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DOCUMENT RESUME FL 027 192 ED 462 853 Daniel-White, Kimberly, Ed. AUTHOR Working Papers in Educational Linguistics, 2001. TITLE Pennsylvania Univ., Philadelphia. Graduate School of INSTITUTION Education. 2001-00-00 PUB DATE 132p.; Published biannually. For individual articles, see FL NOTE 027 193-98. Working Papers in Educational Linguistics, Language in AVAILABLE FROM Education Division A-12, Graduate School of Education, University of Pennsylvania, 3700 Walnut Street, Philadelphia, PA 19104 (Regular subscription, $8 per issue). Tel: 215-898-3288; Fax: 215-573-2109; e-mail: [email protected]; Web site: http://www.gse.upenn.edu/wpel/. Serials (022) Collected Works PUB TYPE Working Papers in Educational Linguistics; v17 n1-2 Spr-Fall JOURNAL CIT 2001. MF01/PC06 Plus Postage. EDRS PRICE Adolescents; *Asian Americans; Cultural Influences; DESCRIPTORS *Cultural Pluralism; Discussion (Teaching Technique); Elementary Secondary Education; Ethics; *Ethnicity; Foreign Countries; Higher Education; Immigrants; Korean; Language Usage; *Linguistics; Literature; Uncommonly Taught Languages Complaints; Hedges (Linguistics); South Africa; University IDENTIFIERS of Pennsylvania ABSTRACT This volume contains the following articles: "Educational Linguistics as a Field: A View from Penn's Program on the Occasion of its 25th Anniversary" (Nancy Hornberger); "Constructing a Multicultural National Identity: South African Classrooms as Sites of Struggle between Competing Discourses" (Keith Chick); "Ventriloquating Shakespeare: Ethical Positioning in Classroom Literature Discussions" (Stanton Wortham); "Culture, Identity, and Asian American Teens: A School District Conference Panel Discussion" (Angela Reyes); "Avoiding FOBs: An Account of a Journey" (Mihyon Jeon); and "'That's Too Bad': Hedges and Indirect Complaints in 'Troubles-Talk' (Each paper contains references.) Narrative" (Mark Ouellette) . (SM) Reproductions supplied by EDRS are the best that can be made from the original document. me 17 lber 1 & 2 rig/Fall 2001 ct' a ucational e lin uistics DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION AND PERMISSION TO REPRODUCE it Educational Research and Improvement HAS EIONAL RESOURCES INFORMATION DISSEMINATE THIS MATERIAL CENTER (ERIC) BEEN GRANTED BY iocument has been reproduced as orvaL led from the person or organization sting it changes have been made to ye reproduction quality. RESOURCES TO THE EDUCATIONAL ot view or opinions stated in this INFORMATION CENTER (ERIC) nent do not necessarily represent OERI position or policy 1 BEST COPY MAILABLE 2 OF PENNSYLVANIA 1=91 PENN GRADUATE SCHOOL OF EDUCATION WORKING PAPERS LINGUISTICS IN EDUCATIONAL Editor-in-Chief Kimberly Daniel-White Cristi Alberino Emily Cruse Jennifer Freeman Editors Jeffrey Kralik Mark Ouellette Angie Reyes Diana Schwinge Nancy Hornberger Faculty Advisor Language in Education Division Graduate School of Education University of Pennsylvania Susan Lytle, Chair Morton Botel Yuko Goto Butler Division Faculty Vivian Gadsden Nancy Hornberger Teresa Pica Lawrence Sipe TESOL Educational Linguistics Division Programs Reading/Writing/Literacy Intercultural Communication 3 WORKING PAPERS IN EDUCATIONAL LINGUISTICS Spring & Fall 2001 Volume 17, Numbers 1 & 2 Contents Educational Linguistics as a Field: A View from Penn's Program on the Occasion of its 25th Anniversary Nancy Hornberger 1 Constructing a Multicultural National Identity: South African Classrooms as Sites of Struggle Between Competing Discourses 27 Keith Chick Ventriloquating Shakespeare: Ethical Positioning in Classroom Literature Discussions 47 Stanton Wortham Culture, Identity, and Asian American Teens: A School District Conference Panel Discussion 65 Angela Reyes Avoiding FOBs: An Account of a Journey 83 Mihyon Jeon "That's Too Bad": Hedges and Indirect Complaints in "Troubles-talk" Narrative 107 Mark Ouellette Dear WPEL readers, We are proud to bring you the latest issue of the University of Pennsylvania's Working Papers in Educational Linguistics which celebrates the 25th anniversary of Educational Linguistics at Penn. The work contained in this collection repre- sents the diverse interests and research projects of the students and faculty associ- ated with the Language in Education Division. Our mission is to share the current and on-going work of our students and faculty with our worldwide readership. We also aim to work with our contributors to make their "working papers" into scholarly articles ready for publication. In this issue: Nancy Hornberger traces the beginnings of educational linguistics at Penn by describing the specific characteristics of the program. She concludes her article by considering educational linguistics as a discipline among other disciplines. Keith Chick, a visiting professor from South Africa, reports on an ethnographic study of classrooms in post-apartheid South Africa providing evidence for schools as sites of struggle between competing discourses. Stanton Wortham analyzes classroom discourse describing how students and teachers take ethical and political positions which have implications for their roles in society as well as pedagogical implications. Angela Reyes provides an analysis of discourse during a school district conference panel discussion showing how Asian American