Suresh Canagarajah, Edwin Erle Sparks Professor of Applied Linguistics, English, and Asian Studies and director of the Migration Studies Project at Penn State, has been awarded the American Association of Applied Linguistics’ (AAAL’s) inaugural Best Book Award for his book, "Translingual Practice: Global Englishes and Cosmopolitan Relations" (Routledge, 2013). Canagarajah will receive the award on April 12 during the AAAL’s annual conference in Orlando, Florida.
This is the third noteworthy award that Canagarajah has received for "Translingual Practice;" he also received the Mina P. Shaughnessy Award from the Modern Language Association (MLA) in 2015 and the British Association for Applied Linguistics’ 2014 Book Prize for an Outstanding Book in Applied Linguistics.
It is also Canagarajah’s third noteworthy award in 2016. His 2015 article, “‘Blessed in My Own Way’: Pedagogical Affordances for Dialogical Voice Construction in Multilingual Student Writing,” which appeared in the Journal of Second Language Writing, was recently named Best Article of the Year for 2015 by that publication’s editorial board of directors.
More recently, Canagarajah was named one of the top 50 scholars who have shaped the field of Teaching of English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL) in the past 50 years by TESOL International Association. TESOL International selected its “50 at 50,” along with its “30 Up and Coming,” in conjunction with the organization’s 50th anniversary in 2016. Canagarajah was among those recognized for “leadership that has helped build the association and develop English language teaching and learning into a profession that touches the lives of students and educators worldwide.” He and his colleagues will be recognized at a special VIP reception on April 8 during TESOL International’s annual convention in Baltimore.
Canagarajah received his bachelor’s degree in English from the University of Kelaniya, Sri Lanka; his master’s degree in English from Bowling Green University; and his doctorate in applied linguistics from the University of Texas at Austin. A member of the Penn State faculty since 2007, he has also held tenure-track positions at the University of Jaffna, Sri Lanka, and at Baruch College at City University of New York. Canagarajah is a past president of AAAL and currently sits on the executive committee of the MLA’s Language and Society Division.