Linguistic Capital Research Articles

Journey Through Transformation

The study draws on life history, literacy studies, and ethnographic approaches to exploring social practices as a frame to explore the narratives of two UK adult literacy learners who provide a description of their engagement with a transformative curriculum and pedagogical approach. One of the learners reveals his frustration at the lack of transformative opportunities in his learning programme. The other offers an illustration of how transformative learning can be encouraged and how it can actually transform the life of its beneficiaries. In essence, both case studies highlight some of the characteristics of transformative learning. Bourdieu’s concepts of field, capitals, and habitus are applied. The critical elements of these concepts include tools for consciousness raising and increasing the flow of capital, and linguistic capital. The notion of spoilt identities based on neoliberal individual accountability, that fails to address the structures and hierarchies of power, is challenged.

Система освіти як середовище відтворення соціальної нерівності (за П. Бурдьє та Ж.-К. Пассроном)

Educational system is one of the main factors involved in social structure reproduction. A fundamental role of the national education system, as a tool for cultural and symbolic violence, that ensures reproduction of the social structure of industrial society, is analysed in works of Pierre Bourdieu and Jean­Claude Passeron. Reproduction of inequality in education is explained by using the theory of four types of capital (economic, cultural, social and symbolic) and the dominant role of language practices of dominant groups in schools. Scientists strive with the concept of innate abilities. They consistently defend the idea of differential distribution of abilities and other active properties between students, or rather, groups and factions of social classes according to their social origin, type of socialization, gained cultural and in particular, linguistic capital of the family. The authors of «Reproduction...» distinguish different types of inequality reproduction. So they consider inequality, that expressed in unequal preparation of the students for obtaining cultural skills and appropriation of cultural patterns, which school not only take into account in their programs, but, on the contrary, this deepens inequalities between students who come with different learning abilities. The second type is the forwarding of legitimate culture, that also has the characteristics of social inequality, because it reflects the culture of social ruling classes. The third type of reproduction is the reproduction of the school and its status in society: on the one hand to keep the status, the school must constantly prove its effectiveness in training of senior staff; on the other hand ­ its existence depends on public support and ideology; finally, teachers are interested in reproduction and therefore prepare students capable to transfer learned knowledge and skills. The authors suggest that pedagogical communication is built with preservation of social inequality: the most prepared understand more, the least prepared realize that there are things unavailable for them, so they often refuse to continue their education. Pierre Bourdieu and Jean­Claude Passeron tried to answer the question over how education is organized, what problems in society it solves, whose interests it serves and whose interests it expresses. They answer all these questions, creating a theory of education system, the main elements of which are such concepts as symbolic violence, pedagogical authority, teaching communication, educational system, school authority. For Bourdieu and Passron education by definition is symbolic violence, that each community, each class implements for its members, for own reproduction and control. In fact, the concept of cultural capital explains not only the existing inequality, but broadcasting such inequality for future generations.

English language: A ‘tool’ for social connectedness: A study of native teens in Botswana

The main aim of this exploratory study was to establish how Batswana teens (natives of Botswana), who predominantly spoke English in social interactions, negotiated communication transactions with non-speakers of English. The author presents her reflections in the manner of a think piece, However, she interviewed some young Batswana to help understand how they navigated communication with locals who did not speak English. The data was then analysed for themes, recurring patterns and variations. The findings of the study revealed that participants experienced satisfactory levels of social connectedness, due to the fact that they interacted primarily with ‘their own’ – that is, others who also spoke English at home and in their immediate social settings. However, they did experience unsatisfactory levels of social connectedness with non-speakers of English. In the analysis, the experiences were found to have elicited minimal negative effects, as they were viewed as transient and often sporadic. Beyond her conclusions, the author advances the implications of Botswana being at risk of losing its ‘cultural capital’, even as these young Batswana attain and enjoy linguistic capital. At risk is a loss of language identity. New ‘slang’ references, often derogatory in nature, have also emerged, with these young people being called ‘coconuts’ or ‘Oreos’.

English-Plus Multilingualism as the New Linguistic Capital? Implications of University Students’ Attitudes Towards Languages of Instruction in a Multilingual Environment

ABSTRACTThis article investigates university students’ attitudes and perceptions about language in a multilingual country where most instruction is in English and annual national literacy results have been declining for at least 15 years. Despite this decline, English seems to be entrenched as the language of instruction, and at university it seems a foregone conclusion that instruction will occur in English. Bourdieu’s concept of linguistic capital is offered as an explanation for the preponderance of English, but the question is posed: Is the dominance of English as simple as desiring linguistic capital? Do students really regard English as critical to success, and if so, is it to the exclusion of their home languages? The results show that students invest considerable effort in learning English, but not to the exclusion of their home language and with little desire to assimilate with the English culture. The results also provide interesting and sometimes contrasting insights into students’ desired language of instruction.

