Dovchin (2020): Linguistic racism and international students

Sender Dovchin (2020) The psychological damages of linguistic racism and international students in Australia, International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism, DOI: 10.1080/13670050.2020.1759504

Some extracts from this paper

The concept of ‘linguistic racism’ in this study refers to the violation of one’ s fundamental human rights based on how one speaks certain languages and how one’s entitlements are denied and discriminated against in both institutional and non-institutional settings due to how one speaks English and other additional languages (Dovchin 2019a2019b).

Following relevant concepts such as ‘linguicism’ (Skutnabb-Kangas 20152016), ‘raciolinguistics’ (Alim, Rickford, and Ball 2016), and ‘raciolinguistic ideologies’ (Flores and Rosa 2015), the concept of ‘linguistic racism’ focuses on the central role that language plays in the enduring relevance of race/racism, institutional/ interpersonal discrimination in the lives of people of colour, ethnic minorities, international students and Indigenous people, who experience linguistic disparity as an everyday lived reality.

The main ethos of the concept of ‘linguistic racism’ seeks to understand what it means to speak as a racialized subject in the dominant societies, following Skutnabb-Kangas’s idea of ‘linguicism’ (2016, 583); ‘the ideologies, structures, and practices that are used to legitimate, effectuate, and reproduce an unequal division of power and resources between groups defined on the basis of language.’ 

The essential point is, thus, to recognize, following Rosa (2016, 163), racialized ideologies of certain language practices that may define what is (il)legitimate language in terms of racial and ethnic groups whose linguistic practices are stereotypically understood to correspond to standardized written text. What might appear as perceptions of ‘particular non-standardized language practices’ may, in fact, ‘racialize populations by framing them as incapable of producing any legitimate language’ (Rosa 2016, 163). 

The concept of ‘linguistic racism’ is further developed in this study by adding two new dimensions – (1) ‘ethnic accent bullying’; (2) ‘linguistic stereotyping.’ First, ‘ethnic accent bullying’ refers to bullying towards English as second/foreign language speakers based on their biographical English accent – the accent connected with one’s sociolinguistic histories and biographies (Blommaert 2009; Dovchin 2019b). ‘Ethnic accent bullying’ is a form of ‘ethnic bullying’ (McKenney et al. 2006) – direct and indirect forms of bullying such as ‘racial taunts and slurs, derogatory references to culturally – specific customs, foods, and costumes,’ (McKenney et al. 2006, 242), mockery or making of fun of one’s heritage languages or accents (Scherr and Larson 2009, 226), as well as indirect or passive forms of aggression, such as ‘exclusion from a mainstream group of peers.’ (McKenney et al. 2006, 242).

‘Ethnic accent’ may also be referred to as, according to Creese and Kambere (2003, 566), ‘extra-local accent,’ ‘foreign’ or ‘immigrant’s accent,’ which signify more than hegemonic local English accents (‘Canadian,’ ‘American,’ ‘British,’ ‘Australian’ etc.), mainly embodied by racialized subjects. An ‘ethnic accent’ may shape perceptions of one’s English competency, which does not seem to elicit the same treatment as British, Australian, American, Canadian (and so on) English accents. Standard English accents and dialects, according to De Klerk and Bosch (1995, 18), often ‘connote high Status and competence’ and native speakers of English are often ‘warmly regarded, and people are predisposed to think highly of them.’ As Munro, Derwing, and Sato (2006, 71) note, ‘individuals with a foreign accent may be perceived negatively because of the stereotypes or prejudices that accent can evoke in a listener.’ Studies have hinted that the native speakers of English tend to judge ethnic accents as less prestigious than native accents (Munro, Derwing, and Sato 2006). ‘Ethnic accent,’ thus, may postulate disentitlement and inequality of its speakers in full participation in civil society (Creese and Kambere 2003, 566). The speaker with an ‘ethnic accent’ becomes what he or she speaks, and speaking it transforms him or her into what is suggested by their accent. In particular, Asian accents such as Indian, Chinese, Korean, Japanese (and so forth) accents seem to be inherently located in the hazard zone of global English accents (Blommaert 2009), often exposed to linguistic shaming such as ‘peripheral speakers as incomprehensible or as ridiculous impostors’ (Piller 2016, 197), and bullied in the popular discourse of mockery and travesty aggravated by the prejudice of people towards non-native speakers of English (Hanish and Guerra 2000). Consequently, many English speakers with immigrant backgrounds invest a lot of effort into ‘purifying’ their ethnic English accent, as Blommaert (2009, 253) notes, ‘[…] at the core of this process of purification, we see an image of the regimented, subject, someone who can face the challenges of postmodern, globalized existence provided he/she submits to the process of purification and, consequently, sacrifices his/her individual agency in a quest for uniformity and homogeneity.’ (cf. Dovchin 2017).

