- Distinguished Guest Lecture Series
- K-12 Professional Development
Distinguished Guest Lecture Series
Fall Semester 2009 Series
Thursday, September 17, 3:30, 746 Alter Hall
Dr. Kate Menken, Queens College, CUNY
"U.S. Language Education Policy in the Era of Accountability: The Covert Attack on Bilingual Education"
Abstract:
Languages other than English are currently being restricted in schools, and this period has been one of dramatic loss of bilingual education programs across the United States. Recent U.S. federal education policy entitled No Child Left Behind (NCLB) has contributed to this loss through its emphasis on English acquisition and high-stakes testing in English. In this presentation, I clarify how education policy translates into de facto language policy within the U.S. context, when implemented in schools. In specific, I share data from New York that highlights: a) the linguistic challenges of tests currently being used in states such as New York to meet the accountability requirements of NCLB; b) the highly political nature of testing across the U.S.; and, c) how NCLB shapes the instruction and educational experiences of emergent bilingual students in school.
Bio:
Kate Menken is an Assistant Professor of Linguistics at Queens College of the City University of New York (CUNY), and a Research Fellow at the Research Institute for the Study of Language in an Urban Society at the CUNY Graduate Center. She is also faculty in the Urban Education program of the CUNY Graduate Center. She received her doctorate from Teachers College, Columbia University specializing in Bilingual/Bicultural Education. Previously, she was a teacher of English as a second language in the US and overseas, and a researcher at the National Clearinghouse for Bilingual Education. Her research interests are in the areas of language policy, bilingual education, secondary English language learners, federal education reform, and high-stakes testing. She is currently the principal investigator of a three-year research study funded by the New York City Department of Education entitled “Meeting the Needs of Long-Term English Language Learners in High School.” Her recent book, published by Multilingual Matters, is entitled English Learners Left Behind: Standardized Testing as Language Policy.
Wednesday, October 7, 3:30, 746 Alter Hall
Dr. Monika Schmid, University of Groningen, Netherlands
"The discrepancy between L1 and L2: a perspective from L1 attrition"
Abstract:
One of the most puzzling observations for linguists is the difference between learning a language from birth and later in life: while all normally developing children can attain full native language proficiency, there is considerable variability in ultimate attainment among older speakers who attempt to acquire a second language (L2). There is an ongoing controversy in linguistic research on whether this discrepancy is due to a maturationally constrained window of linguistic development making language learning difficult or impossible after puberty, or to general cognitive factors linked to the fact that the later an L2 is established, the stronger the competition it has to overcome from the more deeply entrenched first language (L1). Studies attempting to resolve this controversy have so far focussed exclusively on the development of L2 skills. New insight may be provided by investigating native speakers who are in many ways similar to L2 learners, namely migrants who have become dominant in the L2 (referred to as L1 attriters). On the one hand, such speakers have learned their L1 monolingually during childhood and are therefore not impeded by maturational constraints. On the other, they experience competition between their seldom-used L1 and their highly entrenched L2. A comparison of L2 learners on the one hand and L1 attriters on the other may therefore be able to shed some light on the question of whether there is indeed a fundamental difference between early- and late-learned languages.
Bio:
Monika S. Schmid is Rosalind Franklin Fellow and senior lecturer in English Language at the Rijksuniversiteit Groningen. Her work has focused mainly on various aspects of language attrition. She is attempting to look at this phenomenon from the perspective of a number of theoretical and psycholinguistic frameworks, as well as trying to integrate the process of language attrition into wider aspects of the individual speaker's biography and circumstances. Her own work comprises several large-scale investigations into the language attrition of German migrants in English and Dutch settings. Dr. Schmid received her degree and her PhD from the University of Duesseldorf, Germany. She has since worked and lectured at the University of California at Davis and at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam.
Thursday, October 22, 3:30, 746 Alter Hall
Dr. Betsy Rymes, University of Pennsylvania
Communicative Repertoires and Language Education Today
Abstract:
Walk into any United States public school in a major metropolitan area. Look around. Listen. Stroll down the hall. Step into a classroom. What do you see? What do you hear? Chances are there are dozens of communicative repertoires in play, many of which are only minimally understood by you. Imagine you are a language teacher in this context. What are your responsibilities here? How could you possibly be the "expert"? In this paper, I argue that by developing understandings of communicative repertoires in their teaching context, teachers can become experts in helping students navigate this complex communicative terrain. I begin by defining "communicative repertoire" and its historical precedents. Then, I illustrate a variety of communicative repertoires in context. I conclude with a few tips for how teachers and students can begin to explore communicative repertoires in their own context, illustrating one concrete methodology for moving toward a "post methods pedagogy."
Bio:
Dr. Rymes' career began in Los Angeles, where she taught junior high school and adult English language learners for three years. To follow up on the issues of language and culture that she experienced and found compelling as a classroom teacher, she pursued a master’s degree in Teaching English as a Second Language and a doctoral degree in Applied Linguistics. From 1998 to 2007, Dr. Rymes was a professor in the University of Georgia's department of language and literacy education, where she continued to study issues of language and culture in classroom contexts and beyond. In 2002, she founded the TELL (Teachers for English Language Learners) program, a five-year project funded by the U.S. Department of Education, designed to bring bilingual community members into the teaching profession. Dr. Rymes' university teaching has focused on integrating discourse analysis and concepts from linguistic anthropology with a study of the conditions of multilingualism in school contexts. All the courses she teaches are designed to help students develop critical reflexivity regarding the role of language in social life and learning.
Dr. Rymes' research, theoretically and methodologically informed by linguistic anthropology, is centered in educational contexts and examines how languages, social interaction, and institutions influence an individual’s educational trajectory. Currently, Dr. Rymes is investigating how students’ communicative repertoires are shaped by their experiences outside classrooms and the effects those out-of-class ways of speaking have on in-class talk. She is focusing both on how English Language Learners’ communicative repertoires include languages other than English, and how all students' talk in today's classrooms illustrates the perpetual influence of mass-mediated genres of talk (e.g., ironic dispositions, allusions to mass media characters or types, or new and resourceful uses of language variation and multilingualism). Her research on students and teaching in multiple contexts ranging from a Los Angeles alternative school, to rural elementary schools in Georgia, to bilingual teacher education, as well as her own experiences as a teacher all inform her new book, Classroom discourse analysis: A tool for critical reflection.
