Parallel languages in the history of language ideology in Norway and the lesson for Nordic higher education

This chapter compares recent policy on the use of English and Norwegian in Higher Education with earlier policies on the relationship between the two standard varieties of Norwegian, and it charts how and why English became a policy issue in Norway. Based on the experience of over a century of language planning, a highly interventionist approach is today being avoided and language policies in the universities of Norway seek to nurture a situation where English and Norwegian may be used productively side-by-side. However, there remain serious practical challenges to be overcome. This paper also builds on a previous analysis (Linn 2010b) of the metalanguage of Nordic language policy and seeks to clarify the use of the term ‘parallelingualism’.

Cultural content matters: A critical sociology of language and literacy curriculum

A theoretical rationale, policy analysis and research agenda for a critical sociology of language and literacy curriculum, outlining the agenda for a political economy of textbooks.

Spanish as a World Language: The Interplay of Globalized Localization and Localized Globalization.

This article argues that two movements in constant interplay operate within the historical trajectory of the Spanish language: the localization that becomes globalized and the globalization that becomes localized. Equally, this article illustrates how, at the same time that Spanish is expanding in the world, new idiosyncratic and localized forms of the language are emerging. This article deals with the issues of standardization and language ideology, language contact, and redefinition of identities. The article focuses on three geographic loci: Spain, where Spanish opposes Catalan, Basque, and Galician; the United States, where migrants' Spanish dialects converge and confront English and each other; and finally, Latin America, where Spanish is in contact with Portuguese, indigenous, and Afro-Hispanic languages. The concepts that structure the discussion explain both language expansion and contraction as well as the conflict and constant negotiation between a language's standardized forms and its regional and social varieties.

Sentidos políticos da linguagem na Educação de Jovens e Adultos: tensionamento entre oralidade e escrita em contexto escolar

O presente trabalho busca refletir sobre os sentidos políticos e ideológicos da linguagem oral e escrita na Educação de Jovens e Adultos. A escolha pelo tema advém da trajetória acadêmica da autora e sua vontade de compreender, através de estudo teórico e pesquisa empírica, os sentidos atribuídos à relação entre oralidade e escrita na alfabetização de jovens e adultos. O trabalho tem como objetivo analisar, à luz dos autores que compõem o referencial teórico da pesquisa, tensionamentos entre oralidade e escrita como problema que enlaça linguagem e ideologia no contexto da escolarização da EJA. Foi realizado, como pesquisa de campo, oficinas pedagógicas para duas turmas do primeiro segmento da referida modalidade, assim como entrevista dialogada com as professoras das turmas participantes da pesquisa. A dissertação tem, como principais resultados, reflexões acerca da linguagem como representação de enunciação em seu sentido político, ideológico e vivencial, como também compreensão sobre as práticas pedagógicas docentes no que tange à mediação entre oralidade e escrita em sala de aula.

O que signifixa isso? Dos slogans às ressignificações do discurso pedagógico contemporâneo

O presente trabalho busca compreender as ressignificações do discurso pedagógico contemporâneo a partir da análise dos slogans que circularam na recente Conferência Nacional de Educação (CONAE), como modo de problematizar os projetos ideológicos em disputa por hegemonia no campo da educação nacional. Situado no entrecruzamento entre os campos da linguagem, da ideologia e do poder como hegemonia, toma a teoria enunciativa de Mikhail Bakhtin e a Análise Crítica do Discurso (ACD), nos termos em que formulada por Norman Fairclough, como propostas teórico-metodológicas. No escopo de um diálogo tecido entre os autores, assume a linguagem como parte irredutível da vida social, em duas abordagens que propõem as noções de discurso e de poder em perspectiva crítica. Pautado na imersão da pesquisadora na CONAE, esfera de produção-circulação do discurso pedagógico contemporâneo, este trabalho assume o texto como material privilegiado de análise, focalizando documentos oficiais e pronunciamentos político-governamentais. Dois discursos nodais foram identificados: o da democratização e o da qualidade. Em relação ao primeiro, são analisados os pressupostos assumidos e a constituição histórica de um campo de sentidos que inclui artifícios retóricos. Em relação ao segundo, é dado tratamento crítico ao léxico associado à qualidade em suas sucessivas adjetivações. A partir de ambos os discursos foram analisados dois slogans. O primeiro deles denominado Educação para todos!, Todos pela Educação! aponta para dois deslocamentos semânticos: 1) do direito à educação para o direito à qualidade; e 2) da perspectiva da igualdade para a de uma inclusão baseada no conceito da diferença. O segundo slogan denominado O protagonista, professor! aponta para um lugar contraditório ocupado pelo professor, em que a exortação não se coaduna com suas condições materiais de existência. Para abordar a constituição ideológica deste lugar, nos seus sentidos hegemônicos, são analisados: os discursos da OCDE e imagens de professores na mídia como expressões das relações entre os contextos micro e macro. Para a compreensão dos slogans é situado o binômio informação-conhecimento como cronotopo-chave da contemporaneidade. É nesse cenário que as expectativas relativas à produção do conhecimento são articuladas a exigências do sistema produtivo, sendo a educação concebida como instrumento de racionalidade econômica. Desse modo, o movimento analítico questiona, para além da positividade aparente, a forma como os slogans ganham centralidade no discurso pedagógico contemporâneo, na tentativa de perceber sentidos que interpelam sujeitos e sistemas de ensino e vão sendo naturalizados, até que, tomados como necessários, afastam possibilidades de crítica

