Others Mean Differently

"Why are many city people so violent in condemning what they consider substandard forms of speech? The answer seems to be that, although the attitudes are explicitly formulated in connection with immediately accessible matters of pronunciation and word formation, what is actually being reacted to is something much deeper. People are reacting to the fact that others mean differently from themselves, and they feel threatened by it.”

MAK Halliday

Why "Ownership of English" is the wrong question

Henry Widdowson’s 1993 plenary address at TESOL, later published in TESOL Quarterly as “The Ownership of English,” started a trend in TESOL and applied linguistics which did two things, one of which I think was more explicitly intended, and one of which I think was less intended but also important:

A (more intended): Started a conversation about non-native speakers’ full “ownership” of English, not as linguistic second-class citizens, but as people who can use, shape, and “own” English in their own right.

B (less intended): Made “ownership” an important metaphor for talking about users of English.


Widdowson’s speech/essay discusses issues which are still very much in play for TESOL scholars who wrestle with the implications of the spread, localization, and use of English in diverse contexts around the world: what is standard English, what are standards, how are we to understand the role of both native and non-native speakers of English as teachers of the language, and so on. At one point he posits what I take to be his central question:

“The question is which community, and which culture, have a rightful claim to ownership of standard English?”

Even if we remove “standard” from this question, in order to expand it to any sort of English, I suggest that this is not quite the right question to be asking. Especially given the recent turn that encourages us to think less of langauges as reified “things” and more as resources that people use for certain purposes, it makes less and less sense to think of languages in terms of “ownership” at all -- even though ideas about native/nonnative speakership or even things like legitimacy or authority are still very relevant, both ideologically and practically.

So, why “ownership?” Who bestows it? How does one come to claim it? Although Widdowson carefully and persuasively argues that English is not (or is no longer)  under the sole provenance of British ‘native speakers,’ one might wonder whether any speaker or group of speakers of a language can be said to “own” it.

Try asking this of yourself: do I “own” my language? The pronoun I used in that sentence seems like a clue: I call English MY language. Yet it seems to me this is more of a way of denoting a closeness to or an affinity for a language, or a way of speaking, meaning, or even, dare I say, being in the world. Yoo (2014) uses the “ownership” of names as an analogy, arguing that just as Korean speakers of English using English does not mean they own English, neither does the fact that other people use your name more often than you use it mean that they own your name. Ren (2014) refutes this, arguing that a language is much larger and more complex than a name, and that it's a medium of communication through which people express their identities -- thus, NNESs can indeed "own" it.

I'd like to suggest a different analogy, but for the purposes of showing that "ownership" isn't the issue.

 Let's think about the way we refer to other things as “ours.” I speak of my wife, my son, my parents -- but of course I do not in any meaningful way consider myself to “own” these people. When I call them “mine,” I am referring to the strong ties that connect us, my close relationship with them, even in some cases our biological kinship. If you’d prefer a different illustration, think of the way we talk about, say, “my hockey team,” “my university,” “my favorite song.” I don’t claim to “own” any of these things, but I feel a very strong connection to, say, the University of British Columbia in a way that many people in the world do not. I am familiar with it, I use its resources, I can get around it with ease in a way I could not before I was enrolled there.

In the same way, when I say English is “my” language, I don’t mean that I own it, but that I am close to it, I am familiar with it, I know how to use it. I’m less comfortable calling other langauges “my” languages, though I might in a pinch refer to Spanish or Chinese as “my foreign languages,” even if I feel like I’m not very good at them. The fact is that I have been surrounded by English for my entire life, so I feel very comfortable calling it “my” language, but neither I nor anyone I know, nor even the country I live in or other people who speak it, really “own” the language.

Note: Stop reading here if you’re satisfied with this argument. I’m pretty satisfied with it myself. Read more below if you want to get nit-picky about current debates in applied linguistics, world Englishes, and ELF.

New article published in the Journal of Second Language Writing

Very happy to mention that the article I co-wrote with Ryuko Kubota has been published by the Journal of Second Language Writing. Click the reference below to read, and see the abstract below.


Heng Hartse, J. & Kubota, R. (2014.) Pluralizing English? Variation in High-Stakes Academic Texts and Challenges of Copyediting. Journal of Second Language Writing 24, 71-82.

