Actually Decentering English...When Writing English

Today we are again joined by experts in English Language Support, this time with Dr. Shuyuan (Joy) Liu.  How can you decenter English while writing it? We'll get into it!

Interested into more perspectives on global Englishes? Check out this "How to Speak Bad English Perfectly" TEDTalk.

Click here to view a transcript of this episode! 

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Transcript

00:00 Music intro

BT: Hello writers! I’m Britt Threatt and you’re listening to “College Writing, Actually” where we talk about the how-to and how-come of writing and writing instruction. Here for you every other Wednesday when school is in session.

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So You all really responded well to the episodes in season one about multilingual writing so I wanted to offer more resources in that arena. I’m joined today by Dr. Shuyuan Liu, who also goes by Joy. She is the Assistant Director for English Learning Support. Thank you for joining us today, Dr. Liu!

01:00 

JL: Hi, Britt. Thanks for having me today.

BT: Absolutely! So, for context, Dr. Liu works with Anne Kerkian, who did the prior two multilingual writers and instructors episodes. So they work very closely together. Dr. Liu has a Ph.D. in Applied Linguistics from Pennsylvania University and an M.A. in Bilingual Education from Columbia University's Teaching College. Her primary professional experience and interests focus on providing linguistic and cultural support for multilingual international students in postsecondary academic contexts, which is what she does here at the Sheridan Center for Teaching & Learning at Brown. Again, working with Anne who y’all should remember from prior episodes. Today, Dr. Liu is going to be talking to us about some frequently asked questions for multilingual learners seeking support. If you are a multilingual student or are interested in better supporting multilingual students, this episode is for you! So make sure to go ahead save it, bookmark it, like it, all the things! Dr. Liu, what are some FAQs you can answer for us today?

02:06 

JL: Yeah, sure. I'd like to start with some questions about listening comprehension brought by many multilingual, international students who come to us seeking support on writing and speaking– which are usually categorized by language support specialists as “productive skills” in using English.

However, as I mentioned before, I'm going to focus on listening comprehension first, which is a type of receptive skill in using the language. The students' initial questions are typically framed as: I am having a hard time understanding my peers, colleagues, or even course instructors, do you have any tips on improving my listening? When they are asked to provide more context to clarify why it has been problematic for them to comprehend people’s speech in real-life conversations.

03:08 

A lot of the comprehension issues stem from the linguistic and cultural variability of people’s use of English. Linguistic variability includes the various speed, accents, patterns of pronunciations and grammar used by people from different English-speaking backgrounds. Cultural variability can involve the slang, idioms, jargon, and specific cultural references that speakers use that are not easily comprehensible to those who are not local to a certain cultural community.

For example, the classroom is an international space; there’s racial, ethnic, and linguistic diversity but the chosen primary language, or lingua franca, is English. Even though everyone is agreeing to speak English, speakers from diverse cultural backgrounds may find it hard to comprehend some culturally specific idioms incorporated by speakers of American English, such as the ball is in your court, call the shots, knock it out of the park, bottom line, down the line, the big picture, come into play. 

04:16 

Coming back to the linguistic and cultural variability inherent in English communication, one of the very common questions raised by multilingual international students is about the enhanced difficulty of comprehension when the linguistic features of the speaker’s speech patterns such as accents, intonation, and grammar deviate from the so-called “Standard American English” – typically featured in news broadcasts and probably other types of formal public speech in political and educational settings. For example, a multilingual graduate student recently shared with me that it has been difficult for her to grasp what people say especially when they come from different regional and global English communities and speak with dialects and accents that she had not been exposed to before coming to study abroad at Brown. 

05:10 

This type of listening comprehension question raised by multilingual international students, especially first-year students who had little experience attending schools in an English-speaking educational environment, point to the contrast between how English is standardized and structurally represented in textbooks and audiovisual pedagogical materials versus how the language is actually used in real-life communication where variability, diversity, hybridity, and fluidity are probably its core features. 

