1. English 343-001
January, 30 2012

2. Agenda
Discussion Topics
 Reminders/Announcements
 Going over last week‟s readings
 Identity: Holliday et. al.: Being represented, Multi-facedness,
artifacts of culture, identity cards,
 Narrative Inquiry
 Identity Narratives
 Group Project: Analyzing Identity Narratives
 Kumaravadivelu Chapter 2

3. Reminders/Announcements
 Class Blog: http://crossculturalissuestesol001.blogspot.com/
Learning log contents (550 words minimum—2 pages, double space):
1) Summary of the articles
2) Your reflections, critique.
3) Connection to your own teaching and learning experiences
4) Further questions
Recommended: Bring a copy of your blog entry/critical response paper to
class each week.
 Sing up sheet and blog helps ( 3:30)
 Syllabus missing pages
 Due date change for the Language and culture trajectory assignment

4. Message from Kasia, the director of ELI. If interested,
sign up at the end of the class!
 "The Conversation Partners program matches ELI students with
community members who would be willing to meet and talk to
an international student one hour per week. There is no
expectation of teaching or following any curriculum during these
meetings, and it is not a program to help American students
practice their foreign language (though an exchange of an hour
of English for an hour of an ELI student's native language is
possible if both parties agree to it). The sole purpose of the
meetings is to give the ELI students an opportunity to practice
their speaking skills by interacting with an English speaker. Once
we match the students with their conversation partners, the two
parties make the necessary arrangements and the schedule for
meetings. We recommend that the partners meet in public
places (e.g. the library, a coffee house, etc.). Only students
who know that they can handle the commitment of a weekly
one-hour meeting consistently throughout the semester should
sign up for this experience."

5. Overview of concepts
from last week

6. Group Work (create your own chart based on
Holliday et. al table and article on page 72-
75!)
Essentialist view of culture Non-essentialist view of culture
Culture as a noun: It has a specific Culture as a verb: Societies display
entity. It‟s homogeneous. complex characteristics which are hard
to pin down. Culture as “unbounded,
kaleidoscopic and dynamic” (Heath &
Street, 2008)
People in one culture essentially Cultures flow as people intermingle.
different from people in another Cultures have blurred boundaries
People belonging exclusively to one People can belong to and move through
national/linguistic/cultural group multiplicity of cultures within and
across societies.
For successful communication with Understanding the complexity of who
someone foreign, we must first the person is. Moving beyond media
understand the details and stereotype representations. Being open minded.
of their culture.

7. Recent examinations of culture
Post-modern/post structural: Culture is no neatly packaged
entities. They are NOT exclusive bodies of customs, values and
thoughts. They are NOT perfectly shared by all who subscribe to
them.
Contact zone: The social spaces where cultures meet, clash, and
grapple with each other, often in highly asymmetrical relations of
power, such as colonialism, slavery, or their aftermaths as they
lived out in many parts of the world today”. (Pratt, 1991, p. 34)—
bordercrossing/borderlands by Andaldua.
Cultures as travelling (Clifford): Unrooted, permeable, ever-
developing and changing.

8. Six principles of culture
(Atkinson, 1999)
1. All humans are individual
2. Individuality is also cultural
3. Social group membership and identity are multiple,
contradictory, and dynamic.
4. Social Group membership is consequential.
5. Methods of studying cultural knowledge and behavior are
unlikely to fit a positivist paradigm.
6. Language (learning and teaching) and culture are mutually
implicated, but culture is multiple and complex.
Think about what these statements mean for you? What are the
implications for TESOL?

