(Re)Positioning the Englishes of a Black Transnational Youth

• In Event: 61.047 - Language Ideologies and Positioning: Countering Deficit Discourses Surrounding Immigrant and Emergent Bilingual Learners

Abstract

Increasing evidence confirms that multilingual and multiethnic English-speaking students face challenges with the English language when they migrate between their home countries and the United States. However, it is not often that race and language are equally foregrounded to illustrate the effects of both elements in the literate practices of transnational youth of color. This article draws on positioning theory to describe how a Black transnational Black English-speaking adolescent undergoes shifts in her experiences as a student that (re) position her as a literate user of Englishes. The discussion illustrates how the individual and global analyses recommended by a ‘raciolinguistic perspective’ allowed Jaeda to develop a ‘transraciolinguistic’ approach that allowed her to persist as having a sense of agency.

Author

• Patriann Smith, University of South Florida