Second, the conception of ‘linguistic stereotyping’ expands on Piller’s (2016, 53) argument on stereotypes of English as second/foreign-language speakers, ‘[…] people who are not expected to speak a particular language (well) may be heard not to speak that language (well) irrespective of their actual proficiency.’ Language is never judged in separation from the speakers, as they face pre-fixed assumptions about his/her English fluency because of how they racially and ethnically look. The members of particular linguistic communities can be stereotyped about their voice, accent, intonation, paralinguistic signs, phonology, pronunciation, and lexicon, accompanied by evaluative connotations (De Klerk and Bosch 1995). These judgments and preconceptions have ‘a profound influence on our subconscious attitudes to languages and to Speakers of these languages’, and ‘they represent the dark side of the human abstraction process; they are often inaccurate because they simplify what otherwise might have overwhelmingly diverse meaning and indirectly influence the perception and categorization of people.’ (De Klerk and Bosch 1995, 18). In particular, Asians are often stereotyped as having low proficiency in English (Blommaert 2009). Piller (2016, 53), for example, reminds us of a now-classic experiment conducted in the 1980s at a university in Florida, where researchers audio-recorded a lecture consisting of a native speaker of American English with a standard American-English accent. The lecture was later played to two different groups of undergraduate students, complemented by the picture of a Caucasian woman in one case and the picture of an Asian woman in the other. The students who viewed the Asian lecturer reported that they heard a ‘foreign,’ ‘non-native,’ ‘Asian’ accent, reduced comprehension, and low-level quality learning experience despite the absence of that auditory signal (Piller 2016, 53).

Meanwhile, international students, who become the victims of these two types of linguistic racism – ‘ethnic accent bullying’ and ‘linguistic stereotyping,’ are often deprived of living a meaningful full social life. Because these two types of linguistic racism appear to instil a perpetual sense of ‘inferiority complexes’ (Kenchappanavar 2012, 1) such as self-marginalization, self-vindication, loss of social belonging, social withdrawal – the psychological damages resulting from the homogeny of hegemonic English (Piller 2016). Learning and speaking English means ‘to become alive to one’s marginality in English and to a perpetual falling short of the imagined ideal of “perfect” homogeneous English.’ (Piller 2016, 203). Being an ideal English speaker also means purifying and refining their accents and linguistic repertoires, while feeling the inferiority complex that their English is ‘terrible,’ ‘nonstandard’ and ‘unaccepted’ (Dovchin 2019b). An inferiority complex is a kind of psychological obstacle that arises when ‘a person finds himself in a situation where his abilities and attitudes are denigrated or rejected by other people.’ (Kenchappanavar 2012, 1). Anything in the individual that is ‘below the average, that provokes unfavourable comment or gives him a feeling of impotency or ineptitude leads to inferiority complex.’

Mike McCarthy on discovery our histories as language educators

Read the piece here.

Herramientas digitales y escritura científica

La utilización de herramientas digitales para la comunicación profesional se ha convertido en un hecho habitual para la mayoría de los investigadores y docentes universitarios. No en vano, las nuevas tecnologías aplicadas a la industria de la lengua se han desarrollado de forma exponencial en la última década. Tal ha sido este crecimiento que en la actualidad ni siquiera somos conscientes de que la mayoría de servicios web utilizan diferentes técnicas de procesado de lenguaje natural que estaban en ciernes hace tres lustros.

