Hybridity Seminar

In this course, we will engage in extensive readings and analysis of hybrid discursive practices in the contexts of first, second, and foreign language use. Topics will include codeswitching, language mixing, language crossing, and the interplay between language use and identity formation. We will examine the effects of global economic forces on increasing transcultural flows of people in the forms of immigration, travel and tourism, the glocalization of popular culture such as music, Internet communications, and study abroad. These activities are creating new hybrid forms of language and cultural practices around the world which have many implications for second/foreign language learning and teaching. Some of the issues that these hybrid forms raise specifically for second language studies are:

1. How are global economic forces changing languages in their local context (e.g. Englishization of languages such as Japanese, Korean, German etc.)
2. What kinds of identities are performed among speakers when they use mixed languages, or languages which are not seen as 'belonging to them' (e.g. crossing)?
3. What new forms of linguistic expression are developing in popular culture? What implications do they have for nationalism, cultural borders, or the language classroom?
4. How do people experience shifts in their identity when learning a second/foreign language? To what degree do these shifts inhibit or aid language learning and language teaching?
5. What is the role of mixed languages or codeswitching in language learning and teaching? How does the concept of ‘multiplicity of the self’ become relevant for understanding learning, teaching, and use from a social-constructivist or post-structuralist perspective?

To address these issues, this course will focus on how language teaching and learning are influenced by transcultural flows (both real and imagined) through examining discourse analytic studies of hybrid language practices; equal time will be spent on course readings and class discussions of new and hybrid forms of social identity. Conceptual frameworks guiding the course include social constructionism, feminism, and post-modernism. We will follow a seminar format: participants will engage in small group discussions, make presentations on the readings, present data for in-class workshops, and make a final presentation of their course project.

Schedule of Readings and Assignments Due

January 9: Introduction to the course

January 16 HOLIDAY

January 23: Theoretical approaches to hybridity and narratives of language learning and use
Bhabha, Homi. 1997. Life at the border: Hybrid identities of the present. New
    Perspectives Quarterly, 14, 30-31.
Kraidy, Marwan. 2002. Hybridity in cultural globalization. Communication Theory 12,
    316-339.
Young, Robert. 1995. Hybridity and diaspora. Chapter in Colonial desire: Hybridity in
    theory, culture and race. London: Routledge.
  Driscoll, Susan. 2000. Language is more than words. In K. Ogulnick (ed.) Language crossings:
    Negotiating the self in a     multicultural world (pp. 79-84). NY: Teachers College Press.
  Mancuso, Carolina, & Rodgers, David. 2000. Speaking the culture. In K.
    Ogulnick (ed.) Language crossings: Negotiating the self in a multicultural world
    (pp. 151-158). NY: Teachers College Press.
  Mora, Raimundo. 2000. Identity conflicts and literacy development in first and
    second languages. In K. Ogulnick (ed.) Language crossings: Negotiating the self
    in a multicultural world (pp. 51-56). NY: Teachers College Press.
  Venkateswaran, Pramila. 2000. Language, exile and discovery. In K. Ogulnick (ed.) Language
    crossings: Negotiating the self in a multicultural world (pp. 59-63). NY: Teachers College Press.

January 30: Linguistic hybridity: Challenges to monolingualism and discrete multilingualism
Anzaldua, Gloria. 1999. How to tame a wild tongue. In Borderlands, (pp. 77-86). San
    Francisco: Aunt Lute Books.
Jaffe, Alexandra. 2000. Comic performance and the articulation of a hybrid identity.
    Pragmatics, 10, 39-59.
Sebba, Mark, & Wootton, T. 1998. We, they, and identity. In P. Auer (ed.)
    Codeswitching in conversation (pp. 262-286). London: Routledge.

February 6: Linguistic hybridity: Challenges to nationalism
Lam, Wan Shun Eva. 2004. Second language socialization in a bilingual chat room:
   Global and local considerations. Language Learning & Technology, 8, 44-65.
Lee, Jamie Shinhee. 2004. Linguistic hybridization in K-Pop: Discourse of self-assertion
    and resistance. World Englishes, 23, 429-450.
Pennycook, Alastair. 2003. Global Englishes, Rip Slyme, and performativity. Journal of
   Sociolinguistics, 7, 513-533.

February 13: Ethnic hybridity: Contesting the construct of race
Kim, Judy Heesung. 2001. Asian Americans: Refuting the myth, changing faces. In B. Merchant & A.
    Willis (eds.) Multiple and intersecting identities in qualitative research (pp. 103-133). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.
Rampton, Ben. 2005. Chs. 1 & 2 in Crossing: Language and ethnicity among adolescents (2nd ed.)
    Manchester: St. Jerome Publishing.
Yamaguchi, Masataka. 2005. Discursive representation and enactment of national identities: The case of
    generation 1.5 Japanese. Discourse & Society, 16, 269-299.

February 20 HOLIDAY

February 27: Gender/sexuality hybridity
Hall, Kira. 2005. Intertextual sexuality: Parodies of class, identity, and desire in liminal
    Delhi. Journal of Linguistic Anthropology, 15, 125-144.
Miller, Laura. 2004. Those naughty teenage girls: Japanese Kogals, slang, and media
    assessments. Journal of Linguistic Anthropology 14, 225-247.
Ogulnick, Karen. 1998. Chs. 4, 7, 8 & 9 Onna Rashiku (Like a Woman): The diary of
    a language learner in Japan. Albany: State University of New York Press.

March 6: Language study as border study and border crossing
Chapman, David, & Hartley, Barbara. 2000. Close encounters of the unhomely kind:
    Negotiating identity and Japan literacy. Japanese Studies, 20, 269-279.
Kramsch, Claire. 1993. Language study as border study: Experiencing difference.
    European Journal of Education, 28, 349-358.
Vitanova, Gergana. 2005. Authoring the self in a non-native language: A dialogic
    approach to agency and subjectivity. In J. K. Hall, G. Vitanova, & L. Marchenkova (eds.)
    Dialogue with Bakhtin on second and foreign language learning (pp. 149-169). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.

March 13 Student Presentations

March 20: Hybrid literacies and the multiplicity of the self in academic contexts
Braxley, Karen. 2005. Mastering academic English: International graduate students’ use
    of dialogue and speech genres to meet the writing demands of graduate school. In J. K.
Hall, G. Vitanova, & L. Marchenkova (eds.) Dialogue with Bakhtin on second and foreign language
     learning (pp. 11-32). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.
Chiang, Yuet-Sim, & Schmida, Mary. 1999. Language identity and language ownership:
Linguistic conflicts of first-year university writing students. In L. Harklau, K. Losey, &
    M. Siegal (eds.) Generation 1.5 meets college composition (pp. 81-96). Mahwah, NJ:
    Erlbaum.
Kramsch, Claire. 2000. Social discursive constructions of self in L2 learning. In J.
    Lantolf (ed.) Sociocultural theory and second language learning (pp. 133-153). Oxford.

March 27-31 SPRING BREAK

April 3 Student Presentations

April 10: Biculturalism
Kanno, Yasuko. 2003. Chs. 1, 6, 7, & 8 in Negotiating bilingual and bicultural identities:
    Japanese returnees betwixt two worlds. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.
Piller, Ingrid. 2002. We are citizens of the world: Identity and cross-cultural couplehood.
    Ch. 7 in Bilingual couples talk: The discursive construction of hybridity (pp. 183-219).
    Amsterdam: Benjamins.

April 17 Student Presentations

April 24 Student Presentations

May 1 Student Presentations, Course Evaluations