Literacy Across Languages and Cultures

Literacy Across Languages and Cultures PDF Author: Bernardo M. Ferdman
Publisher: SUNY Press
ISBN: 9780791418161
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 360

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Book Description
This book examines the linkage between literacy and linguistic diversity, embedding them in their social and cultural contexts. It illustrates that a more complete understanding of literacy among diverse populations and in multicultural societies requires attention to issues of literacy per se as well as to improving an educational process that has relevance beyond members of majority cultures and linguistic groups. The focus of the book is on the social and cultural contexts in which literacy develops and is enacted, with an emphasis on the North American situation. Educators and researchers are discovering that cognitive approaches, while very valuable, are insufficient by themselves to answer important questions about literacy in heterogeneous societies. By considering the implications of family, school, culture, society, and nation for literary processes, the book answers the following questions. In a multi-ethnic context, what does it mean to be literate? What are the processes involved in becoming and being literate in a second language? In what ways is literacy in a second language similar and in what ways is it different from mother-tongue literacy? What factors must be understood to better describe and facilitate literacy acquisition among members of ethnic and linguistic minorities? What are some current approaches that are being used to accomplish this? These are vital questions for researchers and educators in a world that has a large number of immigrants, a variety of multi-ethnic and multi-lingual societies, and an increasing degree of multinational activity. Beyond addressing applied concerns, attending to these questions can provide new insights into basic aspects of literacy.

Literacy Across Languages and Cultures

Literacy Across Languages and Cultures PDF Author: Bernardo M. Ferdman
Publisher: SUNY Press
ISBN: 9780791418161
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 360

Get Book

Book Description
This book examines the linkage between literacy and linguistic diversity, embedding them in their social and cultural contexts. It illustrates that a more complete understanding of literacy among diverse populations and in multicultural societies requires attention to issues of literacy per se as well as to improving an educational process that has relevance beyond members of majority cultures and linguistic groups. The focus of the book is on the social and cultural contexts in which literacy develops and is enacted, with an emphasis on the North American situation. Educators and researchers are discovering that cognitive approaches, while very valuable, are insufficient by themselves to answer important questions about literacy in heterogeneous societies. By considering the implications of family, school, culture, society, and nation for literary processes, the book answers the following questions. In a multi-ethnic context, what does it mean to be literate? What are the processes involved in becoming and being literate in a second language? In what ways is literacy in a second language similar and in what ways is it different from mother-tongue literacy? What factors must be understood to better describe and facilitate literacy acquisition among members of ethnic and linguistic minorities? What are some current approaches that are being used to accomplish this? These are vital questions for researchers and educators in a world that has a large number of immigrants, a variety of multi-ethnic and multi-lingual societies, and an increasing degree of multinational activity. Beyond addressing applied concerns, attending to these questions can provide new insights into basic aspects of literacy.

Negotiating Academic Literacies

Negotiating Academic Literacies PDF Author: Vivian Zamel
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1136608915
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 336

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Book Description
Negotiating Academic Literacies: Teaching and Learning Across Languages and Cultures is a cross-over volume in the literature between first and second language/literacy. This anthology of articles brings together different voices from a range of publications and fields and unites them in pursuit of an understanding of how academic ways of knowing are acquired. The editors preface the collection of readings with a conceptual framework that reconsiders the current debate about the nature of academic literacies. In this volume, the term academic literacies denotes multiple approaches to knowledge, including reading and writing critically. College classrooms have become sites where a number of languages and cultures intersect. This is the case not only for students who are in the process of acquiring English, but for all learners who find themselves in an academic situation that exposes them to a new set of expectations. This book is a contribution to the effort to discover ways of supporting learning across languages and cultures--and to transform views about what it means to teach and learn, to read and write, and to think and know. Unique to this volume is the inclusion of the perspectives of writers as well as those of teachers and researchers. Furthermore, the contributors reveal their own struggles and accomplishments as they themselves have attempted to negotiate academic literacies. The chronological ordering of articles provides a historical perspective, demonstrating ways in which issues related to teaching and learning across cultures have been addressed over time. The readings have consistency in terms of quality, depth, and passion; they raise important philosophical questions even as they consider practical classroom applications. The editors provide a series of questions that enable the reader to engage in a generative and exciting process of reflection and inquiry. This book is both a reference for teachers who work or plan to work with diverse learners, and a text for graduate-level courses, primarily in bilingual and ESL studies, composition studies, English education, and literacy studies.

