LINGUIST List 26.2475
Wed May 13 2015
Review: Applied Ling; Lang Acq; Ling Theories; Socioling; Translation: Disney (2014)
Editor for this issue: Sara Couture <saralinguistlist.org>
Date: 10-Jan-2015
From: Hyung-Jo Yoon <younhjo
gmail.com>
Subject: Exploring Second Language Creative Writing
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EDITOR: Dan Disney
TITLE: Exploring Second Language Creative Writing
SUBTITLE: Beyond Babel
SERIES TITLE: Linguistic Approaches to Literature 19
PUBLISHER: John Benjamins
YEAR: 2014
REVIEWER: Hyung-Jo Yoon, Michigan State University
Review's Editor: Helen Aristar-Dry
SUMMARY
This edited volume addresses the role of second language (L2) creative writing in promoting learner voice and identity in the act of writing. This book consists of a total of seven chapters, each one of which explores how an L2 creative writing pedagogy works in a particular L2 setting. While describing somewhat different aspects of L2 creative writing, all seven chapters commonly emphasize the importance of understanding contextual features (e.g., status of a target language, purpose of L2 learning) in order to make L2 writing meaningful to learners.
In the introduction, Dan Disney presents the aim of a creative writing pedagogy, such as facilitating voice-filled discourse and going beyond a traditional focus of L2 pedagogies on instrumentality of an additional language. He apparently sees L2 creative writing as a valuable interdisciplinary resource that can connect several language-related fields. Particularly, contrary to a traditional practice of discouraging first language use in L2 learning, the author appreciates inter- and multi-lingualism; thus L2 learners, as entities equipped with unique experiences and resources including their first language skills, need to be encouraged to make full use of their assets. What L2 writing practitioners attempt to accomplish through such an alternative pedagogy is their students’ idiosyncratic bilingual identities.
“Appreciating the beauty of second language poetry writing” is the first chapter by David I. Hanauer. This essay critically discusses the value of poetry writing as a genre of L2 writing pedagogy. According to the author, traditional L2 pedagogies have excessively focused on the accuracy of L2 writing as compared to native English users’ writing. This practice of assigning native speakers’ work as a reference drew L2 writers’ attention to how to copy other reference work with no trace of individual voice in their text; however, according to the author, poetry writing can be a genre that encourages L2 writers to meaningfully interact with their text and readers. Thus, the pedagogy of poetry writing may enable L2 learners to experience authentic and personally meaningful writing.
In the second chapter, “Learner and writer voices: Learners as writers and the search for authorial voice”, Jane Spiro deals with how L2 writers gain ownership of, and achieve a voice in, their texts; this involves the four steps of choosing published text, articulating the reason for their choice, applying reading insights to their writing, and reflecting on the writing process. The author notes a transition from reading-as-writer to writing-as-reader as an important process for emerging L2 writers to “notice” linguistic and stylistic features of a particular text. With a deep appreciation of other texts, L2 writers can produce their own creative writing full of their unique experiences.
The third chapter is “Is this how it’s supposed to work?: Poetry as a radical technology in L2 creative writing classrooms” written by the editor of the volume, Dan Disney. In this chapter, drawing on his pedagogical application of poetry in an EFL setting in South Korea, the author explores the availability of poetry as a creative genre for developing L2 writers’ self-exploration and expression. It is suggested that after some initial struggle to make creative decisions in their own poems, L2 writers, as competent poets, will be able to express their own voice and appropriate poetic devices.
“Literacy translation as a creative practice in L2 writing pedagogies” is the fourth chapter, in which the authors, Eugenia Loffredo and Manuela Perteghella, discuss the potentiality of “literary” translation as a creative practice when the focus is given to its process, but not to its product. That is, going beyond the traditional practice of replication void of meaning, translation can be used as a pedagogical tool enabling critical and creative interaction of L2 writers with texts. In exploring such values of literary translation, the authors explicate some changing aspects of creativity, with a particular focus on transformational and dialogical features.