Wednesday, November 4, 3:30, 746 Alter Hall
Dr. Victoria Hasko, University of Georgia
"Encoding of Motion Events in a Second Language: A Corpus-Based Study"
Abstract:
Every sphere of human life and development is intimately connected with motion. Just as motion is interwoven into our way of life, linguistic encoding of motion events is essential for human interaction and conceptualization of the world. The conclusion that ensues for the fields of SLA and pedagogy is that the ability to perceive and encode motion meanings is instrumental for learners' functioning in a new language and for reaching advanced levels of proficiency. The domain of motion also warrants particular attention of SLA researchers due to the fact that despite the universality of motion in human life, a universal linguistic formula for describing motion events lexically, syntactically, or semantically does not exist (e.g., Hasko & Perelmutter, forthcoming; Berman and Slobin 1994; Filipovic 2007; Hickmann and Robert 2006; Talmy 2000). Inter-linguistic differences in the encoding of motion meanings have been recently suggested to result in palpable acquisition difficulties for L2 learners. In this talk, I focus on the differences in the expression of motion events that exist between English and Russian and investigate the influence of the diverging linguistic patterns for encoding motion on adult L2 learners’ on-line thinking for speaking processes (Slobin, 1996). Specifically, I adopt a corpus-based narrative approach to the study of how adult highly proficient learners of Russian use L2 motion structures in unrehearsed oral descriptions of motion events and how their performance compares to the parallel baseline L1 English and Russian corpora.
Bio:
Victoria Hasko is Assistant Professor in the Department of Language and Literacy Education at the University of Georgia. Her areas of research and teaching include second/foreign/heritage language acquisition, methods of language teaching, bilingualism and cognition, and computer-assisted language learning. Her recent projects address such topics as acquisition of motion expressions, identity repertoire, variability of emotion talk, and conceptual representations in L2 learners. She is co-editor of Slavic Verbs of Motion (John Benjamins Publishing) and editor of a special issue of the Slavic and Eastern European Studies Journal on teaching and learning verbs of motion, both forthcoming in 2009.
Wednesday, November 18, 3:30, 746 Alter Hall
Dr. Chris Tardy, De Paul University
"Monolingualism, Multilingualism, and College Writing Instruction"
Abstract:
While scholars in TESOL and composition studies have argued that first-year writing instruction continues to rely on outdated assumptions of a monolingual student population, very little research has examined how these assumptions might play out in the writing classroom. Through a survey and interview study carried out at an urban university, this paper explores the perspectives of both writing teachers and their students in relation to language policies, ideologies, and practices in writing instruction. Drawing on the study's findings, I will also share specific strategies for transforming pedagogies to embrace the multilingual reality of today's college writing classrooms in the U.S.
Bio:
Christine Tardy is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Writing, Rhetoric, and Discourse at DePaul University, where she teaches undergraduate and graduate courses in writing, teacher education, and applied linguistics. She specializes in genre and discourse studies, second language writing, and the policies and politics of English. Her research has appeared in Journal of Second Language Writing, Written Communication, English for Specific Purposes, Journal of English for Academic Purposes, and ELT Journal. Her book, Building Genre Knowledge, will be published in 2009 by Parlor Press.
Wednesday, December 1, 3:30, Tuttleman 103
Monica Heller, University of Toronto/OISE
"Schooling and linguistic diversity: ideologies of education, language and citizenship"
Abstract:
In this talk I will review some of the ways in which the role of schooling in the construction of citizens in the nation-State has led to ideologies of language which favor an ideology of language as a whole, bounded system, and of speakers as performers of such systems. Bilingualism and diversity are produced as problems to be described and regulated, notably through policies, programs and practices focusing on language of instruction and language education. I will consider some of the ways in which current social conditions related to the emergence of the globalized new economy make it difficult to sustain such regulatory practices, and raise questions about the kinds of speaking citizens schools are meant to produce.
Bio:
Monica Heller is Professor at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education (OISE), University of Toronto, Canada. Her work focuses on the role of language in the construction of social difference and social inequality in the post-nationalist, globalizing new economy. Her ethnographic, sociolinguistic research mainly examines these processes as they unfold in francophone Canada, but she is also involved in work in these areas conducted in western Europe, and in their relevance for policy in the areas of language and education and training. Her major publications in the field of bilingualism include Code-switching: Anthropological and Sociolinguistic Perspectives (Mouton De Gruyter, 1988); Linguistic Minorities and Modernity: A sociolinguistic ethnography (Longman, 1999); Voices of Authority: Education and Linguistic Difference (co-edited with Marilyn Martin-Jones, Ablex, 2001), Éléments d'une sociolinguistique critique (Paris: Didier, 2002), Discourses of endangerment (co-edited with Alexandre Duchene, Continuum, 2007), and Bilingualism: A social approach (Palgrave, 2007).
Tuesday, December 2, 3:30, Tuttleman 303AB
Kasper Juffermans, Tilburg University, Netherlands
"Do you want me to translate this in English or in a better Mandinka language?": Material and linguistic resources for vernacular literacy practices in peri-urban Gambia
Abstract:
I would like to discuss the material and linguistic constraints in vernacular literacy practices in one 'peri-urban' family in The Gambia. I analyse a series of texts written in Mandinka and English by a self-educated middle-aged man (a former hide-trader) and his incompletely educated eldest son. The texts present all sorts of features that are typical for sub-elite writing and show two levels of inequality at work: (i) material constraints (absence of a rich literacy environment); (ii) linguistic constraints (poor 'state of literacy' for 'small languages'). In order to understand literacy in peri-urban Gambia, we need describe such literacies in context. Despite their non-standard, heterographic character and the reported negative comments by higher-literate persons, these literacies are by no means defunct in meaning or function. We may undo some inequalities if we move away from Eurocentric inventions of correctness and adopt a more fluid conception of literacy and language in context.
