Ahmar Mahboob

Last updated

Ahmar Mahboob is a Pakistani linguist. Currently he is an associate professor at the Department of Linguistics at the University of Sydney. He has worked in the fields of language policy development, pidgin and creole languages, NNEST studies, English language acquisition, English language teaching and teacher education, World Englishes, pragmatics, and minority languages in South Asia. [1] Ahmar earned his PhD from Indiana University Bloomington in 2003, and has published extensively. [2] He was the co-editor of TESOL Quarterly, alongside Brian Paltridge, for several years. [3] He was also the Associate Editor of Linguistics and the Human Sciences [4] and serves on the editorial boards of a number of journals. Ahmar has organised a number of regional, national, and international conferences and is the convenor and the co-creator of the Free Linguistics Conference. [2]

Contents

Introduction

Mahboob was born in 1971 in Karachi, Pakistan He first studied English literature at the University of Karachi, and later earned a PhD at Indiana University Bloomington in 2003. His dissertation was entitled Status of non-native English speakers as ESL teachers in the United States. Ahmar has worked in language policy development, [5] pidgin and creole languages, NNEST studies, English language acquisition, English language teaching and teacher education, World Englishes, pragmatics, and issues surrounding minority languages in South Asia. [1] [6] His recent work has focused on Pakistani English and on the various languages of Pakistan. Ahmar is the past president of the Indiana chapter of TESOL International and the Past Chair of the NNEST Caucus of TESOL International. [7] Ahmar also convened of the 2011 TESOL Convention in New Orleans. [8] Ahmar and Josephine Chen are the co-founders of the FLC Group, a linguistics organization. [9]

Ahmar has made a significant contribution to the Non-native English Speakers in TESOL (NNEST) movement. In reference to Ahmar's work, George Braine, a professor at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, writes that "Over the years, Ahmar Mahboob has made a lasting contribution to the nonnative speaker movement. His doctoral dissertation titled 'Status of nonnative English-speaking teachers in the United States' was one of the first to explore the nonnative speaker issue in English language teaching, and he later became an energetic Chair of the Nonnative Speaker Caucus within the TESOL organization." [10] In addition to his PhD research, Ahmar's book, The NNEST Lens, received critical acclaim. [11] In his own words, "The NNEST lens is a lens of multilingualism, multinationalism, and multiculturalism through which NNESTs and NESTs – as classroom practitioners, researchers, and teacher educators – take diversity as a starting point in their understanding and practice of their profession." [12]

In addition to his work with NNESTs, Ahmar has also been working on issues of race and religion in the community of teachers teaching English to speakers of other languages (TESOL). Among other things, Ahmar introduced the notion of "enracement". [13] For Ahmar, the verb enrace means acquiring one's awareness of race. He writes that "[t]he verb enrace does not only mean that we are enraced by others – that others cause us to construct our racial identity – but, also that we enrace others – that our actions, behaviors, and/or discourses lead to a (re)negotiation of other people's racial awareness. This process of enracement is a result of our negotiations and interactions with people (both of our own race and other races) and is partly grounded in how other people view, experience, and/or stereotype our race and how we view, experience, and/or stereotype them." [14]

Ahmar's recent research has focused on issues of applicability of linguistics. In his co-edited volume, Appliable Linguistics: Texts, Contexts, and Meanings, he introduces Appliable Linguistics as an approach to language that takes everyday real-life language related problems – both theoretical and practical – in diverse social, professional and academic contexts as a starting point and then develops and contributes to a theoretical model of language that can respond to and is appliable in the context. [15] This approach focuses on the importance of theory and practice being interrelated in linguistics. He draws on work by M. A. K. Halliday as well as J R Martin in developing this framework.

Ahmar has also made considerable contributions to the study of World Englishes, and in particular Pakistani English. His work on Pakistani English includes studies of the phonetics, phonology, lexis, morphology, syntax, semantics, pragmatics, and discourse structure of the language. His more recent work on World Englishes focuses on World Englishes and identity, for example, English as an Islamic language.

More recently, Ahmar has been focusing on the relationship between World Englishes and higher education. [16] He is specifically interested in understanding 'use' based variations in World Englishes. He argues that the relationship between the language of everyday use and that of academic discourses should not be confused in the context of education, and that it is the language of academic discourses that need to be prioritized in educational contexts. An emphasis on everyday language, he argues, can lead to ghettoisation of the students rather than the growth of their knowledge them. In attempting to develop this work, he developed a model of language variation that can be used to situate the current work in World Englishes and English as a lingua franca, as well as open up space to explore how these processes of language variation and convergence need to consider specialized discourses in addition to everyday language.

