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Downloaded by [University of California, San Diego] at 16:02 12 March 2017 3 CREATIVITY AND LANGUAGE LEARNING Rod Ellis Introduction We all have a general understanding of what it means to be “creative.” It involves novelty, imagination, adaptability, experimentation, and open-mindedness. Nev- ertheless, it is quite a difficult concept to tie down in a precise way. In part, this is because it means quite different things when we talk about creativity as a trait (i.e., a “creative person”), creativity as a product (i.e., a poem or an innovative lan- guage teaching activity) and creativity as a process (i.e., the actual act of “creating” something; see also Densky, this volume).All three senses of creativity are relevant to what I want to say about creativity in relation to language learning, so I will begin by examining these three senses of the concept. When we talk about creativity as a trait, we have in mind that some people are more creative than others. Guilford (1950, 1959) identified a number of qualities of the creative person but ended up focusing on just one of these—divergent thinking—as the primary component of creativity.Torrance (1981) drew on Guil- ford’s work to develop a series of tests to measure creativity as divergent thinking. The Torrance Tests of Creative Thinking are still widely used today.They are based on four aspects of divergent thinking: (1) the ability to produce a large number of ideas (i.e., creative fluency); (2) the ability to produce a wide variety of ideas (i.e., creative flexibility); (3) the ability to produce unusual ideas (i.e., originality); and (4) the ability to extend and support ideas (i.e., creativity as elaboration). Scores on the tests have been found to correlate strongly with a single general personality factor—openness to experience (Batey & Furnham, 2006)—suggesting that per- son creativity is a matter of personality. In the case of language learning, the key question becomes whether those individuals who are more creative (i.e., obtain higher scores on the tests) are also more successful in learning a new language.
Downloaded by [University of California, San Diego] at 16:02 12 March 2017 Creativity and Language Learning 33 The product-based approach to investigating creativity looks at the output of the creative process. The problem here, however, is deciding what constitutes a creative and noncreative product. In general, a product is considered creative if it is (1) novel and (2) appropriate to its context (Sternberg & Lubart, 1999). A cre- ative product does not have to be revolutionary, however. It can achieve novelty and appropriateness within the constraints that the creator has chosen to operate. In the case of language, a creative product might be a great work of literature or, more mundanely, it might be the utterance that a learner produces that does not conform to the linguistic norms of a language but is nevertheless appropriate to context.As we will see later, learner language is inherently creative in this sense. Process accounts of creativity tend to emphasize the universal nature of cre- ativity.That is, they view all of us as capable of acting in creative ways. Roe (1976) offers a generalized account of the creative process. It is initiated by an intense interest in a particular field that motivates two major stages: (1) idea emergence and generation and (2) a rational evaluative phase where ideas are evaluated logi- cally in light of the specific problem being addressed. Baer (2003) similarly dis- tinguished two basic steps, noting that the first step calls for divergent thinking and the second step for more critical, convergent thinking. Isaksen and colleagues (2011) suggested that these stages (and the substages within each) operate in a cyclical manner.That is, rational evaluation can feed back into further idea gen- eration. We can ask, therefore, whether this creative process is evident in how learners acquire a second language (L2). In the rest of this chapter, I will explore how these three senses of creativity can illuminate the way languages are learned. I will argue that language acquisi- tion is an inherently creative process that draws on the creative potential in all of us and is manifested continuously and incidentally in novel utterances that display productivity and that sometimes are also deliberately engineered for purposes of fun and enjoyment. Person Creativity and Language Learning The relationship between person creativity and language learning is potentially two way. That is, more creative people make better language learners but, also, language learning may foster creativity in people. Surprisingly, however, there is relatively little research that has investigated either of these possibilities although the current emphasis on learning-through-communicating—as in task-based lan- guage teaching—has aroused interest in the relationship.Arguably, person creativ- ity becomes more important when learners have the opportunity to communicate freely than when their linguistic behavior is constrained by highly controlled drills and exercises.We should also take note of the fact that a common claim of advo- cates of foreign language teaching is that learning a new language fosters creativ- ity in individuals because it leads them to restructure their own cultural world (Clarke, n.d.; Giaque, 1985).
Downloaded by [University of California, San Diego] at 16:02 12 March 2017 34 Rod Ellis In an early study, Otto (1998) investigated whether differences in the creativity of 34 low-intermediate secondary students in Hungary, who were exposed to a communicative language teaching methodology, were related to their proficiency in English. Creativity was measured by means of a series of tests similar to the Torrance tests.The improbable situations task posed questions such as “What would happen if people became invisible?” and asked the students to provide as many answers as they could think of. The unusual uses task asked them to suggest dif- ferent ways in which common objects (e.g., a book) could be used.The common problems task asked them to list a number of problems that might occur in an everyday situation (e.g., making a sandwich).The categories task required the learn- ers to list as many things as they could think of that belonged to a given category (e.g., things that are flat).The semantic association task provided learners with two words (i.e., “mirror” and “rain”) and asked them to supply a third word that was semantically related to these words. In some respects, these tests resembled the kinds of tasks that figure in task-based language teaching. Proficiency was mea- sured by means of the teachers’ ratings of the individual students and their course grades. Otto reported strong correlations between the scores on the creativity tests and the students’ English grades.A composite score derived from all the tests accounted for nearly 40% of the variance in grade scores. Otto interpreted this result as indicating that “using only language learning tasks that require students to participate creatively may restrict the language learning opportunities of less creative students” and went on to suggest that teachers should “employ a variety of tasks that differ in the level of creativity required” (p. 772). In other words, Otto was querying the widely held assumption that creative language teaching materi- als are always desirable. There have been very few follow-ups to Otto’s interesting study. In one study, Albert and Kormos (2004) examined the commonsense assumption that “creativ- ity is usually manifested in production, that is, in creative products” (p. 288).They investigated the relationship between the person creativity of 35 Hungarian high school students with high-intermediate to advanced levels of English proficiency and their performance of two narrative tasks. They used a battery of creativity tests based on the Torrance model (i.e., they tested the flexibility, originality, and creative fluency of the students’ thinking). The production resulting from the performance of the two narrative tasks was analyzed in terms of quantity of talk, complexity, accuracy, lexical variety, and narrative structure (i.e., the number of clauses reflecting the events in the stories). Partial correlations were calculated between the creativity and production scores in order to take the students’ general English proficiency measured by means of a c-test into account. However, very few, weak correlations were found, accounting for only 10% to 15% of variance. Originality correlated negatively with overall quantity of talk (i.e., students with higher originality scores produced fewer words when performing the tasks) but positively with the number of narrative clauses. In other words, original students
Downloaded by [University of California, San Diego] at 16:02 12 March 2017 Creativity and Language Learning 35 produced less speech, but their stories had a more complex discourse structure. Flexibility scores were not found to be related to any of the criterion measures. Albert and Kormos concluded that overall, “creativity contributes to the quality of task performance only to a limited extent” (p. 301) and suggested that a much more important factor might be the students’ motivation for performing tasks as shown in an earlier study by Dörnyei and Kormos (2000). There are a number of differences between Otto’s and Albert and Kormos’s studies that might explain the discrepancy in their results.The two studies used dif- ferent tests of creativity, although both tests were based on the same componential model of creativity.The two studies used different criterion measures—teachers’ grade scores in Otto and measures of oral production in Albert and Kormos. Although both studies investigated Hungarian high school students, Otto’s learn- ers were of a lower proficiency level. Finally,Albert and Kormos controlled for the learners’ initial proficiency by means of partial correlations, whereas Otto did not. Further studies are needed before any clear claims can be made about the role that person creativity plays in language learning. In particular, there is a need to con- trol for the motivational level of the learners.1 It is reasonable to assume that an unmotivated creative person will be less successful than a less creative person who is motivated, so what is needed are studies that examine the significance of cre- ativity in learners who are equally motivated to put effort into language learning. Arguably the more interesting question, however, is whether language learn- ing can help develop a person’s creativity.There is ample evidence that bilingual- ism confers cognitive benefits. Bialystok and associates (2012) review research showed that bilingual children manifest greater executive control than equivalent monolingual children and also reported that the symptoms of Alzheimer’s disease emerge later in bilinguals than in monolinguals. However, these advantages are attested in people who had learned two languages in a naturalistic setting from an early age. Of obvious interest to language teachers is whether similar advan- tages can be found in foreign language learners who learn a language later in an instructed context. To investigate this, Ghonsooly and Showqi (2012) com- pared the creativity of two groups of Iranians—a monolingual group and a group of advanced foreign language learners—taking care to control for family back- ground and socioeconomic status.They administered an IQ test (Raven’s Progres- sive Matrices) and the Torrance Tests of Creative Thinking. Interestingly, there was no difference in the two groups’ IQ scores, but there were statistically significant differences in their scores for creative fluency, flexibility, originality, and elabo- ration. In each case, the foreign language learners outscored the monolinguals. Ghonsooly and Showqi proposed that, as with early bilinguals, learning a language helps develop foreign language learners’ executive control abilities and that these abilities are heavily involved in creativity.Their study lends support to the claim that the teaching of foreign languages contributes to general cognitive develop- ment as Clarke (n.d.) claims: “Learning a language may be a creative exercise
Downloaded by [University of California, San Diego] at 16:02 12 March 2017 36 Rod Ellis because languages are so vast and complex, each user needs to combine elements of knowledge in new ways constantly” (p. 4). In the next section, where I turn to examine creativity as a product, I will show how the process of combining new elements in new ways constitutes an essential feature of learner language. It is a capacity that every learner possesses and thus may not be subject to differences in person creativity. I will also consider language play; given that this resembles the literary uses of language, in many respects it may be more closely related to person creativity.2 Product Creativity: The Nature of Learner Language Creativity in learner language is evident in two quite different ways. Learners use the linguistic resources at their disposal to encode utterances in order to engage in communication. As their linguistic resources are often limited, the learner lan- guage that results is “creative” in the sense that it frequently does not conform to the patterns and rules of the target language.When this happens, however, learn- ers are not intentionally trying to be creative; rather, their creative acts are simply the product of their need to communicate.At times, however, L2 learners, like all language users, do make deliberate efforts to use language in creative ways. This is most clearly evident in language play—that is, language that is “not primarily motivated by human need to manipulate the environment (and to share informa- tion for this purpose) and to form and maintain social relationships” (Cook, 1997). Language play is perhaps most clearly “creative” in terms of our usual understand- ing of this term.What distinguishes these two types of learner language is whether creativity arises incidentally when learners are primarily focused on meaning or whether it is evident as a result of learners’ deliberate attempts to manipulate lin- guistic form for fun or to achieve some special effect (e.g., to tease someone).To understand how creativity manifests itself in learner language, we need to consider both types of learner language. Incidental Creativity in Communicative Speech All language systems are “creative” in the sense that language users can understand and produce sentences that they have never heard or produced previously. That is, despite the fact that the typical language user has had access to only a limited set of utterances, he/she can “on the basis of linguistic experience . . . produce an indefinite number of new utterances which are immediately acceptable to other members of his speech community” (Chomsky, 1975, p. 61).Thus, when Chinua Achebe wrote, “His sitting room reeked of stock-fish, powdered milk, powdered egg yolk and other relief odors” as the opening sentence in a short story, we can be pretty sure that this sentence is creative in the sense that nobody had ever written or spoken it before.This sentence, however, adheres to the constraints that govern
Downloaded by [University of California, San Diego] at 16:02 12 March 2017 Creativity and Language Learning 37 linguistic behavior and, as Chomsky noted, without such constraints, “we have arbitrary and random behaviour, not creative acts” (Chomsky, 1971, p. 50; see also Jones, this volume).3 Chomsky was talking about linguistic productivity—a manifestation of cre- ativity. While there are a finite number of categories and rules that govern the construction of sentences these afford the means of creating totally novel sen- tences. Chomsky, of course, was referring to native speakers, but the notion of linguistic productivity is equally applicable to language learners, although the constraints that govern their language systems are less strict than those of the tar- get language and are often highly productive in idiosyncratic ways.This is because L2 learners are frequently obliged to communicate with very little competence in the L2. As in any walk of life, when one lacks knowledge or skill in a given field, ways of making do need to be found. Learners “make do” by learning ready-made chunks of language (i.e., formulaic sequences) that enable them to perform com- municative functions that are important for them (e.g., requesting goods and ser- vices or apologizing). Common formulas observed in early learner language are “I don’t know,”“Can I have a ___?” and “I’m very sorry.” Arguably, such chunks are not in themselves “creative,” as they are accessed rapidly with minimum effort and are derived directly from the input. However, as we will see, they have been found to play an important role in the creative construction of L2 systems. Cre- ativity in learner language is more clearly evident in two ways: in unique combi- nations of words (i.e., combinations that are not sanctioned by the target language grammar) and in the overextension of categories and constructions that are found in the target language grammar.These novel uses of language are observed in both first- and second-language learners. Table 3.1 illustrates some typical combinations of words from early language learners.The L1 learner was my own daughter.The L2 learner was a Portuguese TABLE 3.1 Examples of Creative Speech in Language Learners L1 learner L2 learner Lie down Lwindi (she was just about to lie You milkman (He wanted to know if the down teacher needed someone to fetch the morning milk) Want pussy Lwindi (she was chasing a cat) Lwindi pullover on (she was trying to put her Me milkman (He was offering to be the pullover on) milkman) Giving doggy bone (she was looking at a Me breaktime (Stating he intended to leave picture of a butcher giving a doggy a the room as it was breaktime) bone) Me is morning finish (Stating that he intended to finish off his drawing the next morning)
Downloaded by [University of California, San Diego] at 16:02 12 March 2017 38 Rod Ellis boy learning English in a classroom context, whom I studied many years ago for my doctoral research.While there are some clear differences in the speech of these two learners (e.g., the L1 learner refers to herself by her name, whereas the L2 learner uses the pronoun “me”), there is also a fundamental similarity indica- tive of the fundamental creativity of learner language. Both learners make use of what I have called structural and semantic simplification (Ellis, 2008). Structural simplification involves the omission of functors such as auxiliary verbs, articles, and noun and tense morphemes. Semantic simplification involves the omission of content words such as nouns, adjectives, and verbs. Both types of simplification are indicative of one of the key aspects of creativity—adaptability.These learners are adept at utilizing their limited linguistic resources in conjunction with infor- mation retrievable from the situational and linguistic contexts in ways that ensure their messages can be understood. Thus, when my daughter said “Giving doggy bone,” I knew that she was referring to the action of the person depicted in the picture we were looking at (i.e., the butcher). Similarly, when the L2 learner said “me milkman,” neither his teacher nor I had any difficulty in understanding that he was asking the teacher to nominate him to go and collect the milk for the whole class.4 These simplification processes can also be observed in fully compe- tent speakers (e.g., in elided responses to questions or in foreigner talk), but in the case of learners, they are fundamental, reflecting a natural ability to use language for purposes of communication. Learners construct a “basic variety” (Klein & Perdue, 1997) that bears no obvious resemblance to the kind of speech they have been exposed to. Creativity is also evident in the overextension of grammatical categories and constructions in learner language. The categories and constructions that learn- ers form are typically broader than those found in the target-language system, allowing the learner to extend them in ways that result in output that is clearly novel but also appropriate to context. Examples, taken from Boyd and Goldberg (2011), are: The magician vanished the woman. She explained him the news. She considered to go to the store. In these examples,“vanished” has been wrongly assigned to the category of “tran- sitive verb,”“explained” is assumed to allow the same ditransitive construction as “gave,” and “considered” is treated as belonging to the category of verbs that take an infinitival complement. All three sentences are examples of overgeneralized applications of categories and constructions that figure in the target-language grammar. Learning an L2 is, in part, learning the limitations that govern such categories and constructions. Natural creativity needs to give way to conformity to target language norms.
