International Students' Multilingual Literacy Practices: An Asset-based Approach to Understanding Academic Discourse Socialization(109 New Perspectives on Language and Education)

This book presents the results of research that focused on international students receiving writing instruction on a US university campus. It explores how the students developed their foreign-student identities and their own ways of grappling with the unique issues they encountered as they worked to improve their academic literacy skills. The book extends the theoretical horizons of language socialization research by integrating insights from other disciplinary frameworks, such as a translingual approach, multilingual literacies and writing center theory, to explore international students’ university experiences. By adopting these varied lenses, the book provides readers with a more holistic, integrative and ecological understanding of students’ language and literacy development. The authors also investigate how a translingual pedagogy informs language instructors and literacy instructors in facilitating multilingual students’ academic literacy development across a variety of codes, registers, genres, modes and media.

Table of Contents:
Contributors Patricia A. Duff: Foreword: Examining and Experiencing Academic Discourse Socialization through Collaborative Research Introduction: Academic Socialization, International Students and Multilingual Literacies Chapter 1. Peter I. De Costa, Jongbong Lee and Wendy Li: Diversity Matters: Problematizing Academic Discourse Socialization in International Higher Education Chapter 2. Jongbong Lee and Wendy Li: Academic Socialization in a Collaborative Research Project: Developing Identities as Emergent Scholars Part 1 : Literacy Practices and Identity Development Chapter 3. Xiaowan Zhang: Second Language Academic Discourse Socialization, Identity and Agency: The Case of a Chinese International Student Chapter 4. Bree Straayer-Gannon and Xiqiao Wang: Reinventing Transnational Identities and Sponsors Part 2: Navigation of Resources and Services Chapter 5. Wenyue (Melody) Ma and Curtis Green-Eneix: International Chinese Students’ Navigation of Linguistic and Learning Resources Chapter 6. Myeongeun Son: International Students' Writing Development from an Activity Theory Perspective Chapter 7. Joseph Cheatle and Scott Jarvie: Responding to ELL Students Across Disciplines: Using Education Research to Inform Writing Center Practice Part 3: Theoretical and Pedagogical Orientations Chapter 8. Steven Fraiberg: Shifting from Linguistic to Spatial Repertoires: Extending and Enacting Translingual Perspectives in Our Research and Teaching Chapter 9. Xiqiao Wang: Writing About Where We Are From: Writing Across Languages, Genres and Spaces Wenhao Diao: Afterword Index

About the Author :
Peter I. De Costa is an Associate Professor in the Department of Linguistics, Languages, and Cultures and the Department of Teacher Education at Michigan State University, USA.  His primary research includes the role of identity, ideology, and emotion in SLA and language policy and planning. Wendy Li is an Assistant Professor in the Language and Culture Center at Duke Kunshan University, China. Her research interests include second language socialization, and second language identity and ideology. Jongbong Lee is an Assistant Professor in the Department of English at Cyber Hankuk University of Foreign Studies, South Korea. His research interests include second language acquisition and second language writing.

Review :
This exciting and innovative edited volume is the much-needed answer to the question of what socially responsible multilingual literacy practices in internationalized higher education look like. By viewing the socialization of academic discourse through an asset-based approach, the contributing authors have effectively focused their analyses of multilingual literacy practices on international students’ linguistic and cultural resources. A must-read for all those interested in multilingual literacies in these contexts. This volume offers valuable insights into academic discourse socialization in the context of international student mobility. Theoretically and methodologically innovative approaches are utilized to explore the complex and often contested socialization processes through which multilingual learners develop languages, literacies, and identities as part of global study and careers. In this timely collection, skillfully edited by De Costa, Li, and Lee, contributors examine the multilingual literacy practices of international students in a large US university. By honoring the linguistic resources and cultural identities of these students, the contributors offer exciting new insights about academic discourse socialization relevant to 21st Century institutions.