One more area of interest for Ahmar has been 'identity management', which he defines as any effort made at an institutionalized (macro) or individualized (micro) level to shape, direct, or influence the identities of others. His work in this area predominantly focuses on educational discourses and he demonstrates how English language curricula use language to promote 'normalized' identities that are promoted by the authorities to maintain the status quo in their respective societies and thus maintain socio-economic disparities within the society.

Ahmar currently coordinates the MA program in Applied Linguistics at the University of Sydney.

In addition to academic work, Ahmar also writes poems and fiction.

Publications

Some of Ahmar's books and edited volumes include:

Related Research Articles

Linguistic imperialism or language imperialism is occasionally defined as "the transfer of a dominant language to other people". This language "transfer" comes about because of imperialism. The transfer is considered to be a sign of power; traditionally military power but also, in the modern world, economic power. Aspects of the dominant culture are usually transferred along with the language. In spatial terms, indigenous languages are employed in the function of official (state) languages in Eurasia, while only non-indigenous imperial (European) languages in the "Rest of the World". In the modern world, linguistic imperialism may also be considered in the context of international development, affecting the standard by which organizations like the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank evaluate the trustworthiness and value of structural adjustment loans by virtue of views that are commonly foregrounded in English-language discourse and not neutral.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">English as a second or foreign language</span> Use of English by speakers with different native languages

English as a second or foreign language is the use of English by speakers with different native languages, often with students whose native language is not English and are learning to speak and write English, commonly among students Language education for people learning English may be known as English as a foreign language (EFL), English as a second language (ESL), English for speakers of other languages (ESOL), English as an additional language (EAL), or English as a New Language (ENL), which refers to the practice of studying English in a country where it is not the dominant language. These programs, especially ESL, are usually an academic subject, course, or program designed to teach English to students who are not yet proficient in the language. While some people only refer to learning in an English-speaking country, learning this language can also entail learning in a non-English speaking or non-native nation.

Henry George Widdowson is a British linguist and an authority in the field of applied linguistics and language teaching, specifically English language learning and teaching.

David Nunan is an Australian linguist who has focused on the teaching of English. He is the author of the ELT textbook series "Go For It!".

NNEST or non-native English-speaking teachers is an acronym that refers to the growing body of English language teachers who speak English as a foreign or second language. The term was coined to highlight the dichotomy between native English-speaking teachers (NEST) and non-native English-speaking teachers (NNEST).

A significant construct in language learning research, identity is defined as "how a person understands his or her relationship to the world, how that relationship is structured across time and space, and how the person understands possibilities for the future". Recognizing language as a social practice, identity highlights how language constructs and is constructed by a variety of relationships. Because of the diverse positions from which language learners can participate in social life, identity is theorized as multiple, subject to change, and a site of struggle.

Guy W. D. Cook is an applied linguist. As of 2023, he is Emeritus Professor of Language in Education at King's College London in the UK. He was Chair of the British Association for Applied Linguistics from 2009–2012 and Chair Mentor from 2012–2013. He teaches and writes about English language teaching, literary stylistics, discourse analysis, advertising, and the language of food politics.

Norbert Schmitt is an American applied linguist and Emeritus Professor of Applied Linguistics at the University of Nottingham in the United Kingdom. He is known for his work on second-language vocabulary acquisition and second-language vocabulary teaching. He has published numerous books and papers on vocabulary acquisition.

TESOL Quarterly is a quarterly peer-reviewed academic journal published by Wiley-Blackwell on behalf of TESOL International Association. It covers English language teaching and learning, standard English as a second dialect, including articles on the psychology and sociology of language learning and teaching, professional preparation, curriculum development, and testing and evaluation. The editors-in-chief are Charlene Polio and Peter De Costa, both at Michigan State University. TESOL also publishes TESOL Journal.

