Isms in Language Education: Oppression, Intersectionality and Emancipation 9781501503085, 9781501510823, 9781501502965

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Damian J. Rivers, Karin Zotzmann (Eds.) Isms in Language Education

Language and Social Life

Editors David Britain Crispin Thurlow

Volume 11

Isms in Language Education Oppression, Intersectionality and Emancipation Edited by Damian J. Rivers Karin Zotzmann

ISBN 978-1-5015-1082-3 e-ISBN (PDF) 978-1-5015-0308-5 e-ISBN (EPUB) 978-1-5015-0296-5 ISSN 2364-4303 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data A CIP catalog record for this book has been applied for at the Library of Congress. Bibliographic information published by the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek The Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbibliografie; detailed bibliographic data are available on the Internet at http://dnb.dnb.de. © 2017 Walter de Gruyter, Inc., Boston/ Berlin Typesetting: fidus Publikations-Service GmbH, Nördlingen Printing and binding: CPI books GmbH, Leck ♾ Printed on acid-free paper Printed in Germany www.degruyter.com

We live in a time that is so brutal and unforgiving that we must continually question whether we are dreaming. Even as we despairingly acknowledge the pain and desperation of so many living in turmoil of national and international disequilibria, we still remain hapless prisoners of the illusion that we live in the best of all possible worlds. (McLaren, 2005: xxvii)

Acknowledgements We wish to express our sincere gratitude to all of the contributing authors, the series editors and all of the staff at De Gruyter Mouton for their professionalism and support.

Contents Karin Zotzmann and Damian J. Rivers Introduction. Bringing the ISMs into focus  

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Cynthia D. Nelson 1 The -isms as interpretive prisms: A pedagogically useful concept 

 15

Karin Zotzmann 2 Intersectionality from a critical realist perspective: A case study of Mexican teachers of English   34 Ursula Lanvers 3 Elitism in language learning in the UK 

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Damian J. Rivers 4 Native-speakerism and the betrayal of the native speaker language-teaching professional   74 Rodrigo Joseph Rodríguez 5 Against ethnocentrism and toward translanguaging in literacy and English education   98 Olga Campbell-Thomson 6 Cutting across the ideological split of capitalism/communism: Shcherba’s insights on foreign language education   122 Sardar M. Anwaruddin 7 Methodism versus teacher agency in TESOL  

 144

Gregorio Hernandez-Zamora 8 Academicism in language: “A Shelob’s web that devours and kills from inside”   165 Seyyed-Abdolhamid Mirhosseini 9 Scientism as a linchpin of oppressing isms in language education research   185

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Sangeeta Bagga-Gupta 10 Languaging and isms of reinforced boundaries across settings: Multidisciplinary ethnographical explorations   203 David Rhodes 11 Heterosexism: A pedagogy of homophobic oppression  Roslyn Appleby 12 Occidental romanticism and English language education  Index 

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Addresses 

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Contributors Sardar M. Anwaruddin is an instructor at York University English Language Institute in Toronto, Canada. He has recently completed his PhD in Curriculum Studies and Teacher Development at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education (OISE) of the University of Toronto. His articles have appeared in such journals as the Asian EFL Journal, Southeast Asian Journal of English Language Studies, Professional Development in Education, Discourse, and Reflective Practice. Roslyn Appleby is a Senior Lecturer at the University of Technology Sydney. Roslyn has published extensively in the field of language, gender and identity, and is the author of ELT, Gender and International Development (2010, Multilingual Matters) and Men and Masculinities in Global English Language Teaching (2014, Palgrave Macmillan). She also has a keen interest in posthumanism and animal studies. Sangeeta Bagga-Gupta is full professor of Education at Jönköping University, Sweden, and adjunct professor 2016–17 at Aligarh University, India. She has a PhD in Communication Studies and her multidisciplinary research focuses communication, identity and learning from sociocultural and decolonial framings. She publishes extensively and is the scientific leader of the research group, CCD, Communication, Culture and Diversity (www.ju.se/ccd). She currently leads the Swedish Research Council project PAL, Participation for all? Olga Campbell-Thomson is currently teaching courses in English for Academic Study, School of Modern Languages and Cultures, at the University of Glasgow, Scotland. Over the past twenty years, her career has encompassed research and teaching in the fields of Linguistics and Education in Russia, the United States, Cyprus, Qatar and the United Kingdom, and she draws on a variety of national education contexts in her language research. Gregorio Hernandez-Zamora is author of Decolonizing Literacy: Mexican Lives in the Era of Global Capitalism (2010, Multilingual Matters). His research interests include language education, literacy development, academic literacy, and the relations between language, power, and culture. He holds a PhD in Language, Literacy, and Culture from UC Berkeley, and is Professor-Researcher at Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana (UAM) in Mexico City. Ursula Lanvers completed her first degree at the University of Münster, Germany and has a PhD from the University of Exeter (2000). She has worked at a number of UK universities, including the Open University and the University of York, where she is a Lecturer in Language Education. She has published widely on language learning motivation, adult language learning, learner identity, Global English, language education policy and bilingualism. Seyyed-Abdolhamid Mirhosseiniis an Assistant Professor at Alzahra University in Tehran, Iran. His research areas include sociopolitics of language education, qualitative research methodology, and critical discourse studies. He is the editor of Reflections on Qualitative Research in DOI 10.1515/9781501503085-205

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Language and Literacy Education (2017, Springer) and his articles have appeared in journals including Applied Linguistics; Language, Culture and Curriculum; Critical Inquiry in Language Studies; and Journal of Multicultural Discourses. Cynthia D. Nelson is an Honorary Associate at The University of Sydney’s Faculty of Education and Social Work and the author of Sexual identities in English language Education: Classroom Conversations (2009, Routledge). Her most recent research appears in TESOL Quarterly, Language and Identity across Modes of Communication (2015, de Gruyter Mouton), and Creativity in Language Teaching (2016, Routledge). David Rhodes is a Senior Lecturer, researcher and Education Programme Coordinator in the School of Education at Edith Cowan University in Western Australia. His research focuses on equity-related education and social justice issues. He collaborates with colleagues and external industry partners focusing on promoting the well-being of sexually and gender diverse children and youth, both in schools and the wider community. Damian J. Rivers is an Associate Professor at Future University Hakodate. He holds an MA and PhD in Applied Linguistics and an MSc in Social Psychology. He is editor of Resistance to the Known: Counter-Conduct in Language Education (2015, Palgrave Macmillan) and co-editor of Native-Speakerism in Japan: Intergroup Dynamics in Foreign Language Education (2013, Multilingual Matters) and Social Identities and Multiple Selves in Foreign Language Education (2013, Bloomsbury). Rodrigo Joseph Rodríguez is Assistant Professor of Literacy and English Education at The University of Texas at El Paso, which is located on the border across from Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua, México. His research interests include language acquisition and the teaching of academic writing, socially responsible biliteracies, and children’s and young adult literature. Catch him virtually via Twitter @escribescribe. Karin Zotzmann works as a Lecturer in Applied Linguistics at the University of Southampton and has previously worked in the same area at different public and private universities in Mexico. She holds three MA degrees and a PhD from the University of Lancaster. Her research interests include language teaching, language teacher education and intercultural learning within the framework of transnational or globalization processes.

Karin Zotzmann and Damian J. Rivers

Introduction. Bringing the ISMs into focus It is now widely acknowledged that language learning is inherently social, rather than being a purely cognitive, mind-internal, process. It is embedded in and influenced by political and economic structures, social relations, institutional practices, ideologies and discourses. Decisions at the policy level – which languages to prioritize and when and how to integrate them into the curriculum – have, for instance, wide ranging effects on the motivation or incentives of large social groups to learn certain languages rather than others. Socioeconomic and sociocultural factors influence how languages are taught and assessed and what kind of interactions and forms of communication take place in specific real-world classrooms. Social structures, discourses and ideologies enhance or constrain identities of teachers, learners and users; they shape how we conceptualize language and other interrelated forms of meaning making and how we bring them together through our actual teaching practice. These influences are, of course, not benign as they advantage some groups over others. It is now far beyond contestation that the “laundry list of -isms or oppressions that society must suffer” (Grillo & Wildman, 1991: 401) also manifests within the domain of language education. In times of great social divide and contention, questions of social justice, and on whose terms, have thus moved to the center stage of applied linguistics in general and research in language education in particular. Numerous authors have sought to document various forms of oppression within the specific domain of language education, often drawn in relationship to the legacy of ideology, for example, orientalism/colonialism and post-colonial colonialism (Canagarajah, 2005; Holliday, 2011; Pennycook, 2001), imperialism and linguicism (Phillipson, 2013; Skutnabb-Kangas, 2000), nationalism and native-speakerism (Houghton & Rivers, 2013; Jenkins, 2015; Jenkins, Cogo & Dewey, 2011), consumerism (Gray, 2010), neoliberalism (Block, Gray & Holborow, 2012; Zotzmann & Hernández-Zamora, 2013) and heterosexism (Gray, 2013). This volume was first conceived through the opportunities we witnessed to document varied forms of oppression, across multiple contexts, by conceptualizing them collectively as ‘-isms in language education’. The twelve chapters within this volume therefore aim to develop a comprehensive understanding of the manner in which dominant and emergent ideologies, discourses and social structures impact language education. The contributing authors stand firm behind a belief that various forms of oppression are adverse not only for those who lack DOI 10.1515/9781501503085-001

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felicitous conditions for language learning, but for everyone in society, “regardless of our particular memberships in target and non-target groups” (Thompson & Smith, 1991: 1–2). The collection is innovative in four different but interrelated ways: In the first instance we expand current discussions by examining some of the less commonly discussed isms which may or may not be framed as ideological in origin, e.g. elitism, normativism, methodism and scientism, among others. We do this bearing in mind that “adding in missing people and experiences” (Hill Collins & Bilge, 2016: 127) might lead to infinite fragmentation which is problematic in various ways, among them the fact that there is an infinite number of real and potential groups and affiliations in society. Full ‘inclusivity’ is therefore illusionary. More importantly, and speaking to the political machinery at work within language education, justification is needed concerning why particular differences matter and how – and through whom – a particular ‘difference’ came to be classified as such and in opposition to ‘normal’. Reflecting upon the struggles encountered when working within the normative parameters of the status quo; … one can argue that the anxieties, insecurities and fears (i.e., discomforts) awaiting those who dare to strive toward ‘unknown’ thoughts, beliefs and actions are powerful enough to compel us not to inquire to the best of scholastic abilities, not to satisfy the demands of our own innate curiosity, but instead to be mundanely content within an imposed reality that convinces us to deny the presence of conditioning where it undeniably exists. However, our discomforts (i.e., anxieties, insecurities and fears) should be cast not as products of ‘the unknown’ but rather as direct products of ‘the known’ and its stubborn ideological reluctance to release individuals from a subjugating repetition of thoughts, beliefs and actions. (Rivers, 2015: 3)

While oppression forms the primary basis for the selection of the -isms documented within this volume, we the co-editors did not wish to indulge in the valorization of victimhood through an exclusive documentation of the impact of oppression. Therefore, we decided to conceptualize this volume around two additional concepts – intersectionality and emancipation as a means of providing a pathway from observations or experiences of struggle – to greater awareness, and then on to progression. In this respect, we position this volume as one embracing optimism. The contributions to this volume therefore set out to capture how ‘real’ individuals in ‘real’ contexts are concretely affected by the social, cognitive and institutional structures in which they operate. Moreover, we encouraged the contributing authors to show the interconnectivity and mutually reinforcing nature of various -isms in language education through their localized impact, which, so far, has not been systematically documented within the literature. In addition to these analytical objectives, many of the contributions explore ways of responding

Introduction 

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to forms of injustice that manifest themselves in the classroom and to transform – to the extent possible – teaching and learning practices through more critical and emancipatory forms of pedagogy. The notions of oppression, intersectionality and emancipation, being complex and contested, are clarified and delineated in the following sections.

Oppression In its new usage oppression designates the disadvantage and injustice some people suffer not because a tyrannical power coerces them, but because of the everyday practices of a well-intentioned liberal society … the tyranny of a ruling group over another … must certainly be called oppressive. But oppression also refers to systemic constraints on groups that are not necessarily the result of the intentions of a tyrant. Oppression in this sense is structural, rather than the result of a few people’s choices or policies. Its causes are embedded in unquestioned norms, habits, and symbols, in the assumptions underlying institutional rules and the collective consequences of following those rules. (Young, 1990: 5)

Oppression is a somewhat unfashionable term in current academic discussions which are largely dominated by postmodern anti-essentialist and social constructionist perspectives (Risager, 2011). Kanth (2011: xix) claims that the concept is associated with an “old morality” belonging mainly to classical Marxism that allegedly assumes power and control – and hence oppression and marginalization – as being exercised ‘top-down’: From a classical Marxist perspective, economically and by implication politically and culturally powerful groups disempower and exploit others. Postmodernists, in contrast, hold that power is socially distributed in forms of knowledge, discourses and practices. As a matter of fact, power, from a postmodern perspective, is not entirely negative as it enables social relations and practices as much as it constrains others. Since both the ‘powerful’ as well as the ‘powerless’ are implicated in the enactment of power, often in deeply ingrained and embodied ways that are not transparent to the agents themselves, boundaries between social groups become rather blurred and are generally seen as ‘socially constructed’ and contextually bound. The deconstruction of harmful conceptual boundaries is probably the most important insight applied linguistic has gained from postmodern philosophy. Over past decades researchers have made efforts, some more successful than others, to overcome the legacy of categorizing people in binary ways, e.g. as being either a speaker of ‘language A’ or of ‘language B’, as belonging to either ‘culture A’ or ‘culture B’, or as being a ‘non-native speaker’ who strives to acquire ‘native’ like linguistic and cultural ‘competence’. Such assumptions are usually countered

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by moves toward anti-categorization, i.e. the claim that social constructs like ‘the British’ or ‘the native speaker’ are essentialising and thus contribute to stereotyping and prejudices. According to Friedman (2002), anti-essentialists not only critique categories in terms of their underlying essentialist concepts and assumptions, they reject the entire “family of terms that convey closure, boundedness” (p. 25). By revealing the constructed nature of such categories, they aim to show the ‘true’ hybrid and contingent nature of individuals and societies. Recent academic discussions have therefore moved to a transcultural perspective that better acknowledges the inherent hybridity, fluidity and performativity of all linguistic and cultural processes. Friedman (2002: 24) describes this trend as caused by; … a fascination as well as a desire for the hybrid, not just as an interesting meeting between cultures but as a kind of solution to what is perceived as one (if not the major) problem of humankind, essentialism, in the sense of collective identification based on similarity, imagined or real, on the shared values and symbols that are so common in all forms of ‘cultural absolutism’.

We largely endorse the postmodern celebration of difference and fully agree that people neither fit neatly into fixed categories nor into clear cut groups of the ‘privileged’, the ‘victim’ and the ‘oppressed’. Nevertheless, we find it striking that the postmodern focus on transgression and hybridity at the micro-level of communication and identity formation occurs at a time when inequality in all spheres of life is deepening on a global scale. We consider ‘essentialism’ as a significant problem in language education but by no means the only problem which the domain faces today. It may well be that the problems observable within the field related to essentialist categories are reflections of much greater social structures and institutions that require much more than deconstruction to change: Identities are valued or devalued because of the place of their bearers in the prevailing structure of power, and their revaluation entails corresponding changes in the latter. Women, gays, cultural minorities and others cannot express and realize their identities without the necessary freedom of self-determination, a climate conducive to diversity, material resources and opportunities, suitable legal arrangements, and so on, and all these call for profound changes in all areas of life. (Parekh 2000: 2)

It is for this reason that we have adopted the term oppression purposefully and in agreement with Hill Collins & Bilge’s (2016: 15) claim that, “the term might be out of favor, but the social conditions that it describes are not”. Within this volume we understand oppression to be a breach of social justice that brings about suffering although we are also sensitive to the fact that the very definition of what constitutes social justice is contestable and are by no means universally accepted or agreed upon. Regardless, the desire to seek out more equitable forms of social

Introduction 

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practice does not first demand that we map the future. Holloway (2002: 2), for example, contends that our visions for the future may wish to configure it as “a world of justice, a world in which people could relate to each other as people and not as things, a world in which people would shape their own lives”. However, the author crucially adds that “we do not need to have a picture of what a true world would be like in order to feel that there is something radically wrong with the world that exists”. Oppression – in contrast to more euphemistic terms like ‘disadvantage’ – thus unequivocally connects our efforts as social scientists with normative concerns. It expresses a commitment to unsettle established frames of knowledge and to strive toward alternative and more equitable pedagogic practices.

Intersectionality It is said that every life has its roses and thorns; there seemed, however, to have been a misadventure or mistake in Stephen’s case, whereby somebody else had become possessed of his roses, and he had become possessed of somebody else’s thorns in addition to his own. (Charles Dickens, 1854)

Different forms of -isms of oppression in language education have been documented within the literature. At the same time, individual categories of analysis, for instance, native-speakerism or colonialism, are sometimes elevated over others. What is hence often overlooked in the field of language education is that different forms of oppression and disadvantage can interrelate in varying configurations within individuals and localized contexts as in the case of Charles Dickens’ character Stephen. From an intersectionalist perspective, social divisions such as class, age, gender, disability or race operate together and produce both disadvantages as well as privileges. As the Oxfam International (2014) report on global inequality (see also Piketty, 2014; Sayer, 2014) shows, we are currently witnessing unprecedented economic growth and concomitant political influence for a small minority, alongside stagnation or loss for the majority. Extreme economic inequality has exploded across the world in the last 30 years, making it one of the biggest economic, social and political challenges of our time. Age-old inequalities on the basis of gender, caste, race and religion – injustices in themselves – are exacerbated by the growing gap between the haves and the have-nots. (Oxfam International 2014: 8)

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The widening gap between rich and poor in Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries, for instance, and this includes traditionally more egalitarian countries such as Germany, Sweden and Japan, has reached its highest level for over 30 years (OECD, 2011). This inequality, however, “does not fall equally on everyone” (Hill Collins & Bilge 2016: 15) as wealth and poverty accumulate in racialized and engendered structures. The corrosive effects of inequality on society thus entail further segregation, marginalization and exclusion of particular disenfranchised groups. These moves can be seen within Europe and the U.S where seismic shifts toward populism, nationalism and parochialism are contributing recent factors to the further disenfranchisement of others. Indeed, one consequence of current globalist thinking is that sovereign nation-state distinctiveness is being eroded under the neoliberal banner of one-world inclusivity and opportunity for all. One can look toward the unprecedented recent rise in public support for ethnonationalist and anti-integrationalist movements across Europe for evidence (e.g., Germany [PEGIDA], Greece [Golden Dawn], France [National Front] and the United Kingdom [English Defence League, United Kingdom Independence Party and Britain First]). And most recently, we have witnessed the United States elect a President who was able to tap into the ignored sentiment of large sections of the population. Language education is affected and implicated within the aforementioned processes of social division, providing clear evidence of the ways in which inequalities and oppressions cascade throughout all aspects of social life. For example, languages themselves are increasingly valued in economic terms rather than for their intrinsic contribution to human diversity (Phillipson, 2009, 2013) and such a perspective has been exacerbated through globalization (Blommaert, 2010). The consequences of this mode of thinking can be readily witnessed within many localized contexts. The introduction of English from the primary level through to English medium education at universities often takes place to the detriment of local languages and repertoires. Educational institutions teaching the supposed ‘smaller’ languages have faced a reduction in financial support and subordination to English due to its exponential growth as a supposed lingua franca. In addition to this, we can observe how access to English and other high status languages is unequally distributed and so are the chances that acquisition might enhance individual opportunities in life. Due to various socioeconomic forces, language education thereby often works to entrench fundamental social inequalities between students who have access to, for instance, small classrooms, private tuition, well-prepared teachers, resources and opportunities for practice and those who do not (Piller & Cho, 2013). This policy “deludes many learners”, as Pennycook (2006: 101) puts it, “through the false promises it holds out for social and material gain, and excludes many people by operating as an

Introduction 

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exclusionary class dialect, favouring particular people, countries, cultures and forms of knowledge”. Inequalities permeate not only access to valued linguistic and learning resources; they also cut across those divides in textbooks and other materials as the people and their cultural practices represented are often exclusively white and middle class (see Ndura, 2004 and Sherlock, 2016) who engage in a variety of elite practices, such as traveling for leisure and shopping. We therefore view intersectionality as a key to understanding issues of social justice in language education. Intersectionality is, however, not only an analytical framework that aims to demystify reality and reveal ideology; it also strives to open up alternatives practices and emancipatory possibilities (Hills Collins & Belge, 2016).

Emancipation Despite superficial proclamations advocating emancipation, ‘the known’ networks of dayto-day existence in which we participate often depend, for their very survival, upon multifarious forms of psychological oppression and enslavement … and the domain of language education is certainly not immune from the cunning calculations of authoritarian dictate. (Rivers, 2015: 2)

For Paolo Freire pedagogy was inherently political: It could either inculcate students into an uncritical acceptance of the status quo (the ‘banking concept of education’) or raise students’ critical awareness of the underlying conditions that give rise to the unequal distribution of opportunities in life. Current neoliberal educational policies with their exclusive focus on technical knowledge and marketable skills and competencies fall squarely into the former category. Neoliberal educational policies are thus linked to the redistribution of resources at a global scale in a number of ways, among them the narrowing down of education at all levels to the transmission of knowledge that ‘adds value’ to the business world. It thus creates the illusion that this kind of knowledge secures opportunities in life in a context where employment is increasingly scarce. As a consequence, though, the idea that education is not only valuable in itself but also serves the common good as well as participatory democracy is effectively sidelined. We believe that in this adverse context of both, increasing inequality and ill-conceived educational policies, emancipatory, anti-oppressive pedagogy is of utmost importance. Within such a framework and with moves toward realizing a less oppressive form of language education across multiple contexts, this volume draws attention to the structures and relations that create affordances for some and constraints for others. The contributions go beyond a focus on ‘difference’

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and ‘diversity’ and challenge what is regarded to be ‘normal’. We are aware, and as several chapters testify, that reflecting upon taken-for-granted assumptions and ideological positions can create discomfort and resistance. Dale and Hyslop-Margison (2012: 61) previously outline how to “live in an immoral context and accept that context without resistance is an act of immorality”. Kumashiro (2015: 26) further explains how the feelings evoked are not only unavoidable; they are also fruitful points of departure and exploration: What and how students learn is influenced by a desire to relearn only certain things, especially only certain ways of making sense of the world, as well as by a resistance to learning other things, especially things that reveal the problematic nature of prior knowledge. I suggested that these oftentimes subconscious feelings of desire and resistance are central to the process of learning. They should not be viewed as hindrances to learning, and thus, be repressed or ignored or overpowered. Rather, they should become part of the very things that students study. Students’ desires for and resistances to learning need to become part of what they are learning.

More importantly, though, we acknowledge that “no approach is unproblematic, which means that no approach can ever be the way to solve our problems” (pp. 53–54). In other words, we are cautious to embrace imposed claims of ‘knowing’ as the identification of the ‘unknown’ can never be permitted to stand as the ‘known’. This process would trigger the reimposition of new, albeit automatically illegitimate, forms of authority (Rivers, 2015). 


Structure of the volume The twelve chapters of this volume analyze the complex social dynamics of -isms within language education and detail how such dynamics influence language education pedagogies and practices, institutional policies, intergroup subjectivities in addition to language proficiency achievements. The chapters adopt a variety of methodological approaches and perspectives, albeit of mainly qualitative nature, and focus on local contexts such as Australia, Bangladesh, Iran, Japan, Mexico, Sweden, the UK and the US. The first two chapters provide a broad conceptual demonstration of how -isms in language education can be interrelated in particular classroom contexts and through certain classroom materials. Chapter 1 by Cynthia Nelson proposes a way of conceptualising the -isms for learning purposes in the language classroom. While the data pertain specifically to heterosexism, the argument may apply across various domains of inequity. Drawing on interviews with English language teachers and an international cohort of learners in the United States,

Introduction 

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Nelson analyses participants’ perspectives on three classroom scenarios. The first highlights mismatched understandings about what even constitutes an -isms discourse; the second examines teachers’ contrasting views about the best ways of responding to -isms discourses in student talk and texts; and the third shows why talking about the -isms in class can be simultaneously uncomfortable and meaningful. Building on the empirical analysis, Nelson outlines the key features of what she calls an -isms-as-prisms pedagogy, which is about learning to identify, interpret and juxtapose the different meanings and frameworks that are being brought to bear in (or on) a particular -isms scenario or text. She argues that this interpretive focus has greater functional and critical potential than the common teacher strategies of either seeking to change students’ attitudes about the -isms or avoiding this subject matter altogether. Chapter 2 by Karin Zotzmann argues that we need to engage with the social and material realities that surround unjust representation and discourses and holds them in place. Furthermore, the author stresses that we need to acknowledge the fact that different forms of oppression might intersect with different forms of privilege. After reviewing current approaches to intersectionality, Zotzmann adopts a Critical Realist (CR) perspective that allows her to do both: to capture durable social structures and to account for the intersection between marginalization and privilege. The author reports on interviews with Mexican teachers of English who were asked whether there was a problematic mismatch between the representations of social reality in the textbooks they used and the social reality of their students. Teachers who worked with students from lower income families seemed to struggle with a range of issues, among them the overemphasis on white, affluent, apparently ‘native’ speakers of English and their practices and forms of consumptions. Teachers who dealt with students from more affluent backgrounds, in contrast, seemed less concerned whereas those who had students from mixed backgrounds seemed to confront again a different set of issues in class. The following chapters in the volume each focus on a particular -ism in context. While we have attempted to structure these chapters somewhat thematically according to the specific -isms under focus, we also believe that to map out an explicit structure as being correct would be an imposition. Therefore, readers are encouraged to browse the following chapters in the order which they see as most appropriate. Chapter 3 by Ursula Lanvers takes us to the UK and a very different kind of oppression, namely elitism in language learning. The author’s study is mainly quantitative as she draws on recent statistics on the up-take of modern foreign languages in England at all levels and across the public private divide. Lanvers sets the numbers in relation to the language education policy at particular points

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in time and is thus able to show that since 2004, when language learning was made optional for all students 14+, the gap between those who learn languages and those who do not has widened and reflects socio-economic divisions. Lanvers highlights the far-reaching socioeconomic, cognitive and psychological implications of this current elitist trend. Chapter 4 by Damian J. Rivers focuses on native-speakerism and tackles the anti-native speaker discourse within academic discussions of language education. These discussions, he argues, are fueled by a well-meaning intention to empower so-called non-native speakers and grant them supposed equal recognition or status. Rivers refutes the underlying dichotomy between native versus non-native as essentialist and ultimately biased, both for and against each group, albeit at different junctures. This bias is most commonly presented as the native speaker being considered as the perpetrator of discriminatory acts on account of their supposed superiority. Rivers argues that all potential victims of prejudice on the basis of speakerhood divisions should be offered equal protection and recognition. The author reports on several instances in which non-native speaker teachers have demonstrated discursive hostility toward the proposition that all language educators have the potential to be considered as victims of inequitable practice. The author further points to the continuation of a state-of-affairs whereby those teachers self-defined as non-native speakers are unequivocally dismissive of the proposal that language teaching competency and language proficiency achievements should not be conflated with or set as parallel to supposed language nativity. Chapter 5 by Rodrigo Joseph Rodríguez, approaches language pedagogy through the concept of ‘translanguaging’. This progressive vision and practice of language learning and instruction acknowledges the fact that multilingual language users draw upon a range of semiotic resources across ‘national languages’ in order to make meaning. Pedagogy, the author argues, can be liberating when home languages, cultures, dialogue, and self-actualization are valued. This is particularly important in the context Rodríguez works in, the borderlands between Texas and Mexico where specific forms of oppression reinforce and interact with language education among Mexican-origin communities. The author draws upon language-learning journals written by pre-service teachers of Mexican origin to show how these speakers interpret and challenge language hierarchies and ethnocentric oppression from within their bilingual communities by using English and Spanish in fluid and hybrid ways. Chapter 6 by Olga Campbell-Thomson exemplifies how ideologies impact and shape academic knowledge. With a focus on capitalism and communism, Campbell describes the perspective on foreign language learning as developed by Shcherba (1880–1944), a Russian linguist whose work like those of many others

Introduction 

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was not discussed outside of the sphere of influence of the Soviet Union during the Cold War. Having been brought up in the Soviet Union and resettled in the U.K. after the demise of state communism, the author reflects upon the ideological barriers and forces at play during this time and explores Shcherba’s intellectual legacy on the practical value of foreign language learning as a timely and relevant contribution to current debates on foreign language instruction within Anglophone countries. Chapter 7 by Sardar M. Anwaruddin engages with another taken-for-granted assumption in language education, namely the concept of ‘method’. The author argues that an over-emphasis on the technical aspects of teaching (‘methodism’) perpetuates a technical view of teacher knowledge characterized by control and domination. Drawing on Habermas’s conception of three fundamental cognitive interests – technical, practical, and emancipatory – the author traces the roots of the technical interest or ‘instrumental rationality’ back to the Enlightenment and juxtaposes it with the benefits of practical and emancipatory perspectives. Anwaruddin reminds us of the importance of dialogue, practical engagement, values and equality in times when teaching and learning is often overridden by considerations of efficiency and cost-effectiveness. Chapter 8 by Gregorio Hernández Zamora focuses on academicism within the context of the Mexican higher education system. He argues that in this post-colonial context, academia contributes to the further exclusion of already marginalized social groups through particular academic practices, conventions and required literacy skills that none of the previous educational levels in the public sector provide to students. The resulting number of students who fail as academic writers and drop out of the system demands an investigation into the reproduction of privilege and oppression. Hernández-Zamora explores a number of case studies of struggling Mexican university students in order to show how conservative academicism and intellectualism demand adherence to formal or conventional rules and traditions and suppress creative authenticity. Chapter 9 by Seyyed-Abdolhamid Mirhosseini is concerned with the technical or epistemological understanding of and research on language education in Iran. The author analyses a large corpus of conference abstracts (presented at national conferences in Iran between 2000 and 2011) through discourse analysis in order to show an underlying ‘scientism’, i.e. the adherence to empiricist and positivist assumptions of the majority of these projects. The author argues that academic knowledge and discourse perpetuates particular ideological views of language education and thus indirectly influences what goes on in classrooms and teacher education. Chapter 10 by Sangeeta Bagga-Gupta seeks to refute dominant hegemonic epistemologies which conceptualize languages as overlapping with national

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boundaries, identities to be fixed and static and language learning as a linear process from point A to a pre-defined point B (i.e., monolingualism). The author classifies these perspectives as monolingual, monomodal and monologic and illustrates the performative work individuals engage when they engage in concrete instances of communication by drawing upon a range of multilingual and multimodal semiotic resources. Bagga-Gupta’s data comes mainly from diaries, field-notes, video-data, and narrative biographies from an ethnographic project in Sweden. Chapter 11 by David Rhodes focuses on heterosexism as part of the hidden curriculum of Australian schools and how it reinforces and perpetuates sexual identity oppression. The author analyses interviews with, and autobiographical journal entries by, high school students who identify themselves as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) in a regional, Western Australian community. The participants were asked to reflect upon their daily experiences of heterosexism in school, with a particular focus on English classrooms. The study shows that despite some fragile progress toward inclusion, heterosexism is the normative mind-set in this context and is maintained in schools by the curriculum and teaching practices. Chapter 12 by Roslyn Appleby looks at ‘occidental romanticism’ in English language education in Japan. The author defines the term as describing the projection of an occidental romantic ideal on the body of the Western English language teacher. Her study focuses on Western men in particular and how they are constructed as objects of desire by the English language education industry in Japan through a range of ‘eroticised, consumptive practices’. The study draws on interviews with white Western men who have lived and worked within Japan as English language teachers. These men report on the privileges they enjoyed being the object of romantic desire as well as the negative consequences both in terms of their personal and their professional lives. The topics dealt with in these twelve chapter are highly diverse, as are the geographical backgrounds in which the studies are embedded and the optimism they may or may not convey. Despite their heterogeneity, the contributions nevertheless revolve around contemporary global trends in forms of oppression, the intersection of different forms of marginalization and/or privilege, and potential forms of emancipation. While Lanvers, for instance, focuses on the increasing social gap between ‘elite’ and public education in a developed country (UK), Hernandez-Zamora looks at how the existing aberrant inequality in a post-colonial and developing country is furthered by particular academic practices and discourses. Bagga-Gupta, Rivers as well as Campbell-Thomson, Anwaruddin and Mirhosseini, analyse how academia becomes implicated in dominant hegemonic epistemologies: they either operate with essentialist views of national languages

Introduction 

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or the ‘native’ versus ‘non-nativeness’ dichotomy, hang on to heterosexism and other forms of gender discrimination, reduce education to the transmission of knowledge or comply with the reductionist view of research as being ‘objective’ and value-free. These are all too familiar themes in a world where the increasing scarcity of resources and social security for an ever-larger section of the world population provides a fertile ground for racist, misogynist, anti-immigrant, anti-LGBT and other hatred fuelled agendas and forms of oppression. In this context, we feel that that anti-oppressive pedagogy has to take emotional resistance and conflict as a given. It is generated not only by systemic forces but by the unavoidably exclusive nature of particular types of knowledge. As educators we therefore need to take into account what our students – and we ourselves – have already taken for granted and be aware that unsettling these assumptions will be uncomfortable.

References Block, D., Gray, J. & M. Holborow (eds.) 2013. Neoliberalism and applied linguistics. London: Routledge. Blommaert, J. 2010. The sociolinguistics of globalization. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Canagarajah, S.A. (ed.) 2005. Reclaiming the local in language policy and practice, Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates Crenshaw, K. 1991. Mapping the margins: Intersectionality, identity politics, and violence against women of color. Stanford Law Review 43(6). 1241–1279. Dale, J. & E.J. Hyslop-Margison 2012. Paulo Freire: Teaching for freedom and transformation. London: Springer. Dickens, C. 1854/1993. Hard times. London: Penguin books. Gray, J. 2010. Neoliberalism, celebrity and ‘aspirational content’ in English language teaching textbooks for the global market. In D. Block, J. Gray & M. Holborow (eds.), Neoliberalism and applied linguistics, 86–113. London: Routledge. Gray, J. 2010. The construction of English: Culture, consumerism and promotion in the ELT global coursebook. Houndmills: Palgrave Macmillan. Gray, J. 2013. LGBT invisibility and heteronormativity in ELT materials. In J. Gray (ed.), Critical perspectives on language teaching materials, 40–63. Houndmills: Palgrave Macmillan. Grillo, T. & S.M. Wildman. 1991. Obscuring the importance of race: The implication of making comparisons between racism and sexism (or other -isms). Duke Law Journal. 397–412. Hill Collins, P. & S. Bilge. 2016. Intersectionality. Cambridge: Polity. Holliday, A. 2011. Intercultural communication and ideology. London: Sage. Holloway, J. 2002. Change the world without taking power: The meaning of revolution today. London: Pluto Press. Jenkins, J. 2015. Repositioning English and multilingualism in English as a Lingua Franca. Englishes in Practice 2(3). 49–85.

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Jenkins, J., A. Cogo & M. Dewey. 2011. Review of developments in research into English as a lingua franca. Language Teaching 44(3). 281–315. Houghton, S.A. & D.J. Rivers (eds.) 2013. Native-speakerism in Japan: Intergroup dynamics in foreign language education. Bristol: Multilingual Matters. Kanth, R. 2002. Capitalism and social theory. The science of black holes. New York: M. E. Sharpe. Kumashiro, K.K. 2004. Against common sense: Teaching and learning toward social justice. New York: Routledge. Lake, D.A. 2011. Why ‘‘isms’’ are evil: Theory, epistemology, and academic sects as impediments to understanding and progress. International Studies Quarterly 55. 465–480. Ndura, E. 2004. Cultural bias in ESL textbooks used in the USA: An analysis or through highschool textbooks in the western United States of America. Language Culture and Curriculum 7(2). 143–153. Oxfam International. 2014. Even it up. Time to end extreme inequality. http://policy-practice.oxfam.org.uk/publications/even-it-up-time-to-end-extremeinequality-333012 (01 October 2016). Pennycook, A. 2001. Critical applied linguistics: A critical introduction. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Phillipson, R. 2009. Linguistic imperialism continued. London: Routledge. Phillipson, R. 2013. English as pandemic? In K. Henrard (ed.), The interrelation between the right to identity of minorities and their socio-economic participation, 189–204. Leiden: Martinus Nijhoff. Piketty, T. 2014. Capital in the twenty-first century. London: Belknap Press. Piller, I. & J. Cho. 2013. Neoliberalism as language policy. Language in Society 42(1). 23–44. Rivers, D.J. 2015. Introduction: Conceptualizing the known and the relational dynamics of power and resistance. In D.J. Rivers (ed.), Resistance to the known: Counter-conduct in language education, 1-20. Houndmills: Palgrave Macmillan. Sayer, A. 2014. Why we can’t afford the rich. Bristol: Policy Press. Sherlock, Z. 2016. Japan textbook inequality: How cultural bias affects foreign language acquisition. Power & Education 8(1). 73–87. Skutnabb-Kangas, T. 2000. Linguistic genocide in education-or worldwide diversity and human rights? Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Thompson, C. & A. Smith. 1991. The connections between Homophobia and the other “Isms”. http://www.cooperthompson.com/essays/PDF/ TheConnectionsBetweenOppressions.pdf (05 October 2014). Wilkinson, R. & K. Pickett. 2009. The spirit level: Why equality is better for everyone. London: Allan Lane. Young, I.M. 1990. Five faces of oppression. In E. Hackett and S. Haslanger (ed.), Theorizing feminisms, 3–16. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Zotzmann, K. & G. Hernández-Zamora. 2013. Beyond the ‘cultural turn’: The politics of recognition versus the politics redistribution in the field of intercultural communication. Language Learning Journal 41(3). 357–369.

Cynthia D. Nelson

1 The -isms as interpretive prisms: A pedagogically useful concept I don’t want people to be bigoted towards lesbians and gays or hateful towards them … Or any kind of related hatred based on race or religion or … that kind of thing. So whenever I bring topics like that up, I do hope to have people open their eyes wider and perhaps take on a more accepting or tolerant attitude. – Paige, an English as a Second Language (ESL) teacher The more I teach the more I don’t feel like I’m God and I can change their attitudes and I should change their attitudes. – Jo, an ESL teacher (Nelson, 2009: 58)

Introduction: Discussing the -isms in language classes It has become commonplace in the language classroom to discuss social identities and social inequities, including those pertaining to “race, gender, and sexual orientation”, Canagarajah (2006: 19) contends. Language teachers are now expected to engage students in problematising these issues and developing “critical and more inclusive representations” (Canagarajah, 2006: 19). A number of studies shed light on the necessity, but also the complexities, of framing and managing such discussions effectively in the language classroom (whether face-to-face or virtual) (see, e.g., Appleby, 2010; Kubota, 2014; Kubota & Lin, 2009; Morgan, 1997; Motha, 2014; see also Luk & Lin, 2007). In my own research (Nelson, 2009) I have found that when teachers or their students sought to incorporate sexual identities (and thus often sexual inequities) as subject matter into language pedagogies, teachers often took what I called a counseling approach, with ‘personal growth’ as the aim, or a controversies approach, which involved debating contemporary social issues. Far fewer took what I called a discourse inquiry approach, unpacking and analysing acts of language/culture, though this was the approach that I found to be most effective for language learners (Nelson, 2009; for a table summarising these three approaches, see p. 210). Drawing on data from that study, this chapter builds on and further articulates a discourse inquiry approach. However, it diverges from my previous DOI 10.1515/9781501503085-002

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research in two important respects. Firstly, its main focus is -isms of oppression rather than identities, and secondly, it focuses on the -isms in general, even though most of my examples pertain to heterosexism in particular (which is still woefully under-acknowledged and under-researched; see Rhodes, this volume). Despite significant distinctions between the various social -isms, such as sexism, racism, classism and the like, my aim here is to propose a way of thinking about the -isms that has broad applications across domains of inequity. From existing studies, it is clear that while ‘identity’ and its significance to language education have been heavily theorized, the same cannot be said for the ‘-isms’. Accordingly, developing more nuanced theoretical understandings of the -isms in/as language pedagogy is the broad aim of this chapter. Here I ask how teachers (and, for that matter, students) are currently conceptualising the -isms and their relevance (or otherwise) to language learning; how these conceptions are informing ways of teaching about the -isms; how effective these teaching practices are at fostering learners’ language and literacy development; and what alternative conceptions of the -isms might prove more useful in the language classroom. To explore these questions I draw on learner and teacher interview data from my research into sexual identities in English language education (Nelson, 2009; see also Nelson, 2004, 2010). To understand some of the key issues, consider the two quotes with which I opened this chapter. Although both of the teachers taught English at the same university-affiliated language programme in the United States, they had opposing views about discussing social identities and social -isms in their classes. ‘Paige’ (all names are pseudonyms) hoped that students with bigoted or hate-based attitudes would become more socially tolerant, whereas Jo did not see attitude change as her role or goal. Moreover, Paige found it “really fun” to teach these topics because her students “get really engaged” and have “very lively” discussions, whereas Jo was reluctant to broach such topics as she found them uncomfortable and feared “a lot of negative resistance” from her students (Nelson, 2009: 58). Through my research I have found that when it comes to talking in class about social discrimination or social inequities, most language teachers align with the views of either Paige or Jo. That is, some teachers consider class discussions of social -isms to be meaningful and worthy, especially when the aim is to dissuade discriminatory acts and speech in the interest of advancing social harmony and equity, while others prefers to avoid classroom talk of the -isms, often taking the view that such topics are irrelevant to students or likely to generate too much discomfort in class. This bifurcation of views can result in some practical dilemmas for teachers. Those who, like Paige, seek to effect change with regard to the -isms may



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have students who find that uncomfortable or inappropriate, while those who, like Jo, feel squeamish or hesitant about discussing the -isms in class may have students who raise these topics. In addition, many teachers, whether open to discussing the -isms or not, consider themselves ill equipped to broach the topic or to respond when a student does. Feeling underprepared is commonly reported by teachers, whether they themselves self-identify with the ‘oppressor’ group or the ‘oppressed’ group of a given social -ism; for example, teachers who self-identify as straight, as gay, or as fluid and unlabelled all report feeling unsure of how to respond when heterosexism emerges in classroom talk (albeit for different reasons) (Nelson, 2009). Yet despite the clear contrasts between Paige and Jo, they also share something important: For both, the central concern seemed to be their students’ attitudes, opinions or feelings towards the -isms, not their students’ ability to communicate effectively or think critically in relation to the -isms. I have found this view to be common among language teachers. When social identities and social -isms arise as class topics, or when these topics are dissuaded or silenced, for many teachers the main concern seems to be their students’ feelings or views about the subject matter (or the social group in question), rather than their language and literacy development (Nelson, 2009). For example, teachers would consider an -isms lesson or discussion to be successful if no ‘negative attitudes’ were raised, or if students changed their ‘negative attitudes’ about, in this case, gay and lesbian people, to become more ‘socially tolerant’. Few teachers in my research focused on what their students were learning about language through discussion of the -isms, such as the language of communicating and decoding social identities, the language through which social inequities are reinforced or challenged, the language of silencing, the language of self-defense (when a target of oppression), and so on. In an era when social identities and social inequities are at the forefront of public life and everyday social discourse, the contrasting-yet-congruent perspectives as exemplified in this chapter’s two opening quotes raise some important questions that warrant more scholarly attention in language education, namely: –

–

–

How are language teachers (and learners) conceptualizing the identity-related inequities – racism, heterosexism, and the like – and their place in language learning and classroom talk? How do teachers’ ideas about the -isms and about their ir/relevance to language learning inform their teaching practices and their perceptions of student needs and classroom dynamics? How do students experience learning activities that focus on, or at least touch on, the -isms, and how might such activities  – or their absence  – affect students’ language acquisition and learning?

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–

What conceptual-pedagogic tools can equip language teachers to prepare their students for negotiating inequitable communicative interactions in the classroom and beyond?

In this chapter I touch briefly on all of these questions but attempt to shed light on that last in particular. It is my contention that language education would benefit from a conceptual understanding of the social -isms that is specifically geared toward the promotion of language learning, and that is what I seek to provide in this chapter. The case I make is that it may be useful pedagogically to consider the -isms conceptually as interpretive prisms. Having set out this chapter’s key questions and main aim in this introductory section, I turn next to theory. In order to develop the -isms-as-prisms notion, I outline some key ideas about the -isms, drawing on literature from education and higher education as well as language education and applied linguistics. Then, after briefly explaining my data collection and analysis procedures and rationale, I present some data that shows why the -isms-as-prisms notion is needed in the real-world arenas of language education. I quote nine research participants – five learners (from China, Korea, Laos, Mexico and Vietnam) studying English in tertiary-level language programmes in the US and four English language teachers (from the US) – as they reflect on, or take part in, specific class discussions of social identities/-isms (drawing on Nelson, 2004, 2009, 2010). My concluding section integrates theory and data by outlining some key features and benefits of what I am proposing here: an -isms-as-prisms approach to pedagogy.

Theorising the -isms as interpretive prisms In this section I highlight some notions that seem especially pertinent to language education and to the pedagogic theory that I seek to build here. In theorising the -isms, one important point is that the -isms are broadly relevant. Everyone is simultaneously both oppressed and oppressor, albeit along different axes of oppression; thus, potentially anyone is implicated in any given system of oppression, though this is experienced differently depending on one’s position or vantage point. What constitutes an -ism and how significant it is seen to be are far from universal, but vary by geographic and cultural milieu. For example, Ramanathan (2005) explains that in presenting her research on the uses of English versus vernacular languages in education in India, audiences in (or from) India are far more likely than Western audiences to perceive the salience of caste issues.



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The -isms are also understood to vary by type, function, scope, and scale. With racism, for example, Kubota and Lin (2009) differentiate institutional or structural racism, which “shapes social relations, practices, and institutional structures”, from epistemological racism, which concerns knowledge practices “that privilege the European modernist white civilization”, and both types of racism from individuals beliefs and prejudices (Kubota & Lin: 6–7; see also Motha, 2014). The -isms can be understood to be operating at micro-, macro- and meta-levels (see Canagarajah, 2002) and to have spatial and scalar dimensions as well (see Blommaert, Collins and Slembrouck, 2005; see also Appleby, 2010). What do these ideas mean for language pedagogy? The -isms can be understood as a sort of analytic tool-kit that can yield especially rich insights when more than one interpretive lens is applied. This shifts the pedagogic focus from “states of knowledge” to “ways of knowing” (Bernstein, 1971: 57). Following Gee (1990), the pedagogic focus is not on discovering what meanings reside in spoken or written texts but how meanings are made of these texts. Crucially, people can learn to consciously identify which -ism lens they are using to interpret something through. This involves, as Kumashiro (2002: 117; italics added) has described it in his work on ‘antioppressive pedagogy’, “putting our routes of reading themselves under analysis”. An education scholar makes a pertinent point: Encouraging analysis that doesn’t explore the interpretive frameworks on which we and our students rely is counterproductive, for it does not engage with the ways that processes of normalization work; instead, it allows the ways that knowledge is produced within a discourse community to be overlooked, thereby allowing that knowledge to function as an unquestioned or de facto norm. (Winans, 2006: 119; italics added)

In the field of language education, unlike the field of education, the focus is less on developing knowledge and questioning norms than on building learners’ capacities for effective communication in an additional language. Thus, one might ask how ‘questioning norms’ can help language learners and teachers. As Canagarajah (2006) explains, in this increasingly globalised and digitalised era: “[L]anguage norms are relative, variable, and heterogeneous. A proficient speaker of English today needs to shuttle between different communities… [R]ather than teaching rules in a normative way, we should teach strategies – creative ways to negotiate the norms operating in different contexts” (Canagarajah, 2006: 26–27). Thus, building language proficiency these days means becoming more adept at identifying, analysing, appropriating and critiquing rules and norms pertaining to social systems, social interactions, and language systems; hence the need to be cognizant of the interpretive frameworks that one is using to read the world and through which one is being read by others. See, for example, Fujimoto’s

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(2010) reflective narrative about her own experiences as a sansei, a third generation Japanese-American, teaching English in Japan. She recounts how the notion of ‘perceptual frames’ helped her to adapt to a new language and culture and to cope with prejudice. A similar point is made, albeit in a different scholarly context, by Cherryholmes (1993: 1), in a paper that illustrates different ways of reading the same research text (in his case, a widely cited journal article from education). Cherryholmes performs one feminist, one critical, and one deconstructive reading of the journal article (pointedly using ‘one’ instead of ‘a’, to indicate that his reading is in no way definitive as there could be diverse feminist readings, for instance). He makes the point that “A naïve reading is deficient in informed judgment” and if researchers “fail to develop and use a wide-ranging repertoire of reading strategies their naiveté is reinforced”. A similar case could be made with regard to language education, namely, that unless learners develop and use a wide-ranging repertoire of interpretive strategies (whether in reading, writing, speaking or listening), their ability to make informed choices will be diminished. Or to restate this affirmatively: Developing a diverse repertoire of interpretive strategies  – or ways of ‘reading’ situations, interactions and texts, in this case, those pertaining to -isms  – can strengthen learners’ language capacities and learning strategies, and thus their active participation in discourse communities.

The -isms in classroom talk: Learners’ and teachers’ perspectives This section explains my data collection and analysis processes and then presents language teachers’ and learners’ reported experiences of three classroom scenarios.

Research methodology The five learners and four teachers quoted in this section were among the 63 (adult) learners and 44 teachers who voluntarily took part in my multi-site, naturalistic study of sexual identities in English language education (Nelson, 2009). For this research I traveled to three different US cities to conduct class observations (at a university, a college, and a university-affiliated language programme), semi-structured interviews with individual teachers and learners, and focus



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groups for teachers, all of which yielded a data set of 150 audio-recorded hours in total. Though the research was conducted in the US, the cohort of research participants was markedly international: it included students from every continent of the world as well as teachers attending an international Teaches of English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL) convention. Written informed consent was obtained from each participant, in accordance with the ethics requirements of our respective educational institutions. Interviews of the students were conducted in English so that nobody who volunteered had to be turned away because I did not speak their first language. Through professional affiliations I had at least a passing acquaintance with about half of the participating teachers (and I had taught in similar programmes) but because I no longer lived in the US we were not close colleagues; this allowed me to approach the research with what Hammersley (1993: 255) has called “a judicious combination of involvement and estrangement” and also to bring both emic and etic insights to the analysis (Watson-Gegeo, 1988). I had no prior knowledge of any of the students; I think the fact that I was not teaching in any of the programmes where I conducted the research helped the students to freely share with me their thoughts and impressions. Whenever practicable, during student (and some teacher) interviews (which ranged in duration from 30 minutes to 3 hours, depending on the interviewee’s availability) I used a research technique called stimulated recall (see Nunan, 1992): I replayed part of an audio-recorded class session (and showed the interviewee a rough transcript of it in case they preferred reading to listening), and invited the interviewee to pause the recording at any point and explain what they had been thinking or feeling at the time. This yielded valuable data about specific classroom moments. My methodology was informed by van Lier’s (1996) argument that classroom interactions are one of the most significant aspects of education, and by Lemke’s (1985) analytic categories (e.g., participant positionings, interaction management, and more). By triangulating my data collection techniques and then transcribing and thematically coding the data in an iterative process, I was able to analyse not only what teachers reported about their classes (via focus groups) but also what teachers and learners actually said in their classes (via class observations) and what they thought of those class sessions afterwards (via interviews). In this way, I could critically examine not just classroom discourse but how participants experienced this, and conversely, not just participants’ reported experiences but what was actually said in class. Data selected for this chapter are necessarily illustrative, not comprehensive. I chose comments pertaining to participants’ conceptions of the -isms and language learning; and I deliberately juxtaposed students’ comments with those of

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their classmates and teachers, and a teacher’s comments with those of her colleagues, in order to highlight the different conceptions at play in each of three scenarios. Each of the students quoted below was observed in class over a two-week period and interviewed at least once. The quoted teachers were interviewed and/ or participated in a focus group (and one, Roxanne, was also observed in class).

