Exploring Pluriliteracy As Theory and Practice in Multilingual/Cultural Contexts

Abstract

This paper is situated in language and literacy studies (Gee 1996) and Malaysian Studies (Tan,1992; Shamsul, 1999;Maznah and Wong, 2001; Ooi, 2001) and explores what I theorise to be thepluriliteracy (Koo 2004) of Malaysian tertiary leamers in relation to the discourses of thecommunity, nation-state and globalisation. It takes the perspective of linguistic practices asinvolving culture (as interpretive systems of meaning involving webs of significance (Geertz,1973) and linguistic processes as sociocultural practice (Kress, 1989). The pluriliteracy of themultilingual meaningmakers in English is viewed in terms of a third space phenomenon(Bhabha, 1994) a deep sociopolitical space marked by power and ideological divides.Pluriliteracy views meaning-making and knowledge production as sociopolitical phenomenainvolving decisions and reflections around the ideological embeddings of dominant cultures. Thethird space is a complex and challenging space fraught with tensions for the multilingual learner,where various literacies are accommodated, nativised and transformed within the intersectionand contradictions of community, national and global discourses. The paper explores the conceptof Reflexive Pluriliteracy in two ways: firstly, by examining the broad sociopolitical contexts ofMalaysia viewed as the intersection of the global with the nation-state and secondly, byexamining the micro meaning making literacy practices of two Malaysian meaning-makers, Suand Beng. The broad and the micro are viewed as interpenetrating discursive discourses eachinteracting with the other. In exploring the extant pluriliteracies of multilingual meaning-makersas unfolding and as learned behavior, the paper argues for a pedagogy of reflexive Pluriliteracy.It is argued that reflexive pluriliteracy will help provide a greater awareness of the politics andtensions in various ways of knowing, in the third space of the simultaneously local-global, withits tensions and ambivalence.