Downloaded by [University of California, San Diego] at 16:02 12 March 2017 Creativity and Language Learning 39 Creativity in learner language, however, is not limited to the overextension of target language categories; it also manifests itself in the creation of entirely new categories (i.e., categories not present in the target language). According to Universal Grammar, all the grammatical categories found in any one language are determined by a set of highly abstract principles. From this perspective, grammars that contravene these principles—“wild grammars,” as Goodluck (1986) called them—do not occur. However, complexity theory (Larsen-Freeman & Cameron, 2008) does allow for the possibility that learners develop entirely novel linguistic categories. Complexity theory views language as like any other complex sys- tem (e.g., the weather): it is random, nonlinear, unpredictable, self-organizing, and subject to “strange attractors” (i.e., states of relative stability in which rec- ognizable categories can be seen to govern the use of the system). Complexity theory emphasizes the individual nature of the systems that learners build but also acknowledges that a “communal language” (i.e., a shared linguistic code) develops because of the inbuilt human tendency to converge toward rather than diverge from the usage of other interlocutors (Giles, 1971). In other words, while learner language may reflect the idiosyncratic categories that learners form in the process of learning, over time it, will gravitate towards the established categories of the target language. There is, in fact, plenty of evidence of unique categories in learner language. One example will have to suffice. Huebner (1983) conducted a longitudinal study of Ge, a Cambodian immigrant to the United States. Huebner focused on Ge’s use of an article (da) and was able to show that the form-function mappings for da were not the same as those in the target language (English). Initially, Ge used da mainly to mark nouns as specific and known to the hearer. This resulted in apparent target-like accuracy, although not completely, because when the noun phrase functioned as a topic of the sentence Ge omitted da. Somewhat later, how- ever, he began to flood all noun phrases with da irrespective of the function the noun phrase served in an utterance. In other words, he had constructed a unique category for its use—da simply served to mark a constituent as a noun. Over time, Ge gradually remodeled his use of da so that by the end of the study, he was using it in a target-like way.We can see in Ge’s use of da the key characteristics of complexity theory—the highly individual use of a target language form and the gradual development of a self-organizing system. Creativity in learner language, then, is evident in both the overextension of categories found in the target language and also, especially in the early stages of language learning, in entirely unique categories. In both cases, the result is what is commonly referred to as “errors.” But to view learner language in this way is to deny its fundamental creativity. If we acknowledge the creativity of learner language, we should have no problem in agreeing with Corder (1971) when he said “everything the learner utters is by definition a grammatical utterance in his dialect” (p. 32).
Downloaded by [University of California, San Diego] at 16:02 12 March 2017 40 Rod Ellis Creativity in Language Play So far we have examined the creativity that is apparent in learner language when learners are focused on communicating. But there are also occasions when learn- ers treat language as a tool that they can consciously manipulate for fun. A good example of this can be found in Ellis (1984). One of the classroom learners I inves- tigated produced the following sequence of utterances after a student in his class had thrown his exercise book into the waste bin: Book in the bin. You book in the bin. My book in the bin. You in the bin. No writing in the bin. You bin . . . in the bin, all right? You writing in the bin. The learner was amused rather than annoyed by the student’s action and responded by manipulating his initial referential utterance (“Book in the bin”) by substi- tuting, adding, deleting, and rearranging linguistic elements and in the process performing a range of different language functions (threatening, warning, and joking). In a mock serious manner, he ended up creating an imaginary world in which the offending student was doing his writing in the bin (“You writing in the bin”). Language play can involve creating patterns of sound (e.g., rhyme and allit- eration) and of structure (i.e., through patterns and parallelisms). It also involves playing with units of meaning (e.g., by creating neologisms).5 The example illus- trates primarily the manipulation of patterns and the building of parallelisms. Bushnell (2008) illustrates how students in a Japanese language class played with the similarity in sound between “keego” (a Japanese word referring to honorifics) and the English word “keg” (of beer) to introduce a note of humor into what promised to be a dry grammar lesson. Tin (2011) provides examples of lexical creativity resulting from an acrostics poetry writing task: one pair of students came up with “a jar of amazing feeling” to start off a poem for the acrostic JOY. The importance of language play to children is well known; it manifests itself in games, riddles, literature, jokes, and conversational banter.What is interesting, though, is that all these examples of language play involved older learners in a classroom context. As usually defined, “language play” emphasizes the creative, fun aspect of lan- guage (Cook, 1997). Lantolf (1997), however, defined it as “rehearsal.” He argued that from a sociocultural perspective, language play is evident when learners talk aloud to themselves, repeat phrases to themselves silently, make up sentences in the L2, or imitate sounds or when random snatches of the L2 pop into their heads.
Downloaded by [University of California, San Diego] at 16:02 12 March 2017 Creativity and Language Learning 41 Thus rather than constituting “fun,” language play is a form of private speech. Broner and Tarone (2001) distinguished the key characteristics of these two senses of language play (see Table 3.2). In both cases, however, the key characteristic is “creativity.” In the sense of play-as-fun, learners create a fictional world (well illustrated in the “in the bin” example). In the play-as-rehearsal sense, learners repeat new linguistic forms. However, the two types of language play may not be as separate, as Table 3.2 suggests. Shintani (2012) provides examples of how the children in her study spontaneously rehearsed words that occurred in the input and at the same time playfully and spontaneously modified the sounds of the words (e.g., “peacock” became /pi:kan//pi:kan/). In other words, learners can “rehearse” for fun. This example also shows that even a complete beginner can engage in simple language play. Much of the research on learners’ language play has focused on identifying the different functions that it performs. Bushnell (2008), for example, extended Broner and Tarone’s list of functions to suggest the following: • it can lower affective barriers • it can increase/enhance memorizability • it can help learners develop the ability to speak in other “voices” • it may promote destabilization and restructuring • it allows learners to commit face-threatening acts in an acceptable manner • it provides an opportunity for extended multiparty interaction in which there is a focus on linguistic form • it serves as a resource for organizing and engaging in social interaction. Bushnell also claimed that language play creates “affordances” for language learn- ing.To consider this possibility, however, we need to consider the role of creativity in the process of learning an L2. TABLE 3.2 Observable Characteristics of Language Play as “Fun” and as “Rehearsal” (based on Broner & Tarone, 2001) Language play as “fun” Language play as “rehearsal” Accompanied by marked shifts in pitch or Is marked primarily by a shift in volume voice quality or both (sotto voce) rather than in voice quality or pitch Accompanied by smiles or laughter Is not marked by laughter Uses language forms known to be mastered Uses language forms known to be new to by the speaker the speaker Creates a fictional world of reference Does not create a fictional world of reference Appears to be addressed to an audience Appears to be addressed to the self
Downloaded by [University of California, San Diego] at 16:02 12 March 2017 42 Rod Ellis Creativity and the Process of Language Acquisition Earlier, I defined creativity-as-process as involving (1) idea emergence and gen- eration and (2) rational evaluation. Such a definition, however, implies a very conscious act of creativity entailing reflective and critical processes as well as imag- ination. While such processes may also be involved in L2 acquisition, especially in intentional language learning, the account of creativity-as-a-product I have presented in this chapter points to the role of creativity in incidental language learning (i.e., the learning that takes place without deliberate effort on the part of the learner).There is now general recognition that much language learning takes place incidentally. In the case of L2 acquisition, therefore, creativity-as-process needs to be redefined.To undertake this, we need to consider the place of creativ- ity in different theories of L2 acquisition. Second-language acquisition (SLA) researchers have advanced a large number of theories to account for the process of L2 acquisition.These can be broadly clas- sified into three large groups: (1) theories that view acquisition as primarily deter- mined by the linguistic environment, (2) nativist theories that view acquisition in terms of the innate properties of the human mind, and (3) theories that explain acquisition as the complex interplay between environmental and cognitive fac- tors.We can ask, therefore, what role creativity plays in these different theories. Behaviorist theories view learning as habit formation. Learners are exposed to linguistic stimuli that elicit a response, which is then reinforced positively if cor- rect or corrected if wrong.Wrong responses arise because of the influence of the learner’s L1 (i.e., through interference of old habits that prevent the development of new linguistic habits). Learning, therefore, involves overcoming the negative effects of the L1 by ensuring that learners’ responses to stimuli conform to the “habits” of the target language. In language teaching, such theories underpin the use of mechanical language exercises to prevent errors occurring and bad habits developing.Thus, there would seem to be little place for either person creativity or creativity-as-a-product in habit-formation theories and the kind of teaching they support. Learners are given little opportunity to create their own linguistic objects, as they are limited to responding mechanically to simple stimuli. Errors are “like sin—to be avoided at all costs” (Brooks, 1960)—and thus have no con- stitutive role in the process of learning. In fact, though, as we have seen, errors are both inevitable and natural and are clear evidence of the productive way in which learners make use of the linguistic categories they form. In short, behaviorist theories and teaching methods that emphasize error avoidance make no allow- ance for creativity in the process of learning. Cook (1997, 2000), however, has made a case for the techniques that figure in habit-formation teaching methods. He pointed out that the behaviors that figure in language play—repetition, substitution, focusing purely on form, and engag- ing in the noncommunicative uses of language—are the same as the behaviors
Downloaded by [University of California, San Diego] at 16:02 12 March 2017 Creativity and Language Learning 43 required in mechanical language practice. Cook noted that such behaviors are no longer favored in communicative language teaching but argued that they have value and advocated the “reinstatement of many discarded activities” (1997, p. 230). It seems to me, however, that Cook misses an essential point.The creativ- ity evident in language play is learner initiated, motivated by a wish for fun or for rehearsal in private speech; it is therefore far removed from the kinds of mechani- cal behaviors elicited by substitution and fill-in-the-blank exercises.The analogy between what goes on in language play and in mechanical drills is a false one, as functionally they are quite different. If creativity is important for language learn- ing, then, it is necessary to create the instructional conditions that foster it, and mechanical language practice is unlikely to do so. Mentalist theories draw heavily on Chomsky’s notion of linguistic creativity. Input triggers the setting of the principles and parameters of Universal Gram- mar, thus enabling learners to derive the grammatical categories and rules of the target language. Learning is primarily an internal, cognitive affair, with the linguistic environment playing only a very limited role. Learners are naturally creative, and all that they need is access to input that is comprehensible (Krashen, 1985). The problem, however, is that L2 learners are too creative—they overex- tend target-language rules and create unique rules of their own—and then find it difficult to retreat from their own creations. Perhaps, too, the natural tendency to engage in language play also blocks the development of target-language accuracy. Universal Grammar, it seems, is not sufficient to constrain the development of L2 grammars. Thus, while mentalist theories afford an explanation of the cre- ative processes involved in the construction of learner grammars, their refusal to acknowledge anything more than a triggering role for input means that they struggle to explain how the human instinct for creativity in language learning can be sufficiently constrained to enable learners (especially adult learners) to arrive at an end-state communal language. If behaviorist theories fail to take account of learners’ creative instinct, mentalist theories allow it too much room. If mechanical practice denies learners sufficient opportunity to engage creatively with language, then a purely communicative approach, such as Krashen and Terrell’s (1983) natu- ral approach, places too much store on learners’ innate creative capacity. Emergentist theories of L2 acquisition (N. Ellis, 1998) offer a more balanced account of the role played by creativity in language learning. They assume that learning a language is like learning any other skill and that all that is needed to explain it is a simple learning mechanism that can handle the information avail- able in the input. In such theories, there is no specialized language faculty but just a natural capacity to respond to the frequencies of linguistic forms in the input.As N. Ellis (2002) put it, learners implicitly “know” how to count.This might sound quite mechanistic, but emergentist theories emphasize that the linguistic systems that learners build are dynamic and self-organizing in ways that allow for the cre- ative processes evident in learner language. Learners do more than simply crunch