9. Discussion: Definitions of culture
1) A culture is “a text the vocabulary and grammar of which its
members learn” (Fay, 1996)
2) “Culture is a verb” (Street, 1991)
3) Culture is an “evolving connected activity, not a thing”. (Fay,
1996).
4) Believing…that man is an animal suspended in webs of
significance he himself has spun, I take culture to be those
webs (Geertz, 1973)

10. Important terms and concepts
HOLLIDAY ET AL.: KUMARAVADIVELU,
2006 CHPATER 2
 Ethnic reductionism  Habitus
(Baumann)
 Cultural capital
 Cultural essentialism
 Otherization/cultural
 Nonessentialism otherization
 Liberal multiculturalism  The principle of linguistic
(Holliday, Kubota)
relativity
 Small cultures and large
cultures  Whorfian hypothesis
(strong vs weak version)

11. Pavlenkov & Holliday et al
Identity, Narrative inquiry

12. Identity and language
 Languages are not only markers of identity but also sites of
resistance, empowerment, solidarity, or discrimination.
 Giddens says our identities are reflexively organized information
about possible ways of life (how to act and how to be). What a
person is understood to be varies across cultures—do you agree
with this?
 One‟s identity is not set and stone; it is not only in the behavior
or people‟s reactions, but it‟s in the narrative you tell about
yourself. It integrates events which occur in your world—It‟s an
ongoing story about self.
 Do you see your identity as a matter of keeping “a particular
narrative going” or would you use another metaphor? What
metaphor would you use to describe your identity. Explain your
metaphor.

13. Discussion questions on identity
 How is identity of one individual created?
 To what extend is any one individual‟s identity a matter
of personality and to what extent do influences from
the socio-cultural context impact?
 If identities do change, what factors are responsible for
such change?
 What‟s the relationship between language and identity?

14. Holliday A.1.1 Deep seated
essentialism: Discussion on Parisa
 Summarize Parisa‟s example.
 What did you make out of the comments that Parisa
received from her colleagues? What are some of the
essentialist attributes behind Parisa‟s colleagues‟
behaviors? Give instances from the excerpt where Parisa
was “othered” or “misrepresented” (be specific)
 How do you think Parisa‟s colleagues would act if they
were holding a non-essentialist view of culture? (see pg.
11)
Discussion: Think of a situation you have been in which is
like the Perisa example and describe it in similar detail.

15. Important terms
 Multi-facetedness of people: the person being described has
some stereotypical characteristics of his/her original culture
(e.g. wearing head covering) but also has unique characteristics
that are not stereotypical (such as being outgoing, creative,
articulate). One should be sensitive to use a thick description
rather than a superficial description. In this thick description
look at the complexity of a particular situation from different
examples.
 Thick-description (Clifford Geertz): Seeing and explaining the
complexity of a social event by looking at it from different layers
(see the figure on pg 9)
A thick description of a human behavior or a social event explains
not just the behavior, but its context so that the behavior becomes
meaningful to an outsider (see emic vs etic levels of cultural
analysis on page 241—dangers of contrasting selves)

16. A.1.2: Chinese teaches
 Cultural Resources: Aspects of culture which exists
in our society which we can draw on at different
times for different reasons. In different settings
you draw upon different things. This depends on
time, where you are at, and whom you are with.
What was going on in the Chinese teachers example
on page 12? How is Chinese society represented by
Zhang and Ming?

17. Cultural identity and
deconstruction of self
 What people say about their own cultural identity
should be read as the image they wish to project at a
particular time rather than as an evidence of an
essentialist national culture (p. 13)
Have you experienced a situation similar to the Chinese
teachers? What are some of the differing ideologies we
hold as teachers about our own pedagogical practices in
the U.S.? Is there a unified way of explaining our
experience? What are the cultural resources you draw as
you form your ideologies about teaching ESL/EFL or any
other subject?

18.  We are linked through a common experience, we have
our icons, our ideologies and our communal history to
draw on, and we encapsulate all of this in our
discourses. Because all of us inhabit different cultural
groups, we are in fact all unique in our cultural
identities (p. 19)

19. Who is Aneta Pavlenko?
 Professor of TESOL at Temple
University, NY.
 Winner of the 2009 TESOL
Award for Distinguished
Research and of the British
Association
 Research Interests:
Multilingualism, bilingualism,
immigrant narratives,
language and identity.
 Check out her website!

