Literacy Practices in Transition

Perspectives from the Nordic Countries

By Anne Pitkänen-Huhta, Lars Holm

Multilingual Matters

Copyright © 2012 Anne Pitkänen-Huhta, Lars Holm and the authors of individual chapters
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-84769-840-7

Contents

Contributors,
Preface,
Literacy Practices in Transition: Setting the Scene Lars Holm and Anne Pitkänen-Huhta,
Part 1: Literacy and Identities in Transition,
1 Narratives on Literacies: Adult Migrants’ Identity Construction in Interaction Anne Golden and Elizabeth Lanza,
2 Literacy in Negotiating, Constructing and Manifesting Identities: The Case of Migrant Unaccompanied Asylum-Seeking Children in Sweden Åsa Wedin,
3 Privileging Identity Positions and Multimodal Communication in Textual Practices: Intersectionality and the (Re)Negotiation of Boundaries Sangeeta Bagga-Gupta,
Part 2: Local Practices in Transition,
4 Multilingual Classrooms as Sites of Negotiations of Language and Literacy Line Møller Daugaard and Helle Pia Laursen,
5 Skills as Performances: Literacy Practices of Finnish Sixth-Graders Mia Halonen,
6 Multimodality in the Science Classroom Monica Axelsson and Kristina Danielsson,
7 Discourses of Literacy on an International Master’s Programme: Examining Students’ Academic Writing Norms Laura McCambridge and Anne Pitkänen-Huhta,
Part 3: Policies and Practices in Transition,
8 Localizing Supranational Concepts of Literacy in Adult Second Language Teaching Lars Holm and Sari Pöyhönen,
9 Teacher Reflections Under Changing Conditions for Literacy Learning in Multicultural Schools in Oslo Anne Marit Vesteraas Danbolt and Lise Iversen Kulbrandstad,
10 Bilingual Teachers: Making a Difference? Rita Hvistendahl,
Afterword On the Move: Transitions in Literacy Research David Barton,

CHAPTER 1

Narratives on Literacies: Adult Migrants’ Identity Construction in Interaction

Anne Golden and Elizabeth Lanza

Introduction

The ways in which people use and evaluate reading and writing are embedded in conceptions of knowledge and identity (Prinsloo & Baynham, 2008), while narratives provide insight into views of the self and other within a cultural context, and hence identity. The relationship between narrative and identity can be perceived as operating at various levels, as De Fina (2003) points out, including the use of narrative resources identifying the speaker as a member of a specific community, the use of stories through which social roles are negotiable and the use of the negotiation of membership into communities that share common beliefs and values. Among these common beliefs and values are ideological stances toward literacy. In this chapter, we will address the issue of identity construction that occurs in the presentation and positioning of self in social experiences related to literacy and language learning in the narratives of migrants to Norway. As migrants encounter new languages and cultures, they also encounter new dimensions to literacy, either initial literacy or further literacy in a new language. Migrants’ narratives inevitably involve ideological stances toward language learning and literacy and are thus fruitful sites for investigating identity construction in interaction.

Literacy is here understood in line with ‘New Literacy Studies’ as ‘situated social practices embedded within relations of culture and power in specific contexts’ (Prinsloo & Baynham, 2008: 2). Construing literacy as (a set of) social practices, studies within this perspective emphasize ‘what people do with literacy’ (Barton & Hamilton, 2000: 9) and thus encompass the negotiations of selves within these different relations. Hence literacy practices involve values, attitudes, ideologies and social relationships – in sum, how people in a particular culture construct literacy and how they talk about literacy and make sense of it. According to Street (1993), literacy practices are not observable units of behaviour since they involve values, attitudes, feelings and social relationships, including people’s awareness of literacy, constructions of literacy and discourses of literacy. Literacy events, however, involve reading and writing, and the conception of events stresses the situated, contextualized nature of literacy, that is that literacy always exists in a sociocultural context (Barton & Hamilton, 2000; Lewis et al., 2007).

Through the lens of narratives of personal experience in conversational interaction, we will investigate various ways through which adult migrants position themselves and provide ideological stances towards language learning and literacy, and thus construct identities. We will examine the choice of narratives the adult migrants introduce into an interaction and the linguistic resources the individual employs in the performance of the narratives in interaction. Both language learning and literacy are critical in a postmodern text-based society like Norway, and success in these domains empowers individuals, providing them with added social capital. We will explore these issues through an interactional analysis involving highly skilled migrants with different cultural and linguistic backgrounds.

In the discussion that follows, we first present the notion of identity that motivates our study and in particular the issue of identity in narrative. Stance-taking, agency and categorization are important components in identity construction and will be brought up in this regard. Then we present current research on literacy that focuses on identity and narrative. Subsequently, we present the database that ultimately forms the core of our analysis. In conclusion, we discuss the implications of our results for language education of understandings of complex blendings of cultural and linguistic diversity in communities and institutions, and of new cultural identities and practices.