“Process and product, means and ends: Creative writing in Macao” by Christopher Kelen is the fifth chapter; in this chapter the author examines how creative writing can be taught and learned in a non-native English speaking context, here Macao. Considering the significant effect of contextual factors on the process and product of creative writing pedagogies, this chapter presents the historical, cultural, and political background of Macao, where Confucian culture has been functioning as an underlying ideology. Along with specific contextual features of Macao, this chapter discusses predictable challenges of adopting creative writing, such as the rather passive attitude of the L2 learners towards language learning (although arising from their respect for the teacher) and a lack of appreciation of imagination in terms of academic achievement. Despite such difficulties, the author sees multiple sources of negotiation as a feature common to Macao and creative writing, and argues for a strong likelihood of successful creative writing through “a mentor-led process of negotiation.”
In Chapter 6, “Curriculum as cultural critique: Creative writing pedagogy in Hong Kong”, Eddie Tay explores the use of creative writing as a critical, pedagogical tool that can fully address social and cultural contexts. First, this chapter discusses how Hong Kong people have established instrumental and pragmatic attitudes toward the English language by looking into a sense of dispossession arising from a series of historical and political events. This contextual information is followed by an argument in support of creative writing full of personal, affective, potential meaning. The author further suggests why Hong Kong is the right place for adopting a critical pedagogy based on creative writing rather than on instrumental, academic writing.
The last chapter, “Co-constructing a community of creative writers: Exploring L2 identity formations through Bruneian playwriting” is written by Grace V. S. Chin. This chapter reports on how creative writing can function as a pedagogical tool for constructing L2 learners’ identities and their sense of community. Unlike the previous chapters focusing mostly on poetry, the target genre of this chapter is playwriting, where a written piece needs to be developed through a full collaboration with other members in a community. The author first introduces the notions of sociocultural aspects of L2 learning and identity development. Identifying the connection between cooperative social learning and creative writing, the author also explains how creative writing should be operationalized in the target context, Brunei, which is a collectivist society, as are other many Asian countries. Then, based on the role of dialogue in constructing a shared community, this chapter shows how dialogues are effectively working to co-construct creative knowledge and local identities as playwrights.
EVALUATION
This book is a valuable resource for L2 writing practitioners and researchers who hope to learn the value of a creative writing pedagogy and to better understand the way it should be practiced in a particular setting. This also provides a comprehensive explanation of why creative writing should be pursued in L2 learning contexts. Thus, for those who have mainly attended to linguistic accuracy in L2 writing development, this volume can serve to draw their attention to a basic, underlying purpose of writing: writing in order to convey a message to the reader. It is thus important for novice writers to be fully aware of a specific rhetorical situation when they are involved in the act of writing. As indicated in several chapters, traditional L2 writing pedagogies had a tendency to disregard this fundamental aspect of writing, resulting L2 writing lacking a writer’s personal voice and contextual understanding.
This is the primary concern each chapter of this volume attempts to address, and the author were convincing in presenting the need for a paradigmatic change in the teaching of L2 writing. According to the authors, through realizing their voice, L2 learners will be able to truly express themselves using their additional language, and they can finally gain the ownership of this new resource. In a similar vein, Widdowson (1994) notes that language ownership is a matter of using and adapting a language to one’s own meaning and wishes regardless of their nativeness. This critical argument, along with the concept of “World Englishes” (Kachru, 1997), seems to provide sufficient grounds for L2 creative writing.
Several different, but somewhat interlocking, ESL and EFL contexts are introduced in this book, ranging from international students in the UK (Chapter 2) to college students in Brunei (Chapter 7). The chapters in which Asian countries were chosen as target settings describe the historical and cultural background of each country in detail and explain how such factors have influenced and shaped the views of people towards second language learning. It is true that up-to-date teaching methodologies, such as task based instruction or communicative language teaching, have been derived from some English-speaking countries, so-called the inner circle (Kachru, 1997), and they have been widely adopted in the majority of EFL settings (i.e., the outer circle and the expanding circle) without much consideration of their unique contextual features. As illustrated in Chapters 3, 5, 6, and 7, however, it is essential for L2 writing practitioners (and researchers) to fully understand the specific contextual features and purpose of L2 learning. This book is a good starting point to connect such efforts with creative writing and a critical pedagogy.
