Academic English Writing, Transnational Scholars, and

Native Speakerness: Postmodernist Perspectives.

Dr. Alejandro AzocarUniversity of Wisconsin-Madison

USA

To offer some background on postmodernism.

To explain how this movement could help us examine the use of English by non-native speakers in academic publications.

To offer potential (and new) lines of research in the field of EFL education

My goals in this presentation

Four Parts

Part 1: Theoretical Background

Part 2: Transnationalism

Part 3: Research in Social

Sciences Today

Part 4: One method of

postmodernist research

Road Map

An understanding of Postmodernism requires an overview of

* Modernity

Postmodernity

Modernism

Part 1: Theoretical Background

They refer to historical periods of humanity where profound societal changes took place.

Values emerged and became prominent as regulators of human life.

Both movements exist in a historical continuum, though they overlap.

The “-ities”: Modernity and Postmodernity

Modernity: period of profound social evolution.

The Enlightenment Era and the Industrial Revolution of the 18th century, extending into the 19th and 20th century.

Modernity is equated with industrialization and progress (symbol= the factory).

Modernity: nounModern: adjective

- Instrumental reason.- Objectivity.- Rigorous pursuit of scientific

research.- Scientific research yields

generalizable results to all human beings.

Modern Society and Modern ManEmergence of:

- Prevalence of the mind over the soul.

- Focus, precision, and exactitude emerged as human and societal values.

Modern Society and Modern ManThe emergence of:

Rigor, precision, objectivity, exactitude, competition, and generalizability became very important for human life, and in particular for research.

These values could enable us to dominate nature and could provide humanity with absolute control over all aspects of our existence.

Implications of Modernity

Scientific research then became paramount to fulfill these ideals.

In all aspects of research endeavors, there is a contextual “truth” to be discovered. The task of the researcher is to discover this hidden truth.

The more “truths” are discovered, the more humanity progresses.

Implications for Research

Objective reality to be discovered not only in the “pure sciences” (medicine, physics, chemistry) but also in the humanities/ social sciences (education, sociology, linguistics, and many others).

Implications for Research (cont’d)

Postmodernity analyzes the structural transformations ofindustrial societies (Post-industrialization).

Postmodernity wrestles with a new human reality.

Postmodernity= nounPostmodern= adjective

Postmodernity is equated with digitalization (symbol= the internet).

Today, postmodernity coexists with modernity. It has not replaced it.

Postmodernity

New human realities have produced new values, supplementing rather than replacing “modern” values.

Immediacy

Interconnectedness

Globalization

Digitalization

Transnationalism

New Postmodern Conditions

• Should be competitive -→

capitalism

Should be versatile -→ diversity

Should be global -→ globalization and transnationalism

Should speak English -→ linguistic universality and uniformity.

The postmodern citizenin postmodernity today: New values

Both are cultural responses to modernity and postmodernity

Critical of the values and ideas of modernity and postmodernity.

The “-isms”: Modernism and Postmodernism

Was a cultural reaction against modernity

An artistic movement manifested in art (painting and literature).

Emphasis on experimentation and the exploration of the ambiguity of reality.

Modernism= nounmodernist= adjective

Situated in the post-industrial era.

Postmodernism is also reactive, and shares many characteristics with modernism in its manifestations in art and literature.

Postmodernism: nounPostmodernist: adjective

The representation of reality as ambiguous and the push for experimentation “outside the norm” are fundamental postmodernist characteristics.

Postmodernism: nounPostmodernist: adjective

Rejection of objective scientific knowledge as the only type of knowledge.

Social Constructivism:

- Human reality is socially constructed

- Human knowledge is socially constructed

Postmodernist conditions in the social sciences

No universal human reality that is generalizable to all.

Theories and research findings are context-specific.

The disruption of the binary structure of realities.

Postmodernist Conditions (cont’d)

Dichotomies are ways of understanding reality in pairs of opposites, i.e., people are what they are not, or things are what they are not.

It allocates people on oppositional sides.

Binaries and dichotomies

The binary logic in the Western mindset determines people’s possibilities of action in specific contexts.

Binary logic regulates our possibilities and impossibilities according to pre-assigned classifications.

Binaries and dichotomies (cont’d)

Ambiguity is highly positive at all levels.

Non-linearity is fine.

In-betweenness is fine.

Unexpectedness is fine.

Contradictions are fine.

Experimentation beyond cannons is highly valued and encouraged.

Some Postmodernist values that are disruptive

Part 2: Transnationalism

• Transnationalism: a multiplicity of locations where human experiences take place.

• Today, there are permanent interconnections among these locations.

• Transnationalism aligns well with postmodernism

Transnationalism Today (2018)

Different from the immigrant experience that took place in the 19th

and early 20th centuries.

Postmodernist Transnationalism is defined by modern telecommunications and the capability of travelling internationally, both physically and virtually.

Postmodernist Transnationalism

No clear definition exists. In fact, minimal references in the literature

A postmodernist “subject”.

The Transnational Scholar

1. A returnee who has studied abroad for an extended period of time and has returned to his home country.

2. In today’s era of digitalization and interconnectedness, a scholar with little experience traveling or living abroad.

In both cases, some characteristics define the transnational scholar

Transnational Scholar may be…

Carries out research.

Shares academic ideas across borders.

Publishes (or should) in English, a language that is not his or her native language.

Should conforms to other postmodern values: competitive, global, fluent in English.

Transnational Scholar

As many postmodernist subjects, the transnational scholar navigates in an ambiguous space.

It resides in a context of in-betweenness, applied to many levels.

Transnational Scholar (cont’d)

Publishes in English, but native language is not English.

Resides in a non-English speaking country but needs to publish for an English-speaking audience.

