Abstract
INTRODUCTION: Effective social work practice is predicated on empowering, inclusive and culturally responsive communication, and yet, there appears to be very limited focus on language awareness, let alone critical language awareness, in contemporary social work education—both within and beyond the Australasia context. This gap is more worrying against a background where neoliberal and instrumental discourses (Habermas, 1969; O’Regan, 2001) have freely proliferated, and now threaten to colonise virtually all areas of private and public life (Chouliaraki & Fairclough, 1999). In response, this article advocates the inclusion of Critical Language Awareness (CLA) in contemporary social work education.APPROACH: This article initially maps the broad scope and historical emergence of CLA, before surveying its key political and theoretical influences.FINDINGS: The key outcome is that CLA—as delineated—clearly shares significant overlaps with social work co-values, particularly: justice, equality and a commitment to anti-discriminatory and anti-oppressive practice (Dominelli, 2002; Payne, 1997). More importantly, CLA provides conceptual and analytical resources that promise to significantly sharpen students’ abilities to recognise, question and ultimately challenge, oppressive discourses (Fairclough, 2011; Manjarres, 2011; Wodak, 2006).CONCLUSION: It is recommended that CLA strands be woven into existing social work themes and topics. The final part of the article offers some practical suggestions on how this could be done.
Highlights
CONCLUSIONIt is recommended that Critical Language Awareness (CLA) strands be woven into existing social work themes and topics
Effective social work practice is predicated on empowering, inclusive and culturally responsive communication, and yet, there appears to be very limited focus on language awareness, let alone critical language awareness, in contemporary social work education—both within and beyond the Australasian context
The key outcome is that Critical Language Awareness (CLA)—as delineated—clearly shares significant overlaps with social work values, : justice, equality and a commitment to anti-discriminatory and antioppressive practice (Dominelli, 2002; Payne, 1997)
Summary
It is recommended that CLA strands be woven into existing social work themes and topics. CLA is clearly a political stance (Blommaert & Bulcean, 2000; Luke, 2002) that seeks to illuminate: (a) the discriminatory and antidiscriminatory potential of language/ semiosis; (b) its power to shape (and reflect) prevailing social structures, institutions and relations; and (c) its always contested nature as it is itself a stake in social struggles (Fairclough, 2009; Manjarres, 2011; Wodak, 2006). A second advantage of CLA is that it heightens theoretical understanding of the dialectical relationship between language/ semiosis and social structures/relations (Fairclough, 1989) Practitioners operating with such theoretical awareness would be better-placed to discern, question, and challenge, oppressive discourses (Chouliaraki & Fairclough, 1999). What discourses tend to be marginalised (or kept out of view)—as Foucault (1972, 1978) has argued— and why? How can such discourses be “excavated back into view” (or be accorded their proper place within the “sanctioned history of ideas” (Foucault, 1978))
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