Date of Award
5-2015
Level of Access Assigned by Author
Campus-Only Thesis
Degree Name
Master of Arts (MA)
Department
English
Advisor
Dylan Dryer
Second Committee Member
Pat Burnes
Third Committee Member
Nate Stormer
Abstract
Although multilinguality is the norm globally, US college composition still tends to maintain unidirectional monolingualism in its classrooms, in which students and instructors are assumed to be linguistically homogenous and the target goal for student writing is a so-called standard English. Many in writing studies have called for investigations into the ways these practices persist in composition programs. This thesis therefore explores the ways putatively monolingual and multilingual graduate student instructors maintain and/or change dispositions toward language difference in a US college composition program. Rather than finding multilinguality as a predictor of dispositions which anticipate and welcome linguistic heterogeneity, the findings suggest that instructors’ histories with monolingual language education are more likely to influence uptake of their new program’s teaching genres. This thesis argues that continued investigations into pedagogical genres and their uptakes are needed in order to shift dispositions toward a translingual norm.
Recommended Citation
Kehoe, Eric, "Dispositions Toward Language Difference: L1 and L2 Novice Composition Instructors" (2015). Electronic Theses and Dissertations. 2294.
https://digitalcommons.library.umaine.edu/etd/2294