Using intercultural rhetoric to examine translingual practices of postgraduate L2 writers of English

Abstract

This pilot study applies the three tenets of intercultural rhetoric (i.e., texts must be studied in context; culture is complex and dynamic; written discourse encounters necessitate negotiation and accommodation) to an investigation of the translingual practices of four post-graduate-level second language (L2) writers of English. By using stimulated recall to probe the participants’ awareness and use of L1 and L2 academic conventions in the writing process, we were able to identify the negotiation strategies they employed and to understand the linguistic or cultural factors that influenced those choices. Our findings revealed that participants’ translingual negotiations varied, depending on their level of proficiency in English, field of study, and experience writing academically in both their L1 and L2. Participants also tended to frame discussions of their academic writing in terms of both large, national cultures and small, disciplinary or classroom-based ones. Finally, this study illustrates how inquiries that highlight the social contexts and complexities of cross-cultural comparisons can be useful in operationalizing translingual concepts and developing evidence-based pedagogy for L2 writing.