Identifying an -isms discourse: Mismatched understandings This first scenario shows that learners and teachers can have divergent understandings of what even constitutes an -isms discourse, without realising that they do. In the ESL version of an academic English class at a university, during a warm-up activity to introduce a unit on the theme of community the teacher (Gina) had the students work in small groups to identify three things they all had in common and write these on the board, an activity she followed up with a whole-class discussion that involved categorizing the phrases on the board. When the teacher asked the class to suggest a categorizing term for “like pink color” and “wear earrings”, Ping, a 32-year-old language learner from China, suggested “lifestyle”. As Ping put it in class: “Wear earrings just for woman. But for man lifestyle” (Nelson, 2009: 153). When I interviewed Ping after class, she elaborated on what she had meant, making reference to a classmate (Ben): I saw some mans (P is laughing) wearing earring too! (P laughs)… I look up … one guy here … [Ben], see that’s a gay … Gay man … If you’re gay, this one [wearing an earring] is S-I-G-N, is sign … So … I tried explain for people. (Nelson, 2009: 156)

Ping was eager to share with her international classmates what was apparently a new understanding for her of local practice: that an earring on a man is meant to signify his homosexual identity. However, Ping’s teacher interpreted Ping’s in-class comment about earrings on men being a ‘lifestyle’ signifier as a prelude to some “really nasty stuff” (Nelson, 2009: 154). The teacher wanted to avoid what she feared was becoming a heterosexist discourse but at the same time she did not want it left unchallenged; so great was her concern that it led her to a series of (confusingly contradictory) conversational moves intended to discourage Ping herself from elaborating but to invite the class to challenge Ping’s presumption (that earrings on a man meant he was gay). Ping, however, remained completely unaware of the nature of Gina’s concerns, which were never made



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explicit in the classroom talk. So although the teacher perceived this student’s talk as (immanently) oppressive, the student considered it an attempt at cultural demystification. Ping’s classmate Peter, a 21-year-old man from Laos, had ended the earrings discussion in class by abruptly changing the subject. In our interview he explained that in class he had picked up on the gay subtext of the discussion – the “gay subject, it just popped on my head” – but he “didn’t wanna say it”. When I asked why not, he explained: [Because] it might offend someone. Or it might hurt their feeling. Or they might take it in wrong way. Um, ‘cause I might not use the correct word or the right word … Even though they’re gay or they’re lesbian they still have feelings. So we should not put … them down … we should respect them.

For Peter, speaking openly about potentially gay significations was a fraught topic that was best avoided because of the risk of using the wrong word and hurting people, albeit unintentionally. His concern not to antagonise any lesbian or gay peers was so great that he managed to steer the entire class (including the teacher) completely off the topic only three minutes into the discussion. But not all students picked up on the potentially heterosexist subtext of that classroom exchange. Lucy, for example, a 20-year-old woman from Vietnam, (mis)understood Ping’s comment on men wearing earrings to be about cultural identity, not sexual identity. As Lucy explained it to me in our interview, classmate Ben (wearing the earring) was from Singapore and Ping from China, so those two shared a Chinese heritage: In Chinese tradition, if a guy have ear pierced that means that their parents is afraid that [he] would never grow to be a man …So they pierce the ears …hoping that …will make the kid understand how to respect people and be a good boy and grow up to be a good man … So it’s not amazed to me that Ping said that (Nelson, 2009: 155).

Thus in this classroom scenario, multiple conceptions of the -isms and language learning were operating simultaneously, which led to mismatched understandings that never became evident in the classroom talk; unshared, they could not be clarified and learned from, unfortunately. For Ping, explicit local acts of sexual identity (as she perceived these) simply needed to be made explicit for the purposes of intercultural learning; whereas for her teacher, this constituted an emerging heterosexist discourse which needed to be challenged. Although the teacher tried to challenge it her attempt was unsuccessful: not all students (including Ping) were aware that it had even been interpreted that way. For Peter, the discussion felt risky and needed to be shut down because it might offend gay

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and lesbian students, whereas Lucy did not pick up on any heterosexist (or gay) innuendo. None of Gina’s students learned inoffensive ways of discussing gay signifiers, for example; troublingly, some may have concluded that it was gay-themed discourses, rather than heterosexist discourses, that were unwelcome in the classroom (see Nelson, 2010). Neither did they learn how to identify heterosexist discourses, or some effective ways of challenging these. Other vital communication issues that were overlooked include cultural interpretations of identity signifiers and the social dynamics of gay insinuations or outing others/being outed. Language learners need to become skilled at recognising when misunderstandings have occurred as well as perceiving and negotiating expectations (often unstated) about what can and cannot be said in a given situation or interaction. What might open up more possibilities for language learning than merely avoiding or circumventing the -isms is a pedagogy that proactively explores these as interpretative acts that have social consequences and that are subject to misinterpretation.

Responding to an -isms discourse: Varied views This second scenario contrasts divergent viewpoints about how to respond to -isms discourses in student talk and text. Helen, an ESL teacher at a university-affiliated language programme, recounted a classroom experience that she had found distressing – so upsetting, in fact, that she was openly sobbing while relaying it: I don’t know how to frame things. I don’t know how to react to the homophobia that comes out. I don’t even know that that’s my place. But it’s extremely uncomfortable for me when it does … When something hits close to home for me, I don’t exactly know how to be objective and to step back (Nelson, 2009: 69).

She had brought into her writing class a selection of news articles, asking her students to choose one and write a summary-and-response of it. All of the students chose the article about gay rights, and nearly all wrote very derogatory responses: “I had eleven students that said They’re all going to hell … That was so emotional for me … I wasn’t expecting that”. Stunned, she circulated in the classroom and helped students find the vocabulary they needed to express their views in English.



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[I was saying things like] Is this what you mean by this? No it’s not strong enough. Ok, what about this word. That’s what I mean. Ok. So it would get more and more condemnatory. But it got closer to their truth … And it was all negative, with the exception of one student.

As the class session continued Helen became increasingly distressed, she said, though she carried on with her task of circulating and responding to students’ questions as they wrote during the class session (this was the typical pattern of action in this particular writing course). I was really aware of … being a lesbian … and feeling like I had a secret. And feeling ashamed. Moving into my own homophobia, it was awful. And I thought I’m not doing this again. […] I treated it just as a grammar exercise and, uh, handed it back and did nothing with it. Because I just was too … disturbed by the homophobia. And I didn’t feel strong enough to out myself. And I knew I’d have to out myself … to talk about it. (Nelson, 2009: 69)

Thus, in this scenario Helen was conceptualising the -isms as the truthful expressions of her students. Though personally painful to her, she considered these expressions to be un-discussable and uncritique-able during the class, and even after collecting the students’ work to provide written feedback on it, she felt unable to comment on any aspects other than grammatical errors – despite the fact that the students’ extreme views and virulent language had so shocked and disturbed her. The entire experience was fraught in large part because as a lesbian herself she felt demoralised witnessing a raft of anti-gay sentiment. The experience was so unpleasant for Helen that she vowed to steer clear of gay/ lesbian topics in her classes in the future. Comments from two other teachers provide illuminating contrasts to Helen’s perspective. Liz recommended that teachers whose students expressed racist, sexist or heterosexist views should familiarise themselves with their institution’s non-discrimination policy, and make sure students were aware of it too: “You wouldn’t tolerate racial comments … [or] gender discriminatory comments from your students … [So] you can couch [a gay/lesbian issue] as a … safe space in the classroom issue” (Nelson, 2009: 79). In this view, which I found quite common, -isms discourses are seen as illegal harassment, not to be tolerated  – nor discussed – in the language classroom. Yet another conception of -isms discourses in the language classroom was expressed by Rachel, who said: I think … racist and homophobic comments often come from … a display for one’s peers. Because … people police each other, police themselves. And are keeping themselves in line. And so you might as well name it as, um, you know, this is what you imagine is the rhetori-

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cal stance of a group of people, and it is just a rhetorical stance and it’s attached to a group of people. (Nelson, 2009: 85)

Thus, Rachel, unlike Helen and Liz, saw -isms discourses as very worthy of unpacking in class because they involve language acts associated with identity, belonging, stance, and audience, and as such are highly germane to understanding language and developing literacy. When -isms discourses surface in classroom talk and text, teachers’ varied conceptions of these discourses clearly shape their pedagogical practice. As we have seen, Helen considered the -isms in student writing to be deeply distressing, even shocking, yet unapproachable pedagogically; Liz saw the -isms in student talk as harassment to be unequivocally prohibited in the interest of creating ‘safe spaces’ for learning; and Rachel saw the -isms in student text or talk as expected, regulatory strategies that arise through interaction; moreover, students can, indeed should, learn how to analyse, manage and negotiate these. Because Helen’s students were not encouraged to consider the likely reception of their views in the local context, they seem to have missed out on some potentially valuable learning opportunities. Given its locality, their education institution was likely to have a pro-equity, anti-ism policy, which means that their anti-gay writings might be perceived as akin to hate-based harassment, perhaps even with legal implications, as Liz noted. But Helen’s students may have remained unaware of this. Nor were they encouraged to consider the language strategies that writers (and speakers) adopt to align with a given discourse community, as Rachel noted, or to challenge dominant discourses. Learning a language means learning, among other things, what constitutes offensive speech in certain contexts, as well as how to identify and repair communicative glitches and breakdowns. A language pedagogy that conceptualises the -isms as interpretive tools that vary by locality, situation and interlocutor, and that involve positioning and identity work, can illuminate important components of communication, such as audience awareness and persuasion strategies. Such a framework may also help teachers in situations like Helen’s to respond to student views with some critical distance, rather than taking these as a personal affront and becoming too upset to provide constructive critical feedback.

Connecting the -isms: Meaningful discomfort This final scenario highlights conceptions of the -isms as interconnected – and as simultaneously meaningful and uncomfortable, albeit from different vantage points.



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Mi-Young was a 30-year-old woman who had migrated to the US from Korea and was studying ESL at a community college. In her class there was a lesson on modals for speculation and the teacher used same-sex affection as an example. Students responded that in the US, unlike in many other countries, two women seen walking arm in arm could be lesbians, and this led to a lively half-hour class discussion. In a subsequent interview Mi-Young told me she had found that discussion valuable, enjoyable and timely because it had prompted her to reflect critically on her own learned discomfort with gay people. Mi-Young explained that she was surprised and stunned by the recent news that her American mother-in-law was gay (in our first interview, Mi-Young said “gay” was “not good word” [Nelson, 2009: 189].) Mi-Young attributed her consternation about having a gay family member to a cultural gap: in Korea, she said, “people doesn’t like the gay people … So maybe my mind … doesn’t want to hear that … I don’t want to believe that” (Nelson, 2009: 190). At the same time, Mi-Young felt concerned that as a second-language speaker she might “hurt” gay people by using a “mean word” inadvertently, especially since, she was beginning to realize, people could not be readily identified as gay based on appearance. She was realizing too that by laughing at certain gay-innuendo jokes and making casual remarks in class she might have unthinkingly offended classmates who, unbeknownst to her, could be gay. Mi-Young explained why she wanted to learn what she called “careful talking” in English: “If I … discrimination for them [gay and lesbian people], maybe people, and I say white people, they may also discrimination about Asians. It’s same situation. People didn’t like me, it’s not good. [laughs] Someone don’t like me it feels not happy. So [it’s not] OK with gay people” (Nelson, 2009: 191). Drawing parallels between the damaging effects of racism that she had experienced with the damaging effects of heterosexism that she was just beginning to consider, Mi-Young was keen to learn the language she would need to interact in class or at work without unintentionally offending interlocutors who might, unbeknownst to her, be gay. For this language learner, then, conceptualizing the -isms as interconnected strengthened her desire to learn to identify disrespectful language and to use non-discriminatory language; thus, she valued her teacher’s openness to discussing these issues in class. Pablo, a 25-year old man from Mexico and a classmate of Mi-Young’s, recounted a negative experience in a different ESL class with a different teacher. A classmate had said that he thought his boss at work was gay, but the teacher “stopped him talking about that” by swiftly changing the topic (Nelson, 2010: 449). The teacher gave no reason for shunning the gay topic, and her action had a disengaging and alienating effect on Pablo, who identified as gay. He felt disappointed that a teacher would silence gay subject matter in class because of her

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own discomfort (as he saw it), though at the same time this did not surprise him. He often encountered this sort of discomfort in both Mexico and the US, he said: “[People] kind of accept it [homosexuality] but … they don’t really accept it … in the totality” (Nelson, 2010: 450). On the subject of teacher discomfort, it is worth noting that Mi-Young and Pablo’s (much-admired) teacher Roxanne, who had brought up the topic of samesex affection hoping it would invite lesbian/gay interpretations, felt extremely nervous about doing so. But her apprehension about incorporating lesbian/gay topics in class did not make her want to avoid these; in fact, just the opposite. It was her nervousness and discomfort that spurred her to bring up these topics in class. This is how Roxanne explained her rationale to me: “I’m not comfortable with that topic being so uncomfortable for most of us in the world. The topic of two women in love or two men in love” (Nelson, 2004: 21). In our interview immediately before the class session in question, Roxanne told me that she dreaded hearing a “homophobic comment” from a student because she would then feel “on the hot seat” about what to do or say in response. Nonetheless, she felt determined to not let her own discomfort and fears keep her students from acknowledging and exploring social identities and social inequities in class: “Racism, homophobia, certain topics … are very important to me that they come up … I wanna be able to affirm wherever that person’s coming from and also not have that be a stopping place for them” (Nelson, 2009: 191). Thus, the -isms were considered by Mi-Young to be interconnected, culturally variable, personally meaningful, and integral to language use; by Pablo to be meaningful for him and other students but often challenging for teachers; and by Roxanne to be meaningful but highly charged and therefore challenging to negotiate effectively as a teacher – yet for that very reason, worthwhile. As we have also seen, discussing social identities and social -isms can matter a great deal to language learners whether they directly identify with the particular identity group in question or not. Whether at home, at school or at work, straight and gay language learners alike are interacting with interlocutors across the spectrum of sexual identities. Shunning any mention of gay people, as Pablo’s other teacher reportedly did, runs the risk of alienating any lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender students in the room and cutting short language learning opportunities for all students (see Nelson, 2015). Clashing views as to which discourses and identities are or are not considered allowable in a given interaction or space may generate discomfort, but this can itself be useful for language learning purposes. Discomfort can be a signal that clashing interpretations are at play and need to be teased out. Pedagogically, theorising the -isms (e.g., heterosexism, racism) as interpretive, interconnected



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systems can yield useful insights for students and teachers alike about language, identity, and inequity.

Conclusion: Towards an -isms-as-prisms pedagogy I began this chapter by setting out some important questions for language education to consider: how do teachers’ conceptions of the -isms in relation to language learning play out in the classroom, with what effects in terms of students’ learning experiences and language development, and with what pedagogic implications? Although these questions are too vast and complex to be adequately addressed in just one chapter, I have nonetheless sought to shed some light on them, especially the last one, in two ways: by outlining some theories about the -isms, and by presenting some learners’ and teachers’ perspectives on specific classroom scenarios. Taken together, these scenarios illustrated the following: that teachers and students, perhaps especially in a globalised classroom, may well have divergent understandings about whether a given discourse would be considered an -isms discourse, and whether it is better to challenge such a discourse or avoid it; that it can be emotionally challenging to work out how to respond to -isms discourses, perhaps especially when these emerge unexpectedly in class; and that students and teachers alike can find class discussions of the -isms uncomfortable yet thought provoking and highly relevant to their day-to-day lives. In light of the conceptual and practical issues that I have discussed here, I propose an -isms as prisms approach to language pedagogy. The educational aim would not be to try to eliminate social -isms from the social worlds of the classroom or beyond, but rather to illuminate the discourses and language acts associated with the -isms, as well as the lenses through which these are being interpreted. In so doing, the broader goal is to expand language learners’ options by building their expertise in using and interacting in the new language so that they can participate more fully, more critically, and more creatively within their discourse communities.

Key features of an -isms-as-prisms pedagogy An isms-as-prisms pedagogy would have the following core features. Firstly, the focus is on the -isms in/as language. Pedagogically, the focus would not be on

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the -isms as real-world phenomena but as real-world discourses that present rich opportunities for meaningful engagement with language analysis and practice. That is, the -isms would be understood as being instantiated or performed (at least in part) through language, and therefore integral to language study; as permeating and shaping communicative interactions, and therefore needing highlighting; and as instrumental in the processes of forming and performing social identities in interaction, and therefore worth unpacking in a linguistic sense. In short, the learning focus would be on discourse inquiry, exploring the language of the -isms and the -isms in discourse practice (Nelson, 2009). Secondly, the -isms are understood to be widely through differentially meaningful. Pedagogically, it is important to recognize various -isms as interlinked, co-occurring and often co-implicated. It is also important to recognize that -isms are deeply, if differently, meaningful to those across a variety of vantage points – though the meaningfulness of the -isms in learners’ (and teachers’) day to day lives is not always, or perhaps not mostly, going to be apparent in the public zone of the classroom. Consider Mi-Young’s experience: she was grappling with the news about having a gay family member and the questions about language use that this gave rise to, but her ESL teacher was never privy to any of this information. So too Pablo: despite his aspirations and frustrations as a gay language learner, he had never come out in a classroom or privately to a teacher. For Helen, it was a momentous decision to recount in front of colleagues her distressing classroom experience because none of them knew she identified as a lesbian, a disclosure she considered professionally risky. Peter did not tell the class why he wanted to change the subject (out of respect to any lesbian and gay people in the classroom); he just changed the subject. So the meaningfulness of classroom talk about the -isms is not necessarily obvious or transparent, but that does not diminish its significance to those involved. Thirdly, the pedagogic focus is on the -isms as interpretive tools. The -isms can be understood as ways of looking at and making sense of real-world power differentials. That is, they are meaning-making systems, analytic tools, interpretive lenses: powerful, useful, and insightful, but contextual, perspectival, and contestable. To put this differently, with regard to social -isms, it is not meanings per se so much as meaning-making processes that ought to be the learning/teaching focus. To this end, the technique of juxtaposition as a clarifying counterpoint (which I made use of in this chapter by presenting contrasting perspectives in order to highlight that they are perspectives) can be useful in the classroom (see Moita-Lopes, 2006). Of course, the -isms are not the only useful tool for understanding patterns of differential power that both infuse and are reframed by communication. Critically examining normativity and (de)normalization processes would be another means of achieving this (see chapter 4 of Nelson 2009,



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which shows how teachers’ contrasting concerns about and conceptions of homophobia, heterosexism and/or heteronormativity lead to contrasting pedagogic approaches). Fourthly, the focus is on learners’ know-how and needs vis-à-vis language and the -isms. Identifying and meeting the real-life communicative needs of learners is crucial: “While mastering the system of the language, students should also appropriate the system to serve their interests on their own terms,” as Canagarajah (2006: 27; italics added) argues. If pedagogy and curricula are not participatory but imposed on students by teachers, by set curricula, or by educational bureaucracies, if students’ interests and experiences are silenced (as we saw with Pablo’s classmate) on a routine basis, or if teachers’ own discomfort with social inequities keeps them from being open to exploring these topics (see Nelson, 2015), then learners are bound to miss out on the language they need to survive and thrive in a complex world riddled with inequities. Indeed, though it is not always recognized, language teachers can learn much about language and the -isms from their students, and students from their classmates, as many learners have had to become quite adept at grappling with transcultural, translingual dilemmas and various types of social discrimination (see Nelson & Appleby, 2015). In sum, the -isms-as-prisms pedagogy that I am envisioning focuses on the -isms as integral to language use; as widely (though not necessarily blatantly) meaningful; as interpretive, contextual and perspectival; and as part of a participatory pedagogy.

Subverting social inequities This chapter has made a case for tackling the social -isms in classroom talk and curricula via what I am here calling an -isms-as-prisms approach. This involves unpacking the interpretive and meaning-making processes and effects associated with social -isms and making these the learning/teaching focus. In the international arena of language programmes, an -isms-as-prisms pedagogy may prove more approachable and less confrontational for those learners and teachers who (like Jo, quoted at the chapter’s opening) would otherwise avoid exploring issues that seem too fraught or contentious. It may also prove more do-able for those who (like Jo’s colleague Paige) are keen to promote social justice but recognize that this is rarely an agreed aim in language programmes. I do not mean to imply that wrestling with -isms discourses in the language classroom is simple or straightforward; on the contrary. Language teaching, as Motha (2014: 25) describes it, “requires knowledge, analytical skills, a talent for deep reflection, and an ability to connect the events within classroom walls to the

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larger socio-historical context of our world”. But crucially, the point of connecting with larger contexts should not, in my view, be to advance social equity per se by persuading or pressing students to adopt a particular position or viewpoint, but rather to advance students’ communicative capacities. This includes honing their ability to analyse how inequities operate in and through language, and to create and negotiate viable alternatives (see Nelson, 2016). Though some might consider the latter task to be less ambitious, less overtly political or less politically progressive than the former, I would argue that, on the contrary, facilitating students’ language know-how and communicative agency in accordance with their own agendas and desires is actually more profoundly subversive to entrenched systems of inequity. This worthy task can be made more do-able with some practical conceptual tools, which is what I have offered here.

References Appleby, R.A. 2010. ELT, gender and international development: Myths of progress in a neocolonial world. Bristol: Multilingual Matters. Bernstein, B. 1971. On the classification and framing of educational knowledge. In M.F.D. Young (ed.), Knowledge and control, 47–69. London: Collier-Macmillan. Blommaert, J., J. Collins & S. Slembrouck. 2005. Spaces of multilingualism. Language and Communication 25(3). 197–216. Canagarajah, A.S. 2002. A geopolitics of academic writing. Pittsburgh, PA: University of Pittsburgh Press. Canagarajah, A.S. 2006. TESOL at forty: What are the issues? TESOL Quarterly 40(1). 9–34. Cherryholmes, C.H. 1993. Reading research. Journal of Curriculum Studies 25(1). 1–32. Fujimoto, D. 2010. Stories through perceptual frames. In A. Curtis & M. Romney (eds.), Color, race, and English language teaching: Shades of meaning, 37–48. New York: Routledge. Gee, J.P. 1990. Social linguistics and literacies: Ideology in discourses. Bristol, PA: Falmer Press. Hammersley, M. 1993. On practitioner ethnography. In M. Hammersley (ed.), Controversies in classroom research (2nd ed.), 246–265. Buckingham: Open University Press. Kubota, R. 2014. ‘We must look at both sides’ – but a denial of genocide too?: Difficult moments on controversial issues in the classroom. Critical Inquiry in Language Studies 11(4). 225–251. Kubota, R. & A. Lin (eds.). 2009. Race, culture, and identities in second language education: Exploring critically engaged practice. New York: Routledge. Kumashiro, K.K. 2002. Troubling education: Queer activism and antioppressive pedagogy. New York: Routledge Farmer. Lemke, J.L. 1985. Using language in the classroom. Geelong: Deakin University Press. Luk, J.C.M. & A.M.Y. Lin. 2007. Classroom interactions as cross-cultural encounters: Native speakers in EFL lessons. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.



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Moita-Lopes, L.P. 2006. Queering literacy teaching: Analyzing gay-themed discourses in a fifth-grade class in Brazil. Journal of Language, Identity, and Education 5(1). 31–50. Morgan, B. 1997. Identity and intonation: Linking dynamic processes in an ESL classroom. TESOL Quarterly 31(3). 431–450. Motha, S. 2014. Race, empire, and English language teaching: Creating responsible and ethical anti-racist practice. New York: Teachers College Press. Nelson, C.D. 2004. Beyond straight grammar: Using lesbian/gay themes to explore cultural meanings. In B. Norton & A. Pavlenko (eds.), Gender and English language learners, 15–28. Alexandria, VA: TESOL. Nelson, C.D. 2009. Sexual identities in English language education: Classroom conversations. New York: Routledge. Nelson, C.D. 2010. A gay immigrant student’s perspective: Unspeakable acts in the language class. TESOL Quarterly 44(3). 441–464. Nelson, C.D. 2015. LGBT content: Why teachers fear it, why learners like it. Language Issues 26(1). 6–12. Nelson, C.D. 2016. Cultivating teacher creativity via narrative inquiry. In R.H. Jones & J.C. Richards (eds.), Creativity in language teaching: Perspectives from research and practice, 241–255. London: Routledge. Nelson, C.D. & R. Appleby. 2015. Conflict, militarization, and their after-effects: Key challenges for TESOL. TESOL Quarterly 49(2). 309–332. Nunan, D. 1992. Research methods in language learning. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Ramanathan, V. 2005. Some impossibilities around researcher location: Tensions around divergent audiences, languages, social stratifications. Journal of Language, Identity, and Education 4(4). 293–296. van Lier, L. 1996. Interaction in the language curriculum: Awareness, autonomy and authenticity. London: Longman. Watson-Gegeo, K.A. 1988. Ethnography in ESL: Defining the essentials. TESOL Quarterly 22(4). 575–592. Winans, A. E. 2006. Queering pedagogy in the English classroom: Engaging with the places where thinking stops. Pedagogy: Critical Approaches to Teaching Literature, Language, Composition, and Culture 6(1). 103–122.

Karin Zotzmann

2 Intersectionality from a critical realist perspective: A case study of Mexican teachers of English Introduction The present contribution examines how different forms of oppression and privilege can interact in different subject positions in language teaching and learning and how we can theoretically conceptualize such intersectionality (Crenshaw, 1991). The study builds upon one of the first publications that discussed the fruitfulness of the concept of intersectionality for Applied Linguistics (Block & Corona, 2014) but goes beyond the argument of these authors by adopting a Critical Realist (henceforth CR) perspective (Martinez, Martin & Marlow, 2014). The empirical data used in this paper comes from interviews with eight Mexican teachers of English who work in different regions of the country either in public or private universities. The participants were asked whether the social and communicative reality depicted in the textbook they use reflected the reality of their students and – if there were significant mismatches that generated problems in the classroom – whether and how they respond pedagogically. I decided to focus on textbooks in the interviews as they are often the central source of material used in language classes and can affect “significantly students’ attitudes and dispositions towards themselves, other people and society” (N’dura, 2004: 143). Teachers who work with students from lower income families reported significant mismatches between the realities depicted in textbooks and learners’ realities. They expressed concerns about the potential effects the disproportionate number of representations of native speakers of English might have on their students, as well as the consumerist, globalist, post-colonial and class-based nature of some of the representations and contents. In contrast, the teachers who dealt with students from more affluent backgrounds seemed less concerned, as they saw their students’ lifestyle more in line with the reality represented in the respective textbook. As socio-economic classes in Mexico are largely segregated through the public-private divide, it is not surprising that only one teacher had students from decidedly different socio-economic background in her class. She describes an even more complex balancing act between adapting, localizing and resisting the respective content. DOI 10.1515/9781501503085-003



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The chapter begins with a brief historical overview of the conceptual development of intersectionality following McCall’s (2005) division of this area of research into “intra-categorical”, “anti-categorical” and “inter-categorical” perspectives. After discussing these approaches, I provide a justification for the adoption of a Critical Realist perspective (Martinez, Martin & Marlow, 2014). The main body of the chapter presents the interview analysis, followed by a discussion of how the findings can inform research on teaching and learning languages at the nexus of global and local processes and structures that result in intersecting forces of oppression and privilege.

Perspectives on intersectionality Intersectionality began to be theorized and investigated in the 1980s when black feminists raised awareness that the social movements of the 1960s and 1970s – despite their invaluable contributions to greater social justice  – did not fully do justice to the inherent diversity and living reality of the social groups they aimed to represent. The African-American Civil Rights Movement in the US, for instance, mainly advanced the interests of black men, while the feminist movement was heavily shaped by the interests of white middle-class women. Black working-class women did not seem to fit into either of these groups, although their lives and chances in life were affected by being labelled with several identity categories (Crenshaw, 1991). As Martinez, Martin & Marlow (2014: 452) describe it, work on intersectionality … served to complicate essentialist notions of womanhood espoused by second wave feminism through challenging the assumption that categories such as “woman” or “black” affect everyone within their bounds in a similar manner, whilst taking the assumed stability of those boundaries to task.

Approaches to the study of intersectionality thus share a common interest in the interplay between different forms of discrimination based on exclusionary social categories, such as race, class and gender. They differ greatly, though, in terms of the ontological and epistemological perspectives they adopt. Earlier work on intersectionality, for instance, was strongly influenced by positivism; it assumed that discrete social groups simply exist and that their effects accumulate in particular sections of society and individuals. Being a “woman”, for instance, and being “black” and being “unemployed” was understood to mean that disadvantages accumulated in this subject position resulted in multiple forms of

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marginalization. Research from this “intra-categorical” perspective consequently focused on “social groups at neglected points of intersection” (Martinez, Martin & Marlow, 2014: 453), often through quantitative research. At the same time though, this research could not really account for the complexity of lived experiences. Being influenced by hermeneutics, phenomenology, postmodern or poststructuralist reasoning, more recent “anti-categorical” perspectives on intersectionality attempt to capture how people experience the complexity and context-dependency of marginalization, how they interpret the world (e.g., through narrative research), and how they negotiate their identities. Social categories are regarded, from these standpoints, as socially constructed and discursively mediated, i.e. they do not pre-exist interaction but emerge in and through communication when made relevant by the participants. Using categories is regarded as ethically problematic as they are always reductionist and defy complexity. Authors writing from an anti-categorical position therefore regard deconstruction as the key to greater social justice. “Inter-categorical” approaches, in contrast, do not share this “great skepticism about the possibility of using categories in anything but a simplistic way” (McGall, 2005: 1773). While it is accepted that social categories do not refer to stable essences of particular people the need to name social groups in order to address existing inequalities is acknowledged. The use of social categories thus becomes a strategic and political choice. As my argument is more academic than political I will not deal with inter-categorical approaches in greater depth but will focus instead on the limitations of both the intra- and the anti-categorical perspective. The intra-categorical perspective has been rightly criticized by authors writing from an anti-categorical perspective, as it perpetuates static and essentialising views of allegedly discrete social categories as sources of marginalization. The anti-categorical standpoint however is not without problems itself. Martinez, Martin & Marlow (2014: 454) describe the … tendency of anti-categorical intersectionality theorists to focus ever more closely on the meaning-making processes of the individual [which] reflects the methodological restriction imposed through this tradition. Within anti-categorical discourse, notions of positionality or structural discrimination are often collapsed into the concept of “identity”.

In their attempt to avoid suppressing difference, authors who write from an anti-categorical and hence anti-essentialist perspective have turned away from durable social structures to micro-interpersonal communication, identity construction and meaning-making practices. Sayer (1999b: 34) describes this theoretical perspective as “interpretivism”, designating a “tendency to reduce social



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life wholly to the level of meaning, ignoring material change and what happens to people, regardless of their understandings”. While an interpretative understanding is important and necessary, we also need to engage in depth with the social and material reality that surrounds any form of identity construction and meaning making. In other words, in order to account for oppression – and privilege – we need an account of causality without assuming fixed characteristics or “essences” of groups, and it is here where CR becomes relevant. CR is a philosophical meta-theory that was developed in the 1980s by Roy Bhaskar (1979, 1986, 1998) in order to overcome the deficiencies of both positivism and postmodernism. It has since been further refined and used by a large number of investigators in a variety of disciplines and areas of research (see for instance the work by Margaret Archer 1995, 1996, 2003, and Andrew Sayer 1997a, 2000). One of the strengths of CR is that it attempts to explain causation in social life, a focus it shares with positivism, but also acknowledges that our conceptual framework is socially constructed and hence fallible – an emphasis it shares with postmodernism. Bhaskar departed from a “stratified ontology”, i.e. he assumed that the social world consists of different elements with their own distinctive properties and powers, such as material objects and structures, discourses, social practices, individual agency, identities and language. These powers exist, i.e. they are “real”, but can be dormant or inactive, similar to a machine that might be turned on or off but generally has the potential to cause something to happen. Powers thus need to be activated – in CR terminology, they become “actual” – in order to have empirical effects. In contrast to the world of mechanics, though, the social world is an “open system” where different layers of social reality intersect in concrete situations in contingent ways. Social powers thus do not determine outcomes and therefore do not necessarily have to display regularity (Archer, 1995: 165). This view of causality is decidedly different from positivism, which assumes that causality can be directly inferred from what is empirically available. It is also diametrically opposed to postmodernism which refuses theories of causality altogether as “grand narratives” and instead focuses on the changing discursive patterns of how we construct identities and meaning. In both these cases, “the unsaid, the unknown, the absent and what may lie in potential” is, according to Martinez, Martin & Marlow (2014: 456), not addressed: Positivists aim to explain the causal forces behind what is empirically present, and postmodernists refrain from theorizing about what is absent at the discursive level. The same authors provide an example of how important it is to take into account causally effective factors that bear little traces on the empirical-discursive plane:

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… an institution or organization may have an implicit culture of sexism and racism in relation to career progression and the allocation of financial rewards, yet these mechanisms may not be perceived by those benefiting from them, and unacknowledged by those perpetuating them. However, the transfactuality [i.e. the absence at the empirical level] of mechanisms of privilege and discrimination means that they operate whether or not they are acknowledged to exist. It also explains why, within the same organisation, individual women and people of colour might advance, but the demographic composition of the management structure remains predominantly white and male. Though the overall tendency of the structure is governed by the dominant mechanisms of sexism and racism, discriminatory mechanisms may not be actualized in all cases, and other mechanisms  – say, a corporate call for diversity or an equal opportunities policy – may potentially provide some countervailing forces (Martinez, Martin & Marlow, 2014: 457).

CR looks at what is empirically available as a potential indicator of underlying mechanisms and other “transfactual” powers that might not surface on the empirical level. As powers do not determine outcomes, the task for CR researchers is to come to an adequate theorization about the interplay of causal mechanisms (including actors’ understandings and rationales for action) and the contexts in which they operate (Pawson, 1996; Smith & Eiger, 2014). The idea of “transfactuality” has great potential for the theory of intersectionality, as Martinez, Martin & Marlow (2014: 456) argue, because it can help us to understand the “ways in which individuals may be subject to oppression by certain mechanisms whilst benefiting from privilege because of others”. Privilege is generally under-researched because it does not always surface on the empirical or discursive level. This is partly due to the fact that those who benefit from privileges are not always aware of how beneficial their position is relative to others. This, in turn, is caused by the fact that privilege is largely constituted by the absence of obstacles as a result of belonging to a particular dominant group. It is for the same reason that privileged people often attribute their success in life to their own agency, thus not recognizing the structural preconditions that provided the opportunities for them to become successful. As Goodman (2011: 23) puts it, they tend to see themselves … as individuals, not as part of a group that has social power and privilege. While members of other social groups may be lumped together, obliterating individual and intragroup differences, people from privileged groups tend to see themselves as unique individuals who succeed or fail based on their own merit.

Like the research on intersectionality, research in Applied Linguistics has also been largely silent on privileges. The exploratory study I report on in this chapter attempts to fill this gap by examining how different forms of oppression and privilege can interact in language teaching and learning at the same time. Follow-



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ing a CR perspective, I do not treat the interviews as simply a “play of varied narratives” (Smith & Elger, 2014: 114) but as providing potential insights into the “social contexts, constraints, and resources within which those informants act”.

Interview analysis The analysis that follows is grouped according to topic areas that teachers identified as problematic in their local contexts; it does not constitute an evaluation of the respective textbook they use referred to. These topic areas included tourism and leisure activities, transportation, urban and rural spaces (including agriculture), occupations, media and consumption. Some of these were discussed by several teachers, as they appeared in different textbooks (e.g., transportation), others occurred only once in the interviews (e.g., agriculture). At the beginning of the conversation, I invited the participants to reflect upon the geographical origin of the textbook personae. Most of the interviewees had noticed a disproportionate number of speakers whose first language was English and few or no proficient speakers from other places, such as Mexico or other developing countries. Ofelia (from a city in the south of Mexico) identified a potentially negative impact on her students as they are confronted with an unattainable image of proficient native speakers and a concomitant implicit image of themselves as deficient learners and users of the language: If we see it [English] as a means of communication, […] as a lingua franca, I think that students would feel much more empowered and they will be more … they will have less problems at the emotional level and will be less blocked in their learning process.

What Ofelia refers to here is a form of “native-speakerism” or the idea that language learners or users should behave linguistically and culturally like native speakers of English – however “native speaker” might be defined. Many authors who argue against “native speaker” ideals and norms hold that most communication in English nowadays occurs between non-native speakers (NNSs) in international contexts rather than between native speakers (NSs) and NNSs (Jenkins, 2006; Cogo, 2012; Shomoossi, 2008; Graddol, 1997; McKay, 2003). Therefore, there is no need to speak an alleged standard variety of English, to comply with particular “native speaker norms”, or to be able to draw on specific socio-cultural knowledge associated with Anglophone countries. I fully agree with Rivers’ (this volume) anti-categorical argument that terms like ‘native speaker’ or ‘non-native speaker’ are social constructs which homogenize groups of people according to a single category. They are reductionist and

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thus cannot do justice to the complexity of how people are categorized  – and potentially marginalized  – in real world communication. The point I want to make here is different, though, and informed by CRs acknowledgement of the effects of durable and causally effective elements of the social: There seemed to be a conflict between what teachers perceived to be good pedagogic practice and the constraints of durable social structures and practices. Several teachers identified, for example, the large number of apparently native speakers in textbooks as a problem, but did not, at first, seem to adhere to alleged native speaker norms in class as predicted by the researchers quoted above: I myself do not have an English or a US American accent because I am Mexican. So this is the same for my students, right? Now in relation to standard, I am not sure what “standard” refers to […], it depends on what they [the students] wish. […] Everyone has their own accent, depending on the area or place. So it ultimately depends on them. For me it is important that they are able to make themselves understood … (Fernanda, Centre of Mexico)

While all other interviewees shared Fernanda’s emphasis on intelligibility as the goal of their teaching, some of them pointed out that this cannot be easily transferred into pedagogic practice. One reason is that English in Mexico is generally not perceived as being neutral, natural and beneficial (Pennycook, 1994). It is almost unavoidably associated with the neighboring US whose linguistic and cultural influence is all-pervasive in everyday life in Mexico. For Natalia this definitely causes a dilemma. She works in the South of Mexico in a tourist destination that is mostly frequented by US Americans and Canadians. While she herself aims for intelligibility in her students, she also admits that the “hospitality sector in X is very conservative, as probably in other places, too”. Previous students of hers have been discriminated against by employers who prefer their workers to have a US American accent. “So what do I do?” she asks, “Do I prepare them to face a reality that is cruel or do I try to modify this cruel reality so that one day this discrimination on the basis of accents won’t occur anymore? But the truth of the matter is it [discrimination] exists”. Another structural factor that teachers had to take into account was that the opportunities for communication in English among their Mexican students were very unequally distributed. Access depends on whether students live in urban or rural areas, or areas of interest for tourists. Fernanda’s students at a public university in a large city located two hours away from Mexico City have a limited chance to interact with international students through a recently established academic mobility programme, otherwise opportunities are very restricted: “Some might have the occasional contact during the holiday season or maybe if they go into the centre [of the city] and get to know a tourist [laughter].” Even though proficiency in English has become an essential requirement for almost any form



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of employment, well-paid jobs are associated with US-American or multinational companies. These jobs are, however, accessible to only a few. Miguel’s students, for example, are quite privileged as they work as professionals in multinational companies in the capital, have a clear professional purpose for improving their English, and are in contact with speakers whose first language is English. The situation is different for Amelia’s students at an expensive private university in the same city where Fernanda works. Although her students enjoy small classes, well-prepared teachers and many resources, the additional value English adds to the profile of these privileged students depends on the respective degree programme they are enrolled in. As Amelia explains, only students of business-related disciplines have a realistic chance of being employed by a multinational company, whereas students from the humanities and social sciences (psychology, communication, education, nutrition etc.) will in all likelihood remain in the local labor market and not use English; neither professionally nor in their private lives. Nevertheless, all students at this university have to pass a high stakes English proficiency test in order to be able to graduate. Samuel finds units on ‘dream’ professions or jobs difficult to deal with, as in his context – a small touristic island in the South – there are very few available options to choose from. Students either aim to work in the tourism industry or they become teachers of English. As Ofelia, who works at the same public university, explains, “students do not even need to graduate; the simple fact that they know English will get them a job”. English here is closely connected to a certain, albeit relatively low, level of privilege. As Samuel’s and Ofelia’s students do not come from the middle-class background internationally produced and distributed textbooks assume students to have, they adapt the content of these units to the social reality of their students, and talk about professions they know and are relevant or interesting to them. The reality of these students also stands in stark contrast to another apparently highly popular topic among textbook writers: travel and tourism. In most cases, textbooks contain a unit on international travel and holiday destinations where textbook personas, usually from developed countries, are depicted in leisure activities, travelling or interacting with local workers and employees in service encounters. Natalia seemed amazed that in textbooks “everybody travels … unit three: “the holiday” and then they plan it, organize it and off they go to … Phuket [Thailand]”. She explains that in her area, a mainland tourist destination in the South of Mexico, the majority of learners has never boarded a plane and hence cannot say much about the experience and choices they would hypothetically make. Even for Miguel’s rather privileged students in the capital, a text on “Travel to the Amazon rainforest” causes problems. He emptied it of its specific

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content and reverted to the teaching of grammar and vocabulary “because there was no other way to deal with this topic”. In Samuel’s and Ofelia’s case, many of their students have not even left the island – and only a few have visited the capital – primarily due to a lack of socio-economic resources. If they travel, they visit family members who live in sometimes very small and marginalized communities, and they often help them in the house or on the farm. As Ofelia puts it, “this idea of travelling is very different from holidaying”. In response to my question of how she deals with units entitled: “You need a holiday: 50 places to go” or “The world’s most amazing hotels” she says “It is almost offensive, is it not?” She works with these units in order to enhance geographical knowledge: “So whenever they are in a situation where somebody talks about these places, they know at least where it is”. Samuel’s and Ofelia’s students, as well as Flor’s, Leticia’s and Natalia’s, might not engage in international travel, but they will work mainly in tourist-related jobs where they use English to serve globally mobile, affluent tourists mostly from the US, Canada or Europe, and who can afford to travel, eat out, and be entertained. As Samuel describes it, “it is not the same to be visitor than to be host”. Massey (1991: 26) sheds light on these often overlooked power relations in claims to “global mobility” or “global flows and interconnections”: Now I want to make one simple point here, and that is about what one might call the power geometry of it all; the power geometry of time-space compression. For different social groups, and different individuals, are placed in very distinct ways in relation to these flows and interconnections. This point concerns not merely the issue of who moves and who doesn’t, although that is an important element of it; it is also about power in relation to the flows and the movement. Different social groups have distinct relationships to this anyway differentiated mobility: some people are more in charge of it than others; some initiate flows and movement, others don’t; some are more on the receiving-end of it than others; some are effectively imprisoned by it.

Claims that we live in a “global village” (Ehrenreich, 2011) or that “globalization is the process by which the world has become/is becoming more interconnected, where relations across local, regional and global contexts become more enmeshed, where flows of language, culture and people are intensified and accelerated” (Jenkins, Cogo & Dewey, 2011: 303) are illuminating only for particular sections of society. In the case of Mexico, and this probably applies equally to many other developing or developed countries, access to international travel, education and high levels of consumption are not only limited for the majority of people but actually shrinking. As Samuel puts it succinctly, there is a difference between “global culture from an insider perspective” or “global culture from an outsider perspective”:



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Yes, it [globalization] is happening but I am not sure that it is happening with my consent. If I am really accepting it or if it is inevitable […]. It is something that is invading, invading my identity, my behavior, my way of behaving and that is happening in some form or another without my consent.

These power relations translate, as Samuel puts it, into an often stereotypical portrayal of Latin Americans as the ‘exotic other’ in textbooks: “as being emotional, as the one who shouts, who dances, who hugs, who talks with you at almost only one centimeter distance to your face”. It also translates into the distribution of public and private spaces, as Ofelia observes: Here on the island students live from tourism. But I have noticed that there is a particular tension. For example there is … the entire island is designed for foreigners. [On the seafront] there is a new shopping mall called [X]. I once asked them to conduct a small ethnographic study about public spaces where people of all classes, ages, and nationalities mix and asked them: Why not the shopping mall X? “No”, they said, “this space is not for us. This space is for the tourists.” So they themselves know; they themselves know that there are spaces that are for other people, who normally are English speakers.

Out of all teachers, only Amelia, who works at a private university in the centre of the country (but not in the capital), could verify that her students are used to air travel and holidaying, albeit not all of them. Topics like these are therefore, according to her, … complicated. The majority of students at the university [X] have experiences with this type of travel. So they can talk about it. But not all of them. Because then you have three students in your class who have a grant from the foundation [X] [a religious foundation that gives grants to indigenous students who excelled in previous educational levels] who come from the mountainous region and who have never before left their town, let alone the federal state and have not yet seen the capital.

In response to my question about what she does in these cases, Amalia explains that she broadens the topic to other means of transport so that everyone in her class can contribute. She continues to elaborate on the difficulties of having a small number of students from rural indigenous communities in her class which is otherwise populated by students from middle- or upper-class urban backgrounds: The unit that deals with big cities and urban architecture again causes problems because the few students in her class at the private university have seen few or no contemporary tall buildings. In order to be more inclusive she extends the range of buildings to historic monuments. While the students from an affluent background thus talked about the Empire State and similar skyscrapers in

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and outside of Mexico, the less-travelled, she reports, could at least describe the pyramids of their region. Amelia also addresses the issue that students from poor indigenous backgrounds are often discriminated against by urban well-off students, which in turn makes the former withdraw and become silent. This needs to be understood in the context of a postcolonial country that is also highly stratified in economic terms with a GINI index of 47.2 per cent (Wilson & Silva, 2013). Identity markers (ethnicity and race) intersect clearly with socio-economic marginalization, and as a result the numbers of speakers of the 68 indigenous languages that currently remain and are spoken in Mexico (INALI, 2008) are in rapid decline. Their languages are commonly referred to by other Mexicans as ‘dialects’, a term that denies them equal recognition to Spanish or English, both languages of empires and colonization. Despagne (2010: 58) points to the decidedly different economic, cultural and linguistic contexts that co-exist: The ethno linguistic reality of a Mexican indigenous family and how they perceive the English language will be quite different from that of an affluent Mexican family. Although both families live in the same country, they live in totally different and opposing realities.

Amelia, for instance, also struggles with a chapter on agriculture and the shortage of food for the poor. Her textbook represents the case of successful food production in a poor African country, Malawi. Even though there are many differences between Malawi and Mexico, one would expect that this topic generate interest in students, as in both countries the situation the rural population lives in is dismal. In the case of Mexico, life in rural areas has always been difficult, but it has become worse since the beginning of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) in 1994 that opened up the local market to the more industrialised, subsidized and protected competitors from the US. Today 70 per cent of corn, the most important staple food in Mexico, is imported from the Northern neighbour. As a consequence, rural areas are becoming deserted as farmers migrate to the North, risking their lives in order to cross the fenced border to the US. Amelia, however, explains that the majority of her students at the private university are not interested in or are unaware of agricultural problems. The disconnection between the social realities of different socio-economic groups was too profound: “To be honest, we skipped that topic. This was disconnected from their reality.” She explains that none of her students could satisfactorily respond to the question: “What do we produce in Mexico? What agricultural products do we produce?” The answer was “corn and … coffee. […] That was it. They could not come up with more.” In order to increase students’ knowledge about their own



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country she asked them individually which Mexican state they came from and then invited them to talk about the characteristics of their region. Whereas travel is often associated with distant places that are out of reach for most Mexicans, it is actually urban culture and spaces that pre-dominate English language textbooks. This implicitly presupposes familiarity with a particular kind of modern living, being and acting in specific social and material, including technological, environments. Ofelia’s first answer to my question of whether there are mismatches between her students’ social reality and representations of reality in the textbook she uses was: “Yes, in many ways. […] Much of the content is related to life in cities. Here the options, for example in terms of entertainment, in terms of going to the cinema, listening to music, or travelling are very limited.” Furthermore, Flor bemoans the fact that her students are not familiar with topics like … museums and that kind of thing – they have never visited one. They have never been to one. […] That is how it is. In X [city] there are practically two museums and they are about the world of the Mayas and … they are not introduced to this. The majority of their parents have never read a book.

Nevertheless, she as well as her colleague Leticia, welcome the opportunity to introduce students to major objects of art, music and literature that occur in the textbook she uses. Again, many of the above mentioned topics are remote from students’ everyday practices. As a result, learners become, according to their teachers, disengaged and inattentive. This, however, is not the case for Amelia’s students on the topic of consumption. Coming mostly from a middle- or upper-class background, they can afford a high level of consumption and, as she explains, would unanimously prefer international brands and products to local equivalents, due to the higher status and symbolic value attached to them. She approached the unit on global culture and consumption in her textbook in a critical fashion. In the first instance, she personalized the activity and asked learners to describe their day in terms of products they use – from the time they get up to the time they go to sleep: They said things like: I woke up and turned off my Nokia alarm clock. Then I had a shower with my shampoo Caprice. I put on my cream from the Bodyshop. I brushed my teeth with the toothpaste Crest …

Through a series of activities, she led students to think about the provenance of different brands, the sometimes unethical conditions under which they are produced in developing countries, and the limited return of financial gains multinationals leave in the country of production. “We”, she says, “talked about the big multinational companies and how they dominate the market, how they dominate

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the economic space but also our mental space”. Amelia asked her students about their own practices and choices in the context of political-economic problems in Mexico: the increased consumption of transnational goods at the expense of local products. While large companies from the US and other countries locate their production lines in emerging economies like Mexico where wages, taxes and environmental regulations are at a low level, this rarely results in the expected regional development. The initial inflow of investment capital is usually exceeded by the outflow of earnings and profits back to the parent company (de Rivero, 2001). Global consumption patterns are often promoted in English language textbooks through, for instance, “spectacular personal and professional success, celebrity lifestyles, cosmopolitanism in travel” (Gray, 2010: 87) but also through rather direct promotion of consumer products and icons such as Kentucky Fried Chicken, Starbucks, Coca-Cola, Sony, Levi Strauss, Nike and Nestlé – to name but a few – that occur in the textbooks Ofelia and Samuel use. Both teachers clearly distance themselves from such advertisement. Ofelia points out that teachers can make value-based pedagogical choices: “You decide as teacher to what extent you want to transform it [the content] into an object of critical reflection and to what extent you want to adapt it to your students’ reality.” She adopts the same attitude towards the representation of the prototypical families (middle class, two children, usually one boy and one girl) that stand in stark contrast with the families her students come from on the island: Single mothers as their partners have migrated to the US.

