Abstract
Informed by a view of language and literacy learning as social semiosis, the chapter argues that there is a need for a deconstruction of ideological conceptualizations of language and literacy and a reconceptualization of the relationship between language and literacy that reflect the complexity of children’s linguistic and semiotic repertoires and their engagement in language and literacy as meaning making. The findings from Signs of Language, which frames this article, have shown that, when given the opportunity, multilingual students find and create paths across languages and modes in their literacy practices and in learning to read and write in a language new to them. However, these findings have also demonstrated that multilingual students’ perceptions of their own proficiency and future opportunities are strongly influenced by the growing tendency to use literacy skills to regulate education through outcome metrics and the growing perception of literacy as a set of measurable skills that can only be measured in a specific language. Based on these findings, this chapter calls for greater research attention to be devoted to emic perspectives that transcend universalistic conceptions of literacy as well as fragmented understandings of semiotic meaning making.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
References
Anderson-Levitt, K. M. (1996). Behind schedule: Batch-produced children in French and U.S. classrooms. In B. A. Levinson, D. E. Foley, & D. C. Holland (Eds.), The cultural production of the educated person: Critical ethnographies of schooling and local practice (pp. 57–78). Albany: State University of New York Press.
Garcia, Ofelia, Lesley Bartlett, and JoAnne Kleifgen. 2006. From biliteracy to pluriliteracies. In Handbook of applied linguistics and multilingual communication, eds. Peter Auer and Li Wei, 207–228. The Hague: Mouton de Gruyter.
Bloome, D., & Willett, J. (1991). Toward a micropolitics of classroom interaction. In J. Blasé (Ed.), The politics of life in classrooms: Power, conflict and cooperation (pp. 207–236). Newbury Park: Sage.
Buckwalter, J. K., & Gloria Lo, Y.-H. (2002). Emergent biliteracy in Chinese and English. Journal of Second Language Writing, 11, 269–293. https://doi.org/10.1016/S1060-3743(02)00088-7.
Canagarajah, A. S. (2013). Literacy as Translingual Practice. Between communities and classrooms. New York/London: Routledge.
Daugaard, L. M., & Ladegaard, U. (2010). “Må jeg tegne et bogstav” – når børnehaveklassebørn skriver lige, hvad de vil. In H. P. Laursen (Ed.), Tegn på sprog. Skrift og betydning i flersprogede klasserum (pp. 31–36). København: Forlaget UCC.
Dyson, A. H. (1991). Viewpoints: The word and the world – Reconceptualizing written language development or do rainbows mean a lot to little girls? Research in the Teaching of English, 25(1), 97–123. http://www.jstor.org/stable/40171183.
Elbro, C. (2014). Læsning og læseundervisning. København: Gyldendal.
Gudschinsky, S. C. (1977). Techniques for functional literacy in Indigeneous languages and the National Language. In T. P. Gorman (Ed.), Language and literacy: Current issues and research (pp. 65–69). International Institute for Adult Literacy Methods.
Hodge, R., & Kress, G. (1988). Social semiotics. Cambridge: Polity Press.
Holm, L. (2017). Constructions of the literacy competence levels of multilingual students. Language and Education, 31(5), 449–462. https://doi.org/10.1080/09500782.2017.1305397.
Holm, L., & Laursen, H. P. (2011). Migrants and literacy crises. APPLES - Journal of Applied Language Studies, 5(2), 3–16.
Hornberger, N. (2004). The continua of Biliteracy and the bilingual educator: Educational linguistics in practice. International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism, 7(2), 155–175. https://doi.org/10.1080/13670050408667806.
Kenner, C. (2004). Becoming biliterate. Young children learning different writing systems. Stoke-on-Trent: Trentham Books.
Kenner, C., Kress, G., Al-Khatib, H., Kam, R., & Tsai, K.-C. (2004). Finding the keys to Biliteracy: How young children interpret different writing systems. Language and Education, 18(2), 124–144. https://doi.org/10.1080/09500780408666871.
Kramsch, C. (2009). The multilingual subject. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Kress, G. (1997). Before writing. Rethinking the paths to literacy. London: Routledge.
Kress, G. (2007). Meaning, learning and representation in a social semiotic approach to multimodal communication. In A. McCabe, M. O’Donell, & R. Whitaker (Eds.), Advances in language and education (pp. 15–39). London: Continuum.
Kulbrandstad, L. I. (1998). Lesing på et andrespråk. En studie av fire innvandrerungdommes lesing av læreboktekster på norsk. Oslo: Universitetsforlaget AS.
Laursen, H. P. (2013). Umbrellas and angels standing straight. International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism, 16(6), 690–706. https://doi.org/10.1080/13670050.2012.709818.
