Local Language Policies Research Articles

Katherine S. Flowers: Making English Official: Writing and Resisting Local Language Policies

Katherine S. Flowers: Making English Official: Writing and Resisting Local Language Policies

Language Policy Dynamics in Early Childhood Education through Basil Bernstein’s Lens

This paper examined the implementation of local language policy in privately owned early childhood centers through Bernstein’s lens theory. It focuses on the benefits and implications of using local languages as media of instruction in early grades drawing on Basil Bernstein’s framing and control lens. This study is qualitative in nature and it used descriptive research design to examine the implementation of local language policy in privately owned early childhood centers through Bernstein’s lens theory. Simple random sampling technique was used to select ten (10) privately owned centers and ten (10) teachers that formed the sample. Ten (10) center managers were purposely selected bringing the total number of participants to twenty (20). The study used participant and non-participant observation and interviews to collect data and a total of 10 lessons were observed with a focus on the language of the instruction used. The results of the study show that there are major divides that linger among the classes in society which are visible in geographical locations of schools and have a great influence on the language of instruction. The results further show that local languages are not taught in private schools due to limitations in language command and skill set required to adequately teach. The study recommends that the pre service training programs should equip early childhood education teachers with adequate skills in local language teaching. Further, there is need for wider consultation with all stakeholders if issues of medium of instruction are to be a consensus at pre-grade.

Teachers and parents’ perception towards the use of local languages from grade one to grade four in six selected urban and rural schools of Kabwe District, Zambia

Teaching learners in local languages enables learners to learn from known to unknown and learners understand given instructions faster while perception influences education and its values. Therefore, this study aimed to investigate teachers’ perception towards the use of local languages from Grades one to four in six selected primary schools of Kabwe district in the Central province of Zambia. Six head teachers, 24 teachers, 18 PTA Executive members, and 36 parents from six primary schools in Kabwe district, plus 3 district education officers were purposively sampled for the study. Data was collected using questionnaires and in-depth interviews to allow the researcher a platform to ask open-response questions and to explore the teachers’ perceptions towards the use of local languages. The data was analyzed thematically by carefully identifying and expanding significant themes that emerged from the respondents’ perceptions of the use of local languages. The study revealed that teenage pregnancy has a negative or detrimental effect on school attendance, academic performance, emotional behavior, and relationships between pregnant teenagers, their peers, and educators. The Study revealed that more administrators and teachers preferred their pupils to be taught in local languages from Grade 1 up to the University levels while a few were in favor of using English as a medium of instruction and only very few felt that it was more appropriate to use both languages during a child’s early stages of learning. Given these findings, the study recommended steps that should be taken to develop local language policies that do not enhance a child’s academic success and cognitive development but are also respective of ethno cultural characteristics and supportive of national unity.

Community Participation in the Fight against Corruption in Nigeria: The Local Language Policy Perspective

Abstract:
 Decades after Nigeria’s independence, the country is still among the poorest in the world despite the availability of both human and material resources. The image of the country has been damaged by corruption. The level of corruption in Nigeria is beyond imagination. This article explores the role of community participation in the fight against corruption in Nigeria using the local language. The elite theory was used to operate the fight against corruption through community participation via the use of local language and twenty-five scholarly journal articles got from Google scholar, web of science, Sage, and other scholarly search engines were sourced and used. The content analysis tool used for this paper is systematically positioned to review words and themes, within some given qualitative data. The paper opined that local language can serve as a functional vehicle of interaction and an instrument of advocacy in the fight against corruption in Nigeria. The paper further established that local languages are an embodiment of culture, reflecting the depth of the people’s beliefs and knowledge. Hence, using it as a tool in the fight against corruption would be highly effective. The paper concludes that strengthening democratic institutions, including those created for fighting this menace, and the possibility of having a creditable community-sponsored candidate for elective position in the government would create a sense of belonging and indeed, bring a sense of optimism in governance and in the fight against corruption.

Revisiting language teacher education in an ELF aware perspective: responses to innovations

Abstract Teachers’ and teacher educators’ individual theories, attitudes and beliefs underlying their daily practice, are often challenged by sociolinguistic changes, curricular innovations, or new language policies that may often trigger teachers’ resistance to change, particularly when they are required to adapt and revisit their teaching practices. In many European countries recent migration flows have modified the countries language landscapes; their school population is now growingly plurilingual and with different learning and language needs. In their out-of-school experiences, learners are more and more exposed to English through social media and to non-native speakers’ English (ELF), aspects not integrated yet in local language policies, nor in teacher education programs. It is thus important to design pre- and in-service teacher education programs aimed at sensitizing language and subject teachers to these new scenarios, using reflective practice approaches in multilingual contexts. These contexts require English language teachers, and teachers who use English in different fields such as Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL) or English Medium of Instruction (EMI), to reconsider their personal assumptions and beliefs, and to develop new competences that would incorporate the powerful reflective framework provided by ELF-awareness. The ELF-aware perspective had been adopted in recent courses for English teachers carried out in Italy, as the ENRICH CPD course, and in the CLIL courses for content teachers. The aim of this contribution is to present and discuss findings of two research studies carried out within the above-mentioned courses that were meant to make teachers aware of new instantiations of English through a reflective practice approach such as the ELF-aware approach, and to sustain their professional development as well as their agency. This paper is mostly related to the lessons learnt from the findings from teachers’ responses to course innovations and their agency development during these courses.