Downloaded by [University of California, San Diego] at 16:02 12 March 2017 44 Rod Ellis input; they build abstract “constructions” that allow them to utilize their avail- able linguistic resources creatively in communication. Emergentist theories also emphasize the idiosyncratic nature of the systems that individual learners build, thus giving further acknowledgment to creativity in learners. As we saw earlier, Ge’s initial system for da was unique, only gradually evolving in the direction of the target language system as a result of continued exposure to input. Many years ago, Dulay and Burt (1978) wrote,“If one assumes a creative con- struction framework to account for language acquisition, input factors take on a specific role. They provide the raw material which the mind digests and alters in accordance with its structure” (p. 85). More recent research has documented what this “creative construction” entails. The initial building blocks are the for- mulaic sequences that learners pick up from the input. Gradually, these sequences are subjected to analysis, and learners bootstrap their way to more abstract con- structions. Drawing on emergentist theory, usage-based accounts of L2 acquisi- tion have shown how development involves a continuum from words and fixed expressions on the one hand to schematic templates that allow for utterances to be creatively constructed on the other. The continuum stretches from words and multiword chunks to partially analyzed schemas or patterns and then on to increasingly more generalized schematic constructions. In this way, emergentist theories have fleshed out the “creative construction framework” that Dulay and Burt had in mind. Nor is this process of creative construction just a feature of naturalistic L2 acquisition; it is evident in classroom learners as well (Eskildsen, 2012). It is, in fact, unstoppable. Language play may play an important role in the creative construction of L2 systems. It is the overt manifestation of the cognitive processes involved in the analysis of chunks, namely deletion, substitution, addition, and rearrangement, as illustrated earlier in the “in the bin” sequence of utterances. Importantly, though, in language play, these processes originate within learners and are under their control. Often they arise spontaneously in response to specific situations that learners find themselves in, but they may also be prompted through instructional activities that allow learners the space to manipulate language autonomously.Tin (2011) provides examples of how this can be achieved through guided poetry writing tasks that prompt language play and in so doing create “affordances” for learning.Tin argues that “the need to construct novel meanings, characteristics of creative tasks, can create opportunities for the emergence of complex language in language learners” (p. 219) by encouraging the segmentation of chunks, reanalysis, and analogy. Bushnell (2008) suggests that language play involves low anxiety and thus encourages experimentation with language. However, to date, the research investigating language play has only demonstrated that “affordances” for learning occur. It has not yet shown how acting on these affordances results in language development. For this, as Bushnell acknowledged, longitudinal studies of language play are needed, but these are currently lacking.
Downloaded by [University of California, San Diego] at 16:02 12 March 2017 Creativity and Language Learning 45 Conclusion To examine creativity in L2 learning, we need to consider creativity-as-a-person, creativity-as-an-object, and creativity-as-a-process.To date, however, there is only limited evidence that creative people make better language learners.Arguably, it is motivation rather than person creativity that is fundamental for language learning. Thus, more important for understanding how creativity works in language learn- ing is creativity-as-an-object. As we have seen, creativity manifests itself inciden- tally in the communicative uses of the L2 and also more intentionally in language play. All language learners engage in the creative construction and creative use of their linguistic systems.That is, they naturally and automatically work on the raw materials provided by the input, combining words, breaking down multiword units into their component parts, and thereby arriving at abstract formulations that slowly and erratically converge on those of the target language.As Dulay and Burt (1978) put it,“the ultimate source of creativity in language acquisition is the structure of the human mind” (p. 85). Learning a language, however, also involves acknowledging the constraints imposed by the target-language system. Learners are too creative.Thus, we need to conceive of L2 learners as striving for a balance between creativity and confor- mity. Learning is both an externally driven and an internally driven process. Expo- sure to input activates the internal creative processes, resulting in the development of unique learner-systems, which then are modified through further exposure to input and the learner’s own output. Explicit language instruction also has a role to play here, helping learners notice the gap between their own creative forms and those of the target language. In this way, natural creativity gives way to conformity to target-language norms.The task facing the language teacher, then, is to facili- tate this process by allowing room for the natural process of creative construction while also facilitating conformity to target-language norms. The challenge this poses constitutes the major issue in language pedagogy today as reflected in the ongoing debate between advocates of task-based language teaching and more traditional approaches—between the permissive and the conformist. One thing is certain, though: If language teaching is to contribute to the devel- opment of person creativity in learners, then a pedagogy that overemphasizes conformity to target language norms is unlikely to achieve it. Questions for Discussion 1. Do creative people make better language learners? 2. Can you give any examples of creativity in the learner language of your own students? 3. “If creativity is important for language learning, then it is necessary to cre- ate the instructional conditions that foster it.”What instructional conditions foster creativity in learner language?
Downloaded by [University of California, San Diego] at 16:02 12 March 2017 46 Rod Ellis 4. “Learners are too creative.” In what sense is this true? 5. In this chapter, I have suggested that learners need to strive for a balance between creativity and conformity. Do you agree? How can teachers help students achieve such a balance? Suggestions for Further Research 1. In this chapter, I noted that there is only mixed evidence that creative people make better language learners and suggested that motivation is a much more important factor. Design a study to investigate the relative contributions of creativity and motivation to language learning. 2. (a) Start keeping a record of examples of (1) incidental creative language that occur in learners’ communicative speech and (2) language play. (b) When you have collected several examples of both types of creative lan- guage, carry out an analysis of the learners’ utterances, identifying in what ways they are “creative.” (c) In what ways might the creative utterances you have collected create “affordances” for learning? Notes 1 Otto’s learners may have been strongly motivated to achieve high grades from their teacher; in contrast, Albert and Kormos’s learners may not have felt particularly moti- vated to perform the one-off tasks in their experimental study. 2 I know of no research that has examined the putative relationship between person cre- ativity and language play. However, given that imagination and originality are seen as core aspects of creativity, such a relationship would seem very likely. 3 In fact, though, there is growing evidence that at times, L2 learners do engage in linguis- tic behavior that is arbitrary and random as they struggle to master the constraints that govern target-like behavior (De Bot & Larsen-Freeman, 2011). 4 Until the Thatcher decade, all schoolchildren in Britain received a bottle of milk each day. In this learner’s class, the teacher chose a student to go and fetch the milk each day. 5 Neologisms often occur in learner language as the result of the learner’s use of com- munication strategies such as circumlocution or paraphrase. If learners do not know a target-language word or cannot readily access it, they will find alternative means. “Art gallery,” for example, becomes “pictures place.” References Albert,A., & Kormos, J. (2004). Creativity and narrative task performance:An exploratory study. Language Learning, 54, 277–310. Baer, J. (2003). Impact of the core knowledge curriculum on creativity. Creativity Research Journal, 15, 297–300. Batey, M., & Furnham,A. (2006). Creativity, intelligence, and personality:A critical review of the scattered literature. Genetic, Social, and General Psychology Monographs, 132(4), 355–429.
Downloaded by [University of California, San Diego] at 16:02 12 March 2017 Creativity and Language Learning 47 Bialystok, E., Craik, F.I.M., & Luk, G. (2012). Bilingualism: Consequences for mind and brain. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 16, 240–250. Boyd, J., & Goldberg,A. (2011). Learning what not to say:The role of statistical pre-emption and categorization in a-adjective production. Language, 87, 55–83. Broner, M., & Tarone, E. (2001). Is it fun? Language play in a fifth-grade Spanish immersion classroom. Modern Language Journal, 85, 363–379. Brooks, N. (1960). Language and language learning. New York: Harcourt Brace and World. Bushnell, C. (2008). “Lego my Keego!”: An analysis of language play in a beginning Japa- nese as a foreign language classroom. Applied Linguistics, 30, 49–69. Chomsky, N. (1971). Problems of knowledge and freedom. New York: Pantheon Books. Chomsky, N. (1975). The logical structure of linguistic theory. New York: Plenum Press. Clarke, M. (n.d.). Creativity in modern foreign languages teaching and learning. Retrieved August 25, 2014, from www.heacademy.ac.uk/creativity.htm Cook, G. (1997). Language play, language learning. ELT Journal, 51(3), 224–231. Cook, G. (2000). Language play, language learning. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Corder, S. P. (1971). Idiosyncratic dialects and error analysis. International Review of Applied Linguistics, 9, 149–159. de Bot, K., & Larsen-Freeman, D. (2011). Researching second language development from a dynamic systems theory perspective. In M.Verspoor, K. de Bot, & W. Lowie (Eds.), A dynamic approach to second language development (pp. 5–23).Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Dörnyei, Z., & Kormos, J. (2000). The role of individual and social variables in oral task performance. Language Teaching Research, 4, 275–300. Dulay, H., & Burt, M. (1978). Some remarks on creativity in language acquisition. In W. Ritchie (Ed.), Second language acquisition research (pp. 65–89). NewYork:Academic Press. Ellis, N. (1998). Emergentism, connectionism, and language learning. Language Learning, 48, 631–664. Ellis, N. (2002). Frequency effects in language processing: A review with implications for theories of implicit and explicit language acquisition. Studies in Second Language Acquisi- tion, 24, 143–188. Ellis, R. (1984). Classroom second language development. Oxford: Pergamon. Ellis, R. (2008). The study of second language acquisition (2nd ed.). Oxford: Oxford University Press. Eskildsen, S. (2012). L2 negation constructions at work. Language Learning, 62, 335–372. Ghonsooly, B., & Showqi, S. (2012).The effects of foreign language learning on creativity. English Language Teaching, 5, 161–167. Giaque, G. (1985). Creativity in foreign language learning. Hispania, 68, 425–427. Giles, H. (1971, October 14). Our reactions to accent. New Society. Goodluck, H. (1986). Language acquisition and linguistic theory. In P. Fletcher & M. Gar- man (Eds.), Language acquisition (2nd ed., pp. 49–68). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Guilford, J. P. (1950). Creativity. American Psychologist, 5(9), 444–454. Guilford, J. P. (1959).Three faces of intellect. American Psychologist, 14, 469–479. Huebner,T. (1983). A longitudinal analysis of the acquisition of English.Ann Arbor, MI: Karoma. Isaksen, S. G., Dorval, K. B., & Treffinger, D. J. (2011). Creative approaches to problem solving: A framework for innovation and change.Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Klein,W., & Perdue, C. (1997).The basic variety (or: Couldn’t natural languages be much simpler?). Second Language Research, 13, 301–348. Krashen, S. (1985). The input hypothesis: Issues and implications. London: Longman.
