Tutoring Second Language Writers (27 page)

Transformative Accommodation in L2 Writing

PEI-HSUN EMMA LIU

As a tutor while I was in graduate school in the United States, I regularly faced a dilemma with international students who brought their own cultural heritage to academic writing in the United States. This cultural heritage represents values learned over many years and may consist of the rhetorical norms they were taught in schools back home, the ideology about privileged languages, and the aesthetics of nonacademic discourse they bring with them from homes, communities, nationalities, and races (see also Amevuvor, this volume). Should tutors encourage international students to accommodate fully to US norms, or should we permit second language writers to express their individual cultural values in writing? Posed in this way, the question assumes
either/or
, but as Suresh
Canagarajah (2006)
suggests, “Rather than simply
joining
a speech community, students should learn to
shuttle
between communities in contextually relevant ways. To meet these objectives, we should perceive ‘error’ as the learner’s active negotiation and exploration of choices and possibilities” (593). Canagarajah’s idea of shuttling gives tutors and writers a way to think beyond the
either/or
of accommodation versus individual expression. As a tutor, it helped me to see the pedagogical possibilities of negotiating language differences and using first language (L1) writers as a resource.

As a researcher, I investigated how second language (L2) writers bring their cultural and linguistic identities into English composition. I found that one of my research participants, Angela, was a great example of what Canagarajah calls “active negotiation.” Angela was a Taiwanese exchange student in the United States from whom I collected data for my dissertation. Based on my experience interacting with her, in this
chapter I share Angela’s story and discuss writing strategies an L2 college writer adopted to reconcile the academic English requirements with her Chinese linguistic identities. This strategy, which I call
transformative accommodation
following
Canagarajah (2004)
, illustrates how Angela successfully negotiated a space that integrates native cultural rhetoric with US academic conventions.

Angela was twenty years old when I first met her. She is the kind of woman who makes people smile, laugh, and feel comfortable. Upon her arrival in the States, Angela was not confident in her English proficiency, and she was placed in the beginner level in a language institute. When we talked about her experiences learning English, she seemed frustrated, telling me she tried as hard as she could to avoid using English when she was in Taiwan. Despite her lack of confidence and low proficiency in English, she was comfortable and confident in Chinese writing. Her investment in Chinese writing was strong. Angela’s parents taught her Chinese composition when she was little and sent her to private schools for extra lessons in Chinese composition. She developed an interest in Chinese writing after that. She enjoyed reading Chinese books to learn how to write, as well as practicing writing. Angela constructed her identity as a good Chinese writer based on her parents’ influence and her investment in Chinese composition.

Angela continued to construct her identity as a good Chinese writer when she was taking an ESL composition class in the United States. When I asked her about the differences between Chinese and English composition, her eyes started to sparkle when she told me about how she was in favor of Chinese ways of writing in comparison with English ones.

This excerpt shows Angela’s positive attitudes toward Chinese composition. She begins by pointing out the “fullness” of Chinese composition and the “simplicity” of English writing. For Angela, English writing is all
about using beautiful words, mentioning main ideas at the beginning, and making it brief. Chinese composition, however, is sophisticated in a way that is very organized and requires many writing devices, such as use of analogy. Her knowledge and experience with Chinese composition allowed her to construct a positive and strong identity as a writer in the English composition class, where she was paradoxically less competent and confident.

While Angela preferred Chinese ways of writing over English ways, she tried to be obedient and respectful and follow the teacher’s instructions in class. She constructed her identity as a good and smart student in the writing class. She was one of the few students who interacted with the teacher. She enjoyed answering the teacher’s questions. She was also a helper in the class. When her Japanese classmates did not understand the teacher’s instructions, they asked Angela for help. For her, being a good student meant being obedient to and respectful of teachers. Usually Angela followed the teacher’s instructions and was a good student. But she modified the instructions when they conflicted with her identity as a good Chinese writer.

When the teaching instruction was different from her writing habits or styles, Angela tried to include her own writing style. She accommodated to the teacher’s instruction in a transformational way so she could maintain her identities as both a good Chinese writer and a good student. In other words, Angela wanted to include her Chinese identity in her English writing without violating the teacher’s expectations. When I asked how she could manage to do that, she said,

Angela was able to negotiate her identities between being a good student and a good Chinese writer. She realized she had to make a point in the introductory paragraph, and she tried to follow that instruction. She was also able to find space to include her own writing style. I was curious about how she managed to do so. When I asked her for specific examples, she became excited and spoke quickly about one of her compositions she wrote in a transformative way:

The following textual example, previously referred to by Angela, shows the transformational accommodation of her L1 identity in her English writing.

Although the piece of writing is not 100 percent clear, I think it is poetic, and in fact, this is the writer’s intention mentioned above when she explained how she managed to maintain her L1 identity without violating the teacher’s instructions. Angela tried to point out her main idea in the first sentence by saying, “Grant Street is my favorite side in IUP,” and then she applied her poetic Chinese writing style in the rest of the paragraph. She tried to depict an image of tree leaves falling gracefully and peacefully. She strategically accommodated the teacher’s instructions in a transformational way. She was able to make her point and at the same time satisfy her desire to be both a good student and a good Chinese writer.

All in all, despite Angela’s low confidence and proficiency in English, she was able to negotiate and validate her identity as an English learner through the strategy of transformational accommodation in the ESL composition class. Her engagement in the imagined community of good Chinese writers empowered her investment in Chinese composition (
Norton 2001
). That is, she did not blindly accept whatever her teacher asked her to do; she negotiated between English and Chinese writing styles, constructing her L1 in the process as a resource that helped her gain confidence in learning to write in English.

The story of Angela suggests tutors can collaborate with multilingualism by accepting the transformational accommodation of L2 writers’ native rhetoric and aesthetics in English composition (see also Cox, this volume). Academic discourse and experience can either empower or silence L2 writers. It empowers them when it includes students’ cultural practices and silences them when it excludes those outside the
mainstream (
Liu and Tannacito 2013
). Also, Angela’s case indicates that a developed L1 identity can help L2 writers negotiate in the midst of conflicting/different rhetoric. L2 writers ought not be faced with the Hobbesian choice of giving up their native premises in order to adopt new situational norms. Instead, tutors should empower L2 students by helping them appreciate their own cultures and languages. Tutors should help L2 writers become empowered to better appreciate their own cultures and languages by encouraging them to express themselves freely, bringing their own identities into their writing.