Canagarajah, Suresh A. “The Place of World Englishes in Composition:

Canagarajah, Suresh A. “The Place of World Englishes in Composition:
Pluralization Continued.” College Composition and Communication. 57.4
(2006): 586-619.

Abstract/Summary: Contesting the monolingualist assumptions in composition, this article identifies textual and pedagogical spaces for World Englishes in academic writing. It presents code meshing as a strategy for merging local varieties with Standard Written English in a move toward gradually pluralizing academic writing and developing multilingual competence for transnational relationships.

Area Cluster: 108–Langauge
Methodology: Literature review, pedagogy development
Citation: Smitherman, Pratt, Pierce, Lu, Kachru, Horner, Faigley, Elbow, Canagarajah, Bhatt

Provocative Quotes:

“even the most progressive of compositionists (e.g., Schroeder, Fox, and Bizzell) may permit WE preferences in style, tone, and discourse (at what we may call the extra-sentential or rhetorical level), while insisting on ME for the sentential level of grammar, syntax, and spelling conventions” ( )

“The extent of the students’ right here seems to be letting them use their English at home and in their local communities, and for informal purposes and low-stakes writing needs in the classroom. But shouldn’t SRTOL also mean that students have the right to use their vernacular for formal purposes? It appears that SRTOL is interpreted as a policy of tolerance (i.e., permitting nonvalorized codes to survive in less-prestigious contexts), not promotion (i.e., making active use of these vernaculars or developing them for serious purposes)” ( )
“In traditional language rights discourse, national minorities (those with a history as long as the dominant groups and/or enjoying a sizeable demography and spread) have been given preferred treatment in language rights, while ethnic minorities and recent immigrant groups (with a more limited history, spread, and number) are treated as inconsequential (May). But this practice has been questioned lately, as the orientation to language rights based on the nation-state has become outmoded, just as the borders of countries have become porous under the influence of globalization. Now, as even Anglo American students are compelled to develop proficiency in multiple Englishes in order to shuttle between communities in the postmodern world, we must take a fresh look at the treatment of WE in SRTOL” ( )

“Everything from language socialization approaches and Bakhtinian theories of discourse to poststructuralist linguistics teaches us that to use a language meaningfully is to appropriate it and make it one’s own (see Peirce). Proficiency requires adapting the new language for one’s own values and interests. To use a language without any personal engagement, even for temporary utilitarian and pragmatic reasons, is to mimic not speak. It means “acting white” for my African American students and “putting a show” for Sri Lankan students” ( )

“If Smitherman’s practice hints at some textual strategies for using other Englishes in academic writing, Min-Zhan Lu suggests pedagogical strategies for encouraging multilingual students to bring in their variants of English into the composition classroom”

“As the theorization of Anzaldua and Pratt, and the practice of hooks and Smitherman show, code meshing in English writing has a politics of its own” ( )

“ Though not directly confrontational as to reject the dominant codes or to flaunt the vernacular codes in established contexts, multilingual students will resist ME from the inside by inserting their codes within the existing conventions” ( ).

“In the context of the Internet and digital media, we see the mixing of not only different varieties of English but also of totally different languages. To be literate on the Internet, for example, requires competence in multiple registers, discourses, and languages, in addition to different modalities of communication (sound, speech, video, photographs) and different symbol systems (icons, images, and spatial organization). To capture these changes for textual processing and production, scholars have now started using the term multiliteracies (see Cope and Kalantzis) and are explicating the new acts of reading and writing involved (Warschauer)” ( ).

Canagarajah, Suresh A. “Toward a Writing Pedagogy of Shuttling between Languages: Learning from Multilingual Writers.”

Canagarajah, Suresh A. “Toward a Writing Pedagogy of Shuttling between Languages: Learning from Multilingual Writers.” College English. 68.6 (2006): 589-604.

Abstract (Summary)
The dominant approaches to studying multilingual writing have been hampered by monolingualist assumptions that conceive literacy as a unidirectional acquisition of competence, preventing people from fully understanding the resources multilinguals bring to their texts. Canagarajah examines how teachers and researchers of English writing orient to linguistic and cultural difference in the essays they read.

