Being and becoming multilingual within Canadian FSL education
Abstract
While employing a critical narrative, multimodal approach this dissertation examines the identity construction and negotiation experiences of a diverse group of multilingual former FSL students. Particular attention is paid to how these students draw on, engage with, or resist dominant narratives of language, identity, and belonging in Canada while sharing stories about their experiences in Canadian FSL education. Major discoveries made include the participants viewing membership as a French and English speaker through a restrictive, narrow lens; associating knowledge of English and French with it means to be an academically, economically and social successful Canadian; and linking investment in English and French with what it means to be a Canadian. The internalization of such narratives by the participants resulted in: 1.) seeing themselves as multilingual speakers of English and French through a deficit narrative lens; 2.) heightened feelings of linguistic insecurity from pressure to live up to native speaker ideals of what it means to be a French speaker or officially bilingual Canadian; and 3.) development of feelings of in-betweenness when constructing/negotiating an identity for themselves across multiple social worlds. In some cases, within their narrative accounts, the participants chose to resist the dominance of such narratives to create space for the expression of their multilayered identities and rich linguistic and cultural knowledge. Points of resistance included challenging the deficit narrative lens through which their identities as multilinguals were viewed within the contexts of Canadian FSL education and official bilingualism; creating their own definitions of what it means to be a successful Canadian; and challenging the rigid binary image of Canadian identity. Inspired by the participant’s personal accounts, the study puts forth a reflexive framework which incorporates three layers of storied seeing. The significant contribution of this framework to the fields of language and literacy studies is that it not only provides FSL practitioners, administrators, policymakers, and students with practical tools to reflect on their beliefs and ways of seeing language, identity, and belonging in Canada, but it does so in a collaborative manner inspired by the real-life experiences of multilingual students.