English as a spatial resource and the claimed competence of Chinese STEM professionals

Abstract

This interview-based study of 24 Chinese STEM scholars in a midwestern US university explores their competence for professional communication in their workplace. Though they acknowledge a lack of advanced grammatical proficiency in English, they state that they are successful in professional communication. Their success results from their use of diverse semiotic resources beyond language, and the strategic alignment of semiotic resources with spatial and social ecologies in their communication. To explain this competence, the article argues that we have to adopt a spatial orientation to communication as an activity, shifting from structuralist models which prioritize grammar as an autonomous system. INTRODUCTIONThis article is an attempt to explain the language competence and acquisition strategies claimed by Chinese STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) professionals in an American university. An attempt to approach their views in an emic manner, along the perspectives the interviewees articulate, unveils a mode of language acquisition and competence that deviates from dominant models in applied linguistics. Consider statements such as the following from my interviews: 1 (1) I: So how do you respond to contexts or interactions where your proficiency in English or your identity seems to be considered deficient or inferior by others? CL: ehm (), I have my way to solve the problem. Like in, in my PHD program, actually I am the best speaker in the whole group. Not because my English is good, my English is not good. I mention that I take the exam seven times. But I like to use pictures and animations and my/ my/my body language. So people understand me very well. And they like this. I know, even English speaker, if they use many pictures, animations and body languages, he or she will be a good speaker. So, for me, so, I think those compensate my language () problem… .I am still a good speaker in my first postdoc position, because I keep using my pictures, animations. [Chao Li; Male; Postdoc in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology] (2) SZ: I wish I can have better English, but but with the English I have for now, I think it is fine to communicate with my collaborators, with my students, in the classroom or in my lab. So I think it is fine, so yeah. [Sheng Zhang; Male; Associate Professor Bioengineering] 34Note that both informants claim that though their English proficiency is not advanced or perfect, they are very successful in their professional activities. Chao acknowledges that he took the TOEFL exam seven times and confesses 'my English is not very good' , while Sheng mentions that he 'can have better English' . Yet, Chao considers himself 'the best speaker' in his current professional and former doctoral groups, and Sheng considers his proficiency 'fine' for all his professional activities. In explaining this paradox, both adopt a functional orientation. They consider their proficiency in terms of their performance in their work. For Chao, his presentations are intelligible and effective, and pr...

Materializing ‘Competence’: Perspectives From International STEM Scholars

“…The term spatial repertoires would accommodate the fact that selective words from different languages would find coherence for situated activities in combination with other nonverbal resources. Such a practice explains the unconventional notions of language proficiency articulated by my interview participants (which I have discussed in detail elsewhere—see Canagarajah, forthcoming). Because these professionals were interviewed by my beginning level master's students, the power difference emboldened the interviewees to share their unorthodox communicative practices, which defied our disciplinary assumptions.…”

“…I will discuss later the challenges in conducting language analysis from a materialist orientation and the unusual rhetorical strategies necessary for presenting findings from expansive semiotic resources and spatiotemporal scales. (For a fuller discussion of the data and research methods, see Canagarajah, forthcoming; Rabbi & Canagarajah, . )…”

Using China English, creating translingual space

“…While the above research provides documentation of the potential for Inner Circle academic spaces to be hostile toward non‐Inner Circle varieties of English such as China English, recent research in translingualism provides one potential way forward in understanding how speakers of non‐privileged Englishes can nonetheless achieve successful communication. In particular, we are interested in understanding how graduate students from China who speak a non‐Inner Circle variety of English produce a ‘translingual space.’ While there are many iterations of translingualism, the framework of translingual space that we adopt for this paper draws primarily from the concepts of translingual practice (Canagarajah, 2013, 2018), translanguaging space (Li & Zhu, 2013), and language as a local practice (Pennycook, 2010). As conceptualized by Canagarajah (2013), translingual practice reflects a paradigm of communication that occurs irrespective of named language boundaries and indeed irrespective of the very boundary of language itself.…”

“…As conceptualized by Canagarajah (2013), translingual practice reflects a paradigm of communication that occurs irrespective of named language boundaries and indeed irrespective of the very boundary of language itself. In other words, significantly, translingual practice is not merely about communicating using diverse language resources; it also invites consideration of a ‘materialist’ orientation to competence insofar as interlocutors in diverse contexts draw on more than ‘language’ to communicate, such as nonverbal, semiotic, and spatial resources (Canagarajah, 2018). Translingual practice thus also accounts for the intersections between language practices (whether or not it involves resources from multiple ‘languages’) and spatial repertoires.…”

IanMacKenzie. Language Contact and the Future of English. New York/London: Routledge. 2018. 187 pp. Hb (9781138557222) £110.00.

“…Is ELF a mere scholarly invention (see O'Regan )? Is language even the most significant aspect of communication in English today (see Canagarajah )? Or, as Ian MacKenzie asks, in his 2018 book, Language Contact and the Future of English , what is going to happen with English given the worldwide sociolinguistic reality in which language contact and translation are the norm?…”