Investment and the inaudible mother tongue: Carving out a space for Kurdish in the soundscape of an Istanbul kebab restaurant

Abstract Firmly grounded in local sociopolitical constraints, language policies at Istanbul's Kurdish-run eating establishments often place Kurdish employees’ cultural identity construction at odds with their workplaces’ economic viability. In the face of rigid structures that cement the dominance of Turkish, the Kurdish managers highlighted in a previous study exercise limited agency to enact language policies that align with their pro-Kurdish ideologies, rendering Kurdish largely invisible. This article revisits these themes by examining a nearby Kurdish-run restaurant with a language policy that violates this norm. Applying Darvin & Norton's (2015) model of investment, analyses of observations and interviews consider identity, ideology, and economic capital vis-à-vis employees’ perceived valuation of Kurdish as a workplace language. Results suggest that capital ownership emboldens the audible articulation of Kurdish identities, which emerge from pluricentrically oriented ideologies, fostering resistance to local language policy norms. (Investment, language policy, capital, Kurdish, ideology, pluricentricity)

Higher Education Students Perspectives about EMI in a South Brazilian Public University

This work aims at investigating Brazilian students’ views on English as a Medium of Instruction (EMI) from a pre-implementation standpoint so that their interest, linguistic and pedagogical needs, concerns and suggestions are identified. Through online questionnaire, we identified a significant interest in EMI, associated to concerns with language support and the preference for a flexible regulation, considering the interest and needs of each area and department. Most envisage EMI as an opportunity to prepare for mobility and to compensate part of the experience to those who would not be able to afford it. The results contribute to an assessment of the feasibility of EMI and a local language policy aware of the necessary language support, professional development and offer regulation.

Language on Bemo in Kupang: A Landscape Linguistic Approach

This article discusses signs in the form of writing in public spaces, especially found on bemo (public transportation) in Kupang city through a linguistic landscape approach. The topics discussed are the language used, the form of the language, the dominance of the language, and the perception of the people. Data were obtained from photographs with digital cameras and interviews with informants and then analyzed qualitatively. As a result, the language used on the bemo is multilingual and dominated by English in the form of words, phrases, clauses, sentences, and acronyms. English dominates in each lingual unit except in the form of acronyms. Regarding the use of language in public spaces, especially the written language found on bemo, people feel happy if they find their language visible in public spaces. Therefore, the respondent expected and suggested that it is important to maintain their language. However, they are aware that their mother tongue cannot help in terms of the economy, therefore, government intervention through local language policies is needed for the language survival.

On the Question of the Existence of the Lusocreole Languages in Africa and Asia

The article considers the phenomenon of creole languages as a result of the convergence of different language systems within the theory of language contacts, gives a characteristic of the lusocreole languages and their classification. An important aspect of the work is a sociolinguistic comparative analysis of African and Asian lusocreole languages that regards some linguistic features of the widespread lusocreole African range and more isolated lusocreole languages of Southeast Asia and pays attention to the status of mentioned languages in these territories, local language policy and the nature of the relationship between creole and non-creole languages which is based on the concept of diglossia. The article discusses the development ways for African and Asian lusocreole languages and expresses concern about the processes of decreolization, which may in the future contribute not only to withering, but also to the complete disappearance of the original lusocreole cultures.

Improving Literacy in Uganda: Why Pedagogical Reforms and Intervention Programs are Underperforming

Pedagogical reforms, specifically, the Thematic Curriculum and the Local Language Policy, have failed to improve literacy in Uganda despite a concerted effort from the Government of Uganda and its international development partners. This paper distills the major literacy programs used to scale up the reforms nationwide and summarizes what they did and their effects on the different components of reading. It concludes with a discussion on why the reforms and their intervention programs underperformed. It argues for a reform approach that ensures that the system has sufficient capacity to deliver the new content and pedagogy before implementation.