20. Krystal says…
 The article that we read for class was very interesting. It is about identity
and more specifically about how autobiographies, “play a central role in the
process of identity negotiation in writing” (Pavlenko 34). As stated in the
article, an autobiography is an example of identity narratives. The focus on
this article was about memoirs, specifically those that were written by first
generation immigrants. As soon as I began reading I began to think how these
narratives can help researchers and people in the present time get an idea as
to what first generation immigrants‟ lives‟ were like. Everything from what
they wore, ate, where they lived, and how they lived. I can relate to
learning through narrative readings from the times that my grandma has
shown me writings that my grandpa wrote when he first arrived in the United
States. From these writing I could mentally construct an identity of how he
was like at that time, how the community was like, and his feelings that
surrounded the process of moving and leaving his family back home. Unlike
the many memoirs noted in the article from various immigrants, my
Grandfather‟s story is a little different.

21. Krystal‟s narrative…
 He came here in hops of finding a job so that he could provide for his family in
Mexico. He came to the United States during the era in which they were letting
immigrants from Mexico come here to work. Unlike the immigrants in the memoirs
written, my grandfather did not go to school nor did he get into the
publication/writing business. He first worked on a field and then made his way to
working for a railroad company out in California. Like clockwork, my Grandfather
would send money to my Grandmother in Mexico along with the hope that she,
and their children, could join him in the Untied States. It was not long until that
dream became a reality. Both my grandparents had to go through countless
obstacles, such as the language barrier and ridicule for being an immigrant, among
other things. However, they were able to provide for their family and have a
comfortable way of living. Without proper higher-level education (i.e. college),
my Grandparents were still able to live well, raise all ten of their children and
help them assimilate into their new culture and ways of living. Yes, it would have
been easier if my grandparents would have spoken English, would have known all
of the socially acceptable norms of living, and if they would have received a
college education. Nevertheless, they managed. Their hard work and perseverance
paid of.

22. Fabiola says..
 After reading Pavlenko‟s work this was one of the main sentences
that stood out to me, “second language learning was
transformed into a painful journey, involving a loss of primary
identities linked to the mother tongue” (63). We live an America
which is full of diversity and people with various backgrounds.
Years ago people came to this country speaking a wide range of
languages and even the indigenous people had their own
language at that time. However, nowadays it is seen as a defivit
and students learning English or any other language go through a
very rough time because it is not looked at as accepting in the
country. Learning a new language should not mean giving up who
you are and losing your mother language. Instead, it should be
an addition to your identity that is always changing and
progressing. I associated the “painful journey” to the education
systems that have many controversial issues with implementing
adequate services for the language learners.

23. Laura says…
 Pavlenko states “In this perspective, identity is viewed as a dynamic and shifting
nexus of multiple subject positions, or identity options, such as mother,
accountant, homosexual or Latina (35).” Pavlenko and Holliday both share the
idea that identity should be thought of as a non-essential view.This article also
states that narrative identities are best shown in autobiographies, and the focus
of the article is about memoirs written by first generation immigrants who came
to the US as children or adults and discuss their story of assimilation. This seems
to be a touchy subject for some people. I know for my family is it a very touchy
subject. My grandma immigrated to the US from Italy when she was a child. My
great-grandma sent her off to school with limited English proficiency. On the first
day of school, my grandma was sent home early with a note that said she was not
allowed back until she spoke full English. Horrified, my great-grandmother vowed
that Italian was no longer allowed in the household.
 With this experience, my grandmother does not understand, nor value for that
matter, school systems, or the government going out of their way to help
immigrants. She believes because she did it and it was expected then, it should be
expected now. Those are the types of mindsets that need to be broken. It is a
completely different time era and we have a plethora of technological advances
on our side to help educate. Not only do we need to educate those who are
learning our language, we need to educate those who think poorly upon those that
need the help.