05:46

BT: That is so interesting. So do you think, then, we need to be teaching English differently or is this a necessary and unavoidable learning curve?

JL: I believe that both aspects are important to consider. There has been a growing body of research and pedagogical interventions that explored how we can incorporate pedagogies informed by Global Englishes to better prepare speakers for communicative demands posed by today’s global conditions. On the other hand, a learning curve might be unavoidable since no theoretical and conceptual knowledge can replace experiences and skills obtained in actual communicative contexts.

BT: Yeah, okay. Got it. But I stepped in on you talking about the listening challenge with various Englishes. How can international multilingual students address that level of variety?

06:40

 JL: There are probably two major ways to approach this type of listening challenges. The first common way is to keep expanding one’s exposure and tune one’s ears to different versions or varieties of Englishes. However, this approach may require certain pre-conditions, including numerous opportunities to interact with people from different language and cultural communities as well as a heightened metalinguistic awareness to capture the phonological and grammatical features of different language varieties. In addition to the first possible approach, the second approach is more about adopting a more active listener mode to employ flexible communication strategies to negotiate shared understanding with the speaker to prevent the occurrence of misunderstanding or non-understanding. So for example, whenever encountering difficulty in understanding, one may ask the speaker to repeat, rephrase, or clarify what they just said. We will unpack more examples later. 

07:45

 BT: Okay so the first approach, to bring it together, because I heard a lot of big words in that first approach of metalinguistic and phonological. So the first approach is about tuning your ears to hear those distinctions and diversities well enough to be able to sort of categorize them and say "okay, this is the condition when I would hear this. This is when I would hear that." So the first one is about your ear?

JL: Yeah.

BT: Okay, cool. And being aware of your environment. The second one is really about checking your understanding. About like-- so with that said, it sounds like a lot of these most common questions really center around communication strategies.

08:25 

JL: Yeah, yeah. So... yeah because communication strategies play key roles in securing effective communication by preventing or resolving misunderstanding and/or nonunderstanding. When interacting with speakers coming from diverse regional and global English-speaking backgrounds, one might anticipate a higher frequency of communication challenges including listening challenges due to the linguistic and cultural diversity of conversation participants. In one of her seminal studies, Dr. Beyza Björkman, who is a scholar on English as a lingua franca interactions, English-medium instruction and language policy working at Stockholm University, she reported an empirically-derived framework of communication strategies employed by participants in globalized higher educational settings where English is used as the communicative medium – or lingua franca – by speakers from diverse backgrounds. So it's actually very interesting that what she found is that the percentage of listener-initiated communication strategies make up 55% of all the communication strategies observed in the interactions she studied. 

09:48

 BT: Okay, so in the place where English is the lingua franca, which-- correct me if I'm wrong-- that means even though multiple languages and cultures are represented, English is the agreed-upon language that everyone's using, right?

JL: Yeah. Yeah.

BT: Okay. So the most communication strategies are the listener taking responsibility to check their understanding with the speaker? By saying things like, “so what I’m hearing you say, correct me if I’m wrong.” Which is what I just did with you with the lingua franca, ironically.  

JL: Yeah, yeah. Yeah exactly. To ensure effective communication in the highly variable English as a lingua franca communication, where English is the chosen language, as you mentioned before, amongst speakers from different language and cultural backgrounds, listeners are not passive receivers of the information conveyed by speakers. Here, I would like to quote Dr. Björkman’s words to capture this important finding:

10:47 

“listeners seem to work at least as hard as the ‘speakers’ by checking whether their understanding is correct and by asking for more information on what has been uttered.”

Two major types of listener-initiated strategies are confirmation checks and clarification requests. Confirmation checks are used when the listener wants to seek confirmation of the speaker’s utterances to make sure they understood what was said. The listener can begin the process of confirming by repeating or rephrasing what they heard. For example, common phrases to signal confirmation checks include: So, you’re saying that…so what you mean is…so what you are trying to say is…So, are you saying that…So do you mean that…? In these examples, “so” is used as a discourse marker to grab the speaker’s attention and signal the listener’s intention to initiate a confirmation check. 