Translanguaging is a term that can refer to different aspects of multilingualism. It can describe the way bilinguals and multilinguals use their linguistic resources to make sense of and interact with the world around them. It can also refer to a pedagogical approach that utilizes more than one language within a classroom lesson. The term "translanguaging" was coined in the 1980s by Cen Williams in his unpublished thesis titled “An Evaluation of Teaching and Learning Methods in the Context of Bilingual Secondary Education.” Williams used the term to describe the practice of using two languages in the same lesson, which differed from many previous methods of bilingual education that tried to separate languages by class, time, or day. In addition, Vogel and Garcia argued that translanguaging theory posits that rather than possessing two or more autonomous language systems, as previously thought when scholars described bilingual or multilingual speakers, bilinguals and multilingual speakers select and deploy their languages from a unitary linguistic repertoire. However, the dissemination of the term, and of the related concept, gained traction decades later due in part to published research by Ofelia García, among others. In this context, translanguaging is an extension of the concept of languaging, the discursive practices of language speakers, but with the additional feature of using multiple languages, often simultaneously. It is a dynamic process in which multilingual speakers navigate complex social and cognitive demands through strategic employment of multiple languages.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bonny Norton</span> Canadian academic (born 1956)

Bonny Norton,, is a professor and distinguished university scholar in the Department of Language and Literacy Education, University of British Columbia, Canada. She is also research advisor of the African Storybook and 2006 co-founder of the Africa Research Network on Applied Linguistics and Literacy. She is internationally recognized for her theories of identity and language learning and her construct of investment. A Fellow of the American Educational Research Association (AERA), she was the first recipient in 2010 of the Senior Research Leadership Award of AERA's Second Language Research SIG. In 2016, she was co-recipient of the TESOL Award for Distinguished Research and elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Judith Baxter</span> British sociolinguist

Judith Baxter was a British sociolinguist and Professor of Applied linguistics at Aston University where she specialised in Gender and Language, and Leadership Language. She served in editorial positions with several academic journals.

In linguistics, the term near-native speakers is used to describe speakers who have achieved "levels of proficiency that cannot be distinguished from native levels in everyday spoken communication and only become apparent through detailed linguistic analyses" (p.484) in their second language or foreign languages. Analysis of native and near-native speakers indicates that they differ in their underlying grammar and intuition, meaning that they do not interpret grammatical contrasts the same way. However, this divergence typically does not impact a near-native speaker's regular usage of the language.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ken Hyland</span> British linguist

Ken Hyland is a British linguist. He is currently a professor of applied linguistics in education at the University of East Anglia.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Diane Larsen-Freeman</span> American linguist

Diane Larsen-Freeman is an American linguist. She is currently a Professor Emerita in Education and in Linguistics at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, Michigan. An applied linguist, known for her work in second language acquisition, English as a second or foreign language, language teaching methods, teacher education, and English grammar, she is renowned for her work on the complex/dynamic systems approach to second language development.

The Sydney School is a genre-based writing pedagogy that analyses literacy levels of students. The Sydney School's pedagogy broadened the traditional observation-based writing in primary schools to encompass a spectrum of different genres of text types that are appropriate to various discourses and include fiction and non-fiction. The method and practice of teaching established by the Sydney School encourages corrective and supportive feedback in the education of writing practices for students, particularly regarding second language students. The Sydney School works to reflectively institutionalise a pedagogy that is established to be conducive to students of lower socio-economic backgrounds, indigenous students and migrants lacking a strong English literacy basis. The functional linguists who designed the genre-based pedagogy of the Sydney School did so from a semantic perspective to teach through patterns of meaning and emphasised the importance of the acquisition of a holistic literacy in various text types or genres. ‘Sydney School’ is not, however, an entirely accurate moniker as the pedagogy has evolved beyond metropolitan Sydney universities to being adopted nationally and, by 2000, was exported to centres in Hong Kong, Singapore, and parts of Britain.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Martin Guardado</span>

Martin Guardado is a Salvadorian-born Canadian sociolinguist. He is currently a professor of sociocultural linguistics and applied linguistics at the University of Alberta. His research focuses on heritage language socialization and teaching English as a second language. He is noted for his work on heritage language socialization and for recommending that heritage languages need to be studied multidimensionally as well as from macro and micro perspectives. His recent and current research respectively examines the experiences of Japanese-Canadian mothers in mixed language families in Montreal and the characteristics of mixed language parents across a number of linguistic groups in Alberta.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">School of Education, Communication and Society</span> Academic school at Kings College London

The School of Education, Communication & Society (ECS) is an academic school within the Faculty of Social Sciences and Public Policy at King's College London. It offers undergraduate, postgraduate, PGCE teacher training and PhD research opportunities in the fields of Education, Linguistics and Social Sciences. The school is known for its teaching and research expertise in science and mathematics education; language, culture and communication; and public policy.

