A posthumanist orientation and cross-national, online bilingual digital storytelling

Abstract

This cross-national, online biliteracy project connected 13 Canadian and Chinese bi/multilingual learners aged 11–15 years. The research was informed by posthuman conceptualizations of literacy, biliteracy, modes, and media, and disrupted binary thinking about mind/body, first language (L1) / second language (L2), and language/materiality in literacy education. A diffractive methodology facilitated exploration of how the dynamic relationship-building between humans and nonhuman entities shaped the bi/multilingual learners’ digital storytelling. The project intended to enable a generative assemblage that positioned languages, media, and places as interconnected, agentive repertoires. It supported bi/multilingual learners’ connection-making with various semiotic resources and their situated lifeworlds and opened opportunities for them to create new forms of meaning. Findings also show that the generative assemblage was affectively rewarding and enabled bi/multilingual learners to be fully engaged in their digital story creation and eager to try more. The article proposes a biliteracy orientation that nurtures ethical meaning-making across languages, modes, and media.