Imaginative geographies: identity, difference, and English as the language of instruction in a Mexican university program

Torres-Olave, Blanca Minerva

doi:10.1007/s10734-011-9443-x

Cited by 22 publications

(8 citation statements)

References 25 publications

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“…Recall that all participants in the current study were college students. It would be difficult, if not impossible, to find college students in Baja California (let alone Southern California) regions who are monolingual Spanish speakers, because English language classes are common in many private and some public school curricula in Mexico, and are compulsory at the university level ( Sierra and Padilla, 2003 ; O’Donnell, 2010 ; Torres-Olave, 2012 ). Of course, similar-aged monolingual Spanish participants who do not attend university could have been included in the current study, but their inclusion might have introduced production patterns associated with sociolinguistic factors other than their monolingual status ( Lippi-Green, 1997 ; Lipski, 2008 ; Coloma, 2011 ).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Age of acquisition and allophony in Spanish-English bilinguals

Barlow

2014

Front. Psychol.

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This study examines age of acquisition (AoA) in Spanish-English bilinguals’ phonetic and phonological knowledge of /l/ in English and Spanish. In English, the lateral approximant /l/ varies in darkness by context [based on the second formant (F2) and the difference between F2 and the first formant (F1)], but the Spanish /l/ does not. Further, English /l/ is overall darker than Spanish /l/. Thirty-eight college-aged adults participated: 11 Early Spanish-English bilinguals who learned English before the age of 5 years, 14 Late Spanish-English bilinguals who learned English after the age of 6 years, and 13 English monolinguals. Participants’ /l/ productions were acoustically analyzed by language and context. The results revealed a Spanish-to-English phonetic influence on /l/ productions for both Early and Late bilinguals, as well as an English-to-Spanish phonological influence on the patterning of /l/ for the Late Bilinguals. These findings are discussed in terms of the Speech Learning Model and the effect of AoA on the interaction between a bilingual speaker’s two languages.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Age of acquisition and allophony in Spanish-English bilinguals

Barlow

2014

Front. Psychol.

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“…As English is the main language of science and technology as well as the global lingua franca of academia, its use as the medium of instruction is becoming increasingly more common all over the world (see e.g. Hu & Lei, 2014;Mauranen, Hynninen, & Ranta, 2010;Torres-Olave, 2012). In Europe, the spread of English as a Medium of Instruction (EMI) has been reinforced by the increased mobility associated with the development of the European Higher Education Area.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Attitudes and anxieties of business and education students towards English: some data from the Basque Country

Santos

Cenoz

Gorter

2017

Language, Culture and Curriculum

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The aim of this article is to focus on university students' attitudes towards English and their anxieties concerning the use of English in the Basque Country, a multilingual context where exposure to English is limited but internationalisation is an important aim. Participants were 360 undergraduate university students of business (N = 180) and education (N = 180) at the University of the Basque Country. The results of the questionnaires indicate that business students had a more positive attitude(s) towards English than education students. The findings also indicate that female business students have a relatively positive attitude in comparison to male business students but also a higher level of anxiety. The results are discussed as related to the situation of English-medium instruction in Southern European bilingual areas and previous studies on gender, attitudes and anxiety. ARTICLE HISTORY

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“…According to Said (), imaginative geographies arise from perceived power relations between two nations or regions, where the more dominant of the two produces representations of the ‘Other’. This would often involve a set of discourses through which the West created an imagined and exotic East (Torres‐Olave ; Buchowski ; Kennedy ). While European nations were perceived as being powerful and articulate, Asian nations, often colonised, were instead considered to be defeated and distant, irrational and dangerous.…”

Section: Introducing Imaginative Geographymentioning

confidence: 99%

Why place matters: imaginative geography and international student mobility

Beech

2014

Area

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This paper develops and extends the recent work on international student mobility by expanding beyond the traditional push-pull factors of migration to show that students are influenced by more than the economic in their decision of where to study. It uses original data collected through interviews and focus groups with 38 higher education international students at three UK universities located in Aberdeen, Belfast and Nottingham to show that when students choose to study overseas they are influenced by diverse perceptions of place that they have constructed over long periods of time. These imaginative geographies are the direct result of exposure to a range of different media, as well as stories relayed to them from members of their social networks. This paper demonstrates that students studying in Scotland and Northern Ireland appear to have highly developed imaginative geographies in relation to their chosen study sites. By contrast, international students studying in England tended to have little conception of their chosen place of study. In this case the powerful imaginative geographies that had been instilled within them focused on London, overshadowing their understanding of their chosen study site.

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Imaginative geographies: identity, difference, and English as the language of instruction in a Mexican university program

Cited by 22 publications

References 25 publications

Age of acquisition and allophony in Spanish-English bilinguals

Age of acquisition and allophony in Spanish-English bilinguals

Attitudes and anxieties of business and education students towards English: some data from the Basque Country

Why place matters: imaginative geography and international student mobility

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