Transcript Chinese Undergraduate Academic Writers: Negotiating

Chinese Undergraduate Academic Writers:
Negotiating Identity in U.S. Higher Education
Jennifer Lund
Indiana University
INTESOL- November 15, 2014
My background
Nancy,
France
Assistant
Lecturer
Purdue
University
English
Department
Lecturer
Indiana
University
English
Department
Instructor
University of
Delaware
English
Language
Institute
Instructor

6+ years experience teaching academic writing to international students at
the university level

Experience teaching Chinese students in four unique settings
IIE Open Doors 2013
Report

40 percent more international students in U.S.
universities than a decade ago

International students add 24 billion to the U.S.
economy

Chinese international students (235,000 total) make
up 21 percent of total international students in the
U.S.

Chinese student enrollment has increased 26 percent
at the undergraduate level (Indian and Korean
student enrollment is decreasing)
Why do so many Chinese students study abroad?
Chinese
Education System
Family Pressure
POSSIBLE
FACTORS
Chinese Economy
?
Introduction to identity in
higher education writing

Bartholomae (1985) – “Inventing the
University”
 Focus on novice native English writers in
first-year writing programs in the U.S.

Students need to acquire appropriate
voice and identity to gain a “position of
authority”
Introduction to identity in
higher education writing

Ivanič (1998) – “Writing and identity: The
discoursal construction of identity in
academic writing”
 Studied L1 non-traditional, mature
writers navigating university discourse
 Text helpful for its clear explanations of
accommodation, opposition, and
resistance
Critical theorist Henry
Giroux
Accommodation
• Students accept writing conventions with
no critical thinking
Opposition
• Students don’t pick up writing
conventions at all and end up disengaging
Resistance
• Student beliefs about a dominant ideology
(such as dominant academic discourse)
result in emancipatory actions
Lea and Street (1998)

One of the first studies on L1 learners in
higher education to focus on writer identity

Academic literacies approach through case
studies

Alignment with “New Literacy Studies”

Resistance and accommodation noted in
interactions with writing tutors
Identity of Multilingual Writers in
Higher Education

Norton (1997) – link between identity and
Bourdieu’s concept of symbolic power
 Unequal power structures between
dominant and less dominant discourses
 Investment is a key term linked with selfimage
 “Complex history and multiple desires”
Voice has a different meaning in L2
writing

Canagarajah (2004) – overview of identity
in SLA research
 Voice must be defined differently in L2
writing
 L2 writers negotiate voice in their second
language differently than their L1
Voice has a different meaning in L2
writing

Hirvela & Belcher (2001)
 “architecture of voice” – “person behind
the text”
 L2 students need more help learning to
navigate between L1 voice and L2 voice
Voice and writer identity of
Asian Americans in higher ed

Chiang and Schmida (1999)
 College Writing Program at UC Berkeley
 Language use, language identity, and
language ownership as English users
 Evidence of conflict between linguistic
identity and linguistic ability
Role of racial and language ideologies

Liu and Tannacito (2013)
 Taiwanese language learners in an IEP in
U.S. university
 Qualitative research framework
 Elements of resistance to dominant
discourse depending on their level of
investment
International Education
and Desire

Chowdhury and Phan (2014)
 Exploration of power structures and
discourses that influence students to study
abroad
 Focus on TESOL graduate students in
Australia
 Link between power relations and identity
formation
Purpose: Small-Scale
Ethnographic Inquiry

To explore Chinese attitudes towards
academic writing instruction within a
U.S. university introductory
composition classroom designated for
international students

To explore identity investment in
Western academic writing practices
Research Qs

How do Chinese undergraduate English L2 writers at a
Midwestern U.S. university negotiate their writing identity
in the context of an introductory composition course
designed for international students?