Die Gleichschaltung und Entnazifizierung der Wörterbücher Das Beispiel der Wörter „Art“, „Blut“ und „Rasse“ und ihrer Komposita im Meyers-Konversations-Lexikon und im zweisprachigen deutsch-französischen Larousse (1925-1971)

Étude de certains mots du vocabulaire typiquement nazi (« Art » (espèce), « Blut » (sang) et « Rasse » (race) ainsi que leurs composés) dans les dictionnaires de langue allemande (spécialement le Meyers Konversations-Lexikon) et les dictionnaires bilingues allemand/français (Larousse) pour la période 1925-1971 (apparition de nouveaux mots, redéfinitions de mots déjà existants dans les dictionnaires sous l’ère nazie et leur disparition et/ou redéfinition après 1945)

‘Neutral, native-like or authentic’ : Investigating attitudes and beliefs of expanding circle speakers of English

The status of English as the language of international communication is by now well-established. However, in the past 16 years, research has tried to emphasize the fact that the English spoken in international contact situations and between people with other first languages than English has different needs than the English spoken locally amongst native speakers, resulting in the emergence of English as a lingua franca (ELF) as a scholarly field. However, the impact of findings in ELF has so far only led to a moderate shift in English language teaching. Especially in expanding circle countries, where ELF should have the biggest impact, change is only gradually becoming palpable. Accent and pronunciation, as one of the biggest factors on both identity and mutual intelligibility (Jenkins 2000; 2007) are at the root of discussion. The scope of this study is therefore to examine accent choices and the extent to which native speaker ideology informs the preferences of ten speakers of ELF and 27 German natives with experience in international communication. Both ethnographical and sociolinguistic methods, as well as auditory analysis have been applied and conducted. The auditory analysis of six variables in the recorded speech production of the ten speakers suggests that there is no significant preference of one norm-giving variety over the other. Rather, speakers tend to mix-and-match General American- and Standard Southern British English-like features in their pronunciation. When reporting their accent ideals, the idea of a ‘neutral’ English accent is mentioned by four participants. Neutral accents seem to have been understood as ‘unmarked accents’. Expressed beliefs on their own English pronunciation show a comparatively high level of reflection on and confidence in their own production. Results from a rating task and a survey given to 27 German participants reveal attitudes that are more negatively stacked. While Germans reported openness towards NNS (non-native speaker) accents and showed awareness of the priority of intelligibility over accent choice in both their own and others’ pronunciation, they still largely reported NS accent preference. The ratings of the production from ten ELF speakers confirmed this and showed that ‘neutral’ is equated with native-like. In the light of these findings, issues are discussed that ultimately relate to the influence of NS Englishes, identity and the development of English as an international language.

Education at last! Taiwanese grandmothers "go to school"

