Table Of Content“Shizhou Yang has taken an innovative Global South perspective on literacy
autobiographies with stories by himself as an EFL writing teacher as well as
those by his students from China in diverse transnational contexts. The result
is a fascinating and thought-provoking account that not only contributes to
theoretical discussions of concepts such as critical pedagogy, translanguaging,
and writing ecology, but also to pedagogical practices that will truly enable
and empower the learners, and the teachers, to develop their own voices.
As such, it is a major contribution to translingual and decolonising turn in
language education research.”
Professor Li Wei, Director & Dean, UCL Institute of Education,
University College London, UK
Like his cicada after its long formation,
Shizhou emerges with translingual poetry
Breaking free from the global and colonizing
Pressures against his voice in literacy.
Not alone, he emerges with his whole musical army—
His students—with their own translingual story.
But these cicadas won’t die too quickly;
Their voices will transform the dominant pedagogy.
Suresh Canagarajah, Edwin Erle Sparks Professor,
Pennsylvania State University, USA
“This is a captivating book about the liberating intellectual journey of
Shizhou Yang, who has found his voice and identity as a multilingual scholar
through writing his own literacy autobiography. Also featuring the autobio-
graphical writing of the author’s students situated in a marginalized context,
the book celebrates the power of literacy autobiography as an undervalued
genre in EFL contexts, demonstrating how it is intertwined with identity
work, voice development, and knowledge creation. I highly recommend the
book to everyone.”
Icy Lee, Professor, Faculty of Education, The Chinese University of Hong Kong,
Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, China
“Featuring literacy autobiography and poetic inquiry as methodology, this
book has provided EFL teachers and students with a proven way to gain lib-
eration from the shackles of modernism and neoliberalism. It is a must-read
for anyone who is keen in search for Southern epistemologies in English
language teaching.”
Xiaoye You, Liberal Arts Professor of English and Asian Studies,
Pennsylvania State University, USA
LITERACY AUTOBIOGRAPHIES FROM
THE GLOBAL SOUTH
Drawing on autoethnographic research on literacy autobiographies from a Chinese
EFL writing context, this book provides unique insights into literacy, voice, trans-
lingualism, and critical pedagogy from a Global South perspective.
The book presents literacy autobiographies as a cultural tool for analyzing and
refashioning learners’ and teachers’ sense of self in ever-expanding dialogical spaces.
In addition to highlighting teachers’ own stories around autoethnographies and
translanguaging, it showcases literacy autobiographies from Chinese students them-
selves. The book theorizes the Global South as an ontological positioning that chal-
lenges colonial mindsets and practices concerning literacy, language learning, and
narratives. It argues that literacy autobiographies from a Global South perspective
can be reimagined as critical pedagogy for EFL writing teaching and learning, as
well as teacher development.
Validating and expanding student voices by presenting these literacy autobiog-
raphies, this book will be of great interest to researchers and students in the fields
of TESOL, applied linguistics, English language teaching, second language writing,
and literacy studies.
Shizhou Yang is a second language writer, writing teacher, and researcher in the
English Communication Department at Payap University, Thailand.
Global South Perspectives on TESOL
Series editor: Osman Z. Barnawi
Global South Perspectives on TESOL is an international, multidisciplinary series
focusing on studies that examine issues of TESOL through recovering the rich
histories, theories, and practices of multilingual education developed in traditionally
non-English-dominant contexts and communities. Purposefully situated beyond
monolingual ideologies, legacies and research theories and practices, this series
solicits new studies that critically engage with epistemologies, theories and practices
of TESOL, and offer a transformative change that allows the scholarship of TESOL
to advance.
The series envisions decolonizing research theories and practices in TESOL and
thinking outside the dominance of Western/Northern models as departure points
to advancing the field of TESOL. This series will also be a venue for scholars in the
Global South to collaborate with Global North scholars in order to promote global
harmony in TESOL. It features scholarly works that examine issues surrounding
TESOL from new angles, including local theories, pedagogies and practices, and
works of novice and under-represented authors.
The series welcomes single-authored or multi-authored monographs and edited
volumes on areas including epistemological racism in TESOL; social justice in
TESOL; issues of race, gender, and class in TESOL; theories of change in TESOL;
translanguaging in TESOL classrooms; Southern theories of TESOL; post-human
thoughts in TESOL and decolonizing research theories and practices in TESOL.
Books in the series include:
Transnational English Language Assessment Practices in the Age of
Metrics
Edited by Osman Z. Barnawi, Mohammed S. Alharbi and Ayman A. Alzahrani
Literacy Autobiographies from the Global South
Shizhou Yang
Social Justice, Decoloniality, and Southern Epistemologies within
Language Education
Theories, Knowledges, and Practices on TESOL from Brazil
Edited by Vander Tavares
For more information about the series, please visit https://www.routledge.com/
our-products/book-series/GSTESOL.
LITERACY
AUTOBIOGRAPHIES
FROM THE GLOBAL
SOUTH
An Autoethnographic Study of
English Literacy in China
Shizhou Yang
First published 2023
by Routledge
4 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, OX14 4RN
and by Routledge
605 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10158
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© 2023 Shizhou Yang
The right of Shizhou Yang to be identified as author of this work has been
asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and
Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or
utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now
known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any
information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the
publishers.
Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered
trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent
to infringe.
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Yang, Shizhou, author.
Title: Literacy autobiographies from the global south : an autoethnographic
study of English literacy in China / Shizhou Yang.
Description: 1st edition. | Abingdon, Oxon ; New York, NY : Routledge,
2023. | Series: Global south perspectives on TESOL | Includes
bibliographical references and index. | Identifiers: LCCN 2022036606 (print) |
LCCN 2022036607 (ebook) | ISBN
9781032251981 (hardback) | ISBN 9781032265391 (paperback) | ISBN
9781003288756 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Autobiography--Authorship. | Biography as a literary form.
| Literacy--China. | Translanguaging (Linguistics) | English
language--Rhetoric--Study and teaching--China.
Classification: LCC PE1479.A88 Y37 2023 (print) | LCC PE1479.A88 (ebook)
| DDC 306.442/21051--dc23/eng/20221018
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022036606
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022036607
ISBN: 978-1-032-25198-1 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-1-032-26539-1 (pbk)
ISBN: 978-1-003-28875-6 (ebk)
DOI: 10.4324/9781003288756
Typeset in Bembo
by SPi Technologies India Pvt Ltd (Straive)
In memory of Michael and Kitty Wilson who loved, laughed, and served faithfully
throughout their lives beyond national, racial, and linguistic boundaries
CONTENTS
Editor’s Preface xi
Acknowledgements xii
PART I
A Teacher’s Stories 1
1 An EFL Writing Teacher’s Poetic Autoethnography of Literacy
Autobiography 3
2 My Own Literacy Autobiography 18
PART II
Theory and Empirical Studies 35
3 Literacy Autobiographical Writing as Critical Pedagogy 37
4 Pedagogical Translanguaging Behind Literacy Autobiographical
Writing 58
5 The Emergence of Translingualism in an EFL Writer’s LA 80
6 Voice Construction Beyond Translingualism 97
