ERIC Number: EJ723574
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2005
Pages: 51
Abstractor: Author
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-0741-0883
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Available Date: N/A
Commitments to Academic Biliteracy: Case Studies of Francophone University Writers
Gentil, Guillaume
Written Communication, v22 n4 p421-471 2005
This article examines the appropriation of academic biliteracy by three French-speaking students at an English-medium university in the Canadian province of Quebec. Drawing on Hornberger's continua model of biliteracy, Bourdieu's critical social theory, and philosophical hermeneutics, the author conceptualizes individual biliterate development as a subjective and intersubjective evaluative response to social contexts of possibilities for biliteracy. Case study data were collected during 2 1/2 years and included autobiographical and text-based interviews, inventories and analyses of academic writing in English and French, classroom-based observations, field notes, and documentation of the legal, historical, institutional, and demographic contexts. Analyses of the participants' negotiations and trajectories of bilingual academic writing development reveal the challenges and resources of bilingual writers to uphold their commitment to academic biliteracy within English-dominant institutional and disciplinary contexts. Implications for the advancement of multilingual academic literacies are drawn.
Descriptors: Social Theories, English, Bilingualism, Writing (Composition), French Canadians, Foreign Countries, Hermeneutics, Academic Discourse, French, Case Studies, Language of Instruction, College Students
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Publication Type: Journal Articles; Opinion Papers; Reports - Evaluative
Education Level: Higher Education
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Identifiers - Location: Canada
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