Language socialization is a life-long process in which individuals are continuously socialized into new roles, statuses, and practices. This process becomes more complex in multilingual contexts. However, we know little of the language socialization of older adults and we know even less of minority-speaking elders' experiences of linguistic marginalization in contemporary communicative milieus. In this ethnographic and discourse-analytic study, I examine the language socialization of non-Mandarin-speaking elderly Taiwanese women in senior adult education programs in a rural township in Taiwan. Through examining autobiographical narratives, master narratives about elders, and classroom discourses, this study explores the historical construction of their sociolinguistic marginalization and their negotiation and resistance of such marginalization. The majority of the elderly women were denied education when they were young. Some received Japanese education during the Japanese colonization period. While the uneducated and illiterate elders have a strong aspiration for learning, they are dismissed as "unable to learn" by their teachers, peer students, and community leaders. By contrast, the Japanese literate exhibit a strong learning identity associated with colonial modernity. These two groups, however, have to contend with the social stereotype associated with their non-Mandarin speaking status. Under a Mandarin-only ideology that links Mandarin with modernity, discourses that have actively mobilized the category of “illiterate” to reference the older population are part and parcel of Taiwan’s modern identity. By demonstrating how these women are treated, in official discourses and in classroom interactions, as children for their lack of Mandarin abilities, I argue that the literacy education that set out to “compensate” these women for their earlier lack of educational opportunity has paradoxically reinforced their marginalization. Further, in recent years, they have become even more marginalized as the government has prioritized the education of recent young female marriage immigrants from Southeast Asia, who are considered in charge of educating the “future sons and daughters of Taiwan.” This research demonstrates how language socialization is a contested and life-long process and calls attention to the effects of language ideologies on literacy and language education. The findings have policy implications for improving literacy and language education both within Taiwan and elsewhere in the world.

"Am I Korean American?": beliefs and practices of parents and children living in two languages and two cultures

The purpose of this study is to explore attitudes and practices regarding their heritage language and the dominant English language among Korean American immigrant families. Using the framework of Language Ideology (Silverstein, 1979), I had three research questions: a) why do parents send their children to a Korean language school, b) what attitudes do immigrant parents and their children show toward Korean and English, and c) how are the parents and children involved in the practices of these two languages? I conducted a survey of parents whose children attended a Korean language school in Urbana-Champaign, Illinois, where the number of Korean sojourners (temporary residents) exceeds that of Korean immigrants. Forty participant parents provided demographic information. They described their children's language-use patterns depending on interlocutors as well as their language proficiency in both Korean and English. The reasons for sending their children to the Korean language school were significantly different depending on the respondents' residential status. In comparison to the sojourners, immigrants tended to give more priority to their children's oral language development and Korean identity construction. I also conducted case studies of three Korean immigrant families with 3- to 5-year-old children, using interviews, observations, and photographs of children's work. The collected data were analyzed according to themes such as daily life, parental beliefs about two languages, practices in two languages, children's attitudes toward two languages, and challenges and needs. Despite individual families' different immigration histories, the three families faced some common challenges. Because of their busy daily routines and different lifestyles, the immigrant families had limited interactions with other Koreans. The parents wanted their children to benefit from two communities and build a combined ethnic identity as Korean Americans. I argue that a Korean language school should expand its role as a comfort zone for all Koreans and Korean Americans. This study explores the heterogeneity among Korean sojourner and immigrant families and their language use and identity construction.

American Perceptions of British Regional Dialects

Sociolinguists have discussed problematic language ideologies, such as Standard Language Ideology (Lippi-Green 1997) extensively and social perceptions of Standard English in the U.S and U.K are well documented. However, most work in this area has focused on perceptions of dialects within national contexts. This study makes a novel contribution to the study of language attitudes, investigating perceptions of British regional dialects within the U.S. A survey was created to gauge perceptions of five British regional dialects (Liverpool, Leeds, Birmingham, Newcastle, London). 49 survey participants listened to audio clips of British regional dialect speakers and then completed a mapping activity, answered perception questions, and ranked each speaker on specific qualities. Results showed that speaker region had a significant effect on perception of almost all variables at a statistically significant rate, despite unfamiliarity with all but the London dialect. Results suggest that although participants are largely unfamiliar with varieties of English in England outside of London, they assessed them by recruiting pre-existing stereotypes about vernacular dialects.

A conceptual analysis of research literature on teachers' ideology and literacy practices: extending the dialogue through a secondary analysis of high school English as an additional language contexts /

This thesis provides a conceptual analysis of research literature on teachers' ideology and literacy practices as well as a secondary analysis of three empirical studies and the ways in which the ideologies of the English as an Additional Language (EAL) (Street, 2005) teachers in these contexts impact the teaching of literacy in empowering/disabling ways. Several major theoretical components of Cummins (1996, 2000), Gee (1996, 2004) and Street (1995, 2001) are examined and integrated into a conceptual triad consisting of three main areas: power and ideology, validation of students ' cultural and linguistic backgrounds, and teaching that empowers. This triad provides the framework for the secondary analysis of three empirical studies on the ideologies of secondary EAL teachers. Implications of the findings from the conceptual and secondary analyses are examined in light of the research community and secondary school teachers of EAL.