11:51 

In addition to confirmation checks, another major type of listener-initiated strategy is clarification requests which are usually framed as questions that request the speaker to say something in a different way or provide more information so that mutual understanding can be achieved more effectively. To request clarification, the listener may first indicate their lack of understanding, then ask the speaker to clarify what they have said. Such as: Sorry but I don’t quite follow what you are saying about [x], could you describe it in more detail? I didn’t catch everything you said. Would you mind going over this or that again? I didn’t quite understand what you said about something, what do you mean by that? So these are just some examples that people can use to track their understanding.

12:44 

I have actually heard from many multilingual international students that they feel embarrassed to ask the speaker to repeat or rephrase what they have said, because that may indicate their lack of language competence or attention in communication. However, it is worth emphasizing again, with the support of Dr. Björkman’s study cited earlier, that more than half of the communication strategies used to achieve effective communication can be listener-initiated. Therefore, it is absolutely normal and necessary to ask the speaker for repetition, confirmation, and clarification across different communicative settings including small talk, academic discussions, the Q&A part of academic presentations, and even during the interview. 

13:34 

BT: Yeah. And I’ll just add that this isn’t just a communication strategy for international students. As a primary speaker of English, I need clarification on what people mean all the time. Again, I had to ask Dr. Liu, "okay so lingua franca means this, right?" And I’ve had other native speakers express very similar hesitance of "oh, I don't know if I should ask.I don't wanna seem like I don't know. I don't wanna seem stupid. I don't wanna seem unprepared. I really did read. Blah-blah-blah-blah-blah." So this isn’t an anxiety specific to any one group. It is a thing, but definitely push yourself to get the clarification you need, because, as Dr. Liu said, the speaker shares in the responsibility to be understood. If I am saying something, if I'm making a point, if I'm bringing some knowledge to the room, it's not useful if you don't understand it. So I have as much responsibility as you. You have a responsibility for your understanding to make sure that you have the understanding that you need to move forward, and I have a responsibility to be clear and make sure people in the audience that I'm speaking to, that I'm using language that resonates with them. That's understandable to them. Wouldn’t you say, Dr. Liu?

14:45

JL:  Yeah, yeah. So like common speaker-initiated strategies include: repeating and stressing key words, paraphrasing key information, slowing down, and doing comprehension checks such as “Have I made everything clear?” “Are we all on the same page? I am happy to clarify anything that is not clear.” So examples like that can be very useful.

Drawing on the literature of global Englishes, or more specifically – English as a lingua franca communication, there are three pragmatic concepts that characterize effective communication in a linguistically diverse context: explicitness, proactivity, and accommodation.

15:38 

“Explicitness” refers to clarity which means communicators’ efforts to achieve clarity in communication; and “proactivity” indicates speakers and listeners’ mutual efforts to employ various strategies mentioned above, as you also just clarified, or beyond to actively prevent cases of miscommunication; and “accommodation” describes people’s tendency to show tolerance towards diverse accents, phonological and grammatical norms, as well as their practices to adapt their speech to meet the needs of their conversation partners. 

[16:18] Music interlude

BT: Wow, thank you for those clear strategies. Writers, obviously, you should have known from the beginning this is gonna be an episode where you need your pen and paper, but if you haven't gotten it out, go ahead and grab it. Those are some really clear strategies for you, and I’m sure that’s exactly what some listeners have been trying to understand. So, Dr. Liu, you and I had a piece of this conversation already and I want to bring a part of it back now. Some of these communication anxieties are really impressed upon multilingual speakers because they’ve been indoctrinated by this idea that there’s a “right” way to speak that basically teaches if you’re not speaking a particular language variety, you are wrong. When, in fact, someone could be correctly speaking a different dialect. How do you navigate those complex layers of languaging?