teens and the audience of teachers, advisors, and administrators differ in their construction of culture. Mihyon Jeon takes readers on an ethnographic journey showing how Korean- American college students' use of the term FOB connects to their ideologies about both Korean and English. Mark Ouellette compares the structure of "troubles-talk" narratives between Korean, French and American women showing similarities and differences in narrative syntax of the different groups. In addition to our advisor, Nancy Hornberger, we gratefully acknowledge the following individuals whose help and cooperation made this publication possible: Penny Creedon, Lorraine Hightower, Suzanne Oh, and Mary Schlesinger. We hope that you find the following contributions as engaging and wor- thy of scholarly interest as we have. The editors Educational Linguistics as a Field: A View from Penn's Program on the Occasion of its 25th Anniversary1 Nancy H. Hornberger University of Pennsylvania Educational Linguistics at the University of Pennsylvania's Graduate School of Education traces its beginnings to 1976 and the deanship of Dell Hymes. This paper takes up various aspects of the practice of Educa- tional Linguistics at Penn, discussing them in relation to issues that have been raised in the literature about the definition, nature, and scope of the field. Three emphases which have characterized Penn's Educational Lin- guistics are considered: the integration of linguistics and education ("the relevance of linguistics for education and the reverse"); the close relationships among research, theory, policy, and practice ("a problem-oriented discipline"); and the focus on language learning and teaching ("scope with depth"). The paper concludes with a consideration of educational linguistics as a discipline among other disciplines ("birds on a wire"). It is my hope that this exploration of a particular set of practices might contribute to the advancement of the field of educational linguistics. Introduction In 1972, Bernard Spolsky proposed the title "educational linguistics" for a discipline whose primary task would be "to offer information relevant to the formulation of language education policy and to its implementation" (1974c:554). He affirmed that it "should be a problem- oriented discipline, focusing on the needs of practice and drawing from available theories and principles of many relevant fields including many of the subfields of linguistics" (1975:347). Shortly thereafter, two doctoral programs in Educational Linguistics were inaugurated at U.S. universities one at the University of New Mexico, directed by Spolsky and closely linked to the Navajo Reading Study being carried out there and one at the University of Pennsylvania's Graduate School of Education, inaugurated ' This is a slightly revised version of a paper that originally appeared in a volume honoring Bernard Spolsky: R. Cooper, E. Shohamy & J. Walters (Eds.) (2001) New Perspectives and Issues in Educational Language Policy: A Volume in Honor of Bernard Dov Spolsky. Philadelphia: John Benjamins. 6 WORKING PAPERS IN EDUCATIONAL LINGUISTICS under the aegis of Dell Hymes and the direction of Nessa Wolfson.' Educational Linguistics at the University of Pennsylvania traces its beginnings to 1976, when Hymes appointed Wolfson lecturer in education and assigned her the task of creating the Educational Linguistics program, which would come to encompass not only the Ph.D. specialization but also a master 's specialization in Teaching English to Speakers of Other Lan- guages (TESOL), and soon thereafter (1978), another master's specialization in Intercultural Communication.3 In the ensuing years, the program took on additional faculty: Teresa Pica, one of the first graduates of the program (Pica 1982), was appointed assistant professor and director in 1983' and I joined in 1985; after Wolfson's untimely passing in 1989, Rebecca Freeman was recruited as third member in 1992 and served until 2000.5 As Educational Linguistics at Penn celebrates its 25th anniversary, it seems appropriate to take a retrospective and prospective look at this program's approach to the practice of educational linguistics. In keeping with Spolsky's initial formulation that educational linguistics should take the practice of education as its starting point, I will begin from the practice of educational linguistics in the Penn program, moving from there to implications for the field as a whole (rather than the reverse). In the sections which follow, I take up various aspects of the practice of educational linguistics at Penn and discuss them in relation to issues that have been raised in the literature about the definition, nature, and scope of the field. I conclude with a brief comment on the relationship of educa- 2Recently, two other Educational Linguistics programs have been initiated. In the 1990s, the Monterey Institute of International Studies changed the name of the Department of Language Studies to Graduate School of Languages and Educational Linguistics (Leo van Lier, personal communication, 7 November 1998); the School offers advanced language courses (usually content-based in several disciplines) and masters' degrees in TESOL and TFL (Teaching For- eign Language), but no doctoral degrees. As of 2000, Stanford University School of Education offers a Ph.D. specialization in Educational Linguistics within the Social Sciences, Policy and Educational Practice area. At the University of New Mexico, Professor Leroy Ortiz, student of Bernard Spolsky, currently directs the Division of Language, Literacy and Sociocultural Studies which houses the Educational Linguistics program there. So far as I know, these, with the Penn program, constitute the only Educational Linguistics programs to date, although a number of related programs in Language and Literacy, Language in Education, or some varia- tion thereof, emerged in the 1980s (more on that below). 