Finding Complexity in Language Identity Surveys

ABSTRACT

This article reports on a cross-institutional, mixed-methods research study designed to gather data on first year writers’ language backgrounds at three North American universities. Researchers administered a language survey to 1,870 first year writing students and led follow-up focus groups with 32 participants. Researchers utilized three methods (descriptive statistical analysis, systematic qualitative analysis, and thematic qualitative analysis) to analyze numerical survey responses, written survey responses, and focus group transcripts. Results include both quantitative and qualitative findings, featuring one extended case study that incorporates all three data sources to richly detail the article’s argument: while language surveys are conducted to understand changing populations, they reify language backgrounds in the labeling act, thereby constraining language identities more complex than institutional language allows. The article features rather than obscures this tension, including student resistance to the survey as data reveal how students co-opt, adopt, and resist the language identities supplied to them.

KEYWORDS:

• Higher education
• identity construction
• language and literacy
• language use and identity
• mixed method
• multilingual

Notes

1. Placement into first-year writing courses differs across the three study sites. At NSU, all students are placed according to SAT into either Basic Writing or College Writing course sections; there are no separate courses for multilingual writers. Similar placement is used at UMass, with the difference that the placement is a timed essay test. At Emily Carr, all first-year students are placed by timed essay test in a “mainstream” course (three hours of class per week) or a “stretch” option (six hours of class per week), which serves both multilingual writers and writers who need more preparation in academic writing before entering the mainstream option.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Rebecca Lorimer Leonard

Rebecca Lorimer Leonard is an Associate Professor in the English Department and Director of the Writing Program at the University of Massachusetts Amherst where she teaches undergraduate and graduate courses on language diversity, literacy studies, and research methods.

Shanti Bruce

Shanti Bruce is a Professor and Chair of the Department of Communication, Media, and the Arts at Nova Southeastern University. Her books have won awards from the International Writing Centers Association, she has given numerous peer-reviewed and invited national and international presentations, and she has co-chaired multiple conferences.

Deirdre Vinyard

Deirdre Vinyard is an Associate Teaching Professor and Associate Dean at the University of Washington Bothell and has administered ESL and writing programs in North America and Japan. She is active in curriculum development in both composition and ESL and is a frequent presenter at regional and national composition and writing center conferences.