Existen en la actualidad una amplia gama de servicios web y aplicaciones de escritorio que facilitan la comunicación y la producción escrita en entornos académicos tanto para usuarios noveles como para aquellos más avanzados. Entre los primeros podemos destacar las últimas generaciones de diccionarios en línea; entre los últimos, herramientas de exploración lingüística basadas en la interfaz léxico-gramatical (strings, neighbour words, concordancers,etc.), así como herramientas para la escritura asistida por ordenador. La utilización de estas herramientas contribuye a la reflexión sobre el uso del inglés en contextos académicos mediante un análisis guiado de los (1) diferentes registros en los que utilizamos la lengua, (2) las propiedades combinatorias de las unidades de análisis lingüístico y (3) la integración de estos servicios y aplicaciones en el proceso de escritura académica.

Visita mi selección de recursos online para escritura científica en lengua inglesa e investigadores

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Referencias básicas para la escritura científica en lengua inglesa

Bem, D. J. 1987. Writing the empirical journal article. In M. P. Zanna & J. M. Darley (Eds.), The compleat academic: A practical guide for the beginning social scientist (pp. 171-201). New York: Random House. (PDF)

Glasman-Deal, H. 2009. Science Research Writing: A Guide for Non-Native Speakers of English. London: Imperial College.

V online summer school: Writing science in English

  • 08/09/2020 – 11/09/2020
  • Online

You can join this course here. Inscripciones: URL.

2019 edition, unforgettable memories!!!!!!!!!

Writing for the masses. A practical introduction to writing scientific -academic English in blogs – September 8

Dissemination and impact of our research have become as important as research itself in many ways. Doing science in the 21st century cannot be understood as a practice that is situated exclusively in highly specialised journals. Writing for the ‘public’ out there is absolutely essential these days to make sure our research is both visible and, most importantly, fundable. However, blog writing is rarely discussed as a soft skill. In this workshop we will use ad-hoc blog data to discuss the differences between research article writing and blog writing. Particularly, we will look at stance-making and positioning in blogs. During this session, students will write their own posts.

Pascual Pérez-Paredes is a Professor in Applied Linguistics and Linguistics, U. Murcia, Lecturer in Research in Second Language Education at the University of Cambridge and Salvador de Madariaga Research Fellow, NAU, US. His main research interests are learner language variation, the use of corpora in language education and corpus-assisted discourse analysis. He has published extensively in journals such as CALL, Discourse & Society, English for Specific Purposes, Journal of Pragmatics, Language, Learning & Technology, System, ReCALL and the International Journal of Corpus Linguistics. He was the Overall Coordinator of the MEd Research Methods Strand at the University of Cambridge. He is an Official Translator, Intérprete Jurado, appointed by the Ministerio de Asuntos Exteriores de España. He is the Assistant Editor of Cambridge University Press ReCALL (Q1 31 out of 187 in Linguistics).

Niall Curry is a Lecturer in Academic Writing at the Centre for Academic Writing at Coventry University. His research is interdisciplinary and centres on language pedagogy and the application of corpus linguistic approaches to different areas of applied linguistics. Among these areas is a focus on corpus-based studies of academic writing and metadiscourse in English, French, and Spanish, corpus-based contrastive linguistics, corpus-based studies of English language and language change, and corpus linguistics for TESOL and language teaching materials development. For further details on his background, areas of interest, projects, and current research, see his website.

Conference and paper abstracts – September 8

This session will be devoted to present what abstracts in general are, how abstracts are organised from the point of view of genre analysis, paying special attention to the organization in moves and steps. Next, we will focus on how the language can help as a tool to identify their different parts. We will analyse different types of abstracts, such as structured and non-structured abstracts. Our last step will bring us to study in detail how conference abstracts are organised and written. We will also study examples of conference abstracts and will propose ways to improve them to be successful.