Area Cluster: 108–Langauge
Methodology: Discourse Analysis
Citation: Bhabha, Kaplan, Sivatamby, Canagarajah
Provocative Quotes:
“We have to stop treating any textual difference as an unconscious error. We must consider it as a strategic and creative choice by the author to attain his or her rhetorical objectives” (591).

“language does not determine the greatest difference in the texts of multilingual authors, but rather context or audience” (601).

“Writing is rhetorical negotiation for achieving social meanings and functions” (602).

“The rules and conventions can be negotiated for one’s purposes with suitable strategies” (602).

De Pewa, Kevin Eric and Susan Kay Miller. “Studying L2 writers’ digital writing: An argument for post-critical methods”.

Abstract/Summary: “Because the fields of digital writing and second language (L2) writing both have rich methodological traditions, researchers designing a study that examines issues at the intersection of these two fields have multiple methodological traditions to draw upon. Recognizing the choices that researchers face, we advocate adopting post-critical methodologies, as articulated by Patricia Sullivan and James E. Porter for these digital/L2 inquiries. A post-critical approach, we believe, enhances these studies by emphasizing their interdisciplinary and ideological nature. After defining what a post-critical methodology entails, we connect it to recent research trends in digital writing, L2 writing, and L2 studies. To help future researchers design digital/L2 writing studies, we explain the implications of these approaches” (259).

Area Cluster: 108—Language 106—Information Technologies 105–Research
Methodology: Developing Methodology
Citation: Canagarajah, George, Haraway, Hawisher, Sullivan and Porter, Takayoshi
Provocative Quotes:
“if instructors ask which computer-mediated writing technologies are most conducive for facilitating L2 writers’ academic literacy development, the available corpus of literature that addresses all aspects of this question decreases significantly” (260).

“In this new millennium, when most writing (especially in academic contexts) means
“electronic writing” (Sullivan & Porter, 1997, p. 151) and diverse student populations bring global literacies to the university (as international students, immigrant students, and generation 1.5 students), the inquiries about student populations and the writing technologies that they use are political discussions” (261).

“To achieve this critical self-awareness with digital writing inquiries, Sullivan and Porter
specify several agendas for the post-critical researcher; they include:

• Conceptualizing methodology as praxis
• Using postmodern mapping to understand and articulate one’s relationship to the various features of the research project
• Considering ethical implications at all stages of the process
◦ respect difference
◦ care for others
◦ promote justice
◦ empower participants (p. 110)” (261-2).

Methodology as praxis:
“a post-critical framework helps researchers examine the computer technologies for what they are and what they do (or can do)” (262).

“Rather than approaching the research site with prescribed methodological rules, Sullivan and Porter believe the site should shape the methodology” (263).
Postmodern mapping: (Another Methodology):
“ a research study is also only one representation and interpretation of a given site of study, influenced by the research questions asked, the site chosen for study, the experiences and biases of the researcher, and the specific subjects involved” (264).

“According to Sullivan and Porter, postmodern mapping allows
the researcher to (a) illustrate the complexity of the local research site, especially in relation to previous research studies and (b) demonstrate how the researcher articulates the research site and positions herself or himself within that site (p. 99). “ (264).
Ethical implications:
“In addition to the contributions that post-critical methods make to the field, Sullivan and
Porter (1997) also articulate the ideological goal of designing projects that make contributions to those being studied—the immediate participants or, at the least, the populations whom the participants represent…they promote four overlapping principles
which they articulate as counterbalances to each other: “(1) respect difference, (2) care for others, (3) promote access to rhetorical procedures enabling justice, and (4) liberate the oppressed through empowerment of participants” (p. 110)” (266).

“As researchers become advocates for international students, immigrant
students, and generation 1.5 students, they will want to negotiate with the participants and
learn what these individuals hope to gain from this experience” (267).
“Other L2 researchers have recognized the value of postcritical-like research methodologies (that is, feminist methods, poststructuralist methods) and have argued that these methods are particularly suitable for research projects about participants who have been disempowered because of their language production” (272).

“The study of L2 learning has always been about power. Underlying the issues that motivate second language learning research is the social stigma against nonstandard forms of written and spoken English” (273).

