Jeff Macswan
Biographic Data
| ID | 119206 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Jeff Macswan |
| GIVEN NAMES | Jeff |
| FAMILY NAME | Macswan |
| SIGNATURE | MACSWAN J |
| AFFILIATIONS | Arizona State University |
| ORCID | 0009-0007-6406-4109 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 19 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 161 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 19 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1997 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2024 |
| H-INDEX | 5 |
(Un)grounded language ideologies: A brief history of translanguaging theory
Aims: The authors develop a contrast between grounded and ungrounded language ideologies, defining grounded ideologies as those which are anchored empirically and ungrounded ideologies as those which are not. This framework guides a description of the history of translanguaging theory from early translanguaging theory, grounded in empirical research on codeswitching and other scholarship on bilingualism, to late translanguaging theory, which chan…
Castañeda’s third prong redux: The achievement of Arizona’s english language learners after proposition 203
The authors evaluate the success of Arizona’s program for English Learners (ELs) twelve years after the implementation of Proposition 203 to determine whether it meets the “third prong” test of Castañeda v. Pickard (1981), which requires a demonstration of the effectiveness of a program after its implementation. This study is a follow-up to Mahoney, MacSwan, Haladyna, and Garcia (2010) and evaluates the performance of former English Language Lear…
Multilingual Perspectives on Translanguaging
Introduction: Deconstructivism – A Reader’s Guide
Translanguaging, language ontology, and civil rights
The author presents a critique of the deconstructivist perspective on translanguaging, which doubts the ontology of discrete speech communities. This paper argues that such a position is inconsistent with a civil rights orientation on language education policy. The paper identifies three aspects of translanguaging -conceptual, pedagogical, andtheoretical. It argues that one approach to translanguaging theory, which accepts the deconstructivist pe…
A Welcome to Our New Associate Editors
A reply to Malik
A Multilingual Perspective on Translanguaging
Translanguaging is a new term in bilingual education; it supports a heteroglossic language ideology, which views bilingualism as valuable in its own right. Some translanguaging scholars have questioned the existence of discrete languages, further concluding that multilingualism does not exist. I argue that the political use of language names can and should be distinguished from the social and structural idealizations used to study linguistic dive…
Codeswitching and the timing of Lexical Insertion
Preview this article: Codeswitching and the timing of Lexical Insertion, Page 1 of 1 /docserver/preview/fulltext/lab.6.6.08mac-1.gif
Naturalistic and Elicited Data in Grammatical Studies of Codeswitching
The authors discuss the merits of naturalistic and elicited data in the study of grammatical aspects of codeswitching. Three limitations of naturalistic data are discussed, including the problems of negative evidence, induction, and unidentified performance error. The authors recommend the use of language surveys as a tool for overcoming limitations of elicited grammaticality judgment data
Interface conditions and code-switching: Pronouns, lexical DPs, and checking theory
Codeswitching and generative grammar: A critique of the MLF model and some remarks on “modified minimalism”
This article presents an empirical and theoretical critique of the Matrix Language Frame (MLF) model (Myers-Scotton, 1993; Myers-Scotton and Jake, 2001), and includes a response to Jake, Myers-Scotton and Gross's (2002) (JMSG) critique of MacSwan (1999, 2000) and reactions to their revision of the MLF model as a “modified minimalist approach”. The author argues that although a new structural definition of the Matrix Language (ML) makes the MLF mo…
Learning English Bilingually: Age of Onset of Exposure and Rate of Acquisition Among English Language Learners in a Bilingual Education Program
This article asks whether children enrolled in a bilingual education program learn English in a reasonable amount of time, and whether older children learn English faster than younger children. Children (N = 89) were found to achieve parity with native English speakers in a range of 1 to 6.5 years and in an average of 3.31 years on measures of English language. Indirect comparisons with other data suggest that children in bilingual education prog…
Reexamining Identification and Reclassification of English Language Learners: A Critical Discussion of Select State Practices
In this article, the authors report select results of a national survey of state requirements and recommendations regarding identification and reclassification of English Language Learners (ELLs) conducted in academic year 2001–2002, called the Survey of State Policies for Identification and Reclassification of Limited English Proficient Students. The purpose of the State Survey was twofold: (1) to obtain data regarding current state practices wi…
Modularity and the Facilitation Effect: Psychological Mechanisms of Transfer in Bilingual Students
This article draws upon recent work in the cognitive neurosciences to suggest that the facilitation effect follows naturally within current psychological theory. A view of the mind as consisting of discrete mental modules, called psychological modularity, is defended with case study evidence of double dissociation. It is argued that transfer of academic subject knowledge occurs in bilingual settings as an epiphenomenon of mental architecture: Bec…
Do Some School-Age Children Have No Language? Some Problems of Construct Validity in the Pre-LAS Español
This article reports the existence of a large group of students identified as “non-nons,” Spanish-background school-age children living in the United States who are reported to be non-verbal in both English and Spanish, and brings the validity of the “non-non” construct into question. In particular, the authors assess the validity of the Pre- Language Assessment Scales Español (Pre-LAS Español), an oral language assessment that purports to measur…