17:17 

JL: Yeah. So I would like to first of all introduce a very famous three-circles-model theorized by Braj Kachru in the field of World Englishes, which maps the diffusion of English through three concentric circles – the Inner Circle, the Outer Circle, and the Expanding circle. The inner circle includes countries like the United Kingdom, the United States, Australia, New Zealand, Ireland, and anglophone Canada where English is the  primary language of most people. The term “native-speakers of English” is  primarily associated with people growing up in Inner Circle Countries.

17:58 

In the Outer Circle countries, English is not the native tongue but is used as a lingua franca between different ethnic and language communities. English was spread to Outer Circle countries through the British colonization, and remains as the social language predominantly used in public and educational sectors. Examples of Outer Circle countries include India, Nigeria, Bangladesh, Malaysia, Kenya, et cetera. Besides the Inner and Outer Circle countries, the Expanding Circle encompasses the rest of the world where English has no historical or public roles but is usually learned in schools for the purpose of international communication. Examples of Expanding Circle Countries include China, Russia, Japan, non-Anglophone Europe. 

18:49 

Although the three-circles model has been criticized for its oversimplification and the unclear membership to the circles, I cited the model here to present a rough landscape of how English has been used and learned globally. A lot of the international multilingual students that I have been working with grew up in Expanding Circle countries where the ideologies of monolingual standard English are pervasive in learning materials. Here, I would like to cite some quotes from Dr. Jennifer Jenkins’ article published more than a decade ago, which is entitled: English as a lingua franca: interpretations and attitudes. She mentions people’s derogatory attitudes towards “nonstandard” language use under the influence of native English speaker ideology:

19:41

So the quote is “The staunchly native English speaker ideology that underpins these attitudes, and also pervades much of the English language teaching material available in Expanding Circle countries, seems to be exerting an influence on Expanding circle English teachers and their learners…They consistently oriented most positively to ‘standard’ British and American English accents, not only in relation to ‘correctness’ and ‘pleasantness’ variables, but also for ‘acceptability for international communication’.” She further comments that “this is surprising, given the increasing evidence that British and American accents are not the most easily intelligible in lingua franca contexts because of their copious use of features of connected speech like elision, assimilation, and weak forms” that are very pervasive in their speech.

20:47 

BT: Yeah. Wow are so many things in that that we could get into, but we won't for the sake of time. But just the pleasantness variable. That there is something affective going on like when you speak in a way that's familiar to me or that I have been taught is right, I feel more comfortable. You seem more pleasant. Wow. I mean we can't-- we don't have time to go in there, but that's just so interesting. I had to laugh when you... yeah, it's more pleasant even though it's not necessarily more understandable. Can you quickly say what those last three things are? Elision, assimilation, and weak forms?

21:27 JL: Yeah, yeah for sure. An elision is the speaker’s omission of one or more sounds in speech. For example, “I don't know” is commonly pronounced as /I duno/ in oral speech, the /t/ sound is omitted. Assimilation occurs when two neighboring sounds become similar to each other. For example, ten bucks is pronounced as tembucks in rapid speech, in which the last consonant of the word ten becomes similar to the first consonant of bucks. Weak forms are unstressed syllable sounds in connected speech when the speaker produces a continuous sequence of utterances. The unstressed sounds are typically pronounced as a schwa /ə/, which pronounces "uh" like the word “at.” So usually if we don't use weak form, we will say “what are you looking at”, but in our speech it's usually pronounced "Whad are you lookingit? Whad are you lookingit?"

22:37 

BT: Okay. Okay. It's always so interesting like when I have conversations with Anne and hearing her just break down... I'm just like "I mean, yeah it's true but I never think about it so academically." It's so interesting to hear the way I speak, the way I'm used hearing things, broken down into their own grammar. Especially because we're taught that that way of speaking is not correct. Like you shouldn't be dropping your "t" or like, like we're taught not to do those things academically so to hear people study it academically for the purpose of making it clear to international speakers is so-- it's just like a meta-moment for me because I'm like "huh? Oh yeah, yeah, yeah! I do that." Thank you for breaking that down.