Discussion: Mismatches, pedagogical responses and theoretical implications The present chapter started from the assumption that looking at one form of oppression in isolation is potentially misleading as it homogenizes groups of people according to a single analytical category; an issue feminist theory has struggled with since its inception in the 1960s. The critique of native-speakerism as a form of prejudice or discriminatory practice that currently predominates academic discussions, for instance, suffers from very similar shortcomings to early feminism and leads easily to an association of the position of native speakers with privilege and that of non-native speakers with discrimination, a correlation which does not have to be the case. Instead, the evocation of “the native speaker” or “the non-native speaker” is, like any other social category, context dependent and can interrelate with other forms of disadvantage – and privilege – in varying configurations, multiple dimensions and intensities.



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By drawing upon a CR perspective on intersectionality I showed how different forms of -isms and privilege can interact in real-world language teaching and learning and thus merit theoretical conceptualization. What became apparent in these interviews were the effects of structural impediments or the absence thereof; in other words, the effects of social inequality. All teachers who participated in the study were aware that the representations of people and speakers of English in the textbook they used tended towards white middle-class affluent, mostly native speakers and concomitant socio-cultural knowledge. Those interviewees who work in private universities did not necessarily see this as a problem as their students from more affluent backgrounds could easily relate to topics such as international travel, entertainment and consumption of valuable goods. Affluent students in Mexico, Despagne (2010: 65) argues on the basis of her research, might have reasons to believe … in the benefits of internationalization and globalisation. They also consider English as a lingua franca which helps in international communication. They like buying American or European products because they think their quality is “better” and because of the social status these products represent. They have a passport and often travel to North American or European Center Countries, and usually have good paying jobs …

The social reality represented in the textbook became a problem when there were differences in the socio-economic background among students, i.e. when students from middle- or upper-class and urban backgrounds were mixed with students from poor rural communities. The latter could not draw upon the necessary lifestyle experiences and were – again according to the teacher – discriminated against by their urban peers. The interviewees who worked with students from lower middle- and working-class families fully concurred that the social reality represented in the textbooks puts students from economically marginalized background at a disadvantage and affected them students negatively. As Ofelia describes it for her students: The young people are very vulnerable. They are easily affected by the atmosphere in class and also by the content of the textbook. If they were young people from a different socio-cultural background they probably would be more critical, they could defend themselves more easily. But these young people are, I think, affected by this. Because they see something that they are not, neither physically nor socially. And there is not much chance that they become like that. Because … let alone the geographical mobility, the social mobility in Mexico is zero… If before there was a middle class, this class is now in extinction. This social mobility, especially for young people is almost zero. And I think they know that. It [the social reality they see in the textbooks] is like a fantasy. But again, this is not TV. We are in a [educational] context where we are supposed to grow, cognitively, intellectually, linguistically, and I [as a student] cannot appropriate this because it does not reflect anything of what I am.

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Even though teachers differ in their views, their efforts, and the resources they can draw upon, this particular group of interviewees mediated between the representations in textbooks and the realities of their groups of learners by adapting, changing, personalizing and localizing the content, or by resisting the content and turning it into an object of critical reflection. As Ofelia put it: You can have a text that is, for instance, sexist, and the way you treat it in class is sexist, as well. Or you have a sexist text and the way you deal with it can become an object of reflection. […]. Ultimately, it depends on the teacher …

In Kumaravadivelu’s (2001) terms, they attempt – in varying degrees – to adapt to the particularity of their respective students in the context of practical constraints and opportunities, by taking into account relations of power, dominance, and social inequalities. Raising awareness in language teaching of such differences and the political and economic structures that give rise to them could help, I would argue, to reduce stereotypes, prejudices and feelings of superiority in students, and enhance their empathy and criticality.

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Ehrenreich, S. 2011. The dynamics of English as a Lingua Franca in international business: A language contact perspective. In A. Archibald, A. Cogo, & J. Jenkins (eds.), Latest trends in ELF research, 11–34. Newcastle on Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Press Goodman, D.J. 2011. Promoting diversity and social justice. Educating people from privileged groups. London: Routledge. Graddol, D. 1997. The future of English? London: British Council. Gray, J. 2010. Neoliberalism, celebrity and ‘aspirational content’ in English language teaching textbooks for the global market. In D. Block, J. Gray, & M. Holborow (eds.), Neoliberalism and applied linguistics, 86–113. London: Routledge. Instituto Nacional de Lenguas Indigenas (INALI) 2010. PROGRAMA de revitalización, fortalecimiento y desarrollo de las lenguas indígenas nacionales 2008–2012. http://site. inali.gob.mx/pdf/02_JUL_PINALI-2008-2012.pdf (18 October 2013). Jenkins, J. 2006. Current perspectives on teaching World Englishes and English as a lingua franca. TESOL Quarterly 40(1). 157–181. Jenkins, J., A. Cogo & M. Dewey. 2011. Review of developments in research into English as a lingua franca. Language Teaching 44(3). 281–315. Kumaravadivelu, B. 2001. Toward a postmethod pedagogy. TESOL Quarterly 35(4). 537–560. Martinez, A., L. Martin & S. Marlow. 2014. Developing a Critical Realist positional approach to intersectionality. Journal of Critical Realism 13(5). 447–466. Massey, D. 1991. A global sense of place. Marxism Today 38. 24–29. McCall, L. 2005. The complexity of intersectionality. Signs 30(3). 1771–1800. McKay, S. 2003. Toward an appropriate EIL pedagogy: Reexamining common ELT assumptions. International Journal of Applied Linguistics 13(1). 1–22. Ndura, E. 2004. Cultural bias in ESL textbooks used in the USA: An analysis or through highschool textbooks in the western United States of America. Language Culture and Curriculum 7(2). 143–153. Pawson, R.D. 1996. Theorizing the interview. British Journal of Sociology 47. 296–314. Pennycook, A. 1994. The cultural politics of English as an international language. Harlow: Longman. Sayer, A. 2000. Realism and social science. London: Sage. Sayer, A. 1997a. Critical Realism and the limits to critical social science. Journal for the Theory of Social Behaviour 27(4). 473–488. Sayer, A. 1997b. Essentialism, social constructionism and beyond. The Sociological Review 45(3). 453–486. Shomoossi, N. 2008. Authenticity within the EIL Paradigm. Iranian Journal of Language Studies 2(2). 173–186. Smith, C. & T. Elger 2014. Critical Realism and interviewing subjects. In J. O’Mahoney (ed.), Studying organizations using Critical Realism: A practical guide, 109–131. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Wilson, C. & G. Silva. (2013). Mexico’s Latest Poverty Stats. http://www.wilsoncenter.org/sites/ default/files/Poverty_Statistics_Mexico_2013.pdf (18 October 2013).

Ursula Lanvers

3 Elitism in language learning in the UK Introduction “All education is fundamentally political” (Pennycook, 1989: 590); this dictum may be considered especially salient in the learning and teaching of languages, as they have often been instrumentalised for political purposes, for instance as national unifier, to assert sovereignty or support counter  – terrorism (Broady, 2006; Kramsch, 2005). Historically, language education – like all formal education – was reserved for the elite, i.e. it served predominantly as a vehicle to access high culture, and as an entry condition to higher education (McLelland, 2013; Swarbrick, 2002). Classical languages especially tended to be associated with these rationales, and when modern languages were introduced into the classroom in the late 19th century, their rationales initially followed that of teaching Classics. With widening access to Secondary education came a greater emphasis on vocational rationales, such as languages for business, trade and politics. In UK education policy, this emphasis on skills – for modern languages especially but also generally in education policy – peaked in the 1970s and 80s, in line with a great drive to improve employability through education, and the retention of students in full time education, especially from socially disadvantaged backgrounds (Machin & Vignoles, 2006). Language pedagogues of the time viewed both widening access to language learning, and the focus on vocational purposes, as vehicles towards levelling social and educational divisions (e.g., Mcdowell, 2004; Payne, 2000), in line with pedagogical practices foregrounding skills and communicative competence. Thus, rationales for teaching languages (especially at Secondary school level), as well as actual language education policies, have historically been intrinsically linked to issues of widening participation and equal opportunities. Despite – or perhaps especially because of – the lack of coherent language education policies in the UK over the last three decades (Pachler, 2007), the challenge of trying to understand and interpret UK language policies would be well assisted by considering their social implications, especially regarding widening access and employability. Given the lack of clarity in direction for languages policy, and apparent disjointure between Primary and Secondary language education, interpreting UK language policy presents a particular challenge. Any interpretations of intentionality or underlying rationales of current UK language policies must be corroborated with solid data, such as socio-demographics of language learnDOI 10.1515/9781501503085-004



Elitism in language learning in the UK 

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ing uptake. Therefore, this chapter will be divided into a conceptual and a data section, addressing the following questions: 1.

2.

a. How does current UK language education policy relate to i) rationales for teaching languages ii) UK language needs? b. Which rationales underlie current UK language education policies? Would these rationales favour widening access and comprehensive language learning? What are the effects of UK current language education policy on widening access and social equality in language learning a. at Secondary school level? b. at Higher Education level? c. for the uptake of Latin/Classics in particular?

Part I will first briefly recount actual language policies and subsequent changes in language uptake. The following section will appraise the rationales for teaching languages, and their implications for a socially inclusive, or, conversely, elitist agenda for languages, asking what rationales (if any) can be inferred. In Part II, data is presented i) relating language uptake to school type, including the uptake of Latin in schools, and ii) relating university uptake of languages, and Classics, to measures of widening participation. The conclusion forecasts further implications of current policy and socio-demographic and calls for for a need to reconsider widening rationales of teaching languages.

Part I How does current UK language education policy relate to i) rationales for teaching languages, and ii) UK language needs? UK language education policy UK education policy is devolved to its four constituent nations (England, Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland), each of which has different linguistic contexts and policies (for an overview of nation-specific policy, see Tinsley, 2013). For instance, the study of Welsh is compulsory at lover Secondary level in Wales, while Scotland has committed to the ambitious EU target (European Commission, 2012) of reaching proficiency in two languages, in addition to the mother tongue, by 2020 (Gallagher-Brett et al., 2014). In Northern Ireland and Wales, the study of a foreign language is compulsory from age 11–14, while in England and Scotland,

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 Ursula Lanvers

languages are also compulsory at the upper Primary school (age 7–11) level. Unless otherwise stated, the following section on language uptake and policy reports on England, with references to differences in the other nations where appropriate. Language learning in England was confined to a minority until 1977, when only 10 % of pupils studied a language up to GCE O – level (precursors of GCSE, nationally standardized and accredited tests in a variety of subjects at age 16+) (Hawkins 1981). With the move to comprehensive education and a National Curriculum for all in the 1980s, compulsory languages up to age 16 were introduced in 1988. In 2004, in a general loosening of the National Curriculum, languages were made optional again from age 14+ onwards. Uptake of GCSE languages dropped to 40 % in 2011 (Tinsley and Han, 2012), with subsequent further year-on-year reductions. For 2014, the percentage of GCSE German pupils was at the level of those of 1985, and that of French as low as 1965 (McLelland & Smith, 2014). The teaching of Classics, historically associated with both elitist private education and the rationale of accessing “high culture” (Mitchell, 2003), has been in steady decline since the second half of the 20th century. However, Latin has seen a small revival in English state schools since the 2000s, as a result of a significant Government investment. As Latin seems to somewhat buck the trend of language learning decline generally, and more specifically that in state schools, the case of Latin will be considered specifically, at both Secondary and Tertiary level, in the data section below. In sum, language teaching is now only compulsory at upper primary (Key Stage 2: age 7–11, KS2), and lower secondary Key Stage 3 (age 11–14, KS3) school level in England. Individual schools can choose to make languages compulsory up to age 16, and a minority of state schools do – currently, only 18 % of state, compared to 76 % of private schools, have a policy of compulsory languages up to age 16 (Conversation, 2015) – but systemic conditions militate against this: schools” achievements are measured in “league tables” compiled of overall school GCSE results. As good grades in a language have been persistently 0.5 times harder to achieve than in other GCSE subjects (Coleman, 2013), removing the requirement to take a language GCSE can significantly improve a schools league table position. Generally, the quest to improve education standards in the 2000s has seen an increasing variety of school types working outside the National Curriculum (“Academies” and “Free Schools”) (Morris, 2015). This move towards self-governing schools was introduced to improve school provision in areas of social deprivation (Higham, 2014). So far, however, especially concerning Academies, these aims are unrealized largely because these schools are free to choose their admissions, unlike comprehensive schools, whose cohorts typically represent a wider social mix (Gorard, 2014). Both scholarly articles (Foreman-Peck 2007; Lanvers &



Elitism in language learning in the UK 

 53

Coleman, 2013) and Government-commissioned reports (Tinsley & Board, 2013; Tinsley, 2013; Tinsley & Han, 2012) on the topic reveal – – –

a continuous decline in the uptake of language learning over the last decade (for all modern languages except Spanish); a detrimental effect of the language skills gap on the economy; a plethora of initiatives instigated to address the decline (e.g. the Government-funded university consortium “Routes into Languages”, the All Party Parliamentary Group on Modern Languages, British Academy).

Rationales for languages The history of educationalists debating justifications for (compulsory) language teaching reveals a tension between arguments that foreground individual development and personal enrichment, or, conversely, functional use and societal benefits. For a conceptual contribution on languages in the curriculum, Mitchell’s (2003) seminal article offers the most comprehensive discussion of such rationales. In brief, rationales for languages in the curriculum span across six dimensions: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6.

as vehicle of high culture, as intellectual cognitive discipline including developing language awareness, as tool for practical communication (instrumental, vocational, Higher Education), as means for personal self development and self expression, as tool for exploring contemporary cultures and to develop intercultural communication, as tools for political projects (e.g. European integration) (Mitchell, 2003)

which can be plotted (permitting some overlaps) on a continuum from functional use to personal enrichment use as follows: Table 1: Functional versus personal enrichment rationales for languages Functional use professional use ­political projects

Personal enrichment

⇔ cognitive discipline linguistic awareness

exploring ­cultures ­intercultural ­communication

self-development vehicle for high culture

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 Ursula Lanvers

Situating these rationales along a continuum of functional use versus personal enrichment enables a critical appraisal of the perceived need for, and justification of, comprehensive versus elitist education: the more functional the rationales, and the more functional language uses are deemed to be needed for the many rather than few, the better they justify a comprehensive language education policy, with a promise of “monetary return on (educational) investment”. Conversely, personal enrichment rationales, with the dual uncertainty of a) “measuring” such benefits b) deciding what percentage of the population could or should benefit from these, for maximum overall benefit, complicate the issue of justifying such educational investments considerably. Similarly, many rationales encompassing some personal benefits as well as some functional use, such as fostering intercultural communication, cognitive development, and fostering linguistic awareness, evoke evoke similar problems of justifying educational investment. In the UK context, however, the difficulties of a cost-benefit analysis of language education policies, for all rationales but the most functional ones, pale somewhat into insignificance when considering the evidence for precisely the need for languages for functional use, which is discussed in the next section.

UK multilingualism and language needs The UK lives in the paradox of “tremendous linguistic diversity combined with widespread and pronounced English monolingualism” (Demont-Heinrich, 2007: 114). There is no precise data on how many people speak different languages in the UK, but an estimated 17.5 % of Primary and 12.9 % of Secondary school children speak mother tongues other than English (DfE, 2011), the most common ones being Polish, languages of the Indian subcontinent, Chinese, Arabic, and Portuguese (British Council, 2013). UK pupils with English as a second language typically come from below-average socio-economic backgrounds (Campbell & McLean, 2002; Hickman, Crowley & Mai, 2008). Community languages are rarely studied formally, and there are no full degree courses for the most widely spoken community languages, although paradoxically, high literacy skills in these languages would be highly advantageous for professional advancement (McPake & Sachdev, 2008). Meanwhile, language competencies developed though school learning in the UK are the poorest of all EU countries (bar, in some statistics, Ireland) (British Council, 2013; European Commission, 2012). The lack of language skills is claimed to damage the UK’s export performance (British Chamber of Commerce, 2012). To address the gap between supply and demand of language skills, the Government has commissioned a remarkable number of reports and investiga-



Elitism in language learning in the UK 

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tions into the state of language learning the last two decades. Specifically, the following two reports address the issue of language needs: Languages: State of the Nation: demand and supply of language skills in the UK (Tinsley, 2013) and Languages for the Future: which languages the UK needs and why (Tinsley & Board, 2013). The following two investigations review language teaching provision: Languages Review (2007) and Nuffield Languages Inquiry (Languages: the next generation, 2000). The reports strongly focus on the functional rationale of professional (business and trade) language use, not only to the detriment of personal enrichment rationales, but also overlooking functional benefits of a more collective nature, such as fostering social cohesion in modern multicultural and multilingual Britain, or European integration. Similarly, the recent Languages for the Future report (British Council, 2013) concludes that the UK needs to develop its citizens” language competencies by offering a wider range of languages to be learned to a higher competency level “in order to reap the economic and cultural benefits available to those who have these skills” (p. 3, emphasis by author); a wording that reveals how language skills -and reaping the benefits that come with them- are not considered for all. The Achilles heel of the “trade and business” rationale comes in the form of Global English, referred to in the Languages for the Future (Tinsley & Board, 2013), as balancing factors, negating the need for language skills if the UK trades with countries with high English proficiency, notably Germany, the Netherlands and other Northern European countries. We shall return to the implications of this argument in the conclusion. The Languages Review (2007) and Nufflield Language Inquiry (2000) refer to investigations into the teaching of languages refer to wider sets of rationales. For instance, the Languages Review (2007: 17) suggests to differentiate between personal, vocational and specialist rationales for language learning at KS4 and calls for a “National Languages strategy [providing] a long term framework which is still in development at all three Key Stages based on a new rationale for language learning in an English speaking society”. This report urges to provide more stimulating topics for discussions “about subjects that are of concern and interest to young people” (p.39). Similarly, the Nuffield Languages Inquiry (2000: 7), despite its overall emphasis on economic rationales for languages, specifically refers to the societal contribution of modern languages (MFL) to foster intercultural tolerance and social cohesion. To summarize, the Governmental rationales for introducing compulsory languages up to GCSE placed emphasis on functional use (DES, 1987), aligned with broader educational principles that underpinned the comprehensive education movement from 1960s onwards, and the communicative approach in language teaching. Since then, the Government abolished compulsory languages up to age

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16 in 2004, and, within the space of one year, introduced compulsory Primary languages, underlining the lack of direction or clear rationales for language education. The fate of the English Baccalaureate (EBacc) (English Baccaluareate, 2015) might exemplify the continuing lack of direction: the EBacc, first applied in 2010, designed to measure good achievement in five key subjects at GCSE, initially did include a compulsory language, which was replaced, a year later, with the option of including two sciences instead of a language. More recently, the Government re-introduced a language as compulsory part of the EBacc qualification (the Conversation 2015).

Which rationales underlie current UK language education policies? Would these rationales favour widening access and comprehensive language learning? The Government declares itself committed to evidence-base education policy, a principle hard to retrace in current language policy. For instance, language education researchers have been arguing for some time now that curriculum teaching approaches to grammar, are not based on research evidence (Mitchell, 2000). Generally, policy makers’ beliefs about language learning often differ from research evidence (Lightbown, 2000), so in this sense, language policies may not constitute an exception, were it were it not for the frequent changes outlined above. One relatively constant trend in these fluctuations, however, is a gradual erosion of comprehensive language education for ages 14+, suggesting that  – whatever the Government’s precise rationales for language education – advanced language skills are deemed beneficial for the few, not the many. Both Government-commissioned and independent academic reports stress the functional rationales and economic benefits of languages, which might offer a coherent rationale for comprehensive language. In contrast, independent inquiries tend to cite more holistic rationales such as personal and societal benefits. In the absence of clear rationales, a look at recent changes in the languages curriculum for England (New Curriculum, 2013) might help. The New Curriculum starts with the preamble “Learning a foreign language is a liberation from insularity and provides an opening to other cultures” (New Curriculum, 2013). Subsequent aims and attainment target clearly focus on communicative skills,



Elitism in language learning in the UK 

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fluency and accuracy. For instance, the new KS2 curriculum focuses on practical communication. Regarding Classics, it adds: “If an ancient language is chosen, the focus will be to provide a linguistic foundation for reading comprehension and an appreciation of classical civilisation.” (New Curriculum, 2013). For KS3, the changes include ending curriculum levels – in an effort to move from assessment-driven teaching-, an emphasis on translation, transliteration and writing in English generally, and a de-emphasis on cultural knowledge. The new GCSE in MFL for KS4 (Association for Language Learning, 2015) puts greater emphasis on studying literary texts, translation, English skills, as well as the cultures of the target languages. Similarly, for A  – level, the need to engage critically with literature has been introduced, and, for A – level Classics, new content focuses on literature, history and culture. Although the above changes do not easily align with any one specific rationale for languages, two aspects stand out, namely the emphasis on using languages to teach English literacy skills, in particular at lower levels, and a greater emphasis on literature and accuracy, at KS4 and A – level. The absence of a language specific rationale is striking: languages are considered an opportunity to push English skills, deemed important for employability, for all students. The second emphasis relates to rationales traditionally reserved for the educated elite and targets upper school levels only, where language learning has become optional. Part II will show in detail the pervasion of inequality in language learning at these levels.

Part II What is the effect of UK current language education policy on widening access and social equality in language learning? a. at Secondary school level b. at higher education level c. for the uptake of Classics/Latin in particular?

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 Ursula Lanvers

Secondary schools This section summarizes key results on modern languages, relating uptake to a) percentage of pupils entitled to a free school meal b) type of school, demonstrating that language learning is divided largely along the line of schools selecting or not selecting their intake, rather than state versus private schools. The social divide in education in the UK is evidenced by affluent parents opting for fee-paying education (7 % of UK pupils, Ryan & Sibieta, 2010), UK parents paying the most in Europe for private education (Daily Mail, 2011). Regarding language learning, the social divide is well-documented in Tinsley & Han (2012) and Board & Tinsley (2014). This study also adds new data on Latin, using data mining from different websites, notably Cambridge School Classics Project (CSCP, 2015). The percentage of pupils entitled to a free school meal (FSM) is considered a good proxi indicator of the relative deprivation of schools’ intake (Allen & Vignoles, 2007). Schools with above average numbers of FSM pupils are 50 % less likely to have languages as a compulsory subject at KS4; consequently, the number of pupils studying a language GCSE is strongly related to the level of social disadvantage of the pupil cohort (Tinsley & Han, 2012: 27). Furthermore, schools with below average FSM pupil numbers are about twice as likely to have at least 50 % of their pupils studying a language GCSE (Tinsley & Board, 2013: 84). The study reports a rapidly worsening divide: In 2007, 26 % of pupils on free school meals took at least one modern language, whereas now only 14 % of pupils on FSM do. Overall, academic achievement of a school is strongly related to language uptake: the higher the overall school performance quintile, the higher the proportion of pupils taking a GCSE language (Tinsley & Board, 2013: 84). The largest between-school difference is between those schools that are able to select pupils (usually on grounds of academic performance) and those who do not, with 90 % GCSE language take-up in selective state  – funded schools, and 48 % in non-selective. At the post – compulsory level, independent schools teach significantly more languages than state schools, as do schools in the state with predominantly middle class intake (Board & Tinsley, 2014; Tinsley & Han, 2012). In 2011, only 23 % of state schools had compulsory languages at age 14+, compared to an estimated 97 % of independent schools (Independent, 2004), and 75 % of state school educated 14 – year-olds did not study a foreign language. In 2013, 63 % of independent school pupils took a language examination at GCSE, followed by converter academies (55 %), only 46 % in schools that remain under Local Authority control, and 33 % only in schools that were obliged to take Academy status because of failing schooling inspections. (Academies (http://www.education.gov.uk/schools/leadership/typesofschools/acad-



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emies/b00205692/whatisanacademy) and free schools (http://www.education. gov.uk/schools/leadership/type sofschools/freeschools) are self-governing schools. Converter Academies, in the process of applying for Academy status, need to prove high academic standards. Comprehensive schools work under Local Authority governance and normally do not select students, other than by catchment area. Grammar schools are state funded schools which select intake on academic merit.) In 30 % of state schools, pupils do not get any opportunity to study a language at KS4. Independent schools start from a much higher rate, at both A  – level and GCSE, but their uptake is declining at a similar rate; for instance, 81 % of independent schools had compulsory GCSE languages in 2012, and 76 % the subsequent year, with A – level uptake showing similar downwards trends (all data: Tinsley & Board, 2013, for A – level, see also Malpass, 2014). The social divide also interacts with the education gender gap, females outperforming males. Boys from poorer backgrounds and educated in state schools with high FSMs are the least likely to study languages at GCSE or beyond, while females from the independent sector, followed by girls in schools with low FSMs, are the most likely to study languages at GCSE and beyond (Chowdry et al., 2013: 14f). Unlike other languages, Latin is about as popular with boys as girls (Gill, 2012). To conclude, school language provision strongly relates to school type, which in turn relates to socio-economic status (SES) intake: school management rationalize their (poor or good) language provision with reference to their pupils’ SES background, not their achievements or their interests (Lanvers, 2016). Since the 2004 policy, removing the need to study a languages for ages 14+, opportunities to learn languages for pupils from poorer socioeconomic backgrounds at age 14+, but especially at post-compulsory education age, have declined drastically. The relationship between SES, mobility, and language learning has been reported before (Carr & Pauwels, 2006; Gayton, 2010), demonstrating that students (and their parents) from more affluent backgrounds are more likely to value personal benefits and reap long terms professional advantages of language study, with a social capital (in the Bourdieuan sense) more likely to esteem a broad education.

Latin In recent years, Latin has shown a somewhat surprising revival, since 2006 in UK state schools, helped by a £10 million Government investment. Therefore, this section will report on the social divide in learning this language first, in order to then debate possible Government motives for fostering Latin.

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Independent schools are much more likely to teach Latin than state schools (60.5 % versus 12.9 %, CSCP, 2015). In 2014, half of all English schools teaching Latin were state selective (Grammar) (CSCP, 2015). There is little difference between Grammar schools (59.8 %) and private schools (60.5 %) teaching Latin but only 9.1 % in non-selective secondary state schools offer Latin (all data: CSCP, 2008). Latin is taught up to A – level in 8 % of state versus 48 % of independent schools, i.e. 6x more. (Tinsley & Board, 2013:104). In the context of an increasing elitist divide for modern languages provision, the state school increase of Latin seems welcome; indeed, justifying the investment into the subject, the then Education Secretary Michael Gove interprets the Latin surge as a sign of “breaking down the “Berlin Wall” between state and private schools” (Independent, 2015). This statement ignores the fact that only selective state schools, mostly Grammar schools, with well above average SES intake (Strand, Deary & Smith, 2006), are responsible for the apparent “breaking down of the wall”. Nonetheless, the Latin surge in state schools offers politicians an opportunity to appeal to both traditionalists (in terms of the subject) and progressive educators at once. In line with the attempts to re – popularize the learning of Latin, language pedagogues (Classics at Oxford, 2014) are at pains to move from rationales traditionally perceived as elitist, and instead refer to the development of literacy skills and cognitive advantages (CSCP, 2008 & 2015; Lister, 2009). Notwithstanding efforts by both Classicists and politicians to give the subject this “image change”, Latin remains firmly rooted in those school attracting middle class intakes, as above figures have shown.



Elitism in language learning in the UK 

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The language learning social divide in higher education (HE) Table 1: Acceptances by subject group and educational establishment (UK domiciled only, aged 19 and under, 2013) Academy Further Grammar IndependEducation ent College (age 16+–18+)

6th form State College (age 16+–18+)

Other

total

European 839 languages, literature and related subjects

109

184

947

444

674

145

3,342

Linguistics, 2,795 classics and related subjects

559

350

1,526

1,875

2,299

644

10,048

all subjects 83,905

45,118

12,933

34,184

65,912

83,294 n/a

369,473

Note: Further education and 6 form colleges are (typically state) schools specializing in ­education age 16+to 18+, including academic subject A-level provision and vocational courses. Academy, Grammar: see footnote 1. Data from http://www.ucas.com/sites/default/files/ucas2013-end-of-cycle-report.pdfhttp://www.ucas.com/sites/default/files/ucas-2013-end-of-cycle-report.pdf http://www.ucas.com/sites/default/files/ucas-2013-end-of-cycle-report.pdf th

In order to relate HE statistics from various websites to social indicators of participation in HE, data mining of hitherto unused data was used, notably: Cambridge School Classics Project (CSCP), Department for Education (DfE), Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA), University Central Admissions System (UCAS), University Council for Modern Languages (UCML), QS World University, and research assessment score ratings. HESA categorizations of degree courses were used, meaning that undergraduate degrees categorized as language were included (combined or single honours), but not those categorized as cultural, European or international studies. Table 1 shows the origin of 2013 applicants to higher education languages programmes by school type. In 2013, pupils from independent schools made up nearly 10 % of applicants across all subjects, but 28 % of applicants for European Languages (UCAS, 2013). Another 25 % of language applicants are from Academies, compared to 23 % for all subjects, and only 19 % from other state schools, compared to 22 % for all sub-

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 Ursula Lanvers

jects. Thus, entries into languages are predominantly from independent, followed by selective state schools (Academies, Grammars). Regarding Classics and related subjects, 15 % of applicants came from independent schools, 28 % from Academies, and 23 % from other state schools. In other words: while the cohort of university applicants to study European languages largely mirrors the social divide found at secondary level, applicants for Classics from selective state schools now outperform those from independent schools in UCAS submissions. Thus, while a representative (for all UCAS applicants) percentage of state educated pupils now apply to study Classics, they almost exclusively come from selective state schools. Table II lists the UK’s largest university modern languages departments (defined by HESA principal subject codes), research ranking data (www.topuniversities.com/university-rankings), and widening participation data (percentage of students from state schools admitted to that university, percentage of students from lower socioeconomic backgrounds); as the latter data is not available broken down by department, whole university percentages are given. Table 2: UK university modern languages departments: size, ranking, widening participation123 11 Largest UK MFL Departments 2012/13 (HESA Student Records)

student no

QS world % of students ranking from state Modern schools2 ­Languages1

% of students from lower SES (2012/13 HESA data)

The Open University3

3075

n/a

n/a

Warwick

2480

75.5 %

19.5 %

Leeds Beckett University

2340

94 %

35 %

Nottingham

1760

75.8 %

19.1 %

Oxford

1590

57.4 %

9.6 %

Glasgow

1415

86.3 %

22.3 %

Leeds

1330

76.2 %

20.2 %

King’s College London

1190

70.9 %

24.2 %

Manchester

1190

81.4 %

25.3 %

1 From http://www.topuniversities.com/university-rankings 2 2012/13 HESA data. From https://www.hesa.ac.uk/pis/urg 3 The Open University does not feature in UCAS data, hence widening participation data is not available. It is therefore omitted from further analysis



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Tab. 2 (continued) 11 Largest UK MFL Departments 2012/13 (HESA Student Records)

student no

QS world % of students ranking from state Modern schools2 ­Languages1

% of students from lower SES (2012/13 HESA data)

St Andrews

1170

58.9 %

13.1 %

University College London

1115

67.7 %

20.2 %

Total UK MFL students

41305

Top 15 UK QS ranked University MFL Departments (research & overall reputation) Oxford

1

57.4 %

9.6 %

Cambridge

2

67 %

11.7 %

University College London

8

67.7 %

20.2 %

Edinburgh

12

67.3 %

16.6 %

Warwick

24

75.5 %

19.5 %

School of Oriental and Asian Studies

32

76.2 %

28.2 %

York

48

78.1 %

20.7 %

King’s College London

49

70.9 %

24.2 %

Durham

51–100

63.4 %

12.5 %

Lancaster

51–100

90.9 %

25.3 %

Sheffield

51–100

85.2 %

20 %

Birmingham

51–100

78.6 %

22.4 %

Bristol

51–100

59.4 %

14.3 %

Leeds

51–100

76.2 %

22.2 %

Southampton

51–100

86.3 %

22.4 %

89.3 %

32.3 %

HE UK average 2013 (HESA)

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Tab. 2 (continued) Legend: within 5 % of UK average 5–10 % lower than UK average 10–15 % lower than UK average 15–20 % lower than UK average 20+% lower than UK average Overlap between largest and most highly ranked Departments

Other than Leeds Beckett, all modern languages departments are located in institutions with at least one (mostly two) lower widening participation figures than the UK average; Oxford and Cambridge, but also Durham, Edinburgh and Kings College London perform poorest in both widening participation records, and highest in research ranking. The table shows that the larger and more reputable their language department, the less likely the university is to have students from poorer SES backgrounds, but more likely it is to have students from private schools. Language students show lower social diversity than those studying other subjects: In 2012/13, the percentage of university students from disadvantaged social backgrounds studying languages was 25 % compared to 32 % across all subjects (HESA, 2014). The gender gap observed at school level also intensifies at university level; only 33 % of language graduates are male (CILT, 2010). The overall picture regarding social division for modern language HE students is that of a reinforcement of the comprehensive versus selective (both state and independent school) divide.

Modern languages departmental closures The number of universities offering language degrees dropped by 40 % between 1998 and 2013 (Guardian, 2013). The concentration of language degrees in elite universities reinforces elite self-selection: according to this trend, students not aiming for a high selective university will not be able to consider languages as a degree option in the future. Different languages are affected differently by the elitist divide: Russian, for instance, is only offered at one post-1992 university (Central Lancashire). The majority of single honours German and Italian, and half of French and Spanish degrees are offered at old universities (Guardian, 2013).



Elitism in language learning in the UK 

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Classics As HESA records on Classics students (as defined by HESA student records) are merged with those studying Linguistics and other disciplines, comparative tables for Classics alone are unavailable. Figures on the uptake of Classics do not suggest that the subject might aid to counter the decline in languages in HE overall. As for Table II, Table III lists the UK’s largest university Classics departments (defined by HESA Principal subject codes), combined with institutional widening participation and research ranking data. Table 3: UK university Classics separtments: Size, ranking, widening participation 11 Largest UK Classics Departments 2012/13 (HESA Student Records)

student 2014 UK no research assessment score (Classics)

% of students % of students from from State schools lower SES (2012/13 HESA (2012/13 HESA data) data)

University of Oxford

400

57.4 %

9.6 %

University of Cambridge

340

67 %

11.7 %

King’s College London

315

70.9 %

24.2 %

University of Edinburgh

290

67.3 %

16.6 %

University of Manchester

265

81.4 %

25.3 %

University of Durham

265

63.4 %

12.5 %

University of Leeds

255

76.2 %

20.2 %

University of Exeter

245

69.1 %

15.8 %

Swansea University

230

91.6 %

28.2 %

University of Reading

230

84.9

23.3 %

Total UK Classics students

5025

Top 10 UK ranked University Classics Departments (by 2014 research assessment score) University College London

82

65.7 %

20.2 %

University of Bristol

82

59.4 %

14.3 %

University of Cambridge

80

67 %

11.7 %

University of Exeter

74

69.1 %

15.8 %

University of Durham

74

63.4 %

12.5 %

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 Ursula Lanvers

Tab. 3 (continued) 11 Largest UK Classics Departments 2012/13 (HESA Student Records)

student 2014 UK no research assessment score (Classics)

University of Edinburgh

74

67.3 %

16.6 %

University of Oxford

72

57.4 %

9.6 %

St Andrews

70

58.9 %

13.1 %

University of Warwick

68

75.5 %

19.5 %

Royal Holloway

68

82.1 %

26.7 %

89.3 %

32.3 %

HE UK average 2013 (HESA)

% of students % of students from from State schools lower SES (2012/13 HESA (2012/13 HESA data) data)

* Classics defined as the following HESA principal subject codes: Latin studies, Classical Greek studies, Classical studies. Legend: within 5 % of UK average 5–10 % lower than UK average 10–15 % lower than UK average 15–20 % lower than UK average 20+% lower than UK average Overlap between largest and most highly ranked Departments

Table III shows an even more skewed intake of Classics students than for modern languages (Table II), regarding two measures for widening participation: seven of the ten universities with largest UK Classics departments take over 20 % more than the UK average of privately educated students, and all universities with large Classics departments have lower than average representation of students from socioeconomically disadvantaged students. Together with the evidence from Table II, the findings show that while the percentage of Classics students entering HE from state schools may look representative at first sight, it hides two important differentiators. By virtue of skewed provision of Latin in state schools (see above), students studying Classics come almost exclusively from selective state schools; furthermore, the more reputable the university, and larger the Classics department, the lower the participation from poorer SES at that university.



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Conclusion This chapter has mapped a UK language learning landscape characterized by i) decline of language uptake age 14+ ii) a sharp and increasing social division in language learning uptake at age 14+ iii) language education policies lacking coherent direction or rationales. The 2004 move to abolish compulsory language age 14+ has been described as a “knee jerk reaction” to students’ lack of motivation for languages (Pachler, 2007); likewise, the immediately following decision to make languages compulsory at Primary level, ostensibly to appease concerned language pedagogues, suggests an ad hoc approach to policy making. The Languages Review (2007) was launched to address the unexpected downward trend in KS4 language learning since 2004. Its many suggestions were largely not implemented. Instead, the already apparent trends in social division and elitism in language learning (Pachler, 2007) were allowed to aggravate, year on year. In a parallel development, increasing devolution of power to schools, notably Academies and Free schools, permitted great freedom of school management to determine their students’ access to language learning. School managements are increasingly left to decide on their language policies. These conditions lead to higher achieving schools, and those with predominantly middle class intake, offer­ing stronger language provision than less well performing schools, with lower SES intake (Lanvers 2016) academically high achieving schools, with predominantly middle class intake, now have strong languages departments, leaving less well achieving school, with typically lower SES intake, with poorer language provision (Lanvers, 2016). The social divide in language learning is now unrivalled by that in any other subject. Language planners observed that language planners are rarely ideologically neutral Ricento (2000). The case of UK language education, policy suggest that planners must either condone or tolerate the elitist tendencies in language learning, given that academics warned of such developments (e.g. Pachler, 2007). The frequency policy intervention overall does not suggest mere political inertia; either makers are condoning the elitist trend, if not deliberately orchestrating it. Any language education policy aspiring to reduce this social divide would need to address two issues: ensuring equal opportunities for language learning by making language learning comprehensively accessible for all up to age 16, and offering clear rationales that embrace the full functional and personal enrichment spectrum, including the many societal benefits of language skills for all. At first sight, the focus of the two Governmental reports on functional skills for business and trade seem a logical way forward to rationalize comprehensive language education. However, the danger associated with functional rationales

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alone  – even if adopting a cold blooded calculation of “return on (education) investment” – is spelt out by Board & Tinsley (2013), termed balancing factors by them: adopting this view, the saturation of English in key target countries (economic partners) reduces or might even negate the need for future UK language learning. Using this argument, letting just sufficient numbers of linguists to progress to just sufficient proficiency levels in strategic target languages (i.e. countries with low English saturation) represents a clever solution to an economic cost – benefit analysis (“there must come a point at which returns diminish”, Stables, 2009: 158). In this logic, educating just the few, who are already bestowed, by virtue of their upbringing, with sufficient social capital to appreciate the full advantages languages, makes economic and policy sense. For students who have opted to study languages, calculations on economic benefits studying languages reveal a mixed picture: by salary outcomes of graduates, language degree student have a lower than average wage return on their study investment (Chowdry et al., 2013: 81). As with languages as degree subject, student’s degree choices generally strongly correlate with SES: “deprivation seems to be associated with choosing degree subjects with clear economic returns in the labour market” (Chowdry et al., 2013: 86). Thus, while languages graduates can yield return on their educational investment, other (vocational) subjects offer better returns, leaving students from affluent SES who can afford to worry less about their “economic return” of their degree, to opt for subjects such as languages. In this manner, (lack of) choice of Secondary school, language learning opportunities within schools, students” validation of personal enrichment factors of education, and opportunities to reap investment on educational return, mutually reinforce each other, benefiting those with the most felicitous starting conditions. The circle of opportunities and motivations for language is learning presented in Figure I:



Elitism in language learning in the UK 

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SES background valuing education for personal enrichment focus on personal enrichment of language learning

HE degree choice less focused on economic return

opportunities to choose schools

school language learning opportunities (selective & independent)

Figure 1: Circle of opportunities and motivations for language learning

To improve widening access to HE generally, studies have shown that interventions at KS4 would be most effective (Chowdry et al., 2013: 87). For languages, this would mean re-introducing compulsory GCSE languages, or, at the very least, levelling access across the SES spectrum, to schools with strong language provision. So long as language policy lacks clear underlying rationales, and ignores the many personal – enrichment and societal benefits of language skills, language tuition in the UK will continue to face the ever growing threat of Global English, and saturation of English in strategic trading partner countries. The danger of the “balancing factor” argument alone is evidenced poor learner motivation, poor language education polices, and the increasing social divide in language learning, in the US, Australia and New Zealand (Australian, 2013; LoBianco, 2009; Wiley, 2007). The analysis of current language policy has revealed that the UK elitist trend in language learning is a near-inevitable outcome of a liberalized language policy, despite evidence to the fact that language skills, are needed “not simply by an internationally mobile elite” (Tinsley, 2013: 16). So long as i) rationales for languages stay within the functional domain ii) language needs are considered to be “counter-balanced” by English capacities of others, in rather transparent linguistic chauvinism, education policies will not address the systematic disadvantaging of language learners from lower SES.

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Damian J. Rivers

4 Native-speakerism and the betrayal of the native speaker language-teaching professional Ideologists presume their assumptions are facts, and accept only the evidence that ratifies the conclusions of their ideological assumptions, since they are not interested in scientific truth, but in their ideals dressed up as ideology…Social phenomena are complex and their social causation is the result of numerous variables. However, ideologists--often by using an oversimplified a priori hypothesis--boil down all causes to one or a few simple phenomena. (Mohan & Kinloch, 2000: 13)

Native-speakerism has become an increasing feature within mainstream TESOL discourse and a common reference point in discussions of language-related prejudice and discrimination (see Rivers, 2016). Drawing from a variety of sources and with an intentional slant toward entertaining the unfashionable, this chapter stands against sectarian interest through a critique of the taken-for-granted ideology of native-speakerism. Motivated by the idea that “awareness of injustice is a precondition for overcoming it” (Deutsch, 2006: 23), it is argued that the ideological conceptualization of native-speakerism allows only those identifying as ‘non-native speakers’ access to the desirable status of victim and its accompanying discourse of moral righteousness. Moreover, it is demonstrated how the sanctuary of victimhood then permits those on the inside, in other words the wronged parties, to engage in a brand of counter violence which mainstream TESOL frames as “morally distinct from ‘originary’ violence and therefore defensible” (Enns, 2012: 44). Within this chapter evidence of the rather paradoxical intersection of two -isms is shown whereby the ideology of native-speakerism, originally conceived to describe and diagnose a plethora of ambiguous prejudices fails. This failure contributes to the perpetuation of another -ism, in this case linguicism, defined as “ideologies, structures and practices which are used to legitimate, effectuate, regulate and reproduce an unequal division of power and resources between groups which are defined on the basis of language” (Skutnabb-Kangas, 1988: 13). As Houghton (2013: 66) poignantly describes, “being characterised by linguistic prejudice makes native-speakerism linguicist in nature”. From a position in which groups “are defined on the basis of language” one is therefore able to observe how contemporary discourses surrounding native-speakerism, especially those presented as victim-led defenses against native speaker oppression, should be

DOI 10.1515/9781501503085-005



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recognized as perpetrator-led aggressions designed to strengthen binary divisions and mutually-exclusive identities among language-teaching professionals. Within this chapter the term ‘non-native speaker movement’ is used as a generic reference to those language teachers, scholars and academics aligning themselves with the “Nonnative English Speakers in TESOL” (NNEST) interest section of the TESOL Inc., organization. The generic treatment of individuals within this movement seems fair given their collective self-definition and alignment as a singular movement (see Matsuda, 2002). Consistent with all self-defined movements that strive toward the fulfilment of a mission and the achievement of a political goal, self-identification as a member is an act that demonstrates collective solidarity, strength, cohesion, and more importantly, internal consistency of opinion and identity alignment. Finally, and with implications for achieving the end-of-ideology, the NNEST movement is expansionist, and therefore power seeking, observable through its conscious efforts to indoctrinate others with its standards, truths and values by “publicizing [their] mission to all reaches of ELT” (Braine, 2010: preface).

Native-speakerism and the luxury of ideological ambiguity While Holliday’s (2005a) definition has been useful in providing a foundation for new theoretical direction through which to forward explorations of issues concerning the dimensions of native-speakerism in foreign language education, we see this definition as now being limited in its ability to capture the multitude of intricate ways that native-speakerism, embedded within the fabric of the TESOL industry, is reflected through daily pedagogical practice, institutional and national policy, as well as legal frameworks which centre around issues of prejudice, stereotyping and/or discrimination. (Houghton & Rivers, 2013: 7)

The dominant and most cited conceptualization of native-speakerism remains that of Holliday (2005: 6) who describes the idea as “an established belief that ‘native-speaker’ teachers represent a ‘Western culture’ from which springs the ideals both of the English language and of English language teaching methodology”. Over the course of the past decade, the “ideology of native-speakerism” (Holliday, 2005: 8) has frequently appeared within mainstream TESOL discourse, used to describe supposed prejudices inherent within the domain of English as a Foreign Language (EFL) education. While often relying upon constructed intersections with more established sympathy-inducing -isms such as linguistic imperialism, colonialism, ethnocentrism and racism for legitimacy, in practical terms, native-speakerism attempts to condense an assortment of supposed prejudices

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into a coherent narrative intended to reveal the “unfair treatment of nonnative English-speaking professionals in the TESOL profession” (Selvi, 2014: 581). In discussions surrounding the ideological conceptualization of native-speakerism, Holliday (2005: 7) is explicit in attributing geocontextual responsibility, asserting that native-speakerism “originates in a very particular set of educational and development cultures within the English-speaking West”. Demonstrating how ideology trumps evidence, the author is less explicit in detailing the exact parameters of those professional practices believed to reflect native-speakerism as an ideology. Now, over a decade since the ideology of native-speakerism was conceptualized, and despite it somewhat prematurely being accepted as a ‘Key Concept in ELT’ (Holliday, 2006), it remains shrouded in mystery with no consistent or conclusive pattern of motive-action-effect observable. For example, within the academic literature, claims of native-speakerism are almost never supported by a formal definition of how native-speakerism is being conceptualized as either a theoretical or practical construct. Also absent is evidence concerning how instances of perceived prejudice can be directly attributed to this particular ideology. The ideology of native-speakerism has become so malleable that it can be recruited to describe and diagnose an infinite spectrum of practices thus wrongly permitting “diverse aspirations and changing practices to be accommodated under the same ideological umbrella” (Deutsch, 2015: 12). The attribution of geocontextual responsibility for the supposed creation of native-speakerism, that is, the condemnation of ‘those people’ who enact symbolic violence against ‘these people’, has established an irresponsible foundation from which discussions concerning native-speakerism commence. The collective condemnation of all individuals from the ‘English-speaking West’ is legitimized, not on the basis of actual professional action, which ideology is unable to comprehend, but on the exclusive basis of the conditions surrounding the birth of individuals who in adulthood become language teaching-professionals. A dangerous irony at work here being that the ideology of native-speakerism has encouraged many self-identifying ‘non-native speaker’ teachers from beyond the “English-speaking West”, those who formerly bemoaned judgments of professional competence and language proficiency on the basis of variables related to the conditions surrounding birth, to utilize the same judgment criteria to condemn ‘native speaker’ teachers from within the “English-speaking West” as oppressors and the recipients of prejudicial advantage. This practice contains a further twist when observing how many ‘native speaker’ teachers from within the “English-speaking West”, believing the myth that their professional existence contributes to the disempowerment of others, have resorted to guilt-ridden selfharm in dismissing their own professionalism on account of the fact that they are defined as ‘native speakers’ from the “English-speaking West”. While the



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specific psychosocial dynamics at work are open to discussion, it seems beyond contestation to assert that the ideological conceptualization of native-speakerism functions as a direct facilitator of prejudice drawn on the basis of generalized Western nationality and first-language status, thus showing how the majority of native-speakerist claims are actually examples of linguicism. Unpacking the complexity of the “English-speaking West” within discussions surrounding native-speakerism is rarely undertaken with the same enthusiasm afforded to other communities and peoples. There prevails an unspoken assumption that the “English-speaking West” warrants no further attention beyond that required in its casting as a fixed ideological aggressor. It then follows that within the academic literature ‘native speaker’ teachers are also conceptualized through a distinctly different frame of reference to ‘non-native speaker’ teachers. Some research that has attempted to empower non-native speaker English teachers…has had the adverse effect of promoting essentialized notions of the native speaker English teacher…while such research is eager to recognize the multifaceted identities of non-native speaker students and teachers, it does not accord the same value to the identities of native speaker English teachers. (Breckenridge & Erling, 2011: 83)

Such covert differential treatment is observable across range of topics. For instance, Canagarajah & Said (2011: 391) exploit the pejorative assumption that the “English-speaking West” is a fixed monolingual collective as a means of boosting the confidence and enlisting the support of ‘non-native speaker’ teachers. In their work, the authors describe ‘native speakers’ using permanent quotation marks, while ‘non-native speakers’, instead of also being assigned the same ‘so-called’ status, are elevated to the status of ‘multilingual speakers’. Here, and reflecting the reproduction of “an unequal division of power and resources between groups which are defined on the basis of language” (Skutnabb-Kangas, 1988: 13), the authors are furthering two incorrect assumptions. First, the idea of the ‘native speaker’ is flagged as illegitimate and therefore requires strategic positioning within ‘so-called’ fixed-quotation marks. If this demarcation were based upon the idea that “the NS has no basis in reality other than as a mental representation that exists in the minds of those who believe in it or operate within social structures that rely on it” (Pederson, 2012: 9), then one would expect the other side of this bifurcation, the ‘non-native speaker’, to be given the same treatment. However, this is not the case as the idea of the ‘non-native speaker’ is not dismissed as having “no basis in reality” but is elevated to the standalone status of ‘multilingual speaker’. In contributing to the denial of diversity within the “English-speaking West” the professional practice options (i.e., what ‘native speaker’ teachers can do within the workplace) and the identities available to them are not only restricted but also stigmatized. Restricted by their assumed

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monolingualism, deductive logic suggests that ‘native speaker’ teachers must therefore also be complicit in the maintenance of ‘the monolingual fallacy’ and ‘the native-speaker fallacy’ (Phillipson, 1992) as both creations appear, on the surface at least, to further the self-interests of the ‘native speaker’ teacher. Returning to the discussion surrounding the original definition of native-speakerism as ideology, by the time Holliday (2005: 7) declares that “by no means all English-speaking Western colleagues are native-speakerists”, the powerful cycles of guilt and shame implied through collective ideological association have begun. Given that ideologies are unable to entertain the autonomy of the individual, this sudden retreat to viewing colleagues on an individual basis is ineffective – in other words the damage has already been done. The packaging of contemporary language-related prejudices as examples of ideological conditioning distances individuals and their real-world actions from responsibility and accountability. However, on the other side of this observation is the truism that claims of ideological native-speakerism are able to be made without the traditional demand for conclusive evidence. In many local contexts the consequence being that the ideological conceptualization of native-speakerism “simply perpetuates the status quo in a new guise, by substituting one kind of hegemony for another” (Waters, 2007: 281).