Pilar Aguado-Jiménez joined the English Department at the University of Murcia in 1990. She taught business English (1990/99) and general English (1990/–). She took her PhD in 1997. She has been a language advisor for the CAGE Panel, Cambridge University Press (2003/05). Her main current areas of research are TEFL, and ESP. She has been involved in several international projects as TELLOP (Erasmus+ 2020), VGCLIL and VGCLIL for Migrants.

The research article: the literature review – September 9

In the first part of the session, the structure of the research paper will be analysed in detail considering the perspective of genre analysis, as the analysis of language accounts for, not only the way a text is constructed, but also for the way it is likely to be interpreted, used and exploited in specific contexts to achieve specific goals. Within this genre perspective particular attention will be paid to the steps or “moves” that perform a particular communicative function associated with the writer’s purpose. This “move” perspective will be applied to all sections of the research paper. In the second part, an analysis of the different  “moves” or steps will be carried out in the Literature Review. A theoretical and practical approach Will be combined in the two sessions. 

Purificación Sánchez is a Lecturer at the Department of English Studies, Faculty of Humanities, University of Murcia. Her main areas of research are corpus-assisted discourse analysis and English for Specific Purposes. She has published in RESLA, Ibérica, System, English Text Construction,  Higher Education in Europe and Discourse & Society.

How to write good academic /scientific English using corpora – September 9

This workshop centres on the construction and analysis of academic writing corpora using AntCorGen, TagAnt, and AntConc. Initially, we will focus on academic writing with the intention to highlight practices and foci within the field. Next, we will consider academic writing corpora, highlighting corpus construction considerations and tagging processes necessary for effective corpus-based analyses of academic writing. Using a bespoke academic corpus, we will analyse both untagged and tagged corpus data to learn more about writing and disciplinary conventions. The workshop will close with a brief analysis of what is called metadiscourse in academic writing with participants having the opportunity to present key insights they have gleaned from their own analyses.

Niall Curry is a Lecturer in Academic Writing at the Centre for Academic Writing at Coventry University. His research is interdisciplinary and centres on language pedagogy and the application of corpus linguistic approaches to different areas of applied linguistics. Among these areas is a focus on corpus-based studies of academic writing and metadiscourse in English, French, and Spanish, corpus-based contrastive linguistics, corpus-based studies of English language and language change, and corpus linguistics for TESOL and language teaching materials development. For further details on his background, areas of interest, projects, and current research, see his website.

The research article: results and discussion – September 10

This session is designed for multilingual students who grew up speaking a language other than English. It will help you develop your ability to express the results and discussion of your research effectively. You will become aware of your most troublesome aspects and learn strategies for improving vocabulary use, discourse options, paragraph format and organization. In academic English, your research results and discussion will be assessed by readers by your control of certain conventions, which may change depending on your audience and purpose. In this sense, this course will give you some tips to improve the way to express results and comment data. This course is divided into 4 units which deal with the written characteristics of the results and discussion of academic English. At the end of every unit you will have to do a compulsory test as part of the evaluation of this course.

María Luisa Carrió-Pastor is a Professor of English language at Universitat Politècnica de València, Spain. Currently she is the head of the Department of Applied Linguistics and the coordinator of the Doctorate degree “Languages, Literature, Culture and, their applications”. Her research areas are contrastive linguistics, pragmatics and the study of academic and professional discourse both for second language acquisition and discourse analysis

Writing for the reader – September 10

This workshops puts the reader at the centre of writing. We’ll look at signposting, use of headings,  consistency, formatting, style, referencing.  We’ll identify what you can do before you start, while you’re in the different draft stages of your writing and how to polish your final piece with detailed editing and proof-reading.

Geraldine Mark has over 30 years’ experience as editor and author researcher, and lecturer, drawn from applied linguistics, language teaching and learning, language analysis and materials development. Principal interests in corpus linguistics and its pedagogical applications.