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Downloaded by [University of California, San Diego] at 16:02 12 March 2017 4 CONCEPTUALIZING CREATIVITY AND CULTURE IN LANGUAGE TEACHING Karen Densky Introduction An English as an additional language (EAL) teacher walks into the staff room, flops into a chair in obvious frustration and exclaims,“My class is working on role plays, and my Chinese students are just not creative!” A comment like this raises many questions. Obviously China has a rich history of creativity, which is evidenced by early advancements and innovations in the arts and sciences, so what is the teacher referring to? What does the teacher mean by “creativity”? How do students from different cultural backgrounds interpret the term “creativity”? What exactly is “creativity,” and is the term somehow culturally bound? Why is creativity necessary or desirable in the language classroom? What is known is that creativity is a good thing that has permeated all areas of life.“Creativity” no longer belongs to the domain of the arts but can be found in all disciplines: Today creativity generally refers to the phenomenon of bringing forth something new in virtually any realm of human endeavor. This interdisci- plinary perspective is new. Also new is the egalitarian attitude that almost anyone, from any walk of life can be creative, the multicultural attitude that creativity can be found anywhere on Earth, and the overwhelming positive value we attach to the word. (Weiner, 2000, p. 99) This democratic understanding of creativity was not always the case. Historically, creativity has been understood to involve everything from divine intervention to mental illness. Mozart believed that he had his “Divine Maker to thank” for his music (Mozart, 1970, p. 55), while Freud believed that “the artist is an incipient
Downloaded by [University of California, San Diego] at 16:02 12 March 2017 50 Karen Densky introvert who is not far from being a neurotic” (Freud, 1970, p. 135). Cognitive psychologists viewed creativity as parallel to intelligence, considering creativity a trait that individuals possess to a greater or lesser extent, and which can be assessed reliably with short paper-and-pencil tests (Gardner, 1989).The uniqueness of the creative individual has been challenged (Guildford, 1984;Torrance, 1984), and in modern societies, creativity is seen as a universal potential that everyone possesses. Everyone is believed to possess the ability to be creative when given the proper motivation, support, and education. Traditionally, language learning has not been considered a particularly cre- ative endeavor. The Grammar Translation Method reduced language learning to a code-switching activity that falls short of authentic language production, as Wittgenstein (1994) states, “the translation of one language into another is not a process of translating each proposition of the one into a proposition of the other, but only the constituent parts of propositions are translated” (p. 12). EAL meth- odology has come a long way from the grammar translation method of my Latin classes, and the assumption is that language learning is now occurring by way of communicative methodology, which puts the focus on developing receptive and productive skills through authentic interaction.Therefore, achieving communica- tive competence in a target language requires the creative use of that language on a variety of levels.The first level of creativity involves the manipulation of the components of language and is “intrinsically creative—in principle, an infinite number of different sentences could be produced” (Pinker, 1995). Students must learn grammar, vocabulary, and pronunciation patterns, which become the foun- dational tools for later experimentation/creation.What is produced at this point is not necessarily novel or original but is more than a memorized or translated response due to the spontaneous nature of communication. The second level of creativity in language learning goes beyond the manipula- tion of components. Learners must be able to utilize the cultural context of the target language on an interpersonal and contextually accurate level that takes into consideration gestures, tone, stress, eye contact, register, and genre. Oral/aural lan- guage use is by nature dramatic (Di Pietro, 1976), and engaging in conversation is dramatically creative, yet there is no script and no director (see Jones, this volume). Therefore, one must improvise one’s lines; and improvisation is by nature a sponta- neous creative process (Sawyer, 2001).The ability to engage creatively at this level of language use marks the difference between language knowledge and commu- nicative competence. For example, when my Brazilian sister-in-law completed her U.S. visa application and confidently wrote the word “short” in the box asking for height, the misunderstanding was not one of vocabulary comprehension but of misunderstanding the correct script required for the situation. EAL and English as a foreign language (EFL) students who spend their time preparing for success on standardized tests often possess a high degree of language knowledge, but are unable to use English creatively in unscripted situations that require cultural and
Downloaded by [University of California, San Diego] at 16:02 12 March 2017 Conceptualizing Creativity and Culture 51 contextual knowledge.Thus, authentic communicative activities involve students in creative language production and reception at a cultural and contextual level. The third level of creativity in language learning is to use the target language to produce original work that represents thought and feeling. Students have the capabilities to take the paint and canvas of vocabulary, syntax, and grammar and express something novel, valuable, and unique.The reception and production of academic rhetorical forms as well as literature and poetry are necessary in order for students to reach the metaphorical and figurative level of creating and engag- ing with the language. At no point in the communicative language classroom is one not participating creatively at one level or another.Whether practicing the use of a new verb tense, preparing a role play, writing a poem, or engaging in a controversial debate, some dimension of creativity is at work.As a result, creativity is now a required/desired component of the language classroom and can lead to all sorts of wonderful out- comes, such as improved self-esteem and enriched classroom work, and lead to genuine communication and cooperation, inspiration, motivation, and challenge (Feher, 2007). As a result, teachers should be creative and involve their students in creative endeavors resulting in creative products, and the very existence of the volume you are reading attests to the significance of creativity in the area of lan- guage teaching, yet what exactly is meant by “creative/creativity” remains elusive. Conceptualizing Creativity In order to gain a sense of the complexity of creativity, I have applied a struc- tural approach to unpacking the term. Like Ellis in the last chapter, I argue that when we use the term “creative/creativity,” we are referring to one or more of three main components: the person, the process, or the product. For example, Mozart is a creative musician (person); composing is a creative activity (process); that symphony is creative (product). Each of the three components includes a variety of dimensions that may be emphasized to a greater or lesser degree in vari- ous sociocultural contexts. Some components may be more valued or dominant in traditional cultures, while others lend themselves to being more esteemed in modernist environments;1 nonetheless, I would argue that all dimensions play a role in conceptualizing creativity on a global or intercultural level. Person Are creative people born or made? Is the creative person a result of a skilled men- tor, years of study, genetics, or birthright? All of these play a role when defining someone as “creative.” The students who arrive in our classes are already some- what formed from a variety of circumstances (nature and nurture) that will deter- mine their personal level of creativity.
Downloaded by [University of California, San Diego] at 16:02 12 March 2017 52 Karen Densky Teacher–Student Relationship The relationship between the teacher and student can impact the creativity of the individual, but there are a variety of forms that this relationship can take.Teachers may play the role of masters while students take the role of apprentice; in this case, the primary role of the teacher is to pass on knowledge and expertise in a hierar- chical manner.The traditional master–apprentice relationship values obedience to authority and mastery of material, with the teacher acting as expert, as one EFL teacher in Brazil states:“I’m expected to be an expert about English and I should be able to answer all my students’ questions, otherwise they will think I’m lazy or incompetent (Richards & Lockhart, 1994, p. 108). In turn, the apprentice is expected to demonstrate the skill and knowledge that the teacher has bestowed, and failure to do so reflects poorly on both teacher and student. In this case, the interdependence of the teacher–student relation- ship can impact the quality of the work produced by students, which may lead to students working diligently to master grammatical structures, vocabulary, or rhetorical forms. On the other hand, many language teachers prefer a more democratic learn- ing environment in which the teacher is seen as more of a facilitator or guide. This type of teacher attempts to motivate students by way of creating a positive learning community in which students can learn from and with each other, often based on problem-solving or cooperative learning tasks. In this case, the skill and accomplishments of the student are less the responsibility of the teacher but more of the intrinsic motivation of the student. Naturally, most teachers will lie some- where between the two extremes of master and facilitator. Despite the various forms that the teacher–student relationship may take, the strength of the relationship, which is often based on the commitment of the teacher, is seen as a pivotal force behind the creative person. How often do we hear someone attribute her success to the influence of a mentor/teacher/role model? Knowledge and Skill Knowledge, skill, and training involve a great deal of time on the part of the learner to master the content and application of a particular domain. In a tradi- tional language classroom, students spend a significant amount of time on activi- ties such as memorization of vocabulary or pattern drills, which doesn’t seem to be very creative, yet building foundational knowledge and skills is critical to later success.The goal of both teacher and student is that “the learner will, at an appropriate time, be able to reproduce the knowledge in the same form as it was presented to him by his teacher” (Richards & Lockhart, 1994, p. 107). On the other hand, in the communicative classroom, students are expected to use a limited amount of linguistic knowledge at even the beginner level to
Downloaded by [University of California, San Diego] at 16:02 12 March 2017 Conceptualizing Creativity and Culture 53 come up with novel products (opinions, dialogues, discussions).The role of mem- orization, repetition, and pattern practice is less emphasized, yet it is clearly still required to move forward in using the target language creatively. Without the tools (vocabulary, grammar, syntax, and phonological comprehensibility), the stu- dent is unable to move beyond a survival level with the target language. The challenge for the language teacher is to find a balance between knowledge and skill development and communicative activities. It should be reassuring to the language teacher that spending time on drills and memorization activities are inte- gral for creative use of the target language, and students will be more creative lan- guage users if they are equipped with a strong foundation of knowledge and skills. Innate Ability Regardless of the prevalence of the democratic notion that creativity is something that can be developed in the individual, there remains a high regard for the innate ability of the prodigy or the gifted student. For the innately creative individual, the primary traits that are connected with their talent are an aptitude for creative thinking and include evaluative abilities, various types of fluency (word, asso- ciational, expressional, ideational), spontaneous flexibility, adaptive flexibility, and originality (Guildford, 1970, p. 169). There are inventories that are designed to measure fluency, flexibility, and originality. These inventories usually place these traits under the general category of divergent thinking; however, it would be incorrect to assume that divergent thinking accounts for all the educational com- ponents of creative production (Guildford, 1970, p. 182). Creativity scores, similar to IQ scores, may be able to identify some areas of innate strength of an individual, but I question the usefulness of these scores to language teachers because of the limitations and culturally bound nature of the inventories. It is not clear exactly what makes one person innately more creative than another, yet often those who are seen as “gifted” in this area are given special status or opportunity in educational settings. In the language classroom, where the creative individual is desired, those who are seen as innately creative may be given leadership roles, have their work exemplified, or have behaviors such as dominating discussions overlooked. These naturally occurring creative students, as measured by modern/Western standards, come equipped with the tempera- ment to succeed in an environment where creativity is valued, yet they may be punished in some more traditional educational settings in which conformity is a more valued trait. Heritage and Tradition The idea that heritage and tradition play a role in the development of the creative individual is based on the creative activities of traditional cultures, in which there
Downloaded by [University of California, San Diego] at 16:02 12 March 2017 54 Karen Densky are generations of carvers, weavers, potters, or musicians. Mozart, for example, was born into a family of musicians and would have been exposed to music as a language and way of life from conception. Similarly, for the language student who has grown up in a family or community in which being multilingual is valued, s/he will bring a more positive attitude and skills to the task of language learn- ing. My father, for example, spoke eight languages, and through observing him interact in a variety of languages with people from different cultures through his work and our extensive travels, I feel that I come from a tradition and heritage of multilingual communicators. Heritage and tradition, as precursors for creative activity, have been largely replaced in modernist societies with the notion of self-actualization.The creative individual is seen as a product of their individual consciousness rather than a product of a collective consciousness, as is the case in more traditional societ- ies. Regardless of the modern tendency to attribute creative tendency or abil- ity to the individual, the role of heritage and tradition play a role in creative development. To sum up, the highly creative language learner will be an individual who comes from a background in which language learning is valued and modeled, possesses a strong foundation of knowledge and skills related to the target lan- guage, has experienced positive relationships with skilled and committed men- tors/teachers, and may have some innate ability to think in ways that stimulate creativity. Process The creative process relates to the behaviors that are demonstrated by an indi- vidual when involved in creating.These behaviors include demonstrating fluency, imagination, critical-thinking skills, and risk taking. Fluency In terms of creating, there is an underlying assumption that more is better, and this is where various types of fluency play a role.Word fluency, associational flu- ency, expressional fluency, and ideational fluency describe the types of fluency associated with the creative process. Behaviors that express associational fluency and ideational fluency are the most prevalent in the language classroom.These are the types of fluency involved when a teacher asks students to “brainstorm” or cre- ate a word web on a specific topic.The goal from the teacher’s perspective is for students to generate as many ideas/words as possible and “those individuals who can come up with many responses that are deemed unusual are considered more creative ‘in general’ than those who come up with few, or with banal, associations” (Gardner, 1989, p. 113).
Downloaded by [University of California, San Diego] at 16:02 12 March 2017 Conceptualizing Creativity and Culture 55 The quality of what is produced during fluency-building activities isn’t a con- cern because the belief is that quantity will lead to quality. However, some cultures emphasize producing the right answer, and “to guess is to admit not having spent enough time in finding the correct answer” (Nelson, 1995, p. 11). “Being only partially ‘right’ which may be acceptable to the impulsive learners . . . is often seen as totally ‘wrong’ by those whose reflective learning styles are culturally sanc- tioned” (p. 11).As a result, students who don’t actively participate in fluency-type activities in the classroom are not necessarily displaying a lack of creativity but perhaps a misunderstanding that fluency is a highly valued component of creativ- ity in the communicative classroom. Critical-Thinking Skills Critical thinking or problem solving are other components of the creative process. The West is a problem-based culture in which all things can be reduced to prob- lems or challenges that require remedying, and the process for finding solutions has become the foundation of a problem-based society and problem-based edu- cation in which being able to “think outside the box” is a necessity. Special kinds of problem-solving or critical-thinking skills are involved in the creative process, such as curiosity, flexibility, sensitivity to problems, redefinition, self-feeling, origi- nality, and insight (Torrance, 1984). The desire for using critical-thinking skills during the creative process brings the notions of creativity and rationality together and refutes the view that reasoning always takes place within rigidly bounded and highly rule-governed frameworks . . .There are relatively few cases in which we operate within clear-cut, clearly determined and rigidly bounded frameworks. In most situations which require logical thought, frameworks overlap, shift, and have indefinite boundaries. (Bailin, 1993, p. 40) Thus, engaging in critical-thinking activities is rational, creative, and purposeful. Being able to take multiple perspectives, make connections between and across domains, or, in the words of Richard Branson (2011), founder of Virgin Atlantic, “Always be Connecting Dots,” is a much sought-after component of the creative process. On the other hand, in some contexts, the “right” way of doing something is more valued than discovering a novel approach. In China, “figuring out what the appropriate response was in a given circumstance was strongly colored by the fact that past examples were supposed to provide clear models to follow” (Weiner, 2000, p. 175). As a result, some students may be reluctant to engage in critical-thinking activities because they are unsure about what is required or they don’t value the process of coming up with “wrong” ideas.
Downloaded by [University of California, San Diego] at 16:02 12 March 2017 56 Karen Densky Imagination While extended definitions of imagination exist (Egan, 1992), it may simply be defined as the conscious process of conceiving, visualizing, conjuring, or thinking up of some particular set of circumstances (Barrow, 1988). Using one’s imagi- nation is often seen as synonymous with expressing creativity. Imagination was referred to by Enlightenment thinkers as an important helpmate to reason, and by 1800, the psychology of creativity shifted the locus of genius from the faculty of judgment to that of imagination (Weiner, 2000, pp. 71, 76).As a result, when one is involved in creating, the expectation is that imagination will be implemented in the production of something that is both unusual and effective (Barrow, 1988), and that is a good thing; however, in some cultures, expressing imagination would not be considered positive.A Chinese colleague of mine shared his personal expe- rience as well as his research and claims that the Chinese view imagination as “unrealistic, idealistic, and impractical.” As a result, Chinese students are more apt to learn by memorization and imitation of models, and these techniques are seen as blocks for developing imagination. The challenge for the language teacher is clear. How do students from vari- ous cultural backgrounds interpret the directive “use your imagination,” and how do you encourage your students from various cultural backgrounds to engage in imaginative creating when they may not have been rewarded for this type of engagement in prior learning experiences? Risk Taking Expressing critical thoughts and one’s imagination can be risky business for many students. Risk-taking behavior involves the willingness to divert from the norm and pay little heed to consequences.The value on risk taking in a modern society exists in every domain, from the artist to the weekend warrior; the tendency is to push oneself beyond one’s comfort zone and take chances.Torrance’s research (1963, cited in Dinca, 1999) found that personality characteristics such as having wild or silly ideas, producing ideas that are “off the beaten track” and character- ized by humor and playfulness, differentiate highly creative children from less creative but equally intelligent children.These characteristics relate to risk-taking behavior. Similarly, teachers of English in Hong Kong described students who spoke out, were not afraid to make mistakes, and could work without the teacher’s help as the kind of learners who did best in their classes (Richards & Lockhart, 1994, p. 37). Thus, risk-taking behavior is desirable for a creative language classroom, yet behaviors such as speaking out and comfort with making mistakes are not class- room behaviors that are considered worthy of fostering in all educational settings.
Downloaded by [University of California, San Diego] at 16:02 12 March 2017 Conceptualizing Creativity and Culture 57 As a result, if learners are used to a classroom in which “they arrive, they listen, they take copious notes, they depart” (Nelson, 1995, p. 12), they may not value or understand why they are being required to engage in risk-taking behavior and, in turn, may be uncomfortable.The goal of the language teacher is to determine how much risk a student should be expected to take without causing undue anxi- ety and stress; this will be determined by previous learning experiences as well as personality and will vary from student to student. Another component to the creative process is “incubation” (Baird et al., 2012), which refers to the period of time that is necessary for the percolation of ideas to take place prior to creative action; however, in my experience in the commu- nicative classroom, it is rare to give students time to simply think, daydream, or doodle, which are often precursors to creative output. In the language classroom, the emphasis seems to be on purposeful, observable creating in which the stu- dents are demonstrating their willingness to take risks, engage their imagination, exhibit fluency of ideas, and use critical-thinking skills to engage with and assess the material that is generated. Product One may assume that in a classroom in which creativity is nurtured and practiced that the results would be creative output or products. Creative products are not sim- ply original or novel; they require other components such as adherence to a certain degree of tradition, political acceptance, and achievement of a standard of quality. Novelty and Originality Novelty and originality are highly valued components of the creative product in modern societies.We seem to be obsessed with the “new and improved” and the “first of its kind.” Hattiangadi (1985) satirizes the way in which novelty and origi- nality have overtaken other qualities when deeming something creative: novelty in art or science is trivially achieved. Every missed beat in music is novel, every mistake a creation. Every failure is unique. Even a mediocre artist has a style of his own, failures of his own. We cannot escape being novel and creative, even the most ordinary men and women among us, I should say, even the most original among us. (p. 48) The novel use of language can be expressed through use of literary devices such as metaphor, alliteration, or persuasion as well as form. Generally, original or novel ideas are encouraged in the communicative language classroom; however, as lan- guage teachers, we are less accepting of diversions from form. The postmodern
Downloaded by [University of California, San Diego] at 16:02 12 March 2017 58 Karen Densky view that products can be liked or disliked but not judged to be good or bad (Hattiangadi, 1985, p. 47) conflicts with the desire for accuracy in language pro- duction. Would we accept an essay delivered in the form of rhyming couplets or a presentation that involves nonstandard grammatical usage? Perhaps, but the responsibility to ensure our students achieve communicative competence often overrides the desire for creative output. Therefore, the language teacher should examine her goals to determine how much weight is given to novelty/originality in the products of her students. Political Acceptance Political acceptance is a component of creativity that is rarely found in the literature, yet it is critical to the acceptance or rejection of a creative prod- uct. The role of political correctness is the covert underlying theme in West- ern societies rather than political ideology. Multicultural ideals that profess to embrace diversity and competing viewpoints are censored in terms of the types of products that are deemed acceptable. Language teachers should examine their own beliefs and values related to what products are deemed acceptable in their classrooms. Are students permitted to express sexist or rac- ist remarks (even if their grammar is perfect)? Is profanity permitted during classroom activities? There is a degree of censorship in the language classroom that may be dis- guised as “cultural teaching,” and this affects what is acceptable in terms of creative products. I have experienced this on several occasions; in one case, a student wrote an opinion paragraph condemning homosexuality.The paragraph was accurately written and properly formatted, and secondary sources were quoted and inte- grated correctly. How should teachers deal with material students produce if they deem it politically incorrect? Will evaluation of the product be compromised due to the controversial content, and will politically acceptable content be evaluated more leniently in terms of form? As a result, students learn to fit the required political parameters of the edu- cational setting they are in, but this sometimes takes time due to acculturation. Adherence to Tradition Creativity and tradition may appear to be mutually exclusive, yet without adher- ing to some kind of tradition, a product would have no context from which to determine its level of creativity. For example, modern dance, regardless of the innovation or novelty, belongs to the tradition of dance. In some societies, tradi- tion is the foundation of the creative product in both form and function; materi- als, images, and techniques have not changed. In others, the manner in which the
Downloaded by [University of California, San Diego] at 16:02 12 March 2017 Conceptualizing Creativity and Culture 59 boundaries of tradition are extended, pushed, or blurred becomes the gauge for measuring creativity. The Western academy/university is one such society in which tradition is paramount. Materials have changed from typewriters to computers, but the basic form of the research paper, thesis, or debate remains mired in the traditions of the past. There is room for creativity, but it must be crafted within the required rhetorical form. For the language teacher, tradition is paramount because language rarely occurs outside of some kind of rhetorical form.The boundaries can be extended and the language can be used in new ways, but the form remains relatively static. For example, a student may choose to write a song and sing or rap for a presenta- tion, which would be considered very creative, yet the format of the presentation remains. Quality Quality of a product in modern societies is often determined by novelty, mar- ket value, and emotional content, while in more traditional contexts, quality relates to the level of skill of the producer, the quality of the materials used, and the degree to which the product reflects the heritage of the society. Some language learners will be comfortable experimenting with ideas and language, while others may request models of what the finished product should look like. For some students, the focus on producing a quality product may lead to plagiarism because they are used to memorizing long passages of others’ work or showing reverence to masters through imitation. Learning that originality trumps accuracy in the modern conception of quality of a product may take time for some students. In both the modern and the traditional contexts, quality needs to be recog- nized beyond the individual; there needs to be some kind of commonly held understanding or criteria-based assessment to determine the quality of a product. A product is not good simply because the producer believes it is.This is where the role of the critic, evaluator, peer, or teacher comes in.As language teachers, we are required to assess the products of our students, so we need to be clear on which form(s) of English are required as well as which component(s) of creativity should be evidenced in order to be successful. For language teachers, this often leads to the accuracy-versus-fluency debate. In my experience, communicative language teachers focus on fluency during the process of creating yet evaluate based on the accuracy of the final product. This can be confusing for students, who may wonder why they are engaging in so much activity that isn’t “worth” anything, and therefore, it is the responsibility of the teacher to share the purpose of each task or activity.
Downloaded by [University of California, San Diego] at 16:02 12 March 2017 60 Karen Densky Conclusion Hopefully this chapter has provided a comprehensive understanding of what is meant by “creativity,” but the question still remains: “How is the term concep- tualized across cultures?” My conclusion is that all of the components (person, process, and product) are significant in all cultures as are the various dimensions of each component.What differs is the emphasis on each dimension or compo- nent. For example, my modernist/Western-oriented classroom emphasizes and values dimensions such as ideational fluency, originality, and risk taking in my language-learning tasks, while my traditional/Eastern-oriented colleague may emphasize adherence to tradition and quality when designing and evaluating les- sons. Of course, culture is not the only determinant related to which parts of creativity are emphasized; there will be individual differences and preferences that may be based on prior learning experiences, educational training, and personal- ity.The significance is that creativity holds an element of elusiveness and will be understood differently by individuals. How then do we add creativity to our language classrooms? That part is both easy and exciting! There are a few dimensions of creativity that we can’t have much impact on such as innate ability; however, the majority of the dimensions of creativity can become objectives for the classroom. Reimagining language lessons by adding a component of creativity to the learning objectives, such as “students will work on developing ideational fluency” or “students will generate original ideas related to solving a problem” are manageable and specific. By articulating a specific goal related to a specific dimension of creativity, both teachers and students can share a common understanding of what is desired/required, and the result will be a more creative and dynamic classroom. Questions for Discussion 1. How would you define “creativity”? Is there anything to add to the defini- tion provided in the first chapter? 2. Which components of creativity are the most significant to you as a language teacher? 3. Have you noticed differences related to expressing creativity in the class- room? Do you think these differences are related to culture, personality, or something else? 4. Do you see the development of skills and knowledge in the form of repeti- tion or memorization tasks as a necessary component of creativity? 5. Should creativity be assessed in the language classroom? How? 6. Review a lesson you have planned and/or taught.What components of cre- ativity are involved in the lesson? What components of creativity could be added to your objectives?
Downloaded by [University of California, San Diego] at 16:02 12 March 2017 Conceptualizing Creativity and Culture 61 Suggestions for Further Research 1. Explore which components of creativity are most prevalent in the tasks of the EAL classroom and how this may vary across cultures or contexts. 2. Explore student and/or teacher attitudes toward creative activities and the effects on language learning. Note 1 The terms “traditional” and “modern” are defined fully in: Densky, K. (2008). Creativity, culture, and communicative language teaching: Cross cultural conceptions of creativity in an English as a second language setting. Saarbrücken, Germany:VDM Verlag. References Bailin, S. (1993). Rationality & intuition. In J. Portelli & S. Bailin (Eds.), Reason & values: New essays in philosophy of education (pp. 37–49). Calgary: Detselig Press. Baird, B., Smallwood, J., Mrazek, K. J., Franklin, M., & Schooler, J. (2012). Inspired by dis- traction: Mind wandering facilitates creative incubation. Psychological Science, 1–6. Barrow, R. (1988). Some observations on the concept of imagination. In K. Egan & D. Nadaner (Eds.), Imagination and education (pp. 79–90). NewYork:Teachers College Press. Branson, R. (2011). ABCD of expansion and acquisition. Retrieved September 9, 2014, from www.livemint.com/Opinion/Fl01Hcmxb3IcEmTh2YOzOI/ABCD-of-expan sion-and-acquisitions.html Densky, K. (2008). Creativity, culture, and communicative language teaching: Cross cultural concep- tions of creativity in an English as a second language setting. Saarbrücken, Germany: VDM. Dinca, M. (1999). Creative children in Romanian society. Childhood Education, International Focus Issue, 355–358. Di Pietro, R. (1976). Language as human creation.Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press. Egan, K. (1992). Imagination in teaching and learning. London, ON:Althors Press. Feher, J. (2007). Creativity in the language classroom. Retrieved August 8, 2014, from www .teachingenglish.org.uk/article/creativity-language-classroom Freud, S. (1970). Creative writers and day-dreaming. In P. E. Vernon (Ed.), Creativity (pp. 126–136). Harmondsworth: Penguin. Gardner, H. (1989). To open minds: Chinese clues to the dilemma of contemporary education. New York: Basic Books. Guildford, J. P. (1970). Traits of creativity. In P. E. Vernon (Ed.), Creativity (pp. 167–188). Harmondsworth: Penguin. Guildford, J. P. (1984). Varieties of divergent production. Journal of Creative Behavior, 18, 1–10. Hattiangadi, J. (1985). Novelty, creation, and society. Interchange, 16(1), 40–50. Mozart,W. (1970).A letter. In P. E.Vernon (Ed.), Creativity 55–56. Harmondsworth: Penguin. Nelson, G. (1995). Cultural differences in learning styles. In J. M. Reid (Ed.), Learning styles in the ESL/EFL classroom (pp. 3–18). Boston, MA: Heinle & Heinle.
Downloaded by [University of California, San Diego] at 16:02 12 March 2017 62 Karen Densky Pinker, S. (1995).Why the child holded the baby rabbits:A case study in language acquisi- tion. In L. Gleitman & M. Liberman (Eds.), Invitation to cognitive science.Vol. 1: Language (2nd ed., pp. 107–133). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Richards, J., & Lockhart, C. (1994). Reflective teaching in second language classrooms. Cam- bridge: Cambridge University Press. Sawyer, R. (2001). Creating conversations: Improvisation is everyday discourse. Cresskill, NJ: Hampton Press. Torrance, E. P. (1984). Are children becoming more creative? Journal of Creative Behavior, 20, 1–13. Weiner, R. (2000). Creativity & beyond: Cultures, values, and change. Albany: State University of New York Press. Wittgenstein, L. (1994). The Wittgenstein reader.A. Kenny (Ed.). Oxford: Blackwell.
Downloaded by [University of California, San Diego] at 16:02 12 March 2017 5 THE VEXED NATURE OF LANGUAGE LEARNING AND TEACHING James Paul Gee Introduction Language learning is a vexed topic.There really is no unitary phenomenon cov- ered by the term “language learning.” Learning a first native language as a mono- lingual is not the same as learning two or more native languages (Grosjean, 1984, 2010). Learning to deal with a great many languages around you (as in parts of Africa) is not the same as learning to deal with one or two (Finnegan, 1988). Peo- ple learn “foreign” languages in many different ways for many different purposes. Learning a language in a classroom is different than learning one in situ. Learning a vernacular variety of a language is not the same as learning a specialized register like the language of physics (Gee, 2004). It is not surprising that learning language is not a single phenomenon, since language itself is not (Chomsky, 1986).The word “language” does not name any- thing very coherent from a theoretical point of view. German and Dutch are called different languages largely for political reasons and state boundaries. They could just as well be seen as dialects of the same language.At the same time, there are some dialects of German that are mutually uninterpretable, yet they are said to be the same language. Furthermore, any one language, like English or Russian, is composed of many different dialects and registers such as the language of physics or the language of Yu-Gi-Oh (Gee, 2004). Every speaker of a “language” fails to know many—actually most—dialects and registers. And, then, too, written language is not the same as oral language, and the two are not learned in the same way (Gee, 2015; Pinker, 1994). Oral language has accompanied humans from at or near their evolutionary origins.Written language has not and is relatively new on the scene.Yet we call both of them “language.”
Downloaded by [University of California, San Diego] at 16:02 12 March 2017 64 James Paul Gee Talking about language teaching rather than language learning simplifies mat- ters only if we take teaching just to mean formal classrooms. But the role of adult guidance in all sorts of language learning is important well beyond classrooms. Adults are the ones who usually meld language acquisition with primary social- ization and enculturation. Extended talk with adults is also crucial for the latter acquisition of some registers like school-based forms of literacy and academic lan- guage (Gee, 2004, 2015). Adults serve as cultural brokers in many settings where people acquire languages initially as “outsiders.” Even classroom teachers can play many more roles than the role of instructor. Indeed, the role of instruction (only one form or act of teaching) is vexed in the case of language teaching and learning. Instruction in grammar and/or via speaking drills treats a language as if it were “content” like the information in a history or chemistry textbook.While there are, indeed, people who know French only as written content to place into cloze tests in school, languages are not con- tent but rather technologies for communicating and doing. Real teaching—not just of language—involves several different acts. Informing (“saying”) is only one such act. Demonstrating or modeling, assessing and giving feedback, helping learners manage their attention (for example, to avoid cognitive overload), and designing well-mentored and help- fully constrained learning experiences in the world and in social interactions with others are other such acts (Hattie & Yates, 2013). Humans primarily learn from experience, but unguided, unconstrained, and unmentored experi- ence can be overwhelming to beginners.That is why we have teachers, adults, and culture. While there is a well-known empirical literature on learning, there is also a not-very-well-known but fairly robust empirical literature on what constitutes good teaching (Hattie, 2009). Since this literature has played such a small role in the training of teachers, it is not known to what extent it applies to language learning when languages are not treated as content but as sets of tools for saying, being, and doing in meaningful ways. All this means that, after decades of work, it is not clear—at least to me—that we have anything like a coherent theory of the complex domains of language learning and language teaching. It is perhaps the case that—like other areas of sci- ence (e.g., psychology)—we have been misled by taking the everyday meanings of words (in this case, words like “learning,”“development,”“acquisition,”“teaching,” and “language”) too seriously as good guides for how to categorize the data and phenomena with which we are faced. It is clear that language involves structure (grammar), function (meaning and action), and culture. In this respect, language is just like the human body.The body has a morphology or structural design in terms of organic parts and connections among them. Its organs and systems also have functions that are related to these organs and systems in complex ways. Finally, the human body exists in culture and
Downloaded by [University of California, San Diego] at 16:02 12 March 2017 The Vexed Nature of Teaching and Learning 65 in environments utterly shaped by culture. At the same time, cultures have been shaped by the nature of the human body itself. We can clearly—in the case of language or the body—study structure, func- tion, and being-in-culture separately. But we have to study their connections and integration as well because they are integrated both in activities in the world and in growth and development (acquisition, learning). Furthermore, for both language and the body, structure, function, and culture take on different meanings and sig- nificance as an overall integrated system than they do when studied in isolation. Going further, the connections between language and body are, in fact, much deeper than both being structure-function-culture systems. Language is “encoded” in the brain, a part of our bodies. Language is spoken and written by the body, usually for and with other bodies. Chomsky, for instance, treats language as an “organ” of the brain (Chomsky, 1986). And, finally, the basic semantics of all human languages are closely tied to how the human mind and body orient to space and time (Lakoff & Johnson, 1980). We keep things “in mind,” we can “lose” a thought, “fall” in love, “come back” to our senses, “grasp” an argument, and be “filled” with courage or “move on” in life. These connections are well studied in work on the localist (or locative) hypothesis and in cognitive linguistics (Ungerer & Schmid, 1996). Situated (Embodied) Meaning Having acknowledged that everything here is so complex, I certainly cannot speak to most of these issues I have just raised. Furthermore, my designated task is to say something creative about creative language teaching (where teaching might mean different things).To make matters simple for myself and for my readers, I will dis- cuss but one phenomenon, namely what I will call “situated meaning” (it has also been called “embodied meaning”) and its implications for teaching in settings like schools, colleges, and centers (Gee, 2004, 2014). People learning language in some fashion (there are many ways, remember) can know what a word (or phrase or structure) means in many different ways. Thus, consider an utterance like “The coffee spilled; go stack it again.” If you do not know that this means coffee cans or packages, then you cannot give the word “coffee” what I will call a situated meaning (properly contextualized meaning; for lovers of jargon, an “utterance token meaning”). If all you know is that “coffee” names a drink or some verbal definition of “coffee” (e.g., “a drink made from the roasted and ground beanlike seeds of a tropical shrub, served hot or iced”) then what you have what I will call a “basic or verbal meaning” for the word (an utterance-type meaning). All you can really do is assign the word “coffee” some limited image or definition, not a full range of nuanced meanings fit for different contexts, let alone new meanings for new contexts.
Downloaded by [University of California, San Diego] at 16:02 12 March 2017 66 James Paul Gee By the way, if you think coffee is grown on a tree and not a shrub, you can still be a good meaning situator, though be a fact shy at a cocktail party.The issue of situated meaning and situating meaning (an activity) is not too serious for a word like “coffee,” but it gets more serious for words like “democracy,” “game,” “love,” or “work” (“Relationships shouldn’t be work,”“Work gives meaning to life,” etc.). If you cannot situate meaning for such terms and many more like them, then you are not really able to participate in culture and social interactions in a very wide way. In any case, I am here interested only in the issue of situated meaning in language learning and teaching. One reason I am interested in situated meaning is that this phenomenon is crucial for people—native speakers or nonnative ones—trying to learn specialist registers and participate in specific functions or occupations. So a graduate stu- dent who says “God wants you to be my PhD advisor because I need help and it is your job to help me” (as was said to me in perfect English by a foreign graduate student who had lost her advisor) has situated meaning in the wrong way for me as a faculty member in a secular public university in the United States. I heard her (rightly or wrongly) as telling me that she knew better than me what my job was, that being needy is good grounds for accepting an advanced PhD advisee, and that I am going to disappoint someone’s god if I do not accept her. Notice that the problem of situating meaning here might actually be mine—perhaps she meant this very differently—but, alas, in this situation, a stu- dent is supposed to consider how the faculty member is likely to situate what he or she says in the contexts of secular and (yes) hierarchical graduate institutions. The meek may inherit the Earth, but they get eaten by institutions if their lan- guage usage does not show due reflection on the nature of power and the social geography of society and its institutions. I want to note again that this issue is as germane to a nonnative speaker as to a native one. Even a native speaker without a family background in “higher education” could have made this same “mistake.” So situating meaning is a topic for both second-language learning and register learning. Furthermore, since all academic content learning involves learning a new register, all academic learning is a form of language learning, and we, thus, add a great many language teachers (perhaps kicking and screaming) to our roles. For example, if you do not know that “work” means something different in physics than it does in the vernacular or that “heat” and “temperature” mean something different in chemistry than they do in the vernacular, you are on the way to failing your science course. Mind, Experience, and Language Before we get to my possibly creative idea about creative language teaching, we need to say something about the human mind and its relationship to language and the world (Gee, 2004, 2015). We once thought the human mind worked pretty
Downloaded by [University of California, San Diego] at 16:02 12 March 2017 The Vexed Nature of Teaching and Learning 67 much like a digital computer. Digital computers are good at calculating, abstract- ing, and processing information by rules.They are really “syntactical” devices that process symbols and assign them rather general meanings. Recent research has shown that human minds do not, in fact, work like digital computers—indeed, that’s why we have digital computers. Digital computers are good at keeping your bank checkbook correct; human minds are not. Humans are good at recognizing faces; digital computers are not. This recent research argues that our minds are filled with records of the expe- riences we have had in life.When we have an experience, we store it in our minds (human memory of experience is nearly endless).This mental storage works best and most deeply for experiences in which we have had a goal for an action about whose outcome we really care. Goals, action, and emotional investment are important for well-organized memories that are well integrated with the rest of our knowledge. We do not store experience in an unedited form. We pay attention to the aspects of our experiences in certain ways. We pay more attention to some ele- ments of an experience than we do to others. We then store the experience in our minds in an edited fashion with certain elements foregrounded and others backgrounded. Experiences for humans need not just come from the “real world.” We treat what we have heard from others, seen in movies, and read in books as vicarious experiences. Indeed, humans often respond to media emotionally as if it were “real” (for example, we cry in movies) and they sometimes have a hard time remembering what was “real” and what was not. We humans use past experiences not so much as a memory bank to get nos- talgic about the past but as materials to help us think about what we are going to do in the future and plan it before we do it.That is why human memory is not all that factually accurate. It matters more, from an evolutionary point of view, that a memory prepares us for successful action and survival in the future than that it is a faithful reflection of the past. That the human mind is built by associations, networks, and connections from personal experience raises a deep problem. Because humans can have very dif- ferent experiences in the world and, thus, very different minds, how do they ever learn to communicate and collaborate across such differences? The answer is social groups and cultures. Social groups and cultures—via mentoring and teaching—ensure that newcomers get many of the same experiences and edit them in similar fashion so that their minds fit with the minds of more advanced members and with each other. For example, birders take out new birders and see to it that they end up in the right habitats and pay attention to the right things so they can share minds and practices with other birders. In this sense, the mind is social. Except for social isolates, the mind is shaped by experiences that have been in turn shaped by teaching in a broad sense.
Downloaded by [University of California, San Diego] at 16:02 12 March 2017 68 James Paul Gee There is also a problem with language, and it is a classic chicken-and-egg ques- tion. Language gets situated meaning from contexts (that is, from the elements in our past experiences relevant to what we say or hear). Experience (in the world and in the mind) gives meaning to language. We can even use past experience creatively to situate new meanings for words, for example, for “coffee” in an utter- ance like “Big Coffee is as bad as Big Oil.” But, at the same time, languages (and registers and other symbol systems like geometry or algebra) categorize, cut up, and regiment experience in certain ways (Vygotsky, 1987). Different languages, registers, and symbol systems help us to put a “grid” on our physical and social worlds so we can see them as organized into certain sorts of elements and com- binations of elements. So which comes first, language making experience comprehensible and mean- ingful in certain ways or experience giving language situated meanings that make it comprehensible and meaningful in certain ways? It is interesting that learning in schools tends to start with language (talk and texts) and only then move on to experience. Informal learning out of school often moves in the opposite direction, starting with experience and then moving to language (talk and texts). In fact, most learners cannot learn deeply without starting with experience so that they have some fodder with which to give useful meanings to language in use. In school, some children have gotten lots of experiences at home to bring to the academic language they face, while others have not, and these others fare less well. It is core to good teaching (here are the bare beginnings of my putatively cre- ative idea about creative language teaching) that experience (situated meanings) and language (as system) bootstrap each other for learners. For beginners, they must alternate move by move in a dance. This is certainly true of first-language learning (where performance comes before competence). In such learning, “teachers” (parents, mentors, adults, and more advanced peers) use language “just in time” and “on demand” (Gee, 2003).“Just in time” means giving a short piece of language right when it can be applied to experience and married to it to dem- onstrate situated meaning.“On demand” means longer stretches of talk, symbols, and texts when learners are ready for them, prepared for them, need them, and know that and why they need them.This is, of course, after extended experiences have prepared the ground and created some useful ways of situating meanings. There is a “funny” opening to one version of the video game America’s Army (a multiplayer game used for training and, in a public version, for entertainment). You as player start by hearing a flip-chart lecture that later, when you are in the field, you cannot remember or apply. The lecture’s words are about a world of images, actions, dialogue, and experience that you have not yet experienced.The words have no situated meanings, only basic or verbal ones.This beginning is meant to parody school-based learning because the Army believes in situated learning (including using video games for experiences where no one can actually get hurt). At an education conference once, someone asked a colonel why the Army taught
Downloaded by [University of California, San Diego] at 16:02 12 March 2017 The Vexed Nature of Teaching and Learning 69 the way it did, using games and simulations.The colonel said, “Because we often get the kids you failed. If we teach them the way you did, this time they die.You educators should be ashamed that the Army was the one to start this.” Amen. Social Languages and Discourses Languages at the size of “English” or “Russian” are composed of a myriad of what I will call “social languages” (Gee, 2014). Social languages (some of which might be called dialects, registers, varieties, or styles or by other names) are styles of using words, grammar, and discourse to enact a socially significant identity.This identity might be connected to a place, an ethnicity, an occupation, or a shared interest. Social languages are distinctive ways with words that betoken a “location” in social space. Social languages include the various different ways with words in math- ematics, science, gaming, carpentry, business, law, street gangs, gardening, cooking, birding, theology, and a great many more activities. When someone wants to enact a socially significant identity, they have to get their style of language “right” (recognizable).They have to “talk the talk.” But that is not enough.They also have to “walk the walk.”They have to act, interact, and dress “right.”They have to value, think, and believe the “right” things (or seem as if they do).They have to use various sorts of objects, tools, and technologies in the “right” way.And they have to do all this at the “right” times and places.They have to be, say, and do the “right” things so that they can get recognized as having the “right” socially significant identity at a given time and place (that is, the identity recognized by a social or cultural group who created and sustains that identity). I use the term “Discourse” with a capital “D” (Gee, 2014, 2015) for any com- bination of ways of “talking the talk” (ways with the words = a social language) and “walking the walk” (ways with thinking, doing, and things). I use the term “Discourse” because such identities as “Fundamentalist Christian” and “Evolu- tionary Biologist” or “L.A. Cop” and “L.A. Street Gang Member” talk and inter- act (“discourse”) through history with each other via the transitory human minds and bodies that instantiate them for a time and are ultimately replaced by others. Being able to enact and recognize identities within Discourses (= “talking the talk” + “walking the walk”) is deeply consequential in society.The graduate stu- dent I mentioned earlier—the one who had lost her PhD advisor—needed to get recognized as an advanced graduate student in an American university, and she needed to know what to expect from someone being (at a time and place) an American university research professor. Failing this, she was in danger of being thrown out of graduate school because she had no advisor and, subsequently, in danger of losing her student visa. It matters.And it is clearly not just a matter of get- ting your grammar right.The student needed to say, be, and do in the “right” ways. So here I am concerned only with language teaching that focuses on social languages and Discourses. This means helping learners be able to use language
Downloaded by [University of California, San Diego] at 16:02 12 March 2017 70 James Paul Gee in combination with ways of acting, interacting, valuing, and using objects, tools, and technologies so as to “pull off ” consequential identities, whether this identity is being an “informal person” in a certain part of the United States, an advanced student of biology in an American University, or a fellow Yu-Gi-Oh fan.Teach- ing people just to be able to “speak English” does not let them actually enact and recognize identities so they can navigate society, institutions, and sociocultural spaces in that language. Creative Language Teaching People often acquire new social languages and Discourses and the ability to situ- ate meanings by immersion in a group that offers various forms of mentoring and teaching. Of course, in this “natural” process, not all groups cut newcomers a lot of slack. In some cases, it is helpful to have teachers in more caring and “safe” environments (but not if they do not prepare learners for what is to come). So what might be a model of teaching, teaching for social languages, Dis- courses, and situating meaning? Well let me start with an odd example, namely learning the social language of Yu-Gi-Oh, an anime card game (Gee, 2015).This example is meant to have two purposes. First, it is one example of the model of creative language teaching I want to offer here. Second and more importantly, it is a metaphor for a whole class of methods that incorporate the same principles but in different ways with different tools. I am not asking people to make card games (though that is one thing you can do, but only one). Yu-Gi-Oh is, like Magic the Gathering, a complex card game played face to face or in video games. Players select a deck of 40 cards from literally thousands of possible cards. Each card has written on it what it can do in the game. Each deck contains types of cards that facilitate a given strategy of play. Players must antici- pate what might be in the other player’s deck and must be prepared to respond flexibly and creatively to challenges they face moment by moment in the game. EachYu-Gi-Oh card has certain powers and limitations and must be played in the right context of ongoing game play to be effective.A player has to fully under- stand the print on each card and understand how that print applies in concrete situations in game play. Yu-Gi-Oh language is a complex social language. It is, in many ways, as com- plex as so-called academic language. Here is an example of one card (minus the picture on it): Cyber Raider Card-Type: Effect Monster Attribute: Dark | Level: 4 Type: Machine
Downloaded by [University of California, San Diego] at 16:02 12 March 2017 The Vexed Nature of Teaching and Learning 71 ATK: 1400 | DEF: 1000 Description: When this card is Summoned:Activate 1 of these effects. • Target 1 Equip Card equipped to a monster on the field; destroy that target. • Target 1 Equip Card equipped to a monster on the field; equip that target to this card. And here is just a short bit from the official Yu-Gi-Oh rule book and a short bit from a website where players can resolve disputes about the rules: In order to Synchro Summon a Synchro Monster, you need 1 Tuner (look for “Tuner” next to itsType).TheTuner Monster and other face-up monsters you use for the Synchro Summon are called Synchro Material Monsters. The sum of their Levels is the Level of Synchro Monster you can Sum- mon. http://www.yugioh-card.com/lat-am/rulebook/YGO_RuleBook_ EN-v8.pdf 8-CLAWS SCORPION Even if “8-Claws Scorpion” is equipped with an Equip Spell Card, its ATK is 2400 when it attacks a face-down Defense Position monster. The effect of “8-Claws Scorpion” is a Trigger Effect that is applied if the condition is correct on activation (“8-Claws Scorpion” declared an attack against a face-down Defense Position monster.) The target monster does not have to be in face-down Defense Position when the effect of “8-Claws Scorpion” is resolved. So if “Final Attack Orders” is active, or “Ceasefire” flips the monster face-up,“8-Claws Scorpion” still gets its 2400 ATK. (http://www.upperdeckentertainment.com/yugioh/en/ faq_card_rulings.aspx?first=A&last=C) So Yu-Gi-Oh clearly has a social language of its own. And, clearly, to be accepted as a Yu-Gi-Oh player—let alone as a real fan—it is not enough just to know what the language means.You have to be able to do the right things in and out of the game at the right time with the right attitudes, values, and ways of interacting with fellow Yu-Gi-Oh enthusiasts.Yu-Gi-Oh is a Discourse. So how does Yu-Gi-Oh get taught? Note that the company that makes the thousands of Y u-Gi-Oh cards would go broke if it could not ensure that its com- plex game and its language got learned. Here is how teaching and learning works in Yu-Gi-Oh: First, language is given meaning by specific actions, images, effects, and dia- logue in the game (by experience).The language on a card is associated with a physical move of the card on the game space between the play- ers. The move in turn is associated with an action in the game (both as a story of a battle and as a chess-like game). The language is about the
Downloaded by [University of California, San Diego] at 16:02 12 March 2017 72 James Paul Gee world of the game. That world gives it meaning, not just definitions for the words. Second,the rule book and numerous guides on websites show players how the language ofYu-Gi-Oh regiments the ontology of theYu-Gi-Oh universe. But you do not want to read this stuff first. After you have experienced a good deal of play and found patterns and subpatterns in that experi- ence, then you are ready to understand the rule book and websites. In turn, these sources give you a much greater meta-awareness ofYu-Gi-Oh language and play. And they allow you to learn to articulate in words and arguments the tacit understandings you have gained from play. Third, many interest-driven fan sites on the Internet offer tutorials and cater to people’s different learning preferences (e.g., didactic, guided play, watch- ing games, individual coaching, and so forth). People can learn socially or alone. Fourth, the company makes books, movies, and TV shows, all of which enact Yu-Gi-Oh language and game play in terms of dramatic stories of the “monsters” acting out the same moves they make in the game in story form.This shows—and not just tells—how the rules work and what the words ofYu-Gi-Oh language mean. It also keys players into how to think about the game, its language, and its universe (which is part of the much larger anime universe). Fifth, these books, movies, and television shows, together with the interest-driven websites and video game play, help players learn how to manage their attention and cognitive load in the face of experience filled with complex details, images, actions, words, and possibilities. Players learn what to pay attention to when. This helps them store these experiences in effective and well-integrated ways in their mind and prepares them for future play at higher levels. Sixth, early on, there are various forms of play available where players can try things out with a low cost for failure. Players can explore and can come to see failure as a form of feedback and learning. Complexity is constrained in such early play by simplified versions of the game or games played on an easy level.Video games offer early games in which complexity is greatly lowered and only a few variables are relevant.Thus, their interaction can be seen clearly. Multiplayer video games pair players by their level of play so that competition is fair and useful for learning. Seventh, language is never divorced from action and purpose. Players either speak and applyYu-Gi-Oh language “just in time,” move by move in game play and see what happens, or they seek out lots of language (quite often very abstract and complex language) when they need it, are ready for it, and have a purpose for getting it.They often use such “on demand” lan- guage from the rule book or websites for arguments and discussions with others about rules, strategy, and possible modifications of the game.They become theoreticians of game play.
Downloaded by [University of California, San Diego] at 16:02 12 March 2017 The Vexed Nature of Teaching and Learning 73 Eighth,Yu-Gi-Oh is a highly interactive social space in which players in per- son and on websites discuss the game, modify it, talk about strategy, share information, help each other, and sometimes teach and sometimes learn, since there are always players below and above one’s current status.These spaces of talk, interaction, and guidance—almost always stressing making and producing and not just consuming and stressing active participation and not just spectating—are what I have elsewhere called “affinity spaces.” People learn to share an interest—even better, a passion—and orient to that interest or passion not to grades or outside statuses connected to race, class, gender, or ability. Ninth,Yu-Gi-Oh does not use time as a measure of learning. It uses mastery and trajectories to mastery as a measure of learning. It does not matter how long it takes to become a good player.And there are different trajec- tories to mastery. Tenth,Yu-Gi-Oh is not assessed by one-off grades or “drop out of the sky” decontextualized tests. Players can find out how they stand on multiple variables compared to many other players across different trajectories of development toward mastery. Data are everywhere, and there are lots of people there to help interpret them.The focus is on growth and progress on multiple fronts, not on getting a grade with no real operational mean- ing. Learners expect to get feedback that helps them know what to do and how to get better, and they expect to get feedback from multiple sources with different perspectives or focuses. Furthermore, peers know where each other stand, discuss it, and regularly see models of exemplary play, so they know what to shoot for. Beyond Yu-Gi-Oh There are people currently making card games for language learning, but that is not my point here. My point is the principles Yu-Gi-Oh adopts. My point is to focus on social languages, Discourses, identities, and situated meanings. And, finally, my point is to focus on a distributed system of teaching and learning that uses multiple tools, media, activities, platforms, and forms of social interaction beyond the classroom. It may seem thatYu-Gi-Oh is a very untypical case. But I would argue that any social language is given meaning by the “game” it is in and the world it is about. That is, it is given meaning by the activities, goals, experiences, and interactions that it fuels.This is certainly true of physics, gardening, and being a graduate stu- dent.When we treat something like physics as just a body of inert content, we are not teaching physics as a “game” but as dead letters.When physicists play (work) they use information (content)—just asYu-Gi-Oh players do—but they use con- tent to do and be things. Facts and information—formulas and principles—are tools to solve problems.
