College English Jul 2013

Translingual Literacy, Language Difference, and Matters of Agency

Min-Zhan Lu ; Bruce Horner

Abstract

We argue that composition scholarship’s defenses of language differences in student writing reinforce dominant ideology’s spatial framework conceiving language difference as deviation from a norm of sameness. We argue instead for adopting a temporal-spatial framework defining difference as the norm of utterances, and defining languages, literacy practices, conventions, and contexts as always emergent, ongoing products of iterations, and thus manifestations of writer agency. Using the “White Shoes” essay from David Bartholomae’s “Inventing the University,” we show how such a framework addresses the writer’s agency iterating the “same,” and how it resolves concerns to meet students’ need and right to learn both dominant and subordinate languages.

Journal
College English
Published
2013-07-01
DOI
10.58680/ce201323836
CompPile
Open Access
Closed
Topics
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