Motive and manipulation in the maintenance of division Within this section the reader is encouraged to consider the politics of in-group identity construction and motive in the maintenance of divisions between language-teaching professionals. It is commonly understood that intergroup positions taken in opposition are dependent upon recognizing the existence of an out-group. One is therefore compelled to acknowledge that the relationship between the constructed ‘native speaker’ and ‘non-native speaker’ is symbiotic (see Rivers, 2017). That is, the existence of the ‘native speaker’ group is dependent upon the existence of the ‘non-native speaker’ group and vice versa. While the consequences of this symbiotic relationship are various, one of the most significant is observable in the reluctance of many within the ‘non-native speaker movement’, and among those investing faith in the ideological conceptualization of native-speakerism, to challenge the legitimacy of the ‘native speaker’ ‘non-native speaker’ distinction. For example, Holliday (2005: 6) asserts how “I am concerned in this book, then, not with who is and who is not a ‘native speaker’, but in the ideological



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associations of this distinction”, while the founder of the ‘non-native speaker movement’ similarly declares, “I have no wish to explore the NS and NNS debate, which, in my view, is unlikely ever to be resolved” (Braine, 2010: 9). These declarations remove the authors from having to contend with the uncomfortable realization that the notion of nativity persists as “one of the founding myths of Modern Linguistics…not interrogated from within the disciplinary boundaries)” (Rajagopalan, 1997: 226). In addition, such declarations remove the possibility of reconciliation between ‘native speaker’ and ‘non-native speaker’ teachers as the legitimacy of both groups is not challenged, but instead upheld to provide foundation for all subsequent discourse. The participants begin to realize that if their analysis of the situation goes any deeper they will either have to divest themselves of their myths, or reaffirm them. Divesting themselves of and renouncing their myths represents, at that moment, an act of self-violence. On the other hand, to reaffirm those myths is to reveal themselves. (Freire, 1970: 157)

Within the literature the theme of motive concerning the maintenance of intergroup division on the basis of language is rarely discussed although Davies (2003: 9) hints that, “the native-speaker boundary is…one as much created by non-native speakers as by native speakers themselves”. The construction of the dialectic other remains a vital component in the construction of an outward oppressor and, in turn, an oppressed or victim-based identity. A victim-based identity within contemporary society offers numerous advantages when acting within the political arena. It should therefore be expected that self-identifying ‘non-native speakers’, despite their supposed disenfranchised status, display professional pride in being referred to as such and show limited interest in ending the language-based categorization of teaching professionals. The recent introduction of a financial scholarship for the “TESOL award for an outstanding paper on NNEST issues” is further indication of the conditional “warped sense of equality” (Garry, 2006: 9) surrounding the allure of victimhood with the field. If certain teachers were not configured as a ‘native speakers’ then, quite simply put, the ideology of native-speakerism would be revealed as fictitious. Moreover, those teachers claiming ideological disempowerment and subjugation would be required to more readily accept individual responsibility for their professional development and workplace status. Indeed, for the varied claims of the ‘non-native speaker movement’ to hold legitimacy the ‘native speaker’ must continue to exist in a position of fixed ideological power and dominance.

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To be a victim is to be harmed by an external event or oppressed by someone else, things that most people avoid wherever possible. Yet a striking feature of… [contemporary society]… is that many people want to be classified as victims. They do so because of the advantages it brings…today to be classified as a victim is to be given a special political status, which has no necessary connection with real hardship or actual oppression. Victimhood as a political status is best understood as the outcome of a political strategy by some groups aimed at gaining preferential treatment. In free societies groups often organise to gain advantages for themselves, but the increase in the number and power of groups seeking politically-mandated victimhood raises some deeper questions… (Green, 2006: 1)

Concerning the politics of status ascription and the gamesmanship involved in asserting ‘naming rights’, attention is drawn to an event which adds complexity to the basic psychology and strategy of in-group out-group classification. In July 2011 the “NNEST of the Month Blog” (proudly “endorsed by the TESOL NNEST Interest Section!”) made the decision to give their award to the prominent ELF (English as a Lingua Franca) scholar Jennifer Jenkins. The awarding of the “NNEST of the Month” to Jenkins should be seen as either an act of gross self-deception, an oddity of political correctness, or as further evidence of the aforementioned denial of difference when encountering the “English-speaking West” given that Jenkins is a ‘native speaker’ educated and based in the UK. During the post-award interview, Jenkins, sensitive to context contends that, “native speakerism is disgraceful and I do believe that we should all, NNES and NES, do all we can to draw attention to it, ridicule it where this is feasible, and contribute to its demise” (Jenkins cited on the “NNEST of the Month Blog” (2011, July)). Could it not be suggested that in accepting such an award Jenkins was actively participating in the maintenance of ideological native-speakerism. One should ask why and how Jenkins qualifies as the “NNEST of the Month”? Parallels can be drawn with the practice of awarding Japanese nationals within Apartheid South Africa the special status of ‘honorary whites’ – a status which many Japanese nationals resented – in order to satisfy South African economic interests (see Kawasaki, 2001). Could this award be an attempt by the ‘non-native speaker movement’ to satisfy their own economic interests through showing how a powerful agent of ideological native-speakerism (in this case Jenkins) is sympathetic to the political agenda of the ‘non-native speaker movement’? One could also ask how, if the ideology of native-speakerism were more than a mere fabrication, would Jenkins be able to temporarily exist beyond the confines of her status as a representative of the “English-speaking West”? Like those Japanese dehumanized through the award of the ‘honorary whites’ status in Apartheid South Africa, one might wonder whether the imposition of the ‘non-native speaker’ status (albeit temporary) upon Jenkins stimulates similar feelings of dehumanization and resentment? Would trickery of this kind be allowed to pass if race, rather



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than language, was the primary variable being manipulated? Could a movement interested in promoting equality for black teachers award the ‘black teacher of the month’ to a white race teacher? Attempts to crossover or transcend the imposition of mutually exclusive boundaries are often received with hostility and ridicule. For example, readers might wish to revisit the recent controversy created when US civil rights activist Rachel Dolezal claimed to be an African American despite having two white parents. A further consequence of emphasizing mutually exclusive group identities is that the potential to settle difference through reason itself is weakened…I have in mind occasions when the non-victim is defined as incapable of understanding the plight of the victim: no white can understand the predicament of a black person; no man can comprehend the predicament of a woman. Any comment the outsider makes is unavoidably prejudiced and so the possibility of resolving conflicts by the exchange of views is ruled out. (Green, 2006: 41)

Taking the awarding of the “NNEST of the Month” to Jenkins a little further, readers are asked to question whether the scholarly efforts of Jenkins to establish an ELF core are not reflective of the “liberation trap” (Holliday, 2005: 133)? One might suggest that that ideological entrapment of native-speakerism placed Jenkins in a Catch-22 situation. If Jenkins attempts to apply her professional knowledge and experience as a means of assisting and empowering others then, on the basis that she is a member of the “English-speaking West”, her professional efforts to overcome the ideology are effective only in that they further reinforce the ideology. Discounting the existence of a strategic master plan to use the symbolic capital of Jenkins to further the movement’s own political agenda, the selection of Jenkins as the “NNEST of the Month” should be seen as either an act of self-disempowerment or an admission that the ideological conceptualization of native-speakerism is illegitimate. There must be an answer to such concerns.

Prejudice in employment: The known and the unknown Despite their rather neutral and safe surface appearances in popular discourse, there is a “hidden and dangerous” level to the terms native speaker and non-native speaker at which non-native speakers teachers of English are being actively discriminated against in the workplace. (Holliday, 2008: 121)

The focal point for many contemporary claims of ideological native-speakerism is the discourse of English language-teacher recruitment. Studies situated

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across various contexts have hinted that the “native speaker still has a privileged position in English language teaching…Non-native-speaker teachers of English are often perceived as having a lower status than their native-speaking counterparts, and have been shown to face discriminatory attitudes when applying for teaching jobs” (Clark & Paran, 2007: 407). Evidence revealing how English language-teacher recruitment advertisements demand ‘native speaker’ status as a qualification for employment is unquestionably widespread (see Rivers, 2016; Ruecker & Ives, 2015; Selvi, 2010). Nonetheless, the ideology of native-speakerism and its universalist divorcing from individual considerations of time, context and motive has limited the conclusions such studies have been able to make, often restricting them to surface-level observations showing a “preference for native speakerness over teaching or educational qualifications” (Mahboob & Golden, 2013: 78). While these observations are valid, such conclusions are insufficient to claim that such practice reflects the ideology of native-speakerism. While it might well be reasonable to speculate that the widespread utilisation of the nativespeaker criterion as a qualification for employment is the product of native-speakerist ideology, speculation does not provide stable ground for challenging practices, pedagogies and policies that discriminate against certain individuals on the basis of their speakerhood status. (Rivers, 2016: 92)

Even if the ideological conceptualization of native-speakerism were to allow evidence to surface accounting for the specification of ‘native speaker’ status within local language-teacher recruitment advertisements, it would still be unable to provide a framework through which such practices could be challenged within legal frameworks related to local employment laws. Referencing the specification of ‘native speaker’ within employment discourse as an example of ideological native-speakerism also creates further problems, problems that are currently “hidden and dangerous”. The ideology of native-speakerism is unable “to explain why some teachers despite being endowed with so-called desirable characteristics also feel victimized, discontent and frustrated when imagined as a ‘native-speaker of English’” (Rivers, 2013a: 89). According to the ideology of native-speakerism, the perpetrators and victims are seen as mutually exclusive rather than as “fluid categories” (Jacoby, 2015: 515). When using pre-determined terminology to discuss different kinds of prejudices, the perpetrators and the victims may or may not be implied by the terms themselves, with the obvious danger being that the mere use of any given term (especially terms such as orientalism, sexism, male chauvinism and feminism) may accuse a certain group by automatically suggesting in the minds of people who are the perpetrators (in need of challenge) and who are the victims (in need of protection). And the same can be said of native-speakerism, a term which, within its present (albeit rather recently coined definition) primarily casts ‘native



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speakers’ from the English-speaking West as the perpetrators of native-speakerism (the subjects of the verb) and ‘non-native speakers’ from the English-speaking West as the victims (the objects of the verb). (Houghton & Rivers, 2013: 3)

If the “English-speaking West” and its collective of ‘native speakers’ are cast as the benefactors and perpetrators of ideological native-speakerism, then an identity option automatically denied is that of victim. One can therefore suggest that the TESOL profession has failed to offer protection from language-related prejudice to all of its members. Instead, it has found it easier to accept the trappings of ideology and cast certain members as more deserving of protection (and financial award) than others (see the 2006 TESOL Inc., “Position Statement Against Discrimination of Nonnative Speakers of English in the Field of TESOL”). Official acknowledgements such as this should not be seen as a solution as they actively contribute toward the development of victim-based identities and the further marginalization of those not entitled to access such identities. Victimhood is achieved when a target audience in a position of power or authority recognises a set of victim claims. The audience can be the narrow stratum of an authoritarian regime, the voting public of a democratic regime or even international public opinion. Whether by guilt, empathy, moral rectitude or confluence of interests, a powerful audience must actively support the victims towards the achievement of their goals. (Jacoby, 2015: 526)

Institutional acceptance of ‘native speakers’ as the hegemonic out-group and ‘non-native speakers’ as the negative reference in-group illustrates how birthright divisions between language-teaching professionals continue to be legitimized and upheld in places one would not expect. Current studies on language-teacher recruitment have overlooked the extent to which all language-teaching professionals have the potential to be victims of language-related prejudice. Very few studies have given attention to the real-world-behaviours of here-and-now actors as this would require the acknowledgment of a social reality beyond the ambiguity and collective nature of ideology. To even suggest that the victims of ideological native-speakerism could also be perpetrators of language-related prejudice is not a position many are willing to entertain on account of a belief that “calling attention to the agency of the victim is considered wrong, a betrayal of the victim’s status as victim” (Enns, 2012: 27). Moreover, as professional experience has revealed, it is often “useless to try to refute an ideology [as the] attempt to refute it is likely to elicit defensiveness and hostility” (Deutsch, 2015: 12). Regardless, calling into question the exclusivity of victimhood should be seen as vital given that “the self/other opposition or victim/perpetrator logic can be reproduced, with all of its potentially damaging effects, from within the worldview of both the oppressed and the oppressor” (Enns, 2012: 27).

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When a language-teaching professional defined as a ‘native speaker’ responds to an employment advertisement demanding ‘native speaker’ status, they are compelled to discard all identities derived from professionalism, educational achievement and teaching competency. The outcome being that teachers “often develop feelings of objectification in being appraised on largely imagined criteria rather than on professional or academic measures of ability” (Rivers & Ross, 2013: 52). Further absent within previous studies is attention to the dynamics of post-recruitment in relation to the imposed status as either a ‘native speaker’ teacher or a ‘non-native speaker’ teacher. Being defined as a ‘native speaker’ of English often facilitates the misconception among colleagues and students that employment was obtained on the primary basis of being a ‘native speaker’. This further perpetuates the perspective that all ‘native speaker’ teachers are a generic collective qualified by birth. This also supports the idea that a constant supply of ‘native speaker’ teachers exist who are willing to work in term-limited teaching positions with no possibility of their professionalism ever being acknowledged (see Rivers, 2013b: 68). The term ‘native speaker’ undoubtedly has positive connotations: it denotes a birthright, fluency, cultural affinity, and sociolinguistic competence. In contrast, the term ‘nonnative speaker’ carries the burden of the minority, or marginalization and stigmatization, with resulting discrimination in the job market and in professional advancement. (Braine, 2010: 9)

While responding to an employment advertisement demanding ‘native speaker’ status is in the first instance beneficial to those defined as ‘native speakers’ on account that they are granted access to employment opportunities, the status of ‘native speaker’ in the post-recruitment context is often used to marginalize, discriminate and exclude. With reference to these dynamics within the Japanese university context, Table 1 illustrates how local assessments made on the basis of ‘native’ language can be used to promote forms of language-related prejudice not currently imagined by the ideological conceptualization of native-speakerism.



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Table 1: The institutional positioning and employment rank of 183 teachers employed within a single department of ‘language and culture’ at a national university in Japan. Employment Status

Rank

Regular

Professor

62

2

64

Associate Professor

64

3

67

Lecturer

10

0

10

Assistant Professor

4

0

4

Specially Appointed Associate Professor

0

27

27

Specially Appointed Associate Lecturer

0

7

7

Foreign Lecturer

0

4

4

140

43

183

Irregular

Japanese ‘Native Speaker’

Non-Japanese ‘Native Speaker’

n

Note: All data obtained by the author through emailed internal documentation during previous employment at the institution.

Table 1 indicates that ‘native speakers’ of languages other than Japanese are almost exclusively excluded from positions within the regular academic employment structure and instead limited to peripheral roles. This split-system environment reflects the observations of Fairbrother (2014: 61) who describes the emergence of “a new type of Japanese-language-proficiency-based native-speakerism” one which “has unintentionally resulted in the creation of a racially divided two-tier system, where phenotypically non-Japanese will be hired for contract positions only but Japanese/hyphenated Japanese will be hired for tenured positions”. In this case, those teachers occupying those subordinate ‘specially-appointed’ positions were all defined by the institution as ‘non-native speakers’ of the dominant local language, but were employed as ‘native speakers’ of the target language. Although the TESOL profession has shown an active interest in racism – as race is crucial to claims of native-speakerism – it has not yet shown a concern for nepotism, quite remarkable given that TESOL is big business within many societies who favour ethnic rather than civic participation. Where do such dynamics leave the current ideological conceptualization of native-speakerism which is unable to account for context-based variations in teacher recruitment and retention practices?

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Shared professional struggles or an enemy within? It is our destiny as non-native English-speaking teachers (NNESTs) to face a variety of challenges with many issues, including, among others, highly required language and pedagogical competencies, proper cultural orientation, native-like accent, native-speaker fallacy, credibility, and more… (Al-Seghayer, 2003: 1)

To date, the ideological conceptualization of native-speakerism has been widely accepted by self-ascribing ‘non-native speakers’ and not subject to challenge or critical inquiry from within the movement. It has provided a catchall banner under which perceptions of unfair treatment can be filed by ‘non-native speakers’ while also marking forms of employment prejudice experienced by ‘native speakers’ as unknown, invisible or invalid. It is therefore possible to suggest that the ‘non-native speaker movement’ has contributed to undermining the professional status of qualified ‘native speaker’ language teachers. Within the literature of the movement, attention should be given to the role of emotional manipulation as a means of advancing their political agenda. Much of the literature produced from within the movement encourages the “audience to see one’s point of view, often to the point of empathetically feeling the emotion themselves” which also functions to “cast an opponent into a weaker position or constrain the opponent’s options” (Parrott, 2003: 32). One might also consider the embracing of a victimas-hero mentality combined with a distinct lack of modesty, traits quite uncommon within the discourse of legitimately disempowered groups. As the self-declared founder of the movement demonstrates: I am walking down a hallway during a TESOL convention. A young woman from an Asian country approaches (racial profiling?), smiling shyly, and begins a conversation. She says how much my book Non-native Educators in English Language Teaching has meant to her. Soon, tears streaming down her face, she says that, as a non-native speaker studying in the United States to be an English teacher, she felt so much confused and alone. The struggle to keep up with her native speaker classmates seemed hopeless. She then read the book and realized that she wasn’t alone, that others had struggled and triumphed before her, and that she had their support and guidance to succeed. (Braine, 2010: preface)

Framed within the broader storyline of victimhood and disempowerment, such discourse is designed to appeal to the masses of ‘non-native speaker’ teachers who believe that this self-imposed status functions as the primary reason for a plethora of personal and professional challenges (i.e., as opposed to poor language proficiency or a lack of higher level qualifications). To attribute one’s struggles to the unchangeable allows one to take the moral high ground in subsequent



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disputes. This is advantageous in that those cast in opposition are less likely to be received sympathetically due to the fact that “what they say or do is interpreted according to a story line and as a speech act that suits one’s own case” (Harré & Slocum, 2003: 129). Those victims believed to have the power to offer salvation, such as movement leaders, are subsequently elevated by the helpless masses and subject to endless praise and admiration. Lesser status members, through their own learned helplessness, appear blinded to the ways in which the storylines constructed also have an oppressive influence. The emotionally charged framing of regular members as helpless victims in turn works to further empower the already powerful who are then able to claim to be working not for self-interest, but for the interests of the masses. A publication embodying many of the views documented thus far is the “Newsletter of the Nonnative English Speakers in TESOL”, hosted and thus legitimized by the largest center-based TESOL authority in the world. The official ‘non-native speaker movement’ attached to this newsletter states that one of its four goals is to “create a nondiscriminatory professional environment for all TESOL members regardless of native language and place of birth” (Braine, 2010: 4). However, this is soon downplayed through reference to such a goal as “more an ideal than a pragmatic reality” (Braine, 2010: 5). Similarly, Selvi (2014: 598) has recently stated that the “ultimate goal of the movement is to replace the circle of native speakerism that shut many TESOLers out with an all-encompassing one, which takes everybody in and welcomes diverse uses, users, functions, and contexts of the English(es) around the world”. The reader is not told explicitly who has been shut out by “the circle of native-speakerism” but is left to presume that reference is being made to ‘non-native speaker’ teachers. Identifying as a member of a politically-orientated movement whose core identity is derived from their mutually-exclusive language status, while claiming an interest in equality for all members “regardless of native language” is a contemporary exercise in Orwellian doublethink. Within the literature this is readily observable as divisions, assumptions and falsehoods are repeatedly drawn on the basis of language while self-defining ‘non-native speaker’ teachers are encouraged to “take advantage of our uniqueness” (Tseng, 2013). We might go further and ask ourselves whether we have fallen into the trap that George Orwell warned about in Animal Farm – the corruption of the ideal of equality by power? Initially the ‘seven commandments’ on the farm wall included ‘All animals are equal’. Later, the wall was repainted overnight leaving only one commandment: ‘All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others’. (Green, 2006: viii)

Indeed, ‘non-native speakers’ are now fully engaged in the pursuit of self-interest and status through the promotion of characteristics and abilities deemed accessi-

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ble according to conditions surrounding one’s birth. Although it is unheard of for ‘native speaker’ language-teaching professionals to assert dominance on the basis of birthright claims, birthright claims are acceptable when made by ‘non-native speaker’ teachers to promote their ‘uniqueness’. So entrenched within the TESOL profession is the idea of the ‘non-native speaker’ as victim that such discourse, conditioned by ideological thought, goes unchallenged. Within publications associated with the movement individuals are encouraged to identify themselves as disadvantaged, even though many authors list affiliations with prominent American universities and have therefore benefited from the symbolic capital of the “English-speaking West”. Despite claiming an interest in creating “a nondiscriminatory professional environment for all TESOL members regardless of native language and place of birth” (Braine, 2010: 4), in practice the idealized nondiscriminatory professional environment is not extended to ‘native speaker’ teachers. The published extracts below, ignorant to individual context, demonstrate contempt for the generic ‘native speaker’ teacher who is positioned as lacking in first-hand experience, lacking in patience and understanding, unable to understand and appreciate cultural difference, as being difficult for students to relate to, as having a demotivating influence in the classroom, as contributing to student anxiety and distress, as being monolingual and as being unable to relate theory to experience. As such claims are consistent with the victim-based identities and literature welcomed by the movement, these claims are deemed publishable by an editorial board despite their prejudicial nature and lack of supporting research evidence. …the most important, advantage NNESTs have is that of firsthand experience in what the students are encountering as they struggle to learn English…the difficulties that ESL learners experience can only be fully understood by someone whose native tongue is not English… aNNEST is far more likely to be patient and understanding when students make mistakes, because, in the past, the NNEST has probably made similar mistakes at one time or another. By contrast, no matter how patient and understanding native speakers are, it is hard for them to shake off the idea that fears and culture shock [sic]…The third advantage that NNESTS bring to an ESL class is an understanding of a culture other than the mainstream American or English culture-at-large. This enables teachers to be more appreciative of the cultural varieties present in any ESL classroom and also helps them ease the students into appreciating and understanding the cultures of countries other than their own…there can be no doubt that it is easier for an ESL student to identify with a non-native teacher than with a native one. The NNEST creates an easy rapport with students and leads to a better understanding and stronger motivation to learn English. The fact that the teacher is seen as “one of us,” and not as someone different than the students, makes a big difference in the way students view the lessons, and it helps them to overcome anxiety and distress. (Myint, 2002: 9)



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With reference to the literature on intergroup dynamics, the above extract reflects a rather predictable engagement in out-group denigration as a means of legitimizing the in-group and its own anxiety and insecurity. Highlighting the need to blame someone for our own failures, Gunder (2005: 95) discusses how “we need an outsider for the dialogical character of an identity to occur…Difference becomes necessary for our fantasies of harmony and also to provide the scapegoat on which to pin the failure of that fantasy”. Cast as the exclusive aggressor and benefactor of ideological native-speakerism, the ‘native speaker’ serves as an ideal scapegoat for the ‘non-native speaker movement’. Those language teachers (note the term ‘professionals’ has been withheld here) engaged in such rhetoric would be wise to consider Freire’s (1970: 44) warning concerning how “the oppressed must not, in seeking to regain their humanity (which is a way to create it), become in turn oppressors of the oppressors, but rather restorers of the humanity of both”. Readers are invited to question why the ‘non-native speaker movement’ frequently resorts to challenging, undermining and/or attempting to deny the professional capabilities of the ‘native speaker’ teacher? While such moves might appear as honorable to the disempowered masses, should such discourse not be disregarded as unprofessional and without evidence? NNS teachers apply their experience in learning English as a second language when they teach English (a characteristic which no NS teacher can claim)…The ability to relate L2 learning theories to their own learning of English. Teachers’ experiences inform their beliefs and in turn influence their teaching. Thus, when theories they encounter in teacher training reflect their own experiences as language learners, the two blend smoothly in their classroom practices. This ability, to place theory within the context of one’s own learning, is not available to NS English teachers. (Braine, 2012: 24)

Unfortunately, this genre of ‘honorable victim’ discourse is no longer limited to the newsletter of a TESOL sub-group. Evidence reveals its acceptance within mainstream applied linguistics. In a recent article published in Applied Linguistics (arguably the power center of mainstream publishing in Applied Linguistics) the self-ascribed ‘non-native speaker’ author (albeit trained and educated in the “English-speaking West”) calls for “recognition of their [non-native teachers] advantages over native teachers” (Yoo, 2014: 85). Echoing the rhetoric of the ‘non-native speaker movement’, the author discredits efforts made by ‘native speakers’ to empathize with students in stating that although “native teachers can try to experience this unfamiliarity by learning another language, they will never be able to experience the unfamiliarity of English and its foreignness that their students are experiencing” (Yoo, 2014: 85). Following a series of further prod-and-pokes, self-interest is soon revealed as the motive behind such views

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through the author’s dash-for-power proclamation that, “the ‘ideal teacher’ never was a category reserved for native teachers…The ‘ideal teacher’ thus seems a category reserved only for nonnative teachers as only nonnative teachers can experience, or have already experienced, the reality of English for people learning it” (Yoo, 2014: 85). These views are complemented by extremist claims of rightful entitlement as the author argues how ‘non-native speaker’ teachers “should thus resist the temptation of claiming the ownership of English because there is nothing to gain from acquiring it. Instead, we should rightfully claim the status of the only ideal teachers of English to our students” (Yoo, 2014: 86). Birth related entitlement discourse of this kind can be more commonly found within the rhetoric of extremist political parties that trade with the anxieties and insecurities of their own supposedly disempowered members by urging them to rise up and “rightfully claim” what is theirs (e.g., a language, a homeland, an identity) from a supposed oppressor. This discourse, presented within a journal demanding ‘outstanding scholarship’, demonstrates the masking of “strident ideological contentions for serious scholarship” in which the author views “social science as simply a power game, one won or lost by political means”. Consequently, and to the detriment of mainstream applied linguistics, “theory becomes dogma, and research becomes mere demonstration of ideological assertions” (Pettigrew, 2008: 285). Relating to the previously mentioned point concerning the assumed mutual exclusiveness of categorization and the hostile reactions often encountered when attempts are made to transcend the boundaries of classification, one can speculate as to the editorial decision to publish the article if the author’s claims of rightful entitlement were made in relation to some other characteristic beyond the direct control of the individual. For example, could a female language teacher write an article calling for “the recognition of their advantages over” all male language teachers and not be accused of sexism? Could a black language teacher write an article calling for “the recognition of their advantages over” all over all white language teachers and not be accused of racism? Could a Japanese language teacher write an article calling for “the recognition of their advantages over” all Chinese language teachers and not be accused of ethnocentrism? Surely, if such articles were presented as ‘outstanding scholarship’ they would be immediately dismissed as advocating prejudice drawn from sex, race and nationality, forms of prejudice considered more legitimate than prejudice drawn from language status. For a professional person to even question this fact would lead to repercussions within their workplace and/or local community. It is one thing to point toward freedom of speech and diversity of opinion, but even the most reluctant reader should acknowledge that some of the above examples would be prohibited on legal rather than moral grounds.



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To test the invisibility of language-related prejudice I made a formal written complaint to the journal editor concerning this particular article. However, the editor of the section in which the original article featured refused to entertain the complaint suggesting that the material was not prejudicial toward language-teaching professionals on the basis of their native language. This shows that language-related prejudice is invisible when acted out toward the ‘native speaker’, that attempts to challenge the exclusivity of ‘non-native speaker’ victimhood are often met with hostility (the section editor ended up sending to me a dismissive email in BLOCK CAPITALS which is generally believed to denote shouting), and that the moral high ground remains the exclusive property of the ‘non-native speaker’.

The future of TESOL professionalism Once upon a time it was considered morally desirable to be a person who took responsibility for your own actions. This was before we reached a cultural awareness of how prejudices, roles and external structures affect the lives of different groups of people. Once we gained insight into the ubiquity of these external structures, and how we are all influenced by them in different ways, we seemed to forget the concept of personal accountability. (Billing, 2009: 1)

Assessing the current state-of-affairs within the TESOL profession, Braine (2012: 24) describes how “unfortunately, a nondiscriminatory professional environment (the first goal) is still in the making. Like sexism and racism, it will stay with us for years to come”. What can be taken from such a statement? One should note the common technique for the elicitation of empathy used by the ‘non-native speaker movement’, this being the linking of their own struggle to more established and socially embraced forms of prejudice. Also, the ‘non-native speaker movement’ declared their intention to create a “nondiscriminatory professional environment” in 1996 and today, two-decades later, readers are still expected to believe that this goal is “still in the making”. This declaration can be viewed in one of two ways, either the movement has failed spectacularly to achieve its aims or that the ideological struggles positioned as oppressing the group are not intended to be overcome. The continued self-positioning as a minority group working to overcome a fictional oppressor should be viewed as the removal of sincere hope in favor of a permanent status of victimhood guaranteed by fabricated conflicts. The declaration that a discriminatory professional environment will “stay with us for years to come” is a worrying admission that for the ‘non-native speaker move-

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ment’ to continue to avoid promoting individual responsibility, ideology cannot be allowed to end. Indeed, the common social function of ideology is not to unify social groups, but instead to place them in opposition to one another. The acceptance of ideology can also be observed via the ‘non-native speaker movement’s’ decision to mainstream as a sub-group within the structural parameters of the dominant TESOL Inc., organization for two-decades. This relates to “the classic dilemma between organising through existing political structures (mainstreaming) with the risk of cooptation versus organising outside of existing structures (independence) with the risk of incapacity” (Jacoby, 2015: 525). In this sense, the mainstreaming of the ‘non-native speaker movement’ indicates that it remains in a state of infancy; incapacitated by a fear of freedom the movement seems unable or unwilling to mature toward independence and responsibility. Looking at the formal list of 21 interest sections listed on the TESOL Inc., website, the impact of two-decades of mainstreaming upon ‘non-native speaker’ anxiety and insecurity is obvious. From the list of 21 interest sections only two are directly related to the professional identity of the self (i.e., they concern ‘who we are’ as opposed to ‘what we do’). Accepting that one’s fundamental professional identity and sense of self is given equal status to what most people consider as merely a professional interest cannot be seen as promoting a positive professional self-image. If assuming that the TESOL Inc., organization is predominantly a ‘native speaker’ organization, as the sub-group positioning of the ‘non-native speaker movement’ suggests, then how can ‘non-native speaker’ teaching-professionals continue to participate in their own self-disempowerment? The oppressed having internalized the image of the oppressor and adopted his guidelines are fearful of freedom. Freedom would require them [the oppressed] to eject this image and replace it with autonomy and responsibility…the oppressed, who have adapted to the structure of domination in which they are immersed, and have become resigned to it, are inhabited from waging the struggle for freedoms as long as they feel incapable of running the risks it requires. (Freire, 1970: 47)

From the perspective of the TESOL Inc., organization the continued hosting of the ‘non-native speaker movement’ as a sub-group, offers numerous benefits as the incorporation of victims within any political campaign structure often acts to further legitimize the work carried out within such a campaign. Given the reluctance of the movement to challenge the status quo in a meaningful way, the TESOL Inc., organization remains unthreatened and in a position of authority and symbolic power (i.e., the movement as a sub-group must conform to rules dictated to them). However, individual members of the TESOL Inc., organization should question the continued acceptance and hosting of the ‘non-native speaker movement’ on the grounds that the movement are afforded special victim status



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and protections despite the fact that their own brand of discourse promotes language-related prejudice toward the ‘native speaker’ language-teaching professional. Does the TESOL Inc., organization and the profession-at-large accommodate the ‘non-native speaker movement’ as a means of appeasing ideological guilt or as a means of maintaining the status quo? The recent introduction of a financial scholarship for the “TESOL award for an outstanding paper on NNEST issues” is further indication of the conditional “warped sense of equality” (Garry, 2006: 9) surrounding the movement and a reflection of the extent to which the movement functions like the recipient of an affirmative action mandate. Do ‘non-native speaker’ language-teaching professionals not consider such charity as undermining their professional status as equals? Should it therefore be assumed that all ‘non-native speaker’ teachers, in addition to being victims of language-related prejudice, are also socioeconomically challenged? Does the offering of a special award not encourage researchers to embrace ideological claims and to produce work that attempts to formalize the disempowerment of NNESTs? The oppressed suffer from the duality which has established itself in their innermost being. They discover that without freedom they cannot exist authentically. Yet, although they desire authentic existence, they fear it. They are at one and the same time themselves and the oppressor whose consciousness they have internalized. (Freire, 1970: 48)

As a scholar sincerely interested in the creation of a nondiscriminatory professional environment I see the continued hosting and acceptance of any group who seek to uphold divisions and discussions on the basis of native language as being counter-productive. The TESOL Inc., organization should demonstrate its inclusivity and work to move the profession, and all of its members, beyond the confines of an ideological existence. This shift could be initiated through the disbanding of the ‘non-native speaker movement’ and the adoption of policies that insist that divisions on the basis of ‘native’ language be considered as outside of the profession. After two-decades of comfortable mainstreaming, this move would force the ‘non-native speaker movement’ to remain within the TESOL Inc., organization as equal-status professionals. While this would award equal professional status to all members, it would also involve having to move beyond self-definition and the definition of others as ‘native speakers’ and ‘non-native speakers’. Alternatively, the movement could achieve the independence and autonomy that they profess to seek, choose to maintain their identity as ‘non-native speakers’, thus legitimizing mutually exclusive categories decided at birth, and leave the TESOL Inc., organization. The current situation in which the ‘non-native speaker movement’ seeks a dominant voice of authority and leadership, while simultane-

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ously claiming an identity based on ideologies of victimhood is untenable. Why after two-decade has the ‘non-native speaker movement’ not already mobilized beyond the restrictive structures of the TESOL Inc., organization?

Final thoughts …our discomforts (i.e., anxieties, insecurities and fears) should be cast not as products of ‘the unknown’ but rather as direct products of ‘the known’ and its stubborn ideological reluctance to release individuals from a subjugating repetition of thoughts, beliefs and actions. (Rivers, 2015: 3)

Despite Deutsch’s (2015: 12) warning that “it is useless to try to refute an ideology… the attempt to refute it is likely to elicit defensiveness and hostility”, this chapter has drawn attention to the failure of “the ideology of native-speakerism” (Holliday, 2005: 8). Acknowledging that, “victim and perpetrator are often fluid categories” (Jacoby, 2015: 515), it has been shown how the ‘non-native speaker’ victim frequently assumes the role of perpetrator of language-related prejudice. Furthermore, it has been emphasized that such prejudice has not yet been recognized within the academic literature or general TESOL profession beyond muted associations with linguicism. I ask the reader to take from this chapter the idea that in order for language teachers and language teaching to achieve professional integrity, accusations of prejudice drawn from ideology cannot be sustained as no escape is offered from a status quo characterized by accusations of violence and counter violence. The contemporary dynamics between dominator and dominated should be more closely observed within localized contexts giving due consideration to the actions and motives of real-actors and the here-and-now consequences of such actions. Finally, this chapter has opened for discussion the question of professionalism within the TESOL Inc., organization in relation to the continued hosting and institutional support of the ‘non-native speaker movement’, a sectarian group of language teachers who take pride in dividing the profession according to language status, quite ironic given that many of their claims of inferior treatment and opportunity are based upon the very same divisions which their existence maintains. Like “the ideology of native-speakerism” this group and their vested interests should be seen as a threat to all involved in language education and as having an oppressive influence upon those language teachers who, regardless of language-based categorizations, wish to construct a truly “nondiscriminatory professional environment” free from ideological oppression.



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Houghton, S.A. & D.J. Rivers. 2013. Redefining native-speakerism. In S.A. Houghton & D.J. Rivers (eds.), Native-speakerism in Japan: Intergroup dynamics in foreign language education, 1–14. Bristol: Multilingual Matters. Jacoby, T.A. 2015. A theory of victimhood: Politics, conflict and the construction of victim-based identity. Journal of International Studies 43(2). 511–530. Kawasaki, S. 2001. The policy of apartheid and the Japanese in the Republic of South Africa. The Bulletin of Tokyo Kasei Gakuin and Tsukuba Women’s University 5. 53–79. Mahboob, A. & R. Golden. 2013. Looking for native speakers of English: Discrimination in English language teaching job advertisements. Voices in Asia Journal 1(1). 72–81. Matsuda, K. 2002. Keeping the NNEST movement alive: A letter from the chair. NNEST Newsletter 4(2). http://nnest.moussu.net/docs/newsletter/ NNESTNewsletter-4%282%29-2002.pdf . (accessed 10 June 2015). Mohan, R. & G. Kinloch. 2000. Ideology, myth, and social science. In G. Kinloch & R. Mohan (eds.), Ideology and the social sciences, 7–20. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press. Myint, M.K. 2002. A strong case for non-native English-speaking teachers (NNESTs). The Newsletter of the Nonnative English Speakers in TESOL 4(2). 9. http://nnest.moussu.net/ docs/newsletter/NNESTNewsletter-4%282%29-2002.pdf. (accessed 13 June 2015). NNEST of the Month Blog 2011, July. NNEST of the Month. https://nnestofthemonth.wordpress. com/2011/06/30/jennifer-jenkins/ (accessed 28 April 2015). Parrott, W.G. 2003. Positioning and the emotions. In R. Harre & F. Moghaddam (eds.), The self and others: Positioning individuals and groups in personal, political, and cultural contexts, 29–44. Westport, CT: Praeger. Pettigrew, T.F. 2008. Reflections on core themes in intergroup research. In U. Wagner, L.R. Tropp, G. Finchilescu & C. Tredoux (eds.), Improving intergroup relations, 283–303. Singapore: Blackwell. Pederson, R. 2012. Representation, globalization, and the native speaker: Dialectics of language ideology, and power. In K. Sung & R. Pederson (eds.), Critical ELT practices in Asia, 1–22. Rotterdam: Sense Publishers. Phillipson, R. 1992. Linguistic imperialism. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Rajagopalan, K. 1997. Linguistics and the myth of nativity: Comments on the controversy over ‘new/non-native’ Englishes. Journal of Pragmatics 27(2). 225–231. Rivers, D.J. 2013a. Institutionalized native-speakerism: Voices of dissent and acts of resistance. In S.A. Houghton & D.J. Rivers (eds.), Native-speakerism in Japan: Intergroup dynamics in foreign language education, 75–91. Bristol: Multilingual Matters. Rivers, D.J. 2013b. Labour contract law amendments: Recruitment indicative of change? The Language Teacher 37(1). 68–71. Rivers, D.J. & A.S. Ross. 2013. Uncovering stereotypes: Intersections of race and English nativespeakerhood. In S.A. Houghton, Y. Furumura, M. Lebedko & L. Song (eds.), Critical cultural awareness: Managing stereotypes through intercultural (language) education, 42–61. Newcastle-upon-Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing. Rivers, D.J. 2015. Introduction: Conceptualizing the known and the relational dynamics of power and resistance. In D.J. Rivers (ed.), Resistance to the known: Counter-conduct in language education, 1–20. Houndmills: Palgrave Macmillan. Rivers, D.J. 2016. Employment advertisements and native-speakerism in Japanese higher education. In F. Copland, S. Garton & S. Mann (eds.), LETs and NESTs: Voices, views and vignettes, 79–100. London: British Council.



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Rivers, D.J. 2017. Speakerhood as segregation: The construction and consequence of divisive discourse in TESOL. In B. Yazan and N. Rudolph (Eds.), Criticality, teacher identity, and (in) equity in ELT through and beyond binaries: Issues and implications. Dordrecht: Springer Ruecker, T. & L. Ives. 2015. White native English speaker needed: The rhetorical construction of privilege in online teacher recruitment spaces. TESOL Quarterly 49(4). 733–756. Selvi, A. F. 2010. All teachers are equal, but some teachers are more equal than others: Trend analysis of job advertisements in English language teaching. WATESOL NNEST Caucus Annual Review 1. 156–181. Selvi, A. F. 2014. Myths and misconceptions about nonnative English speakers in the TESOL (NNEST) Movement. TESOL Journal 5(3). 573–611. Skutnabb-Kangas, T. 1988. Multilingualism and the education of minority children. In T. Skutnabb-Kangas & J. Cummins (eds.), Minority education: From shame to struggle, 9–44. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters. Waters, A. 2007. Native-speakerism in ELT: Plus ça change…? System 35(3). 281–292. Yoo, I.S. 2014. Nonnative teachers in the expanding circle and the ownership of English. Applied Linguistics 35(1). 82–86.

Rodrigo Joseph Rodríguez

5 Against ethnocentrism and toward translanguaging in literacy and English education Cuando llegué a la escuela pensaron que no tenía una mente para el inglés y si no tienes una mente para el inglés no tienes una mente para nada. Pablo Medina (2013a: 49), selección de “El secreto” [poema] When I made it to school they thought I didn’t have a mind in English and if you don’t have a mind in English you have a mind in nothing. Pablo Medina (2013b: 48), from “The Secret” [poem] “Parental proficiency in English, education level, and income can on their own be related to Hispanic achievement gaps.” (Ackerman & Tazi, 2015: 4)

Introduction Students can perceive their teachers’ attitudes toward the languages they speak, the cultures they represent, and the forms of learning and unlearning they adopt (Paris, 2011). In fact, students possess learned abilities to decode and decipher the spoken and unspoken rules and norms in our presence as we teach and outside of our schools (Kirkland, 2013; Ochoa, 2013; Valenzuela, 1999). As a result, we must remain mindful of our roles and practices as teachers of world languages, cultures, and literatures and the messaging we impart. In other words, our actions as teachers can either support or hinder learning in our English language arts and literacy classrooms. A term from the Welsh, trawsieithu, and coined by Cen Williams, translanguaging offers a new vision and practice of language learning and instruction that does not separate the two languages as independent of each other, but acknowledges their relevance and interconnectedness for bilingual learners in their attempt to make meaning, experience, and understanding for communication in multiple settings (Wei & García, 2014). Velasco and García explain (2014: 7), DOI 10.1515/9781501503085-006

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The term [translanguaging] stresses the flexible and meaningful actions through which bilinguals select features in their linguistic repertoire in order to communicate appropriately. From this perspective, the language practices being learned by emergent bilinguals are in functional interrelationship with other language practices and form an integrated system.

The perspective presented by Velasco and García emphasizes a twenty-first century worldview of the interrelationships for language learning and how these create “languaging” for speakers who produce meaning in a global society influenced by technologies. More specifically, García & Wei (2014: 22) explain, “translanguaging is the dynamic process whereby multilingual language users mediate complex social and cognitive activities through strategic employment of multiple semiotic resources to act, to know and to be”. In contrast, twentieth-century research studies about bilingual learners of Spanish and English who used two language systems was once described as “code-switching,” which acknowledged two languages as separate systems (Wei & García, 2014). For instance, the stanza from Medina’s poem, which opens the chapter, reveals how the speaker comes to interpret and translate language hierarchies and his or her own Spanish-language voice as irrelevant and to be suppressed as ethnocentrism reigns in the schooling enterprise. With the title alone as “El secreto”  / “The Secret,” Medina communicates the hidden curriculum, ethnocentric ideologies, and language oppression via schooling and instruction. Nonetheless, Velasco & García (2014: 7) advocate from a responsible and democratic vision of translanguaging, which. …comprises a bilingual theory of learning, especially for language-minoritized populations. In fact, translanguaging becomes the framework for conceptualizing the education of bilinguals as a democratic endeavor for social justice. Teaching practices that jeopardize this reality essentially undermine the right to learn of language-minority children.

At a university located in the largest urban corridor of West Texas that borders the state of Chihuahua, México, I taught English language arts methods and young adult literature courses for the preparation of secondary-school literacy educators. The region of the borderlands and the interests of the Mexican-origin population influenced: the courses designed and offered. An additional course, the English laboratory course, emphasized designing, implementing, and analyzing our instructional perceptions and planning through case studies and emancipatory pedagogy. Both courses were informed by a translanguaging framework of linguistic self-determination and affirmation with the theory of generative change in U.S. literacy and English education as well as international contexts. The framework and theory were significant pillars to challenge our future teach-

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ers in all of their conceptions about what constitutes as language resources and pedagogical practices in culturally and linguistically complex classrooms (García, 2009; Paris & Ball, 2009). This chapter responds to the translanguaging definition developed by Ofelia García that: (a) emphasizes language education as a “democratic endeavor for social justice,” (b) challenges ethnocentrism as a form of oppression that “undermine[s] [the people’s] right to learn,” and (c) engages preservice teachers toward collaborative reflection on language and literacy education. Overall, the goal of translanguaging is to eradicate language hierarchies and misconceptions in the lives of our students, families, colleagues, and society toward more socially just language teaching and learning that advances freedom and justice. In addition, enactments of translanguaging and literacy meaning-making that occur as quiet forms of resistance to schooling and education are shared in this chapter as emancipatory for meta-awareness and self-determination in the lives of preservice teachers. Language-learning entries authored by Mexican-origin preservice teachers are presented and analyzed to illustrate how they encounter and disrupt “ethnocentrism of oppression” in language and literacy education while living, studying, and teaching in greater West Texas and along the Texas-México Southwest borderlands. Preliminary qualitative data and document artifacts collected reflect bilingual (Spanish and English) features that are fluid and interdependent and ways that speakers interpret language hierarchy and oppression from within their monolingual and bilingual communities. The chapter ends with recommended competencies to advance the translanguaging framework and generative change for social justice in literacy and English language arts education.

Terminology, ethnocentrism, and capital Terminology that reduces human abilities to dismissive categories is a form of oppression in language learning and teaching. In schooling and education, terminology can become indifferent to our students as we define them by categories and hierarchies based on “-isms of oppression” and indifferent nomenclatures driven by deficit-based connotations. Birch (2009: 3) poses significant questions for linguists to remain responsible and accountable as they examine concepts and contexts, and these questions are just as relevant to language teachers: “Do [my] definitions of language minimize or empower speakers? Do theories of language learning belittle or respect the diverse capacities of the human mind? Do

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observations about language learners disparage or dignify their process and outcome? Does language learning transform or maintain the status quo?”. Recent efforts to challenge subtractive terminology and deficit-based language use include finding ways to describe language learning in additive, positive language that reflects the abilities, interests, and strengths that young people and their families bring to the classroom. This has meant abandoning terms such as at-risk students, limited English proficient students, and struggling readers in favor of terms such as students of diverse backgrounds, English language learners or emergent bilinguals, and close readers in formation. Despite the fact that researchers are favoring additive language, a recent Educational Testing Service research report by Ackerman & Tazi (2015: 4) promotes deficit-based language about children and families and ignores human potential in favor of “-isms of oppression” such as “Hispanic achievement gaps,” which their research argues is caused by parents’ limited educational attainment, low-income status, and limited English-language proficiency. Birch (2009: 4) reminds us, “no pedagogy is politically or socially neutral; no learning or lack of learning is without economic and cultural repercussions for society or for individuals. And yet we do not address such issues enough among ourselves or with our students”. In short, as educators we are politically and socially active participants and agents who influence many in our profession. In our work, we must remain mindful of our actions and how we enable subtractive or additive thinking in language and literacy education. The deficit-language model reflects and advances ethnocentrism and reductionist thinking based on difference with repercussion driven by “out-group” stratification. Kinder & Cam (2013: 219) define ethnocentrism as a “way of thinking that partitions the world into in-groups and out-groups  – into us and them. Ethnocentrism is an attitude – perhaps, as Lévi-Strauss (1961: 19) would have it, ‘the most ancient of attitudes’ – constituting a readiness to act in favor of in-groups and in opposition to out-groups”. This definition is relevant as we study and teach literacy and language education. Closely connected to language are schooling, education, and capital. For example, in Economization of Education: Human Capital, Global Corporations, Skills-Based Schooling, Spring (2015: 5), analyzes the corporatization of education and family life in schools and many other public spaces into descriptive forms of soft skills and hard skills that current students and future workers must possess to participate in the global and free markets. Often, the lingua franca is English with language instruction that supports capitalism by any means, which often means disrupting communities, families, and even native spoken languages in the name of investments and profits. Spring argues, “human capital goals for education trump other educational goals, such as education for social justice,

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environmental improvement, political participation, and citizenship training”. In contrast, translanguaging attempts to place the educational goals about equality, equity, and justice at the forefront of language learning, literacy development, and public education for emancipation.

The role of language and research Paris & Wynn (2014: xiii) are proponents of conducting research for social justice with young people and civic communities often ignored and marginalized based on systems of inequality and inequity. For instance, “-isms of oppression” such as race, ethnicity, sexuality, citizenship status, gender, and other categories and hierarchies are often used in favor of difference and to perpetuate indifference with ethnocentrism. Paris and Wynn note that action researchers “grapple with the tensions that arise from being primarily concerned about equity and social justice while simultaneously engaging in research with youth and communities”. The tensions are directly impacted by schooling, education, and capital. At the same time, varying positionalities exist regarding power, discourse, and ideology. However, as teachers and researchers, we can support language education that is ethically sound and socially responsible for positive change in the lives of our students and their teachers. Consequently, my pedagogical labor with preservice teachers is driven by language practices and literacy engagement that can become additive (free of deficit thinking) for emancipation. Translanguaging provides the possibilities of emancipation for our citizens if we recognize the interconnectedness of our work as teachers and researchers. Fairclough (2014: 2) insists, It is not just that language has become perhaps the primary medium of social control and power, though that is noteworthy enough; language has grown dramatically in terms of the uses it is required to serve, in terms of the range of language varieties, and in terms of the complexity of the language capacities that are expected of the modern citizen.

The capacities of the modern citizen that Fairclough describes include translanguaging to enact and promote social responsibility and change. More specifically, preservice teachers must be prepared to work with middle and high school students and their colleagues in the borderlands, greater United States, and international communities with a translanguaging framework that views language learning as linguistic and cultural wealth to increase our human capacity for communication, understanding, and emancipation (Yosso, 2005). In short, translanguaging seeks to remove hierarchy and other “-isms of oppression” to

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support multilingualism in literacy education as students challenge monolingual assumptions and ethnocentrism of bilingual practices.