Bio:
Kasper Juffermans is a sociolinguist and Africanist who studied at the Universities of Leuven, Ghent, and Hong Kong. He is presently pursuing doctoral research on multilingualism and literacy at Tilburg University. Between 2004 and 2009 Kasper has carried out an aggregate 13 months of ethnographic fieldwork on various aspects of language in Gambian society, including language ideologies, vernacular literacy practices and the linguistic landscape. The working title of his dissertation is Repertoires and regimes of literacy: A sociolinguistic ethnography of semiotic products and practices in urban and rural Gambia. Kasper is a 1.5th generation Dutch migrant living in Belgium, who has lost most of his native Dutch accent and can’t help sounding Belgian when speaking Dutch, or probably any other language.
Spring Semester 2009 Series
Thursday, February 5, 3:30-5:00, TUTTLEMAN 300AB
Dr. Linda Harklau
"English learners in the transition from high school to college"
Abstract:
An increasing number of immigrants and other linguistic minority students are making their way from high school into American colleges and universities. What are the issues for them and for educators who work with them? In this talk, Harklau reviews what we know about the linguistic and academic contexts of high school and implications for college preparedness. She identifies contrasting views of English academic language proficiency as a competency and a tool in U.S. higher education and considers implications for language policy and instruction. She argues that an exclusive focus on language in the education of English learner college students may be misguided, and considers other sociocultural and contextual factors that affect students' college experiences and ultimate success, including college access and the status of minority languages and multilingualism on college campuses.
Bio:
Dr. Linda Harklau (Ph.D., University of California, Berkeley) is a Professor in the Teaching Additional Languages program and Linguistics program at the University of Georgia. Her research and teaching focus on second language literacy development and qualitative research on adolescent and young adult immigrants. Her work has appeared in TESOL Quarterly, Linguistics and Education, Educational Policy, Journal of Literacy Research, Journal of Second Language Writing, and Anthropology and Education Quarterly. She was lead editor of the volume Generation 1.5 meets college composition.
Wednesday, MARCH 24, 3:30
Dr. Adam Jaworski, Cardiff University, Wales, UK
Language as Spectacle: The Linguistic Landscape of Tourism
Abstract:
Multilingual signage is an indispensable part of the tourist landscape consumed as part of the visitors' quest for cultural distinction and local authenticity, and motivated by tourist destinations’ attempts to position themselves as globalized, responding to and accommodating their visitors' assumed linguistic repertoires. In the process, language becomes a cultural commodity; it is recontextualized and put on display as part of the performance of place and identity; its mundane forms (e.g. greetings) are turned into multimodal welcoming spectacles combining elaborate font design, iconic imagery, national and regional symbols, and intertextual play. In these instances of mediated, fleeting contact between tourists and hosts, language is represented rather than lived (Debord 1995 [1967]), symbolic and celebratory rather than instrumental. In this talk, I will consider the 'meaning' of different language codes, genres and styles 'on the move', i.e. when they appear to have shifted from one context to another as part of the global flows of people and signifiers, in relation to the political economy of tourism and the ideologies of language and nation-state. A wide range of illustrative examples will be drawn from tourist destinations in the global 'core' and 'periphery', highlighting persisting regional inequalities and access to resources fostered by global capitalism.
Bio:
Adam Jaworski is Professor and Chair at the Centre for Language and Communication Research, Cardiff University. His research interests include multimodal approaches to the study of tourism, media discourse, linguistic landscapes and space, as well as discursive production of elitism and social privilege. His recent books include Discourse, Communication and Tourism (Channel View, 2005; with Annette Pritchard); Semiotic Landscapes (Continuum, 2010; with Crispin Thurlow) and Tourism Discourse (Palgrave Macmillan, 2010; with Crispin Thurlow). Adam co-edits the book series Oxford Studies in Sociolinguistics (OUP; with Nik Coupland) and is member of the editorial board of several journals including Discourse & Society, Visual Communication, and Journal of Tourism and Cultural Change.
Wednesday, MARCH 25, 3:30
Dr. David Ian Hanauer, Indiana University of Pennsylvania
Political Graffiti and the Discourse of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict: The Discursive Construction of the Separation Wall at Abu Dis
Abstract:
This paper explores the role of graffiti as micro-level, political discourse designed to influence national and international actions concerning the Palestinian-Israeli conflict over national territorial boundaries, self determination and human rights. Specifically, in this lecture I will analyze the discursive function of graffiti on the separation wall in the contested space of Abu Dis. This 20 foot concrete wall with graffiti markings running through the center of the town Abu Dis, on the outer eastern border of Jerusalem, is situated at the heart of both Israeli and Palestinian national, territorial aspirations and as such is at the nexus of competing nationalizing and historicizing discourses. The data for this study consists of photographic documentation of the graffiti at a specific area of the wall that crosses through a central road in the town of Abu-Dis. This data was collected as a part of a tour arranged by a joint Israeli and Palestinian women's organization called Bat Shalom (Hebrew for Daughter of Peace) and can be seen as part of a process of political tourism. This study addressed the following questions: What are the linguistic and informational characteristics of the graffiti at Abu Dis? What is the social function of this graffiti? And what is the nature of the discursive construction of the wall at Abu Dis through this graffiti? The results of the study reveal that the separation wall is constructed in five different ways that directly interact with the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. The graffiti on the wall at Abu Dis is a microcosm of the broader conflict and offers an insight into the different chains of political discourse in action in the discussion of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. The ramifications of considering graffiti as 'bottom-up' political discourse interjecting within the arena of public literacy will be discussed.
Bio:
David Ian Hanauer's research employs artistic, theoretical, qualitative and quantitative methods and focuses on the connections between reading and writing authentic texts and their social functions in first and second languages. Among other issues, his research has investigated the genre specific aspects of poetry reading in L1 and L2, scientific discourse, graffiti research, cognitive aspects of literary education, cross-cultural understandings of fable reading and academic literacy across disciplines. His articles have been published in Science, Applied Linguistics, Discourse Processes, TESOL Quarterly, Canadian Modern Language Review, Research in the Teaching of English, Teaching and Teacher Education, Language Awareness, Cognitive Linguistics, The Arts in Psychotherapy, Poetics, and Poetics Today. He is the author of five books Scientific Discourse: Multiliteracy in the Classroom, Active Assessment: Assessing Scientific Inquiry; The Balanced Approach to Reading Instruction and Poetry and the Meaning of Life. His most recent book deals with using poetry writing as a research method within applied linguistics and will be published in 2010. Dr. Hanauer was the recipient of a National Science Foundation Grant for 2003-2005 for the study of science-literacy connections in the elementary school classroom and a Howard Hughes Medical Institute grant for 2005-2009 for work on representation and assessment in the field of microbiology. Dr. Hanauer is Professor of English at Indiana University of Pennsylvania and the Assessment Coordinator and educational researcher in the PHIRE (Phage Hunting Integrating Research and Education) Program in the Hatfull Laboratory, Pittsburgh Bacteriophage Institute at the University of Pittsburgh.