Paralleling the pluralistic conceptualizations of language as found in world Englishes and English as a lingua franca (ELF), pluralizing language use - that is, accepting deviations from standard Anglo-American written English - has been advocated in the field of second language (L2) writing. However, the question of how this pluralization is or can be achieved remains underexplored, particularly at the level of lexis and grammar, which has traditionally been an important focus for readers of L2 writers' texts. This question becomes contentious in high-stakes academic writing, which entails negotiation between L2 writers and gatekeepers (editors, copyeditors) who are expected to ensure academic sophistication and rigor of published texts. This article addresses theoretical issues related to differences in language use by critically analyzing the authors' own process of copyediting nonnative English writers’ manuscripts prepared for a book publication.. It examines the role of literacy brokering (textual mediation by editors, proofreaders, and others) at the lexicogrammatical level in academic text production. We found that despite sympathy for an approach that would pluralize English usage, the textual mediation of lexical and grammatical items was often driven by native-speaker intuition and was idiosyncratic. This idiosyncrasy further poses skepticism about the applicability of both error-oriented approaches to and pluralistic theories about L2 writing to copyediting in high-stakes academic publishing.  We conclude that pervasive ideologies and accepted practices in academic publishing make it difficult to pluralize academic writing at the level of lexis and grammar. We conclude with suggestions for advocacy, research, and practice for L2 writing scholars and literacy brokers.

Recent Publications

A few things published recently. #2 is the only "academic" publication, but they are all related to stuff I do academically, namely: "Chinglish" / English in China, transnational higher education, joint-venture universities in China, religion in applied linguistics, and world Englishes.


1. NYU Shanghai and the Future of International Higher Education in China
at Asia Pacific Memo


2. Chinglish Triumphant? The Unusual Case of Long time No See
in Asian Englishes


3. On Encouraging Religion-Related Research in TESOL
in the CELEA newsletter


4. On Not 'Being an ESL Teacher' All the Time
in the BCTEAL newsletter

January

I need to remind myself that January has gone really, really well.

What happened in January? Well, a lot of pretty great things.

First, I won an award from the American Association of Applied Linguistics, which means something like I had one of the best proposals among all the grad students who submitted this year for their conference.

Then, I had a book proposal accepted by the TESOL association (the other big professional association in my field, other than AAAL), on a topic I've been wanting to do a book on for 5+ years. (I'll be co-writing it with a colleague -- more information is coming this summer.)

Then, on the last day of the month, I had a manuscript (that I've been working on with a professor for over a year and a half) accepted by the Journal of Second Language Writing. I don't want to sound like a star-struck bumpkin, but I never dreamed I would get a publication in the JSLW. I have honestly always seen it as a journal that is only for really well-known people in our field, like, say, professors at Purdue.

I'm not (I hope) one for horn-tooting, but I need to remember that these things have happened. My "career" is going well.

But every time I open my dissertation document, my heart sinks and I feel like I am a total failure, that my advisor will not be pleased with what I've done, that my committee will not let me pass, that the external examiner will be unimpressed, and that I will never finish my Ph.D.

This is in spite of what appears to be evidence (above) that I am good at what I do. Again, I'm not saying this to big-up myself. It's just really hard for me to square all the non-dissertation good stuff with the sheer uncertainty of the dissertation process. When I was writing my first book, I knew that when I finished it I wasn't going to be totally happy with it, but I also felt like the stakes were low -- the editor was a good friend, the publisher was small and not marketing the book much, I had no advance I needed to earn royalties against, and most of all, I felt like all I was responsible for in the writing was to make up stuff off the top of my head.

Writing my dissertation feels nothing like this. The stakes feel incredibly high -- my ability to get a job I've trained for for nearly a decade to support my family is on the line,  I'm losing money every semester I stay in school, and I have this nagging doubt that the way I'm going about it is all wrong.

This is probably what they call "impostor syndrome" -- the idea that you don't deserve your success, that you are fooling anybody who thinks you're doing a good job. It is alarmingly frequent in academia. It's said to affect women and minorities disproportionately, though I guess I am an exception. I'm as male and WASPy as they come (though a professor last term did make a reference to 'everyone in the room being a member of an underrepresented/disenfranchised group,' and since I was the only person in the room who was not either a woman or an ethnic minority or gay or transgender, I can only assume she was, quite charitably, referring to my allusions to being an Evangelical, which is actually something of a marginalized position in academia) and I would estimate that I spent 50% of my workdays just sort of sitting at my desk and fretting about not being good enough at what I am supposed to be doing.

