-awareness, identity construction, and negotiations of language difference. Design/Methodology/Approach: The objectives of the study are achieved by conducting a textual analysis of three primarily oral genres mediated by literate practices. The genres include: a plenary address, naturalization ceremony speech, and personal interview. Data and Analysis: The three genres composed by multilingual scholars are analyzed using the following four translingual negotiation strategies: envoicing, recontextualization, interactional, and entextualization. Findings/Conclusions: The key findings of the research reveal the important relationship between oral and written practices, particularly how oral language practices serve as rhetorical resources that help multilingual writers become aware of audience and language negotiations. This study also reveals the potential of using translingual strategies in the writing classroom to enhance students’ rhetorical self-awareness of language difference in diverse genres and contexts. Originality: While scholarship in literacy and composition studies has focused on and recognized how the relationship between oral and written practices shape identities and communities, less attention is given to how multilingual speakers/writers in primarily oral genres mediated by literate practices use rhetorical strategies to shape their translingual identities and engage audience uptake of their translingual strategies. Significance/Implications: The significance and implications of this study focus on using translingual strategies as rhetorical tools to teach writing, language awareness, and analysis of discourse.

Comment Dire: A Neurolinguistic Approach to Beckett’s Bilingual Writings

Recent studies from the field of neurolinguistics and psycholinguistics suggest that bilinguals and multilinguals are in many ways fundamentally different from monolinguals, a difference that starts with a different cerebral structure for language. This difference will constitute the point of departure for my paper: If multilingual people are intrinsically different from monolingual people, it should follow that multilingual writers must be intrinsically different from monolingual writers. Samuel Beckett’s bilingualism was the governing force of much of his writing and has received ample critical attention. Yet this article will examine a hitherto neglected aspect of this topic: the way Beckett’s bilingualism may have inflected his writing in the first place. It will call on some of the research in neuro- and psycholinguistics to illuminate Beckett’s constant back and forth between English and French and the importance this may have had for his writing as well as to show how Beckett’s bilingual background is organically connected to the writing.

Review of Multilingual Writers and Writing Centers, by Ben Raforth

Review of Multilingual Writers and Writing Centers, by Ben Raforth

“I’m an artist and a scholar who is trying to find a middle point”: A textographic analysis of a Colombian art historian's thesis writing

As the number of periphery scholars who pursue graduate studies in the U.S. increases, there is an urgent need to understand how these multilingual writers build knowledge on academic writing in their second language (L2) and join the academic dialogs of their disciplinary communities. Drawing on theories of translingualism (e.g., Horner, Lu, Royster, & Trimbur, 2011) and cultural-historical activity (e.g., Prior, 1998), this textographic study reports on a multilingual graduate student's knowledge construction during the process of thesis writing. The central research questions of this study include: (i) What are some of the rhetorical enactments and literacy practices this multilingual writer developed around his thesis writing? (ii) What writerly identities are constructed in art oriented, new humanities thesis/dissertation writing? As results illustrate, navigation of academic writing with multiple modalities and languages during thesis writing help multilingual writers carve a creative space for theory construction which eventually contributes to the writer's scholarly identity growth. Examining some of the key translingual academic practices in their engagement with multiple texts around thesis writing, this paper reveals how an experienced multilingual writer utilized his cultural and symbolic capital as he constructed his identity both as an art historian and an emerging scholar.

The Scientific, Anthropological, Geological, and Geographic Exploration of Northern Mexico by Eighteenth-Century German Jesuit Missionaries

No AccessThe Scientific, Anthropological, Geological, and Geographic Exploration of Northern Mexico by Eighteenth-Century German Jesuit MissionariesA Religious and Scientific Network of Multilingual Writers With a Focus on Johann Nentuig and Marcus Antonius KappusAlbrecht ClassenAlbrecht ClassenSearch for more papers by this authorPublished Online:Jan 2019https://doi.org/10.7788/miog-2014-0106SectionsPDF/EPUB ToolsAdd to favoritesDownload CitationsTrack Citations ShareShare onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail About Previous article Next article FiguresReferencesRelatedDetailsCited bySTEM and Teaching German Language and Literature with an Interdisciplinary Approach: 18 th -Century Reports by German Jesuit Missionaries in the German ClassroomDie Unterrichtspraxis/Teaching German, Vol. 51, No. 1 Download book cover ISSN: 0073-8484eISSN: 2307-2903HistoryPublished online:January 2019 PDF download

Emerging Voices: The “Hands of God” at Work: Negotiating between Western and Religious Sponsorship in Indonesia

This article draws from ethnographic research to explore the interplay between Western capital (both monetary and cultural), the English language, and Indonesian religious identity at the Indonesian Consortium for Religious Studies, an “inter-religious, international Ph.D. program” in Yogyakarta, Indonesia. After discussing research methodology and positioning the program’s local-global religious identity within the larger Indonesian geopolitical context—which highlights English’s complicated role as both the language of Western imperialism and the language of global academic connection—this article explores how two Muslim PhD students negotiate this contact zone as they write. These student portraits, in turn, highlight the importance of acknowledging (1) religious identities as resources in our increasingly global US classrooms; (2) that identity negotiation occurs both textually and extratextually as multilingual writers reformulate and circulate information they draw from English publications to foment social change in their local communities; and (3) the contributions that non-Western voices can make in academic conversations long dominated by the West.

Multilingual Writing as Rhetorical Attunement

This essay examines the lived literacy experiences of six multilingual immigrant writers, arguing that their everyday multilingual practices foster a distinct rhetorical sensibility: rhetorical attunement—an ear for, or a tuning toward, difference or multiplicity. Rhetorical attunement is a way of acting in the world as a multilingual writer that assumes linguistic multiplicity and invites the negotiation of meaning across linguistic differences. The essay shows that multilingual writers aren’t aware of this quality of language a priori, but come to know—become rhetorically attuned—across a lifetime of communicating across difference.