23:27

JL: Yeah, it's just so habitual. Yeah, yeah, because it's...yeah.

BT: Thank you for breaking it down because I do think it’s useful for native English speakers who are monolingual to be aware of ways we communicate that don’t translate easily to multilingual speakers. But again I interrupted you, so you were saying about the three-circle model?

23:54 

JL: Yeah, yeah, sure yeah. So I would like to also share that I grew up in an Expanding Circle Country where English was taught as a school subject and rarely used for daily communication. I do remember that our course materials treated the standard varieties of American or British English as the only models of correctness and authority. As English language learners, we were trying hard to imitate the standard British or American accent, and were very afraid of making grammatical mistakes in public when speaking the language. I remember our English teachers usually asked us: “which accent are you imitating, the British or the American one?” And we had to choose one as our model of imitation. 

24:49

So circling back to what you were saying. I think it's absolutely right that a lot of these communication anxieties are “impressed upon multilingual speakers because they’ve been indoctrinated by this idea that there’s a “right” way to speak”. Much of the attention is on whether or not you are using the right way to speak, with the right accent and grammar, rather than the essence of the message. However, English itself is a hybrid, fluid, and pluralistic language with variations within and beyond any named varieties. Under the umbrella term of American English or British English, there is a vast range of regional and social variations. But only a certain version of the language, or in other words, a certain dialect spoken by a certain group of people is considered as “correct” and being taught globally. 

25:47 

Although Dr. Jennifer Jenkins’ article was published in 2009, around 14 years ago, I encountered a quite recent example that shows how this standard native speaker ideology is still very entrenched. I recently read a Chinese article that features the content of an award speech given by Cixin Liu, a very famous science fiction writer in China who authored the Three Body Problem series and was awarded the Clarke Award for imagination in Service to Society in 2018. However, a lot of the readers of that article did not focus on the content of his speech, but posted harsh comments on his English accent. Here is the translation of some of those comments: “He sounds like a Trisolaran"

26:47 

So maybe you don't know what Trisolaran is if you have not read his book.

BT: Okay.

JL: Trisolarans is a fictional alien civilization featured in the series of Three Body Problems written by Cixin Liu himself. Like alien species. Another, "please speak Chinese, his accent sounds awkward." And here's another one: "His accent is really off-putting, speak Chinese!" And the last one that I'd like to share: "You have already gained recognition from the world, why did you use such crappy English to deliver the award speech? Regardless of your English proficiency, you should have chosen to speak in Chinese anyway.”

27:39

There were only very few comments that fought against this standard English ideology. So for example, a reader posted: “Is it so hard to give him some praise? For those who criticized his accent, are you able to speak perfect British accent? You should be mindful of the fact that Liu was able to win himself this honor, whereas you and I could only use our cell phones to enter some trivial commentaries here.” 

BT: Period.

JL: Yeah, period. If these communication anxieties and biases can be traced back to how we have been indoctrinated by the idea that there is a “right” way to speak, then we need to ask these questions indeed:

28:31

 so who defined what is right and wrong, what is acceptable and nonacceptable, and what is standard and nonstandard? Who defined what can be represented in textbooks and what should be learned? These imperialist language ideologies that favor linguistic hierarchy and monolingualism were developed in the context of imperial expansion. According to Alastair Pennycook, one of the key scholars in the field of Global Englishes and many others, the standardization of English was “a very particular construction of the nineteenth century, one that was held in place by the discipline of linguistics” which was developed in part as a reaction to the rapid expansion of the empire. He observes that the need to discipline English was produced to “hold the language and its desired meanings firmly in the hands of the central colonial institutions”.

