"Min Wang’s fine-grained case study of three Chinese learners of English in the USA provides much insight into the way international students navigate complex transnational identities. A timely and important contribution to our understanding of language learning in the digital age."

- Bonny Norton, University of British Columbia, Canada,

"Min Wang has conducted a careful analysis of the positioning moves and agentive actions of three Chinese students learning English in a university-based language institute in the U.S. By examining multiple dimensions of these students’ positioning work across time, through varied modalities, and in different locations—both physical and virtual, Wang provides a powerful demonstration of how identity, agency and language learning are interdependent phenomena. Applied linguists and other scholars will welcome this important contribution to the growing body of research using holistic, ecological approaches when examining agency and language learning."

- Elizabeth Miller, University of North Carolina,

"In this book, the reader will see how young adult L2 learners develop multimodal and multilingual literacies and navigate their positional identities as a capable community member in a social context. This is an excellent contribution to the second language field with important theoretical and practical insights."

- Bogum Yoon, State University of New York at Binghamton,

Multimodalities and Chinese Students' L2 Practices: Identity, Community, and Literacy explores the complex relations and interactions among multimodality, positioning, and agency in increasingly digitized, multilingual, and multicultural contexts. Min Wang uses interview narratives, WeChat exchanges, and class observations and field notes of three Chinese international students’ lived experiences of English learning and use in their everyday environments to show that these L2 learners recognized, appreciated, and appropriated affordances of multiple modes and digital tools for their L2 literacies practices. Through these tools and modes, they positioned themselves as confident, able, and competent L2 users, but sometimes also struggling and ambivalent. The practice of meaning-making, remaking, designing, and redesigning demonstrated their agency as L2 learners, which motivated and inspired them to (re)produce and (re)create meanings through discourses for the purpose of presenting desired and anticipated positionings. Positioned as cultural and social beings, these L2 learners presented their self-understandings and self-representations through symbolic and material artifacts, interactions with local and non-local people, and engagement in WeChat discussions and ELI learning. To obtain multimembership, they assumed rights, obligations, and expectations in order to become legitimate community members. In the process of becoming, their agency was promoted, negotiated, or sometimes limited by micro-social structures and ongoing interactions.
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Adopting a poststructural approach, Multimodalities and Chinese Students' L2 Practices examines the intertwined relationship between positioning and agency in multilingual, multicultural, and multimodal contexts, using evidence from Chinese international students’ experiences as English learners.
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ForewordIntroductionPart 1 Theories and MethodologyChapter 1 Theories, Setting, and MethodsPart 2 Narrating L2 Learners’ Cultural Experiences Chapter 2 Stories of Chinese Names and KeepsakesPart 3 Life in AmericaChapter 3 Narratives of Embarrassing Experiences and Attempts for OpportunitiesChapter 4 Interactions in the WeChat Discussion GroupChapter 5 Practicing L2 Literacies in the ELIPart 4 Conclusion and ImplicationsChapter 6 Concluding Remarks and TakeawaysBibliographyAbout the Author
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Produktdetaljer

ISBN
9781498594561
Publisert
2020-03-13
Utgiver
Vendor
Lexington Books
Vekt
413 gr
Høyde
228 mm
Bredde
160 mm
Dybde
16 mm
Aldersnivå
P, 06
Språk
Product language
Engelsk
Format
Product format
Innbundet
Antall sider
180

Forfatter
Foreword by

Biographical note

Min Wang is assistant professor of TESOL in the department of education specialties at St. John’s University.