A glimpse at the diversity of language and identity: Reading with pleasure, writing for joy
This presentation is a reflection on how the design, delivery and assessment for a language and literature module with a regional focus (ELU2006 “Language through Literature and Place: Reading Yorkshire”, University of Leeds) can work towards developing learners’ awareness of linguistic and cultural diversity, but also enable them to shape meanings and language in a way that resonates with their identities and experiences. I will do this by drawing on Claire Kramsch’s concept of “symbolic competence” (Kramsch, 2006; Kramsch & Whiteside, 2008), and sharing module materials and assessment examples. In particular, I will demonstrate how text choices and thematic emphasis on the “multi-voicedness” (Bakhtin, 1981) of language and identity can encourage the exploration of oppositional reading practices, dislodge received notions of identity, culture and language as fixed and uniform, and enable learners to rediscover “the pleasures of the text” (Barthes, 1975) that transcend the purely transactional engagement with knowledge. At the same time, the carefully scaffolded creativity-focused lesson activities and multimodal nature of the assessment can facilitate the deployment of learners’ plurilingual repertoires (Kress, 2010), allow for a risk-free engagement with creativity, and invite critical exploration of students’ own identity and positionality within different cultural contexts.
Linguistics and Knowledge about Language in Education 