Transnational Literacy Autobiographies As Translingual Writing

291 Pages·2020·3.331 MB·English

by  Suresh Canagarajah

TRANSNATIONAL LITERACY
AUTOBIOGRAPHIES AS
TRANSLINGUAL WRITING
The literacy autobiography is a personal narrative reflecting on how one’s experiences of
spoken and written words have contributed to their ongoing relationship with language
and literacy. Transnational Literacy Autobiographies as Translingual Writing is a cutting-edge
study of this engaging genre of writing in academic and professional contexts.
In this state-of-the-art collection, Suresh Canagarajah brings together 11 samples of
writing by students that both document their literary journeys and pinpoint the seminal
works affecting their development as translingual readers and writers. Integrating the
narrative of the author, which is written as his own literacy autobiography, with a close
analysis of these texts, this book:
• presents a case for the literacy autobiography as an archetypal genre that prepares
writers for the conventions and processes required in other genres of writing;
• demonstrates the serious epistemological and rhetorical implications behind the genre
of literacy autobiography among migrant scholars and students;
• effectively translates theoretical publications on language diversity for classroom
purposes, providing a transferable teaching approach to translingual writing;
• analyzes the tropes of transnational writers and their craft in “meshing” translingual
resources in their writing;
• demonstrates how transnationalism and translingualism are interconnected, guiding
readers toward an understanding of codemeshing not as a cosmetic addition to texts
but motivated toward resolving inescapable personal and social dilemmas.
Written and edited by one of the most highly regarded linguists of his generation, this
book is key reading for scholars and students of applied linguistics, TESOL, and literacy
studies, as well as tutors of writing and composition worldwide.
Suresh Canagarajah is Edwin Erle Sparks Professor of Applied Linguistics, English, and
Asian Studies, and is Director of the Migration Studies Project in the Departments of
Applied Linguistics and English at Pennsylvania State University, USA.

TRANSNATIONAL LITERACY
AUTOBIOGRAPHIES AS
TRANSLINGUAL WRITING
Suresh Canagarajah
First published 2020
by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
and by Routledge
52 Vanderbilt Avenue, New York, NY 10017
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© 2020 selection and editorial matter, Suresh Canagarajah; individual chapters, the
contributors
The right of Suresh Canagarajah to be identified as the author of the editorial
material, and of the authors for their individual chapters, has been asserted in
accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised
in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or
hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information
storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.
Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered
trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to
infringe.
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Canagarajah, A. Suresh, author.
Title: Transnational literacy autobiographies as translingual writing / Suresh
Canagarajah.
Description: Abingdon, Oxon ; New York, NY : Routledge, 2019. | Includes
bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2019009068 | ISBN 9780367201821 (hardback) | ISBN
9780367201838 (pbk.) | ISBN 9780429259999 (e-book)
Subjects: LCSH: Multilingualism—Social aspects. | Literacy—Social aspects. |
Multilingual persons—Biography. | Biography as a literary form.
Classification: LCC P115.45 .C363 2019 | DDC 306.44/6083—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019009068
ISBN: 978-0-367-20182-1 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-0-367-20183-8 (pbk)
ISBN: 978-0-429-25999-9 (ebk)
Typeset in Bembo
by Apex CoVantage, LLC
CONTENTS