Emancipatory language learning Emancipatory language learning and pedagogy can be liberating for students if we value home languages and cultures that inform each student’s “self-actualization” to name the realities they live and inequalities they witness (Freire, 1968, 2000). In the English-language acquisition process and through literacy and English education, ideologies about what it means to become “civil, “educated,” “learned,” and “cultured” can be demarcated by “-isms of oppression” and the banking model of education critiqued by Freire (1968, 2000) as well as stultification systems and ethnocentric standards within education. Arce (2004: 244) urges, “the goal for the critical educator must be to transform schools and society away from non-democratic social, economic and political relations”. Although the history of language education in the United States was informed by state-sanctioned policies and systems based on deculturalisation, recent efforts in states across the country are informed by dual language education with bicultural, multilingual, and translanguaging perspectives (Collier & Thomas, 2014; Passe 2012; Thomas & Collier, 2012). For example, Utah became the first state in the union to legislate funding for dual language immersion education in 2008. In this language learning and teaching model, students spend half of their school day in the target language and the other half in English across all subject areas, which is often noted as 50/50. More than 25,000 students enrolled statewide in 116 language programmes during the 2014–2015 academic year. The world languages under study are Chinese, French, German, Portuguese, and Spanish immersion in two languages, two cultures, and two perspectives, ranging from the elementary level through university studies. Namely, translanguaging and social interactions led by teachers, students, parents, and community members  – for language learning and maintenance – resist oppressive and disempowering “-isms” and practices both inside and outside of school. Ultimately, the goal is to engender among young people ownership of change and a vision of how languages and societies can become more humane, just, and equitable through emancipatory learning. Through misinformed pedagogical practices, exclusionary textbooks and resources, and ethnocentric fears placed upon the general public and schooling enterprise by the nation-state (e.g., U.S. Department of Education or state and local education agencies), English-dominant language learning in the United States became

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reductionist and in favor of English-Only methods through “-isms of oppression”, which were assigned to native, heritage languages of the hemispheric Américas (Blanton, 2007; García & García, 2012; Mays, 2011; Nieto, 2009). Faltis & Valdés (2010: 285) chronicle the history of dominance and oppression for large groups of people in the U.S., including English-language enforcement, that has impacted many communities including indigenous and native people. They report, “In the past 100 years, immigrants and refugees have either been embraced or vilified, depending on their country of origin, skin color, language, schooling, and perceived economic benefit”. The capital benefits extend to the dominant perspectives of English as the nation’s lingua franca, preferred language of capitalism, and unilateral power as unequivocal “-isms”, which ultimately reinforce ethnocentrism (Spring, 2011). In response to and in contrast to these linguistic difference and aberrations, Ofelia García (2009: 40) activates the word “language” as a verb of agency and acknowledges its liberating possibilities for communication, understanding, and participation across varied intersections and meeting points for language discourses and instructional dialogue. In the process, alternate views of teaching, designing, learning, and assessing language learning are possible as we question and challenge assumptions. García explains, “We reimagine language as language practices, languaging as a resource of imagination, languaging without bridles, languaging without prejudices, in its full realia of modes and meanings that are supported by technology today”. This form of languaging is significant to literacy and English education as it posits the opportunity to abandon monolinguist and ethnocentric positionalities that hinder learning. Instead, greater emphasis is placed upon valuing human intellect, creativity, and imagination across borders, cultures, and structures, which are in constant contact across linguistic features, literacy modes, and digital technologies.

Languaging In defining ethnocentrism, Kam & Kinder (2007: 322) argue, “ethnocentrism encompasses both cognition (belief) and affect (feeling). Ethnocentrism is not just an error in judgment, not just a matter of intellectual functioning; it involves emotions as well, both positive and negative”. The emotions of ethnocentrism can appear in languaging education and further hinder learning in favor of reductionist and imperialist thinking “-isms” about what is a language and its positioning among world languages. The act of languaging abandons ethnocentric thinking and behavior to support and maintain cross-cultural understanding among our

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students for emancipatory learning that respects students’ prior knowledge and allows their language use and meaning-making approaches to serve as resources. This approach is supportive and non-judgmental with positive emphasis and action. In the excerpt from the poem “The Secret” / “El secreto” (2013), Medina contextualizes the misconceptions of language learning and how English-language education in our schools and communities once prevailed to the detriment of our youngest learners with disregard to their home lives and prior knowledge. Ethnocentric beliefs, feelings, and behaviors can appear in curricula and instruction that are absent of teacher reflection and meta-pedagogy about assignments of intellectual superiority status held for some world languages and not others. To illustrate in Medina’s poem, as a young student entering the U.S. schooling enterprise, the speaker establishes a counter-narrative to ethnocentrism, or in this case language superiority which measures utterances unlike English as different and subordinate, and thus held in lesser regard. In fact, the speaker in the poem possesses competencies in translanguaging, which Velasco & García (2014: 7) argue as having “flexible and meaningful actions through which bilinguals select features in their linguistic repertoire in order to communicate appropriately”. The speaker’s repertoire is silenced with no place in the newly assigned classroom, yet the speaker’s awareness of these conditions creates the possibility of a counter-narrative that is supported by the poem’s existence and positioning about languaging. Along the same lines of a counter-narrative, the model of translanguaging invites teachers and students to conceptualize languages as “not fixed codes by themselves; [languages] are fluid codes framed within social practices” (García, 2009: 32). In teacher education programmes, translanguaging offers the possibility to identify conceptual links to make power relations more visible and equitable for student learning, understanding, and achievement. Ultimately, we seek to question how teaching and learning assumptions and stigmas affect language learning in the social and developmental lives of children, adolescents, and their families. In an attempt to promote emancipatory learning as the ultimate goal despite the existence of “-isms of oppression,” Kirylo (2013: xx) argues, Throughout time, whether those dehumanizing forces perpetuated slavery, racism, patriarchy, bigotry or any number of oppressive, exploitive and unjust practices, groups of people responded and courageous leaders emerged with bold voices with what Freire refers to as a proclamation of denouncing injustice while simultaneously announcing for a more just world.

Less oppressive forms of language learning and teaching are possible when we examine roles, relationships, approaches, and perspectives bound by social dis-

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courses and structures. Moreover, socioeconomic inequities impact access to schooling and language resources and educational opportunity (Spring, 2011, 2015).

Schooling conditions In some states within the United States, teacher preparation faces a top-down hierarchy based on performance accountability in public schools and economic stratification in the communities served by local schools and state measures (Brass & Webb, 2015). In recent years, however, the effort has been to establish more local control of schools through locally-developed performance measures of teaching and learning as well as the administered criterion-referenced assessments in compliance with the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 (NCLB) (2002). The proposed reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (2015), formerly NCLB, will revise standards, reduce assessment administrations, and provide more funding resources for schools. More engagement by the public and families is demanding greater emphasis on learning not driven by high-stakes, standardized assessments limited by a multiple-choice list. At the same time, schools must begin to challenge how we define English language arts with translanguaging as a framework that “matches, validates, and extends” what students know independent of schooling and assessment measures. In Reconstituting Teacher Education: Literacy, Critical Theories, and English, Brass (2015: 4) explains, …curricula generally reflect and reproduce texts, world views, values and communicative norms of socially dominant groups and institutions; thus, some youth may appear “ready” for and “successful” in school because school-based literacy practices match, validate, and extend the selective repertoire of communicative practices that they have acquired and learned outside of school.

Students can experience curricula and instructional lessons that question “-isms of oppression” and practices of exclusion, domination, and oppression with alternate points of view. These opportunities for learning can guide them to name their realities and experiences toward conceptual understanding about how literacy, language, and literature function to either support of hinder social justice and emancipatory learning. The teaching, learning, and assessment conditions faced by teachers, students, and families are further exacerbated by economic hardship and downturn and the widening gap between the wealthy elite and the working poor and

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middle class. A research study conducted by the Southern Education Foundation reported that – for the first time in at least 50 years – a majority of public school students across the country are considered low-income and qualify for the federal free-reduced lunch, an indicator of economic need (Suitts, 2015). Moreover, the report reveals that children who live in poverty are spread across the country, while concentrations are found to be highest in the Southern and Western regions of the U.S. As a result, teachers face significant hurdles in adapting to how children can learn best in these circumstances, while their students face some of the harshest circumstances to learn in situations and realities that differ vastly between home and school.

Research and competencies in the teacher education The contexts of literacy and translanguaging practices and the conditions exacerbated by economic poverty appear in the methods courses I teach. These contexts and conditions can create greater realizations for preservice teachers to challenge the recurring presence and hidden curricula of the “-isms of oppression” within our instructional planning and delivery. Preservice teachers engage in research methods and approaches that require them to undertake the role of an emerging linguist and action researcher to name the “-isms” that dominate our language and literacy practices – from the beginning of our school to the present. What follows are contexts, readings, and writing samples from the current research underway on translanguaging for literacy and language education. The following quote by Macedo (2007: 14) informs our research to decipher the reproduction and mechanisms that instill oppressions that we can then undo and unlearn for liberation among our students. Macedo observes: Literacy for cultural reproduction uses institutional mechanisms to undermine independent thought, a prerequisite for the Orwellian “manufacture of consent” or “engineering of consent.” In this light, schools are seen as ideological institutions designed to prevent the so-called crisis of democracy, another Orwellian concept, meaning the beginnings of democracy.

Our public school students and preservice teachers encounter social inequalities, inequities, and realities of our world and participate in creating societies free from “-isms of oppression” endured by many. A democracy only exists as much as it is challenged and tested to ensure it fulfills its constitutional promise of freedom, equality, and equity. In addition,

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the economic realities described are present in the communities where our preservice teachers begin their careers in the most underserved and disenfranchised communities. Like Macedo, Totten (2015: xxxvi) insists, “many educators have stood firm in the belief that, in a democracy such as ours, it is imperative for the young to be prepared to take an active part in societal debates, discussions, and decisions, and that the best way to do that is to engage them in the study of social issues while they are still in school”. The preparation of young people to participate in a representative democracy ensures the reduction of existing forms of inequality and oppression and to imagine and create a world free of oppression with emancipation as a possibility. To promote a translanguaging framework with social justice as a goal, four competencies to know and apply in the literacy and English language arts education classrooms are: (1) meta-awareness about pedagogy and learning, (2) mindfulness towards students’ cultural wealth, (3) translanguaging practices for social justice, and (4) sociocultural application for literacy connections. The four competencies are significant for study and practice and are relevant to our teacher workforce (prekindergarten through 12th grade), which is comprised of 84 percent identifying as White American (U.S. Department of Education, 2013). In support of cultural and linguistic diversity, the competencies match the changing student demographics and the needs for culturally relevant and sustaining pedagogies that value students’ cultural and linguistic wealth (Yosso, 2005). Preservice teachers benefit from understanding the needs and interests of their culturally and linguistically diverse students.

Essential questions for translanguaging The preservice teachers learn how we respond to the world is informed by what we read, write, speak, hear, perform, notice, and value in our lives and informs the conditions and opportunities for translanguaging that we create for our students. To support the classrooms as a space for collaborative reflection and social change, I developed five essential questions that guide our course. The questions are informed by what Ball calls generativity, or “teachers’ ability to add to their understanding by connecting their personal and professional knowledge with their students’ knowledge in ways that produce new knowledge that is useful to them in curricular planning and pedagogical problem solving to meet the educational needs of their students” (Paris & Ball, 2009: 390). The essential questions are:

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1. 2. 3. 4. 5.

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Which literacies do language users use, especially when they pose questions? In which ways do we practice literacy and consumption? Why am I languaging, translanguaging? For whom? How are narratives by authors with characters from diverse backgrounds, places, and times about me? Whose literacies matter? What makes them significant?

The essential questions are based on translanguaging, generative thinking, problem solving, and culturally relevant and sustaining pedagogies (Ball & Paris, 2009; García, 2014; Paris, 2012; Wright, Boun, & García, 2015). Moreover, the questions inform our discussion and deliberations about language, power, discourse, and ideologies that enter our classrooms and the worlds we enter as teachers with our students in the presence of -isms. In the methods class, two assignments are adopted to demonstrate the application of competencies and essential questions and how they can inform instructional planning and delivery. The first assignment, writing a language and literacy reflection essay, is connected to required reading and discussion of the essay “Superman and Me” (1998) by Sherman Alexie. The essay is about Alexie’s memories of early literacy and how he gained access to print language, which informed his interests in reading and writing toward emancipatory language learning and participation. The challenges he faced in his schooling as a Spokane/Coeur d’Alene Indian and his thoughts about life in Native America are also revealed. Alexie’s realizations about space, language, and reading – among other literacies – are instrumental for preservice teachers to begin their own meta-awareness about coming to language and literacy practices that were available to them to gain access and Freire’s “self-actualization” concept like the young Sherman Alexie. For example, Alexie acknowledges at an early age how he came to understand and view paragraph constructions that also create self-awareness toward emancipation: I still remember the exact moment when I first understood, with a sudden clarity, the purpose of a paragraph. I didn’t have the vocabulary to say “paragraph,” but I realized that a paragraph was a fence that held words. The words inside a paragraph worked together for a common purpose. They had some specific reason for being inside the same fence. This knowledge delighted me. I began to think of everything in terms of paragraphs. Our reservation was a small paragraph within the United States.

Alexie’s structuring of how literacy functions on the page and in comic panels mirrors how translanguaging functions by making use of language systems for

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communication. In short, we examine the act of reading and languaging as these two merge and create a sense of home and purpose for literacy to happen. As the essay progresses, we learn that the DC Comics Superman offers Alexie a meta-awareness via dialogue and inferences with a vast imagination, despite the limited expectations, socioeconomic injustice, and “-isms of oppression” that surround his family, reservation, schooling experiences, and daily affairs. A metacognitive voice in the process of meaning-making appears and reveals Alexie’s “self-actualization” as an early reader and thinker: Each panel, complete with picture, dialogue and narrative was a three-dimensional paragraph. In one panel, Superman breaks through a door. His suit is red, blue and yellow. The brown door shatters into many pieces. I look at the narrative above the picture. I cannot read the words, but I assume it tells me that “Superman is breaking down the door.” Aloud, I pretend to read the words and say, “Superman is breaking down the door.” Words, dialogue, also float out of Superman’s mouth. Because he is breaking down the door, I assume he says, “I am breaking down the door.” Once again, I pretend to read the words and say aloud, “I am breaking down the door.” In this way, I learned to read.

Potential understanding and varied responses from Alexie’s personal essay on coming-of-age through reading appear for the preservice teachers. They remember and compile their own early literacy experiences through personal narratives that were instructive and guided them toward building confidence as readers. In addition, their conceptions about what counts as literature and worthy of reading are challenged to rethink their definitions of literary genres that include comic books, graphic novels, and multimodal literacies.

Meta-awareness and mindfulness How we perceive and learn world languages influences our actions, discourses, and deliberations that range from our very own filtering to reach meaning, which can lead young people to learn essential concepts and skills. In Teaching the Taboo: Courage and Imagination in the Classroom, Ayers & Ayers (2014: 21) insist, “if teachers choose a life of risk taking, their troubles begin: How do you introduce important issues without being just another authoritarian presence in your students’ lives? How do you avoid trampling on their insights, their points of view, and experiences”. The words “teachers” and “troubles” are hardly synonymous, yet Ayers and Ayers suggest they may be if we seek to engage our preservice and experienced teachers in social responsibility and action along with their students. Teaching becomes neither neat nor safe in the struggle against the “-isms of oppression.”

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As such, preservice teachers benefit from risk-taking and meta-awareness pedagogy, which increases understanding of the self through mindfulness while teaching and evolves in one’s perception about situations and problems connected with positionality to name oneself through internal and external changes. Teachers must engage in the habit of reflective practice about pedagogical decisions and results that directly involve students. In English Education Studies, we can fall into binaries that are detrimental with ethnocentric thinking and behavior. Devereaux (2014) reports that some language teachers can create challenges for teaching that fall into the right/wrong paradigm about language learning. Thus, they harbor feelings that hinder their language practice with students and ignore students’ prior knowledge, experience, situation, and environment. To illustrate, Devereaux (2014: 2) highlights the errors perceived in student writing, right/wrong language usage, and reading and understanding language differences: 1. 2. 3.

Not all secondary students come to school speaking and writing in the language variety of the standardized assessment: Standard English. Students and teachers come to the classroom with clear opinions about language variations. Students may not understand or appreciate the dialectically-diverse texts we bring to the classroom.

Deveraux recommends welcoming and valuing students’ linguistic diversity and to guide them to understand varieties in English. By understanding linguistic diversity in the secondary classroom, students can gain versatility that will inform their communications regarding audience, purpose, and situation in the following areas: (1) language and power, (2) language and society, and (3) language and identity. Power, society and identity inform so much of our student and teacher lives that each one of these is in an interrelationship with literacy and language arts education.

Meaning-making and transferability in action Of the document artifacts collected for the preliminary research study on translanguaging and its influence on social justice, some essays spoke directly to this engagement and “self-actualization” advanced by Freire (1968, 2000) and Alexie (1998). Specifically, in a narrative about her literacy development and languaging, a bilingual (Spanish and English) preservice teacher named Rosalba (pseudonym) reveals:

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I was ten years old when I first attended school in the United States. Dark-skinned and awkward with a terrified and desperate look oozing from my eyeballs, that was me. I was a Spanish kid (as I later learned was the label in which I was classified), entering school underprepared and unaware of the knowledge to come in my life.

These two sentences alone reveal Rosalba’s childhood memories of entering elementary school in West Texas and the “-isms of oppression” she witnesses and testifies as child. Although twenty years older now as she writes her literacy essay, she recalls entering school in the late 1990s as a fluent Spanish speaker with some emerging English-language abilities to only be isolated and labeled as a “Spanish kid” for possessing Spanish-language fluency. Later in the literacy essay, Rosalba shares her meta-awareness as a child that included a “hidden camera crew, revealing themselves before [her] and shout[ing]: ‘You figured it out! You figured it out!” This sequencing of stream of consciousness communicates Rosalba’s resilience as she languages her experience for understanding and participation. The meta-cognitive voice continues in her head that makes her thinking more audible for us as readers of a specific time and place she survived: “‘Elementary school is a piece of cake, so here’s your cake and don’t forget to smile for the viewers back home!’ This sparked something in my fast-paced, yet bored, head of mine, filling me with joy and entertainment; my imagination was born.” While gaining her sense of self and belonging, Rosalba struggles with the label she is assigned as “the Spanish kid” as well as other labels and taunts that Alexie explains he endures and overcomes to survive. Rosalba is driven to gain more language resources in the struggle against “-isms of oppression” in her public school, which is a space created, funded, and meant for learning and intellectual, social, and linguistic gains in a safe, nurturing environment. In the attempt to gain her footing and “self-actualization”, as Freire (1968) names it, Rosalba reveals her meta-awareness that required her to become resilient and to take action to become an English-language dominant speaker. She adds, I began to take this somewhat offensively. I knew their language; I understood most of their jargon. Why was I still categorized by the school and my classmates as “the Spanish kid?” Surely it couldn’t have been just the language part; it was the complete feeling and perception of their words I felt. That was the key to break away from their labels. I recognized in that moment that the only way to do this was through one step: I had to challenge myself to read in English. To the world I was isolated, unhappy, and unheard, but to myself I was the most interesting person alive. I was addicted, and I needed more. Then, I fell in love the Junie B. Jones series by Barbara Park, and everything changed.

Rosalba’s meta-awareness, mindfulness, and translanguaging reveal her struggles to belong and name her reality by languaging in and out of school. Ultimately,

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she momentarily breaks communication with her native language Spanish to gain access into an ethnocentric reality that dominates her sense of belonging for schooling participation. To gain speech that is sanctioned at her elementary school, Rosalba learns to negotiate her native language while facing linguistic oppression. Like Alexie, Rosalba finds books that offer voice and agency in her life. She turns to books that can help her decipher what she is experiencing and enduring in her languaging and schooling. Rosalba elaborates further: During middle school I made reading in English a priority. Every chance I got I would read something, anything in English. Simplicity, however, was not always the case. My accent made certain words sound odd; rules were topsy-turvy; adjectives were before nouns. Only one interrogation and exclamation sign was used at the end of sentences. My confusion was evident to them. I could tell by the way girls and boys would press their hands over their giggling grins that my struggle was no secret.

Rosalba enacts what Rodríguez, Carrasquillo, & Lee (2014: 13) call “cognitive proficiency, which is common across languages, making possible the transfer of cognitive and literacy skills from one language to another”. The rules of communicating and writing become more evident as Rosalba enacts translanguaging for language and literacy practices, yet she is aware of her own struggles and revealed secret, like Medina, bound by the “-isms of oppression” placed upon her: marked utterances, or accented speech.

Whose home and school? Preservice teachers are also required to examine their student teaching field sites to determine how students’ knowledge and home languages are perceived and valued between their home life and schooling experiences. Making connections between home and school and how these are embedded in curricula and instruction can reveal how language and literacy inform students’ prior knowledge and transference of concepts when supported between these two discourses. Overall, we examine definitions of schooling and education and how these shape our perceptions of facts, knowledge, and imagination. The second assignment requires the writing of a revisionist poem based on an original poem by Billy Collins (1999: 77). The poem, which is titled The History Teacher, guides the reader to deeper questions about innocence, neglect, and duty as these relate to our teaching profession. The poem was chosen for its readability, vernacular language, and enduring understanding about the power

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that teachers possess in schools and the intellectual influence and rigor they can inscribe and impart upon their students. The preservice teachers read Collins’s poem and examine which versions of truth and history they value. The poem begins with humor and varied levels of historical distortion through vivid, everyday imagery and colloquial diction: Trying to protect his students’ innocence he told them the Ice Age was really just the Chilly Age, a period of a million years when everyone had to wear sweaters. And the Stone Age became the Gravel Age, named after the long driveways of the time.

Unfortunately, in the poem, the teacher glosses over the painful truths in world history, and thus becomes incognizant of the fact that students are both being neglected and potentially harmed by his distortion of historical events. For instance, the transformative languaging and “linguistic repertoire in order to communicate” that Velasco & García (2014: 77–78) espouse instead becomes the following distortion of what really occurred to the environment and human beings in Collins’s poem: the Ice Age to the “Chilly Age”; the Stone Age to the “Gravel Age”; the War of the Roses to a “garden”; the atomic bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki to the dropping of “one tiny atom”; and the Boer War to a defensive form of storytelling against boredom and “nod[ding] off”. Although some protection from the truth in history may be a consideration, such an adopted approach is unethical and further alienates students from reality, emancipatory learning, and social responsibility. As the poem continues, the reader learns that the students seek more than historical amnesia and outcomes. The students begin to misbehave as they “leave his classroom / for the playground to torment the weak / and the smart, / mussing up their hair and breaking their glasses”. The teacher ends his day with a fancy feeling of neither regret nor guilt “while he gathered up his notes and walked home / past flower beds and white picket fences.” Rather than having students examine the uses of language, revealing historical atrocities, questioning decisions made by adults in authority, or coping with painful events and narratives, the young people in the hands of the history teacher succumb to an alternate reality that protects them from knowledge and truths.

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Revisionist literature through translanguaging In a revisionist poem titled “The Reassuring Teacher,” a preservice teacher named Kayla (pseudonym) offers an emancipatory approach through translanguaging in action. Kayla is a monolingual English speaker of Mexican descent and currently teaches in a school district in West Texas. Her poem is modeled by Collins’s “The History Teacher” and reads: Trying to protect my students’ innocence I tell them that life is not always difficult. For the most part, things are bound to pick up sooner or later. And I smile when my student tells me she has no home. Because, well, we all have homes, right? Then trying to shield their concerns, I tell them that bouncing words off their paper is normal and nothing to be alarmed of. Everyone’s words bounce off paper at one time or another, right? With a small shrug and knowing smile, I tell the class that words were meant to dance. Finally, trying to reassure him that reading levels were just numbers, I urge him to overlook the score. Reading at a second grade level happens more than we like, right? With urgency blaring over the news, a pandemic threatening to consume our lives, I tell my students, in my best and most honest voice, to not fret, ’cause Ebola’s just Abuela in Spanish.

Like Collins, Kayla embeds schooling, history, and everyday affairs into the poem with colloquialisms in a matter-of-fact tone. The inclusion of a teacher voice brings moments of humor, deception, and horror that end with a pandemic now linguistically misidentified as a grandmother. By extension, Hawkins (2013: 2–3) describes the meeting of both languages and literacies as positions of realization and revelation, which resembles translanguaging in the lives of Alexie, Rosalba, Kayla, and preservice teachers: The languages and literacies that people command are artifacts of their positioning within specific communities, and enable them to claim (or cause them to be denied) membership within them. They are shaped by where individuals come from and their trajectories through life – who they are and have been – and they shape who people are able to be, and how they perceive themselves and others. Languages and literacies are pluralized.

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The pluralism of languages and literacies translates as translanguaging for emancipatory language learning and pedagogy. The artifacts through literacy narratives and a revisionist poem reveal how humans see themselves as they enact “[trans]languaging as a resource of imagination” as described by García (2009). How humans see and voice themselves supports the concept of establishing agency against imposed norm and ethnocentrism.

Toward translanguaging as a generative change for emancipation

 rnetha F. Ball, figure of “Model of Generative Change” reprinted from “Toward a Theory of A Generative Change in Culturally and Linguistically Complex Classrooms” from American Educational Research Journal 46.1 (March 2009) 45–72. Reprinted with permission of the author and SAGE Publications, Thousand Oaks, CA.

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Along the same lines of the translanguaging framework, Ball’s (2009) theory of generative thinking resonates with our work in culturally and linguistically complex classrooms and the need to challenge “long-held perspectives,” which can be driven by deficit-thinking language, ethnocentric beliefs, and “-isms of oppression.” Similar to the assignments the preservice teachers experienced through the literary works by Alexie and Collins, Ball indicates that the initial stage of generativity prepares preservice teachers to increase their meta-awareness by examining the personal literacies of their lives and those of their students of culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds and environments toward generative knowledge. Next, preservice teachers engaging in reflective writing to examine and motivate them in the roles they play in adolescents’ schooling, so that both teachers and students can gain agency. The third stage calls for preservice teachers to engage in action research with theoretical understanding and toward change and advocacy in their own classrooms. Lastly, preservice teachers transfer and triangulate theory, classroom-tested practices, and action research work toward generative thinking skills that advance linguistic and cultural understanding in the classroom. Some contexts of schooling, which can be independent of the translanguaging framework, appear in the lives of preservice teachers and their students. What is most telling are the ways in which manifestations of public education and society intersect to experience language learning and understanding in the midst of conflicts driven by ethnocentrism and “-isms of oppression”  – in and out schools. Lastly, secondary school preservice teachers of literacy are recommended four competencies to know and apply in literacy and English education: (1) meta-awareness about pedagogy and learning, (2) mindfulness towards students’ cultural wealth, (3) translanguaging practices for social justice, and 4) sociocultural application for literacy connections. These competencies can enrich and empower English language arts teachers and their students toward emancipatory language learning. As teachers preparing students to teach literacy and English language arts in contemporary classrooms across the U.S. and in other countries, translanguaging as a framework can be supported across literacy modes and realities. Motha (2014: xxi) points out the non-neutrality that is pervasive in the teaching of English, and her perspective can be revealing and instructive, especially about its visible, yet invisible, influences. As a world language, English holds colonial, imperialist, and capitalist histories that are often overlooked or unnamed even by those who teach the language and its impact on more world languages and cultures. In a challenge to the “-isms of oppression,” Motha concedes,

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The teaching of English is frequently represented as a neutral enterprise or even a benevolent one, one that promotes equity and access, arming learners with skills that allow them to escape poverty, to deploy identities of privilege and power, to move ahead socially. […] As English is increasingly commodified, racialized, and globalized, it is implicated in the persistence of racial inequalities, in cultural and economic domination, in heritage language loss, in the extinction of less-commonly-spoken languages and their inherent epistemologies, and in inequitable distribution of global wealth and resources.

As teachers of literacy and English education, we can establish and maintain a rich, open dialogue to combat “-isms of oppression” in the teaching and learning of English – in and out of our classrooms. While working with closely with preservice teachers, we can engage in conversations and assign learning projects for teacher professionals and our students to experience emancipatory language learning. Overall, the translanguaging framework is informed by helping students gain “self-actualization” as agents for social justice in a complex, global world. Ofelia García’s (2014: 3–4) vision of translanguaging for greater levels of equality, equity, and opportunity is significant for literacy and English education, as she explains, to “give voice to new sociopolitical realities by interrogating linguistic inequality. What is needed in today’s globalized world is the ability to engage in fluid language practices and to soft-assemble features that can ‘travel’ across geographic spaces to enable us to participate fully as global citizens”. When we are purposeful through inclusive literacy and language practices, we can guide our students to fully understand the functions of power, discourse, and ideology in an age of increasing inequality across our schools, communities, and society. As teachers and action researchers, we possess the languaging and pedagogies to affect change in attitudes and practices that directly influences language and literacy education. We can learn from and advance the translanguaging framework for inclusion and participation to create a more just world.

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References Ackerman, D.J. & Z. Tazi. 2015. Enhancing young Hispanic dual language learners’ achievement: Exploring strategies and addressing challenges, Policy Information Report, ETS Research Report No. RR-15-01. Princeton, NJ: Educational Testing Service. Alexie, S. 1998. Superman and me. Los Angeles Times, 19 April 1998. http://articles.latimes. com/1998/apr/19/books/bk-42979. (01 January 2016). Arce, J. 2004. Latino bilingual teachers: The struggle to sustain an emancipatory pedagogy in public schools. International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education 17(2). 227–246. Ayers, R. & W. Ayers. 2014. Teaching the taboo: Courage and imagination in the classroom. New York: Teachers College Press. Ball, A. 2009. Toward a theory of generative change in culturally and linguistically complex classrooms. American Educational Research Journal 46(1). 45–72. Blanton, C.K. 2007. The strange career of bilingual education in Texas, 1836–1981. College Station, TX: Texas A&M University Press. Brass, J. 2015. Reconstituting teacher education: Literacy, critical theories, and English. In J. Brass and A. Web (eds.), Reclaiming English language arts methods courses: Critical issues and challenges for teacher educators in top-down times, 1–20. New York: Routledge. Brass, J. & A. Webb (eds.). 2015. Reclaiming English language arts methods courses: Critical issues and challenges for teacher educators in top-down times. New York: Routledge. Collier, V.P. & W.P. Thomas. 2014. Creating dual language schools for a transformed world: Administrators speak. Albuquerque: Fuente Press. Collins, B. 1999. Questions about angels: Poems. Pittsburgh, PA: University of Pittsburgh Press. Devereaux, M.D. 2014. Teaching about dialect variations and language in secondary English classrooms: Power, prestige, and prejudice. New York: Routledge. Fairclough, N. 2014. Language and power. New York: Routledge. Faltis, C. & G. Valdés. 2010. Educating immigrant students, refugees, and English language learners: A no borders perspective. National Society for the Study of Education 109(2). 285–296. Freire, P. 2000. Pedagogy of the oppressed M. Bergman Ramos, trans. New York: Continuum. García, E.E. & E.H. García. 2012. Understanding the language development and early education of Hispanic children. New York: Teachers College Press. García, O. 2009. Bilingual education in the 21st century: A global perspective. Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell. García, O. 2014. TESOL translanguaged in NYS: Alternative perspectives. NYS TESOL Journal 1(1). 2–10. García, O. & L. Wei. 2014. Translanguaging: Implications for language, bilingualism and education. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Hawkins, M.R. (ed.). 2013. Framing languages and literacies: Socially situated views and perspectives. New York: Routledge. Kam, C.D. & D.R. Kinder. 2007. Terror and ethnocentrism: Foundations of American support for the war on terror. The Journal of Politics 69(2). 320–338. Kinder, D.R. & C.D. Kam. 2010. Us against them: Ethnocentric foundations of American opinion. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Kirkland, D. 2013. A search past silence: The literacy of young black men. New York: Routledge.

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Kirylo, J.D. (ed.) 2013. A critical pedagogy of resistance: 34 pedagogues we need to know. Bostom: Sense Publishers. Levi-Strauss, C. 1961. Race et histoire. Paris: Gonthier. Macedo, D. 2006. Literacies of power: What Americans are not allowed to know. Boulder, CO. Westview Press. May, S. 2011. Language and minority rights: Ethnicity, nationalism and the politics of language. New York: Routledge. Medina, P. 2013a. El secreto, L. A. de Z., Trans. In L. M. Carlson (ed.), Cool salsa: Bilingual poems on growing up Hispanic in the United States, 49. New York: Square Fish, Henry Holt and Company. Medina, P. 2013b. The secret. In L. M. Carlson (ed.), Cool salsa: Bilingual poems on growing up Hispanic in the United States, 48. New York. Square Fish, Henry Holt and Company. Motha, S. 2014. Race, empire, and English language teaching: Creating responsible and ethical anti-racist practice. New York: Teachers College Press. Nieto, S. 2009. Language, culture, and teaching: Critical perspectives. New York: Routledge. Ochoa, G.L. 2013. Academic profiling: Latinos, Asian Americans, and the achievement gap. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minneapolis Press. Paris, D. 2011. Language across difference: Ethnicity, communication, and youth identities in changing urban schools. New York: Cambridge University Press. Paris, D. 2012. Culturally sustaining pedagogy: A needed change in stance, terminology, and practice. Educational Researcher 41(3). 93–97. Paris, D. & A. F. Ball. 2009. Teacher knowledge in culturally and linguistically complex classrooms: Lessons from the Golden Age and beyond. In L.M. Morrow, R. Rueda, & D. Lapp (eds.), Handbook of research on literacy and diversity, 379–395. New York: Guilford. Paris, D. & M.T. Winn. 2014. To humanize research. In D. Paris & M.T. Winn (eds.), Humanizing research: Decolonizing qualitative inquiry with youth and communities, xiii-xx. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications. Passe, A.S. 2014. Dual-language learners: Strategies for teaching English. St. Paul, MN: RedLeaf Press. Rodriguez, D., A. Carrasquillo & K.S. Lee. 2014. The bilingual advantage: Promoting academic development, biliteracy, and native language in the classroom. New York: Teachers College Press. Spring, J. 2015. Economization of education: Human capital, global corporations, skills-based schooling. New York: Routledge. Spring, J. 2011. The politics of American education. New York: Routledge. Suitts, S. 2015. A new majority research bulletin: Low-income students now a majority in the nation’s public schools. Atlanta, GA: Southern Education Foundation. Suarez, R. 2013. Latino Americans: The 500-year legacy that shaped a nation. New York: Celebra. Thomas, W.P. & V.P. Collier. 2012. Dual language education for a transformed world. Albuquerque, NM: Fuente Press. Totten, S. (ed.). 2015. The importance of teaching social issues: Our pedagogical creeds. New York: Routledge. U.S. Department of Education. 2013. Characteristics of public and private elementary and secondary school teachers in the United States: Results from the 2011–12 schools and staffing survey. Washington, DC: Institute of Education Sciences, National Center for Education Statistics.

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Valenzuela, A. 1999. Subtractive schooling: U.S.–Mexican youth and the politics of caring. Albany: State University Press of New York. Velasco, P. & O. García. 2014. Translanguaging and the writing of bilingual learners. Bilingual Research Journal 37(1). 6–23. Wright, W.E., S. Boun & O. García (eds.). 2015. The handbook of bilingual and multilingual education. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley-Blackwell. Yosso, T.J. 2005. Whose culture has capital? A critical race theory discussion of community cultural wealth. Race, Ethnicity and Education 8(1). 69–91.

Olga Campbell-Thomson

6 Cutting across the ideological split of capitalism/communism: Shcherba’s insights on foreign language education The practical utility of languages seems to dominate general views on the necessity of foreign language instruction in the English-speaking world. A tacit assumption behind such views, formulated by Hymes (1996: 84) back in the 1990s, that “most everyone else in the world is learning English anyway” does not seem to wane. The few remaining departments of foreign languages in British and US universities are in a constant struggle to survive cuts, and foreign languages remain on the periphery of the curriculum at all levels of the education structure. A pragmatic approach to learning might not be responsible in itself for marginalizing foreign languages in the English-speaking world. Rather, this approach charts what practical consequences constitute the essential criteria that determines the meaning and value of learning foreign languages. To this end, an argument for the general educational value of foreign languages developed by the prominent Russian linguist Shcherba might be worthy of examination. Recognized as one of the most influential linguists of the twentieth century for his contribution to the development of phonology as a field of study, the relevance of Shcherba’s intellectual legacy to the field of foreign language education has remained largely unknown to the English-language audience. This chapter therefore seeks to query why Shcherba’s scholarship relating to foreign language education has remained outside the scope of the academic debates in the English-language world, as he was among the first linguists who attempted to establish scientific foundations for foreign language instruction in the twentieth century. To address this query, this chapter will map a number of Notes All extracts from Shcherba’s original writing are from original or reprinted editions of his work in the Russian language and appear in the text of this chapter in my translations. Although most references to Shcherba’s work relate to the 1974 publication, Yazykovaya Sistema i Rechevaya Deyatelnost [Language System and Speech Activity], Leningrad, Nauka, this 1974-collection includes manuscripts written and published in different years. Page numbers in text citations refer readers to the page numbers in the reprinted edition of Shcherba’s work in 1974. These include: K Voprosu o Dvuyazychii [On Bilingualism], 313 – 318; Prepodavanie Inostrannykh Yazykov v Srednej Shkole [Teaching Foreign Languages in a Secondary School], 319–343; Obshcheobrazovatelnoe Znachenie Inostrannykh Yazykov i Mesto Ikh v Sisteme Shkolnykh Predmetov [General Educational Value of Foreign Languages and their Placement in School Curriculum], 344–365. DOI 10.1515/9781501503085-007



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“isms” that have created boundaries restricting access in the West to the intellectual legacy of Russian Soviet scholars. An ideological split between capitalism/communism will be centre-staged as a major divisive force between the two economic and political systems, which prevented free scholarly exchange between the Soviet State and the West. As the political confrontation between the two camps could be seen ending with the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, the ideological debris of Marxism and conformism, which had inevitably permeated scholarly publications at a time of compulsory allegiance to the worldview of “Marxist dialectic”, has remained largely in place and continue to reinforce pre-existing misconceptions of work done during the Soviet time. An inspection of the intersecting “isms” of capitalism, communism, Marxism, and conformism is undertaken here with the aim of removing their overbearing impact in the form of continuing negligence and misapprehensions of the intellectual legacy of Soviet scholars. Drawing particular attention to the scholarship of Shcherba is pertinent to the interest of this volume in foreign language education and thus, it is hoped, that English-language reader can be presented with an outlook on the practical value of foreign language studies that is timely and relevant to current debates on the positioning of foreign language instruction in the education curriculum in Britain and the US. A critical review of Shcherba’s views on foreign language education will serve as a starting point for addressing the “isms” of oppression in language education, and the following sections will explicate how Shcherba’s ideas, alongside ideas of other Soviet scholars, became submerged by the intersecting “isms” of capitalism, communism, Marxism and conformism, and consequently have been dismissed from current debates on foreign language education in the English-speaking world.

Shcherba on language education The Russian linguist Lev Vladimirovich Shcherba (1880–1944) primarily distinguished himself in the world of linguistics for his work on experimental phonetics and the development of an influential tradition of research on the relations between phonology and phonetics. His work on general linguistics, lexicography, orthographic reform of the Russian language, a Russian-French dictionary and typological classifications of dictionaries secured him a place in the Russian Academy of Sciences. Amidst his involvement in a number of scholarly projects, and his administrative and pedagogical work as a professor at St Petersburg University, Shcherba turned his attention in the late 1920s to matters of foreign lan-

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guage teaching. In 1929, Shcherba published a pamphlet How Foreign Languages Should Be Taught, which was the first publication of the Soviet times explicitly addressing the necessity of foreign language instruction as part of basic education, and was the first such attempt to tackle the issues of language teaching methodology. Shcherba’s campaign for the reinstatement of foreign language instruction at school, and his thoughts on the methodological aspects of teaching languages, were set in the local historical context of a newly-formed Soviet State, where a unified labour school was the only type of schooling available to the totality of the country’s population for more than a decade, since its establishment by a statute of 16 October 1918 (Wade & Cummins, 1991). Bereday et al. (1960: 63) explain that the subjects in a unified labour school were not compartmentalized but presented in an interrelated fashion, and the main mode of instruction was to assign group tasks aimed to equip children with practical knowledge of the “labour and social life of mankind”. The philological and humanistic culture, that had permeated schooling in pre-revolutionary Russia, was practically destroyed and foreign language instruction was nowhere mentioned in the curriculum of the unified labour school apart from isolated instances of offering foreign languages as elective classes (Kreusler, 1959). In the atmosphere of constant experimentation in all areas of social organisation, which took place during the 1920s in the Soviet Union, Shcherba’s ideas on methodological issues of foreign language instruction can be seen as audacious. In his book Teaching Foreign Languages in a Secondary School, Shcherba (1974: 319) criticised “crude empiricism” when he attempted to establish a “scientific” base for teaching languages: The further we move away from crude, elementary empiricism, and the more we would concentrate on isolated units of our field of interest, and the more we would apply the findings of theoretical disciplines relevant to our field of interest, the more scientific our field of interest will become.

“Crude empiricism”, to Shcherba (1974: 320), was akin to experimental pedagogy or experimental language teaching, where “an experimental proof of the superiority of one method of language teaching over another one is the most basic and simplistic form of empiricism”. He concedes that experimentation in itself might be useful suggesting further directions for investigation; and he compares the “experimental approach” (i.e., “if something worked, let us use it”) with alchemy, which gave impetus to the development of a more scientific approaches to chemistry and pharmacy (Shcherba, 1974: 319–321). Yet, he warns against the experimental methodology of teaching in general, as it can lead to erroneous con-



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clusions, and cannot substantiate and explain either the process or the results of an experiment. The most alarming problem of experimental teaching is that there is no segmentation of the complex process of language acquisition; one particular segment might be responsible for the overall successful outcome of an experiment, and the overall result may not be indicative of how exactly result was obtained. Although Shcherba acknowledges that language teaching can achieve the status of a science, he states that it is not a theoretical science. He clarifies that the science of language teaching is not concerned with the explanation of how and why “such and such phenomenon happens” (Shcherba, 1974: 319), and what underlying laws can explain or predict a chain of events. The central question in language teaching is “how to act in order to achieve a certain desirable outcome” (Shcherba, 1974: 319). This is why approaches to teaching a foreign language should be seen as instances of a practical discipline. To strengthen the scientific base of language teaching, it is important to utilize findings from other theoretical disciplines. It is also very important to break down language phenomena into segments, and to study these segments through the lens of existing theoretical disciplines. Shcherba insists that the scientific foundations for any methodology of teaching are to be supplied by the relevant sciences, i.e. the modes of investigation that can provide the explanatory base. The methodological foundations of foreign language teaching are distinct in this respect, because they draw not only on the scientific input of psychology, but also of general and theoretical linguistics. Stressing that the methodology of teaching languages was an applied branch of linguistics, Shcherba (1974) remarked that, amongst the volume of methodological literature, those written by professional linguists stood out. Having noted that no Russian linguist had yet made an attempt to apply the findings of the science of linguistics to the practical field of foreign language teaching, Shcherba (1974: 325) established his task as follows: Being a theoretical linguist myself, I view the methodology of foreign language teaching as an applied branch of general linguistics and propose that the entire methodological foundations of teaching foreign languages be based on the analytic understanding of the concept of language in its different aspects.

Thus it is only logical that Shcherba’s views on methodological issues of foreign language teaching were rooted in his own linguistic investigations into the relationship between thought and language, grammar and lexis, native and foreign languages, the relativity of any type of knowledge, and the need for conscious separation of thought and the means for its expression.

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Viewing the teaching of foreign languages as an applied branch of linguistics is not original at this time of writing, but the linguistic foundations of the methodological approach proposed by Shcherba are of interest because they were informed by the serious linguistic work of a well-recognized linguist (i.e., Shcherba himself), and reflect on many years of original linguistic explorations undertaken by the scholar.

Conscious and subconscious (intuitive) use of language Shcherba (1974) proposes that a mastery of any language can function at the level of consciousness, or at the level of subconscious routine operation. In the latter case, speakers are not much concerned with how they frame their thoughts; their purpose is to make themselves clear and they mainly focus on their thoughts, ideas, rather than on the linguistic means of their realization. Such routine subconscious use of the language is mainly observed when people engage in a casual conversation in their first language. When children learn to speak, they develop their speaking on the basis of imitation to the level of automatic subconscious fluency. Shcherba (1974: 315), then, suggests that when speakers master the literary, “learned”, form of their first language, consciousness is absolutely essential: children at school have to learn how to read and to write in a rather different manner from their casual speaking. Thus, the literary version of any language can be seen as a prototype of a foreign language. Mastery of the literary norms of the first language is achieved through conscious learning. This consciousness is determined by comparison of one’s own spoken vernacular and the literary form of that language. Shcherba (1974: 352– 355) emphasizes that any learning is always based on comparison, or juxtaposition, of known and new information. Comparison of language systems (even if this applies to the comparison of different registers of the same language) develops cognitive capabilities, and specifically the individual’s ability to comprehend different possibilities and nuances of thoughts and ideas. Through comparison, Shcherba states, people separate symbols or sounds from the ideas they express. He writes: When learning foreign languages, we soon realise that every new foreign word requires thorough inspection of what this word represents, and what might be encompassed by a correlating term in our own native language; we are forced to reflect on the quintessence of human thought. (Shcherba, 1974: 353)



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The simplest facts force learners to question existing categories in their native language. One such example, provided by Shcherba (1974: 353) is that of a Russian speaker encountering the French word table. The same concept behind the word table is assigned a grammatical category of feminine gender in French and of masculine gender in Russian. Theorising on the interrelation of subconscious and conscious mastery of languages inevitably led Shcherba to the question of the relativity of language.

The relativity of language Alongside his explanation of the cognitive processing required for the comparison of different language systems, Shcherba demonstrates that thought-language is not realized everywhere in the same way. He provides examples from German, Russian, Ukrainian, French and Uzbek languages to illustrate the “relativity” of the universal labour of mind. One such example is the word серый [grey]: in German and French it can be used to describe hair losing its natural colour, and the same category (i.e., hair losing its colour) can be described in other languages as white hair. In Russian, there is a separate word, седой, reserved for the description of hair losing natural colour, and the word itself is not used to designate any particular colour on its own (Shcherba 1974: 355). Shcherba does not go as far as the Humboldt-Sapir-Whorf thesis that connects the specific form of linguistic realization of different concepts and ideas with the particularity of a worldview of the people who speak a certain language. He insists, nevertheless, that the historical, cultural and economic environment of people are reflected in their languages, and the particularities of a language enrich any individual’s comprehension with the possibilities of thought well beyond the linguistic expression of one’s own language. When students of languages systematically compare language systems, “the illusion created by knowledge of only one language – that there are inviolable notions which remain the same for all times and all people” – is destroyed (Shcherba, 1974: 316). The outcome of this process is the liberation of thought (and of cognition) from the “imprisonment of words” (Shcherba, 1974: 317). The propositions explicated above were used by the scholar to argue for the general educational value of foreign language instruction at school. He noted that those people who were destined to master at least two different languages due to circumstances (e.g., bilingualism in a family, community or the state) were fortunate; others had to resort to the creation of artificial conditions for devel-

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oping bilingualism typically in the form of foreign language instruction through schooling (Shcherba, 1974: 317). Shcherba (1974) notes that the inclusion of Latin and Ancient Greek in school curricula was specifically aimed at the development of conscious comprehension of the structural logic behind verbal expression; by studying grammar forms and different types of linguistic structure, students could improve their understanding of relationships between words and the concepts behind words, and they could also develop logical thinking when linking different levels of linguistic structures. Learning modern languages could perform similar functions. In addition to a practical ability to read and communicate through the medium of a modern foreign language, language learners also develop cognition when they are forced to structure their thought in different linguistic modes. Whereas the ability to read and speak in a foreign language can be seen as an immediate practical application of the skill, the cognitive development of the learner is of practical utility, and its applications transcend any single observable instance (e.g., translation or interpretation); mastery of a foreign language thus enables the making of logical links between thought and different forms of its expression (Shcherba, 1974). Viewing language as embedded in culture, Shcherba (1974: 348) also indicates that the removal of foreign language instruction (he uses the term “обезъязычивание” in Russian) lowers the general cultural level of schooling. He uses an example of “Old Church Slavonic”, which for centuries functioned as a literary language of Eastern Europe (including Czech-speaking territories) and constituted a broad social and cultural base for speakers of different local languages. Attributing similar functions to modern foreign languages, Shcherba (1974) views the access afforded to a broader social and cultural base through learning a foreign language as being of practical value to learners. It is not possible to delineate all aspects of Shcherba’s theorizing on the organization of language education. A number of articles and books written by Shcherba address in detail the relationship between grammar and vocabulary, the process of comparison of different language systems in language acquisition and use, phonetics, and prosodic functions in meaning formation (Shcherba, 1923, 1929, 1942, 1947, 1974). All these are worthy of careful rendering. What is important to note here is that, throughout his writing, Shcherba insisted that language is a living system, and needs to be in constant circulation. He thus proposed a programme of language teaching that includes the development of speaking. Shcherba reiterated that language and thought are inseparable, and when people consciously engage with a language system, they scrutinize the mental process, which can only be observed through the work of a language. He notes that the practical task of developing fluency in speaking and writing (and properly formulated in a target language) performs a much broader function of developing



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analytic thinking and the reasoning abilities of learners. Shcherba (1974: 322–323) outlines a number of findings in a broad range of existing disciplines – physics, psychology, biology – which can inform an approach to language teaching. What is important in Shcherba’s approach to foreign language instruction is that he acknowledges learners’ reliance on their first language and makes a number of recommendations on how to utilize the first language in order to facilitate foreign language learning. Whereas he notes that the first language might be a source of errors in a second or foreign language, he indicates that we must accept once and for all that the first language is always present, no matter how hard we try to chase it away. And this is why we must turn it to friend from foe. And this can be easily done: we just need to be aware of the instances when it can lead us on into temptation and outline the rules which are not merely rules of the English language, rules of the French language, rules of the German language, and so on, but Russian-English language rules, Russian-French language rules, Russian-German language rules and so on. (Shcherba 1974: 343)

Foreign languages to the masses The move for the creation of a broad base of general education in the Soviet Union was set in motion with the government Decree of 5 September 1931, which stated that that Soviet schools did not meet the demands of socialist construction. The Decree indicated that there was an insufficient range of general subjects in the school curriculum and ordered “broadening the scope of general education” in all schools (Danev, 1948a). Following the Decree, a new school curriculum was designed, and its implementation began in 1932. It was at that time that Shcherba made a convincing case that ignorance of foreign languages was a threat to the national culture, and also deprived the citizens of the Soviet state of the ability to read and utilize technological advancements published in foreign languages. He was successful in his plea for the inclusion of foreign language instruction in the basic curriculum. The Decree of 25 August 1932 made it “obligatory that each graduate of a secondary school had mastery of one foreign language” (Danev, 1948b). Since the school reform of 1932 introduced foreign language studies as a compulsory subject into the ten-year school, foreign languages in general education were propagated on the slogan “Foreign Languages to the Masses” (Shcherba, 1974: 318). Following the acceptance of the arguments proposed by Shcherba in favour of language instruction at school, questions of methodology became the next challenge within the programme of “broadening the scope of general education”

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(Danev, 1948a), which also prescribed the development of “strictly clear and thoroughly developed study plans” (ibid.) The Decree of 12 February 1933 gave directives on the production of new textbooks, which had to be “stable”, “satisfying scientific requirements”, and had to impart a systematic knowledge of the subjects of the curricula (Danev, 1948c). The same Decree stipulated that all school textbooks could only be produced by Uchpedgiz (The State Publisher of Didactic and Pedagogical Texts) after obtaining the approval of Narkompros (The Peoples’ Commissariat of Enlightenment) and that it was the task of Narkompros to ensure that the textbooks, once published, were to be used “for a number of years to come” (Danev, 1948c). Although Shcherba’s general recommendations on foreign language instruction at school were taken on board, a rather superficial selection of ideas from the scholar’s writing was made to form the base of the “method” that became propagated in Soviet schools as a “conscious-comparative” method of teaching foreign languages. The scholar’s arguments in support of the practical utility of foreign languages were interpreted as a call to teach reading skills, and the conscious comparison of different language systems was perceived as entailing teaching of grammar to facilitate translation tasks. Shcherba’s warning against an intuitive understanding of foreign texts and the imitational memorization of chunks of speech, prior to a conscious understanding of the language, was interpreted as blunt criticism of the direct method of teaching, and of the use of speaking per se, and thus speaking was not included in the programme. The conscious-comparative method of teaching foreign languages, which subsequently became associated with the name of Shcherba, had little correspondence with the scholar’s propositions on the relationship between language and thought, the development of cognitive abilities through conscious comparison of language systems, and the importance of treating language as a living system. Shcherba developed a thesis of the necessity for developing a thorough understanding of the language systems  – a native and a foreign one  – and for conscious comparison of the two. This conscious comparison, Shcherba argued, was a way towards developing an individual’s higher level of culture and mental capabilities. Shcherba put the level of mental processing, required for the understanding of ideas expressed in different languages, on a par with the mental operations required for the solution of a problem in physics. These analytical operations can by no means be understood as studying of grammar alone, as was implied in a conscious-comparative method. Apart from a careful examination of the grammatical structure of a studied language, a significant role was allocated in Shcherba’s work to prosody, phonetics, vocabulary and other constitutive elements of language systems, in the process of meaning making.