[29:38] Musical interlude 

BT: Just the wording of that. To "hold it firmly in the hands of central colonial institutions." I mean, we know and we've talked about before on this podcast that language is power, but to hear it put so firmly like "yeah, they absolutely did it to continue to hold power and to be able to say 'we know the right way. This is the right way.'" To have that power of education, which turns into indoctrination. Ugh gosh. It's frustrating. It's creepy. It's weird. It's gross. But it seems very on brand for the colonial project, and part of that also becomes a level of cultural repression. That this is the right way to speak and so you need to, in some ways, forsake or segment or categorize your own way of speaking...subjugate it to this correct way.

30:36

 JL: Mhm, mhm. Yeah, yeah exactly. Christopher Jenks, who is a scholar on intercultural communication and world Englishes, wrote the introduction of “Global Englishes” in Oxford Bibliographies, and he said we should not forget that “the global spread of English is largely based on a history of colonialism and imperialism, and these historical developments have formed, and currently shape, how individuals construct their language ideologies”. 

As one of the billions of individuals who speaks and uses English across the borders of what Kachru termed as three concentric circles of world Englishes, we need to examine how our ideologies of what is right and wrong about speaking English are rooted in colonial legacies and can perpetuate linguistic imperialism in subtle ways. 

31:35

And I think maybe we might not have time to dive deeply into all these complex layers of linguistic, cultural, and political issues surrounding the spread and use of English. However, to embrace a decolonial approach, as users, learners, and educators of English, we need to contest these colonial and neo-colonial language ideologies that are tied to linguistic hierarchy, purism, and monolingualism. We need to recognize the realities of English as a truly hybrid, diverse, adaptive, and variable language that is owned by no one and yet everyone. 

32:13

 BT: Mm! Wow, yes! What a word. And having come to that same conclusion through the work of Black linguists like Geneva Smitherman, Vershawn Ashanti-Young, and April Baker-Bell, it’s so interesting to hear it echoed in the world English arena. Shout it from the mountaintops! Wow.

JL: Yeah.

BT: I mean that just shows you that no matter the race, the culture, the geography, it's a similar experience of cultural repression, linguistic superiority and supremacy. So it's just so interesting to hear how different areas of study reach that same conclusion. Thank you so much for sharing your expertise with us today, Dr. Liu. Listeners, that is all we have for you. 

33:05

JL: Thank you so much, Britt. I'm just so happy and excited to be able to come here and share knowledge and insights from past research and my experiences with everyone here.

BT: Absolutely. Thank you so much! And listeners, again, this episode is one you're gonna want. I will put some links and some studies that Dr. Liu references in the show notes so check those out. If you are interested in this, if you have friends are interested in this...teachers, if you're listening, you have students who may be interested in this, you definitely want to share this podcast. And also consider liking this podcast and rating this podcast, leaving a review for the podcast so that other listeners who do not yet know this resource, who are scrolling, can see it and see that it's a worthwhile resource that's really helping people.

33:58

With that, thank you so much, listeners for tuning in. I hope this episode is everything that you needed. Feel free to leave a comment, either on whatever listening platform you're on or in my DMs @collegewritingactually Instagram. Definitely let me know if this episode sparks more questions and you want bonus episodes. Let me know. I would love to! On that note, please make sure you are following me on @collegewritngactually on Instagram and if you want some weekly writing tips, definitely check out @brown_writing_center. You get weekly writing tips. We do Multilingual Mondays where we get tips from Anne and Dr. Liu every Monday during the semester. We're starting Writing Wellness Wednesday where we get tips on how to take care of yourself while you're writing. And then we do just funny reels on Friday. So definitely check out that Instagram. There's a lot there for you. We're really trying to build up an archive of writing resources,

34:58 

so if you're not following that yet, definitely, definitely do. Teachers, recommend it to your students. It's a student-facing resource. We have a lot of resources there for your student so definitely check it out. With that, we’re out of here. As always, y’all write on.