So remember: January has gone really, really well.

And February is going to be tough.

But (I tell myself, even though I don't totally believe it) February is going to go well, too, because I am good at what I do.

Language repertoire of a teacher training class in Vancouver

A list of what languages were represented in our classroom. The question was simply "which languages do you have in your repertoire?" The question of what constitutes a repertoire came up. I defined it as "whether you feel the language is a part of your life in some way."

One member of the class was absent when we did this and she would've added some more, so the totals would have been:

English - 17

Mandarin - 7

Cantonese - 4

French - 4

Korean - 3

Japanese  - 2

Spanish - 2

Indonesian - 1

Punjabi - 1

Hindi - 1

Latin - 1

So, some questions.

Is there anything surprising about this?

How does this list affirm (or not affirm) beliefs about what languages are important/common in Vancouver, or BC, or Canada, or North America?

How many of these are "native" vs "non-native" languages? Does that matter?

What would happen if we conducted class in a language other than English?

What language families or regions of the world are not represented? Why?

Sociolinguistics and language teaching: 20 years ago and today

I'm currently teaching one of my favorite courses at UBC, which is the second half of a sequence of classes on applied linguistics for current or future language teachers. This course focuses on applications of sociolinguistics to language teaching, a subject I really enjoy teaching (and learning) about.

We use the 2010 book Sociolinguistics and Language Education by Hornberger & McKay. What I find interesting is that this book is basically an update of a very similar volume they edited about 20 years ago, and by comparing the contents of the books you can see what's changed since then.

Right away, you can see that the 1996 book is more focused on 'traditional' areas of sociolinguistics: variation, sociology of language, interactional sociolinguistics. The 2010 book adds three sections that have hugely grown in importance (and some might say "trendiness"): language (and) ideology, language and identity, and a whole section for language and literacy where it's just a chapter in the first book.

As I've said before, applied linguists tend to use the term "sociolinguistics" loosely, and 2010 book shows that we've placed some things under that umbrella that may not have been there before: new literacy studies and multiliteracies, identity stuff, and studies of ideology/power. 

I think I'll have more to say this when the course is over, but for now, here are the two tables of contents for comparison.

McKay, S. & Hornberger, N. (1996). Sociolinguistics and language teaching. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

I LANGUAGE AND SOCIETY 1

Chapter 1 Language attitudes, motivation, and standards 3 Mary McGroarty

Chapter 2 Societal multilingualism 47 Kamal K. Sridhar

Chapter 3 World Englishes 71 Braj B. Kachru and Cecil L. Nelson

Chapter 4 Language planning and policy 103 Terrence G. Wiley

II LANGUAGE AND VARIATION 149

Chapter  5 Regional and social variation 151 John R. Rickford

Chapter 6 Pidgins and Creoles 195 Patricia C. Nichols

Chapter 7 Language and gender 218 Rebecca Freeman and Bonnie McElhinnyvi

III LANGUAGE AND INTERACTION 281

Chapter 8 Ethnographic microanalysis 283 Frederick Erickson

Chapter 9 Interactional sociolinguistics 307 Deborah Schiffrin

Chapter 10 Intercultural communication 329 J. Keith Chick

IV LANGUAGE AND CULTURE 349

Chapter 11 The ethnography of communication 351 Muriel Saville-Troike

Chapter 12 Speech acts 383 Andrew D. Cohen

Chapter 13 Literacy and literacies 421 Sandra Lee McKay

CONCLUSION 447

Chapter 14 Language and education 449 Nancy H. Hornberger

================================================

Hornberger, N. & McKay, S. (eds.) (2010). Sociolinguistics and language education. Bristol: Multilingual Matters

