Speaking in Two Tongues: An Ethnographic Investigation of the Literacy Practices of English as a Foreign Language and Cambodian Young Adult Learners ’ Identity

An ethnographic investigation of the literacy practices of English as a foreign language and Cambodian young adult learners ’ identity ii This study focuses on how the literacy practices in English of young Cambodians shaped their individual and social perception as well as performance of identity. It examines the English language as an increasingly dominant cultural and linguistic presence in Cambodia and endeavours to fill the epistemic gap in what Gee (2008, p. 1) has identified as the ‘other stuff ’ of language. This other stuff includes ‘social relations, cultural models, power and politics, perspectives on experience, values and attitudes, as well as things and places in the world ’ that are introduced to the local culture through English literacy and practices. Merchant and Carrington (2009, p. 63) have suggested that ‘the very process of becoming literate involves taking up new positions and becoming a different sort of person’. Drawing on the life stories of five participants and my own-lived experiences