The Myth of Linguistic Homogeneity in U.S. College Composition

Matsuda, Paul Kei

doi:10.2307/25472180

Cited by 156 publications

(90 citation statements)

References 15 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…Therefore, ESL classes, which segregate nonnative English speakers in separate classes, marginalize these students based on language difference. Matsuda (2006) wrote of institutional policies of "linguistic containment" (p. 641) that keep English second language learners and their concerns from mainstream composition classes, and he objected to these policies because they have prevented ESL concerns from entering the consciousness of mainstream composition instructors. However, the use of the term "linguistic containment" also increased tensions around the separation of English second language learners from English first language learners, implying that ESL classes are segregationist and discriminatory.…”

Section: How Does Translingualism Position Second Language Writing Inmentioning

confidence: 99%

Translingualism in Composition Studies and Second Language Writing: An Uneasy Alliance

Williams

2016

TESL Canada

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Section: How Does Translingualism Position Second Language Writing Inmentioning

confidence: 99%

Translingualism in Composition Studies and Second Language Writing: An Uneasy Alliance

Williams

2016

TESL Canada

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

“…Where I have encountered some of the greatest limits on my happy marriage of linguistics and rhetoric is in the move to pedagogy 3 , but even in pedagogical methods the two fields are overlapping more all the time. Those in Rhetorical Genre Studies have typically worked with writers, whether in school or workplace settings, in their primary languages and cultures (a limitation that seems to be beginning to change, with pushes from such scholars as Matsuda, 2006;and Tardy, 2006). The two disciplines have often applied their theories to different instructional contexts-students, teachers, and institutional settings-and as a result they have sometimes developed different genre pedagogies.…”

Section: )mentioning

confidence: 99%

Genre performances: John Swales' Genre Analysis and rhetorical-linguistic genre studies

Devitt

2015

Journal of English for Academic Purposes

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Although scholars have studied some sources of variation within genres, the variation that is each individual performance of a genre requires further investigation. In Genre Analysis, John Swales combined rhetoric and linguistics to explain genre as grounded in shared communicative purposes and discoverable through text analysis. Although the disciplines differ in some of their purposes and settings, they share the difficulty of helping students advance beyond simplified understandings of genre to the complex decisions needed to address particular situations. Building from a rhetorical-linguistic genre studies and using metaphorically the linguistic concepts of competence and performance, this article proposes that genre theory and instruction should account for genre performances as well as genre competence. Genre theory can then better address such issues as identity, affect, and cognition. Genre instruction can lead students to examine not just similarity within a genre but also differences, in both communicative event and individual language-users. The uniqueness of each performance also affects assessment of genre knowledge and transfer, complicating the ability to assess genre competence through genre performance. Considering genre performances as well as competence within a rhetorical-linguistic genre studies allows genre scholars and teachers to address the fact that genre-in-use is simultaneously unique and shared.Scholars within genre studies have investigated many sources of variation within a genre. While still based theoretically in understandings of the shared nature of genres-whether shared social actions (Miller, 1984), communicative purposes (Swales, 1990), or social processes (Martin, 1997)-genre scholarship has A. Devitt, Genre Performances 2 demonstrated that texts within those genres vary in their prototypicality (Paltridge, 1997); across dimensions of textual clusters (Biber, 1988); by discipline (Soliday, 2011;Hyland, 2012); and historically (Bazerman, 1988; and many others). Research on genres in the schools has found that students' genre knowledge and acquisition vary, among other things, by socio-economic class (Spinello & Pratt, 2005;Myhill, 2005). An individual's patterns of variation across texts have been described as well, in every literary or rhetorical study of an author's style but notably also in linguistic studies of individual personas (Hyland, 2010(Hyland, , 2012. At times, scholars refer to particular "performances" of a genre (Bawarshi & Reiff, 2010) or "performing" identity within disciplinary conventions and community repertories (Hyland, 2010).All such scholarship recognizes and helps to account for the variation that necessarily occurs every time someone performs a genre in a particular text. At the heart of all such variation is the fact that genres are at once shared and unique. Each performance of a genre demonstrates its degree of prototypicality, disciplinary membership, historical moment, authorial identity, and many other qualities shared with other memb...

show abstract

“…Work independently to plan and compose text. Research in college and university programs for students learning English (e.g., Matsuda, 2006) has found that students receive differing amounts of instruction in these skills in writing courses, even those that focus on academic writing. As Matsuda noted, "In many composition classrooms, …language issues beyond simple 'grammar' correction are not addressed extensively, even when the assessment of student texts is based at least partly on students' proficiency in the privileged variety of English" (Standard Written English) (Matsuda, 2006, p. 640).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Teaching Writing to Adult English Language Learners: Lessons From the Field

Peyton¹,

Schaetzel²

2016

JLAS

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

For the past several decades, it has been clear that the ability to write texts for academic and professional purposes ("academic writing" in this article) is key to the success of adults in U.S. society-in school, in university courses, on tests that they need to take to progress through learning and into work, and in the workforce. Academic writing has specific features and involves approaches that are different from much of the writing that is done with adult learners, particularly those learning English as an additional language (e.g., described in reviews by Hinkel, 2015;Leki, Cumming, & Silva, 2008; and a survey by Rosenfeld, Courtney, & Fowles, 2004). However, a recent survey of adult educators, conducted by the authors, found that academic writing has not been a focus in many adult education programs, and teachers receive limited professional development in this area and instructional support in implementing it. This article describes the importance of academic writing at all levels of adult education, the key features of academic writing, and the current state of writing instruction in adult education programs. It then describes the motivation for, design, and outcomes of a survey of and interviews with adult educators across the country on their preparation for and instructional practices with academic writing (conducted in 2014 and 2015).Finally, it describes approaches that can be used in adult education programs to meet the writing proficiency needs of students at all levels and next steps that the adult education field might take.

show abstract

The Myth of Linguistic Homogeneity in U.S. College Composition

Cited by 156 publications

References 15 publications

Translingualism in Composition Studies and Second Language Writing: An Uneasy Alliance

Translingualism in Composition Studies and Second Language Writing: An Uneasy Alliance

Genre performances: John Swales' Genre Analysis and rhetorical-linguistic genre studies

Teaching Writing to Adult English Language Learners: Lessons From the Field

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About