24. Lance says…
 Overall, I found Pavlenko‟s article to be fascinating. I love the idea of
using autobiographical material as the basis of her scholarship. There are
many interesting themes brought out by this article that I could talk
about, but the section where Pavlenko reveals how immigrants
presented their experiences of learning English is what I most want to
focus on in this response. Pavlenko stated, “When depicted at all,
second language learning is portrayed as an enterprise which proceeds
through a series of comic blunders to a happy conclusion” (Pavlenko 50).
It seems strange that so little focus is put on learning English as, for
most immigrants even today, learning the native language is a crucial
part of adapting to everyday life. I would suppose that learning the
„native‟ language of America would have been considered even more
important a century ago, so I find the lack of emphasis to be quite
curious. Additionally, picking up a language with the ease and speed
described by the immigrant narratives would make any human being an
outlier of the general populous irregardless of the time period.

25. Lance continues…
 The only difference is, as alluded to by Pavlenko, a difference in society.
I think the difference is the rise of a non-essentialist view of culture. In
contemporary academic and political discourse, language and the how
and why people should or should not learn them is a controversial topic
that is constantly discussed. The debate, as I see it, lies between the
essentialist and non-essentialist, whether they call themselves by these
terms or not, parties. The essentialists who are generally calling for
assimilation of some sort and the non-essentialist who are claiming that
the falsity of an „American‟ culture gives the essentialist no right to
demand such a thing. At the time of the autobiographies in question, a
non-essentialist view of culture would have been unheard of which
would have made assimilation theories the norm. As a result, only the
narratives that supported and showed success within this framework rose
to popularity. I don‟t think this is because of any malicious intent on the
part of the authors or even an attempt at propaganda, but rather that
they (or anyone for that matter) had even thought of culture in anything
other than a traditional essentialist way. It isn‟t that they agreed or
disagreed with any certain theory on how to engage cultures, but that an
engagement with culture different than how they had been conditioned
would have been impossible at that point in history

26. Identity narratives
 Narratives constructed about the identity of the speaker
and about the community of which she or he is a
member.
 Imagined community: a community in which you
imagine yourself (Anderson‟s, 1991). Feeling attachment
to a group members of whom you have never met.

27. Pavlenko‟s study
 Analysis of 11 narrative of immigrant memoirs and
autobiographies published between the years of 1901 and
1935.
 Methodology: A sociohistoric approach to study personal
narratives” which sees autobiography as a literary and
sociological form that creates particular images of subjects in
particular historical moments” (genre that is shaped by the
local contexts)
 Research questions: which identities are negotiated? What is
the role of language? Does the portray of second language
learning in 20th century differs from those in immigrant
autobiographies?

28. The analysis of earlier narratives
 Inequality between immigrants.
 Some felt the need to establish and argue for their
Americanness.
 English was seen as the key of assimilation, but the
omission of “language” in the earlier narratives is
intriguing. (see the examples)
 Stories of “happy linguistic assimilation”: Second
language learning as a successful and easy process. No
mention of linguistic discrimination.

29. The analysis of later narratives
 Linguistic hybridity
 Recognition of ethnicity, race and gender.
 Linguistic identities are negotiated in different ways
according to the narrators sociohistorical realities.
 National identity became strongly bound to
monolingalism in English.
 Present immigrants find themselves in a situation where
learning English means giving up the first language.
 Accounts of painful experiences

30. Identity narrative analysis
 In your groups read the narratives from three different
groups. What are some of the emerging themes do you
see in these narratives? How do they negotiate their
identities? How is second language and culture learning
represented?
1. Narrative excerpts from “The inner world of the
immigrant child”
2. Narrative excerpts from Eva Hoffman, Fen Shen, H.Kim

31. Narrative analysis
Analyzing language choices and content:
 Examine the audience the narrator chose to address and why?
 What are the implications of this linguistic choice for their narrative?
Which events in their learning trajectory have become particularly
significant and which have likely been omitted as a result of this choice?
 Were the stories elicited in two languages or just one? Is it possible that
proficiency or attrition have influenced the manner of the presentation
or the amount of detail offered by the narrator? Did the language of the
story correspond to the language in which the events in question took
place?
 What are some of the emerging themes you see in these narratives? How
do they negotiate their identities? How is second language and culture
learning represented?
REPORT YOUR FINDINGS TO THE WHOLE CLASS

32. Assignments
 Catch up with your learning logs as soon as you can.
 Next week: Readings, writing a learning log
Happy reading! Happy blogging!