The Writingworld and the Regulation of Minoritized Writers’ Literacy Practices

• In Event: Saturday Roundtable Session 11:25 am
  In Roundtable Session: Opening Space for All the Words: Exploring the Writingworld in Multiple Contexts (Table 17)

Abstract

Drawing on Bourdieu’s field theory (1984, 1988, 1996, 2000), the presenter discusses the Writingworld as an institutional theory of writing that illustrates how minoritized populations’ literacy practices and events are scrutinized by gatekeepers (such as institutions, associations, professions, assessors, teachers, and publishers) typically from the dominant racial and linguistic populations. The concept helps us illustrate when immigrants and refugees adopt their hosts’ language to write in, they not only borrow linguistic and rhetorical features of the language, but they also need to navigate the cultural norms that regulate the relations of the humans who are involved in construction, dissemination, evaluation, and consumption of written texts.

Author

• Amir Kalan, McGill University