31n the budget climate at Penn at that time, creating masters specializations alongside the doctoral specialization was seen as a wise strategic move, since the masters students could provide tuition dollars that would help support the doctoral specialization (Hymes, personal communication, 26 October 1998). All three specializations continue to operate to the present. While all form an integral part of the Educational Linguistics program, the focus here will be on the doctoral specialization only. 'Professor Teresa Pica is the single person with the longest affiliation to the program, having begun there as student shortly after its establishment and continued on as professor until the present. I would like to acknowledge here the profound influence Pica has had on the development of the program, on the professional development of its students, and indeed on my own academic career. 5 As this article goes to press, Educational Linguistics again welcomes a third faculty member, Yuko Goto Butler, and is in the process of searching for a fourth to join in Fall 2001. 7 2 EDUCATIONAL LINGUISTICS AS A FIELD tional linguistics to applied linguistics and other disciplines. It is my hope that this exploration of a particular set of practices might contribute to the advancement of the field of educational linguistics.6 Educational Linguistics defined The Educational Linguistics Ph.D. specialization at Penn is one of nine doctoral specializations offered at the Graduate School of Education. The Educational Linguistics handbook introduces the doctoral specialization in the following way: "The Ph.D. specialization in Educational Linguistics in- tegrates scholarship, training, and research in linguistics as they relate to theory, practice, and policy in education. The specialization maintains a perspective on issues in linguistic and cultural diversity and approaches to language learning and teaching that embraces local, national, and international interests. Research interests of Ph.D. candidates currently enrolled in Educational Linguistics include: second language acquisition; language choice, maintenance and shift; language and ethnicity; descriptive analysis of speech acts and discourse; educational implications of linguistic diversity; language planning; bilingual education; spoken interac- tion in professional settings; and biliteracy. Graduates can expect to find teaching, administrative, and research positions in colleges and universities, and administrative, research and advisory posts in government, community and private organizations. All students enrolled in this program are expected to gain a solid foundation in linguistics. For this purpose, students take courses in the Department of Linguistics as well as in the Graduate School of Education" (Educational Linguistics Handbook 1999-2001:19). The above introduction offers a brief definition of educational linguistics, as well as a suggestion of its scope and relationship to linguistics. The handbook goes on to outline a 20 course curriculum, including seven core courses, four distribution courses (two in linguistics and two in education), and two research methods courses, as well as inquiry skills, candidacy, comprehensive examination, and dissertation requirements. I write from the perspective of one affiliated with the program since 1985 as professor, for many of those years as director. Mine is in many respects a personal, and undoubtedly biased, perspective, but it also affords the benefits of insider knowledge. 3 8 WORKING PAPERS IN EDUCATIONAL LINGUISTICS Beginning with the first Educational Linguistics Ph.D. in 1981 (Zentella 1981), the Faculty of the Graduate Group in Education has approved more than 75 candidates for the Ph.D. degree with specialization in Educational Linguistics, approximately three-quarters of them women and over one- third international.' Consistent with the professional positions outlined in the above introduction to the program, graduates have gone on to hold academic, research, and administrative posts in institutions of higher education across the country and around the world, in departments of education, linguistics, applied linguistics, English, English as a second language, foreign language education, multilingual-multicultural studies, anthropol- ogy, Japanese language and literature, and Black and Puerto Rican studies, and in international and intensive English language programs, among others. 