Is there any evidence of resistance to academic writing
conventions or an “inferiority of identity”?
Setting

Introductory “freshman” composition course titled
“Reading, Writing, and Inquiry”

Gate-keeping course for Kelley Business School

Course focuses on a sequenced writing project where
students choose an issue, conduct research using
secondary sources, and write an argument paper

Focal class taught by an international graduate
student who understood spoken Chinese

13 Chinese, 2 Koreans
Two Focal Students

Kelvin

3 years of HS in California (1
yr public, 2 yrs private)

Fiona (native Cantonese
speaker)

2yrs British intl middle school
in Beijing and 2yrs British HS
in Shenzhen + 1 year of
Chinese public middle school
in Shenzhen (Mandarin)
Data Collection

2-3 semi-structured 30 minute interviews with focal
students

10 classroom observations (50 minutes each)

Semi-structured 30 minute interview with the teacher

Analysis of class papers
Data Analysis

Grounded Theory Approach: Comparative analysis
of emerging themes from coding of interview
transcripts and observation field notes
Common Themes-writing
identity

Awareness of style differences

Negotiating writing identity

English as the dominant discourse

Importance of socio-cultural environment
Awareness of style
differences

“Chinese writing is more focused on description to describe the emotion of
people, the facial expression, or the poster, or the weather, or any other
stuff. And for the American the academic writing, it's like you need to write
the topic sentence, it's like you are going to support something or you going
to against something.”-Fiona

“I’m just saying that in Chinese writing you don’t focus too much on
grammar …You can just compose your words, combine your words in
different ways, they all make sense.” -Kelvin
Negotiating writing
identity

“I can write in Chinese, but if you ask me to write a paragraph
or write some papers, I probably need to take more time than
English because I probably have to switch back to the Chinese.
Because with typing a lot now and you ask me to write some
Chinese word, I cannot actually think about it.”-Fiona

“Well, learn writing in English make me change my thoughts
sometimes. Like when you write, you don’t think Chinese
way. You think Western way like how Western people may see
these Qs. Like you just write down. Like you don’t have
Chinese in your thoughts and then translate to English. You
don’t do that. You will look at the problem in an American
way.”-Kelvin
English as the dominant
discourse

“English is best to communicate with others.”Kelvin

On discussing what motivates her to improve her
English writing:
“To explain to outsider the certain policies for China.
The culture of China. The history of China.”-Fiona
Importance of sociocultural environment

“Yes, cause since you living in that environment. Uh
like my host family was Catholic too and they go to
church and in our school we pray every classes. I mean
it affects you ..um like um how to say substantially?
Or…subconsciously, yeah subconscious. You don’t feel
about it, but it really affect you in some ways.”-Kelvin

“Last semester I lived in that student dormitory and I
contact nearly all of my friend were native speaker and
the more that I contact with them I feel like, yeah, the
way I'm living is more like the American style.”Fiona
Conclusion

Chinese students studying in U.S. environments need
to be recognized for their individual identities

More consideration of “inferiority of identity” due
to the dominance of academic English

Considerations of factors outside the classroom that
affect students’ feelings about academic writing
References
Bartholomae, D. (1985). Inventing the university. In E. Cushman, E.R. Kintgen,
B.M. Kroll, & M. Rose (Eds.), Literacy: A Critical Sourcebook (pp. 511-524). New
York, NY: Bedford/St. Martin’s.
Canagarajah, S. (2004). Multilingual writers and the struggle for voice in academic
discourse. Negotiation of identities in multilingual contexts, 45, 266.
Chowdhury, R. & Phan, L.H. (2014). Desiring TESOL and international education:
market abuse and exploitation. Bristol: Multilingual Matters.
Chiang, Y. & Schmida, M. (1999). Language identity and language ownership:
Linguistic conflicts of first-year university writing students. In P.K. Matsuda, M.
Cox, J. Jordan, & C. Ortmeirer-Hooper (Eds.), Second language writing in the
composition classroom: A critical sourcebook (pp. 89-102). Urbana, IL: Bedford/St.
Martin’s.
References
Hirvela, A., & Belcher, D. (2001). Coming back to voice: The multiple voices and
identities of mature multilingual writers. Journal of Second Language Writing,
10(1), 83-106.
Ivanič, R. (1998). Writing and identity: The discoursal construction of identity in academic
writing (Vol. 5). John Benjamins Publishing.
Lea, M. R., & Street, B. V. (1998). Student writing in higher education: An
academic literacies approach. Studies in higher education, 23(2), 157-172.
Liu, P. H. E., & Tannacito, D. J. (2013). Resistance by L2 writers: The role of racial
and language ideology in imagined community and identity investment. Journal
of Second Language Writing, 22(4), 355-373.
Norton, B. (1997). Language, identity, and the ownership of English. Tesol
Quarterly, 31(3), 409-429.
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Thank you!
謝謝