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Shcherba emphasized that comparison of two language systems by no means implied their similarity, or a searching for similarities between the two. He insisted that the grammar and dictionary of each individual language should be compiled irrespective of any other existing languages. Shcherba (1974: 318) wrote that “each language must be viewed as having a rule of its own, and only taking this as a premise, one language system can be compared with another language system, as a methodological approach, in order to facilitate the learning of both languages”. Shcherba’s warning against an intuitive understanding of foreign texts and the imitational memorization of chunks of speech, prior to a conscious understanding of the language, was erroneously perceived as a rejection of speaking. His advice to move from a conscious understanding towards the intuitive use of language was offered as a more sensible approach in view of the limited allocation of hours to foreign language instruction at school; this suggested that limited exposure to foreign language environment would never lead to successful acquisition of language skills through imitation. This did not, however, imply rejection of speaking/listening activities, or of imitation, as such. Shcherba’s ideas did not penetrate the classroom; they remained unexplored and practically unknown to the scholarly community outside the Soviet Union because the scholar’s work was inaccessible to a Western reader during his life-time. In Russia itself, the scholar’s work was dismissed en masse when the ill-fated conscious-comparative method of teaching foreign languages was denounced and, as his publications became more historically remote, they came to be cited less and less. The reasons for the inaccessibility of Shcherba’s work, and its consequent oblivion, will be discussed next in the context of political and ideological confrontation between communism and capitalism, which served as a background for the politicization of scholarly work across the communism/capitalism divide, and erected insurmountable barriers to free scholarly exchange between the two worlds.

Ideological split: Between communism and capitalism A great ideological split between communism and capitalism defined the twentieth century. Both ideologies claimed to have found the way to broaden the democratic participation of the populace in advancing society towards economic prosperity and the happiness of humankind. As Beverley (1999: 41) suggests,

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“the argument between capitalism and communism that defined the cold war was essentially an argument about which of the two could best carry forward the possibility of a political, scientific, cultural, and economic modernity latent in the bourgeois project itself”. The split between the two “isms”– capitalism and communism – indeed was an argument, a rivalry, with questionable gains to the societies that were entrenched in their respective “isms”. The start of this argument-confrontation can be roughly dated to the establishment of the new Soviet state in Russia soon after the October Revolution of 1917. The radical transformation of the societal and economic order appeared as “a terrifying shock to the capitalist countries” (Lincoln, 2007: 31). The capitalism/communism argument was so persistent that the political confrontation between the two camps was still referred to in 1988 as being “the single most important feature of international politics” (Mandelbaum, 1988: v). The Soviet Union, and the ideology of communism at the foundation of the state, were met with antagonism throughout the capitalist world from the very first days of the establishment of the Soviet Union in 1922. The United States of America recognized the Soviet government only in 1933 (the “Litvinov Agreement”). Although Great Britain granted de jure recognition to the Soviet State in 1924, this recognition was severed in 1927 and was re-established again only in 1929. It was only in 1934 that the Soviet Union gained a permanent seat in the League of Nations. The hostile attitude towards the Soviet Union from the early days of its existence, perhaps, contributed to nurturing the self-defensive attitude of the Soviet state to its adversaries. Yet, the establishment of the Soviet order itself was not a simple process, and the four-year-long Civil War of 1918–1922, foreign intervention by the Allied forces in 1918–1919 and revolts by peasants and other groups of the population during the 1920s were used by the Soviet Government as instances of “counterrevolutionary” activities emanating from the outside world. To solidify its grip over the populace, the communist doctrine was forcefully imposed onto every layer of Soviet existence (Kenez, 2006). As the argument persisted, the possibility of a constructive dialogue between the two “isms” was replaced by the preoccupation of each camp with winning the argument, and so the scoring of points and diminishing of the opposing side continued. The scholarly activities of intellectuals who worked under the Soviet regime, came under strict ideological supervision from the end of the 1920s, and were duly appropriated by the state for its own ideological and political gains. Education was absorbed by this confrontation of “isms” and the Soviet camp made its educational goals clear in asserting that school was to be “converted from the tool used by the bourgeoisie for establishing its class superiority to the tool of destruction of societal class division, and to the tool of communist regen-



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eration of society” (Danev, 1948e). Alongside this goal, “The Soviet Union has set itself the task of overtaking and outstripping the capitalist countries in the matter of technology and economics” (Pinkevitch, 1935: 40–41). Foreign language education, which became compulsory in Soviet schools from 1932, was employed in accomplishing the task of “overtaking and outstripping the capitalist countries” (Pinkevitch, 1935: 41). Thus, for example, the inadequacy of language studies and neglect of philology in US schools were exposed in the Soviet press as deficiencies of “capitalist” education (Friedl, 1962). The fact that the USA “almost threw language study out of their system of general education” (Shcherba, 1944, quoted in Friedl, 1962: 293) was explicitly used by Shcherba in his lecture to a session of the Academy of Sciences in 1944 as an argument in support of promoting foreign language studies in Soviet schools. Considerable attention paid by the American media to language training in the USSR, and to US deficiencies in that area, was reported by Ornstein (1958: 392), who noted that everything considered, there seems little doubt that the Soviet language effort is the most sizable one of any leading modern nation and that the American program dwarfs by comparison. If one may speak of a “language race”, all signs indicate that the Soviet Union is well in the leading position.

In the context of a highly charged political and ideological climate, defined by the communism/capitalism split, the general educational value of a foreign language became accepted by the Soviet authorities as a necessary means of developing individuals with advanced thinking skills. The possibility of having access to technological advances through publications in foreign languages, moreover, responded to the calls of the Communist Party to overtake and outstrip capitalist countries in matters of technology and economics. The methodological aspects of language instruction themselves became politicized in the context of the ideological dispute of capitalism/communism. The conscious-comparative method of teaching modern languages, based on the ideas of Shcherba in a truncated and largely distorted form, was proclaimed to be “a truly Soviet” method (Kreusler, 1959: 162). Kreusler (1959: 162–163) refers to a Soviet publication where the method was praised as “a great achievement of the Soviet methodology and infinitely superior to bourgeois ways of teaching”, and notes that “quotations of Marx and Krupskaya, isolated from the context and tendentiously interpreted, were used to justify the conscious method”. It is impossible to imagine Shcherba’s objection to the “Party line” at the time when ideologues were concocting their “truly Soviet” method (Kreusler, 1959: 162), and attributing it to his name. Referring to the time of Stalin’s rule rule during 1924–1953, Shlapentokh (1990: 112) notes that repressions were severe

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and that “intellectuals were practically unable to resist the regime, and became totally absorbed with physical survival”. As Soviet scholars witnessed their work being distorted and appropriated for ideological purposes, they were also expected to explicitly proclaim their allegiance to dialectical materialism and Marxism. Kassian (1954) notes that thousands of scholars lost their lives or were locked in concentration camps on suspicion of expressing any non-materialistic or non-Marxist conception in any field of knowledge. Any writing produced during Soviet times inevitably contained references to Marx and Marxism and these can be found in works by Shcherba, Vygotsky, Bakhtin, and many others, as such references became compulsory for all branches of knowledge (Philipov, 1954). From the 1930s onwards, any contact with foreign countries was considered a crime against the state (Kassian, 1954), and Soviet scholars were not allowed to participate in international conferences or to publish their work in foreign journals. Recognition of Shcherba’s contribution to phonology in the West was due only to the references made to his work by two prominent Russian émigré linguists, Trubetskoy and Jakobson, who left Soviet Russia in 1922 and 1920, respectively, and by Shcherba’s own teacher in St Petersburg University Baudouin de Courtenay, who moved to the newly resurrected Poland in 1918 and assumed the chair of comparative Indo-European linguistics in Warsaw that same year. The three linguists were familiar with Shcherba’s work prior to their departure from Russia, but if there were any scholarly or personal exchanges among them during the 1920s, these contacts were severed by the 1930s. Like most of his colleagues, Shcherba was left to the mercy of his secluded intellectual environment, controlled by the political police. The appropriation of Shcherba’s views by state’s ideological enterprise reduced to the conscious-comparative method of teaching foreign languages. The downgrading of Stalin, following his death in 1953, triggered sweeping denunciation of the practices of schooling and teaching methodology that had been elevated during Stalin’s lifetime. The conscious-comparative method, associated with Shcherba’s name, also came under criticism. The results of language instruction in Soviet schools under the aegis of the conscious-comparative method throughout 1930–1950s were branded as “disastrous” (Kreusler, 1959: 163). Accusations about the failure of foreign language instructions at school were aimed primarily at the inadequacy of the conscious-comparative method. Little was said of the climate of complete isolation from the world outside the borders of the Soviet Union, the inaccessibility of foreign media, or the impossibility of exposure of foreign language teachers to patterns of native speech of the languages they were trained to teach. In the years following Shcherba’s death in 1944, his ideas were widely discussed in Soviet educational journals. In these discussions, however, the schol-



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ar’s ideas were mainly referred to as the theoretical underpinnings behind the conscious-comparative method of language teaching, and thus, Shcherba’s real views on foreign language education at school did not gain due recognition, either at home or abroad.

Cutting across the divide One of the most significant developments in the relationship between the two political blocs – communist and capitalist – was the temporary relaxation of tensions following the death of Stalin in 1953 (Bereday et al., 1960). The publication of Ilya Ehrenburg’s novel, The Thaw, gave a name to the brief period of relative freedom in the arts. Bereday et al. (1960: 79–80) noted that there was a change of official policy in 1955, permitting Soviet scientists and historians to take part in international conferences. At the time of the Thaw, which lasted roughly until the mid-1960s, there was a shift from “a long tradition of insularity” to a “deep and mature interest” in the communist world, which at that time included a number of states in Eastern Europe, apart from the Soviet Union (Ruggles and Mostecky, 1960: v). In addition to the possibility of scholarly exchange (which still should be viewed as restricted), a concerted effort was undertaken by governments and university libraries in the West to expand their collections of academic work produced in the communist countries in various fields of study. Reporting on the efforts of US libraries to acquire these publications, Ruggles & Mostecky (1960) commented on the difficulties of the task, which included restrictions imposed on the dissemination of bibliographic information by Communist governments, and the publication practices of those governments all of which resulted in many important materials going out of print soon after publication. The basis for the selection of Soviet academic literature was the Soviet catalogue Novye Knigi (New Books) issued weekly by the all-Union Book Chamber in Moscow and Mezhdunarodnaya Kniga (International Book). While noting how valuable these Soviet compilations were for the selection of academic literature, Ruggles and Mostecky (1960: 23) also acknowledged that librarians were “conscious of the fact that the selection is done by Soviet citizens and that it is not wise to depend on their judgment and bias as a guide to the content of collections of American research libraries”. These authors also remarked that publication lists issued until 1958 were not considered altogether comprehensive. This surge of interest in Soviet and East European academic literature in the West allowed access to a number of significant works produced by scholars under

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communist regimes. Vygotsky’s text Myshlenie i Rech (Thought and Language), which was first published in 1934 in Russian, appeared in its first English translation in 1962. Lima (1995: 491) notes that this English translation, completed by Hanfmann and Vankar (published by MIT Press), made Vygotsky known in the Western world and also became the source for translations to other languages. In the 1990s, Glick (1992: 558) referred to the discovery of Vygotsky as “truly a contemporary discovery” and explained that when Vygotsky was published in the Soviet Union in the 1930s, he was “sufficiently controversial so that much of his writing did not go public, in English or in Russian”. In a Foreword to a new revised and expanded edition of Vygotsky’s work Thought and Language published in 2012, Kozulin (2012: ix) remarked that the number of references to Vygotsky reached 34,000 by 2010 according to Google Scholar, and that a theory developed in Russia almost a century ago continued to capture the imagination of the present generation of American and West European audiences. Shcherba’s work did not find its proponents or translators at the time of the thaw during the 1950s-1960s, nor later, when the iron curtain of the communism and capitalism divide was removed at the end of the 1980s. Possible reasons for this might be that at the time of the acquisition by the Western libraries of academic work produced by Soviet scholars, Shcherba may not have been included in the Soviet compilations used for the selection of academic literature. This might be a plausible assumption since the scholar’s name had become under attack in the Soviet Union amidst denunciations of Stalin’s regime, and all ideas elevated to the level of ideological importance at the time fell into obscurity. Bereday et al. (1960) refer to reviews published in the Soviet newspapers Uchitelskaya Gazeta (Teachers’ Newspaper), Sovetskaya Pedagogika (Soviet Pedagogy) and Pravda, and to a number of other pedagogical journals, which indicated that Soviet educators engaged in severe criticism of the practices and results of their schools in the mid-1950s, the time of the Thaw. Similar findings emerge from the review of the journal Inostrannye Yazyki v Shkole (Foreign Languages at School), where the conscious-comparative method of teaching, linked with the name of Shcherba, was held to blame for the failure of foreign language training at school. Ornstein’s (1958) review of the debates on the state of foreign language instruction in the Soviet Union in the mid-1950s suggests that the poor level of foreign language mastery of high-school graduates was overwhelmingly blamed on the conscious-comparative method, or, as it was commonly referred to, the ‘grammar-translation’ method. Ornstein (1958: 387) cites the opinion that “the situation can be remedied only by the wholesale introduction of the direct method – that is, presenting the instruction in the foreign language itself, without the medium of Russian”. Pryamism (i.e., direct method), which had been vigorously attacked on the pages of the Soviet press throughout the 1930s and 1940s, was



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indeed brought out of obscurity and, under the name of the “neo-direct Soviet method”, came to prevail in Soviet schools for the next few decades. An illustrative example of the common perception of the link between Shcherba and the conscious-comparative method can be seen in the following quotation by Kreusler (1960: 354), who specifically remarked that the method of teaching of foreign languages in the Soviet Union adopted in the 1930s received theoretical justification by the first great Russian methodologist, Lev Vladimirovich Shcherba, who linked it with the materialist philosophy of human consciousness. According to this theory, our consciousness naturally expresses itself in the vernacular. Accepting this theory of human consciousness as a scientific basis for teaching foreign languages, Shcherba declared in his book Teaching Foreign Languages in a Secondary School that a foreign language could be mastered only by conscious study, that is, by translation into the vernacular and by an intense study of the grammar of the language.

The above quotation from Kreusler (1960) presents a rather simplistic rendition of Shcherba’s theorising on the links between language and thought, on the educational merits of learning foreign languages and on methodological issues in language education. Equally simplistic were contemporary appraisals of the theoretical foundations behind the conscious-comparative method of language teaching in the Soviet Union (Vedel, 1979). Critics on both sides of the ideological split dismissed Shcherba’s ideas, perceived through the lens of the conscious-comparative method. Views on Shcherba’s work as at the service of Marxist ideology needs to be addressed in its own right.

Marxism in the writings of Soviet scholars The implication that Shcherba linked his theorising on language and thought “with the materialist philosophy of human consciousness” (Kreusler, 1960: 354) is an assumption based on references to dialectical materialism and Marxism that appeared in the scholar’s own writing. A number of references in Shcherba’s writings indeed alluded to socialist construction and dialectical materialism, since this was an absolute requirement of the time (Shcherba, 1974). Similar associations of Vygotsky’s work with Marxism have been a recurring theme in discussions of Soviet (Artamonov, 1994), post-Soviet Russian (Leontjev, 2003) and Western literature (Jensen, 1999; Toulmin, 1978; Lucy & Wertsch, 1987). Thus, it is common to read in literature on Vygotsky that his premises reflect his concern with developing a Marxist theory of psychology (Lucy & Wertsch, 1987: 67–86),

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and that “the general frame provided by historical materialist philosophy gave him [Vygotsky] the basis he needed for developing an integrated account” of his cultural-historical psychology (Toulmin, 1978: 51–57). These statements can be attributed to Vygotsky’s own writing which is interspersed with references to materialist (Marxist) psychology and, moreover, to Pavlov’s reflexology – another official Soviet scientific doctrine (Vygotsky, 1926: 45). Yet, as little as Vygotsky’s cultural-historical psychology has to do with mere reflexology, even less can it find its underpinnings in dialectical materialism of Marxism. The intersection of the ideological divide between communism and capitalism with the political conformism of intellectuals, and with the mandatory Marxism of all scholarly work published during the Soviet time, has become an unfortunate conglomeration which presents the contemporary reader with the texts where Marx and dialectic materialism are often a hagiography designed to serve a political agenda. More so, clichéd references to Marx, Marxism and dialectical materialism are far detached from the very ideas of Marx. This is why, making Marxism a theme of discussion when dealing with the writing of Soviet scholars inevitably poses questions as to “which Marxism” or “was there Marx at all”. Thus, whereas Bruner (1987: 2) claims that Vygotsky’s Marxism was closer to Althusser and Habermas, Newman and Hotlzman (1993) call Vygotsky a scientific father of Marxist psychology in the Soviet Union. In addressing this tendency to associate Vygotsky with Marxism, Veresov (2005: n.p.) claims that Vygotsky’s philosophical orientations were “Soloviev, Berdaev, Belyi and the Russian symbolists, as well as Potebnya, Humboldt, Shakespeare, Mandelstam, Shklovsky, Aihenvald, Shpet, Blonsky and many others who form his social and cultural environment and act as participants in his scientific dialogue”. The customary habit of linking the work of Soviet scholars to “materialist philosophy” or “Marxist theory” requires a further remark of caution. It is important to understand that whereas ideas of Marx in the West (Cf Althusser and Habermas) were explored for their own rational merits and significance in the chain of development of philosophical thought in modern times, Soviet scholars, by Smirnow’s (1954: 16) admission, found “dialectical materialism emotionally repulsive” because “everything that is imposed, especially by force, is foreign to science”. Similarly, Shlapentokh (1990: 112–113), who indicates that the merciless repressions of the political police were always central to the intellectual compliance across all periods of Soviet history, claims that genuine belief in official ideology began to dwindle in the mid-1930s, and, with the cessation of mass terror following 1953, was reduced to a minimum level by the beginning of the 1970s. Thus, Soviet intellectuals entered the Brezhnev era almost unanimously contemptuous of the major postulates of Marxism.



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Friese (1957: 64) sums up the practice of appealing to materialist dialectic in his observation that people in the Soviet Union “in general, were content to repeat the mechanical “proofs” of dialectical and historical materialism; [and that] they almost never called into question the underlying principles and assumptions of this allegedly “scientific” world-view”. Lilge (1959: 18) offers similar observations and notes that, in the case of Soviet professors – “the distributors of an authorized stock of ideas”  – the materialist worldview was professed not because of its “intellectual superiority to other views and its social constructiveness” but because “no one could have chosen another view and remained a professor”. Lilge (1959: 20) made a perceptive comment in 1959 that while “a general ideological fatigue must have overwhelmed people long ago”, and despite some easing of the fear of repressions, following Stalin’s death in 1953, it was “still the rule to legitimize a piece of writing in the humanities and in education by frequent references to the ideological authorities, and this practice is likely to mislead the foreign reader in his estimate of the real importance of ideology in Soviet life”. Thus it is essential that readers of scholarship produced during the time of the ideological split between communism and capitalism in the Soviet Union position this scholarship in its historical political context, and view allusions to Marxism, materialism and Marxist dialectic through the prism of compulsory political conformism.

Interlude Reflecting on the scholarship, politics and the East-West relationship, Kennan (1982) noted that impediments to the dissemination of knowledge between the two worlds came from both sides. Western democratic societies, in Kennan’s (1982: 30) words did “very poorly in coping, philosophically, with the phenomenon of serious challenge and hostility”; they found it difficult to take a balanced view of any other country that “has acquired the image of a military and political opponent or enemy” and the tendency was “to dehumanize that image, to oversimplify it, to ignore its complexities”. On the Soviet side, it was “the extraordinary passion for secrecy” (Kennan, 1982: 31), the extraordinary espionomania – preoccupation with the phenomenon of espionage. In this way the two sides worked together to build the barriers prohibiting access to each other. Speaking on behalf of a scholarly community, Kennan (1982: 38) called for the recognition of “the community of interest we all have – we and our Marxist friends alike  – in finding hopeful responses” to existing problems. Kennan’s (1982: 38) proposition that scholarly and intellectual engagement across the

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political divide will ensure that “we will have the satisfaction of knowing that scholarship, the highest work of the mind, has served, as it should, the highest interests of civilization” was articulated at the time of continuing confrontation between the two worlds of communism and capitalism. Now that access to scholarship across the divide has become possible, it is even more urgent to explore, in Glick’s (1992: 559) words, what is “there for discovery”. Specifically reflecting on the continuing discovery of the work and ideas of Vygotsky, Glick (1992: 559) emphasises that this “discovery makes sense with respect to current interests and practices”. It is suggested here that the “discovery” of Shcherba is also pertinent to current interests and practices. As Vygotsky’s ideas have had a great impact on educational psychology and generated an interdisciplinary discussion that has engaged researchers working in the field of foreign languages, Shcherba’s insights into foreign language learning have the potential to contribute to current debates and practices in the field. The uneasy fate and censorship of Vygotsky’s and Shcherba’s work in the Soviet Union have complicated access to complete texts in their original form, and the process of discovery should certainly take note of the debris of political conformism and Marxism enveloping the original ideas of prominent minds.

Final remarks Since foreign language instruction remains, as Shcherba observed, not a theoretical but mainly a practical discipline, the problem of “how to act in order to achieve desirable outcomes” (Shcherba, 1974: 319) remains on the agenda of language practitioners. Shcherba’s recommendations that the findings of various related sciences be applied to language education are sound suggestions which deserve careful consideration. Shcherba’s elaboration on the general educational value of foreign language instruction is an unconventional thesis at a time when languages are mainly judged for their practical utility. Whereas such a view of language education is not original in itself, it does challenge the state of affairs in which foreign language instruction remains a poor relation within compulsory mass education throughout the globe. It is unfortunate that Shcherba’s rich intellectual heritage has remained largely unknown in terms of its relevance to language education. One possible reason for this is that Shcherba’s ideas were manipulated and politicized for the sake of dubious gains at the time of the ideological split of two “isms” – communism and capitalism  – and were simply abandoned en masse, as the entire



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ideological enterprise surrounding the work of the Russian linguist crumbled. The fate of Shcherba’s heritage is illustrative of a complex process of development of theoretical and practical approaches to language education against the background of an ideologically charged intellectual environment. It is hoped that scholarship of the Russian linguist will yet receive its acclaim and thorough study.

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Shcherba, L.V. 1929. Kak nado izuchat’ inostrannye yazyki. [How Foreign Languages Should be Taught]. Moscow. Shcherba, L.V. 1942. Obshcheobrazovatelnoe znachenie inostrannykh yazykov i mesto ikh v sisteme shkolnykh predmetov. [General educational value of foreign languages and their placement in school curriculum]. Sovetskaya Pedagogika 5–6. 30–40. Shcherba, L.V. 1974 [1947]. Prepodavanie inostrannykh yazykov v srednej shkole. Obschie voprosy metodiki. [Teaching foreign languages in a secondary school. General methodological issues]. Moscow. Shcherba, L.V. 1974. Yazykovaya sistema i rechevaya deyatelnost. [Language system and speech activity]. Leningrad: Nauka. Shlyapentokh, V. 1990. Justification of political conformism. The mythology of Soviet intellectuals. Studies in Soviet Thought 39. 111–135. Smirnow, L. 1954. Panel Report. Proceedings of a symposium Academic Freedom under the Soviet Regime 3–4 April 1954, New York. Munich: The Institute for the Study of the History and Culture of the USSR. Toulmin, S. 1978. The Mozart in psychology. The New York Review of Books, 28 September 1978. Vedel, G.E. 1979. Towards history of teaching foreign languages. Voronezh: Voronezh University Press. Veresov, N. 2005. Marxist and non-Marxists aspects of the cultural-historical psychology of L.S. Vygotsky. Outlines. Critical Social Studies 7(1). 31–50. Vygotsky, L.S. 1926. Pedagogicheskaya psihologiya [Pedagogical psychology]. Moscow: Rabotnik Prosveshcheniya. Vygotsky, L.S. 2012. Thought and language. Revised and expanded edition. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Wade, R. & A. Cummins. (eds.) 1991. Documents of Soviet history, vol. 1. Academic International Press.

Sardar M. Anwaruddin

7 Methodism versus teacher agency in TESOL Introduction In this chapter, I present a critique of excessive adherence to teaching methods in the field of Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL). I call such adherence Methodism, and discuss how it is perpetuated in a teacher development project in Bangladesh. I argue that when Methodism is emphasized in centrally-developed curricula, it significantly reduces teachers’ professional agency. Drawing upon Habermas’s (1971, 1974) conception of three fundamental cognitive interests – technical, practical and emancipatory – I divide the chapter into three sections. First, I review the concept of method and trace its roots in the instrumental rationality of the Enlightenment. This kind of rationality views teaching as the carrying out of predetermined content and instructional procedures. Then, I draw on Gadamer’s (2001) notion of praxis to shed light on how teachers may take practical interest in language teaching methods. This view of praxis involves practical wisdom, which asks us to engage in dialogues with self and others, and to constantly re-evaluate ways of teaching language from a variety of perspectives. Finally, I build upon Rancière’s (1987/1991) idea of equality and focus on the importance of taking an emancipatory interest in teaching methods. The overarching argument advanced in the chapter is that the practical and emancipatory approaches to methods will be helpful not only to resist the erosion of teacher agency but also to teach language in the spirit of what has been described as postmethod pedagogy (Kumaravadivelu, 2001, 2003, 2006).

Methodism in TESOL education The concept of method occupies a central position in the field of TESOL. The term method has been defined in a variety of ways. One of the most influential definitions is Richards and Rodgers’ (2014: 22) notion of method as an umbrella term comprising approach, design and procedure: “a method is theoretically related to an approach, is organizationally determined by a design, and is practically realized in procedure”. As Bell (2003: 327) summarizes:

DOI 10.1515/9781501503085-008



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Approach is the underlying theory of language and language learning. Design is how those theories determine the objectives, syllabus, teaching/learning activities, teacher/learner roles, and the role of the instructional materials. Procedures are the techniques derived from a particular approach and design.

Although this notion of method has been widely used in the literature, it results in confusion  – both conceptually and practically. For example, when Richards and Rodgers describe approach as a subcomponent of method, they do not clarify what constitutes an approach as something separate from a method (Bell, 2003). Due to this terminological confusion, Brown (2000) argues that what Richards and Rodgers call “method” should actually be referred to as “methodology.” I support Brown’s argument because the term methodology encompasses theoretical principles underpinning particular methods, epistemology (how we come to know), and specifications for practice (e.g., classroom procedures). In this chapter, I use the term method to denote a set of instructional practices prescribed by theorists for practitioners. Examples of methods include, but are not limited to, Grammar-Translation Method, Audiolingual Method, Total Physical Response, the Silent Way, Suggestopedia, Task-based Language Teaching, Communicative Language Teaching, and Content and Language Integrated Learning. I use Brown’s (2000: 171) definition of method as: A generalized, prescribed set of classroom specifications for accomplishing linguistic objectives. Methods tend to be primarily concerned with teacher and student roles and behaviors, and secondarily with such features as linguistic and subject-matter objectives, sequencing, and materials. They are almost always thought of as being broadly applicable to a variety of audiences in a variety of contexts.

As implied in this definition, there is a certain degree of prescriptivism in all teaching methods. They allow little room for variation and individual interpretations. Generally, methods are supposed to be fixed in time and to be learned through intensive trainings (Bell, 2003). The quest for better methods has been a preoccupation in TESOL since its beginning as a professional field. Throughout the history of TESOL, there has been a recurring argument that adopting the newest method would result in “better” teaching and learning. However, a closer look at methods reveals a cyclical pattern in the changing and revising of existing methods. They often borrowed from each other and were packaged with new labels. What is evident in the literature is that the concept of method has been at the centre of TESOL curricula and instructional practices. Commenting on TESOL’s “fascination with teaching methods,” Richards (2001: ix) wrote that “methods have often been regarded as the most important factor in determining the success of a language program, and

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advances in language teaching have sometimes been seen as being dependent on the adoption of the latest method.” Although much has been written about and against methods (e.g., Kumaravadivelu, 1994, 2001; Pennycook, 1989), there seems to be a strong and continuing interest in them (Bell, 2007). Looking at the etymology of “method” may be helpful to understand the concept in depth. The word “method” derived from the Greek methodos (meta = expressing development; hodos = way), which denotes “pursuit of knowledge.” In the Middle English, the concept of method signified “prescribed medical treatment for a specific disease” (Brown, 1993: 1759). Today, method in its basic usage means a particular procedure for accomplishing or approaching something. The procedures of a method usually require systematicity. I argue that the systematicity of teaching methods was inspired by the instrumental rationality of the Enlightenment and is now perpetuated through education reforms that aim for control and prediction in terms of teachers’ and students’ behaviours. My use of the term Methodism points to the prescriptive nature of teaching methods. Perhaps, the most prominent referent of the word Methodism in our contemporary time is the Christian Protestant group known as Methodists. This group is the product of an 18th-century religious movement led by John Wesley that sought to reform the Church of England. At Oxford University, John Wesley and his brother Charles Wesley organized a group of dedicated students who studied the Bible in serious manners and frequently attended Holy Communion. The members of this group came to be “known as Methodists because of their ‘methodical’ devotion and study” (Methodism, 2015, para. 2). I use the word Methodism because it suggests people’s adherence to certain “fixed” methods. My purpose is to discuss and critique such adherence in the field of TESOL, not in the Christian denomination known as Methodism. One important reason for my choice of the term Methodism is that the principles of John Wesley’s religious movement and the methods of language teaching in the field of TESOL were influenced by the Enlightenment. As Hempton (2005: 7) wrote, Wesley “absorbed, both consciously and unconsciously, some of the characteristic ideas of the Enlightenment”. The Enlightenment was a period of Western thought, stretching roughly from the 17th through the 18th century, which was characterized by dramatic advancements in sciences and technologies. This era strived to shun medieval worldviews, such as superstitious beliefs, and ushered the Western world into modernity (Bristow, 2011). Human progress was the hallmark of the Enlightenment. In order for humans to progress from darkness to light, from ignorance to knowledge, and from peril to salvation, the Enlightenment proposed a form of instrumental rationality. The central tenet of this rationality was control and



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manipulation of one’s own environment so that one could achieve pre-defined goals. This form of rationality involves precision in forecasting, planning, and acting (Torres, 1996). I will return to this discussion later after briefly discussing the Enlightenment’s influence on modern schooling. With the spread of the Enlightenment reason, modern schooling had become an instrument for what Kant (1996: 17, italics original) called “human being’s emergence from his self-incurred minority”. The concept of minority was understood as a situation, a condition to which humans had set themselves, grounded in passivity, fatalism, and inaction, i.e. “inability to make use of one’s own understanding without direction from another” (Kant, 1996: 17). The Enlightenment ambitiously suggested a straightforward way of understanding human’s complex, uncertain and mysterious realities. It also prescribed ways towards human development and material progress. An important element of the Enlightenment project was what Habermas called instrumental rationality or reason, embedded in (i) over-reliance on science and rationality to control and manipulate both natural and social worlds, (ii) appeals to and use of knowable and measurable objective facts and laws of causal relations in natural and social worlds, and (iii) the ability to choose most appropriate and effective means for a given end (Edgar, 2006). This view of instrumental rationality affected education in many ways such as the regulation of the courses of study and the use of curricula with printed textbooks to teach discrete units of knowledge. Consequently, “schooling came to be seen as a powerful social mechanism. It became an instructional technology for disciplining other people’s children and, in some cases, enhancing their prospects of social advancement and/or spiritual salvation” (Hamilton, 2009: 7). It is not my intent to belittle the significance of human reason, the power of knowledge, and modernity’s contributions to progress, which I believe have been global and not limited to the Enlightenment only. Instead, I want to highlight how the instrumental rationality continues to disregard alternative and powerful pathways for making sense of teaching and learning. In short, my critique is against education’s obsession with means in preference to ends. This form of “rationality is more interested in method and efficacy than in purpose. It delimits its questions to ‘how to’ instead of ‘why should’” (Kincheloe, 2008: 52). TESOL’s “obsession” with Methodism, i.e. the instrumentality of methods, has been critically analyzed. For example, Pennycook (1989) shows how the concept of method is based on interested knowledge and a politics of education that sustains inequalities. Similarly, Kumaravadivelu (2003: 541) discusses how method is used as a colonial tool. Highlighting four interrelated dimensions of method – scholastic, linguistic, cultural and economic – he shows that methods are “used to establish the native Self as superior and the non-native Other as inferior”. Kumaravadivelu (2003) also shows how methods are used to devalue and

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de-legitimize teachers’ local knowledges. Methodism in TESOL promotes a monoculture of knowledge that suppresses various epistemological traditions and diverging cultures of teaching and learning around the world. As the literature on the anthropology of education suggests, school cultures vary not only from nation to nation, but also from school to school and from classroom to classroom (Anderson-Levitt, 2003). We know of cultural mismatches when foreign methods are uncritically adopted (Nguyen, Elliott, Terlouw, & Pilot, 2009). We also know that “best” methods often fail to realize their promises (Bax, 2003; Hu, 2002). One way of dismantling Methodism may be what has been described as taking a sociocultural approach to teachers’ professional development. As Johnson and Golombek (2011: 12) argue, a sociocultural approach will “enable teachers to instantiate locally appropriate and theoretically and pedagogically sound instructional practices for the students they teach”. Accepting this sociocultural approach, I argue that the prescriptive nature of teaching methods in TESOL does more to erode than to support teachers’ professional agency for transformative pedagogies. In the pages that follow, I briefly discuss teacher agency and provide an example of a teacher development programme that, in my view, focuses heavily on Methodism. Then I turn to Habermas’s (1971) three categories of cognitive interest as a conceptual framework to critique Methodism in TESOL and to discuss possibilities of taking practical and emancipatory approaches to teaching methods.

Teacher agency In human and social sciences, there is a long standing debate about structure and agency. Structure refers to the broader socio-political-economic arrangements that influence a person’s actions and choices. On the other hand, agency refers to an individual’s capacity to act and make choices that are deemed appropriate by that individual. The sociologist Anthony Giddens (1984: 14), who contributed much to the structure-agency debate, described agency as “the capability of the individual to ‘make a difference’ to a pre-existing state of affairs or course of events”. While some socio- and applied-linguists believe that teachers can play transformative roles (agency) even in highly constraining environments (structures), others argue that it is not always possible to separate the entangled relationships between structure and agency. For instance, Toohey (2007) believes that teachers are not simply agentive, but a host of social factors both restrict and enable their pedagogical agency. Similarly, Morgan (2010) underscores that teacher agency is always emergent and that it arises from complex interactions



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of multiple factors. The concept of teacher agency has been discussed in great detail in the literature on educational research, policy, and practice. A general agreement is that teacher agency is a key factor not only in students’ learning, but also in teachers’ professional learning. Teacher agency is more than coping with difficult situations; it implies teachers’ pedagogical capacity and expertise to make positive changes in students’ life. It also refers “to teacher’s ability to act in new and creative ways, and even to resist external norms and regulations when they are understood to contrast or conflict with professionally justifiable action” (Toom, Pyhältö, & Rust, 2015: 615). A prominent view of teacher agency in contemporary literature suggests that teacher agency is not a fixed disposition of an individual teacher. The dualistic approach to the structure-agency debate is not helpful because agency is constructed situationally and the current context, past experiences, and aspirations for better futures play important roles in the construction of agency (Toom, Pyhältö, & Rust, 2015). Adopting the view of teacher agency that emphasizes the importance of the social settings, Ollerhead (2010) examined how ESL teachers interpreted and responded to education policies in an Australian context. In this examination, the author focused on the links between teachers’ responses to policies and their ability to act agentively. Ollerhead (2010: 616) found a “highly variable capacity of teachers to utilise their agency to both resist constraints and capitalise on enablements in their individual classrooms and teaching environments”. This finding echoes an ecological view of agency according to which, Actors always act by means of their environment rather than simply in their environment … the achievement of agency will always result from the interplay of individual efforts, available resources and contextual and structural factors as they come together in particular and, in a sense, always unique situations. (Biesta & Tedder, 2007: 137)

Applying this ecological view of human agency to a curriculum making project, Priestley et al. (2012: 191) found “that the extent to which teachers are able to achieve agency varies from context to context based upon certain environmental conditions of possibility and constraint”. Elaborating on their ecological view, these authors argue that teacher agency “is achieved in particular (transactional) situations” and that it is not “merely a capacity or possession of the individual” (Priestley et al., 2012: 197). In the following section, I shed light on teacher agency as it plays out in a professional development project in Bangladesh.

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English in action: An example of CLT-based & technology-enhanced curriculum At present, there is a nine-year (2008–1017) teacher development project in Bangladesh known as English in Action (EIA). It aims at improving the country’s language and literacy education. This £50 million-project is working with the Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Primary and Mass Education of the Bangladesh government. The project also collaborates with other partners such as The Open University of the UK, BBC Media Action, and two local NGOs – the Underprivileged Children’s Educational Program and Friends in Village Development Bangladesh (Walsh et al., 2013). The primary goal of the EIA project is “to contribute to the economic growth of Bangladesh by providing communicative English language as a tool for better access to the world economy” (Walsh et al., 2013: 189). The EIA project uses “a combination of existing and new methods, including interactive audio technology, mobile-technology, print and ICT based materials” to enhance students’ learning of the English language and teachers’ professional development (English in Action, 2015: 2). Although English has been in the school curriculum since the British colonial era, most students in Bangladesh lack communicative competence in English. One of the reason is that grammar-translation has been the norm in English language teaching in Bangladesh (Chowdhury & Le Ha, 2008). To improve the quality of English language education, the government of Bangladesh collaborated with various overseas organizations such as the British Council and the UK’s Department for International Development (DFID). In collaboration with them, Bangladesh made a comprehensive plan known as English Language Teaching Improvement Project (ELTIP). In the late 1990s, the government introduced Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) in English curricula for grades 1 through 12. Other initiatives of the ELTIP included hiring foreign experts to train and supervise teachers and to advise curricular reforms (Hamid & Baldauf, 2008). The current EIA project emphasizes the integration of information and communication technology (ICT) into classroom teaching and teachers’ professional development activities. The project capitalizes on school-based professional development trainings using ICTs, and claims that “school-based support systems combined with technology enhanced open and distance learning (ODL) are contributing significantly to TPD [teachers’ professional development] as an in-service training” (Shohel & Banks, 2010: 5483). EIA also aims to develop teachers’ knowledge and skills of communicative language teaching. Teachers are provided with media players, preloaded with video and audio language learning resources, along with battery-powered speakers for use in the classroom. The



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EIA project leaders believe that “materials on the iPod touch, especially audios and videos, are impacting on teachers’ personal and professional development” (Shohel & Banks, 2010: 5489). The EIA authors claim that their ICT-integrated professional development activities have “impacted positively on both teachers’ and students’ lives by significantly increasing their English language competence. Teachers have learned and embodied new communicative language teaching (CLT) practices and adopted robust student centred teaching approaches that have transformed classrooms across Bangladesh” (Shaheen, Walsh, Power & Burton, 2013: n.p.). To throw light on whether or not this claim reflects the reality of the classroom, I searched for and watched all available video clips published by EIA on Youtube. Below is an example of how a teacher used a technology-integrated curriculum, which is supposed to be informed by the principles of CLT: http://www.youtube. com/watch?v=SP-ZhYJKK9s (Accessed: July 27, 2015). In this video, the teacher uses a pre-recorded classroom conversation between a teacher and her students. The teacher has very limited instructional roles to play (professional agency) other than turning on the audio device. Students talk to each other and rarely pay attention to the recorded conversation. Both the teacher and the students are supposed to parrot what they hear in the recording. The use of technology in this case reifies the “transmission mode of teaching which emphasises the learning of facts and repetition rather than engaging in higher order thinking” (Thornton, 2006: 182). What is more crucial in the example cited above is that it is not only the students who are subject to the transmission model of teaching. The teacher also becomes a compliant learner in the transmission pedagogy. She assumes a passive role while technology transmits packaged bits of information. The video exemplifies Methodism, which attempts to teach English in a “communicative” way, but curtails the teacher’s professional agency. I now turn to Hamermas’s typology of cognitive interest to further discuss the Methodism seen in the EIA classroom.

Cognitive interests: Technical, practical and emancipatory Habermas (1971) identified three fundamental cognitive interests: technical, practical and emancipatory. These three interests correspond to three types of science: empirical-analytic science, historical-hermeneutic science, and critically oriented science. First, empirical-analytic sciences are concerned with “possible predictive knowledge” (Habermas, 1971: 308). Such knowledge – generated

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through observation in controlled environments – “attempts to ground the objectivist illusion in observations expressed in basic statements”. It aims to control the environment on the basis of predictions. The technical interest of empirical-analytic sciences is “a fundamental interest in controlling the environment through rule-following action based upon empirically grounded laws” (Grundy, 1987: 12, italics original). The second cognitive interest is concerned with historical-hermeneutic sciences, which aim for practical knowledge through interpretive inquiries. Unlike technical knowledge, practical knowledge derives from the interpreter’s own situations and understandings. As Habermas (1971: 309) explains: The historical-hermeneutic sciences gain knowledge in a different methodological framework. Here the meaning of the validity of propositions is not constituted in the frame of reference of technical control […] For theories are not constructed deductively and experience is not organized with regard to the success of operations. Access to the facts is provided by the understanding of meaning, not observation. The verification of lawlike hypotheses in the empirical-analytic sciences has its counterpart here in the interpretation of texts.

Thus, the practical cognitive interest is based upon interpretations of meaning that are mediated by the interpreter’s past experiences and understandings. Finally, the critically oriented sciences are concerned with an emancipatory interest. Critical inquiries aim “to determine when theoretical statements grasp invariant regularities of social action as such and when they express ideologically frozen relations of dependence that can in principle be transformed” (Habermas, 1971: 310). Such inquiries attempt “to expose the forces that prevent individuals and groups from shaping the decisions that crucially affect their lives” (Kincheloe, 2008: 51). In the methodological frameworks of critical inquiry, self-reflection plays a vital role because it “releases the subject from dependence on hypostatized powers” (Habermas, 1971: 310). For example, empirical-analytic sciences may help us identify that girls obtain lower grades than boys in high school mathematics (technical interest). Then we can take a historical-hermeneutic approach, which may reveal that more girls than boys consider mathematics as uninteresting and irrelevant to their lives (practical interest). However, the question that still remains unanswered is “whether this systematic difference represents a simple ‘fact of life’ or is the result of relations of dominance and dependence among the sexes” (Packer, 2011: 294). Critical inquiries with an emancipatory interest try to find answers to this kind of question. When viewed through the lens of Habermas’s taxonomy, it becomes transparent that language teaching methods are built largely on the technical interest. The methods are comprised of rule-following actions and based on the assumption that once the rules are made, they become generalizable and applicable to a



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wide range of audiences and contexts. Such rules are driven by a technical rationality, which promotes a certain form of action in order to control the environment and to reduce human agency. In the last several decades, many authors have expressed their dissatisfaction with this Methodism in TESOL. For example, Stern (1985: 251) described TESOL’s “prolonged preoccupation with the new methods” as “increasingly unproductive and misguided”. As a result of such reaction to the century-old obsession with methods, TESOL experienced a postmethod turn in the 1990s. Brown (2002: 10) discussed four possible causes of this turn. First, methods are prescriptive and based upon unwarranted assumptions about learners and their contexts. Second, methods may appear “quite distinctive at the early, beginning stages of a language course,” but they are “indistinguishable from each other at later stages”. Third, it is argued that “methods could be empirically tested by scientific quantification to determine which one is ‘best’.” However, such empirical validation does not seem to work for “something as artful and intuitive as language pedagogy” (Brown, 2002: 10). Finally, methods are fraught with socio-political-economic agendas of their proponents. One strand of the critique against what I call Methodism was a proposal for postmethod pedagogy (Kumaravadivelu, 1994, 2001, 2006). Kumaravadivelu’s (2001: 538) postmethod pedagogy consists of three dimensions of pedagogic parameters: particularity, practicality and possibility. First, he argues that any “language pedagogy, to be relevant, must be sensitive to a particular group of teachers teaching a particular group of learners pursuing a particular set of goals within a particular institutional context embedded in a particular sociocultural milieu”. Second, the dimension of practicality seeks to overcome the long-existing theory-practice dichotomy in education. To overcome such dichotomy, the author (2001: 541) argues for “a teacher-generated theory of practice”. Kumaravadivelu (2001) draws upon critical pedagogy, specially the works of Paulo Freire and Henry Giroux, to highlight teachers’ and students’ subject-positions and to underscore the importance of empowering students to free themselves from oppressive forces. Kumaravadivelu’s (1994) postmethod pedagogy comprises of 10 macro-strategies: “(a) maximize learning opportunities, (b) facilitate negotiated interaction, (c) minimize perceptual mismatches, (d) activate intuitive heuristics, (e) foster language awareness, (f) contextualize linguistic input, (g) integrate language skills, (h) promote learner autonomy, (i) raise cultural consciousness, and (j) ensure social relevance” (p. 32). His conceptualization of postmethod pedagogy has been further elaborated in his 2006 book Understanding Language Teaching: From Method to Postmethod. The concept of the postmethod pedagogy is now widely accepted in academic circles. Academic discussions are not usually

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focused on the search for “better” methods, but rather on the possibilities of adapting to local contexts and educational cultures. Yet, when it comes to classroom practice, Methodism still dominates in many contexts. This is illustrated in the video example cited above. The reason why the postmethod pedagogy is not widely practiced in the classroom may be understood by unpacking the prefix “post” in the term postmethod. In the 1980s and 1990s, a variety of scholarly fields witnessed an increasing use of this prefix (e.g., post-colonial, post-structural, post-modern, and so on). One of the dangers of using the prefix “post” is that it may represent a false and misleading understanding of the meaning of the word that it precedes. For example, the “post” in post-colonial may imply a complete break with the colonial past as if the domination by the colonial power has completely ended. Similarly, the “post” in post-modern may send us a message that we have overcome the oppressive structures of modernity. In this way, it may obfuscate the subtle and complex ways power and domination operate. In fact, Jean-François Lyotard, who has popularized the term postmodern through his influential book The Postmodern Condition (1979/1984), argues against a historical reading of “post.” For him, the concept of chronology is inherently modern, and “the idea of modernity is closely bound up with this principle that it is possible and necessary to break with tradition and to begin a new way of living and thinking” (Lyotard, 1999: 143). This temporal view of postmodernity is less helpful because it takes a simplistic approach to understanding the overwhelmingly complex and interconnected webs of domination. Andreotti (2010) describes this view as post-as-after-modernity. In contrast to a naive temporal view of “post-as-after,” Andreotti (2010) suggests that critical educators conceptualise “post” as questioning/interrogating, which asks us to relentlessly strive for the pluralisation of knowledge. Thus, the notion of post-as-questioning-modernity aims to resist what Santos (2014) describes as epistemicide, i.e. the dominance of particular epistemological traditions that renders “other” alternative knowledges invisible or swallowed-up. I argue that Kumaravadivelu’s proposal for postmethod pedagogy is often misinterpreted based on the notion of “post-as-after.” Rather than interrogating the oppressive practices of methods, policymakers often blend and synthesize elements of various existing methods and recommend that teachers follow them in methodical ways. In the English in Action project, we see such adherence to methods of teaching and learning. The project claims to use Communicative Language Teaching (CLT), yet the way it is implemented is nothing but a rigid procedure of delivering a pre-packaged curriculum. As we see in the video, teachers have very little agency to adapt to local contexts, students, and their needs because technology (the audio player) is used as a sufficient enabling tool to disseminate a centrally-developed curriculum. Without professional agency, the



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teacher becomes a compliant worker in a transmission pedagogy. Thus, English in Action’s use of CLT as a method does not take up Kumaravadivelu’s principle of particularity, i.e. attending to the needs of a particular teacher working with a particular group of students in a particular sociocultural context. I argue that EIA’s professional development work is driven by the assumption that “if the method is followed rigorously, no values, ideology or other human perspectives will undermine the objectivity/validity of the knowledge produced” (Kincheloe, 2005: 39). Such objectivism reinforces what Habermas described as technical cognitive interest, which operates in oppressive ways and aims for control and predictions. In the remainder of the chapter, I discuss two instances of such oppression: interpellated subject-positions and the stultification of teachers.