8 The conception of educational linguistics enunciated in the program handbook, with its emphasis on the integration of linguistics and education, the close relationships among research, theory, policy, and practice, and on language learning and teaching as the core focus, is consistent with the field as it has been both explicitly and implicitly defined in the literature. Spolsky's definition, above, specifies that the discipline should focus on language education policy and implementation and that it should take a problem- and practice-oriented approach, and these are the crucial characteristics he returns to again and again in his writings. In introducing the section on educational linguistics in Current Trends in Linguistics, he writes that he and the contributors set out "to show how linguistics and its various fields can help define and solve problems that reflect the centrality of language in the educational process" (1974a:2024), again alluding to the focus on language in education, the problem-solving orientation, and the link to linguistics. In his volume entitled Educational Linguistics, he goes on to write that "the field of language education must depend on a wise, soundly-based, but modest set of principles and practices derived from the relevant theoretical and empirical disciplines. It is the primary task of the field I call educational linguistics to provide such a basis" (1978:175). Here again, he takes the practice of language education as a starting point and looks to educational linguistics to draw from relevant related disciplines to provide needed principles to guide that practice. Like Spolsky, Shuy also sees an important role for educational linguistics in relating linguistics and its subfields (e.g. sociolinguistics and psycholinguistics) to relevant teaching Intemational doctoral graduates have been from: Botswana, Brazil, England, Germany, In- donesia, Israel, Japan, Korea, Malaysia, Pakistan, Peru, South Africa, Sweden, Taiwan, Tur- key, and Zaire. Graduates hold tenure-track or tenured faculty positions at, for example, the following universities nationally and internationally Georgetown, New York University University of Florida, University of Illinois, University of Puerto Rico, University of Wisconsin, LaTrobe (Australia), University of Botswana, University of Rio de Janeiro (Brasil), Waseda (japan), Suk Myung (Korea), Universiti Teknologi (Malaysia), Aga Khan (Pakistan), Donghwa (Taiwan), and Bogazici (Turkey). 9 4 EDUCATIONAL LINGUISTICS AS A FIELD and learning (1981:460), and Pica sees it as a problem- and practice- based field "whose research questions, theoretical structures, and contributions of service are focused on issues and concerns in education" (1994:265). Others define educational linguistics implicitly by what is or is not in- cluded in their discussion under that title. Stubbs' volume entitled Educa- tional Linguistics (1986) is perhaps the most elaborate of these (we will return to his view of educational linguistics below), but others have also approached it this way. Under the title of educational linguistics, Smitherman (1979) addresses herself to black linguistics, Suardiaz and Dominguez (1987) to mother tongue teaching, Myers (1994) to second language teaching, and Freeman (1994) and Brumfit (1997) to language teaching. None of them explicitly define what they mean in using the term, but by implication include their particular topic within the scope of the field; moreover, their discussions advocate the same emphases on the integration of linguistics and education, close relationships among research, theory, policy, and practice, and a focus on language learning and teaching, as articulated in the more explicit definitions of the field above. Van Lier, on the other hand, at the 1994 Georgetown University Round Table on Educational Linguistics, Crosscultural Communication, and Glo- bal Interdependence (Alatis 1994), approaches the definition of educational linguistics explicitly in terms of its substantive content, but posits that in fact it does not exist "as an academic field, subfield, profession or discipline" (1994:200). Following Bourdieu (1990), he defines a field as a "his- torically constituted area of activity with its specific institutions and its own language of functioning" (van Lier 1994:203) and suggests that for a field of educational linguistics to exist, there would have to be departments, programs, (doctoral) degrees, courses, textbooks, materials, and insights proper to it (1994:207). At the same conference (but speaking in reference to the field of language testing), Spolsky suggests that "to be considered a profession, a calling needs to have a number of attributes, such as professional associations, textbooks, training programs, journals, conferences, and certification" (1994:88). I suggest here that, based on a practice of 25 years and by criteria such as those proposed above, educational linguistics has indeed earned the right to be considered an academic field. We will con- sider the nature and scope of the field in terms of the three emphases al- luded to above: the integration of linguistics and education ("the relevance of linguistics for education and the reverse"); the close relationships among research, theory, policy, and practice ("a problem-oriented discipline"); and the focus on language learning and teaching ("scope with depth"); after which, we will conclude with a consideration of educational linguistics as a discipline among other disciplines ("birds on a wire"). The relevance of linguistics for education and the reverse Anthropological linguist Dell Hymes agreed to become Dean of the 5