Linguistics and Education 16 (2005) 319–337 Style, identity and English language literacy Christopher Stroud a,b,* , Lionel Wee c a Department of Linguistics, University of Western Cape, Private Bag X17, Bellville 7535, South Africa b Centre for Research on Bilingualism, Stockholm University, Sweden c National University of Singapore, Department of English Language and Literature, Blk AS5, 7 Arts Link 117370, Singapore Abstract This paper investigates English language literacy practices among teenagers, focusing initially on three young Singaporean students who are struggling to do well in English. By employing a conceptual framework that builds on a recent treatment of style as identity construction and drawing on interview data that recount the students’ practices of English literacy, we show how adolescent literacy seen as style is deeply influenced by, among other factors, the anticipated reactions of peers, and how these practices impact on language education. The latter part of our paper compares the experiences of our three students with those of a fourth, one who is much more confident and comfortable with his level of English language proficiency (adolescents, identity, language education, literacy, style, teenagers). © 2006 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. Keywords: Style; Peer-identity; English language literacy 1. Introduction Singapore has a population totaling about 3.2 million and comprising 76.8% Chinese, 13.9% Malays, 7.9% Indians, and 1.4% Others (2000 Census of Population), and has grappled since independence in 1965 with the problem of how to manage this heterogeneity across a range of sociopolitical contexts. But despite its ethnically and linguistically diverse character, Singapore is a society where legitimate classroom practices revolve around English language literacy, with the other languages not seen as possessing comparable economic or symbolic capital. This is because the education system [see Gopinathan, Pakir, Ho, and Saravanan (1998) for a critical overview] adopted by the government is one where English is used as the medium of instruction * Corresponding author. E-mail addresses: cstroud@uwc.ac.za (C. Stroud), ellweeha@nus.edu.sg (L. Wee). 0898-5898/$ – see front matter © 2006 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.linged.2006.03.002