Ethnic boundary making among Swedish migrants in Helsinki

ABSTRACT This is a study of ethnic boundary-making strategies promoted by Swedish migrants in Finland. The results are based on interviews with a sample of migrants in Helsinki without previous personal connection to Finland. The interviewees can be considered privileged migrants, and the study provides new information on the strategies of ethnic boundary making promoted by members of privileged ethnic groups. In Helsinki, the migrants from Sweden navigate a social field with local ethnic boundaries, including an autochthonous Swedish-speaking minority. Despite social integration in Finnish society, the migrants choose the strategy of boundary blurring, whereby the interviewees wished to question the importance of ethnic and national belonging. This choice of strategy can be explained by the ambivalence they experience in navigating the local ethnic categories and language policies. Thus, the results describe how societal structures shape individual strategies of ethnic boundary making.

Is language a 'right' in U.S. education?: unpacking Castañeda's reach across federal, state, and district lines.

Castañeda v. Pickard (648 F.2d 989, [5th Cir. 1981]) was a significant legal case in the history of educational policy for non-native English-speaking students in the United States. The case established a three prong ‘test’ for programs for those students, including the right for students to have an educational program based on sound educational theory; resources and personnel to properly implement the program; and evaluation of the effectiveness of the program. After 40 years of interpretation of the Castañeda case, the issue of language rights for non-native English speakers in United States public schools continues to be debated by scholars and interpreted through various legal statutes and case holdings. This article examines the Castañeda case and its recent interpretations in the literature as applied to non-native English-speaking students. We use a theoretical lens of orientations in language planning (Ruíz 1984) and language policy text as reported by Lo Bianco and Aliani (Language planning and student experiences: Intention, rhetoric, and implementation, Multilingual Matters, 2013). We then discuss the socio-historical context of the case and position it with respect to the 1974 seminal case of Lau v. Nichols. Using the state of Florida as an example, we next describe the complex language ecology of local and state language policies and how those relate to Castañeda and inhibit progress for bilingual students in Florida. We conclude with caution to academics and advocates who work on behalf of language minoritized students in the United States, with implications for international scholars.

Factors facilitating and obstructing a school development project

ABSTRACT This study describes and critically discusses a development project designed to create and enact a local language policy at a Swedish multilingual school, its context, content and implementation dimensions. The collaborative construction of a school language policy is a complex process, with tensions that need to be resolved. By describing the processes involved in the language policy project we examine the factors that facilitated and obstructed the enactment of the language policy. The data include 25 interviews with school headteachers and staff members, 15 observations of teachers and school-age educare teachers, field notes, and audio recordings of research circles. Drawing on insights from the enactment framework, the analysis reveals three important themes with respect to the enactment processes: continuity, cohesion, and inclusion. Factors such as communication and leadership, but also external factors, were found to influence outcomes of the project, illuminating an interwoven web of contexts and facets for understanding the enactment of the language policy. These factors influencing outcomes of the project will be discussed in the light of implications for the enactment of the school language policy project.

Critical Literacy with (Freire) and for the Other (Levinas): Ethics/Social Justice as Enigmatic Becoming

ABSTRACT One of the key features of critical literacy is the concern with the human and non-human collective other in vulnerable social condition. The obstruction for disenfranchised communities, local language policy goals, exacerbating social inequities and violence seems never-ending. Much before the pandemic times, one side of society had been forcing unprivileged and disempowered communities to struggle for alternative ways to go on playing the game of life. To this end, innovative, participative and ethical education which places the self as responsible for the radical other, frequently an enemy, (LEVINAS, 2007) might enhance learning, unlearning and relearning. I conclude that such a perspective might expand the exercise of critical literacy (FREIRE, 2005), a condition to minimize the impacts of the crises in contemporary society. This research is part of my ongoing project entitled Linguistic-Cultural Education, Language Teaching, Technologies and productive Social Justice in Dilemmatic Times and it is linked to the National Project of Teacher Education1 through the theories of Critical Literacies, Multilteracies, New Literacies, coordinated by Walkyria Monte Mór and Lynn Mario Trindade Menezes de Souza. Following a bibliographic interpretive research methodology, this work comprises two moments. In the first one, it presents a brief outline of the already one with and for the other in contemporary scenario of online/offline learning, intertwined with the current educational Brazilian situation, going beyond (post)pandemic times, as life-long learning (ALHEIT, 2018). The second moment seeks to theorize on the contributions of Freire (2005), Levinas (1991, 1994, 2000, 2007, 2008, 2014) and Braidotti (2006, 2018, 2019) with more details on the second, bearing in mind the Levinasian ethics is apparently less approached in the applied field of linguistics and also due to the scope of this article.