Another worthwhile contribution of this book is that many chapters not only provide the theoretical underpinnings of creative writing (e.g., Freirian critical theory, sociocultural theory, community of practice, etc.) but also some detailed steps for practical applications. Since the notion and practice of creative writing is well grounded in theory, this book will provide the reader with insight into this socially oriented field of L2 writing. Together with the introduction of related theories, for example, given a recent trend of incorporating technology in L2 learning, the authors of Chapter 4 designed and introduced the creative translation workshop in the two formats of live and virtual settings. This seemed an interesting attempt to reflect fast changing features of L2 instruction and to realize best pedagogical practice.
On the organization side, the editor seems to put great effort into showing different aspects of the common theme of creative writing effectively. The volume started by problematizing a traditional practice of L2 writing and introduced several main features of creative writing in the following chapters, with poetry writing as a central genre of creative writing. Along with the majority of work revolving around the use of poetry, Chapter 7 suggests the use of playwriting as a possible genre of creative writing that promotes a cooperative atmosphere and community among learners. Wrapping up this book by dealing with a new genre opens up the possibility of extending the scope of creative writing to other written genres.
Additionally, this text clearly justifies why L2 writers should be encouraged to make full use of their linguistic resources including their L1 skills. In particular, Chapter 4 introduces the concept of multi-competence (Cook, 1991), suggesting that L2 learners have different linguistic systems than multilingual users; thus, monolingual native speakers cannot emulate bilinguals’ unique linguistic repertoires. Based on previous findings, creative writing is securely established as an alternative pedagogy to be pursued in order to promote authentic, purposeful writing.
Nevertheless, I still believe that no matter how important it is to support aesthetic aspects of writing, we should not underestimate the role of learners’ motivation for L2 learning since it is highly possible that many L2 learners are driven to exert much effort simply to achieve their external or instrumental motivation (e.g., acquiring a high score on a gatekeeping test). While a dichotomy between academic and creative writing was suggested in Chapter 6, it would be a great next step to develop a well-balanced L2 creative writing pedagogy that includes diversified genres and some academic aspects of writing, and considers a wide range of motivation for L2 learners. Lastly, since the book mainly targeted high proficiency, college-level L2 learners, it seems important to conduct further research to show how creative writing works differently with beginning L2 learners (or child learners).
Overall, this volume can be seen as a greatly valuable resource to possess, not only for L2 writing educators, but also for those who are interested in the fields of sociolinguistics, critical pedagogy, or ethnography. Reading this book will lead them to better comprehend the value of L2 writing as the realization of authentic writer voice that reflects the writer’s unique experiences in a specific context.
REFERENCES
Cook, Vivian. J. 1991. The poverty-of-the-stimulus argument and multi-competence. Second Language Research, 7(2), 103-117.
Kachru, Braj. B. 1997. World Englishes and English-using communities. Annual Review of Applied Linguistics, 17, 66-87.
Widdowson, Henry. 1994. The ownership of English. TESOL Quarterly, 28(2), 377-389.
ABOUT THE REVIEWER
Hyung-Jo Yoon earned his M.Ed. in TESOL from the University of Pennsylvania in 2013. He is now a Ph.D. student in the Second Language Studies program at Michigan State University. While studying as a Ph.D. student, he is currently teaching English as a second language at the English Language Center. His research interests center around second language writing, language assessment, second language acquisition and computational analysis of natural language. He is now working on a research project regarding the influence of genre on linguistic features and their development over time.
Page Updated: 13-May-2015