Monday, MARCH 30, 3:30
Dr. David Black
"Problems in portraying the migrant in applied linguistics"
Abstract:
This paper arises from my interest in two general areas of inquiry in the social sciences, which are drawn on in much current sociolinguistics research. On the one hand, I am interested in identity, both in terms of theoretical discussions and research; on the other hand, I am interested in migration as the flow of people around the world in the current global age. In much of the current literature on migration and migrants, theorists and researchers portray individuals in terms of sociocultural constructs such as gender, race, ethnicity, nationality, religion and social class. In addition, they attempt to give migrants names, such as 'immigrant', 'transmigrant', 'cosmopolitan' and 'expatriate', situating them as participants in large-scale movements of people, which are, depending on the presented circumstances, called 'immigration', 'diaspora', 'transnationalism' and so on.
Viewed charitably, the practice of employing this array of terminology can be seen as part and parcel of academic inquiry: it is what we do. However, it is obviously not without its problems, not least because the putative reality to which the terminology is meant to apply is in a constant state of flux and change. And although we can fall back on Weberian notions of 'ideal types', whereby we know that we are using necessarily partial tools of analysis, as opposed to actual descriptions of reality, there is surely still room for greater clarity. In this paper, I aim to explore the difficulties I have encountered over the past several years with terminology of the type previously mentioned. Among other things, I will engage in a self-critique of some of my own research and I will discuss two key terms often used with reference to migration processes today, diaspora and transnationalism, exploring how they are similar and different in the work of migration theorists and researchers.
Bio:
David Block is Professor of Education in the Department of Learning, Curriculum and Communication at the Institute of Education, University of London. He has published numerous articles and chapters on a variety of applied linguistics topics, including SLA, multilingualism and identity. He is co-editor (with Deborah Cameron) of Globalization and Language Teaching (Routledge, 2002) and author of The Social Turn in Second Language Acquisition (Edinburgh University Press, 2003), Multilingual Identities in a Global City: London Stories (Palgrave, 2006) and Second Language Identities (Continuum, 2007). His main interests are the impact of globalization on language practices of all kinds, migration, and the interface between identity and language learning and use.
Wednesday, April 8, 3:30 pm, Tuttleman 303AB
Dr. Panos Athanasopoulos, Bangor University, Wales, UK
"Linguistic Relativity and Language Learning"
Abstract:
Do speakers of different languages perceive the
world differently? Recent studies suggest that this is so at
least for some domains like colour and number. In this
paper, Athanasopoulos asks whether learning and using a
second language with contrasting lexical and grammatical
categories from the first alters the individual's processing
of the perceived world. The paper presents an overview of a
series of recent empirical studies by the author, which have
investigated categorical colour perception and object
classification preferences in Greek-English and Japanese-
English bilinguals. Across studies, results show that
bilinguals may shift their categorization behaviour towards
the second language pattern as a function of specific
linguistic competence and length of cultural immersion in
the L2-speaking country. These findings demonstrate the
concurrent influence of language and culture on human
cognition, and highlight the role of bilingualism as a
dynamic tool in the investigation of the effects of language
on thought, as it allows researchers to directly measure the
impact of language and culture on cognitive reorganisation,
and reveal important interactions and patterns which are
often masked by studying monolingual populations in
isolation.
Bio:
Dr Panos Athanasopoulos is Lecturer of Linguistics in
the School of Linguistics and English Language and an
associate of the ESRC Centre for Research on Bilingualism at
Bangor University in Wales. His research focuses on language
acquisition and conceptual development, and the extent to
which learning novel lexical and/or grammatical categories
leads to cognitive restructuring in the mind of the
bilingual person. His work has appeared in Bilingualism:
Language and Cognition, Language and Cognitive Processes,
Applied Psycholinguistics and Proceedings of the National
Academy of Sciences USA.
Thursday, April 23, 3:30 pm, location TBA
Dr. Joowon Suh, Princeton University
"Organization of other-initiated repair in English lingua franca business negotiation"
Abstract:
With the ever-increasing globalization and interrelationships in the world economy, the English lingua franca (ELF) business negotiation encounter continues to be a prevalent communication activity for NNSs from different linguistic and cultural backgrounds. Yet, the interactional aspect of international business negotiation, wherein interlocutors with conflicting interests from different cultures attempt to communicate in a second or foreign language, is undoubtedly a more complex process than that of domestic or intracultural business negotiation. Further, the discourse of ELF business negotiation (e.g., a Korean seller interacting with an Italian buyer in English) can grow to be doubly complex due to the fact that NNS interlocutors with limited linguistic resources are required to perform high-stakes interactional tasks in pressing situations. In this talk, Suh describes her study which investigated how NNS interlocutors, employing English as a lingua franca, resolve communicative troubles which emerge in the talk through the repair management sequence. The study specifically focuses on other-initiated repair (OIR) (i.e., repair initiated by someone other than the trouble-source speaker) within naturally-occurring international business meetings involving negotiations. The study illustrates both successes and difficulties occurring in ELF interactions and portrays a comprehensive picture of NNSs as active language users in a real-life setting.
Bio:
Dr. Joowon Suh is a Senior Lecturer in and Director of the Korean Language Program in the Department of East Asian Studies at Princeton University. Her research interests include Korean linguistics and language pedagogy, conversation analysis, interlanguage pragmatics, and intercultural communication. She is currently working in collaboration to revise the KLEAR Integrated Korean Textbook Series (Beginning 1 & 2 and Intermediate 1 & 2) and to create the accompanying workbooks (University of Hawaii Press). She is also serving as the treasurer for the Committee of National Standards for Korean Language Learning sponsored by ACTFL and the Korea Foundation.
