Secondlanguage literacy and identity formation on the Internet: The case of Chinese immigrant youth in the United States.

摘要

This dissertation investigates the nature of second language literacy in the globalized media of Internet-based communication from a sociocultural perspective. Specifically, it probes how new forms of social networking on the Internet have provided alternative contexts of L2 literacy practices for immigrant ESL learners in the US. Based on an in-depth study of four Chinese teenage immigrants who used English on the Internet to organize relationships with other young people in different parts of the world, it examines the relation of identity and literacy development in a second language in the globalized electronic media. It analyzes the youths' Internet activities with respect to their English learning and social experiences in an American high school, and seeks to understand why these teenagers would turn to the Internet to develop their sense of competence or fluency in English. It examines what constitutes their sense of English proficiency.;This study will demonstrate that the young immigrants' L2 literacy practices in various on-line media---Web-page making, e-mail, instant messaging, chat room---involve a process of socialization and identity formation. While they had difficulty interacting with their English-speaking peers at school, they were able to use English on the Internet to create social, cultural, and ethnic identifications with other young people around the globe. The process of socialization through which the youth construct community and identity on-line involves adopting and negotiating the discourses that structure beliefs and social relations within their peer groups. Hence, through their communicative activities on the Internet, these ESL learners are adopting new norms of use and developing new identities as English speakers.;The study concludes with a discussion on the significance of identity and multiliteracies in global electronic media, and provides suggestions on what role networked computer technology can play in a pedagogy that works with the identity formation of students in second language learning.