Abstract
Theoretically framed at the intersection of language, identity, and transnationalism, this chapter examines how two Syrian refugee-background parents negotiated narrating and writing a bilingual and multimodal fictional story commonly used in Syria by parents as a bedtime story. Primary data included two audio recorded interviews: an oral narration of the story and a collaborative writing session with the author. Secondary data included ethnographic fieldnotes to contextualize the participants’ transnational experiences and relations. An interview-based case study design was adopted and data was analyzed in an iterative manner. Findings suggest that while the parents were both invested in writing a bilingual story, they had different views about its purpose. While the father was focused on maintaining the story’s authenticity, the mother reinterpreted and rewrote the story through the lens of her current life and understanding of parental roles within the context of the United States. Implications are presented with respect to how the two participants negotiate the ambivalence of writing the story between two frames of reference: Syria and the United States.
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Notes
- 1.
Because translation is not a neutral act, I frequently reflected on how meaning was conveyed and engaged participants in member checking and word choice. During the interviews and collaborative writing session of the story, Omar mostly used Arabic while Maria used both English and Arabic. As such, any direct quotes that the participants originally uttered in English were italicized.
- 2.
The participants visited the author’s TESOL classroom in October of 2017 to share their stories with teacher education students. When Omar wanted to talk about the war experiences, Maria tried to convince him to avoid sharing any stories (including stories about exploding barrels) which may be viewed as a critique of the Syrian regime.
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Appendix: The Story of Sabadullah
Appendix: The Story of Sabadullah
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Karam, F.J. (2021). Writing the Story of Sabadullah: Transnational Literacies of Refugee-Background Parents. In: Warriner, D.S. (eds) Refugee Education across the Lifespan. Educational Linguistics, vol 50. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-79470-5_13
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