“Each site of study is unique, and post-critical approaches
offer us a methodology that acknowledges the ways in which the researchers, participants, and other variables in the study affect one another and the outcome and interpretation of the results” (274).

“Studies designed and interpreted through a post-critical lens will help us to understand the complex relationship between L2 writers and digital technologies and between the various disciplines that influence research in digital/L2 writing” (275).

Lu, Min-Zhan. “An Essay on the Work of Composition: Composing English against the Order of Fast Capitalism.”

Lu, Min-Zhan. “An Essay on the Work of Composition: Composing English against the Order of Fast Capitalism.” College Composition and Communication 56 (2004): 16-50.

Summary: “This is an attempt to define what being a responsible and responsive user of English might mean in a world ordered by global capital, a world where all forms of intra- and international exchanges in all areas of life are increasingly under pressure to involve English. Turning to recent work in linguistics and education, I pose a set of alternative assumptions that might help us develop more responsible and responsive approaches to the relation between English and its users (both those labeled Native-Speaking, White or Middle Class, and those Othered by these labels), the language needs and purposes of individual users of English, and the relation between the work we do and the work done by users of English across the world. I argue that these assumptions can help us compose English against the grain of all systems and relations of injustice” (16).

Area Cluster: 108 Language

Methodology: Discourse Analysis,
Citation: Canagarajah, Morrison, Fairclough, Kachru, Hall

Provocative Quotes:

“To use English responsively and responsibly, we need to unravel several residual fears hovering over the Angel in My House of Composition: the fear that “linguistic imperfection” will cause a “communication” breakdown; the fear that critical engagement with the language one needs to survive and thrive is incompatible with one’s effort to acquire it; a fear arising from the assumption that (socially or self-identified) Native-Speaking, White, and/or Middle- Class users of English are monolingual; the fear that issues of dissonance are irrelevant to their learning and discursive practices? (18-9).

“I pose two related directions aiming to san these fears. I argue for the need to depict Composition as boundary work: efforts to articulate responses (or take a stance towards) the dissonance between and across languages, englishes, and discourses with asymmetrical economic, social, cultural, and symbolic capital in today’s world. And I foreground the need of all of us (Native-Speaking, White, and/or Middle Class and their Others) to grasp and make constructive uses of the dissonance in each of our (socially constructed) discursive resources and purposes for acquiring English” (19).

“An Associated Press report indicates that in a world ordered by fast capitalism, the struggle between users intent on deadening and enlivening English is intensifying intra- and internationally” (19).

“The “war” against “Chinglish” points to the intricate grid of intra- and international jiaos taking place on the linguistic, economic, social, political, and cultural fronts as a result of the global extension of market modes of operation and of the logic of flexible accumulation to all areas of life (Fairclough 163-64).’ The pressure to acquire and use English is increasingly becoming a lived reality for peoples stratified by labels such as Native-Speaking, Educated, Developed Countries, or Democracy and their Others. The “war” against “Chinglish” also indicates that the english we use in Composition has the potential to directly and indirectly police how peoples the world over use English. (20).

“Aside from illustrating our institutional designation to deaden English by imposing a “linguistic perfection” to maintain the intra- and international exclusivity and dominance of standardized U.S. english, the China Daily report also points to the fact that even as English is becoming a language of international commerce, media, and politics, it is breaking into multiple and increasingly differentiated englishes marked by accents, national origins, and cultural and professional or technical affiliations (Cope and Kalantzis, “Introduction” 5). (21).

“In making English serve a different reality-social relations, needs and purposes other than (and thus, Othered by) the ones presumed and thus, prescribed by standardized English-the designer of the “Chinglish” signs might be seen as a resistant user of English working in concert with Native Americans, African Americans, and peoples across the world to use English against the englishes of their oppressors” (22).

“The work of resistant users of English indicates that, like any other language- e.g., Chinese or Spanish-English is best defined as an unstable process kept alive by the intense intra- and international struggle between and across English and diverse languages (peripheralized by the power of English under fast capitalism), and between and across diverse standardized englishes and their Othered, peripheralized englishes (variously labeled Dialectal, Creole, Pidgin, Indigenized, etc.). Whether we realize it or not, whether we acknowledge it or not, we take part in this struggle through every decision we make on which english to use and how to use it. Composition is boundary work. How we go about using English matters” (24).

