Posh Talk: Language and Identity in Higher Education [Hardcover]

An?in-depth study of a group of multilingual students from widening participation backgrounds on a first-year undergraduate academic writing programme. The book explores ways in which identity positions emerge in the spoken interaction, with a particular focus on gender.Acknowledgements Transcription Conventions Introduction Widening Participation Theorising and Analyzing Identity Approaches to Academic Writing Multilingual Masculinities in the Classroom Multilingual Femininities in the Classroom Multilingual Masculinities in Lecturer/ Student Interactions Multilingual Femininities in Lecturer/ Student Interactions Towards Inclusion Bibliography Index

'In recent years, there has been a big push towards widening participation in higher education in the UK. In practice this policy has meant, among other things, that individuals from working class black and minority ethnic (BME) backgrounds, who in the past would not usually have considered going to university, are now encouraged by the government to do just this. In Posh Talk: Language and Identity in Higher Education, Si?n Preece critiques widening participation policy and practice on the grounds that it has paid insufficient attention to the identities of students from diverse linguistic, cultural and social backgrounds. She examines how a cohort of BME students, most of whom are multilingual, invoke a range of masculine and feminine identities as they discuss different aspects of their experiences with academic staff, fellow students and family members with whom they engage in a range of literacy and other social practices. Mediating these practices are the different languages and language varieties in their lives- home languages, 'slang' English and 'posh' English. Drawing on poststructuralist approaches to identity, Preece is able to offer great deal of insight into how and why students both fail and survive in higher education. Crucially, she ends the book with helpful and thought-provoking suggestions al³°