Identity in Narrative

A recurring theme in narrative inquiry, framed within a poststructuralist approach to the study of the self and the other, is the notion of identity, or rather identities (Bamberg et al., 2007; Benwell & Stokoe, 2006). The individual can negotiate and construct many identities along various social axes, including ideological stances to literacy (Lanza & Svendsen, 2007). The approach to the study of identities taken in this chapter is a constructionist one in which identities are perceived as negotiated and emergent in interpersonal communication – the study of how identity emerges at various analytical levels and how these resources gain social meaning (cf. Bucholtz & Hall, 2005).

Narratives structure our experience, our knowledge and our thoughts (Brockmeier & Carbaugh, 2001: 1) and provide a window to the study of identity. Emphasizing the constructionist nature of identity, Benwell and Stokoe (2006: 138) underscore the role of narrative in this process, portraying

… identity as performed rather than as prior to language, as dynamic rather than fixed, as culturally and historically located, as constructed in interaction with other people and institutional structures, as continuously remade, and as contradictory and situational. … Thus the practice of narration involves the ‘doing’ of identity, and because we can tell different stories we can construct different versions of self.

The sociolinguistic literature on narrative has been highly influenced by Labov and Waletsky (1967) and the ensuing reformulations in Labov (1972) with an emphasis on a closed temporal order in discourse and with a focus on the narrative monologue, the so-called ‘big stories’ or canonical form of narratives. More recent approaches, referred to as a new narrative turn, have taken stock of this approach by examining ‘small stories’, or non-canonical forms of narratives – narrative fragments or snippets of talk (Georgakopoulou, 2007). A dimensional approach to the study of narrative proposed already by Ochs and Capps (2001) covers the span between the ‘big’ and the ‘small’ stories in which a continuum of possibilities is outlined for five different dimensions of narratives: tellership, tellability, embeddedness, linearity and moral stance. The Labovian approach has been anchored at one end of the continuum, for example including ‘one active teller, highly tellable account, relatively detached from surrounding talk and activity, linear temporal and causal organization, and certain, constant moral stance’ (Ochs & Capps, 2001: 20). More recent approaches to the study of narrative include other possibilities at various points on the continuum and hence allow for a more in-depth study of emergent identity in interaction. Small stories are also called narratives-in-interaction (Georgakopoulou, 2006), and this term underpins the idea that these stories are not merely isolated fragments in the interaction but that they are inherent to the activity or performance. Baynham (2011) highlights the importance of taking such small stories into account in interviews in addition to the range of non-canonical narrative types (generic/iterative, future/hypothetical and negative).

Identity construction in narrative has also been studied through a closer look at the categorization strategies a narrator employs, as ‘self-identities are … often built on the basis of opposition or contrast with others’ (De Fina, 2003: 139). In this regard, we may ask what kind of categories are used for self and other description and which ones are the most salient. Moreover, as narratives are often built around actions, we may investigate what kinds of actions and reactions (and implicitly what kinds of values and norms) are associated with those categories. This approach is particularly fruitful for investigating identity construction in relation to language learning and literacy as migrants usually have first-hand experience with these challenges and thus have many stories to tell that involve both literacy events and stories with evaluations of their own and others’ success and failure. The focus in our analyses is on how migrant adults talk about, and make sense of, language learning and literacy and hence how they talk about and make sense of themselves and others in particular settings. Autobiographical narratives (cf. Pavlenko, 2007) are indeed important sites for identity construction as they can provide an opportunity to the speaker for negotiating an identity of empowered agency in discourse. Agency is an interesting dimension to the study of identity as it is the ‘socioculturally mediated capacity to act’ (Ahearn, 2001). Within an immigrant context, agency and power are closely interconnected. Indeed the notion of literacy itself has a power dimension with some literacies more highly evaluated than others. As Purcell-Gates (2007: 3) notes, literacy is ‘always constructed and enacted within social and political contexts and subject to the implications of differing power relationships’.

Through personal narratives, individuals take a stance to language learning and literacy. According to Johnstone (2009: 30), ‘Stance is generally understood to have to do with the methods, linguistic and other, by which interactants create and signal relationships with the propositions they utter and with the people they interact with’. In the sociolinguistic literature, there are many key themes that fall under the theoretical notion of stance, with the focus being on the process of indexicalization (Jaffe, 2009: 13). In telling stories involving literacy experiences from before adult migrants arrive in a new country as well as in their new country of residence, they construct trajectories of time and space in their stance-taking perspectives towards literacy practices. And hence they actively engage in identity construction both through their choice of narratives on literacies and through their choice of indexical resources in their narratives on literacies. As Pavlenko (2007: 179) notes, ‘To acknowledge the performative nature of narratives, microanalysis of form pays close attention to ways in which linguistic and narrative devices are deployed to serve storytellers’ interactional goals and to construct particular selves’.

Literacy and Identity

Current research on literacy has also brought identity into the realm of study. As there has been a move from a skill-based view of literacy, or a view of literacy as cognitive processes enacted independent of people’s motivations, interests and other social practices (Street, 1984), to ‘an interest in foregrounding the actor or agent in literate and social practices’ (Moje et al., 2009: 416), the issue of identity has been increasingly brought to the fore. For example, the social turn in literacy theory and research has resulted in studies of identity’s relationship to literacy and literacy’s relationship to identity, studies that are called literacy-and-identity studies by Moje et al. (2009). This move has drawn attention to the role of texts and literacy practices as resources for identity construction. As Miller and Kirkland (2010: 91) point out ‘These two shifts in literacy studies – the social turn and a focus on identity – allow for a more equitable view on literacy’.

