Sociolinguistics and Language Education.pdf

Language Socialization 447
classrooms to higher education and workplaces. A growing body of literature
identifi es mismatches between the practices valued and inculcated in ESL
courses, such as the fi ve-part essay, and those subsequently required in freshman
composition classes, often more creative and less formulaic structures
(Atkinson & Ramanathan, 1995); between low-tier academic tracks at school
and more challenging high-tier tracks (Harklau, 1994); and between academic
contexts and professional ones (Parks, 2001) (see Duff, 2007b, 2008a).
In addition, teachers need to be more self-aware of their own language
and literacy practices and ideologies in classrooms that might prevent students
from participating more fully, equitably and competently (Abdi,
2009). Obstacles might result from the way the novices are positioned
socially, physically and discursively by others, by question–answer and
discussion patterns framed by the teacher, by the validation of some students
or by various kinds of discursive and affective alignments between
the teacher and some students while other students receive no such validation
(Duff, 2002, 2004). Students (or, for that matter, educators) may fi nd
themselves excluded from discussion topics by exposure to unfamiliar
routines, genres and registers, or because of the incorporation of multiple
texts to which they have no access or experience and need some explanation.
Further, whereas some cultures may emphasize cultural transmission
through oral narratives and may privilege oral assessment in schooling
(Duff, 1995, 1996, 2007b), other cultures may be the opposite, privileging
and assessing formal written discourse of a particular type instead.
Teachers, students and parents must therefore understand the demands
and value of each and also the preparation students will need to enter into
and participate meaningfully in the new academic culture.
As we have seen and as many others have written, language and literacy
socialization is a lifelong process and it is normally a complex combination
of social, cultural, linguistic and cognitive factors as well as
pedagogical ones. Language educators must remember this principle and
appreciate the challenges facing learners in both fi rst- and second-language
contexts. In addition, they must themselves continue to adapt to
new discourses and to new populations and generations of learners who
possess new forms of (e.g. digital) literacies or certain kinds of (socio)linguistic
expertise that the teachers may themselves lack (Duff, 1995).
Language socialization is, after all, a very dynamic, bidirectional or multidirectional
process (Talmy, 2008), one whose normative practices and tools
and values are constantly evolving as well.
Notes
1. Other synonyms for socialization are enculturation, initiation and induction.
2. The expert-novice dichotomy is actually a simple rhetorical convention or
shorthand, because degree of expertise may shift back and forth between
interlocutors or between co-participants depending on their own strengths in