Exploring Second Language Creative Writing: Beyond Babel(19 Linguistic Approaches to Literature)

Exploring Second Language Creative Writing continues the work of stabilizing the emerging Creative Writing (SL) discipline. In unique ways, each essay in this book seeks to redefine a tripartite relationship between language acquisition, literatures, and identity. All essays extend B.B. Kachru’s notion of “bilingual creativity” as an enculturated, shaped discourse (a mutation of the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis). Creative Writing (SL), a new subfield to emerge from Stylistics, extends David Hanauer’s Poetry as Research (2010); situating a suite of methodologies and interdisciplinary pedagogies, researchers in this book mobilize theories from Creativity Studies, TESOL, TETL, Translation Studies, Linguistics, Cultural Studies, and Literary Studies. Changing the relationship between L2 writers and canonized literary artefacts (from auratic to dialogic), each essay in this text is essentially Freirean; each chapter explores dynamic processes through which creative writing in a non-native language engages material and phenomenological modes toward linguistic pluricentricity and, indeed, emancipation.

Table of Contents:
1. Introduction: Beyond Babel? Exploring second language creative writing (by Disney, Dan); 2. Chapter 1. Appreciating the beauty of second language poetry writing (by Hanauer, David I.); 3. Chapter 2. Learner and writer voices: Learners as writers and the search for authorial voice (by Spiro, Jane); 4. Chapter 3. "Is this how it's supposed to work?": Poetry as a radical technology in L2 creative writing classrooms (by Disney, Dan); 5. Chapter 4. Literary translation as a creative practice in L2 writing pedagogies (by Loffredo, Eugenia); 6. Chapter 5. Process and product, means and ends: Creative Writing in Macao (by Kelen, Christopher); 7. Chapter 6. Curriculum as cultural critique: Creative Writing pedagogy in Hong Kong (by Tay, Eddie); 8. Chapter 7. Co-constructing a community of creative writers: Exploring L2 identity formations through Bruneian playwriting (by Chin, Grace V.S.); 9. References; 10. Notes on contributors; 11. Name index; 12. Subject index

Review :
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.