TPCS 17: Linguistic biographies, expanding repertoires, and motivation in Global English language education

By Lauren Zentz

Abstract

The document below is a draft form of one data analysis chapter in my dissertation, Global Language Identities and Ideologies in an Indonesian University Context. For the purposes of this application, I have framed this chapter with an introduction and conclusion to facilitate its reading as a stand-alone document. In the chapter I present two case study analyses of students’ linguistic biographies and expanding communicative repertoires as students in the English Department, and their motivations to further shape their expanding repertoires. I then relate these students’ motivations in English language learning to current debates concerning English in globalization.

This chapter of my dissertation will be complemented by analysis of the sociohistorical and linguistic political contexts that locally, nationally and globally make these participants’ repertoires and motivations possible. Some of the discussions that will constitute that chapter are presented in an article, “The porous borders of language and nation: English in Indonesia,” which I have also included in this application.

As the reader engages with the chapter below, a brief explanation of my positionality (more details will be found in the above mentioned article) is pertinent. During the 2009-10 academic year I was a teacher-researcher in the undergraduate English Department (ED) of a university in Central Java, Indonesia. Over the course of two semesters I taught Sociolinguistics, Cross-Cultural Understanding, Introduction to Linguistics, and general speaking and writing courses. In my first semester Sociolinguistics class I invited students to participate in this year long dissertation project and eight students volunteered to do so. All of these students were in their fourth year of studies in the ED, finishing up their coursework and engaging with their required final theses. Their participation in this project included five individual and four focus group (I divided them at random into 2 groups of 4) interviews over the course of the year, as well as my joining them in activities on and off of campus.

The chapter below provides case studies of two of these research participants, under the pseudonyms of Satriya and Angelo.

How to quote: Zentz, L. (2012). Linguistic biographies, expanding repertoires, and motivation in Global English language education. (Tilburg Papers in Culture Studies; No. 17).

Read the full working paper here: Linguistic biographies, expanding repertoires,  and motivation in Global English language education.