Discourse Across Languages and Cultures

Discourse Across Languages and Cultures PDF Author: Carol Lynn Moder
Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing
ISBN: 9789027230782
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 378

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Book Description
This volume seeks to answers such questions as: how is conscious experience translated into discourse? How are foregrounding and backgrounding accomplished? What is the function of features like lexical choice and referential choice? And many more.

Emotions Across Languages and Cultures

Emotions Across Languages and Cultures PDF Author: Anna Wierzbicka
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9780521599719
Category : Juvenile Nonfiction
Languages : en
Pages : 366

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Book Description
This fascinating book explores the bodily expression of emotion in worldwide and culture-specific contexts.

Negotiating Academic Literacies

Negotiating Academic Literacies PDF Author: Vivian Zamel
Publisher: Psychology Press
ISBN: 0805829989
Category : Academic writing
Languages : en
Pages : 336

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Book Description
Anthology of articles brings together different voices and unites them in pursuit of an understanding of the teaching and learning of academic literacy.

Language and Culture

Language and Culture PDF Author: Karen Risager
Publisher: Multilingual Matters
ISBN: 1853598585
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 227

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Book Description
The book presents a new theory of the relationship between language and culture in a transnational and global perspective. The fundamental view is that languages spread across cultures, and cultures spread across languages, or in other words, that linguistic and cultural practices flow through social networks in the world along partially different paths and across national structures and communities.

Literacy Development in A Multilingual Context

Literacy Development in A Multilingual Context PDF Author: Aydin Y. Durgunoglu
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1135456267
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 327

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Book Description
During the past decades, literacy has gradually become a major concern all over the world. Though there is a great diversity in both the distribution and degree of literacy in different countries, there has been an increasing awareness of the number of illiterates and the consequences of being illiterate. However, literacy is no longer seen as a universal trait. When one focuses on culturally-sensitive accounts of reading and writing practices, the concept of literacy as a single trait does not seem very feasible. A multiplicity of literacy practices can be distinguished which are related to specific cultural contexts and associated with relations of power and ideology. As such, literacy can be seen as a lifelong context-bound set of practices in which an individual's needs vary with time and place. This volume explores the use of literacy outside the mainstream in different contexts throughout the world. It is divided into four sections. Section 1 presents an anthropological perspective--analyzing the society and the individual in a society. Section 2 presents a psychological perspective--focusing on the individuals themselves and analyzing the cognitive and affective development of young children as they acquire literacy in their first and second languages. Section 3 presents an educational perspective--highlighting the variations in educational approaches in different societies as well as the outcomes of these approaches. Section 4 summarizes the studies presented in this volume. Both theoretical issues and educational implications related to the development of literacy in two languages are discussed. An attempt is also made to open up new directions in the study of literacy development in multilingual contexts by bringing these various disciplinary perspectives together.

Children's Literacy Development

Children's Literacy Development PDF Author: Catherine McBride-Chang
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1134658214
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 281

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Book Description
Children's literacy development forms the foundation for lifelong learning. Acquisition of reading and writing skills involves crucial aspects of both cognitive and psychosocial development. This book critically analyses research and theory on literacy acquisition from an ecological perspective. Children's Literacy Development considers both universals and specifics of reading acquisition, with particular emphasis on early literacy development across cultures. Topics covered include the effects of culture on literacy fundamentals, building blocks of reading, phonological development, morphological awareness, visual and orthographic skill acquisition, writing and spelling development, and reading comprehension. It also reviews cross-cultural research on the effects of teaching, dyslexia, and bilingualism on literacy acquisition. This text, written for those with no previous background in reading development or impairment, is an excellent resource for both students and professionals interested in literacy development, including those in the areas of psychology, education, linguistics, and paediatrics.

Dialoguing across Cultures, Identities, and Learning

Dialoguing across Cultures, Identities, and Learning PDF Author: Bob Fecho
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 1317331613
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 152

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Book Description
Drawing on Dialogical Self Theory, this book presents a new framework for social and cultural identity construction in the literacy classroom, offering possibilities for how teachers might adjust their pedagogy to better support the range of cultural stances present in all classrooms. In the complex multicultural/multiethnic/multilingual contexts of learning in and out of school spaces today, students and teachers are constantly dialoguing across cultures, both internally and externally, and these cultures are in dialogue with each other. The authors unpack some of the complexity of culture and identity, what people do with culture and identity, and how people navigate multiple cultures and identities. Readers are invited to re-examine how they view different cultures and the roles these play in their lives, and to dialogue with the authors about cultures, learning, literacy, identity, and agency.

Reading Across Cultures

Reading Across Cultures PDF Author: Theresa Rogers
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780585099095
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description