Acknowledgments vii

PART I

A teacher’s literacy autobiography 1

Part I introduction: கற்பனை—an invitation 3

1 Literacy autobiographies in transnational space 16

2 The shaping of literacy autobiographies 36

3 Emergence of the translingual subject 49

4 Negotiation strategies in transnational literacy 69

5 Dispositions of transnational literacies 96

6 கறற் து னக மண் ணளவு கல்லாதது உலகளவு
124
PART II

Students’ literacy autobiographies 155

Part II introduction 157

7 Writing toward beauty 159

Ruth Parrish Sauder
vi Contents
8 Rediscovering heritage identity through literacy 175
Bendi Tso
9 Writing with a Chinese heart 181
Lifeng Miao
10 Image and learning: the story of my literacy 190
Jialei Jiang
11 The mermaid’s immortal soul: myth, disillusionment,
and the birth of a translingual identity 198
Randi Anderson
12 Negotiating contrasting languages and rhetorics 218
Jingjing Lai
13 Beyond contrastive rhetoric: my first and second language
literacy development 228
Shuo Zhao
14 Shuttling between three languages and rhetorics 235
Xiaoqing Ge
15 Reconstructing voice: a personal journey 242
Eunjeong Lee
16 Buenos Aires mon Amour: memories from learning to
become a pluriliterate teacher 253
Natalia Guzman
17 Recreation and education: exploring my embodied
engagement in English and Korean literacies 262
Michael Chesnut
Index 276
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

As it is customary in this space, I’ll bemoan the difficulties in writing a book before thank­
ing everyone who made it a success. But I’ll do it with a twist. I will reflect on the chal­
lenges of writing a book that goes against dominant publishing conventions.
To present both my own teacher narrative and the literacy autobiographies that emerged
from my teaching requires a lot of space. Many publishers balked at the prospect, as it
would take the book beyond acceptable space and price conventions for marketability.
They wanted my narrative without those of my students. Eventually, I made some compro­
mises: I chose a few student narratives and published some online, and we agreed to forego
royalties to make this economically feasible.
Publishing a book that involves multiple languages also created challenges. Publish­
ers wanted at the titles of chapters in English, or least translated, as they mentioned that
English titles were needed for metadata, visibility, and retrieval. I declined.
I faced problems with narratives that were allusive, quoting from literary texts or
embedding images. Unlike scholarly publications that provide a generous allowance for
fair use, literary works require permission for every word. In quoting from different lan­
guages, we had to trace publishers in different countries. I realized that textual ownership
is the enemy of creative writing. Finally, we had a rephrase many lines and avoid direct
quotes in order to go ahead with publishing, when we didn’t succeed in establishing con­
tact with the authors or publishers. In the case of two students who incorporated excessive
literary allusions and images, we had to pull their essays out as we didn’t succeed in getting
permissions.
The personal nature of this writing also created challenges. Some students felt vulner­
able making publicly available their critical and honest opinions about their cultures and
life trajectories. Two students pulled out their essays at a late stage, after considerable inter­
nal debate on going forward with the publication.
I thank Lizzie Cox and folks at Routledge for their patience in working with us on these
difficult challenges. They allowed us considerable flexibility in nudging the policies and
conventions to proceed with this publication.
Two student writers featured in this book, Randi Anderson and Michael Chesnut, com­
mented extensively on the manuscript. While I taught them writing and critiqued their
viii Acknowledgments
drafts in course work, they outdid me in their criticisms to make this a better book. I thank
two colleagues with a deep interest in teacher research and narratives, Rashi Jain and Anna
Kaiper, for their comments. In keeping with the layers of reflexivity in the production of
this book, I also shared the manuscript with students in a doctoral seminar on the Theory
and Teaching of Composition. I thank Shannon Brooke, Yulia Khoruzhaya, Lera Mina­
kova, Kaitlin Ruiz, and Lauren Ward for their helpful comments.
As you can infer, resistant writing and teaching is not possible without changing the
publishing industry, textual ownership, and marketing practices. Despite the compromises
and losses my students and I had to accept, it was worth the effort to push against the con­
ventions of academic publishing. I had to constantly remind myself of that Latin American
maxim that I first uttered as a teenager growing up in rural Sri Lanka: “La lucha continua!”
Suresh Canagarajah
Happy Valley, Pennsylvania
Excerpt(s) from MISS RUMPHIUS by Barbara Cooney, copyright © 1982 by Barbara
Cooney Porter. Used by permission of Viking Children’s Books, an imprint of Penguin
Young Readers Group, a division of Penguin Random House LLC. All rights reserved.
PART I

A teacher’s literacy
autobiography