Fall Semester 2008 Series
Thursday, September 18, 3:30, Kiva Auditorium
Dr. Rod Ellis
"A Typology of Written Corrective Feedback Options"
Abstract:
This talk will examine the various options (both familiar and less familiar) for correcting students' written work. It will focus on just one kind of correction - the correction of linguistic errors – and consider studies that have examined the different options by way of illustrating how they have been investigated and the limitations in the research to date. The talk will argue that identifying the options in a systematic way is essential for both determining whether written corrective feedback is effective and, if it is,what kind of corrective feedback is most effective.
Wednesday, October 22, 3:30 Tuttleman 300AB
Dr. Gigliana Melzi, New York University
"Cultural Variations in Maternal Discourse across Narrative Contexts"
Abstract:
Scholars and thinkers throughout the ages have conceptualized and analyzed narratives from diverse disciplinary perspectives. Within the field of developmental psychology, narrative is defined as a genre of oral discourse that characterizes and facilitates culturally determined ways of communicating lived or imaginary events to others. Early parent-child conversations are integral to the development of the skills needed to construct and share narrative text, both oral and written. This talk will present a study which compared the mother-child narratives of Spanish-speaking Latin American and English-speaking U.S American dyads produced in two narrative contexts: one which highlighted the child’s role as a narrator (conversational narratives about the past), and the other the mother’s role as a narrator (book sharing).
Bio:
Dr. Melzi is Associate Professor in the Department of Applied Psychology at New York University’s Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development. She obtained her doctoral degree from Boston University. Dr. Melzi’s research focuses on early literacy and language development of Spanish-speaking Latino children living in the United States and in their countries of origin. Currently, Dr. Melzi is funded by the National Institutes of Health and the Administration for Children, Youth and Families (ACYF) for her work on educational involvement of Latino Head Start families.
THURSday, NOVEMBER 6,11:40PM-1:00pm CHAT LOUNGE , 10th FLOOR, GLADFELTER HALL
Darielle Mason , Philadelphia Musuem of Art
"Musuem and Market: A Curator reflects on INDIA MODERN"
Abstract:
ABout her talk Darielle writes " The relationship between musuems and the art market is intellectually murky, mutually symbiotic, and ethically precarious. As a curator of South Asia in a “universal” museum, I have observed the changing perceptions of South Asian modern/contemporary art in both market and museum for two decades, culminating in the recent global “boom”. Recent events have led me to reflect on how the museum/market relationship—and the art itself— might be placed into a broader historical perspective"
Wednesday, November 12, 3:30 Tuttleman 300AB
Erin Kearney, University of Pennsylvania
"A Narrative Approach to Teaching Culture in the Foreign Language Classroom"
Abstract:
Recent years have brought a great deal of attention to the cultural dimensions of foreign language education. Theoretical models of the process of culture learning abound, and professional organizations like the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages and the Modern Language Association have emphasized the central role of culture in foreign language instruction. Despite extensive theorizing and discussion within professional organizations, however, very little classroom-based empirical research has been conducted in order to investigate the process of culture learning as it already occurs in real classrooms. Given this state of affairs, numerous questions might be addressed, but in my study of a university-level French course at a U.S. university, I began with the very broad question: What is the nature of culture learning for this group of learners and their teacher? In this ethnographic and discourse-analytic study, I was able to investigate what culture learning means from the perspective of those who engage in it and to study the fine detail of classroom discourse and interaction that supported successful culture learning. While many interactional mechanisms and routines contributed to students’ learning about culture, it is the overarching pedagogical approach employed in the class that I take up in this presentation. First I describe what I have characterized as the “narrative” approach to the teaching of culture that was present in the class I studied. Then, by presenting extracts from classroom interaction and from student work, I demonstrate how this narrative approach functioned to support students in their attempt to make sense of culture. I conclude by discussing how the narrative approach apparent in the classroom I studied might inform theory and practice in other contexts.
Bio:
Erin Kearney recently received her PhD in Educational Linguistics from the Graduate School of Education at the University of Pennsylvania. An instructor of various levels of university French courses for the past seven years, Erin’s research has developed out of her own teaching experiences, and her interests include the cultural dimensions of foreign language education, classroom discourse and interaction, learner narratives of language learning experiences, teacher education, and action research.
Spring Semester 2008 Series
Thursday, January 31, 3:30
Dr. Fabienne Doucet, Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development, New York University
"Language, Identity Status, and the Authenticity Question among Haitian Immigrant Youth"
Abstract:
In Haiti, whether one speaks French is an immediate marker for social status. Although French was the country’s only official language until the late 1980s, folk wisdom had it that in Haiti, 100% of the population spoke Creole (Kreyol), while only 20% spoke French. This history sets an important backdrop for understanding the complexities surrounding language use among Haitians living in the United States. In this presentation, I outline the contours of identity formation among Haiti-born (1.5-generation) and U.S.-born (2nd generation) youth as played out on the stage of U.S. schools. In particular, I focus on how students used language to align themselves politically and socially, to judge the extent of their peers’ “authenticity” at Haitians, and to negotiate their own internal identity-forming processes. Data for this presentation come from an ethnographic study I conducted in Boston and Cambridge, MA under the umbrella of the Harvard Immigration Projects.
Bio:
Dr. Fabienne Doucet is an Assistant Professor at the Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development (New York University). She studies family, school, and community partnerships, parental values and beliefs about education, and the schooling experiences of immigrant and U.S.-born children of color. From 2000-2002, she was a National Science Foundation Minority Postdoctoral Fellow at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. Under the umbrella of the Harvard Immigration Projects, she conducted a study of the way values and beliefs about academic achievement are communicated between Haitian immigrant parents and children, and how this process affects the children's academic engagement. In 2003, she was awarded a National Academy of Education/Spencer Fellowship to work on a book manuscript based on this research. She earned a doctorate in human development and family studies from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro in 2000.