Part 1: Language and Ideology

1 Language and Ideologies Mary E. McGroarty

2 Language, Power and Pedagogies Hilary Janks

3 Nationalism, Identity and Popular Culture Alastair Pennycook

Part 2: Language and Society

4 English as an International Language Sandra Lee Mckay 

5 Multilingualism and Codeswitching in Education Nkonko M. Kamwangamalu

6 Language Policy and Planning Joseph Lo Bianco

Part 3: Language and Variation

7 Style and Styling Jürgen Jaspers

8 Critical Language Awareness H. Samy Alim

9 Pidgins and Creoles Jeff Siegel

Part 4: Language and Literacy

10 Cross-cultural Perspectives on Writing: Contrastive Rhetoric Ryuko Kubota

11 Sociolinguistics, Language Teaching and New Literacy Studies Brian Street and Constant Leung

12 Multimodal Literacy in Language Classrooms Viniti Vaish and Phillip A. Towndrow

Part 5: Language and Identity

13 Language and Identity Bonny Norton

14 Gender Identities in Language Education Christina Higgins

15 Language and Ethnicity Angela Reyes

16 Language Socialization Patricia A. Duff

Part 6: Language and Interaction

17 Language and Culture Gabriele Kasper and Makoto Omori

18 Conversation Analysis Jack Sidnell

19 Classroom Discourse Analysis: A Focus on Communicative Repertoires  Betsy Rymes

Part 7: Language and Education

20 Language and Education: A Limpopo Lens Nancy H. Hornberger

My Portland TESOL/AAAL schedule, March 21-28

Here is what I'll be doing at AAAL / TESOL in Portland.

Sat 3/22 [AAAL] -
Sun 3/23 [AAAL] -
Mon 3/24 [AAAL] -
Tues 3/25 [AAAL]  - my AAAL presentation 8 AM / AAAL awards 1:30 pm
Wed 3/26 - [CELT / TESOL]  CELT presentation - 10am, TESOL PhD forum poster PM.
Thu 3/27 - [TESOL] AM - TESOL volunteering PM - (non-conference) Reading from my book!
Fri 3/28 - [TESOL] AM TESOL volunteering
Sat 3/28 - [TESOL]
10 AM: Perspectives on Teaching in Different Contexts Book Series- Andy Curtis (I will talk about the book on teaching English in China that am co-writing with my friend and colleague Jiang Dong)
leave PDX 1/2 pm or so
11:30 AM: Co-presenting with Jim Hu on ESL writing accuracy (see below)

=====

Joel's handy guide to what I am doing at these events

AAAL: Acceptability in Context: Interviews with English Language Teachers

This paper proposes that acceptability judgments need to be re-theorized as socially constructed, and presents data from a study involving interviews with Chinese English teachers about unacceptable English usage in writing. Using discourse analysis, I show how the (un)acceptability of particular usages is not fixed, but depends on contextual influences.

TESOL: ESL writing inaccuracy: Voices of employers (2nd author with Jim Hu)

Given little interest of many university ESL students in improving English writing accuracy, this session explores employers' perspectives on ESL employees' writing inaccuracy. The study discussed found a disconnect between academic and professional worlds and recommends ESL students and universities endeavor together to create the next generation of competent employees.

CELT: Language Difference and Love: the Ethics of World Englishes

This presentation, drawing on the literary scholar Alan Jacobs' theory of "charitable interpretation,” develops an approach to language difference—recognizing the diversity of English in various cultural, social, and political contexts around the world—rooted in the primary Christian virtue of charity.

TESOL Doctoral Forum (poster): Between error and variation: A sociolinguistic approach to globalized academic writing

My study adopts a non-error-based approach to teachers’ reactions to nonstandard language use in Chinese students’ English writing, using the construct of “acceptability” (Greenbaum, 1977) and situating the project in a world Englishes framework. This poster session describes the application of non-error based theoretical approaches to studies of lexical and grammatical variation in L2 writing, presents data from the study, and describes theoretical and methodological challenges and innovations of this approach.

READING @ First Christian Church in downtown Portland:

Do you love/hate Christian rock? Were you, at one time, "down with the DC Talk?" Do you think the 1990s maybe have been rock and roll's greatest decade? Have you owned at least one Amy Grant album? Does the thought of Christian rock elicit at least two of the following emotions for you: revulsion, nostalgia, embarrassment, love, sheepishness? Join Joel Heng Hartse (Paste, Geez, Christianity Today, the Mercury, etc) as he reads from Sects, Love, and Rock & Roll (Cascade Books), an essay collection about being an Evangelical teenager in the 1990s and what it means to fall into and out of love with Christian rock. Musical guests for this reading include: