AAA Call for Abstracts (SLA/CAE): Sociolinguistic Contributions to Multilingual Education

[Huamei Han]

Dear SLA colleagues, 



Please find below a Call for Abstracts for a session we plan to submit to AAA this year, and hope to get co-sponsored by SLA (Society of Linguistic Anthropology) and CAE (Council on Anthropology and Education). Please submit your proposals to Huamei Han ( huamei_han at sfu.ca ) by March 9 th , 2011. I am also looking for a colleague who is familiar with SLA procedures to co-organize this session with me – if interested, please contact me at your earliest convenience. 



DRAFT Provisional session abstract: 



Sociolinguistic Contributions to Multilingual Education: Traces and Tidemarks 



Co-organizers: Dr. Huamei Han, Faculty of Education, Simon Fraser University, Canada; xxx xxxx (looking for a co-organizer in SLA). 



This panel intends to bring together applied linguists and sociolinguists to showcase what sociolinguistics has contributed to alternative conceptualizations of multilingual education. Traditionally, much of applied linguistic research focused on language classrooms as the major site of language learning, and treated learning as individual cognition and multilingualism as mastery of multiple standard linguistic systems (e.g., Martin-Jones, 2007). Sociolinguistics has contributed to major re-conceptualizations of the what, the how, and the who in second language education, such as the change from linguistic competence to communicative competence (Hymes, 1972), from language acquisition to language socialization (Heath, 1983; Schieffelin & Ochs, 1986), and from bilingualism as double monolingualism to bilingualism as ideology and practice (Heller, 2007). 



Building on this legacy, this panel showcases sociolinguistic and applied linguistic research examining what multilingual speakers do on the ground, including what varieties they use with whom and for what purposes, what they think and say about it, and with what effects and consequences. Together we discuss what traces and tidemarks these research projects may leave on multilingual education in terms of broaden its concepts and scope, and on sociolinguistics in terms of concrete theoretical, methodological, policy and practice implications. 



Part I consists of papers focusing on sociolinguistic analysis of workplaces, ranging from small businesses to multi-national companies. Part II consists of papers focusing on sociolinguistic analysis of educational sites, both traditional and non-traditional but particularly non-traditional, including but not limited to language classes for immigrants, heritage language schools for children of immigrants, churches, community centers, and so on. We have a few papers in each part, and hope to elicit a few more. 



Discussant: Professor James Collins 

(A second Discussant to be confirmed if needed) 



**** 

Paper Abstract Deadline: March 9, 2011 

Communication of Decisions: March 12, 2011 
Thank you! 


-- 





HAN Huamei (韩华梅), Ph.D. 
Assistant Professor in EAL (ESL/EFL) Education 
Faculty of Education, Simon Fraser University 
8888 University Drive, Burnaby, BC Canada V5A 1S6 

Visiting Scholar (December 11, 2010 - April 30, 2011) 
Department of Linguistics, University of the Western Cape 
& 
School of Education, University of Cape Town 

Forest Hill Complex - UCT, A505 
95 Main Road, Mowbray , Cape Town 7705 
Republic of South Africa 
+27 (0)71 942 4090 
huamei_han at sfu.ca