Reflections on Multiliterate Lives

by Belcher, Diane; Connor, Ulla

• ISBN13: 9781853595219
• ISBN10: 1853595217
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2001-02-12
• Publisher: Multilingual Matters

Summary

Reflection on Multiliterate Lives is a collection of personal accounts, in narrative and interview format, of the formative literacy experiences of highly successful second language users, all of who are professional academics. Representing fourteen countries in origin, the contributors, well-known specialists in language teaching as well as a variety of other fields in the social and physical sciences, recount in their own words past and present struggles and successes as learners of language and of much else.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements	vii
Editors' Introduction	1	(22)
Diane Belcher
Ulla Connor
Part I: Language Specialists as Language Learners
The Fortunate Traveler: Shuttling Between Communities and Literacies by Economy Class	23	(15)
Suresh Canagarajah
Initiating into Academic Community: Some Autobiographical Reflections	38	(13)
Vijay K. Bhatia
Reminiscences of a Multilingual Life: A Personal Case History	51	(9)
Nils Erik Enkvist
Developing Literacy Can and Should Be Fun: But Only Sometimes Is	60	(7)
Hakan Ringbom
Straddling Three Worlds	67	(7)
Anna Soter
How a Speaker of Two Second Languages Becomes a Writer in a Foreign Language	74	(5)
Adina Levine
From L1 to L12: The Confessions of a Sometimes Frustrated Multiliterate	79	(17)
Andrew D. Cohen
My Experience of Learning to Read and Write in Japanese as L1 and English as L2	96	(14)
Ryuko Kubota
An Introspective Account of L2 Writing Acquisition	110	(11)
Miyuki Sasaki
Writing from Chinese to English: My Cultural Transformation	121	(14)
Jun Liu
Part II: Crossing Cultures Across the Disciplines
Learning is a Lifelong Process	135	(6)
Ming-Daw Tsai
Linguistic Experiences of a Mathematical Career	141	(9)
Louis de Branges
Taking the Best from a Number of Worlds: An Interview with Hooshang Hemami	150	(11)
Hooshang Hemami
Diane Belcher
Growing up Trilingual: Memories of an Armenian/Arabic/English Speaker	161	(4)
Anahid Dervartanian Kulwicki
How Can I Help Make a Difference? An Interview with Robert Agunga	165	(12)
Robert Agunga
Diane Belcher
A Professional Academic Life in Two Languages: An Interview with Maria Julia	177	(14)
Maria Julia
Diane Belcher
On Being a Citizen of the World: An Interview with Luis Proenza	191	(9)
Luis Proenza
Ulla Connor
The Advantages of Starting Out Multilingual: An Interview with Steven Beering	200	(9)
Steven Beering
Ulla Connor
Appendix: Guiding Questions	209