Literacy in Composition Studies Jul 2020 RSS Open Access

Lifeworld Discourse, Translingualism, and Agency in a Discourse Genealogy of César Chávez’s Literacies

Clay Walker Wayne State University

Abstract

Translingual scholarship emphasizes the temporal dimensions of language use, and frame language practices as emergent phenomena shaped by repertories of discursive activities sedimented through prior experience. This essay adapts Gee’s concept of lifeworld Discourse in order to theorize (1) how Discourse competencies are cultivated through the sedimentation of discourse practices over time, and (2) how actors occupy thresholds or dwell on borders while they draw on repertoires sedimented through prior experience in response to emergent rhetorical situations. I activate the lifeworld Discourse conceptual framework in an analytical approach that I call a Discourse genealogy in order to trace out the palimpsestic emergence and blending of Discursive competencies throughout labor and community organizer César Chávez’s life. The argument focuses on the archival record of Chávez’s literacy practices in order to understand his emergent lifeworld Discourses from birth in 1927 through the late 1950s, up to the point at which he began to organize the migrant farmworkers under the auspices of the Community Service Organization in Oxnard, California (1957-8). Using textual analysis of Chávez’s writings and oral history records, the following essay shows how one thread of Chávez’s lifeworld Discourse – responding to social injustice – binds together a number of Chávez’s varied Discursive repertoires. My central argument is that when we occupy thresholds that connect Discourses, our repertoires of practice may be blended with new practices to form emergent potentials for responding to rhetorical situations. The thread of repertoires sedimented throughout a lifetime bind together the various social Discourses we encounter and engage with in our public lives.

Journal
Literacy in Composition Studies
Published
2020-07-15
DOI
10.21623/1.8.1.3
CompPile
Open Access
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    Composing Agency: Theorizing the Readiness Potentials of Literacy Practices
    Literacy in Composition Studies
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    Composing Agency: Theorizing the Readiness Potentials of Literacy Practices
    Literacy in Composition Studies
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     ↗
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    Composing Agency: Theorizing the Readiness Potentials of Literacy Practices
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    Composing Agency: Theorizing the Readiness Potentials of Literacy Practices
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     ↗
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     ↗
  76. Rosa, Jonathan, and Nelson Flores. “Unsettling Race and Language: Toward a Raciolinguistic Perspective.”Lang…
     ↗
  77. Walker (2015)
    Composing Agency: Theorizing the Readiness Potentials of Literacy Practices
    Literacy in Composition Studies
  78. Baker-Bell, April. “Dismantling Anti-Black Linguistic Racism in English Language Arts Classrooms: Toward an …
     ↗
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     ↗
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  81. Lee, Eunjeong, and Suresh Canagarajah. “The Connection Between Transcultural Dispositions and Translingual P…
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  83. Walker (2015)
    Composing Agency: Theorizing the Readiness Potentials of Literacy Practices
    Literacy in Composition Studies
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     ↗
  85. Barton, Ellen. “Situating End-of-Life Decision Making in a Hybrid Ethical Frame.”Communication & Medicine, v…
     ↗
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     ↗
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    Composing Agency: Theorizing the Readiness Potentials of Literacy Practices
    Literacy in Composition Studies
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     ↗
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     ↗
  93. Lee, Eunjeong, and Suresh Canagarajah. “The Connection Between Transcultural Dispositions and Translingual P…
     ↗
  94. Rosa, Jonathan, and Nelson Flores. “Unsettling Race and Language: Toward a Raciolinguistic Perspective.”Lang…
     ↗
  95. Walker (2015)
    Composing Agency: Theorizing the Readiness Potentials of Literacy Practices
    Literacy in Composition Studies
  96. Baker-Bell, April. “Dismantling Anti-Black Linguistic Racism in English Language Arts Classrooms: Toward an …
     ↗
  97. Barton, Ellen. “Situating End-of-Life Decision Making in a Hybrid Ethical Frame.”Communication & Medicine, v…
     ↗
  98. ---. “Translingual Practice as Spatial Repertoires: Expanding the Paradigm Beyond Structuralist Orientations…
     ↗
  99. Lee, Eunjeong, and Suresh Canagarajah. “The Connection Between Transcultural Dispositions and Translingual P…
     ↗
  100. Rosa, Jonathan, and Nelson Flores. “Unsettling Race and Language: Toward a Raciolinguistic Perspective.”Lang…
     ↗
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    Composing Agency: Theorizing the Readiness Potentials of Literacy Practices
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     ↗
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     ↗
  105. Barton, Ellen. “Situating End-of-Life Decision Making in a Hybrid Ethical Frame.”Communication & Medicine, v…
     ↗
  106. Burton, Vicki Tolar.Spiritual Literacy in John Wesley’s Methodism: Reading, Writing, and Speaking to Believe…
     ↗
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     ↗
  108. Canagarajah (2013)
    Negotiating Translingual Literacy: An Enactment
    Research in the Teaching of English
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     ↗
  110. Cooper, Marilyn. “The Being of Language.”Reworking English in Rhetoric and Composition: Global Interruptions…
     ↗
  111. Cushman (2016)
    Translingual and Decolonial Approaches to Meaning Making
    College English
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     ↗
  113. Garcia, Ofelia, and Li Wei.Translanguaging: Language, Bilingualism, and Education. Palgrave-MacMillan, 2014.
     ↗
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     ↗
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     ↗
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     ↗
  117. Guerra (2016)
    Cultivating a Rhetorical Sensibility in the Translingual Writing Classroom
    College English
  118. Guerra, Juan C., and Ann Shivers-McNair. “Toward a New Vocabulary of Motive: Re(con)figuring Entanglement in…
     ↗
  119. Hammerback, John C., and Richard J. Jensen.The Rhetorical Career of César Chávez. Texas A&M UP, 1998.
     ↗
  120. Horner et al. (2019)
    Defining Translinguality
    Literacy in Composition Studies
  121. Horner et al. (2011)
    Opinion: Language Difference in Writing: Toward a Translingual Approach
    College English
  122. Horner, Bruce, Samantha NeCamp, and Christiane Donahue. “Toward a Multilingual Literacy, Language Difference…
     ↗
  123. Horner, Bruce, and Laura Tetreault. “Introduction.”Crossing Divides: Exploring Translingual Writing Pedagogi…
     ↗
  124. Lee, Eunjeong, and Suresh Canagarajah. “The Connection Between Transcultural Dispositions and Translingual P…
     ↗
  125. Leonard (2014)
    Multilingual Writing as Rhetorical Attunement
    College English
  126. ---.Writing on the Move: Migrant Women and the Value of Literacy. U of Pittsburgh P, 2017.
     ↗
  127. Levy, Jacques E.César Chávez: Autobiography of La Causa. U of Minnesota P, 1975.
     ↗
  128. Lu et al. (2016)
    Guest Editors’ Introduction: Translingual Work
    College English
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    Translingual Literacy, Language Difference, and Matters of Agency
    College English
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     ↗
  131. Otsuji, Emi, and Alastair Pennycook. “Metrolingualism: Fixity, Fluidity and Language in Flux.”International …
     ↗
  132. Pennycook, Alastair.Language as a Local Practice. Routledge, 2010.
     ↗
  133. Rosa, Jonathan, and Nelson Flores. “Unsettling Race and Language: Toward a Raciolinguistic Perspective.”Lang…
     ↗
  134. Vygotsky, Lev S.Mind in Soiety: The Development of Higher Psychological Processes, edited by Michael Cole, …
     ↗
  135. Walker (2015)
    Composing Agency: Theorizing the Readiness Potentials of Literacy Practices
    Literacy in Composition Studies
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