Writing grant proposals – September 11

Grant proposals have a great impact on the scientific and academic community, since getting funding is paramount for our scientific progress and social development. Thus, knowing the essentials of a grant proposal may help applicants to succeed in their goal. The current course will give a general picture of what we understand by grant proposals and the types of grant proposals we might find. I will also provide participants with some resources to work autonomously on their future grant proposals. Some course materials include Pandadoc template grant proposals, research Grants on Education Spencer Foundation

Recommended book:
Carlson M. and O’Neal-Elrath, T. (2002) Winning grants Step by Step. John Wiley and Sons, New York: USA.

Begoña Bellés Fortuño, PhD, is a senior lecturer in the Department of English Studies at Universitat Jaume I, Spain, where she lectures English Studies degree students as well as in the degree of Medicine: She also supervises MA projects in the Secondary Education, Vocational Training and Language Teaching Master degree. She is currently the Director of the Interuniversity Institute of Modern Applied Languages (IULMA) at Universitat Jaume I. She is the Editor-In-Chief of Language Value journal and one of the executive directors of IBERICA journal. She has reviewed articles for JEAP, System or Language and Communication among other journals.

Writing for an international audience: the anglo tradition – September 11

It is a fact that the best science is ‘heavily biased’ toward journals published in English from English-speaking countries (Lillis and Curry 2010), which requires that all authors master the craft of writing in such contexts. The Saxonic intellectual style (Galtum, 1985) is characterized by an intensive use of data typically in ‘what is often a team effort’. This style is interested in hypothesis generation, actively engages in ‘dialogue with their peers and seeks to smooth out divergences of opinion’. Other styles use radically different angles to approach writing and reading science. In what is described here as the anglo tradition, reader orientation and essay form is actually of utmost importance to academic culture (Hermanns, 1985). In this session we will examine the fundamental tenets of this tradition: criticality, development of argument, rhetorical transfer and clarity.

Pascual Pérez-Paredes is a Professor in Applied Linguistics and Linguistics, U. Murcia, Lecturer in Research in Second Language Education at the University of Cambridge and Salvador de Madariaga Research Fellow, NAU, US. His main research interests are learner language variation, the use of corpora in language education and corpus-assisted discourse analysis. He has published extensively in journals such as CALL, Discourse & Society, English for Specific Purposes, Journal of Pragmatics, Language, Learning & Technology, System, ReCALL and the International Journal of Corpus Linguistics. He was the Overall Coordinator of the MEd Research Methods Strand at the University of Cambridge. He is an Official Translator, Intérprete Jurado, appointed by the Ministerio de Asuntos Exteriores de España. He is the Assistant Editor of Cambridge University Press ReCALL (Q1 31 out of 187 in Linguistics).

OASIS

The Open Accessible Summaries In Language Studies (OASIS) initiative aims to make research findings on language learning and teaching available and accessible to a wide audience.

OASIS summaries are one-page descriptions of research articles on language learning, language teaching, and multilingualism that have been published in peer-reviewed journals listed on the Social Science Citation Index. The summaries provide information about the study’s goals, how it was conducted, and what was found, and are written in non-technical language. Where relevant, they also highlight findings that may be of particular interest to language educators, although the initiative is not solely aimed at research with immediate practical implications. The summaries are generally approved, and often (co-)written, by the author(s) of the original journal article.

Improving Writing Through Corpora

Online Data-Driven Learning SPOC “Improving Writing Through Corpora” is now live at the following address:
https://edge.edx.org/courses/course-v1:UQx+SLATx+2019/about

Improvements in Version 2 include:

A) All course images and functionality have been updated for the ‘new’ Sketch Engine interface.


B) New functions specific to the ‘new’ Sketch Engine interface are now included in the course (e.g. Good Dictionary EXamples (GDEX))


C) Course is now completely self-contained – no need for external assessments.  Certificates of completion generated automatically upon completion of online activities.  


D) Improved reflective component and opportunities for peer discussion.


The course is primarily pitched at L2 graduate writing students, but anyone is eligible, whether a student, lecturer, or anyone with an interest in language and technology. 

To enrol, follow the instructions at the link provided.  Please contact the course creator Dr. Peter Crosthwaite at p.cros@uq.edu.au with any questions or technical problems.