Jenny Hammond is an Australian linguist. She is known for her research on literacy development, classroom interaction, and socio-cultural and systemic functional theories of language and learning in English as an Additional Language or dialect (EAL/D) education. Over the course of her career, Hammond's research has had a significant impact on the literacy development of first and second language learners, on the role of classroom talk in constructing curriculum knowledge and on policy developments for EAL education in Australia. She is an Honorary Associate Professor in the School of Education, University of Technology Sydney.

Mary J. Schleppegrell is an applied linguist and Professor of Education at the University of Michigan. Her research and praxis are based on the principles of Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL), a theory derived from the work of social semiotic linguist Michael Halliday. Schleppegrell is known for the SFL-based literacy practices she has continuously helped to develop for multilingual and English language learners throughout her decades long career, which she began as an educational specialist before transitioning to the field of applied linguistics. As a result, her publications demonstrate a deep understanding of both the theories and practices related to teaching and learning.

References

  1. 1 2 Mahboob, Ahmar, ed. (2010). The NNEST Lens: Non Native English Speakers in TESOL. Cambridge Scholars Publishing. p. 348. ISBN   9781443820370.
  2. 1 2 "Staff – Dr Ahmar Mahboob". The University of Sydney . Retrieved 14 May 2015.
  3. ↑ "TESOL Quarterly". 2018. doi: 10.1002/(issn)1545-7249 .{{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
  4. ↑ Mahboob, Ahmar; Knight, Naomi K. (1 January 2011). "Editor's Introduction". Linguistics and the Human Sciences. 4 (1). doi: 10.1558/lhs.v4i1.1 .
  5. ↑ "A Principles-Based Approach for English Language Teaching Policies and Practices" (PDF). 3.amazonaws.com. Retrieved 15 August 2015.
  6. ↑ Mahboob, Ahmar; Lipovsky, Caroline (2009). Studies in Applied Linguistics and Language Learning. ISBN   9781443812399 . Retrieved 15 August 2015.
  7. ↑ "Non-Native English Speakers in TESOL {NNEST} of the Month Blog: Ahmar Mahboob" . Retrieved 19 August 2015.
  8. ↑ "TESOL 2011 Call for Participation" (PDF). TESOL. TESOL Media. 2010. Retrieved 19 August 2015.
  9. ↑ "Overview | FLC Group". www.flcgroup.net. Retrieved 19 August 2015.
  10. ↑ "Cambridge Scholars Publishing. Product Reviews. The NNEST Lens". www.cambridgescholars.com. Retrieved 19 August 2015.
  11. ↑ "Linguist List - Reviews Available for the Book". linguistlist.org. Retrieved 19 August 2015.[ dead link ]
  12. ↑ The NNEST Lens: Non Native English Speakers in TESOL. p. 15.
  13. ↑ Curtis, Andy; Romney, Mary (2006). Color, Race, and English Language Teaching: Shades of Meaning: Andy Curtis, Mary Romney: 9780805856590: Amazon.com: Books. ISBN   978-0805856590.
  14. ↑ Mahboob, Ahmar. "Confessions of an Enraced TESOL Professional". Color, Race, and English Language Teaching: Shades of …: 175–76. Retrieved 19 August 2015.
  15. ↑ Noble, Barnes &. "Appliable Linguistics: Texts, Contexts and Meanings". Barnes & Noble. Retrieved 19 August 2015.
  16. ↑ Ahmar Mahboob. "World Englishes and high Education" (PDF). Kritikakultra.ateneo.net. Archived from the original (PDF) on 19 May 2014. Retrieved 15 August 2015.
  17. ↑ "Appliable Linguistics - Continuum". www.continuumbooks.com. Archived from the original on 17 July 2011. Retrieved 15 January 2022.
  18. ↑ Archived 10 June 2010 at the Wayback Machine
  19. ↑ Archived 14 October 2010 at the Wayback Machine
  20. ↑ "LINGUIST List 20.2375: General Linguistics: Mahboob & Knight (2008)". linguistlist.org. 3 July 2009. Archived from the original on 5 June 2011. Retrieved 15 August 2015.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.