Interpellated subject-position versus the practical interest Methodism offers teachers an interpellated subject-position. Interpellation is a central concept in Louis Althusser’s (1971) writings, who understood it as an imaginary mechanism of mutual recognition that puts individuals into various subject-positions. Althusser discussed how ideology functions as a mediator between individuals and systems of power. Through a process of interpellation, individuals learn to recognize themselves as subjects and gradually become complicit in their own domination. An idea that someone has (for example, that using CLT is desirable) is not merely one’s own idea. The process of interpellation works in ways that predict, and often pre-determine, the individual’s response. Althusser (1971) gave an example of a police officer who shouts “Hey, you there!” As soon as the pedestrian recognizes this call, he/she becomes a subject relative to state ideologies. The individual who hears the cop’s call is forced to make a choice. Although it may seem that the individual is a free subject, the freedom is only to freely accept his/her subjection. As Choi (2013: 29–30) summarises: Whether it [the subject] should turn around or not is already decided in advance because, as Althusser says, if it runs, then the cop – the ideological state apparatus – will immediately turn into a repressive apparatus and chase after it. Still, the formality of choice (strictly understood as a structure of apparatus) is required because that is what differentiates the operation of the ideological state apparatus from that of a repressive one; Althusser both discriminates and combines these two types in the figure of the cop.

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Althusser’s notion of interpellation illustrates how individuals recognize themselves as subjects by acknowledging and responding to certain ideologies. As the above example shows, the pedestrian actually does not have any other choice but to turn around and occupy a subject position in the structure of power as represented by the cop. The contemporary literature in TESOL adopts a “fluid” view of identity and subject formation. While learning a language, the learner constructs a variety of identities in relation with the broader sociocultural contexts. Therefore, researchers such as Norton (2010: 1) challenge “teachers to consider which pedagogical practices are both appropriate and desirable in the teaching of literacy and which will help students develop the capacity for imagining a wider range of identities across time and space”. The concept of interpellation holds important implications for understanding students’ identity construction. In a recent edited volume, Curdt-Christiansen & Weninger (2015: 1) show how learning a language is “an ideological engagement,” and how learners “construct their identity partly through available discourses presented in authoritative textbooks and cultural encounters”. Interpellated subject positions also apply to understanding language teachers’ identity formation, which has received increasing attention in the field in recent years (Varghese et al., 2005). When TESOL teachers respond to a top-down call for using the “best” method, they enter into an interpellated relationship with those who prescribe the method. If the teachers do not respond to the call of the methodists (e.g., policy-makers, professional developers), they are labeled as resisters, as bad teachers. Their job may be in jeopardy. Thus, the technical rationality that runs through Methodism does not offer teachers any choice other than responding to a hegemonic call. As Moje & Luke (2009: 425) explain, Key to interpellation is the power of the call to invoke a response that situates the respondent in a particular subject position embedded in particular ideologies and knowledge systems…The respondent’s recognition of self is less critical than is the caller’s recognition of the respondent because it is the caller’s recognition that spurs the process.

Interpellation of teachers is on the rise as we witness a strong push for evidence-based practice. Teachers are called on to use evidence-based instructional methods to improve education (Davies, 1999). Unfortunately, what is often forgotten in the arguments for evidence-based practice is that the social and educational sciences are fundamentally different from the natural sciences. As Berliner (2002: 20) argues, “solid scientific findings in one decade end up of little use in another decade because of changes in the social environment that invalidate the research or render it irrelevant”. For example, we have seen how a rich body of



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work informed by behavioral theories was replaced by new research findings resulting from constructivist paradigms. Habermas’s (1971) notion of practical cognitive interest may be helpful to free teachers from interpellated subject positions, created by the technical interest of instructional methods. As I have discussed above, methods as modernist instruments of prediction and control promote an “‘objectivist illusion’ according to which the world is conceived as a universe of facts independent of the knower, whose task is to describe them as they are in themselves” (McCarthy, 1984: 59). Rejecting this objectivist illusion, Habermas proposes that we base our understanding on interpretations of meanings as a way of engaging in meaningful actions. With regard to language teachers’ education and development, Habermas’s argument for practical interest may provide pedagogical resources in order to take up Johnson’s (2006: 243) suggestion for “the articulation, documentation, and public recognition of teachers’ ways of knowing that lead to praxis, as legitimate knowledge and as legitimate ways of coming to know”. To explicate how teachers may take a practical interest in methods, I draw insights from Gadamer’s notions of method and praxis. Gadamer (1975/2013) presents detailed philosophical accounts on the concept of method in his magnum opus Truth and Method. Since a full discussion of his ideas is beyond the scope of this chapter, I provide a brief overview of his conception of method. For some readers, Gadamer is an anti-methodologist. They prefer to interpret the title of the book Truth and Method as “truth versus method.” However, Gadamer makes it clear that he does not cancel out the concept of method, but he encourages us to re-conceptualize the purpose and use of methods. As Gadamer (2001: 41) says, As tools, methods are always good to have. But one must understand where these can be fruitfully used. Methodical sterility is a generally known phenomenon. Every once in a while, for instance, we find tried and true or merely fashionable methods applied in a field where they are simply unproductive.

It follows, then, that it is not a good idea to reject outright the vast literature that has been developed around teaching methods in the field of TESOL. Following Gadamer, I argue that methods may become good tools, but teachers have to learn to use them judiciously. However, the question that this argument begs is what judicious uses of methods would entail. I propose that we encourage teachers (in-service and in-training) to adopt the view of praxis as a way of avoiding interpellated subject-positions offered by the technical interest in teaching methods. Praxis denotes a particular form of

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human activity, which is different from the common usage of the term practice. In Gadamer’s (2001: 83–84) view, Our praxis does not consist in our adapting to pregiven functions or in the thinking out of suitable means for achieving pregiven purposes… Rather, our praxis must consist in prudent choices as we pursue common goals, choices we arrive at together and in practical reflection making concrete decisions about what is to be done in our present situation.

In this sense, praxis is morally-committed and informed by norms and traditions. Persons engaging in praxis are always mindful of the consequences of their actions. In other words, praxis can be contrasted with technical knowledge, which is concerned with achieving a known objective or outcome by using pre-given methods. Technical knowledge is concerned with the quality of an outcome or a product (separate from the person producing it), but praxis is “concerned with doing what is right and proper” (Kemmis & Smith, 2008: 16). In praxis, the ends are not fixed. They are constantly revised as we go along. This revising requires a form of reason, which involves choice and judgment, and “is distinguishable from technical reasoning whose overall purpose is to consider the relative effectiveness of action as a means to some known end” (Rogers, 2003: 81). Adopting this view of praxis may be helpful for teachers to resist the technical interest and to work towards a praxis-oriented interest in instructional methods.

“Stultification” versus the emancipatory interest In the preceding section, I argued that by taking a praxis-approach to methods, teachers may be able to resist the technical interest imposed by education policy-makers and professional developers. However, as Habermas (1971) would suggest, practical interest alone will not suffice because an objectivist illusion of methods de-skills teachers to a point where they may feel stultified. In the English in Action classroom, we see how the professional agency of the teacher is taken away. She turns the audio-player on and waits for the students to benefit from a CLT-based recorded conversation. The denial of teacher’s agency leads to a certain kind of decisionism, i.e. “the inability to reflect upon and assess values and goals” (Edgar, 2005: 57). When the complex jobs of teaching are broken down into atomistic elements and suggestions are made based upon predictions and causal claims, the teacher loses control over her/his teaching because “someone outside the immediate situation now has greater control over both the planning and what is actually to go on” (Apple & Teitelbaum, 1986: 179). The de-skilling of teachers’ work is often furthered by the processes of separating curriculum



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design from its execution. Studies have documented how teachers engage in routine and mechanical work and spend most of their time obediently following the prescriptions of packaged curricula and methods (Sprague, 1992). This trend continues to remain the norm in contemporary reform movements. Researchers such as Buchanan (2015) and Kayi-Aydar (2015) show how teachers and their pedagogical activities are influenced by the contexts and discourses of reforms focused excessively on accountability and control. Methodism in TESOL not only contributes to the de-skilling of teachers, but it also stultifies them. As we see in the English in Action example, teachers’ knowledge is regarded as inferior or incomplete in contrast to the knowledge of those who developed the curriculum to be implemented through technologies such as audio players and mobile phones. Habermas’s (1971) idea of emancipatory interest may be helpful for teachers to free themselves from the cognitive violence of Methodism. For him, true emancipation lies in the subject’s restoration of autonomy. An emancipatory interest in methods is likely to prove helpful to resist the interpellation of teachers into subjugated positions and the erosion of their professional agency. In recent years, a combined influence of prescriptive curricula, outcomes-driven practice, and quantitatively measurable attainment has taken away teachers’ agency (Priestley, Edwards, Priestley, & Miller, 2012). In light of Habermas’s (1991) work, the restoration of teacher agency may result from critical inquiries, through which the subject not only recognizes the inequalities and injustices, but she/he also strives to envision how the world should be. Underlying such critical inquiries is the view “that existing social structures and beliefs are socially constructed and therefore can be transformed through social action” (Ewert, 1991: 356). I believe that Jacques Rancière’s idea of emancipatory politics holds important implications for realizing the Habermasian critical inquiry as a way of resisting the stultifying tendency and cognitive violence of Methodism. Rancière (1987/1991: 13) argues that emancipation is the opposite of stultification, and stultification happens “whenever one intelligence is subordinated to another”. Thus, emancipation is the consciousness of equality; it “is the process of verification of the equality of intelligence” (Rancière, 2007: 275). For my purpose here, I draw an example of a teacher whom Rancière (1987/1991) describes in his book The Ignorant Schoolmaster. Rancière tells the story of a French schoolteacher named Joseph Jacotot who taught Flemish students whose language he did not know, and the students did not know his language either. Jacotot used a bilingual edition of Télémaque (a didactic French novel), gave it to his students, and asked them – through an interpreter – to read. He was astonished at the way these students learned enough French to express themselves. Then, Jacotot proclaimed that “uneducated people could learn on their own, without a teacher explaining

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things to them, and that teachers, for their part, could teach what they themselves were ignorant of” (Rancière, 2010: 1). Although Jacotot’s teaching may seem to support the grammar-translation method, it actually affirms a radical philosophy of equality and emancipation. Rancière (2010: 2) clarifies that Jacotot “is not an ignorant person who is thrilled by playing teacher”. Rather, he is ignorant of an inequality of intelligence. Although he does not transmit knowledge in a traditional sense, he becomes “a means of knowledge” for others. In light of Rancière’s philosophy, we may say that Methodism in TESOL creates a world of hierarchy by controlling the teacher’s classroom activities. “Best” methods are prescribed for better student learning, but as shown in the video example above, excessive adherence to methods ends up taking away teachers’ professional agency. Methodism denies the most important attribute of equality: “a relation of intelligence to intelligence” (Rancière, 2010: 2). By asking teachers to follow prescriptive methods such as teaching a CLT activity through recorded conversation, curriculum developers attempt to de-legitimize teachers’ local knowledge that a sociocultural approach to teacher development would require (e.g., Johnson, 2006). Instead, they force teachers to enter into a relationship of domination and inequality. To help teachers get out of this interpellated relations, Rancière may provide teacher education programmes with valuable insights because at the heart of his philosophical project is the “radical equality between human beings in terms of their intelligence” (Philippe-Deranty, 2010: 6). Building upon Rancière’s notion of equality, I propose that TESOL teachers be encouraged to take an emancipatory approach to teaching methods. Importantly, teachers need to re-construct the methods, not just follow them. In this regard, Rancière’s (2009: 114) ideas are instructive: A method means a path: not the path that a thinker follows but the path that he/she constructs, that you have to construct to know where you are, to figure out the characteristics of the territory you are going through, the places it allows you to go, the way it obliges you to move, the markers that can help you, the obstacles that get in the way. Examining a method thus means examining how idealities are materially produced.

This view of method summarizes the key arguments I have made in this chapter. Historically, the hegemonic technical interest has asked teachers to follow the methods as prescribed. This is what Rancière would warn us about. In my view, his suggestion for constructing the methods, i.e. to know where I am and how far I should and can go, speaks to the need for taking practical and emancipatory interests in methods. Habermas’s (1971) historical-hermeneutic sciences, which produce practical cognitive interest, are useful to know the particularities, or what Rancière (2009) calls the characteristics of one’s territory. Habermas’s criti-



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cal inquiries that aim for emancipatory cognitive interest may enable teachers to know “the obstacles that get in the way” and to envision how far they can go with the teaching methods at hand. In conclusion, I have discussed how an excessive focus on instructional methods creates and sustains oppressive practices by eroding teachers’ professional agency. Using Habermas’s three types of cognitive interest as a framework, I have shown how a teacher development project in Bangladesh takes a technical approach to teachers’ use of communicative language teaching. I have also discussed how “technocratic and instrumental rationalities…play an increasing role in reducing teacher autonomy with respect to the development and planning of curricula and the judging and implementation of classroom instruction” (Giroux, 2012: 16). To disrupt the perpetuation of oppressive practices such as the de-skilling of teachers and the denial of their professional agency, I have argued for taking practical and emancipatory interests in teaching methods. It is my hope that the practical and emancipatory interests informed by Gadamer’s notion of praxis and Rancière’s idea of equality will inform programmes of language teacher education and professional development. They shall also enable teachers to embrace the principles of postmethod pedagogy in order to develop teacher-generated theories of practice (Kumaravadivelu, 2006) that are locally appropriate for the students they teach in particular sociocultural contexts (Johnson & Golombek, 2011).

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Richards, J.C. & Rodgers. 1986. Approaches and methods in language teaching. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Richards, J.C. & T.S. Rodgers. 2001. Approaches and methods in language teaching. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Richards, J.C. & T.S. Rodgers. 2014. Approaches and methods in language teaching. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Rogers, B. 2003. Educational research for professional practice: More than providing evidence for doing ‘x rather than y’ or finding the ‘size of the effect of A on B’. The Australian educational researcher 30(2). 65–87. Santos, B. 2014. Epistemologies of the south: Justice against epistemicide. Boulder, CO: Paradigm. Shaheen, R., C. Walsh, T. Power, S. Burton. 2013. Assessing the impact of large-scale teacher professional development (TPD) in Bangladesh: English in Action (EIA). Paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association, San Francisco, CA. Shohel, M.M.C. & F. Banks. 2010. Teachers’ professional development through the English in Action secondary teaching and learning program in Bangladesh: Experience from the UCEP schools. Procedia Social and Behavioral Sciences 2. 5483–5494. Sprague, J. 1992. Critical perspectives on teacher empowerment. Communication Education 41(2). 181–203. Stern, H.H. 1985. Review of the book Methods that work: A smorgasbord of ideas for language teachers. Studies in Second Language Acquisition 7. 249–251. Thornton, H. 2006. Teachers talking: the role of collaboration in secondary schools in Bangladesh. Compare 36(2). 181–196. Toohey, K. 2007. Autonomy/agency through socio-cultural lenses. In A. Barfield & S. Brown (eds.), Reconstructing autonomy in language education, 231–242. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Toom, A. Pyhältö, K. & F.O. Rust. 2015. Teachers’ professional agency in contradictory times. Teachers and Teaching: Theory and Practice 21(6). 615–623. Torres, C.A. (1996). Adult education and instrumental rationality: A critique. International Journal of Educational Development 16(2). 195–206. Varghese, M., B. Morgan, B. Johnston & K.A. Johnson. 2005. Theorizing language teacher identity: Three perspectives and beyond. Journal of language, Identity, and Education 4(1). 21–44. Walsh, C.S., T. Power, M. Khatoon, S.K. Biswas, A.K. Paul, B.C. Sarkar & M. Griffiths, 2013. The ‘trainer in your pocket’: Mobile phones within a teacher continuing professional development program in Bangladesh. Professional Development in Education 39(2). 186–200.

Gregorio Hernandez-Zamora

8 Academicism in language: “A Shelob’s web that devours and kills from inside” First as a university pre and postgraduate student, and then as a teacher for over 20 years in Mexican higher education institutions, I have rarely met students who enjoy and do well at academic writing. Rather, most experience academic forms of discourse as suffering. In this chapter I present cases of students who illustrate such experience, selected from the many that I have provided academic advice, as well as what I came to call ‘academic therapy’, given their deep distress before academic writing demands. While academic writing (and academic discourse more generally) is neither oppressive nor emancipatory in itself, in this chapter I focus on students who experience it as an oppressive practice that severely diminishes their confidence as thinkers, writers, and learners. This is a common phenomenon in the Mexican context, where many students agonize at the very prospect of writing academically. Eventually, many develop hate feelings towards the whole experience (i.e., academia, academics, and academic language); others become extremely reluctant to appropriate and display an academic identity; and almost everyone struggle to comply with academic language requirements. The dominant ‘diagnosis’ about this symptom within the mainstream academia is that they simply do not know how to write, and that this would not be a problem should they understand that there exist one academic register, one set of conventions, and one function of academic discourse that students simply need to acquire. This view has been questioned by a large body of research and theory in the fields of the New Literacy Studies (Gee, 1996; Heath, 1983; Street, 1993), critical academic writing (Canagarajah, 2002; Ivanic, 1998), and English in intercultural settings (Cortese & Duszak, 2005). This literature makes a distinction between an ‘autonomous model’ and an ‘ideological model’ of literacy. An autonomous model conceptualizes literacy (including academic literacy) in technical terms, as a neutral technology for achieving functional ends independent of social context, opposes ‘literacy’ to ‘orality’, and focuses on Western literacy genres, particularly the British essay. It relies on a narrow linguistic notion of context that sees either the isolated text or the face-to-face interaction as the contexts for utterances. The ideological model, instead, questions the validity of an ethnocentric model based Note: Metaphor used by a student whose case is presented in this chapter. Shelob is a fictional giant spider that appears at the end of the fourth book, second volume (The Two Towers), of The Lord of the Rings, by J. R. R. Tolkien. DOI 10.1515/9781501503085-009

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on one single type of literacy technology (alphabetic script), one writing genre (essay), one social use (academic), and one cultural setting (Europe). Rather than a psychological skill, literacy is seen as a social practice, with varying forms, meanings, uses and relations with orality. The acquisition and use of different literacies have, thus, an ideological character. This view rejects the great divide oral-literate and pays attention to the role of literacy practices in reproducing or challenging structures of power and domination, and defines context not as a linguistic unit but as discourse, that is as ideological formations and conceptual systems. This perspective, thus, questions the dominant and normative view that sees academic writing as a single set of conventions that exist apart from the speakers and their practices, and conceptualizes discourse as hybrid, conflictual, and fluid, especially from poststructuralism and postcolonialism. Academic discourse is, thus, seen not as given set of norms and conventions, but as a “contested domain, characterized by inherent tensions and ongoing changes” (Canagarajah, 2005: 48). Finding a voice in this context of different and often conflicting versions and practices of academic discourse, is challenging for novice student writers. In this chapter I argue that the normative versions of academic literacy often become a form of -ism (academicism) that turns academic discourse into a practice and device of silencing and a form of ‘punishing’ students. Punishing insofar as failure or rejection to acquire or use the ‘proper’ language forms has consequences ranging from getting low grades to failing an entire programme. The paradox faced by educators committed to helping students to find a sense of voice and authorship, is that by enforcing ‘academicist’ forms of language we turn the expressive system of language into an oppressive regime of silencing and exclusion. Especially, the compulsory use of certain surface forms in the written discourse, often becomes alienating and stressing for students coming from diverse backgrounds. This posits a contradiction at the heart of the education system, as students are expected to become fluent and confident writers and thinkers, while in fact many end up losing all self-confidence. In the rest of the chapter I first present some theoretical debates around issues of cultural difference, symbolic violence, and normativism vs. expressivism in the field of writing studies. Then I provide particular cases of struggling student writers. Finally, I discuss these cases under the lens of Bakhtin’s dialoguism and Bourdieu’s theory of symbolic power.



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Cultural difference versus cultural deficit Sociological and sociocultural studies in education have shown since the 1970s that the school system tends to select the dominant groups’ cultural ways as the legitimate forms of knowledge and communication, such as the “national language”, the “standard” variant of this language, and the written forms employed in institutional settings. This status quo creates systematic disadvantages for students coming from non-dominant groups, whose communicative and cultural patterns differ from the mainstream (Bernstein, 1971; Bourdieu & Passeron, 1979; Gee, 1996; Scollon & Scollon, 1981; Watson et al., 2009). In particular, sociocultural studies have sought to explain the failure of many students at appropriating the academic forms of language as a matter of cultural difference rather than as a cultural deficit (Mehan, 1998). In the case of Mexican students, we have described these cultural differences as involving, … a preference for narrative over expository discourse; a general inclination to knowledge-saying rather than knowledge-transforming; a reluctance to public displays of self and knowledge; a fancy for humor and chaos rather than gravity and order (which is how academic writing is often perceived); a tendency to distrust academia and academics as role models for anything truly important in life (such as family, happiness, humility, money, etc.); a discomfort with the one and a thousand minutiae of academic writing manners (e.g. the details of correct citation and referencing) […] and above all, an aversion and often rejection for anything that sounds or looks pedantic and highbrow. (Hernandez-Zamora & Zotzmann, 2014: 82)

Coincidently, Peckham (2010), a college writing teacher, explored in his book Going North, Thinking West, the tensions created by the teaching of academic writing (understood as ‘a fundamentally middle-class enterprise’) to students increasingly coming from the working classes. He questioned the idea that argumentation is the obvious and necessary form of academic discourse and claimed that in fact some of the key features of the argumentative genre (e.g., objectivity, multiple perspective, explicit language, stance, focus on form, control and logic) conflict with the working class ethos. He analyzed the ‘working-class resistance to argument’, and described these students as more inclined towards personal, subjective, emotional, and spontaneous forms of discourse.

Academicism as symbolic violence Four decades ago, Bourdieu & Passeron (1977) theorized the school as a system of symbolic violence, in which visible and invisible coactions turned pedagogy

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into an action of inculcation and imposition of a legitimate culture: “all pedagogic action is, objectively, symbolic violence, insofar as it is the imposition of a cultural arbitrary by an arbitrary power” (Bourdieu & Passeron, 1977: 5). Many scholars have debated these authors’ theory, especially in Latin America, where much ethnographic research in education aimed at refuting Bourdieu and Passeron so-called ‘deterministic reproductionism’. Rockwell (1995), for example, claimed that at the level of everyday face-to-face interactions in schools, social reproduction and symbolic violence is hardly found. It is true that social reproduction (particularly, social class relationships) appears more or less evident depending on the scale you observe (e.g., at macro or micro levels). However, for over 20 years I have been listening and witnessing stories and cases of university students worried or desperate because of what they feel as an institutionalized imposition of alienating forms of language. The problem is not limited to the written mode but involves a broader relation with the whole academic discourse within university settings. It is not, either, a matter of a particular national language (e.g., Spanish, English), but a matter of the modes of speaking, writing and thinking that are inextricably intertwined in what literacy theorist James Paul Gee has called an “identity kit” or discourse proper of a discourse community (Gee, 2004). Their passionate accounts about how professors and institutions attempt to enforce academic forms of discourse, reveal not just practices of symbolic violence, but also effective and enduring forms of silencing and self-silencing power, that ultimately contribute to reproduce a social system already divided in class categories.

Academicism versus expressivism As an adjective, the word academic denotes an activity or a work of only theoretical interest, which is of no practical relevance (Academic, 2016). Thus, academic is something designed according to often excessively idealized formal conventions (idem). Drawing from this denotative sense of the term, I suggest that academicism can be understood as a pursuit of ‘correctness’ or ‘perfection’ in the knowledge and practice of a certain activity (e.g., art, language, science). Historically, legitimate knowledge and practice have been defined and regulated by formally instituted academies (bodies of ‘experts’). From a broader philosophical and sociological perspective, academicism can also be understood as a kind of ideology, in the sense that Slavoj Žižek (1992) gives to this concept: ideology as a phantasy of completeness. In this regard, academicism parallels other kinds



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of -isms (e.g., capitalism, communism, feminism, etc.) in that they are discourse configurations aiming at totalizing certain discursive constellations. Let us expand on the first sense of the concept: academicism as a ‘legitimate’ practice regulated by academy. In the history of art the concept of ‘academic art’ is applied to the sort of art works (painting, sculpture, etc.) produced under the aesthetic standards and rules prescribed by the European academies of art (particularly the French Académie des Beux-Arts) (Cordoso & Trodd, 2000). Likewise, in the field of language use and education, there have been academies of language that have sought to establish the distinction between the ‘correct’ (and legitimate) and the ‘incorrect’ (and illegitimate) forms of language. Some of the earliest language academies were the Italian Accademia della Crusca, founded in 1582, the French Académie française, founded in 1635, the Spanish Academy, founded in 1713, and the Swedish Academy, founded in 1786 (Crystal, 1997). Alike academies were founded afterwards for other languages. By definition, language academies represent a prescriptive tradition, as opposed to the descriptive tradition linked to the development of linguistics and its many branches. Prescriptivism is the view that not all varieties of language (or art, or knowledge, etc.) are equally good and valid, hence the need for a selection and prescription of one form as the ‘standard’ or legitimate one. Language academicists have placed especial attention to matters of grammar, vocabulary, and pronunciation, although other aspects or levels of language are considered as well. For example, the current Académie Française states as its main function: “to work with all possible care and diligence to give definite rules to our language, and to render it pure, eloquent, and capable of treating the arts and sciences” (Académie Française, 2016, my translation). There is an unfinished discussion in the field of art history about the nature of nineteenth-century academic art. Critics in general argue that ‘academic’ is not just a descriptive term referring to a style, but an evaluative term that connects the term with the idea of ‘bourgeois taste’, which is, in turn, assumed to be synonym of ‘bad’, ‘reactionary’, institutionally powerful but aesthetically impoverished ‘official art’, to which the ‘avant-garde’ artists reacted, as a counter-hegemonic movement (Barlow, 2000). While there are no ‘national academies of written language’, the entire world of academia (i.e., higher education, research institutions and academic publishing houses) actually works as an agency that seek to regulate the form, content, and purposes of written language and genres. Now, it is useful to distinguish between professional academic writing and student academic writing. ‘Professional’ is the writing made by researchers and professors intended to publish in academic venues; whereas student writing refers to the writing done by college

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and graduate students as required by their institutions. This can take many forms and genres (reviews, reports, etc.), yet, ‘problematic academic writing’ refers mostly to essays and theses or dissertations. The written mode is the most subject to heavier regulations in higher education: it is part of the formal curriculum (i.e., formal writing courses and writing across the disciplines), it is used as a key learning means (e.g., essays assigned as learning devices), and it is used as a key evidence of students’ learning (e.g., learning through written tasks) (Cazden, 2001). The discussion of this chapter is, thus, related to issues of both legitimacy (what counts as –good– academic writing) and pedagogy (what is the best way to socialize students in the practices of academic writing). I notice here parallelisms between academicism in art and academicism in language education. Even though art has been traditionally seen as the sphere of creative expression, and academic writing a practice with other purposes, namely an epistemic function (often opposed to creativity), these are also disputed dichotomies in the current pedagogy developments (e.g., Dafoe, 2013). Thus, just as in art history, in the field of academic writing, there seems to be a historical antagonism between normativism and expressivism. This antagonism has evolved not so much as a theoretical debate properly, but as a contention between regulatory institutional policies versus critical pedagogies. While this antagonism is especially evident in the field of composition studies in the USA (over the period 1960–2014), in the Mexican and Latin American contexts such debates/contentions are beginning to emerge, as higher education pay greater attention to academic literacy as a field of theory and practice (Carrasco, 2011; Carlino, 2005; Hernandez, 2009; Molina-Natera, 2012). The rhetorical triangle illustrated in Figure 1 is helpful to make sense of these conflicting views, each one placing a special emphasis on one of its ‘corners’. Traditional writing teaching, with its emphasis on mechanical correctness and textual conventions seems to point at the corner of Text. Often identified as ‘normativism’ or ‘the Traditionalist orientation’, in the words of writing scholar James Berlin (1982), this was a dominant view in the US field of college writing teaching until the 60s. In the Mexican context, I believe that this is the dominant vision until very recently, constituting in fact the ‘common sense’ of most university teachers who often neglect the very nature of students as writing learners (they assume that students should already know how to write) and as authors (students are rarely seen as creators of ideas and knowledge).



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Figure 1: Rhetorical triangle

Also in the US field of composition pedagogy, as a response to the focus on mechanical correctness of normativism, a movement called ‘expressivism’ emerged and took momentum in the 70s and 80s. Expressivism sought to return attention to the author; hence, it emphasized the agency and expressive freedom of the student writers. The most cited of its supporters is Peter Elbow (2000), who problematized traditional writing instruction (i.e., instruction based on teachers’ lecturing). He also advocated for the introduction of a strong narrative “I” voice to scholarship in the teaching of writing. Drawing from his own personal story as a student unable to write academically, and then as a teacher of academic writing, Elbow argues that there should be no conflict between academic writing and personal writing. He asked the interesting question: Why can’t the functions of academic discourse (argument, solve problems, analyze texts & issues, ask/ answer questions) be done with personal and expressive writing? He argues that features of academic writing, such as larger view, clear thinking, logical organization, and judicious tone, are not incompatible with some personal expressive writing. However, after two decades of this expressivist orientation, many in the US field of writing pedagogy began to question this approach as too focused on the author, at the expense of audience and context, which became the focus of the field during the late 1990s. This latter approach is often seen as a more rhetorical approach, as Susan Meyers explains (Personal Communication, March 15, 2015), and it aims at encompassing the whole ‘rhetorical triangle’. In my own development as a university teacher, I have felt inclined to an expressivist position, and advocate for such position until the present. A practical reason for this is that, as a professor and reviewer of student writings, it is exhausting to read and grade hundreds of unengaging texts, written by obligation but devoid of authentic ideas and emotions. While many are poorly written in the formal aspects (grammar, textual conventions), these texts show above all

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how hard it is for many students to adopt an authoritative and authentic voice that allows them to enter into the academic conversation (Rose, 1989). Even those that are correctly written, are often little persuasive. Certainly, a novice writer will hardly write a text that is simultaneously engaging and well researched. Yet we should expect at least that these texts contribute to their development as thinkers and writers, which is rarely the case. While such writings can be seen as exercises toward their academic development, any text should evidence a real person behind it, someone trying to speak his or her mind with at least a modicum of authentic voice. On the other hand, I believe that the ‘silent’ and ‘awkward’ behavior that many students exhibit when required to write academically, reveals also our long history of political colonialism and domination that goes back to the pre-Columbian era, and remains almost intact to the 21st century authoritarian Mexican political system (Cancino, 2012; De Mente, 1996). Maybe there is a similar situation in other parts of the ex-colonial world, but not speaking up one’s thoughts through academic forms of discourse, is very common among Mexican pre and postgraduate students. As the cases presented below show, it seems that whenever they are required to write academically, they are being forced to publicly display not what they are but what they are not. The ‘solution’ many adopt is either remaining silent (thus, dropping out of school) or ‘faking’ the academic language in the outside while keeping antagonist inner ideas and values. It might not be the case among students in so-called developed countries, but I believe that a decolonizing pedagogy, one that helps our students to speak for themselves, is a key need in contexts of deep social and historical inequalities, such as the Mexican society (Hernandez-Zamora, 2010). This is why I have coined the term ‘ex-prison-ism’ (rather than expressivism) to name such approach, that seeks to help students to break their silent inexistence through voice.

Living evidence I next present examples of the observed conflicts of agency, voice, and ethos that emerge among Mexican university students, as they are demanded to write academically and adopt academic identities. These cases are part of a larger research involving data of different types: written texts produced by graduate and postgraduate students in natural conditions, as well as compositions written by students in courses intentionally designed to foster their own voices and thoughts; and qualitative formal and informal interviews with students. The following cases are based on narratives coming from these conversations, in which they elaborate



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on how the students-writers suffer, resist, and often fully reject the appropriation and use of academic forms of language.

Case 1. Lena: Academic discourse as simulation and grime Lena is a schoolteacher, architect, journalist, mother, blogger, and a writer of articles of political, educational, and cultural analysis. She enrolled in a masters’ programme at a university in her home state of Veracruz, historically controlled by conservative terratenientes (landowners) and political mafias4. The ideologies and repressive practices of such powers seem to transcend to the educational institutions, where academics often reproduce schemes of authoritarianism and submissiveness. It is in this intimidating context that, despite being a good student, and a critical thinker and writer, Lena has been unable to finish her masters’ thesis. Apparently, the reason is not an inability but an unwillingness with what she perceives as a “stupid academicism that is at once arrogant and inept” [sic]. Inquired if she felt the academic writing genres as adequate or inadequate means to express her mind, Lena elaborated an interesting analogy between the academic discourse and the Shelob´s web, a character in Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings: My girlfriends laugh at me when I compare this academic discourse with Tolkien’s Shelob’s web: it captures unwary victims and plays without killing them immediately. It wraps them in its web and then devours their entrails to kill drying them inside. Just a few privileged survive, precisely those who feed the fucking spider. I am able to express my ideas academically, but this is a world of simulation and grime. (Lena, master’s programme student)

Lena’s poetic image of the academic discourse as a spider that kills by capturing unwary victims in its web, eloquently articulates the silencing power of academicism. From her standpoint, first, it captures ‘unwary victims’ (students with little or no idea of the theories, debates, players, and vested interests within fields and institutions). Secondly, ‘it plays without killing them immediately’ (academics often use their students as an audience to be amused, amazed, and turned into their worshipers and research assistants). Thirdly, ‘it wraps them in its web (academic discourses are literally webs of words that ‘wrap’ the students’ minds,

4 During the late state administration (2012–2016), 14 journalists have been threatened by government officials and eventually assassinated in brutal manners. In addition, teachers and students critical of the state government have been attacked by police and death squads, as reported by national and international press (e.g., Proceso, 2015; The Guardian, 2015).

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either for the better or the worse). Finally, ‘it devours their entrails to kill drying them inside’ (at least a good segment of Mexican university students experience academic education as a form of cultural and linguistic loss). According to Lena’s metaphor, assimilating oneself to an academic discourse is equivalent to have one’s mind (inside) ‘devoured and dried’. Does that mean that higher education and academic literacy harm or destroy the students’ intelligence and identity? Much of the sociocultural research on language and literacy learning has found evidence that supports the perception of this particular student, since cultural and linguistic loss, alienation, and ambiguity towards the dominant language pervade among non-dominant groups (Edelsky, 2006; Scollon & Scollon, 1981; Valenzuela, 1999). In my view, it all depends on what version of academic discourse is experienced by the students. Whereas some strongly reject the academic discourse, others apparently adopt it in order to fit in a system that values silent compliance rather than outspoken criticism. As perceived by Lena, even some academics write ‘academic articles’ that fulfil formal language requirements but offer little substance or a critical stance. She elaborates on this conservative academicism as she tells us about her masters’ programme: I can write according to the standards of the little academic world. I enjoy playing the role of a highbrow person, and smell like naphthalene. However, I want my texts contribute something to the readers, and it seems that this is a big sin in the little mean world of the Masters’ Program. So, you ask me if the academics in my institution are inspiring enough as to adopt their ways of thinking and writing? Well, the “ways of thinking and writing” of many academics are meant to seek adulation from others of that ilk. In fact, they reproduce a language that says nothing.

Lena’s strong assertion might be disputable, but it represents a legitimate point of view of a student who risks her own safety by publishing critical articles in a period of extreme state and criminal violence in Mexico. From this standpoint, she feels that much of what is published in academic venues contributes little to address real-world social issues, and I agree with her on this.

Case 2. Alina: Academic discourse as silencing own ideas As Bourdieu (1988, 1991) has put it, the economic and the educational systems are so symbolically powerful that hold the capacity to impose the dominated the recognition of their own cultural incompetence and indignity. Alternatively, Bourdieu would say, they have been excluded by a system able to impose the excluded the recognition of their own exclusion. Mexican universities in particu-



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lar, are a milieu in which the historically disadvantaged groups are rarely encouraged and supported to navigate the labyrinths of academe. Quite the contrary, they are blamed from the outset for their poor writing skills and limited cultural capital. As a result, when we ask these students how they explain their own educational failure, the responses tend to self-blame. Alina’s case is eloquent in this sense. She had already gotten a degree in Medicine and worked as a physician for several years. Simultaneously, she had been a seasoned community leader in one of the poorest areas in Mexico City, where she found and run a community center that served local residents. In her role as a community activist, she had engaged in the writing of important documents, such as petitions, manifestos, grant proposals, analytical articles, and others. With this rich background, and in order to advance her political and academic development, she enrolled in a master’s programme in Public Health at a public university, however she developed a self-identity as a kind of writing disabled by the time she was finishing her master’s programme, I declare myself as a person unable to express ideas in writing. It takes me a LOT of effort to write them down. I know how to express myself orally, although I didn’t learn this in college but in the community, because I have been a political activist. The last thing they teach you in college is how to express yourself. In fact, the last thing they WANT is that you express your OWN ideas. (Alina, ABD master’s program graduate).

Alina overtly declares her ‘inability to write’. Nevertheless, it is also revealing the distinction she makes of her own linguistic ability in and outside of the school setting. It is remarkable as well her assertion that expressing your own ideas is precisely what they don’t want at her university. When I asked her to expand on this strange situation, she exemplified with one of her professors: I believe that the professor of Epidemiology really knows. She seems to me a capable and knowledgeable person in her subject, no wonder her publications; but I also think that her teaching methods are VERY traditional. She is so narrow-minded, to the point that we have come to the extreme of having to think exactly the words SHE WANTS to hear. This is not good, because if we are master’s students, we are supposed to engage in critical reflection, and you cannot do so by saying the exact words she wants to hear, right?

Alina’s experience is not an isolated case in Mexico. I have heard dozens of students in different institutions who feel intimidated to express their own views, instead of just reciting passages from books, “because when you really say what you think, the professors don’t like it; they get angry at you, they want you to think like them”, Alina says. This is what Bourdieu & Passeron (1977: 20) call the ‘statutory authority’ of the professional discourse of academics. As they pose it, teachers are agents “entitled to impose its reception and test its inculcation

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by means of socially approved or guaranteed sanctions”. If this is the nature of the professional discourse of academics (i.e., its ‘statutory authority’) there is a tension or antagonism at the heart of the educational institutions, for this is exactly what move students distrust academic discourse and reject its appropriation.

Case 3. Cecilia: Academic discourse as rage and suffering May I give you an advice, my friends? NEVER EVER THINK OF DOING A PH.D.!!! It is so limited the space to say anything that you end up saying what they tell you to say. You cry, suffer, understand nothing, and end up doubting of your most basic principles… (Cecilia, ABD Ph.D. student)

This was a note Cecilia posted in her Facebook profile when she was a third year doctoral student at the largest Mexican public university. Strikingly, besides doctoral student, Cecilia was teacher of master’s students in that same university, and this is the note she posted in the Facebook wall of one of her advised students: Who said that learning was easy? Your work has made me laugh a lot and it’s a real inspiration so that I myself continue on my infernal route towards graduation, and it helps me not to die in the effort and find sense to all the pains I have suffered in this path of the STRUCTURED, LIMITING, AND HORRENDOUS academic writing!

As I said, Cecilia was not an isolated case. Similar remarks are often heard from pre and post graduate students in many Mexican institutions. The disturbing element in Cecilia’s case was that she was not just a student but a university professor as well, and that she had a personal history as an engaged reader and creative writer who had even been awarded prizes as reading promoter and author of short stories. What did make a lover of reading and writing to develop a hate towards writing at the university? She had an exceptional capacity to convey her feelings about academic writing in our advice sessions, which I jokingly stared to call ‘academic-therapy’ meetings. This is one of the ‘clinical’ field notes I wrote after one of our meetings: As I sit down in front of her, at the restaurant where she appointed me to talk about her dissertation, Cecilia throws at me this cold-water bucket: ‘I hate the dissertation, I hate it!’ She says so over and over, while her face and body contort, as a testimony of true suffering. Her head shakes from side to side, her forehead shrinks, her teeth grind between phrase and phrase, her fists clench, her hand and her head hit each other, her gaze gets lost while her eyes go from disenchant to despair to self-incrimination. ‘Why did I get into this? Why did



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they admit me?’, she groans […] ‘Why nobody warns you what is this all about? Why they don’t warn applicants that you must write academically? I hate writing academically! I hate it, and I can’t do it!’ (Cecilia)

Weeks later, she texted me on the mobile an inquisitive message: “¿I don’t know ANYONE who enjoys the dissertation, quite the contrary, everyone suffers it! Do you know someone who enjoys the dissertation?”

Revisiting the appropriation of academic discourse These cases reveal two key educational issues: the contradictions involved in the process of appropriating other people’s language, and the limited power of academia to instill the academic discourse among many students. To understand these issues I will use Bakhtin’s concept of Authoritarian Discourse (1981) and Bourdieu’s concept of Symbolic Power (1990). While different in discipline (Bakhtin linked to literary theory; Bourdieu to sociology of culture), both authors highlight the idea that speaking/writing is always a conflicting political process. For Bakhtin, speakers struggle at finding their own ‘voice’ in ‘heteroglossic’ communicative situations; whereas Bourdieu points at the problem of having one’s ‘linguistic product’ valued and appreciated in ‘linguistic markets’ dominated by agents able to impose appreciation criteria. While Bourdieu focus on how the social structure (the ‘linguistic market’) assigns differential status and ‘market price’ to the language ‘products’ of speakers, Bakhtin’s dialogic theory focus on the agency of particular speakers in conflicting speaking situations. Thus, for example, the cases of Lena, Alina and Cecilia allow us to see how hard is to turn an authoritative discourse into an internally persuasive discourse, in Bakhtin’s terms and, at the same time, the limited power of academia to exert a true Bourdieusian symbolic power.

The failing symbolic power of academicism According to Bourdieu’s counterintuitive argument, in everyday life language rarely functions as a pure instrument of communication. Instead, he theorizes, language is a fundamental means of symbolic power:

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… utterances are not only signs to be understood and deciphered; they are also signs of wealth, intended to be evaluated and appreciated, and signs of authority, intended to be believed and obeyed. (Bourdieu, 1991: 17)

It is clear, from the cases above, that these students are not just required to understand and decipher the academic language. As Alina eloquently put it, they are actually enforced to speak exactly as their professors dictate and believe, and they must obey such forms of discourse. In Alina’s words, “the last thing they WANT is that you express your OWN ideas… we have come to the extreme of having to think exactly the words SHE WANTS to hear”. Paradoxically, most of the students that I have met, and whose statements integrate a large corpus of data, end up either rejecting the whole academic experience (i.e., they neither get to believe nor obey such academic discourse, as Lena’s case illustrate), or they do obey and write it but at the expense of their own feelings of rage, anxiety, or guilt for their insincerity. An extreme example of the emotional sickness experienced by many when they feel enforced to write academically is articulated by Cecilia, when she publicly wrote: “May I give you an advice, my friends? NEVER EVER THINK OF DOING A PH.D.!!!” Based on multiple cases observed across the years, I conclude that far from being a symbol of authority, intended to be believed and obeyed, as Bourdieu puts it, the academic discourse often becomes exactly the opposite: the least believed and obeyed form of language students have ever encountered. They feel this form of language is alienating and disgusting at once. Thus, at least for a large segment of students, academic discourse rather than being a source of symbolic power and profit, causes a loss of self-respect, since they regularly receive negative criticism on their writing. Most disturbing, from an educational perspective, is the utterly failure of higher education institutions to inculcating the authority of academic discourse among many students. That is, precisely the universities’ raison d’être is what they do not accomplish: to socialize students into the academic discourse and its manners of writing, thinking, and knowing. Moreover, after four, six or more years exposed to academic discourse practices, many students end up not just with poor levels of learning and understanding the academic content, but in many cases with high levels of distrust, aversion or full rejection of such discourse.



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An untrusted authoritative discourse On the other hand, Bakhtin’s dialogic theory (1981) helps us to understand why speakers find it so difficult to appropriate other people’s words (e.g., the academic language). According to Bakhtin, every utterance is always embedded in a history of expressions in a chain of ongoing social conversations, either oral or written. That is, our words are always addressed to someone and anticipate a response. However, speakers who are outsiders vis-à-vis particular discourse communities are unfamiliar with the conversation that preceded their arrival. As newcomers in unfamiliar academic or disciplinary conversations, students find it difficult to have something to say, not to mention to sound ‘fluent’, ‘smart’ and ‘appropriate’ (i.e., competent) in such situations. To complicate matters, academic conversations are hardly ever smooth dialogues; rather, they are arenas of struggle and antagonism among theoretical, epistemological, and ideological stances and interests. Bakhtin dialoguism becomes helpful insofar as it allows us to understand the complexities of finding a voice in conflictive social situations. As Cazden lucidly puts it: Bakhtin’s writings call attention to particular speaking and writing situations within the total range, to the complexities of finding a voice, of being communicatively competent, in heteroglossic social situations where voices (and the roles they express in the social structure) are felt by the speaker or writer to be in conflict. (Cazden, 1992: 192)

How to speak when you ignore what they talk about? And, how to appropriate an unfamiliar language when the very academic conversation requires to silence your own voice, ideas, and personality? This is how many students experience the academic discourse, and why they strongly resist or reject it. Thus, following Bakhtin, the cases presented above prove that many students never turn the academic discourse into an internally persuasive discourse. Instead, they see it, at best, as an authoritarian discourse, which is a key issue if we want to understand the conflicting process of language appropriation. For Bakhtin, language is an ideological activity by definition, because the function of signs is always to convey or represent ideas or meaning, and ideas are inherently ideological. It follows that literacy development in general, and academic literacy in particular, is always a conflictive process of ideological becoming involving not only the acquisition of a skill but the appropriation of discourses that may conflict with one’s own identities and ideologies. Becoming academically literate demands turning an unfamiliar language into one’s “own”

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language, a process that Bakhtin (1981) and Voloshinov (1930/1973) named ideological becoming, …our ideological development is an intense struggle within us for hegemony among various available verbal and ideological points of view, approaches, directions and values” We go through a “process of selectively assimilating the words of others”. The role of the other is critical to our development; in essence, the more choice we have of words to assimilate, the more opportunity we have to learn. In a Bakhtinian sense, with whom, in what ways, and in what contexts we interact will determine what we stand to learn. (Freedman & Ball, 2004: 6)

As the cases above suggest, there is a critical paradox within our universities’ academic language education. If learning depends on “with whom, in what ways, and in what contexts we interact”, there should be no problem for our students to learn the academic ways, as they routinely interact with academics, in pedagogical ways, and within formally educational settings. However, as we know, such learning rarely happens. Bakhtin’s distinction between internally persuasive discourse and authoritative discourse may help us to understand this, The authoritative word is…so to speak, the word of the fathers. Its authority was already acknowledged in the past. It is a prior discourse. It is therefore not a question of choosing it among other possible discourses that are its equal. It is given [it sounds] in lofty spheres, not those of familiar contact…for example, the authority of religious dogma, or of acknowledged scientific truth or of a currently fashionable book. (Bakhtin, 1981: 342–343)

As Freedman and Ball (2004) explain, the authoritative word may or may not be authoritarian. However, at least in the case of Mexican universities, the authoritative discourse is often inculcated through authoritarian methods, which results not just in a distrust but quite often in a rejection from the students, as the case stories above eloquently show. On the other hand, Bakhtin (1981: 342) defines internally persuasive discourse as a discourse that “is denied all privilege, backed by no authority at all, and is frequently not even acknowledged in society”. It is what each person thinks for himself or herself, what ultimately is persuasive to the individual. The paradox I observe in the academic world is that while academic discourse is by definition an authoritative discourse –in Bakhtinian terms–, it often fails at becoming an internally persuasive discourse; hence, it ends up as an authoritarian discourse without true authority. In Lena’s metaphorical comparison, the academic discourse is “a spider’s web that captures unwary victims and plays without killing them immediately”. In Alina’s explicit testimony, “the last thing they WANT [at the university] is that you express your OWN ideas”. In Frida’s strong rejection to adopting an academic identity (“I am not personally a high rank academic, neither I try, nor I want to”). And in Cecilia’s emotional denunciation of the



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silencing nature of the language of academia (“It is so limited the space to say anything that you end up saying what they tell you to say”). From this perspective, academic language education, at least in the Mexican context, might be seen as a great failure. Even students who adopt the surface linguistic features of the academic discourse, are not truly appropriating those manners and those ideas as their own. Could this be regarded as true learning? I do not believe so, because language learning is also a political decision, as Freedman and Ball argue: Students make decisions about how much to identify with and acquire school language and school ways; they come to school with ways of talking which mark them as members of a particular socioeconomic class, and they decide whether or not to move away from those ways; they decide what to read and write and whether they care most about pleasing the teacher or their peers or both or neither. These are all broadly speaking political decisions. (Freedman & Ball, 2004: 5).

There is ample evidence in my data that many students, and even teachers, do not like the academic game because academia is a harmful place for their identities and self-esteem. They thus decide not to identify and not to acquire the school language, as Freedman and Ball write. Thus, while there are differences in stance towards the academic language, the pervasive pattern found among many students is that they are simply unwilling to play that game. The academic language itself makes them feel uncomfortable and disempowered, since it does not afford their expressive intentions. Thus many end up despising or plainly hating what such language symbolizes (e.g., highbrow arrogance and ignorance at once), and they are often traumatized by the attitudes and sorts of feedback received from their teachers (systematic criticism of their linguistic performances). Experiences such as those narrated by the students presented above involve a loss of face that lead them to self-exile from academia. In my view, there is a big difference between ‘not knowing how to write academically’ and not wanting to write academically. Silence might also be a political decision: an act of resistance against alienating language forms. In any case, this is evidence that students do not sincerely appropriate the academic discourse. As academics we must ask what do we really want from our students: to get them to recite other people’s words (pretend) or to express their own voices (express)? If education is about self-development, my position is that we should help them to speak for themselves rather than render them speechless.

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Street, B. 1993. Introduction: the new literacy studies. In B. Street (ed.), Cross-cultural approaches to literacy, 1–21. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Valenzuela, A. 1999. Subtractive schooling. US Mexican youth and the politics of caring. New York: SUNY. Voloshinov, V.N. 1930/1973. Marxism and the philosophy of language. London: Seminar Press. Watson, J., Nind, M., Humphris, D. & A. Borthwick. 2009. Strange new world. Applying a Bourdieuian lens to understanding early student experiences in higher education. British Journal of Sociology of Education 30(6). 665–681. Žižek, S. 1992. The sublime object of ideology. London: Verso.