The language policy of the Caliphate State

This article examines and critiques the macro top-down constitutional language policy of the so-called the Caliphate State, often referred to by the acronyms ISIS and ISIL. Although Sharicah law, claimed to be the only source of the Caliphate’s laws, does not legislate local, official and national language policies, the Caliphate constitutionalises language policy through the misappropriation of Quranic verses. Article 8 of the constitution mandates the adoption of Arabic as the exclusive national and official language of the Caliphate project and its educational system. The monolithic policy exploits the symbiosis between Arabic and Islam to uproot the Islamic tradition of diversity and plurilingualism, advance its homogenising discourse, and globalise militancy. A religiously justified language policy is instrumental for the Caliphate in achieving cultural and linguistic cleansing, propagating its religious-political ideology and maintaining a strict assimilatory mould of indoctrination.

Upscaling and downscaling: Negotiating scale in the English‐only movement

AbstractRecent work on scale has emphasized upscaling, or the ways people try to make their discourse seem more universal and authoritative. To explore how people engage in other kinds of scale jumping, I examine how scaling practices vary among policymakers and activists in the US English‐only movement. This ethnographic, discourse analytic study focuses on people who shape language policy in four counties in the state of Maryland as well as the organizations U.S. English and ProEnglish. Drawing on interviews, observations, and texts, I argue that upscaling and downscaling can both play a key role in successfully developing linguistic authority, legitimizing English‐only ideologies, and enacting new English‐only policies. At the same time, when people mix different scaling practices in interaction, the combination may occasionally come across as more dissonant to their interlocutors. Ultimately, the US English‐only movement's penchant for scale jumping has led to more restrictive local language policies but also to more opportunities for questioning and resisting those policies.

Considering the reality of hegemonic tendencies: English and linguistic diversity

This paper aims to analyze the commodification aspect of dominant languages, in particular, English, while looking into linguistic diversity as a commodity in its own right. In order to illustrate multilingualism as a valuable commodity in itself, we mention Immersion Programs in the US and the increasing recognition of the importance of being proficient in languages other than English, for educational, personal, economic and national security reasons. This research also aims to look into some aspects of the delicate issue of English being strengthened over the weakening of thousands of local languages and cultures. Some arguments are provided in order to illustrate the fact that ‘global English’ represents special politico-economic interests that cannot meet the needs of the people whose languages and cultures are being subjugated by the imperialistic and capitalist ideologies of the spread of English. Unless local language policies are elevated on political agendas, globalization language policies will remain insensitive to the irreplaceable value of linguistic diversity, along with the real needs of citizens from all over the world.

Language ideologies, family language policy, and a changing societal context in Kansas

AbstractThis paper examines the language ideologies among parents of Mexican family origin from Garden City, Kansas, and considers the ways in which Latinxs from different sociolinguistic generations have responded to an evolving societal context when making decisions about language use within the family. The analysis is based on 24 video-recorded interviews with parents of Mexican family background who reside in Garden City, a rural town in western Kansas where the majority of the population is of Hispanic origin. Drawing from the linguistic anthropological notion of ‘language ideologies’ and the framework of family langauge policy, the study examines (a) the ideologies that the participants express about the value of Spanish and particular varieties of Spanish in Kansas and (b) how they make reference to local language policies and personal beliefs and attitudes when describing their home language policies. The analysis reveals that local language policies and the availability of resources can dramatically influence the ways in which participants’ linguistic policies and practices reflect their ideological positionings. Findings suggest that there is a need to expand resources for emergent bilinguals and multilingual families in the region.

Language policy as ‘frozen’ ideology: exploring the administrative function in Swedish higher education

ABSTRACTThis article examines Language Policy documents within higher education institutions in Sweden. Its main focus is on how national language policies and policies for internationalization of the higher education are reinterpreted as local language policy. The analysis of ideologies surrounding the prescribed language(s) in meetings of decision making bodies in fifteen local Language Policy documents reveals how a monolingual national language policy is negotiated to accommodate an internationalized multilingual workplace. When the multilingual context of the internationalized university intrudes on the nationally oriented context of public administration, which favors Swedish as a default language, there are two solutions to be found in the language policy documents. (1) a temporary or permanent shift towards an internationally oriented monolingual context by allowing the use of another language, favoring English, or (2) a temporary or permanent shift towards parallel language-informed practices. Restrictive measures are found to construct situations where participation is made possible for non-regular non-Swedish-speaking members, while permissive measures provide inclusion for regular non-Swedish-speaking members, too.

Resisting and Rewriting English-Only Policies: Navigating Multilingual, Raciolinguistic, and Translingual Approaches to Language Advocacy

The field of writing studies has highlighted the limitations of a monolingual orientation towards language, particularly in the context of English-only language policies, but there have been fewer accounts of how people actively navigate and advocate for alternatives. Drawing on a recent ethnographic, discourse analytic study of how writers reshaped a local language policy, I argue that there are advantages to cultivating and combining multilingual, raciolinguistic, and translingual approaches to language advocacy, yet at the same time, arguments for multilingualism risk eclipsing, and ultimately undermining, these other approaches.