The Making of a "Mexican Feminist": A Multilingual Writer's Development of Disciplinary Identity

• In Event: Writing and Literacies Across Disciplinary Contexts: Implications for Students Learning English as an Additional Language

Abstract

At a conceptual level, disciplines – even when understood as inherently dynamic and flexible – can be seen as “language-using communities which help us join writers, texts and readers together” (Hyland, 2015, p. 2). Socialization into disciplines can therefore be understood as lengthy, complex processes mediated by a range of institutions and individuals over time. This study provides a longitudinal analysis of one multilingual and multicultural writer’s development as a “Mexican feminist” over four years as she pursued a Gender and Women’s Studies college major, focusing specifically on the ways in which disciplinary writing was inextricable from the development of disciplinary identity itself. The development of disciplinary identity through engagement in literacy practices is conceptualized as a process of language socialization (Ochs, 1999), involving the development of not only linguistic competence but also the knowledge of a community’s “values, practices, identities, ideologies, and stances” (Duff & Talmy, 2011, p. 98). Within such communities, however, individuals are able to exert agency in how they both define and choose to engage in disciplinary literacy practices. Socialization processes are present across the multiple languages – and registers of language – in a multilingual student’s communicative repertoire.

This study, which draws upon a tradition of case-study research (Duff, 2007) and longitudinal naturalistic inquiry (Harklau, 2001), focuses on Fabiola, a Spanish-speaking student who began attending U.S. schools (and learning English) in ninth grade and then enrolled at and graduated from a state university. Data analysis focuses on an “interactional histories analysis” (Kibler, 2011) of the texts Fabiola wrote over time, examining her composing process, the ways in which interactions with other people and texts influenced her writing, and the ways in which her texts changed over time as she assumed a specific disciplinary identity. Primary data for analysis include interview transcripts and writing samples I collected from Fabiola during her four college years, and secondary data used to provide context for the analysis include observational field notes and writing samples collected during high school. Interview transcripts were analyzed inductively (Marshall & Rossman, 2011), and writing samples were revisited to support or refute interview claims.

Key findings indicate that 1) Fabiola successfully met the extensive language and literacy demands of the discipline – and in increasingly sophisticated ways over time – but did so in ways that allowed her to draw upon her own multilingualism, multiculturalism, and personal interests in order to craft a unique Mexican feminist identity within the larger discipline, and 2) the multilingual and multicultural audiences for whom Fabiola wanted to write remained somewhat distant from the school-based disciplinary audiences to whom she actually wrote. This single case suggests that the disciplinary writing through which multilingual/multicultural students are socialized in college settings – while challenging in terms of language and literacy demands – provide opportunities for students to engage both academically and personally, and in ways that meet disciplinary requirements but do not always address the multilingual and multicultural audiences that student writers envision.

Author

• Amanda Kibler, University of Virginia