“Incorporating concepts from recent work in linguistics and education, I propose a method of reading that proceeds from two assumptions: (1) all users of English (self- or socially identified Native-Speaking, White, and/or Middle-Class users of English and users Othered by these labels) are actively structuring the english they are acquiring, its relation to other englishes, and the relations of peoples invested in the competing englishes; (2) in every instance of discursive practice, all users of English are working with and on very specific, often complex and sometimes dissonant, discursive resources and for potentially complex and conflicting purposes. Working with these assumptions would compel us to take a dual approach to all texts (spoken or written): investigating not only whether certain features in a given text meet the standardized templates of the english with the most social, political, linguistic, and symbolic capital in fast capitalism’s Free Market but also how and why individual users of English have designed such features on a given occasion” (25-6).

“Instead of presenting Our confusion as resulting from Others’ “linguistic imperfection,” we might treat it as resulting from our lack of know-how or effort to make sense of how and why individual users of English might have come up with specific redesigning of standardized designs” (26-7).

“In summary, to be a responsible and responsive user of English, we need to delay our sound bites on what english this designer needs and how she needs to use it until we have studied her understanding of her discursive resources: the options opened up and closed down by her actual language expertise, affiliation, and/or inheritance as well as by her sense of her actual, imagined, and possible self and life” (35-6).

“As many in Composition have long argued, notions of “expertise” are socially constructed, depending on the criteria and assumptions historically used to assess the discursive practices of people categorized along lines of class, gender, sex, race, occupation, ethnicity, religion, education, national origin, etc” (36).

“One way Composition might link its work with the language practices of resistant users of English within the United States and across the world is learning to perform “closer” readings of texts that “confuse” those of us with “fluency” in the standardized englishes of Developed Countries” (38).

“Fast capitalism’s standardized template of selfhood would encourage users of English to leave its life in the hands of the Market and envelope ourselves in the caul of standardized fear-myths. To intervene with the order of Fast Capitalism, it is the responsibility of Composition to work with the belief that English is enlivened-enlightened-by the work of users intent on using it to limn the actual, imagined, and possible lives of all its speakers, readers, and writers, the work of users intent on using English to describe and, thus, control those circumstances of their life designed by all systems and relations of injustice to submerge them. It is our responsibility to call attention to the potential desires, capabilities, and needs of all users of English to actively participate in the redesigning of standardized englishes with the highest Market value and to do so in intra- and international jiaos on all levels of life” (43).

“How we use English in Composition matters. Trying to critically engage with the standardized designs of a discourse of flexible accumulation when reading and writing in English can have long-term effects on the future of all languages, all users of English, and the order of the world we share” (43).

Horner, Bruce and John Trimbur. “English Only and U.S. College Composition.”

Horner, Bruce and John Trimbur. “English Only and U.S. College Composition.” College Composition and Communication 53.4 (2002): 594-630.
Summary:
Bruce Horner and John Trimbur trace the pedagogical and cultural developments that have led to the conception of English writing in the United States as a unidirectional and monolingual acquisition of literate competence. While these assumptions have been motivated by the modernist ideology of “one language/one nation,” the authors envision that postmodern globalization may require us to develop in our students a multilingual and polyliterate orientation to writing. They outline the shifts in curriculum, policy, and research that will promote such a broadened pedagogical orientation in the future.”
Most Valuable Citation: Canagarajah, Crawford, Lu, Kachru, Zamel
Area Cluster: 108 Language
Provocative Quotes:
“We argue that a tacit language policy of unidirectional English monolingualism has shaped the historical formation of U.S. writing instruction and continues to influence its theory and practice in shadowy, largely unexamined ways” (594-5)
“As we have argued, this tacit language policy weighs heavily on our work studying and teaching writing. This largely unexamined language policy has made it difficult to see that U.S. college composition, from its
formation to the present day, operates for the most part within national borders…The task…is to develop an internationalist perspective capable of understanding the study and teaching of written English in relation to other languages and to the dynamics of globalization”(623-4).