LINGUIST List 25.2305

Sun May 25 2014

FYI: Call for Chapters: Academic Biliteracies

Editor for this issue: Uliana Kazagasheva <ulianalinguistlist.org>

Date: 25-May-2014
From: David Palfreyman <david.palfreymanzu.ac.ae>
Subject: Call for Chapters: Academic Biliteracies
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Expressions of interest are invited for a collection titled ''Academic biliteracies: translanguaging and multilingual repertoires in higher education settings''.

Editors:
Dr. David M. Palfreyman (Zayed University, UAE)
Dr. Christa van der Walt (Stellenbosch University, South Africa)

Many universities and colleges throughout the world use more than one language for academic purposes, for historical reasons or for reasons of accessibility or employability. This multilingualism may be formal or informal, instantiated in teaching materials or in other resources, and functioning in and around learning and assessment events, research and publication. The notion of ‘literacy’ has been developed in recent years to encompass a range of reading and writing practices, located in social contexts and interacting with other lingual and multimodal practices. The literature on multilingualism has similarly expanded the focus of study from the monolingual individual attempting to acquire an extra language to interactions and communities where people draw on a range of linguistic resources to navigate and shape social and educational practice. The role of language in higher education has also been examined from explanatory and critical perspectives, showing how language and knowledge can develop (or fail to develop) in interaction.

This collection will examine how literacy for academic purposes functions and changes in multilingual academic contexts. We aim to broaden research and informed discussion from a focus on English Medium Instruction (with other languages playing a background role) to multilingual repertoires and the constructive/obstructive interaction of a range of languages in academic literacy events. Decisions about language use are made by lecturers as well as students for a variety of (overt and covert) reasons, from strategic to pragmatic. The processes underlying such decisions, including their motivation and results, can provide information for language and instructional planning, for academic practice and for faculty/staff development.

Contributions to this volume could include chapters on:
- The development and performance of academic proficiency in two or more linguistic codes (including different scripts).
- The development of multi-competence and multilingual repertoires in academic literacy events, and the notion of ‘first’/’second’ language.
- The development of subject knowledge in more than one language
- Transfer/reconfiguring of skills, strategies, knowledge, genres, discourses or functions among subjects, educational levels and languages.
- How different languages are applied to, and help shape, academic writing processes/ stages.
- Language choice and use in academic reading and writing, including decisions taken by academics for publication purposes.
- Social aspects of multilingual literacy in higher education.
- Learners’ and teachers’ strategies around learning and/or assessment events.
- Languages (including minority languages) which are starting to expand their academic functions - and how this may affect the languages, people and functions/events involved.
- Powerful/disempowered languages in academic literacy events, in relation to broader conceptions of identity.
- Code-switching and translanguaging in academic literacy contexts;
- Teaching and planning for the acquisition and development of biliteracy in tertiary contexts.
- The mono/multilingual individual and the multilingual academic community.
- Multimodal and embodied aspects of academic biliteracies.
- Academic linguae francae and their relationship to multilingual communities or networks.
- Contributions of multilingualism and biliteracy to the shape of international academia.

Please send a title and abstract of not more than 300 words to david.palfreymanzu.ac.ae or cvdwaltsun.ac.za if possible by 30 June 2014, outlining the planned chapter and how it relates to the theme of the book. The chapter should use empirical data to support an informed discussion of academic biliteracy.

David M. Palfreyman is Associate Professor in the Department of English and Writing Studies at Zayed University in the United Arab Emirates. His research interests include language, culture and ideology in education; his publications focus on on cross-linguistic literacy and sociocultural aspects of tertiary learning, as well as qualitative research methodology. David is editor of two collections published by Palgrave Macmillan: Learner Autonomy Across Cultures and Learning and Teaching Across Cultures in Higher Education. He is also Chief Editor of the refereed journal Learning and Teaching in Higher Education: Gulf Perspectives.

Christa van der Walt is Professor in the Department of Curriculum Studies at Stellenbosch University in South Africa. Her research interests are focused on the teaching and use of English in multilingual contexts, with specific focus on learning in bi- and multilingual contexts and the role of teachers' and students' biliteracy practices in secondary and higher education classrooms. These themes are explored in her most recent publications with Multilingual Matters: Multilingual Higher Education: Beyond English-Medium Orientations and Multilingual Universities in South Africa (co-edited with Liesel Hibbert). She is also interested in the emergence of South African varieties of English and their use in education.

Linguistic Field(s): Anthropological Linguistics; Discourse Analysis; Language Acquisition; Sociolinguistics; Text/Corpus Linguistics

Page Updated: 25-May-2014