Power and the Subversion of Stories

Abstract

Language is a multiplicity of meaning-making systems, which are connected with social, cultural and psychological networks. Focusing on issues of power, this article is concerned to explore how the readings of a European folktale triggered attempts among teenage girls in Hong Kong to make their own feminist and subversive interpretations in English. The reconstructed stories are more than a partial reproduction of the conventional text, they are also a useful reflection of the teenage girls' literacy and gender experience, as well as of their generic and social knowledge. With a resistance to textual conventions, the teenage girls demonstrate their written competence to create alternative subject and reading positions, which are textually motivated by their sense of difference. The material realisation of the stories is also characterised by splits and instabilities, in the negotiation of a new boundary for femininity. This negotiation demonstrates how the teenage girls are on the move, facing and settling contradictory possibilities in acquiring literacy and social roles. Along these lines of observation, the synchronic view of language, characterised by regularity and internal consistency, needs to be challenged in second-language writing instruction.

Replacing the Misplaced: Power, Autobiography and Learner Identity

“…(Levering et al, 2009, p. 83) This notion of power is manifest in the unequal relations in English acquisition in Hong Kong (a British colony for over 150 years before it reverted to Chinese rule in 1997), with the entrenched prestige of English-medium education as a positional good within its highly stratified education system. Beyond its instrumental benefits for social and economic advancement, English is potentially a means whereby consciousness, dispositions and desire are specialised and distributed, and empowerment is gained (Choi, 2008(Choi, , 2009. English has continued to be strongly classified as a viable language among academically oriented learners through post-colonial times.…”

“…A life story may represent the outward articulation of a writer's inner scrutiny, and demonstrate the 'we-experience' arising out of its social structures and processes. The project also challenges more instrumental practices of second-language writing focusing primarily on error correction and other means of creative disempowerment (Choi, 2009(Choi, , 2012a. The rationale of the autobiographical research was clearly articulated to potential participants, who were offered relevant categories of experience in educational transitions as prompts (for example, first encounters; sense of difference; hopes and fears; power and powerlessness; stereotypes and public personas; moments of triumph; time past and regrets; turning points and significant others).…”

Fortress Education

“…Discussing highstatus education in Hong Kong, she refers to the entrenched prestige of English-medium education as a positional good within its highly stratified education system. Beyond its instrumental benefits for social and economic advancement, English is potentially a means whereby consciousness, dispositions and desire are specialised and distributed, and empowerment is gained (Choi, 2008(Choi, , 2009). English has continued to be strongly classified as a viable language among academically oriented learners through post-colonial times.…”