The architecture of the bilingual language faculty: Evidence from intrasentential code switching
In this article, the author addresses the question of how the mind represents two languages in simultaneous bilingualism. Some linguistic theories of intrasentential code switching are reviewed, with a focus on the Minimalist approach of MacSwan (1999b); the author concludes that evidence from code switching suggests that bilinguals have discrete and separate Lexicons for the languages they speak, each with its own internal principles of word for…
The Threshold Hypothesis, Semilingualism, and Other Contributions to a Deficit View of Linguistic Minorities
Although some educational researchers have appealed to “semilingualism” or “limited bilingualism” to explain differences in student achievement among language minority students, in this article the author argues that the construct contributes much more to the malady than the remedy in the education of linguistic minorities. The author reviews four kinds of reputed evidence for semilingualism (from studies of language variation, linguistic structu…
Basil Bernstein's Sociology of Language: Comments on Alan R. Sadovnik's Knowledge and Pedagogy: The Sociology of Basil Bernstein (1995) and Paul Atkinson, Brian Davis and Sara Delamont's Discourse and…
A Multilingual Perspective on Translanguaging
Translanguaging is a new term in bilingual education; it supports a heteroglossic language ideology, which views bilingualism as valuable in its own right. Some translanguaging scholars have questioned the existence of discrete languages, further concluding that multilingualism does not exist. I argue that the political use of language names can and should be distinguished from the social and structural idealizations used to study linguistic dive…
The Threshold Hypothesis, Semilingualism, and Other Contributions to a Deficit View of Linguistic Minorities
Although some educational researchers have appealed to “semilingualism” or “limited bilingualism” to explain differences in student achievement among language minority students, in this article the author argues that the construct contributes much more to the malady than the remedy in the education of linguistic minorities. The author reviews four kinds of reputed evidence for semilingualism (from studies of language variation, linguistic structu…
Interface conditions and code-switching: Pronouns, lexical DPs, and checking theory
Learning English Bilingually: Age of Onset of Exposure and Rate of Acquisition Among English Language Learners in a Bilingual Education Program
This article asks whether children enrolled in a bilingual education program learn English in a reasonable amount of time, and whether older children learn English faster than younger children. Children (N = 89) were found to achieve parity with native English speakers in a range of 1 to 6.5 years and in an average of 3.31 years on measures of English language. Indirect comparisons with other data suggest that children in bilingual education prog…
Reexamining Identification and Reclassification of English Language Learners: A Critical Discussion of Select State Practices
In this article, the authors report select results of a national survey of state requirements and recommendations regarding identification and reclassification of English Language Learners (ELLs) conducted in academic year 2001–2002, called the Survey of State Policies for Identification and Reclassification of Limited English Proficient Students. The purpose of the State Survey was twofold: (1) to obtain data regarding current state practices wi…
Do Some School-Age Children Have No Language? Some Problems of Construct Validity in the Pre-LAS Español
This article reports the existence of a large group of students identified as “non-nons,” Spanish-background school-age children living in the United States who are reported to be non-verbal in both English and Spanish, and brings the validity of the “non-non” construct into question. In particular, the authors assess the validity of the Pre- Language Assessment Scales Español (Pre-LAS Español), an oral language assessment that purports to measur…
Modularity and the Facilitation Effect: Psychological Mechanisms of Transfer in Bilingual Students
This article draws upon recent work in the cognitive neurosciences to suggest that the facilitation effect follows naturally within current psychological theory. A view of the mind as consisting of discrete mental modules, called psychological modularity, is defended with case study evidence of double dissociation. It is argued that transfer of academic subject knowledge occurs in bilingual settings as an epiphenomenon of mental architecture: Bec…
Translanguaging, language ontology, and civil rights
The author presents a critique of the deconstructivist perspective on translanguaging, which doubts the ontology of discrete speech communities. This paper argues that such a position is inconsistent with a civil rights orientation on language education policy. The paper identifies three aspects of translanguaging -conceptual, pedagogical, andtheoretical. It argues that one approach to translanguaging theory, which accepts the deconstructivist pe…
Basil Bernstein's Sociology of Language: Comments on Alan R. Sadovnik's Knowledge and Pedagogy: The Sociology of Basil Bernstein (1995) and Paul Atkinson, Brian Davis and Sara Delamont's Discourse and…
The architecture of the bilingual language faculty: Evidence from intrasentential code switching
In this article, the author addresses the question of how the mind represents two languages in simultaneous bilingualism. Some linguistic theories of intrasentential code switching are reviewed, with a focus on the Minimalist approach of MacSwan (1999b); the author concludes that evidence from code switching suggests that bilinguals have discrete and separate Lexicons for the languages they speak, each with its own internal principles of word for…
The Threshold Hypothesis, Semilingualism, and Other Contributions to a Deficit View of Linguistic Minorities