Migrants’ alternative multi-lingua franca spaces as emergent re-producers of exclusionary monolingual nation-state regimes

AbstractFrom a critical sociolinguistic perspective, this article investigates the written linguistic practices of 20 labor migrants from heterogeneous backgrounds who organized their life trajectories in an ‘ethnic’ call shop in a marginal neighborhood near Barcelona. This was a late capitalist institution informally providing the undocumented with survival resources off the radar from governmental authorities. By drawing on interviews and visual materials gathered over a two-year fieldwork project, I report on the amalgamations of allochthonous and autochthonous codes which function as the multi-lingua franca of these alternative shelters, which have now colonized the globalized urban landscape. I argue that these translinguistic practices speak of the ethnolinguistic identities with which migrants try to secure subsistence. I show, though, that transnational populations simultaneously map their in-group codes upon a unified floor where the use of only global Spanish is fostered. Users sanction their linguistic hybridity and self-correct into hegemonic standard norms which index ‘integration’ and fully-fledged citizenship statuses, delegitimizing their linguistic capitals. I conclude that the migrants’ grassroots mobilization of both linguistic resistance and regimentation within a single discursive space where exclusionary sociolinguistic orders could be contested uniquely unveils the ways in which they challenge, but paradoxically re-produce, the monolingual nation-state regimes of their host society.

Finding a voice: reflections on a long journey from silent student to confident teacher educator

In this article, I narrate and reflect on challenges that I have faced throughout my academic journey from a school and university student to a teacher and a teacher educator – challenges that I attribute mainly to my limited communicative competence in English. This reflective examination of my experiences is informed by Bourdieu’s cultural capital theory, specifically the concepts of habitus, field and linguistic capital. I argue that the ability to speak, read and write English in my country and in South Africa constitutes linguistic capital and that those who do not possess such capital may have limited access to a country’s desirable goods and positions. Based on what I have experienced, I make some recommendations for recognizing and nurturing student’s home language while at the same time, because English has become such a powerful language locally and globally, creating chances for students to become proficient in this language in order to maximize their opportunities in life.

International education, the formation of capital and graduate employment: Chinese accounting graduates’ experiences of the Australian labour market

Since the late 1970s, international education has steadily gained in popularity in China. An emerging middle class seeks to strengthen its position in China’s rapidly stratifying society under its socialist market economy with the shift from wealth creation for all to wealth concentration for a few. Previously, a foreign qualification was considered a passport to success in either the host or home country’s labour market. But the growing popularity of overseas study, coupled with the massification of the Chinese higher education, means Chinese international students are seeking to distinguish themselves in an increasingly competitive global labour market. This longitudinal study of international graduates, backgrounded by Australian employer perceptions, examines the journeys of 13 Chinese accounting graduates as they attempt to transition from an Australian university into the Australian labour market. Bourdieu’s thinking tools of field, capital, disposition and habitus are utilised to consider how different cultural, social and linguistic capitals inform employer understandings of ‘employability’ meant Chinese accounting graduates significantly adjusted their life goals.

The linguistic market for English in Bangladesh

A large body of work has investigated the presence of English and its teaching and learning in the developing world where English is used as a second/foreign language. While this work has provided plausible explanations for the global spread of English as well as its uptake by education policy-makers and communities, there has been limited research on, in Bourdieu's (1991, p. 44) terms, the “economic and social conditions of the acquisition of the legitimate competence” in English. This paper draws on Bourdieu's concepts of linguistic market and linguistic capital to illustrate differential proficiency outcomes for different market actors affiliated with different education markets in Bangladesh. Although Bourdieu focused on the notion of a “unified market” with reference to the dominant or official language, investigating English as a second or foreign language requires exploring multiple markets of English in the polity. Drawing on a diversified understanding of the context of language policy and planning, these markets are located at the national and subnational levels. I argue that while macro-level policy-makers have been guided by “linguistic communism” in introducing English for all, it is actually market forces that determine, to a large extent, who attains linguistic competence and whose competence is likely to be transformed into linguistic capital.