Downloaded by [University of California, San Diego] at 16:02 12 March 2017 74 James Paul Gee So I want to argue that theYu-Gi-Oh principles are more general.They char- acterize a possible type of language teaching. Let’s call this Discourse teaching and not just language teaching or call it teaching language for Discourses. The principles of such teaching, as we have Discussed them in Yu-Gi-Oh, are: 1. Teach the game (activities, practices, problems, challenges) the language is about. Relate words to experiences of play/work/problem solving. 2. Offer learners well-mentored, well-modeled extended samples of talk and text in the relevant social language so that they can learn the language that regiments their experience and defines its ontology. But do this after and side by side with experience that builds up situated meanings and creates prepara- tion for future learning. 3. Offer multiple ways to learn and multiple tools and platforms of learning. Encourage learners to try several ways to learn and to try new ways. Encour- age them to switch ways if one way is not working. But do not encourage learners to pass up challenges or not to persist in past failure. 4. Use multiple forms of media and multiple forms of social interactions to exemplify how to “talk the talk” and “walk the walk” and how to reflect on and think about these things during and after practice. 5. Offer constrained, well-mentored, well-designed experiences of individual and collaborative problem solving but with help for learners to know what to pay attention to in the experience and how to do so. Give learners help with managing their attentional economies and lower cognitive load for beginners. 6. Lower the cost of failure. Encourage learners to explore and try things. 7. Don’t divorce language from action and experience.Use language (and informa- tion) either “just in time” when it can be applied and reflected on in application or “on demand” when learners want, need, or ask for larger blocks of language. Use such “on demand” language (see point 2) to get learners to engage in articulation, meta-level thinking, and discussion about theories and strategies. 8. Make learning highly interactive so that each learner gets to make, design, lead and follow, teach and learn, discuss and argue, and gain a shared passion for what they are doing in a community of practice, activity system, or affin- ity space (choose your favorite term). 9. Do not measure learning by time but by different trajectories to mastery. Be sure there are multiple models of mastery along the way and that they are discussed so learners can begin to share paradigms of excellence. 10. Assess on multiple variables across time in relation to multiple paths or tra- jectories different people can take to mastery. Offer operational feedback. Remember that growth is often U-shaped. Learners initially get better, then they get worse (as they are cognitively reorganizing their knowledge) and then get better again at a higher level.Watch out for downgrading people at the bottom of the U. Failure there is an indication of real learning. 11. Think of teaching as designing and resourcing a learning system with mov- ing parts as the Yu-Gi-Oh company does.
Downloaded by [University of California, San Diego] at 16:02 12 March 2017 The Vexed Nature of Teaching and Learning 75 I do have to add this as a personal peeve: Lectures are not bad when done right at the right time. Discussions are not good when done wrong at the wrong time. Learning is not just about leaving learners unchained for discovery. It is about getting the teaching, mentoring, guiding, and resourcing that learners need at whatever point they are at in the trajectory toward mastery.Toddlers don’t need ten-foot basketball poles when they are learning. Well, that is it: my (maybe) creative proposal for creative language teaching. Of course, readers will have to make it real and concrete. I cannot and should not tell teachers what to do Monday morning. They are professionals and should be or become designers.And, further, it is not about what you do Monday morning but what you do over the long haul. It is about what you make. Questions for Discussion 1. How does regarding language as a “technology” or “set of tools” change the way we approach teaching it? How does this relate to the points Jones makes in his chapter? 2. Gee says that learning a language is learning how to be a good “meaning situator.” What are some of the ways classroom teachers can help learners accomplish this? What sorts of classroom activities might not help (or even hinder) them in accomplishing this? 3. If successful language use demonstrates the ability to reflect on “the nature of power and the social geography of society and its institutions,” can “creativ- ity” aid in the development of such ability? What is the relationship between creativity and power? 4. How can the ways we experience things, store those experiences in memory, and make plans for the future be considered creative acts? 5. Choose any of the 10 principles for “Discourse teaching” that Gee enumer- ates and discuss how you might apply it in your own teaching. 6. Gee insists that often, failure is an indication of real learning. What is the relationship between failure and creativity? 7. Gee says, “teachers should be or become designers.”What does he mean by this? What kinds of things do teachers design? What is the difference between “designing” a lesson and “planning” it in a more traditional sense? Suggestions for Further Research 1. Interview people about some activity that they have learned to do with a high degree of competence or expertise and find out what factors (social, situational, attitudinal) affected their success. See if you can identify any com- mon themes in your interviews. 2. To what degree do current practices in language teaching concern them- selves with teaching students “social languages” and “Discourses”? Survey
Downloaded by [University of California, San Diego] at 16:02 12 March 2017 76 James Paul Gee the teaching materials and classroom practices in your particular teaching contexts to find out. See if you can discover ways that they do and ways that they do not, and make recommendations on how these important aspects of situated language use can be addressed in classroom teaching. References Chomsky, N. (1986). Knowledge of language. New York: Praeger. Finnegan, R. (1988). Literacy and orality. Oxford: Basil Blackwell. Gee, J. P. (2003). What video games have to teach us about learning and literacy (2nd ed., 2007). New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Gee, J. P. (2004). Situated language and learning: A critique of traditional schooling. London: Routledge. Gee, J. P. (2014). An introduction to discourse analysis: Theory and method (4th ed.). London: Routledge. Gee, J. P. (2015). Literacy and education. New York: Routledge. Grosjean, F. (1984). Life with two languages: An introduction to bilingualism. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Grosjean, F. (2010). Bilingual: Life and reality. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Hattie, J. (2009). Visible learning: A synthesis of over 800 meta-analyses relating to achievement. London: Routledge. Hattie, J., &Yates, G. (2013). Visible learning and the science of how we learn. London: Routledge. Lakoff, G., & Johnson, M. (1980). Metaphors we live by. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Pinker, S. (1994). The language instinct: How the mind creates language. New York: William Marrow. Ungerer, F., & Schmid, H. J. (1996). An introduction to cognitive linguistics. London: Longman. Vygotsky, L. S. (1987). Problems of general psychology. Including the volume Thinking and speech. In R. W. Rieber & A. S. Carton (Eds.), The collected works of L. S.Vygotsky (Vol. 1). New York: Plenum Press.
Downloaded by [University of California, San Diego] at 16:02 12 March 2017 6 TRANSLATING WRITING WORLDS Writing as a Poet, Writing as an Academic Jane Spiro and Sue Dymoke Introduction As writers move between poetry and writing in and for their subject disciplines, it is interesting to ask whether the adaptations they make are mainly ones of lan- guage and discourse or whether they reflect something fundamental about the selves they are revealing. How far does the traversing of different audiences and communities constitute a change in writer identity? Research into the second language writer suggests that each language represents a different “self ” that is not necessarily translatable (Pavlenko & Lantolf, 2000).Writers such as Hoffman (1989) and Milosz (2002) describe this as a sense of compression and alienation, as the meanings that are clear in one language become untranslatable in the other. A similar process of transition and acculturation takes place as academic writers move from one subject discipline to the other. Becher and Trowler (2001) explore the notion of subject disciplines as communities of practice to which academics claim membership by reflecting its dominant discourse and internalizing their culture and values. In straddling two such communities, writers commute, often painfully, between discourses and the different values that underpin them. Ivanic suggested in 1994 that research into writing had tended to “disregard writer identity” but that the link between writing identity and how this is con- structed through discourse is a critical area for further research (Ivanic, 1994, 1998).This chapter addresses these links between discourse-level choices and core identity as a writer by sharing the reflective testimonies of 17 writers who are both poets and academic writers across multiple subject disciplines, including history, social studies, lexicography, botany, creative arts, technology, and English literature.All these writers identify themselves as actively developing their practice
Downloaded by [University of California, San Diego] at 16:02 12 March 2017 78 Jane Spiro and Sue Dymoke across academic-poetic divides and publishing in both domains. In sharing their testimonies, the 17 poet-academic writers offer us insights into how they experi- ence these dual discourses and by what processes they negotiate the differences. We consider the way these writers adapt their message as they cross from one community to the other and the different aspects of themselves they choose to express with each audience. As each writer shares aspects of their writing history, we are also able to ask why, how, and at what personal or professional cost they traverse these two writing worlds and what is lost or gained in translation between the two. Our principle research questions in this study are: • What processes do experienced writers engage with when they write for different audiences and purposes? • What aspects of themselves are revealed or concealed as they move between these audiences? • What parallels are there between these writing transitions and those of second-language writers? • How might these findings inform the teaching and learning of second-language writing? In arriving at these questions, we, the authors of this chapter, both position ourselves as poets and academic writers who have experienced these two writing worlds. In bringing together these worlds, we hope to extrapolate principles of effective writing that might contribute to both the traversing of writing cultures and also the teaching and the practice of second-language writing. Literature Review Writers have made explicit to varying degrees the process by which a text becomes their own—or, to use terminology often adopted by writers themselves, by which they “find a voice” or make a text authentic. Some describe the moment at which a text becomes “real” for them. Heaney describes the moment when he finished his first poem:“I felt that I had let down a shaft into real life” (Heaney, 1980, p. 41). Cox and Thielgard describe this moment as the “metaphorical confrontation” with self that turns a cluster of words, phrases, or scenes into driven writing that is a form of self-representation (Cox & Thielgard, 1987, p. 45). Although the link between writing and self-representation takes on different forms and shapes for each writer, many writer testimonies describe the search for “a deep connection between inner life and the words on the page” (Hunt & Sampson, 2000, p. 16). Virginia Woolf describes successful writing when “it has not crushed the thing
Downloaded by [University of California, San Diego] at 16:02 12 March 2017 Translating Writing Worlds 79 I wanted to say, but allowed me to slip it in, without any compression or altera- tion” (Woolf, 1929, p. 91).What is interesting to note in our study is whether and how this connection between the writing self and the inner self is equally potent in the academic context as in the creative/poetic setting from which these quota- tions derive. Research into the processes of academic writing has increasingly made this connection between deeper “selves” and discourse choices. Barton, Ivanic, and Hamilton (1999) examine the connection between writing literacies and iden- tification with a community of practice. As writers define their community, so too they tend to shape their discourse in order to assume membership (see also Gee, this volume). Becher and Trowler compare academic disciplines to tribes whose structures are partially visible at the surface—such as language and discourse patterns—but partially “hidden,” such as underlying values, beliefs and practices (Becher & Trowler, 2001). Just as belonging to two tribes may entail a conflict between belonging and alienation, so too making a crossover between disciplines may be experienced as problematic and even subversive. Pavlenko and Lantolf (2000) apply these processes of movement from one lan- guage culture to the other in a way that parallels Becher and Trowler’s accounts of disciplinary transitions.As the movement between one language and another creates an “interlanguage” that may constitute a third identity, so traversing the discourses of poetry and academic writing may entail the construction of a hybrid identity that is neither quite one or the other. Such transitions may reveal not differences between the two “languages” but the part of the writer that remains the same: their values, responsibilities, and messages as a writer, whether in the first or second language, first or second culture. Saunders (2003) suggests that the practiced writer in both poetry and research shares a responsi- bility not just to “tell it like it is” but to add a deeper sounding” (2003, p. 185). Whatever choices we make as writers, whether subliminal or conscious, they are “value constituting” (Richardson, 1997) and value revealing. Donahave (in Turley, 2011) stresses, for example, the way in which use of the personal pro- noun transforms writing, whether creative or critical, by giving visible agency to the author. Such discussions parallel the debates within postcolonial literatures, as writ- ers make choices whether to write in their first language for their first linguis- tic community or to choose a second language in order to make their message meet a more distanced community. Pavlenko and Lantolf (2000) describe this development as a process of “reorganization” in which learners are “forced to reorganize, and in some cases organize anew, the plots of their life stories in line with the new set of conventions and social relationships sanctioned by the new community in which they find themselves” (Pavlenko & Lantolf, 2000, p. 219). Hoffman, in gradually making a transition from Polish as first
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