Needs to use Academic English Writing, but most of the time wrestles with grammatically imperfect English.

Spaces of in-betweenness

Navigates a space dominated by native speakers of English while being a non-native speaker of English.

Publishes across borders into the “inner circle” while residing in his or her home country.

Identity: For example, obtaining a Ph.D. in the Western Anglo-American setting does produce identity changes.

Spaces of in-betweenness (cont’d)

Part 3: Research in Social

Sciences Today.

So far we have discussed ideas about:

• Postmodernism

• Transnationalism

• Transnational Scholars

How about possibilities of research?

Establishing connections…

Traditional Positivistic Paradigm

Postmodernist Paradigm

Culture-Centered Paradigm

Some Research Paradigms in Social Science Research

Assumption that the social world is discoverable and knowable.

Reliance on scientific methods that rest upon principles such as distance, objectivity, purity, and rigor.

Anthropological research of the “Other” (traditional ethnography).

Positivistic Research Paradigm

Data are collected because data are “out there”.

The researcher is supposed to suppress biases in order not to contaminate data.

Evidence-based research (especially in education) informs policy.

Positivistic Research Paradigm

The social world is too complex to be known completely.

Focus on particularities with no attempt to find generalizable findings.

Researcher is not detached from social phenomena. Always positioned and biased.

Postmodernist Research Paradigm

There are groups of people and languages that are oppressed.

Researcher is cognizant of the unfairness where human experiences take place.

Doing research on oppressed people and languages means to develop advocacy for them-- > researcher/political activist/advocate.

Culture-Centered Research Paradigm

A reaction to structuralism = systems that can be deciphered. Language is a system to be deciphered.

Poststructuralism deals with language, not as a system having different parts, but as an entity that embodies meaning and logic.

An offshoot of Postmodernism: Poststructuralism

Specifically, a shared language configures the social reality and people’s lives.

Poststructuralism helps us analyze the configuration of commonsensical realities via analyses of discourses.

Poststructuralism (cont’d)

Linguistic discourse analysis, i.e., the investigation of language use in communicative situations.

Using empirical and verifiable data, discourse analysts observe the communicative process, revealing the structures that are created in spoken social interaction.

Discourse with a Small “d”

Discourse as shared language, or codes of reasoning, that forms our social world. Discourses we are immersed in makes us see, feel, and accept or reject things in a similar fashion. In doing so, beliefs makes us participants within a systems as members of a community.

Discourse with a Capital “D”

Exposure or immersion in discourses produces the formation of subjects, or who we are in the eyes of others and who we believe we are.

Discourse as Practice

In the intimacy of the individual whose consciousness is being exposed to discourses, an active process takes place, thus the subject becomes simultaneously a recipient and a user of discourses.

Discourse as Practice (Cont’d)

Subjects do certain things that perpetuate the commonsensical assumptions embedded in discourses.

Discourse as Practice (cont’d)

Examines the configuration of human beings as a “subjects” within discourses, having particular identities in certain contexts →subjectivity construction.

Discursive (Educational) Research

• Examines the logic of the common sense in people’s identities.

Subjectivity construction builds types of people.

Discursive (Educational) Research

Our subjectivities determine “possibilities of selfhood” : what is (im)possible to achieve in specific social contexts.

DER is political. It attempts to interrupt the common sense, or the logic that constructs types of people, or “versions of humanity”.

Subjectivity Construction

Reminder: Immersion in Discourses creates subjectivities and common sense.

The discourse of native speakerness and accentedness

Examples of Global Discourses in EFL

Profound effect on prospective non-native speaker teachers teachers’ views of themselves as legitimate members of the profession and of how others perceive them.

Discourse of Native Speakerness

This discourse assigns power to native speakers as models of correctness and as the best users of the target language.

The myth of the native speaker as commonsensically better qualified to teach a language is still very much prevalent.

Native Speakerness (Cont’d)

* Transnational scholars subjectivities are formed within global discourses of English

* They need to conform to a variety of discourses.

In the case of Transnational Scholars

* Transnational scholars have to become part of a discourse community in order to get published in both aspects:

1. The specific expertise of the field.

2. Academic Writing in English.

Transnational Scholars (cont’d)

Final Thoughts:

1. Possibility of researching the nature of particular discourses (language, set of beliefs)

2. Possibility of researching how discourses mold people’s subjectivity and make them become “subjects”.

Discursive (Educational) Research

Part 4: Example of one Method of

Postmodernist Research in

the field of Education.

Poststructuralist Storytelling

• Narrative research representation that “aims to excavate the power and knowledge that are used to construct versions of humanity” (Goodley, 2004, p.101).

• Important concepts : language, Discourse, subjectivity construction

Uses ethnographic methods. “immersion” for a fairly extended period of time.

Data collection: note-taking and journaling

Researcher’s Memory -→memory as data archive

Narrations in the form of short stories, vignettes, or poems.

How to do it

Data are fictionalized, transformed on purpose and turned into a short story.

The story is a hybrid product that is half reality, half fiction.

Political purpose: call attention to the negative consequences of subjectivity construction and to expose the power of discourses.

Fictionalization of Data

Features (cont’d)

• Researcher/writer/storyteller owns the data and is fully responsible for narrative construction.

• No “giving voice” to subjects. They do not participate in the writing of their own stories.

Four “Ps” that determine social research

• Purpose

• Position

• Persuasion

• Politics

(Clough & Nutbrown, 2002)

Poststructuralist Storytelling as Research Report : Possible? Yes

Postmodernism is a movement that has a place in current research in humanities/social sciences.

Still faces challenges of acceptance as “legitimate” research.

There are possibilities of publishing this type of work.

Opens an alternative to dominant ways of doing research in academia.

Final Thoughts