Waiting in the wings: Power, narratives of transition, and self-reflexivity

With the aim of bridging the gap between the understanding of individual agency and that of structural constraint, this article deals with the ways in which autobiographical research can provide insight into how individuals negotiate the social contexts in which they are located. Despite the strong utilitarian discourse about the centrality of English for social and economic advancement in Hong Kong, there has been insufficient attention paid to the affective and social aspects of different study and work experiences in which differing linguistic and cultural capitals are valued. With this neglect in mind, this reported study explores how two individuals engage in self-identification and self-scrutiny in the education, legal and media fields. This is a matter of interest with regard to the power of narration in organising and representing social reality, and the relevance of self-reflexivity to the development of agency and educational capital as recorded in narratives of transition. Writing autobiographical reflections on their experiences in institutions and social relationships gave the individuals a therapeutic opportunity to formulate clearer versions of their personal history and identity in their transition to work.

Lenguas de comunicación o de negocios. La aportación contemporánea del bilingüismo crítico a la enseñanza de lenguas

Foreign language learning is considered by the members of the public as an indisputable imperative, not only legally, but also socially. As a consequence, languages are regarded as assets with a high symbolic value to be obtained in order to socially prosper and not as a part of the process of becoming a person. In this paper I question the way in which the members of the public accept foreign languages' hegemony and its value as linguistic capital. The critical theory applied to bilingualism will provide it with its personal and social approach. Language teaching is part of a dialogical didactics approach that follows persona ⴀ

Queer cultural capital: implications for education

This article takes the concept of cultural capital from Yosso’s (2005) work and transforms the model for queer communities. While Yosso identified five forms of cultural capital in communities of color (familial, aspirational, navigational, resistant, and linguistic), the author identifies an additional form: transgressive. Queer cultural capital can show teachers the strengths within queer communities and so allow them to have a positive, rather than a deficit, model of these groups. Brief examples for queer cultural capital are illustrated for familial, aspirational, navigational, and resistant, while queer linguistic and transgressive capitals are discussed in greater depth. Implications for K-12 teaching and working with preservice teachers are offered, as well as suggestions for future work.

AN EXPLORATION OF THE ROLE OF EFL EDUCATORS IN A GLOBALIZED WORLD

The globalization of the 21st century has created questions about and difficulties in the current role of EFL educators because of the many accommodations needed to new cultures, people, and differences in ideologically constructed representations of our roles in terms of culture, class, gender, race, and religion. To address these difficulties, six EFL educators at a private school in Turkey were interviewed for this analytic and auto-ethnographic research to investigate their perceived roles as EFL educators and the relation of these roles to globalization. The theoretical framework was formed from Bourdieu’s postcolonial theory and Bhabha’s notion of “third space.” Interviews, a reflexive journal, and critical incidents were used as means of data collection. The results revealed that EFL educators’ hybridity is forced as they navigate this in-between space as products of their prior socialization (i.e., their religious, class, and linguistic capitals). They are simultaneously colonized and colonizers as they “sell” English in Turkey, and they are “border crossers” in the ELT field. Keywords: Globalization, hybrid, English as a Foreign Language (EFL), post-colonial

A repertoire of Yoruba hand and face gestures

Gesture is part of the linguistic capital of every culture. Members learn from birth those gestures operative in their culture and community. Once learned, the use of gestures becomes so routinized that it appears as the natural and logical way to meaningfully communicate. This paper documents, illustrates, and describes some of the hand and facial gestures in use among Yoruba people of Nigeria. Accompanying the descriptions are the interpretations of the identified quotable gestures within the socio-cultural context of their usage. Further, the paper highlights the ‘face of earnest’ because of the cross-cultural miscommunication that it generates.

“BEING WHAT ONE OUGHT TO BE”: ENGLISH AS A LINGUA FRANCA IN THE ACADEMIC SPOKEN DISCOURSE OF BULGARIAN AND GERMAN STUDENTS

In an age of globalization and super-diversity, the concept of English as a national, homogeneous entity has been seriously undermined, and non-native speakers have been encouraged to use the language without constant recourse to the native-speaker ideal. Yet different varieties of English have different value attached to them on the linguistic market, in Bourdieu’s terms; and non-native speakers are in possession of different linguistic capital. The paper focuses on the relationships and attitudes to English on behalf of Bulgarian and German university students participating in a joint project in which a corpus of academic spoken English is compiled. Alongside collecting the corpus, the project appears to have a positive educational outcome in that it raises awareness about the specificity of English as a lingua franca.

Language about Agroecological Practices: The Emergence of a Linguistic Market in Post-Soviet Cuba

Following the collapse of socialist bloc in the late 1980s, Cuba’s agricultural paradigm underwent a dramatic transition from conventional to agroecological practices. In part, this transition relied on shifting the research focus of the Cuban government toward alternative and sustainable modes of agriculture, and placing greater emphasis on local farmer knowledge and participation. This paper proposes that the changing knowledge base that has accompanied Cuba’s agroecological paradigm has given rise to the emergence of markets of symbolic power (in the Bourdieu sense). In particular, a linguistic market that revolves around "spreading" the message and practice of agroecology, and that accrues various forms of social and linguistic capital has developed. Ultimately, I argue that the language about agroecological practices in Cuba can be considered in terms of what Bourdieu calls the "unification" of a linguistic market.