February 21, 3:30
Dr. Lorena Llosa, Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development, New York University
"Validating a standards-based classroom assessment of English proficiency based on teacher judgments"
Abstract:
Using Bachman's (2005) validation framework, this study investigates validity issues related to the use of the ELD Classroom Assessment, a standards-based classroom assessment of English proficiency used in a large urban school district in California. The purpose of this study was to determine the extent to which scores assigned by teachers on the ELD Classroom Assessment can be interpreted as indicators of English proficiency as defined by the California ELD standards. Two different research approaches were employed to investigate the validity of the inferences drawn from the ELD Classroom Assessment: 1) examining the assessment in relation to another measure of the same ability-the California English Language Development Test (CELDT)-using confirmatory factor analysis of multitrait-multimethod data; and 2) examining the processes teachers engaged in while scoring the classroom assessment using verbal protocol analysis.
The findings of the quantitative study suggest that the ELD Classroom Assessment does measure the aspects of English proficiency it claims to measure. The findings of the verbal protocol analysis, however, indicate that factors other than a student's English proficiency are also reflected in the scores assigned by the teachers. These seemingly contradictory findings will be explained and discussed in terms of their implications for the use of standards-based classroom assessments within a high-stakes accountability system.
Bio:
Dr. Lorena Llosa is an Assistant Professor at the Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development (New York University). She received her Ph.D. in Applied Linguistics from the University of California, Los Angeles. Her work focuses on second and foreign language teaching and learning, language testing, program evaluation, and research methods. Prior to NYU, she worked as a research analyst for the Los Angeles Unified School District where she directed a large scale evaluation of a computer-based literacy program. She also served as a research analyst at the Center for the Study of Evaluation/CRESST at UCLA where she worked on the development of performance assessments in English and Spanish. The work she will present for the Language and Linguistics Speaker Series was funded by a Spencer Dissertation Grant and a UC Linguistic Minority Research Institute Grant and was awarded the AERA Division H Outstanding Dissertation Award in 2006.
Fall Semester 2007 Series
Wednesday, October 31, 3:30pm, Kiva Auditorium
Dr. Amanda Brown, Syracuse University
"Gesture: A Unique Window on Second Language Acquisition"
Abstract:
Gestures are symbolic movements that speakers perfom during the course of interaction. Through intricate temporal semantic alignment with speech, the two modalities form one integrated, expressive system. Gullberg (2006) outlines three ways in which the study of gesture is relevant to issues in second language acquisition. First, as gestures are part of the communicative message, they serve as input to language learners. Second, with crosscultural and crosslinguistic variation, gestures constitute part of the target lagnauge that must be acquired. Finally, as a unique window on the mind (McNeill, 1992), gestures have much to tell us about the processes underlying second language acquisition. In this talk, Dr. Brown illustrates the methodological contribution by demonstrating how gesture analyses can reveal bi-directional interactions between linguistic systems within the multilingual mind.
Bio:
Dr. Amanda Brown is Assistant Professor in the Department of Languages, Literatures, and Linguistics at Syracuse University. Her PhD is jointly from Boston University and the Max Planck Institute of Psycholinguistics. Her research interests broadly deal with how lanugages interact within the multilingual mind, focusing particularly how the first language is affected by acquisition of a second language. In addition to traditional analyses of speech production, she exploits gesture methodologies to address these issues.
Spring Semester 2007 Series
Wednesday, March 21, 3:30pm, Tuttleman 303AB
Dr. Ferenc Bunta, Communication Sciences, Temple University
"Analyzing bilingual phonology: Methods, techniques, and selected results"
Abstract:
Bilingual phonological acquisition is a complex process, and this complexity is reflected by the variety of approaches that have been used to analyze it. In this presentation, a wide array of analytical approaches and methods used to shed light on bilingual phonological acquisition are illustrated and discussed. The approaches presented in this talk are eclectic, reflecting the complex challenges that warrant them and mirroring the diversity of bilingual language learners faced with the task of acquiring different phonological systems.
The talk will begin with the discussion of more traditional approaches to bilingual phonological acquisition, such as phonological feature, segmental, syllable structure, and error analyses. These approaches are still the most prominent in bilingual phonological acquisition and have been very instrumental in revealing patterns of phonological development. Nevertheless, the complexity of phonological acquisition requires other approaches to be incorporated into bilingual phonological analyses that have been either more marginalized or have only recently become available as compared to more mainstream methods of analysis. Phonological whole-word analyses have recently gained more popularity and are very promising in investigating bilingual phonological acquisition. Acoustic analyses and speech perception-based approaches also hold great promise for better understanding phonological acquisition in bilingual children.
Each approach will be presented and examples will be provided, promoting the use of a multi-pronged approach to analyzing bilingual phonological acquisition, because such a complex phenomenon demands the use of a variety of approaches and methods to maximize our ability to better understand it.
Thursday, March 22, 1:10 – 2:30pm, Tuttleman 101
Dr. Stanley Whitley, Wake Forest University
"Error analysis versus the canon"
Friday, March 23, 1:00 – 2:30, Tuttleman 303AB
Dr. Stanley Whitley, Wake Forest University
"Contrastive analysis versus the canon"
Wednesday, April 4th, 3:30pm, Tuttleman 303AB
Susan Strauss, Pennsylvania State University
"Meaning—the essence of grammar, the core of pragmatics: A cross-linguistic, cross-cultural illustration using Korean, Japanese, and American English"
Abstract:
In this talk, I demonstrate the inextricable interconnectedness between meaning and grammar / pragmatics. In contrast with traditional accounts of grammar which are typically based on static “rules” of language use, I introduce an approach to grammatical analysis derived from alternative types of rules—rules that are inferable by discursive patterns and driven by contextual and conceptual meaning. The talk will present examples from Korean, Japanese, and American English and will appeal to a range of linguistic data, from invented examples to actual language use. The latter category will include excerpts from both written and oral modalities—including TV commercials, print ads, food packages, and television/movie clips.