Seyyed-Abdolhamid Mirhosseini

9 Scientism as a linchpin of oppressing isms in language education research Introduction

Ideologies, either in the form of known isms or unlabeled assumptions and belief systems, are at the heart of any significant social practice, including language education. The traditional conception of ideology often projected as “false-consciousness” (Platt & Williams, 2002: 331) has shaped the basis of the dichotomization of ideological positions as distinct from other orientations that are labeled scientific, objective, or neutral (van Dijk, 1998). However, this prevailing idea is controversial as it may be simplistic to use the word ideology only as a label to mark the ‘idea of the other’ imposed on the rest (Gramsci, 1971; Hodge & Kress, 1988; van Dijk, 1998) or to view it as a mere ‘upside-down view’ of the world (Holborow, 2006). Along this very path and possibly in an attempt to deny certain sociocultural and epistemological values (Holliday & Aboshiha, 2009), there have even been calls and claims of end of ideology (Thompson, 1984). “Western theories of culture” have been argued to “demonstrate a high degree of denial of ideology” and specifically, academia tends to emphasize “scientific neutrality” (Holliday, 2010: 2). However, an inclusive view of ideology may be broadly formulated as socially-shared foundational belief systems that shape the basis of social representations and regulate social practices and attitudes (van Dijk, 1995, 2004, 2006). In this chapter, adopting such a conception of ideology, I explore aspects of some ideological isms that underlie the mainstream academic research trends of English language teaching (ELT) in Iran. The chapter attempts to illustrate how ideologies reproduced through academic research tend to be dominated by the pivotal notion of scientism and, in turn, to dominate various aspects of the perceptions and practices of language education.

Background The issue of ideology may be raised in any context of language use and language education, including ELT. The concern over ideologically sensitive social and political aspects of the worldwide spread and education of English has been debated for nearly three decades now (e.g., Pennycook, 1989, 1994, 1999). IdeoDOI 10.1515/9781501503085-010

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logical considerations are at the heart of debates in almost all approaches concerned with historical, social, cultural, and political issues in ELT, such as discussions revolving around critical language education, critical applied linguistics, and linguistic imperialism (Pennycook, 1990, 1999, 2001; Phillipson, 1992). Following the entrance of the notion of critical into the area of language education (e.g., Graman, 1988) and around the same time, the first accounts of ideology in ELT research and practice started to emerge (Dendrinos, 1992; Tollefson, 1990). In one such early account, Benesch (1993: 705) brought the two words of ideology and politics in the title of her discussion and asserted that “all forms of ESL instruction are ideological”. Later, Ricento (2000) discussed the interconnections of ideology, politics, and language policies with regard to the English language and Modiano (2001) focused on ideology in relation with ELT practitioners and the link between linguistic imperialism and ELT concerns in Europe. In a more recent contribution, Tollefson (2007) explored issues of ideology, language varieties, and ELT in dealing with the particular variety that should be used as the preferred one for teaching and learning. Relatedly, in book-size contributions, Seargeant (2009) specifically dealt with the term ideology in his work titled The Idea of English in Japan: Ideology and the Evolution of a Global Language, and Park (2009) discussed Ideologies of English in South Korea, and explored a diversity of cultural, social, and political problems related to the English language within the South Korean society. Depicting the controversial place of the notion of ideology in the field, in a high-profile piece in the flagship journal of Applied Linguistics, Alan Waters (2009: 138) bashed ideological positions in applied linguistics and language education. He tried to argue for defending and promoting already established pedagogical traditions against ideological intrusion. In his view, much of today’s applied linguistics for language teaching “lacks the relevance necessary for carrying out its mediating role in an effective manner. This is seen to occur because a good deal of its discourse promotes or proscribes language teaching ideas on the basis of ideological belief rather than pedagogical value”. The interesting point implied by Waters here, which may be observed as a widespread naturalized assumption in the field, is that pedagogical traditions are based on no ideological beliefs. The entire position is based on the problematic dichotomy of ideological versus non-ideological perspectives and practices. In response, Simpson (2009) questioned Waters’ arguments on notions of ideological beliefs and pedagogical values. Simpson maintained that Waters failed to recognize the inextricable linkage of ideology and pedagogy. The view presented by Waters (2009) is a good illustration of how the dominant ideology has continued to survive and reproduce through claims of non-ideological orientations and self-proclaimed focus on professional and pedagogical values. More



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recently, Sewell (2013) also highlighted the notion of ideology in dealing with ‘English as a lingua franca’ but he seems to be using the term ideology in a liberal sense, broadly referring to sociocultural considerations rather than a certain conception of ideology as such. This might signal the point that the term is starting to become part of the theoretical debates of the field, but at the same time it may signal the reduction and oversimplification of the concept of ideology. In addition to these discussions, there are data-based explorations of ideological concerns related to ELT that are relatively slightly more frequent and more recent (e.g., Al-Issa, 2005; Chang, 2004; De Costa, 2011; Pan, 2011; Xiong & Qian, 2012). Nonetheless, these apparently diverse texts are still by far a marginalized part of the literature of the field. Mainstream theoretical and empirical accounts of teaching methodology, syllabus design, materials development, language testing, second language acquisition, etc. in ELT, largely tend to bypass and ignore epistemological and ideological concerns, if not to reject and denounce them (Holliday, 2010; Holliday & Aboshiha, 2009). Moreover, the theoretical literature as well as empirical studies share the vagueness of their conceptions of ideology, and generally adopt a version of the Marxist notion of the term or a general conception close to Sewell’s (2013) one referred to above. Therefore, the conception of ideology as the most fundamental belief structure is not usually dealt with. In this regard, an important distinction underlying the discussions in this chapter is to be made between ideologies in and ideologies of ELT. Ideologies in ELT, mainly understood on the basis of the traditional Marxist views, denote the deviated or oppositional ideas and perspectives imposed on and reproduced through ELT (capitalist, consumerist, liberal, etc. ideologies). In contrast, ideologies of ELT research, which this chapter will be concerned with, are the assumptions shaping the essence of ELT itself. They include a mix of fundamental assumptions regarding the meaning of viable knowledge; the nature of the language to be learnt; the phenomena of learning and teaching; and the act of research.

A study on ELT research isms in Iran The discussions here reflect part of a larger exploration of ideological assumptions underlying the mainstream academic research trends of ELT in Iran as reflected in presentations at major national language education conferences in a decade. The data comprised abstracts of papers presented at the national conferences of Issues in English Language Teaching in Iran (IELTI) and conferences of Teaching English Language and Literature Society of Iran (TELLSI) held between

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2000 and 2011. This body of data (comprising 7 conferences and 839 abstracts) was explored through a critical discourse study based on discourse-ideology links to uncover ideological isms of English language education research. The methodological approach of this study is centrally founded on ‘critical discourse studies’ as developed by Teun van Dijk. Based on his approach, ideology is in a multifaceted relationship with discourse: ideologies shape the ultimate basis of discourses; ideologies are reproduced through discourse; and ideologies may be inferred and uncovered through the exploration of discourse (van Dijk, 1995, 1998, 2001, 2004). Based on these triple discourse-ideology links, an investigation of the regularly recurring thematic elements in the overall bulk of the abstracts may be taken as the clue that can lead to the underlying realm of ideological assumptions and belief structures. The three elements of research issue, data collection procedure, and data analysis procedure were extracted from the content of the abstracts. In exploring the research issue, the stated research problems and concerns of the abstracts were extracted. Research issues were read and re-read in search of thematic notions that showed their points of focus and were categorized through coding procedures based on grounded theory as a main practical technique of data exploration in this study (Charmaz, 2006; Glaser, 1992; Strauss & Corbin, 1998). Data collection and data analysis procedures of the abstracts were also extracted and organized into various categories of techniques applied by researchers. Overall, these various categorizations depicted a general thematic structure of the ideological foundation of these abstracts as representatives of the ELT research scene of the country, which may be part of a broader image extending beyond this context as well. This ideological landscape appeared to comprise the five major notions of scientism, fragmentationism, psycho-cognitivism, technologism, and intellectual consumerism, along with an additional discrepant category. The pivotal ideological element among these notions appears to be scientism and the values, perceptions, and practices associated with it. This is illustrated in the rest of the chapter through a quick description of these emerging ideological isms and a fairly detailed discussion of scientism. Fragmenting language and language learning into pieces and elements is a visible aspect of the ELT research ideology emerging in this study. Fragmentationism is realized in dealing with language skills and components as well as a few other types of fragments each representing some atomistic aspect of the complex phenomenon of language and its teaching, learning, and use. Reading, in a fragmentationist sense is usually taken as the mechanical cognitive ability of decoding texts and the holistic context of reading as part of the huge phenomenon of language with all its social, cultural, political, etc. aspects are left out. Concerns such as the linear relationship between reading and other skills and components;



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reading strategies; manipulating text for controlled reading purposes; and reading comprehension assessment and proficiency, are among popular notions of reading fragments in these abstracts. Fragmenting writing pushes it into the realm of mechanics of writing and obsession with sentence writing and paragraph development that causes the act of writing to be detached as a technical behavior bereft of all the challenges of the phenomenon of language as a whole. The writing aspect of fragmentationism is frequently reflected in focusing on issues like writing planning and strategy; peer and teacher feedback on writing; writing assessment; complexity and variety of sentence writing; and the role of language components in writing. Speaking and listening, as other fragmentationist subthemes emerging from the exploration of the research issue sections of the abstracts are not as frequent as reading and writing but their nature is the same. Speaking fragmentationism revolves around topics such as teaching pronunciation; acquisition of suprasegmentals; and evaluating the speaking ability, and listening fragmentation subtheme is reflected in research problems like techniques and strategies of listening; psychological and cognitive aspects of listening; and auditory and acoustic problems. Apart from the four skill fragments, language components of vocabulary and grammar shape other subthemes of fragmentation. With a view of words as the building blocks of language from a structuralist perspective, grammar is viewed as the glue that might put these blocks together. In reality, however, the totality of language can hardly be captured based on a fragmentationist tackling of outof-context elements. Reflecting vocabulary fragmentationism, the acquisition of vocabulary items; word knowledge in relation with language skills; psychological aspects of vocabulary learning; and techniques and strategies of word learning and teaching, are among the popular research problems. As for grammar, issues such as the acquisition of various structures; the relationship of grammar with other language fragments; and techniques and strategies of grammar teaching and learning are some of the very frequent research notions. In addition to skills and components, there are a few other categories of fragmentationism: pragmatics, discourse, English for Specific Purposes (ESP), and a further miscellaneous category. Despite the point that pragmatics and discourse tend to deal with language in context, the nature of the isolated focus on these issues shapes yet other ways of avoiding a holistic consideration of language in real-life situations. Examples of pragmatics fragmentation are awareness and use of pragmatic elements; interlanguage pragmatics; and idiomatic language learning. Discourse-related notions include discourse markers, cohesion, hedging, and rhetorical structure. Some of the popular ESP fragmentationist research concerns are specific purpose syllabus development; language requirements of learners in various disciplines; and evaluation of ESP textbooks.

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There are also other miscellaneous types of fragmentations, the common feature of which is the point that some atomistic aspect of the complex world of foreign language teaching, learning, and use is focused on as an isolated piece. Examples of such fragments are interpersonal relations; question types in teacher learner interactions; idioms made of animal words; or form-related phonological properties. With fragmentationism in action, language is dissected into pieces with the underlying idea that the sum of the pieces shapes the whole. The totality of language, however, can hardly be captured by such a fragmentationist handling of out-of-context bits and pieces of language. The holistic nature of the huge phenomenon of language with all its social, cultural, political, aspects seems to be ignored within this dominant ideological atmosphere. As another major ideological orientation, a relatively large portion of the research presented at these conferences tends to view issues of language learning from a psychological and cognitive point of view at the expense of socially, culturally, and politically oriented perspectives. Individual psychological and cognitive characteristics are undeniably part of any teaching and learning process. However, within the perspective of such psycho-cognitivism, a disproportionately large amount of attention is allotted to such characteristics compared with the relative scarcity of exploring language as a sociocultural and political phenomenon in a social context that extends beyond the individual. Psycho-cognitivism comprises two subthemes of psychologism and cognitivism. Psychologism is reflected in the research issue of conference abstracts that specifically take a psychological notion as part of their research problem. Such notions clearly follow the footsteps of traditional educational psychology to tackle aspects of language learning. These notions include focal issues such as attitude and motivation, learning styles and strategies, personality types, and different types of intelligence. Cognitivism is reflected in the research problems that move beyond a general psychological standpoint and adopt a more specifically mental and cognitive orientation. It reflects a more hardline view towards the centrality and vitality of individual mental, cognitive, and even neurological aspects of language and learning. These aspects include considerations such as mental competencies, task cognitive load, automaticity and control in language performances, mental processing of language structures, and memory. The third major theme is technologism. The need for embracing new technologies, especially digital media and web-based networks is evident today but the ideological theme of technologism highlights the concern that ELT and the understanding of language and learning might be overshadowed by technology. In this sense, issues specifically related to language and education tend to be treated as marginalized concerns and the technological issues turn to become the focal aspects of research. Such a situation leads either to the reproduction



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of mainstream concepts of language learning and teaching or even to ignoring them and devoting the entire focus to technology that sometimes appears to be too trivial. A considerable majority of the research issues tend to focus on the technological aspect of technology-enhanced teaching and learning and deal with conceptions of language and education as marginal and taken-for-granted issues. With a focus on technology, many issues in language learning and teaching that need to be problematized and revisited, are reproduced as normalized and accepted. Many of the research issues of these abstracts centrally deal with things like digital formats, weblogs, internet multimedia, cell phone use and text messaging, various software, podcasts, and wikis. The overall landscape of the research concerns of these abstracts reproduces traditionally dominant mainstream concepts such as vocabulary and grammar learning; the four language skills; and language proficiency. Moreover, technologism includes studies that busy themselves with the digital technology and include almost no important mention of issues specifically related to language learning and teaching. Some of the research problems categorized under this subtheme focus on very trivial aspects of computer technology like making PowerPoint slides or formatting text appearances. As the final major ideological notion discussed here, intellectual consumerism denotes an underlying inclination towards merely importing and consuming academic, intellectual, and conceptual constructs form beyond the cultural and intellectual borders of the country. As far as the research issues explored in the conference abstracts under investigation are concerned, the most conspicuous aspect of intellectual consumerism is a tendency to take the so-called native speaker norms as the point of reference in language acquisition and to bring those norms as the benchmark in researching various aspects of language learning. Some of the most frequently appearing of these aspects of language learning are comparing different aspects of native and nonnative speaker discourse; academic writing of natives and nonnatives; and native-like attainment of second language ability. Another aspect of intellectual consumerism that is called theoretical punterism is realized in two ways: the actual methodological process of research where the data collection instruments are used, and the references to the theoretical literature of the field. Out of hundreds of data collection instruments only one of the abstracts clearly mentions an instrument developed within the borders of the country. As for the references, the total number of references in the bulk of abstracts studied here is 832. Out of this body of references to the literature, only 37 references, that is, less than 4.5 percent are the ones written by Iranian researchers and authors. This very heavy reliance on foreign sources and, in other words, heavily ignoring the local literature is a considerable signifier of a creep-

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ing ideological orientation of theoretical punterism as part of broader intellectual consumerism within the overall ideological context of the research in this field. In addition to the major themes touched upon above and scientism which is discussed in the next section, a few other minor thematic patterns also emerged from the exploration of the research problems of the abstracts. These minor themes show some diverging orientations not fitting the generally homogenous underlying isms shaped by the five major themes but they are not strong enough to be meaningfully recognized as part of the overall ideology in the Iranian context of ELT research and they remain at the level of struggling endeavors. Patterns of this sort are shaped by research issues with a sociocultural orientation, and the ones with alternative orientations. Sociocultural issues included cultural awareness in language learning and intercultural competence and alternative concerns included language teaching ideologies; language ecology; and hidden discursive structures of tests.

Scientism as a linchpin In this section, based on a detailed discussion and illustration of the major theme of scientism, that is, unwavering adherence to modern hard-science conceptions, mentalities, and procedures, I argue that other elements of the structure of isms in language education research are fostered through the covert ruling of the essence of scientism. Through the detailed image of scientism depicted below, it may be observed that fragmentationism, psycho-cognitivism, technologism, and intellectual consumerism are subtly reproduced through an underlying scientistic perception. The three subthemes of scientism, namely experimentalism, mechanicism, and measurementism are attempts at giving a scientific flavor to ELT research as this field strives to stand for an independent academic discipline. Overt instances of scientism are detectable in about 42 percent of the research issues stated in the abstracts, although, taking the data collection and data analysis procedures of the abstracts, the scope of overt cases of scientism in the abstracts of concern here appears to be much vaster and extends beyond 75 percent of the Iranian ELT research scene. Experimentalism, as the first subtheme of scientism, is evidently observable in this corpus of abstracts in different ways, most conspicuously reflected in terms such as the effect of, the impact of, and the relationship between, which are typical of experimental type of studies that test null hypotheses and address cause-effect relationships or correlational links between experimental variables. The most obviously occurring form of this experimentalist language, which may



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be taken as a cue of the experimentalist ideological mentality underlying this body of ELT research, is reflected in the over-repeated notion of effect and impact. Even if part of this leaning towards experimentalism is unconscious, its ideological functioning is at work to the extent that even in cases where otherwise alternative issues are explored, such an underlying mainstream mentality finds its way into the surface language and creates internally incoherent verbalizations like the effects of Vygotsky’s ZPD on teaching and assessment. The point is that although a Vygotskyan perspective hardly fits a positivist cause and effect link, the dominant mentality does put the two together. Here are more examples of this aspect of experimentalism reflected in research issues of the studied presentation abstracts: the effect of grammar knowledge on the reconstruction of cohesion; the effect of weblog writing on Iranian EFL learners’ vocabulary learning; the effect of systematic teacher supervision on the development of foreign language teacher creativity; the probable effects of code-switching on Iranian bilingual English learners’ reading comprehension; the impact of a process syllabus on the participants’ theoretical knowledge and professional. The positivist notion of experimentalism is also seen in many studies that focus on relationships between different variables. As exemplified below, like effect and impact, a further late motif of many of the research issues stated in these abstracts is (inter)relationship between. Apart from these cause and effect type of terminology, some other traces of experimentalist and statistical research history and its underlying mentality can also be observed in the research issues of the conference abstracts. These other terms like factor, significant difference, objective, and other statistics-related terminology are also exemplified below by excerpted research issues stated in the corpus of conference abstracts that have been studied: the relationship between learner personality type and writing ability; the inter-relationship between language learning strategies, proficiency level and reading comprehension ability; possible sources and factors as the determinants of L2 task difficulty; developing objective criteria for measuring and scoring oral EFL proficiency; structural equation modeling (SEM) as a methods of data analysis in applied linguistics; to compare the performance of three polytomous Rasch models for testlet analysis. Scientism is also observed in the form of mechanicism, that is, the mechanical language reminiscent of factory-line discourse that is notoriously frequent in the language of academic social sciences and humanities, including ELT, applied linguistics, and second language acquisition research. Even the word analysis in the widely used language of data analysis and, more subtly, in terms like discourse analysis may reflect this underlying mentality. The following are examples of this mechanical language of analysis, input, output, etc. as reflected in the research issues of the abstracts of concern in this study: the effect of two types of

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input modifications in a multimedia listening unit on EFL learners’ comprehension of an aural input; to show the efficacy of focused and collaborative input/output tasks on grammar instruction; to analyze different indications of success in final exams in students’ opinion; the impact of using etymological analysis on teaching vocabulary to EFL students. Measurementism as a final subtheme of scientism is observed in the relatively large number of studies that take language testing as their central research concern. Based on the popular language teaching orientations of psychometrics and educational measurement, these testing studies shape a very popular research and publication topic in Iran. Considering the strong roots of psychometrics and measurement in the modernist and positivist notions of objectivity and measurability, the notion of measurementism illustrates an important portray of the inclination of the researchers in the field of ELT towards this kind of epistemological perspectives and, therefore, may be taken as another aspect of the evidence for an underlying scientistic ideology. Samples of research issues stated in the conference abstracts that contain such measurementist notions are presented below: developing objective criteria for measuring and scoring oral EFL proficiency; test validation from the vantage point of language learning strategies; to develop a vocabulary measure comprising test items; to examine the validity of cloze test as an integrative measurement of English proficiency; to compare the results of the two procedures of Rasch model and Mantel-Haenszel for DIF detection. In addition to the three subthemes of experimentalism, mechanicism, and measurementism shaped by the patterns of thematic notions extracted from the research issue section of the abstracts under investigation, the two sections of data collection and data analysis of the abstracts provide further evidence of scientism. As represented in the data section of the abstracts, after removing the abstracts that present non data based studies and the ones that lack the information about the type of the data, the remaining abstracts specify 821 cases of data collection through various instruments and procedures. In more than 77 percent of the cases, these instruments and procedures are experimentally oriented or aimed at collecting experimental type of data rather than data contextualized in real-life language use (including different types of tests, questionnaires, tasks, and solicited writing). Only about 12 percent of the cases of data collection included naturally occurring data (such as participant observation, recorded natural class interactions, media discourse, real-life EFL materials and academic writing). The dominance of artificial types of data – characteristic of controlled laboratory research rather than in line with the complexities of human character – may be seen as evidence of an underlying scientistic ideological belief system, be it consciously selected or



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unknowingly followed as the accepted norm of the field. As far as the data analysis section of the abstracts is concerned, scientism in the form of the dominance of statistical analyses, is even more visibly dictating its dominance. Apart from the non-data-based abstracts and the ones that do not specify their data analysis procedures, the remaining ones include 492 stated cases of data analysis, of which 75 percent clearly state a statistical technique as their analytic procedure. Leaving the abstracts that do not clearly specify a statistical technique but use models and frameworks which are probably based on descriptive statistics, the cases of data analysis that clearly state a qualitative procedure deviating from scientism are less than 9 percent.

Research as life: Defying scientism The abstracts of the conferences discussed above are representative of the scene of ELT research in Iran which may arguably represent the overall global trend of research in these areas. Therefore, the conferences may be observed as representing the mainstream trend. In order to illustrate an alternative trend that may well create a contrast to help with understanding the ideological atmosphere of ELT research, the second body of research data is shaped by a rather minor group of studies that have been conducted outside the main academic stream. This body of data involves 42 MA thesis studies conducted in four Iranian universities. The common feature of all these theses is that the researchers who conducted them overtly articulated their attempt at conducting an alternative research with two broadly defined characteristics of being qualitative and critical. Regardless of how these terms are defined in those studies and the extent to which they have been successful in doing a credible alternative study, the very overall tendency to break up with the mainstream and to opt for different directions has been considered as enough qualification for the theses to be included in the second bulk of research data for this study. The same data exploration procedure used for conference abstracts was used for the theses. Scientism, which underlies the ELT conference presentation abstracts and intersectionally acts as the linchpin fostering other ideological isms, is heavily countered by these qualitative and critical MA theses. The theses conspicuously defy scientism in its different forms that were discussed under three subthemes of experimentalism, mechanicism, and measurementism. Illustrating how a scientistic underlying ideology of ELT research can be challenged, the stated research issues of the theses depict how research concerns and the act of research can be viewed as part of a contextualized, natural, and life-like search for understanding

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and learning, rather than a controlled artificial endeavor translating the positivist philosophy into methodological elements. Considering the three subthemes of scientism, machanicism in terms of the factory-line terminology of input, output, factor, etc., is simply not found in the theses. Nonetheless, the word analysis is observed to be used in almost all of the theses being discussed, especially in talking about data analysis. Therefore, this trace of mechanicism, at least at the level of surface discourse, appears to have firmly stood even in these otherwise alternative research practices. The ideological assumptions of measurementism, however, do not appear in the theses at all. Not only that, there are several studies that challenge the mainstream notions of measurement and language testing that is a relatively important aspect of the mainstream ELT ideological landscape. This is reflected in statements such as ongoing assessment; challenge the standards; and non-grading and non-evaluative, observed in the following examples of the research issues of some of these MA theses that distance themselves from measurementism and challenge such an underlying mentality: –

–

– –

… how different elements of the Teaching for Understanding framework as generative topics, understanding goals, performances of understanding, and ongoing assessment allow teachers and learners to engage in critical performances How do the learners and the teacher express language learning “Standards” in the spoken or written language; in what ways do they challenge the standards; How do they show their own ‘Presence’? a sociological investigation aimed at observing and describing the reading activities and progress of high school students working within the whole language framework explores the language performance of twenty adult women learners in a non-grading and non-evaluative context

The theses, therefore, reflect an overall, though not all-out, defiance of measurementism and mechanicism. As regards the third subtheme of scientism, that is experimentalism, the theses show an even stronger inclination towards an alternative ideology that is obviously different form the positivistic mainstream ideology. The alternative ideological image that underlies the theses portrays a picture of research as natural and life-like quest for new meanings and different understandings in the context of language teaching and learning in as unobtrusive manners as possible. The defiance of experimentalism is seen in all the three major sections of research issues, data collection, and data exploration of the theses. The research issues, as illustrated by the following samples, are concerned with how perceptions, conceptions, or practices are constructed, created, and lived as well as with the process of various language related issues and language learning and teaching involvements:



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investigates how webbing words/worlds and critical understanding of texts may provide learners with an opportunity to transform themselves and their immediate social environments investigates how dialogue journal writing as an interactive writing practice that allows teachers and learners to engage in written conversation, may provide an opportunity to put critical pedagogy and language education together in a critical literacy practice to study the critical and reflective reading engagement processes of EFL learners to understand the process of language learning and social interaction of learners in the context of community learning and to explore community learning and critical pedagogy in teaching English as a foreign language What language features, learning activities, and understanding processes are included in a curriculum designed based on the participants’ personal local concerns and everyday life experiences and how can a pedagogy practiced based on the participants’ real life local concerns expand the participants’ available range of social identities and possibilities?

Another strong indication of defying scientism is illustrated by the data collection and exploration procedures of the theses. Unlike the ideological orientation of experimentalism observed in the research procedures of the mainstream ELT conference abstracts, the theses studied here reflect an expected inclination towards more naturally occurring and life-like ways of collecting research data and a contextualized interpretive procedures of data exploration in search of multiple meanings. Unlike the data collection procedures of the mainstream conference abstracts that consisted of more than 77 percent controlled and solicited not naturally occurring or existing data, these theses largely relied on natural uncontrolled type of data. Out of the 242 stated cases of data collection, 150 cases included different types of observation, field notes, audio and video recorded class interaction, various student created documents (online activities, newspapers, journals, recorded presentations, student made books, projects, etc.), researcher diaries, teaching materials, and other naturally occurring or existing data. The remaining cases included interviews, tests, tasks, and questionnaires, and a few other cases. Among them, there were 47 cases of informal, unstructured, or in depth interviews which are close to natural data. Therefore, the theses relied on more than 81 percent naturally occurring or existing, contextual, and life-like data. This reliance is a counter example for the experimentalist ideology of mainstream ELT research. As for the data exploration procedures, the theses under investigation show an almost unanimous non-scientistic underlying mentality. Out of the 117 methodological approaches, procedures, and techniques mentioned in the bulk of theses, there was only a single case of broadly referring to quantitative analysis. All the other stated cases of dealing with the data clearly mentioned a qualitative naturalistic approach or procedure, including (critical) ethnography; ethno-

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graphic case study; interpretative analysis; grounded theory thematic analysis and theme generation; coding (open, axial, selective, concept-driven, data driven, etc.); methodological triangulation; thick description; constant comparative method; qualitative action research; collaborative action research; qualitative content analysis; narrative inquiry; and, life-world analysis.

Conclusion Scientism may be interpreted as part of the endeavor of the field to sound scientific as an academic discipline. Apparently, this is sought in following the mentality of hard science research and, naturally, this underlying subtle ideological basis can be easily traced in the language of hard science laboratory research that finds its way into the realm of ELT. The notion of scientism discussed here encompasses and fuels other isms discussed above: fragmentationism may be seen as rooted in a scientistic structuralist mentality that tends to dissect objects to objectively examine them; psycho-cognitivism may be viewed as an offshoot of the scientistic tendency for experimental psychology and cognitive traditions at the expense of fuzzy sociocultural understandings; technologism might be an illustration of the appeal of a cutting-edge outward representation of modern science which is digital technology; and even intellectual consumerism may reflect the desire to fall for perceptions and practices coming from the known origins of modern scientistic adventures. On the other hand, defying scientism in alternative research practices shapes positions that may act to confront its oppressive nature. Facing scientism may shape the linchpin in the structure of a concerted effort to challenge fragmentationism, psycho-cognitivism, technologism, and intellectual consumerism. Countering the mainstream fragmentationist ideology of ELT that tends to dissect language and education into pieces and elements, the underlying view of the theses is based on holistic views of language in its totality. Defying psycho-cognitivism, the theses are largely founded on a strong cultural, social, and political ideological understanding of the nature of language and language education. With regard to technology, the focus on technology related mentalities as the main research issue of the theses is too small to allow for an inclusion of technologism as part of the underlying ideology of the theses. Intellectual consumerism is encountered by an orientation towards local sources of knowledge obviously not in line with an intellectual consumerist ideology. Probably the major theoretical distraction that continues to prevent the ELT community from the problematisation and transformation of the mainstream



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isms dominating the field is the very fundamental justifications that led to their fabrication and spread. The myths of positivistic scientific knowledge and all its attachments including rigor, impartiality, objectivity, reliability, generalizability, falsifiability, etc. make it very demanding to problematize the dominant knowledge forms. These notions are directly or indirectly injected into people’s minds through years of general education and later through university life and are not any less active in the field of ELT. These so-called scientific values and their attachments are almost unanimously accepted as undeniable universal truths. That is perhaps why at the philosophical level, the ontological and epistemological foundations of the academic research, knowledge, teaching, and learning are rarely felt to require any second thought. The absence of such revisits at the philosophical level naturally leads to the reproduction of theoretical conceptions and understandings and lower order methodological and practical procedures and practices. This is what makes the distinction between ideologies in and ideologies of ELT a determining one. With an understanding of language as a socio-politically loaded phenomenon and with the recognition of cultural, social, political, economic, etc. aspects of language and language education, a considerable portion of the ELT community are now more or less sensitive to the ideological structures that might be brought into and loaded upon the existing body of ELT: there are sensitivities to how consumerist discourse may be reproduced through ELT practice and, by extension, through research in this field; in English-speaking countries, where almost all worldwide consumed ELT materials originate, there are sensitivities to what might be labeled as radical, religious, extremist, nondemocratic, monocultural, etc. ideologies and the producers of the materials in these contexts, therefore, subtly inject their own values into their materials; and, it is an open secret that the ELT materials widely used worldwide are replete with foundational worldviews of liberalism, capitalism, liberal multiculturalism, secularism, etc. and there is some awareness and even resistance towards the Western ideological elements in ELT practice and research in many corners of the world (e.g., Abdollahzadeh & Baniasad 2010; Hyrkstedt & Kalaja, 1998; Kovacevic, 2004; Kubota, 1998; Pulcini, 1997; Tupas, 2011). However, ideologies of ELT as defined in this study continue to be taken for granted even at the level of abstract theoretical debates. These are the ideological concerns that have become part of the very being of ELT and that is why they are difficult to be observed and questioned. This is what makes their problematisation difficult and their reproduction easy and natural. If problematized, the dominant ideology may encounter an alternative ideological structure which defies scientism by adopting a view of research as life-like, natural, and contextualized quest for new meanings and understandings with a fuzzy and mundane nature.

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On this basis, other dominant isms may also face alternative belief systems that opt for holistic non-fragmented language in its totality and within a broad cultural and sociopolitical context; an orientation towards alternative sources of knowledge; and resistance against the invasion of ELT research by technologism (Mirhosseini & Samar, 2015). Academic knowledge reproduced through research trends may be viewed as a crucial mechanism of perpetuating certain ideologies of language education. The structure of isms reproduced through academia probably also dominates and directs various aspects of the practice of language education and, therefore, spreads and deepens the oppression of mainstream ideologies. At the practical level, in the absence of theoretical grounds and administrative commitment for change, the practice continues with its own norms and reproduces the dominant views over and over. This very safe continuation of a scientistic path is a simple but very effective way of reproducing the mainstream perspectives and practically obstructing almost all moves on the path of problematisation and transformation of the rest of the oppressing isms in theory, research, and practice of ELT. If the practical scene is fully left to the mainstream ideology, academic research can hardly find way into the actual realm of ELT practice and this detachment causes the dominant ideology to be reproduced in practical educational contexts. In the absence of the research-practice link, even the thin light lines of alternative ideological research orientations may appear to be next to impossible to reach real ELT life. The theoretical distractions coupled with a subordinated practical landscape, strongly conceal the ELT ideologies; hinder their recognition and problematisation by the discourse community; and provide the ground for their reproduction through teaching and research practices. Critical approaches to language, literacy, discourse, and academic practice need to be even more critical in their encounter with the ideological structure of isms that function under the umbrella of scientism. To truly embrace a critical and alternative vision and mission in ELT research and practice, the field does need to be aware of the ideologies brought into, imposed on, and reproduced through its profession. But beyond that, and more fundamentally, ideologies of ELT, centrally including scientism, are also to be consciously understood and challenged in order to avoid a deeper level of captivated move on the path of the underlying assumptions that direct the entire enterprise into unnoticed, but otherwise, distracting and destructive directions.



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Sangeeta Bagga-Gupta

10 Languaging and isms of reinforced boundaries across settings: Multidisciplinary ethnographical explorations Introduction The idea of a language being bounded and distinct and the monolingualism inherent in the Eurocentric one-nation-one-language ideology have been challenged repeatedly by scholarship. Research has also seen the emergence of concepts that theoretically challenge and go beyond monolingual and monocentric biases. Thus for instance, Garcia (2009), Linell (2009) and others subscribe to “trans/ languaging” perspectives and Hornberger’s (2003) “continua” framework calls attention to the multiciplity of human “ways-of-being-with-words” (Bagga-Gupta, 2006, 2014a; compare Heath, 1983). This chapter highlights the monolingual bias that seems to be particularly difficult to dislodge in institutionalized educational settings (as well as the popular imagination in global North settings like Sweden) where it gets ideologically mapped onto the one-language-one-nation/individual norm. While the universality of what is glossed as bi/multilingualism (henceforth bilingualism) is repeatedly highlighted at the nation-state level, monolingualism at the individual level continues to be understood as the norm, for instance in mainstream Eurocentric literature and by professionals. Here monocentricity prevails whereby the use of different language varieties or bilingualism is seen as violating the given (monolingual) social order. The work presented in this chapter challenges the oppressive reductionism inherent in conceptualizations related to communication where more than one language is in use in institutional educational settings (particularly in the global North) by contrasting policies from one global North setting (Sweden) with everyday communication or what has recently been framed as “languaging” (Garcia, 2009; Linell, 2009) in settings across the global North and South (Sweden and India), including virtual spaces. This empirically driven multidisciplinary study takes an intersectional point of departure across language areas and identity categories and brings together the domains of communication and educational sciences on the one hand, and identity research on the other. While contemporary globalization related discussions in the media and in academia (in the global North at least) explicitly center-stage issues regarding DOI 10.1515/9781501503085-011

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language and education (in addition to economy, migration and the environment), the emancipation of marginalized individuals (such as immigrants and the functionally-disabled) have become increasingly pre-theoretically framed in language education since the 1990s (at least in Sweden). Here certain historically flavored boundary metaphors – both related to and in particular bi/multi/pluri/ translingualism – appear to draw upon ideological understandings. This chapter aims to challenge the oppressive reductionism inherent in bounded conceptualizations that are implicitly reinforced in educational policy and the media by making visible complexities that emerge when focus is instead directed towards mundane language-use or languaging across settings. Drawing attention to a key metaphor here, Blommaert (2015: 1) highlights “the weight of two centuries of nation-state thinking” on bounded conceptualizations of language, language-users, including the users’ characteristics and social ordering: The nation-state was, and remains, the defining circumscription for an emerging social science complex of which linguistics was very much part. It offered a set of images and metaphors that defined the scope, direction and boundaries of these sciences, and this scope can be understood here literally as a spatial demarcation of phenomena and processes. Languages were distributed within and separated by national boundaries, and the national boundaries, in turn, also defined the criteria of belonging and membership of the national community, creating “migration” and, later, “transnational” and “global” flows as deviant patterns hard to fit within the monocentric nation-state imagination. “Diversity” stood, and stands, for that which violates the rules of a spatially imagined political, historical, social, cultural and linguistic monocentricity (Blommaert, 2015: 1, my emphasis).

Bilingualism, a bounded and boundary-marking concept related to the nationstate ideology, plays a central role in the language sciences since the 1990s and is recognized as being “a simple term for a complex phenomenon” (Cazden & Snow, 1990:1; see also Bagga-Gupta, 2012a; Grosjean, 2010). That notwithstanding, it’s contentious nature has seen shifts in terminology wherein scholars and policy makers have moved towards concepts like “multilingualism”, “plurilingualism” and “translingualism”. For present purposes, what these shifts share is their continuing stratifying functions in that bi, multi, pluri, trans all index (and thereby maintain) boundaries between bounded separate language varieties. My intention is to center-stage the isms of oppression that are created in the very deployment of these concepts (as well as the flora of terminology, or what I have previously called webs-of-understandings that they give rise to). I attempt to do this though the analysis of two specific types of data: (i) mundane examples of languaging from inside and outside classrooms, including virtual contexts from ethnographic projects in the global North and South (Sweden and India), and



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(ii) media accountings and school policy data across time from one global North setting (Sweden). Furthermore, what is glossed as bilingualism is explored from bilingual modality-diverse perspectives in that the analyst/s are themselves users of the language varieties/modalities in play in the different projects from which examples are drawn. The next section discusses conceptual issues and presents methodological implications of a socioculturally oriented decolonial framework. The central empirical section presents an analyses of different data-sets: languaging, identity and learning in examples from media and institutional settings (first two sub-sections) and accounts of language and language learners in the media and educational policy data in Sweden across six decades (first and third sub-sections). The final section in this chapter brings together the empirical analysis by engaging conceptually with the webs-of-understandings that build upon the central notion of bilingualism, (thereby) highlighting an ism that collates towards reinforcing boundaries and oppresses the complexities of languaging in language education.

Conceptual-methodological framings Verb-Based Framings Drawing attention to the static ways in which communication has become entrenched in, Fishman (2010: xxiii-xxiv) suggests that the, term ‘language’ covers a variety of kinds or ‘varieties’ of societally linked human codes, as well as the attitudes, behaviours, functions, and usage conventions that typify each of them. Many societies assign different time-place-and-topic functions to several of these varieties and hardly any of them recognize or employ fewer than two.

These tensions between monocentric conceptualizations of language varieties (and language learners) on the one hand, and the complex ways-of-being-withwords or languaging on the other, can be framed within an important epistemological shift: The quest for a new paradigm questions the obsession with well-knit enclosures of ‘being’, conceived around normative entities such as the concretization of standard languages, and directs our attention to the issues of self-organization and the role of transactive and fluctuating characteristics in speech as an ongoing process, i.e., ‘becoming’. (Khubchandani, 1997: 32–33, emphasis in original)

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Domains such as knowledge, culture, identity and disciplines like mathematics, music and language are being reconceptualised in transactive, performatory and process concepts such as becoming, knowledging, culturing, identiting and identity-positioning, mathematizing, musicing and languaging (Bagga-Gupta, 2017a, 2017b; Butler, 1990; Grillo, 2003; Säljö, 2005; Street, 1993; Wikan, 1999). Going beyond novel nomenclature, this marks an important shift beyond noun based static meanings wherein knowledge, learning, culture etc. were (and in large part continue to be) understood as individual capacities/attributes: here skills were conceptualized as being stored in individual minds that could be transferred between people and between artifacts and resources like books and people. Reconceptualised epistemologies enable transgressing the oppressive boundaries between inside and outside human bodies and also between language varieties-modalities. They imply that knowledge, culture, etc. constitute processes in activities across pathways where experiences are reformulated in interaction among humans in concert with resources and tools. Building upon verb based conceptualizations (Garcia, 2009; Hornberger, 2003; Khubchandani, 1997; Säljö, 2005) highlights a linked-continuum of language-use or languaging where different varieties-modalities are deployed and a focus upon processes constitutes dimensions of larger epistemological shifts in the human sciences; however, as the study presented here indicates, such shifts are eclipsed in Northern media accountings and policy domains of language learning. The discussion so far highlights a socioculturally oriented (Chaiklin & Lave, 1993; Lave & Wenger, 1991; Säljö, 2005; Scribner & Cole, 1981; Vygotsky, 1934/62; Wertsch, 1985, 1998), decolonial (Bhabha, 1994; De los Reyes & Mulinari, 2005; Eriksson et al., 2002; Said, 1978; Young, 2001) perspective on language, identity and learning. Understanding decoloniality is central in that it firstly encompasses geopolitical spaces across the globe, including those like Sweden that are not commonly associated with colonial 19th and 20th century powers. Secondly it recognizes global North hegemonies where alternative epistemologies are oppressed or made invisible (Bhabha, 1994; Hasnain et al., 2013). Following this, decoloniality calls for drawing upon global South scholarship particularly in the domains of language, culture and identity.

Boundary-turn and unit-of-analysis The analytical-methodological considerations here build upon a unit-of-analysis marked by a “Boundary-Turn” (Bagga-Gupta, 2013) and other associated turns like the Colonial Turn and the Mobility Turn (Landri & Neuman, 2014; Sheller & Urry, 2006) in the literature on language, culture and identity (see also Clif-



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ford 1997; Hasnain et al., 2013; Khubchandani, 1997; Scollan & Scollan, 2004). Highlighting the ubiquitous implicit presence of boundaries in dominating epistemologies related to language in particular (as discussed above), a boundary-turn highlights the paradoxical invisibility accorded to boundaries. Moving beyond a focus on characteristics and divisions that mark communication, individuals, activities, places or specific scales, a boundary-turn perspective recognizes the need for an intersectional perspective and the irreducibility of social action across timespace (Edwards, 2012; Lazar, 2015), including the human-tool continuum. Thus, taking socioculturally framed conceptual discussions on the irreducible nature of “individual(s)-acting/operating-with-mediational-means” (Wertsch, 1998), I argue for the need to have mundane languaging data inform discussions related to the emancipation of the marginalized, rather than pre-theorized noun based ideas that inform popular thinking and policy in settings such as Sweden. In other words, people in interaction with one another and cultural tools (including the intellectual tool of language) across timespace constitutes a fundamental unit-of-analysis here. Juxtaposing ethnographic data from different projects,5 the analysis in the next section highlights important tensions between (i) the performance of language and identity in the global North and global South settings of Sweden and India, including virtual contexts, and (ii) media and institutional accounts of language and identity in the global North setting of Sweden, including virtual contexts.6 In doing this, the case is made that empirically analyzing and representing languaging from emicly framed linguistically- and modality-diverse7 perspectives is significant. Such analyses can potentially go beyond reductionist accounts of language as the sole property of communities or nation-states or individuals. Thus a focus on representing languaging from across different settings enables an emancipation from the continuing hegemonic epistemologies related to language, identity and learning. Furthermore, juxtaposing data from different projects allows us to “see” (Wolcott, 1999), identify common patterns and tweeze apart problems in current conceptual framings with regards to terminology that dominates the language sciences, including identity-positions, in education.

5 This chapter reports from projects at the Communication, Culture and Diversity (CCD) research group (www.ju.se/ccd) at Jönköping University, Sweden. 6 Details about the projects and data-sets drawn from them are presented in the three analytical sub-sections below. 7 See, for instance, Bagga-Gupta (1999/2000, 2004a, 2012b, 2017b), Jewitt (2009), Kress (2003), Kress and von Luween (1996), Machin (2013).

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Highlighting dimensions of languaging, learning and identity-positions through a modality-diverse oral/signed/written analytical lens of languaging in different settings within the framework of a single study is, I suggest, one way to transcend an oppressive monocentric bias that colours emancipatory efforts for marginalized groups in nation-states like Sweden (see also Bagga-Gupta, 2012a, 2012b, 2017a, 2017c). Furthermore, since it is by using the tool-of-tools, i.e. language itself, that these issues are tweezed apart, a caveat is that knowledge production cannot be divorced from the representations of the issues that are in focus (Goodwin, 1994). This in itself is significant in that the pre-theorized naturalization of specific concepts in the language sciences continue to create boundaries that build upon oppressive assumptions. Thus, deploying the very tools that are being studied, this chapter demonstrates the doing of ethnographic analysis at the intersections of different disciplines and analysis of empirical data across scales and timespaces.

Mundane communication inside and outside classrooms and accounts of communication in media and policy Building upon the analysis of languaging or the doing of language and identity in people’s everyday lives in different settings (in the first two sub-sections below), I engage with and illustrate how the performance of communication contrasts with the ideological monocentric ways in which learners as well as learning get positioned in media accounts (first sub-section), and language policy across six decades on the macro scale in Sweden (last sub-section). Thus, the first two sub-sections center-stage and un-pack the key glossed concept bilingualism by engaging with data from institutional learning and media (including virtual) spaces from the nation-states of Sweden and India. Complexities of languaging in situ are contrasted with how learners and learning are conceptualized in accounts in the media and in policy (first and third sub-sections).

Languaging versus accounts of bilingualism in media events A widely publicized wedding in the summer of 2013 between princess Madeline of Sweden and her businessman fiancé Christopher O’Neill from the USA (Figure 1a)



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became popularly touted as “Ja, I will” (Sw, En8: Yes, I will).9 Media headlines and accounts played with the Swedish-English, bilingual issues involved, through the symbolism of the words “Ja, I will” at this event (Figures 1b,10 1c11). However, the millions who are reported to have watched the five hour long live telecast, by national television SVT, of the couples open carriage procession in central Stockholm and the wedding ceremony in the Royal Chapel, witnessed an event where linguistic resources from at least three language varieties and three linguistic modalities were deployed. In other words, this first example of languaging points to an event that became labeled “bilingual” in and by the Swedish media, but that on closer analytical scrutiny – as it gets played out in the televised media – presents itself to be more than bilingual. Figures 1 and 2 illustrate this tension.

Figure 1: Accounts of bilingualism and languaging: A royal wedding

Bilingualism gets mapped onto, or is embodied by, the couple in focus – citizens of two different nation-states – Sweden and the United States (Figures 1a, 1c). It also gets captured in popular ways in how the event is represented in the media (Figures 1b, 1c). In contrast, Figure 1d represents languaging as it gets played out

8 Sw=Swedish, En=English. 9 This data-set is part of project EL (Communication and Identity in Everyday Life) where mundane material from a wide range of contexts including the media, primarily from the nation-states of Sweden and India and also virtual settings, have been collected, since 2010, using dimensions of linguistic-landscaping. 10 Aftonbladet, 8 June 2013. 11 Svenskadagbladet, 8 June 2013.

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live during the televised wedding ceremony. The central participants here include the couple, the priest and his assistant, the invited guests, an interpreter and the media audience (Figures 1d & 2). A close symbiosis of different language varieties and modalities – oral Swedish, oral English, written Swedish and Swedish Sign Language (SSL) – are here linked or “chained” in the patterned display of the ways-of-being-with-words during the live broadcast of the royal wedding. The analytical concept, chaining has been used to map languaging, particularly in settings where more than one language variety and modality (including oral, written, signed) are in use and has been shown to be a linking “technique” and a process for “emphasizing, highlighting, objectifying and generally calling attention to equivalencies between languages” (Humphries & MacDougall, 1999/2000: 90).12 Figure 2 presents some parameters of the event and the synchronously chained character of languaging that frames it: SSL is explicitly chained to oral Swedish and oral English in use during the ceremony. Written Swedish in the subtitling is explicitly chained to oral English usage. Central participants

Language variety/ modality in use

Parallel language variety/ modality in use

Priest

oral Swedish (when addressing M)

SSL

Priest

oral English (when addressing C)

SSL, written Swedish (subtitling)

M, Madeline

oral Swedish

SSL

C, Christopher

oral English

SSL, written Swedish (subtitling)

Interpreter

SSL

Swedish or English

Invited guests

–

–

TV public

–

–

Figure 2: Participants, language varieties and modalities in play during the live telecast of a royal wedding

While the SSL interpretation from oral Swedish and oral English was conducted live, the subtitling was recorded. Languaging during key phases at events like

12 For more on chaining of language varieties and modalities see Bagga-Gupta (1999/2000, 2002, 2004a, 2010, 2014a, 2014b, 2017a, 2017b, 2017c), Gynne and Bagga-Gupta (2015), Hansen (2005), Messina Dahlberg and Bagga-Gupta (2014), Padden (1996).



Languaging and isms of reinforced boundaries across settings 

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weddings are fairly scripted, and at a royal one more so. However, what is relevant for present purposes is that it is the couple’s citizenship status that gives rise to the focus on a specific language variety itself. Here the bride’s knowledge of English is not made relevant;13 it is her scripted use of “Ja” that embodies one part of the bilingualism marked in the media. Similarly, it is the bridegrooms scripted “I will” during the ceremonial vows that symbolize the other part of bilingualism (Figure 1b). The interpreter presents in SSL, the well-rehearsed scripted vows, including the music during the ceremony in the Royal Chapel. He translates both oral Swedish and English talk into SSL during the live broadcast. However, the subtitling is reserved only for the oral English used during the ceremony. This suggests that while the SSL narration aims to make the event accessible to SSL (deaf) users, the subtitling of oral English into written Swedish is explicitly aimed at the Swedish (deaf and hearing) population in the nation-state Sweden.14 Thus, while unpacking the languaging in this media event makes visible the chained use of different language varieties and modalities, it also highlights the identity-positions accorded to different targeted individuals and groups conceptualized on the basis of a nation-state as well as a functional-ability language ideology. This is an ism of reinforced boundaries at play. Noteworthy here is that while English is a privileged language in schools in Sweden, it is a one-language-one-nation norm at play in the choice of the language variety chosen for subtitling. Pausing and critically “seeing” (Wolcott, 1999) languaging in this data-set, allows for going beyond ideologically framed reinforced boundaries of bilingual talk, for whom and to what ends. The reductionism involved in how the royal event gets labelled in the media (bilingual wedding) builds upon a one-nationone-language myth: the bride from Sweden speaks (only) Swedish, the bridegroom from the United States (only) English. This is not the case. Furthermore, studying the televised media data highlights that more than two language varieties are in use; in addition to two oral language varieties (Swedish and English), one manual visually-oriented language variety (SSL) and written Swedish are also used (Figures 1c, 2). This chained deployment of linguistic resources represents the intrinsic performatory dimensions of the usage of interlinked language varieties and modalities in (i) face-to-face, (ii) textual and (iii) media mediated spaces.

13 She is an experienced user of English and lived in New York, USA at the time of the wedding. 14 Two issues are interesting here: English is a compulsory language studied at all schools in Sweden; furthermore all TV programmes, barring those for small children where language varieties other than Swedish are used, are subtitled into Swedish in Sweden (children’s programmes are dubbed).

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The relevant point for present purposes is the discrepancy between languaging in the media and accounts of the same in the media. Let us now move to data-sets from other digital as well as learning settings. To reiterate, my aim is to highlight the complex features of languaging across sites. Focusing upon the ways in which new symbolic resources are becoming deployed both inside and outside learning settings, the next sub-section discusses patterns of learning language on the one hand and identity-positions on the other in Sweden and India.

Written-oral languaging across media and educational settings While symbolic representations or devices like “@”, “:-)”, “☺”or “❤” have seeped into written languaging in the 21st century, their usage is sanctioned and is generally limited to specific contexts. Other established new(er) conventions include the short forms that derive from phonetic cues, as can be illustrated by “you = u”, “are = r”, “love = luv or