The Writing Skills in Second Language of Learners from a Rural Primary School in South Africa

The school type in the South African context can act as an agent of cultural reproduction that influences learner outcomes. Well resourced schools are richer in social capital than others, depending, among other things, on the prevailing school culture and the strength of networks formed among teachers and between teachers and other stakeholders. High levels of social capital in the school will strengthen its intellectual capital and this, in turn, will benefit learners and they will excel academically. This paper examines the English writing performance of Grade 7 English Second Language (ESL) learners in a former Model C rural primary school that uses English as the Language of Learning and Teaching (LoLT) and explores how good scores can be partly explained by the social context of both learners and school. Although South African education policy seeks to distribute and maintain the linguistic capital of the official languages through its support of multilingualism, the predominant preference for English as LoLT in schooling is one of the major factors which disadvantages most ESL learners and perpetuates inequality in learner outcomes. This situation is exacerbated in certain school contexts (for example, rural settings). The concept of social capital, including linguistic capital, is used as an explanatory framework. In this regard a critical comparison is made between the contributions of Coleman and Bourdieu. The findings indicate excellent learner performance in the writing performance test. This suggests that the current use of English as LoLT means that linguistic capital might be equally distributed throughout this school. Learners' academic performance can thus be influenced by the type of school that they attend.

Linguistic Capital in Iran: Using Official Language or Mother Tongue

Linguistic capital has been the subject of interest and study to many linguists and sociolinguists in the past decade, a central point in this relation can be found in Bourdieu's (1992) claim that language is not simply an object of study; and that it is an instrument of action and power and also has the power to produce existence. This capitalism can be considered as a threatening factor for the national unity in bi or multilingual countries. Iran as a multilingual country is not an exception to this threat; however, few studies have addressed the issue in the society. In response to this shortcoming, the present study investigated linguistic capital in different situations to see how power is distributed among the languages of the country. Accordingly, Persian as the official language of the country and Turkish, Kurdish and Luri, major indigenous languages of the country, were brought under investigation. In so doing, a researcher-made questionnaire was administrated to 220 subjects who were all bilingual male and female within the age range of 18 to 80 having fourteen different professions. The results of the paired sample t-test analysis indicate meaningful difference in participants’ choice of mother tongue and Persian as the official language in non-official conditions which stands for the power of the latter. Moreover, the regression analysis demonstrated that age, gender, job, degree of education, field of study, and residency were significant for the prediction of the dependent variables. Yet, gender predicted the best. Therefore, EFL teachers should be aware of the power of each language the learners speak and distinguish the difference between the knowledge they possess and the language they use to express.

The nature of interactions between Chinese immigrant families and preschool staff: How culture, class, and methodology matter

While the parental involvement field has progressed from asking what the impact of parental involvement is to how we can better involve parents, research has lagged in finding out how sociocultural and class differentials between homes and schools affect immigrant families’ interactions with schools. This case study uses ethnographic tools to examine the nature of interactions between 11 Chinese immigrant families and staff at a low-income preschool. Interview, participant observation, and textual data revealed that the nature in which staff interacted with parents was didactic and one-directional and depended upon parents’ economic–cultural–linguistic capital. Sociocultural differences between staff and parents complicated the interaction, and parental resistance was often misinterpreted. These findings are discussed in light of methodological issues in research as well as how to avoid letting stereotypes, and sociocultural and class differences, hamper the establishment of successful partnerships between schools and immigrant families.

Indigenous language capital and development

This position paper presents language capital as an alternative theorization to linguistic capital. It applies to the development and multilingual postcolonial contexts, especially in Africa. It argues that Bourdieu's “linguistic capital” is more applicable to the analysis of the access that is granted or denied on the basis of possession of one rather than another variety of a language. Using demographic statistics made up of human and economic development data from the Human Development Index, the World Bank and the World Development Report, the paper demonstrates the relationships that exist between language and the economy and how the alternative language capital model may be useful for development analysis in subSaharan Africa.

>English in African politics of education: capital or capital illusion?

This article considers human, economic and social capital, and considers the relationship between these and linguistic and language capital in the context of development in Sub-Saharan Africa. Evidence is adduced concerning the negative effects of the policy of employing English as a medium of instruction in schools. It is claimed that the policy adds nothing of value to linguistic or language capital, and therefore fails to generate significant human, economic and social capital.