Through the use of these stretches of discourse, I address potentially alternating forms in all three languages—e.g., English: any vs. some and plural vs. singular verb morphology, with apparent mismatches in subject-verb agreement; Japanese: existential verbs aru and iru (veering away from the traditional view of ‘animacy’); Japanese and Korean: verbs of visual perception (J: mieru vs. dete kuru. K: poita vs. naota) and their relationship to concepts of definiteness and expectedness. For Korean, we will also examine the notion of “honorific” verb morphology from the viewpoints of traditional accounts and actual language use—as a means of contrasting the “static” rule-driven approach with a dynamic, meaning-driven one. Some concepts underlying Korean honorific verb morphology may be applicable to Japanese and other foreign languages.
The approach will mirror much of what I call Conceptual Grammar (Strauss 2006 and Strauss, Lee, and Ahn 2006), which is intended as a pedagogical tool to raise language teachers’ and learners’ awareness of the intricacies of language use and to consider grammar as a fun, dynamic and meaning-driven phenomenon.
Wednesday, April 18, 3:30pm, 1221 Anderson Hall
Dr. Shuhan Wang
"The Chinese Case in the US: Planning Language Education, Building Societal Capital"
Abstract:
Being framed as an economic competitiveness and national security issue, the study of Chinese language in the U.S. has recently received unprecedented attention that presents both an opportunity and challenge to the Chinese language teaching field and educational systems. This paper builds on the language planning framework advanced by Joshua A. Fishman and takes a language ecological perspective to examine the Chinese case in the US. In addition to suggesting strategies to build the infrastructure of the Chinese field, the paper proposes the notion of biliteracy in the dominant and heritage/second Discourses as human, cultural, and social capital for individuals, groups, and the society-at-large. As cultural capital, biliteracy Discourses enable individuals, communities and societies to connect to the past and future generations. As human and social capital, biliteracy Discourses empower them to move forward into the future.
Fall Semester 2006 Series
Wednesday, November 1, Tuttleman 303 AB
Dr. Suzanne Wertheim, University of Maryland
Institutional and individual uses of language for nation building in Tatarstan
Abstract:
When members of a minority group feel that their integrity is threatened by incursions from a dominant group, one response can be the creation of an “oppositional identity,” where the minority identity is defined as much by what it is not as by what it is. Many Tatars in post-Soviet Tatarstan have a sense of oppositional identity in which being Tatar explicitly means not being Russian. Language is a prominent subject in their anti-assimilationist and nation-building discourse, and Russian language and culture are the targets of post-Soviet Tatar purification movements. These purification movements, including top-down language engineering, are informed by prevalent language ideologies that often equate language and nation, and that privilege a maximally de-Russified standard Tatar language (which can be interpreted as an iconic representative of a de-Russified Tatar nation). Tatar nationalists also engage in certain forms of linguistic practice that are used to create a socio-cultural identity that is in opposition to the Russian majority; and these linguistic practices, together with the post-Soviet purification movements, are affecting the structure of the Tatar language.
Wednesday, November 1, Ritter Hall 211
Dr. Aneta Pavlenko, College of Education
Language policies and politices in the post-Soviet countries
Abstract:
After the collapse of the Soviet Union, the leadership of the fourteen post-Soviet countries had to come to terms with the results of the Russification policy and to formulate new language and education policies. Interestingly and in some ways unexpectedly, countries with similar demographic makeups have chosen dramatically different ways to proceed, from adopting Russian as a main official language (Belarus) to discarding Russian, even as a minority language, and refusing citizenship to those who do not speak the local language (Estonia, Latvia). This presentation will point to the sources of these divergent decisions and draw parallels to language and education policies in the United States
Tuesday, November 7 , 3:30pm, Tuttleman 101
Anne Pomerantz, University of Pennsylvania
"Señora, boys just cannot speak Spanish": Deconstructing the notion of female superiority in foreign language classrooms
Abstract:
Adopting a feminist poststructuralist framework, many applied linguists have begun to question how gender, understood as a system of social relations and practices, might mediate additional language learning. From studies of gender as factor in enabling or constraining one’s access to language learning opportunities to detailed accounts of how learners construct and negotiate gendered identities in new communities of practice, such work has foregrounded the many ways in which gender is implicated in L2 learning both in and out of the classroom. For researchers, policy makers and teachers concerned with foreign language (FL) learning, one recent finding from this line of inquiry is particularly vexing. Namely, why is classroom FL learning, at least in major Anglophone countries, overwhelmingly viewed as a female endeavor? As Carr and Pauwels (2006) report, research undertaken in both Australia and England on attitudes of secondary school students toward FL study reveals one widely held assumption: “real boys don’t do languages.” What effects does this pervasive ideology have with respect to the promotion, organization, realization, and outcome of school-sanctioned FL learning in such countries?
In this presentation, I take up the issue of the feminization of FL learning again, but with a focus on students at a US university studying Spanish. While previous work has documented and questioned the prevalence of ideologies that posit females as superior FL learners and FL learning as a fundamentally “girlish” pursuit in secondary school settings, the present paper examines how these and other such ideologies of gender are constructed and negotiated in the course of doing FL learning in a college context. Specifically, I describe how learners in an advanced Spanish conversation course positioned themselves and others in ways that both reproduced and challenged the associations between being female and being a good language learner/good language student that circulated within and through their classroom. Moreover, I consider the implications of these acts of positioning for both learners’ classroom identities (gender and other) and our overall understanding of their linguistic expertise.
Wednesday, November 29, Tuttleman 303AB
Jennifer Cromley, Lindsey Snyder, and Ulana Luciw, Psychological
Studies in Education, College of Education
“Psychotic” T cells and antigens: Word reading, vocabulary, and
comprehension of science text
Abstract:
Undergraduate students typically decode their texts accurately. Some texts, however, pose many challenges for accurate word reading, even for undergraduate students. We collected think-aloud protocols from 97 students in an introductory biology course for life science majors while they read from their own textbook. In this study, we analyze the relationships among students’’ ability to pronounce difficult words (e.g., cytotoxic T cells), their understanding of the meanings of vocabulary in the text, and the contribution of these variables to comprehending the text. We consider which word reading errors are most likely to affect comprehension, including the effect of missing etymological and morphological cues in words.
Spring Semester 2006 Series
Monday, February 27,3:00pm, Kiva Auditorium
Prof. Stephen May, University of Waikato, New Zealand
"Language Teaching and Language Rights: Making Some Connections"
Abstract:
This presentation explores the links between language rights and language teaching. It addresses the following key questions: Why are language rights important for language teachers and other educationalists? What are the implications of language rights for language teaching, and research on language teaching?