Although some educational researchers have appealed to “semilingualism” or “limited bilingualism” to explain differences in student achievement among language minority students, in this article the author argues that the construct contributes much more to the malady than the remedy in the education of linguistic minorities. The author reviews four kinds of reputed evidence for semilingualism (from studies of language variation, linguistic structu…
Do Some School-Age Children Have No Language? Some Problems of Construct Validity in the Pre-LAS Español
This article reports the existence of a large group of students identified as “non-nons,” Spanish-background school-age children living in the United States who are reported to be non-verbal in both English and Spanish, and brings the validity of the “non-non” construct into question. In particular, the authors assess the validity of the Pre- Language Assessment Scales Español (Pre-LAS Español), an oral language assessment that purports to measur…
Codeswitching and generative grammar: A critique of the MLF model and some remarks on “modified minimalism”
This article presents an empirical and theoretical critique of the Matrix Language Frame (MLF) model (Myers-Scotton, 1993; Myers-Scotton and Jake, 2001), and includes a response to Jake, Myers-Scotton and Gross's (2002) (JMSG) critique of MacSwan (1999, 2000) and reactions to their revision of the MLF model as a “modified minimalist approach”. The author argues that although a new structural definition of the Matrix Language (ML) makes the MLF mo…
Learning English Bilingually: Age of Onset of Exposure and Rate of Acquisition Among English Language Learners in a Bilingual Education Program
This article asks whether children enrolled in a bilingual education program learn English in a reasonable amount of time, and whether older children learn English faster than younger children. Children (N = 89) were found to achieve parity with native English speakers in a range of 1 to 6.5 years and in an average of 3.31 years on measures of English language. Indirect comparisons with other data suggest that children in bilingual education prog…
Reexamining Identification and Reclassification of English Language Learners: A Critical Discussion of Select State Practices
In this article, the authors report select results of a national survey of state requirements and recommendations regarding identification and reclassification of English Language Learners (ELLs) conducted in academic year 2001–2002, called the Survey of State Policies for Identification and Reclassification of Limited English Proficient Students. The purpose of the State Survey was twofold: (1) to obtain data regarding current state practices wi…
Modularity and the Facilitation Effect: Psychological Mechanisms of Transfer in Bilingual Students
This article draws upon recent work in the cognitive neurosciences to suggest that the facilitation effect follows naturally within current psychological theory. A view of the mind as consisting of discrete mental modules, called psychological modularity, is defended with case study evidence of double dissociation. It is argued that transfer of academic subject knowledge occurs in bilingual settings as an epiphenomenon of mental architecture: Bec…
Interface conditions and code-switching: Pronouns, lexical DPs, and checking theory
Naturalistic and Elicited Data in Grammatical Studies of Codeswitching
The authors discuss the merits of naturalistic and elicited data in the study of grammatical aspects of codeswitching. Three limitations of naturalistic data are discussed, including the problems of negative evidence, induction, and unidentified performance error. The authors recommend the use of language surveys as a tool for overcoming limitations of elicited grammaticality judgment data
Codeswitching and the timing of Lexical Insertion
Preview this article: Codeswitching and the timing of Lexical Insertion, Page 1 of 1 /docserver/preview/fulltext/lab.6.6.08mac-1.gif
A Multilingual Perspective on Translanguaging
Translanguaging is a new term in bilingual education; it supports a heteroglossic language ideology, which views bilingualism as valuable in its own right. Some translanguaging scholars have questioned the existence of discrete languages, further concluding that multilingualism does not exist. I argue that the political use of language names can and should be distinguished from the social and structural idealizations used to study linguistic dive…
A Welcome to Our New Associate Editors
A reply to Malik
Translanguaging, language ontology, and civil rights
The author presents a critique of the deconstructivist perspective on translanguaging, which doubts the ontology of discrete speech communities. This paper argues that such a position is inconsistent with a civil rights orientation on language education policy. The paper identifies three aspects of translanguaging -conceptual, pedagogical, andtheoretical. It argues that one approach to translanguaging theory, which accepts the deconstructivist pe…
Castañeda’s third prong redux: The achievement of Arizona’s english language learners after proposition 203
The authors evaluate the success of Arizona’s program for English Learners (ELs) twelve years after the implementation of Proposition 203 to determine whether it meets the “third prong” test of Castañeda v. Pickard (1981), which requires a demonstration of the effectiveness of a program after its implementation. This study is a follow-up to Mahoney, MacSwan, Haladyna, and Garcia (2010) and evaluates the performance of former English Language Lear…
Multilingual Perspectives on Translanguaging
Introduction: Deconstructivism – A Reader’s Guide
(Un)grounded language ideologies: A brief history of translanguaging theory
Aims: The authors develop a contrast between grounded and ungrounded language ideologies, defining grounded ideologies as those which are anchored empirically and ungrounded ideologies as those which are not. This framework guides a description of the history of translanguaging theory from early translanguaging theory, grounded in empirical research on codeswitching and other scholarship on bilingualism, to late translanguaging theory, which chan…
Multilingual Education and Policy (13 works) · Linguistics (11 works) · Philosophy (11 works) · Psychology (9 works) · Second Language Learning and Teaching (9 works) · Computer Science (6 works) · Sociology (6 works) · Epistemology (5 works) · Linguistic Variation and Morphology (5 works) · Pedagogy (5 works)