Transliteracy Sponsorscapes: Potential for Attunement and Diffraction in Literacy Learning

Abstract

Many scholars have drawn attention to literacy sponsorship, or ways that different literacy practices are differentially valued and encouraged using an economic/market model. More recently, an ecological model offers additional potential for tracing more networked or constellated literacy sponsorscapes. As a multimodal ethnography of six language learning communities, this study takes its point of departure for exploring literacy not from a connection to language itself, but to the more inclusive semiotic repertoires through which linguistic and other literacies emerge. I focus on the contributions of attunement and diffraction to focus on three areas of literacy sponsorscapes in particular: embodiment, genre, and multimodality. The project provides implications for literacy teaching, learning, and research praxis.