Stephen May is Foundation Professor and Chair of Language and Literacy Education, and Research Professor in the Wilf Malcolm Institute of Educational Research, School of Education, University of Waikato, Hamilton, New Zealand. He is also a Senior Research Fellow in the Centre for the Study of Ethnicity and Citizenship, Sociology Department, University of Bristol, UK.
Wednesday, March 22, 3:00pm, Walk Auditorium
Margaret Van Naerssen, Immaculata University
"Forensic Linguistics: Can Words Help Solve the Crime?"
Abstract:
In a love triangle one man kills his rival, then flees the country, leaving his girlfriend behind. If the girlfriend doesn't speak English and there is no audio recording of the Spanish used in the police interview, can the transcript of the English interpretation be used to help show whether she conspired in the murder? To help solve this and other compelling cases, forensic linguists use their expertise in the science of language and its interaction with the law. Using real civil and criminal cases as examples, Dr. Margaret van Naerssen shares how linguists can assist law enforcement officers, attorneys, and the court in their work by analyzing both written and spoken words. Dr. van Naerssen is on the faculty at Immaculata University and is an expert consultant/witness in forensic linguistics.
Wednesday, April 12th, Kiva Auditorium
Susan Strauss, Pennsylvania State University
"Dynamizing grammar: A renewed look at authentic discourse as a pedagogical resource for semantics, pragmatics, and conceptual schemata"
Abstract:
In this talk, I propose a non-traditional perspective on grammatical analysis in English (and other languages, e.g. Japanese and Korean) through the use of authentic instances of spoken and written discourse. I view “grammar” as the crux of all discourse—as a dynamic communicative system in which speaker/writer choice of form encodes elements of personal and interactional stance, cognition, and social acts (e.g., agreeing; disagreeing; affiliating; disaffiliating; expressing surprise, empathy, counter-expectation, agency, etc.). I will focus particularly on reference, tense/aspect marking, subject-verb agreement, voice, and questions and question-like structures. To illustrate this dynamic view of grammar, I appeal to transcribed excerpts from television (e.g., The Weather Channel, The O’Reilly Factor, Christina Cooks, soap operas, and commercials) and movies, as well as a variety of written data, including professional essays and newspaper articles. I hope to generate discussions surrounding the applicability of the overall approach in the second/foreign language classroom.
Friday, April 21st, 3:00pm, 303AB, Tuttleman Hall
Celeste Kinginger
Language Learning in Study Abroad: Case Studies of Americans in France
Abstract:
In the research on language learning in study abroad, studies frequently document the significance or enhanced impact of individual differences in achievement; these differences are either left unexplained or ascribed to motivational deficits or other affective variables. The goal of this talk is to explore the value of explicit focus on the uniqueness of individual motives, experiences, and outcomes, following the poststructuralist realization that learning is a socially and historically situated human activity involving people who may accommodate or contest the practices they encounter. Three cases are selected from a larger research project involving 23 American undergraduate students on a semester-long sojourn in France. The project combines narrative study of interview and journal data with traditional assessment of growth in language proficiency and non-traditional assessment of developing language awareness. Through attention to the particular features of each student's desires and experiences, the cases suggest that the autonomous, self-directed achiever portrayed in many accounts of study abroad is a fictional character, shaped by the hopeful voluntarism of American educational research and, more broadly, by western views on the metaphysical independence of the self.
Fall Semester 2005 Series
Thursday, September 29, 3:30pm, Kiva Auditorium
Prof. Mehmet Yava, Department of Linguistics, Florida International University
"Markedness and Second Language Phonology"
Abstract:
Discussion of the effects of markedness in the learning of a second language phonology with reference to specific phenomena such as final devoicing, and aspiration and/or cluster simplification, and their implications for teaching/remediation.
Wednesday, October 12, 3:00pm, Kiva Auditorium
Dr. Ingrid Pillar, University of Basel, Switzerland
"The Source of My Courage: ESL Users' Accounts of Their Success in Language Learning"
Abstract:
In my talk I examine narratives of success or failure in language learning. The data for this paper come from a longitudinal ethnographic project with 45 ESL users in Sydney , Australia , from a variety of linguistic, national and ethnic backgrounds. I will focus on the interplay between societal ideologies that de/valorize diversity with the ways in which ESL users' success is mediated by their understandings of the ethnic and racial identity of Australian society. It emerges that those who see themselves as highly successful ESL learners draw upon discourses of multiculturalism, and Australia as a diverse society to a significant extent. By contrast, those who see themselves as unsuccessful ESL learners, either did not know about such discourses or discarded them. Instead, they regard Australia as a White Anglo-Saxon society to which they do not have access. In the conclusion I will suggest ways to re-conceptualize the notion of 'success' in language learning as a "members' category".
Friday, October 28, 3:00pm, Tuttleman 105
Dr. Robert Schrauf, Pennsylvania State University
"How Old is Too Old to Learn A Second Language?"
Abstract:
Most SLA texts do not envision classrooms filled with retirees over age 65, yet it is not uncommon for senior centers to sponsor language classes as one of their activities. Can older adults learn a second language? What difficulties might they encounter? What particular abilities might make them better students than the typical college student? Very little formal research has addressed these issues. In this presentation, I will show how current findings on language processing and cognitive aging help articulate possible answers to these questions and suggest how we might help older adults to attain the second language proficiency of which they are capable.
Friday, November 4, 3:00pm, Tuttleman 105
Dr. Nancy Bell, Indiana University of Pennsylvania
"Bilingual Women's Humorous Narratives: Topic and Function"
Abstract:
Humor can present an intimidating linguistic and cultural challenge for L2 speakers, yet it is a crucial means by which friendships are developed. This presentation shows how the humorous narratives constructed by four bilingual women differed from those described in studies of L1 women's humor and narratives. In particular, there was an the overall pattern of positive portrayal of the narrator. It is suggested that the telling of overtly or implicitly self-aggrandizing stories may have been a way for these women to deal with the marginalization that many L2 speakers experience, simply as a function of their non-native speaker status.