Laursen, H. P. (2016). Mange dansksprogetheder – andre andetsprogsheder? Nordand, 11(1), 57–85.
Laursen, H. P. (2019). Tegn på sprog – set indefra. En forskningsmæssig opsamling. https://pure.au.dk/portal/files/143188084/Tegn_p_sprog_set_indefra.pdf
Laursen, H. P., & Fabrin, L. (2013). Children investing in literacy. Linguistics and Education, 24(4), 441–453. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.linged.2013.04.003.
Laursen, H. P., & Kolstrup, K. L. (2017a). Multilingual children between real and imaginary worlds. Language play as resignifying practice. Applied Linguistics, 39(6), 799–822. https://doi.org/10.1093/applin/amw049.
Laursen, H. P., & Kolstrup, K. L. (2017b). Clarifications and carnival. Children’s embodied Investments in a Literacy Conversation. Classroom Discourse, 9(2), 112–131. https://doi.org/10.1080/19463014.2017.1392880.
Laursen, H. P., & Mogensen, N. D. (2016a). Language competence in movement: A child’s perspective. International Journal of Multilingualism, 13(1), 74–91. https://doi.org/10.1080/14790718.2015.1023308.
Laursen, H. P., & Mogensen, N. D. (2016b). Timespacing competence. Multilingual children’s linguistic worlds. Social Semiotics, 26(5), 563–581. https://doi.org/10.1080/10350330.2015.1137163.
MacSwan, J. (2017). A multilingual perspective on Translanguaging. American Educational Research Journal, 54(1), 167–201. https://doi.org/10.3102/0002831216683935.
Martin-Beltran, M. (2010). Positioning proficiency: How students and teachers (de)construct language proficiency in school. Linguistics and Education, 21, 257–281. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.linged.2010.09.002.
Miller, J. (1999). Becoming audible: Social identity and second language use. Journal of Intercultural Studies, 20(2), 149–165. https://doi.org/10.1080/07256868.1999.9963477.
Mohan, B., Leung, C., & Chris Davison, C. (2001). English as a second language in the mainstream. Teaching, learning and identity. Essex: Pearson Education.
Moll, L. C., Saez, R., & Dworin, J. (2001). Exploring Biliteracy: Two student case examples of writing as a social practice. The Elementary School Journal, 101(4), 435–448. https://doi.org/10.1086/499680.
Mortensen, K. (2008). Selecting next speaker in the second language classroom: How to find a willing next speaker in planned activities. Journal of Applied Linguistics, 5(1), 55–79. https://doi.org/10.1558/japl.v5il.55.
Mortensen, J. (2012). Epistemisk positionering i dansk talesprog. NyS – Nydanske sprogstudier, 42, 62–91.
OECD. (2018). PISA. http://www.oecd.org/pisa/aboutpisa/ Accessed 20 February 2018.
Østergaard, W. (2013). “Jeg bruger afkode” Læseforståelse og læsestrategier i et tværsprogligt perspektiv. In H. P. Laursen (Ed.), Literacy og sproglig diversitet (pp. 87–108). Aarhus: Aarhus Universitetsforlag.
Reyes, I. (2006). Exploring connections between emergent literacy and bilingualism. Journal of Early Childhood Literacy, 6(3), 267–292. https://doi.org/10.1177/1468798406069801.
Robertson, L. H. (2002). Parallel literacy classes and hidden strengths: learning to read in English, Urdu and Classical Arabic. READING Literacy and Language 2002: 119–126. https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-9345.00198.
Rymes, B., & Pahl, D. (2001). Questioning identity: The case of one second language learner. Anthropology and Education Quarterly, 32(3), 276–300. https://doi.org/10.1525/aeq.2001.32.3.276.
Sahlström, F. (1999). Up the hill backwards. On interactional constraints and affordances for equity-constitution in the classrooms of the Swedish comprehensive school. Uppsala: Uppsala Studies in Education 85.
Street, B. (2003). Afterword. In N. Hornberger (Ed.), Continua of Biliteracy. An ecological framework for educational policy, research and practice in multilingual settings (pp. 340–361). Clevedon: Multilingual Matters.
Wajnryb, R. (1990). Grammar dictation. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2019 Springer Nature Switzerland AG
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Laursen, H.P. (2019). Treading Semiotic Paths in Multilingual Literacy Learning: Challenging Ideological Conceptualizations of Language and Literacy in Education. In: Bagga-Gupta, S., Golden, A., Holm, L., Laursen, H., Pitkänen-Huhta, A. (eds) Reconceptualizing Connections between Language, Literacy and Learning. Educational Linguistics, vol 39. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-26994-4_8
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-26994-4_8
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-030-26993-7
Online ISBN: 978-3-030-26994-4
eBook Packages: EducationEducation (R0)