The debate about what constitutes plagiarism and how it should be dealt with in the academy continues to gain momentum. The response from many higher education institutions is to channel ever-increasing amounts of resources into plagiarism detection technologies, rather than trying to ascertain why plagiarism might be occurring in the first place.…

The article considers the contributions of Gee's Discourse theory to the study of multiethnic identity among mixed heritage students. By framing experience within social context, activity, and interaction, I argue that Discourse theory facilitates a conceptualization of ethnic identity as a situated phenomenon emerging at the intersection of the…

A discussion of globalization is presented that focuses on the pros and cons of English spread. The postcolonial theoretical basis for promoting the status of second-language varieties of English, and how this impacts on the foreign-language speaker of English in the European Union, is investigated. Three primary factors, linguistic…

This study traces the ways in which an Arabic-speaking immigrant girl in Cyprus positions herself towards the different gender ideologies that she encounters at home and in school. Through Nadia's linguistic choices and discursive strategies we come to see how competing gender codes, meeting at the crossroads of geographic, linguistic, and…

Drawing on the narratives of four East European couples, this article offers a discourse-centered analysis of their gendered experiences in the second language (L2). The analysis of the data integrates critical feminist perspectives with a Bakhtinian lens to language and the self. Espousing Bakhtin's concepts of dialogue, answerability, and…

Recent studies of second language learning and language contact in bilingual and multilingual communities have been informed by feminist poststructuralist approaches to the study of language, gender, and identity (Cameron, 1997; Cameron, Frazer, Harvey, Rampton, & Richardson, 1992; Eckert & McConnell-Ginet, 1992; Erhlich, 1997; Norton, 2000;…

Based on a qualitative study of Latin American adults enrolled in a California English as a second language (ESL) program, this article examines the ways in which gender as a social construct mediates learners' decisions and opportunities to learn English. In narratives audiotaped during life-history interviews, participants shared their varying…

Focuses on how teachers of minority ancestries construct and represent their family language identities. Drawing on poststructural, postcolonial and sociocultural theory on culture, identity, and language, examined the complex nature of linguistic identities of 25 teachers of Chinese and 20 teachers of Punjabi ancestries. (Author/VWL)

Traces ways that literacy and language policy are translated into classroom practice through the examination of a single case. Demonstrates that the role teachers play in the process can best be understood by considering a variety of factors that have been advanced in policy research to explain variations in policy implementation. Presents…

Investigates the linguistic attitudes of college students in Lebanon toward the languages that help define the multilingual character of the country, namely, Arabic, French, and English. Students completed a questionnaire that assessed their attitudes towards the utility of each of the three languages. Results show students perceived French and…

Examines imagined professional and linguistic communities available to preservice and inservice English-as-a-Second-Language and English-as-a-Foreign-Language teachers enrolled in one TESOL program. Discursive analysis of students' positioning in their linguistic autobiographies suggests that the traditional discourse of linguistic competence…

Applies constructs of language as economic and symbolic capital, transnationalism, investment, and imagined community to analysis of interviews with immigrant parents living in Vancouver, Canada. These parents promote multilingualism by maintaining their family language and enrolling their children in French immersion programs. Argues they view…

Analyzes the policies and practices of school in Japan that serve large numbers of bilingual students. Using the notion of imagined communities, examines the relationship between the schools' visions for their students, their current policies and practices, and the students' identities. (Author/VWL)

Reports a 2001-2002 study conducted among middle school students in Karachi, Pakistan, in the wake of 9/11. In the context of their involvement in a global community-building project, in which students sought to develop the literacy and English skills of a group of Afghan refugees, students were asked to reflect on their perceptions of literacy…

Argues for a complex and contradictory presentation of culture in the language classroom. Uses theories of nationalism to examine treatment of the O.J. Simpson case. Coverage from popular news magazines is read through the lens of anthropology and of literary and social theory. (Author/VWL)