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Translingual English discrimination: loss of academic sense of belonging, the hiring order of things, and students from the Global South

  • Stephanie Dryden

    Stephanie Dryden is a PhD candidate at the School of Education, Curtin University, Australia, with a background of teaching English as an additional language in Australia, Colombia, and Vietnam. Her main research interests include critical applied linguistics, the sociolinguistic experiences of culturally and linguistically diverse migrants in an Australian context, and translanguaging.

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    and Sender Dovchin

    Associate Professor Sender Dovchin is a Director of Research & Principal Research Fellow of the Australian Research Council at the School of Education, Curtin University, Australia. Previously, she was an Associate Professor at the University of Aizu, Japan. She has extensively published numerous monographs and articles in peer-reviewed journals.

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Published/Copyright: August 2, 2022
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Abstract

Global North settings such as Australia are an attractive option for prospective students from the Global South to undertake tertiary studies. Using Linguistic Ethnography, we investigate the experiences that postgraduate students from the Global South have when studying in Australian university settings, to understand how translingual English discrimination affects them. We find that many students from the Global South encounter situations of translingual English discrimination, which affect their academic sense of belonging and the hiring order of things. Being penalised for their linguistic practises in their assignment work, or being provided with unclear and insufficient information during the early stages of their studies can both result in a loss of sense of academic belonging. These students may also be affected by the hiring order of things through additional barriers in gaining university employment due to perceptions that they have linguistic, work experience and qualification shortcomings, despite strong evidence to the contrary. We outline the implications of these forms of translingual English discrimination and recommend institutional changes to address these discriminatory actions.


Corresponding author: Stephanie Dryden, Curtin University, School of Education, Building 501, Kent Street, Bentley, WA 6102, Australia, E-mail:

Award Identifier / Grant number: 4-AXFMHKT

Award Identifier / Grant number: Research Stipend Scholarship

About the authors

Stephanie Dryden

Stephanie Dryden is a PhD candidate at the School of Education, Curtin University, Australia, with a background of teaching English as an additional language in Australia, Colombia, and Vietnam. Her main research interests include critical applied linguistics, the sociolinguistic experiences of culturally and linguistically diverse migrants in an Australian context, and translanguaging.

Sender Dovchin

Associate Professor Sender Dovchin is a Director of Research & Principal Research Fellow of the Australian Research Council at the School of Education, Curtin University, Australia. Previously, she was an Associate Professor at the University of Aizu, Japan. She has extensively published numerous monographs and articles in peer-reviewed journals.

Acknowledgement

We wish to thank the anonymous reviewers and the Editor-in-Chief Professor Li Wei and the Guest Editor of this Special Issue Fan Fang for their constructive feedback on this article.

  1. Research funding: This research was funded by the Department of Home Affairs (4-AXFMHKT), and Curtin University Research Stipend Scholarship.

  2. Conflict of interest statement: The authors declare that they have no known competing personal relationships or financial interests that could influence the work reported in this paper.

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Received: 2022-06-03
Accepted: 2022-07-06
Published Online: 2022-08-02
Published in Print: 2024-07-26

© 2022 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston

Articles in the same Issue

  1. Frontmatter
  2. Special Issue: Power, Linguistic Discrimination and Inequality in English Language Teaching and Learning (ELTL): Reflection and Reform for Applied Linguistics from the Global South; Guest Editors: Fan Gabriel Fang and Sender Dovchin
  3. Editorial
  4. Reflection and reform of applied linguistics from the Global South: power and inequality in English users from the Global South
  5. Research Articles
  6. Translingual English discrimination: loss of academic sense of belonging, the hiring order of things, and students from the Global South
  7. Applied linguistics from the Global South: way forward to linguistic equality and social justice
  8. English high-stakes testing and constructing the ‘international’ in Kazakhstan and Mongolia
  9. The mundanity of translanguaging and Aboriginal identity in Australia
  10. Multimodal or multilingual? Native English teachers’ engagement with translanguaging in Hong Kong TESOL classrooms
  11. Epistemic injustice and neoliberal imaginations in English as a medium of instruction (EMI) policy
  12. Commentary
  13. Transidiomatic favela: language resources and embodied resistance in Brazilian and South African peripheries
  14. Special Issue: Translanguaging Outside the Centre: Perspectives from Chinese Language Teaching; Guest Editor: Danping Wang
  15. Editorial
  16. Translanguaging outside the centre: perspectives from Chinese language teaching
  17. Research Articles
  18. Translanguaging as a decolonising approach: students’ perspectives towards integrating Indigenous epistemology in language teaching
  19. Translanguaging as sociolinguistic infrastructuring to foster epistemic justice in international Chinese-medium-instruction degree programs in China
  20. Translanguaging as a pedagogy: exploring the use of teachers’ and students’ bilingual repertoires in Chinese language education
  21. A think-aloud method of investigating translanguaging strategies in learning Chinese characters
  22. Translanguaging pedagogies in developing morphological awareness: the case of Japanese students learning Chinese in China
  23. Facilitating learners’ participation through classroom translanguaging: comparing a translanguaging classroom and a monolingual classroom in Chinese language teaching
  24. A multimodal analysis of the online translanguaging practices of international students studying Chinese in a Chinese university
  25. Special Issue: Research Synthesis in Language Learning and Teaching; Guest Editors: Sin Wang Chong, Melissa Bond and Hamish Chalmers
  26. Editorial
  27. Opening the methodological black box of research synthesis in language education: where are we now and where are we heading?
  28. Research Article
  29. A typology of secondary research in Applied Linguistics
  30. Review Articles
  31. A scientometric analysis of applied linguistics research (1970–2022): methodology and future directions
  32. A systematic review of meta-analyses in second language research: current practices, issues, and recommendations
  33. Research Article
  34. Topics, publication patterns, and reporting quality in systematic reviews in language education. Lessons from the international database of education systematic reviews (IDESR)
  35. Review Article
  36. Bilingual education in China: a qualitative synthesis of research on models and perceptions
  37. Regular Issue Articles
  38. An interactional approach to speech acts for applied linguistics
  39. “Church is like a mini Korea”: the potential of migrant religious organisations for promoting heritage language maintenance
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