When talking about literacy events involving others, people often use different labels to characterize or evaluate interactants’ actions and hence categorize them. ‘Identity labels can be used to stereotype, privilege, or marginalize readers and writers’ (Moje et al., 2009: 416), and depending on the value of these labels (positive or negative), they may have a profound impact on the individual. The labels and the literacy practices associated with them may play a role both in an individual’s self-identification and in how others perceive the individual. As such, these labels are important contributors to the individual’s identity constructions. Some literacy-and-identity studies are motivated by attention being paid to people’s new textual practices, and particularly to the agency and power that people may demonstrate when they engage in these practices.

People do identity work as they engage in the practices of everyday life. Studying the doing and representing of identities and studying the narration of identities in action (Georgakopoulou, 2007) are both likely to be ‘a productive means of documenting how identities shape the take up or performance of literate practices and vice versa, in large because people move from space to space, position to position, discourse community to discourse community, interaction to interaction, and text to text’ (Moje et al., 2009: 430). Hence narratives provide an interesting locus for examining identity construction in relation to literacy, as we take into account stance-taking, categorization strategies and inevitably the degree of agency the speaker negotiates in interaction. A focus on narratives on literacies can thus provide us with a window to migrants’ identity construction by showing how individuals make sense of, contest and ultimately transform the culturally, historically and socially based literacy practices they encounter in their trajectories across time and space.

Methodology

The data, which form the basis of this study, come from a database of interactions with migrant doctors, consisting of audio-taped semi-structured and open-ended interviews. These data are part of the SKI project: Språk, Kultur, Identitet/Language, Culture and Identity in Migrant Narratives, financed by the Research Council of Norway, 2008–2012. The data were collected using focus groups, varying between two to three adult migrants in interaction with one or two interviewers. Focus group interviews are ‘carefully planned discussions designed to obtain perceptions on a defined area of interest in a permissive, non-threatening environment’ (Krueger, 1994: 6). Marková et al. (2007) promote focus groups as a methodological tool, an analytical means for exploring socially shared knowledge. Interestingly enough, as Relaño Pastor (2010: 83) notes, ‘… narratives have not been addressed in the focus group literature as an interactional object of study, whose sense-making and argumentative character disclose, more than any other discursive activity, participants’ opinions and attitudes about several social issues’, which is the purpose of this study. The advantage of using focus groups is that this form of conversation is dynamic in that it enables the participants the possibility to react to one another, to be challenged by one another, to compare experiences and values and to be reminded of similar or contrary experiences. It invites to a freer flow of conversation, compared to an interview. As a whole, it provides natural talk in a situation in which the interviewer has the opportunity to back off and be less visible. A small focus group is easier to manage as it gives the participants less competition in talking and hence we may refer to such interviews as focus group conversations.

Participants

The participants in our focus group conversations are doctors who have lived and worked in Norway for several years. They were recruited among the participants at a lecture given by the first author on the issue of Norwegian as a second language, addressed to a group of medical doctors with a migrant background. This study is based on one particular focus group conversation. Sarah and Angela, two African women, are talking to the researcher, Anne. Sarah has lived in Norway and Sweden since she left her home country at the age of 19 in the late 1970s as a refugee. Sarah speaks predominantly Swedish. The Scandinavian languages form a dialect continuum linguistically speaking, and in communication between Norwegians and Swedes, each will speak his/her language often with some accommodation to the other. Angela came to Norway in the mid-1960s as a refugee at the age of 18. Both women moved back to their respective African countries of origin to live with their families in the 1990s and spent between six and eight years working there. Finally, both ended up returning to Norway. They were still working as professionals at that time of the recordings. The conversation took place in the researcher’s home.

The narratives

The entire interview in the focus group conversation may be seen as an overarching narrative (Riessman, 1993) or autobiography since the participants tell and co-construct their lives as migrants to Norway. In the focus group, the interviewer used a semi-structured approach and focused on three different periods in the women’s lives. The first period was intended to be around the time of migration to Norway, and questions about expectations concerning their future lives and their challenges entering the county were asked. The following period to focus on was to be some years later, when the first challenges were overcome. The final period was the here and now, the present situation, and the participants were asked to reflect on their lives. The topics initiated were mainly about their encounters with a new language and culture, and the questions were related to their memories, reactions and evaluations of the process. They were particularly encouraged to tell stories about particular events. In doing so, the women told and evaluated several narratives from other periods in their lives. The main overarching narrative thus contains many smaller narratives or small stories, some of which are indeed snippets of talk (Georgakopoulou, 2007). As such, the women’s narratives vary along the continuum of narrative dimensions outlined by Ochs and Capps (2001): tellership, tellability, embeddedness, linearity and moral stance.

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