To ensure smooth communication and collaboration, here are some troubleshooting tips to address common issues:
Check Internet Connection: Verify that you have a stable and reliable internet connection. Use a wired connection when possible, as it tends to be more stable than Wi-Fi. If using Wi-Fi, make sure you have a strong signal.
Update the Browser or App: Ensure that you are using the latest version of the web browser. Developers frequently release updates to address bugs and improve performance.
Clear Browser Cache: Sometimes, cached data can cause conflicts or issues. Clear the browser cache and cookies before joining the meeting.
Test Audio and Video: Before the meeting, check your microphone and camera to ensure they are working correctly. If you are a speaker, you can click on "Start Practice Session" button test to ensure audio and video devices are functioning.
Close Other Applications: Running multiple applications in the background can consume system resources and lead to performance issues. Close unnecessary apps to free up resources for the Dryfta meeting platform.
Restart Your Device: If you encounter persistent issues, try restarting your computer or mobile device. This can help resolve various software-related problems.
Use Supported Browsers: Ensure you are using a browser supported by the meeting platform. Recommended browsers: Chrome, Firefox, Edge, and Brave.
Allow Necessary Permissions: Make sure the Dryfta meeting platform has the required permissions to access your microphone, camera, and other necessary features.
Disable VPN or Firewall: Sometimes, VPNs or firewalls can interfere with the connection to the meeting platform. Temporarily disable them and see if the issue persists.
Switch Devices: If possible, try joining the meeting from a different device to see if the problem is specific to one device.
Reduce Bandwidth Usage: In cases of slow or unstable internet connections, ask participants to disable video or share video selectively to reduce bandwidth consumption.
Update Drivers and Software: Ensure your operating system, audio drivers, and video drivers are up to date. Outdated drivers can cause compatibility issues with the Dryfta meeting platform.
Contact Support: If none of the above steps resolve the issue, reach out to the platform's support team. They can provide personalized assistance and troubleshoot specific problems.
By following these troubleshooting tips, you can tackle many common problems encountered on Dryfta meeting platform and have a more productive and seamless meeting experience.
20230720T131520230720T1615Europe/Amsterdam[SYMP08] AILA ReN - Language Policy Research Network World Congress SyomposiaHybrid Session (onsite/online)AILA 2023 - 20th Anniversary Congress Lyon Editioncellule.congres@ens-lyon.fr
Monolingual Ideologies in U.S. College Language Education Policy Reforms: A Critical Discourse Studies Analysis
Oral Presentation[SYMP08] AILA ReN - Language Policy Research Network World Congress Syomposia01:15 PM - 04:15 PM (Europe/Amsterdam) 2023/07/20 11:15:00 UTC - 2024/07/20 14:15:00 UTC
Remediation reform is a neoliberal-oriented policy movement in U.S. higher education that aims to increase college completion rates. While a major focus of the movement has been on changing language education requirements for entering students, implications for multilingual and English learner students remain unclear. To address this gap, we conducted a critical discourse analysis of the websites of three prominent reform organizations to document explicit and implicit ideologies regarding multilingualism, linguistic diversity, linguistic justice, and equity. The study examined 191 webpages and linked documents, using corpus-based keyword and appraisal analyses, as well as analysis of multimodal and intertextual discourse features. Findings showed that these organizations evidenced a deep and pervasive English monolingual ideology at odds with current scholarly and pedagogical thinking and policy recommendations, as well as their self-positioning as champions of diversity. However, the demographic and legislative context mediated the extent to which organizations explicitly recognized EEMs or other multilingual students. We explore implications in terms of the increasing role of neoliberal strategic philanthropies in shaping language education policies in higher education. We suggest ways to counter English monolingual ideologies underlying RRM policy initiatives, and develop more linguistically just educational policies for EEM and multilingual students.
Remediation reform is an influential policy movement in U.S. higher education that aims to increase college completion rates. It is promoted by wealthy "strategic" neoliberal philanthropies that fund a number of intermediary non-profit organizations to influence legislators, policymakers, and administrators to adopt their policy goals (Buffett, 2013; Tompkins-Stange, 2016). College reading and writing course requirements have been a major focus of this movement, particularly prerequisite "developmental" courses for entering students who are deemed underprepared for college (Bailey, 2016; Ness et al., 2021). However, the policy implications of the remediation reform movement (RRM) remain unclear for the growing number of multilingual students entering U.S. higher education, particularly emergent English multilinguals (EEMs) who are still in the process of developing college-level English proficiency (Bunch et al., 2020; Hodara, 2015; Ruecker, 2015). To address this gap, we conducted a critical discourse analysis of policies regarding multilingualism, linguistic diversity, and linguistic justice and equity on the websites of three prominent RRM organizations. This approach assumes that language education policies are inherently ideological, both growing out of and contributing to broader societal values, attitudes, and beliefs about languages and their speakers (Barakos & Unger, 2016; Wodak & Meyer, 2016). Examining 191 webpages and linked documents, the study sought to document explicit and implicit language ideologies underlying these organizations' reform initiatives and policy recommendations. A "lexical field" (Machin & Mayr, 2012, p. 30) or "keyword" analysis (Holborrow, 2013) of the corpus found that national RRM policy discourse consistently failed to address multilingual and EEM college students or forms of language instruction or support for them. Appraisal and multimodal analysis of text and graphics on webpages showed that RRM intermediate organizations positioned themselves as agents of diversity and social justice in higher education while at the same time framing "diversity" and "equity"in ways that excluded linguistic diversity, multilingualism, or EEM students. Intertextual links in discourse across websites and documents served to maintain English monolingualism as the normative medium and goal of U.S. college writing instruction. Overall, we find that RRM policy discourse implicitly reflects a deep and pervasive English monolingual ideology at odds with current scholarship and policy recommendations in college composition (e.g. CCCC, 2014; Horner et al., 2011; Inoue, 2019) and second language writing (e.g. Canagarajah, 2013; Matsuda, 2006; Ortmeier-Hooper & Ruecker, 2017) as well as the movement's own self-image. However, we also found that the demographic and legislative context of individual RRM organizations was an important mediating factor in the extent to which they explicitly recognized EEMs or other multilingual students. Based on these findings we explore implications for the increasing influence of neoliberalism and the strategic philanthropy industry on language education policies in higher education. We suggest ways in which college researchers, instructors, and policymakers can counter English monolingual ideologies underlying RRM policy initiatives, and develop more linguistically just educational policies for EEM and multilingual students.
Towards a political economy of immigrant languages for social justice: A case study of South-Asian immigrants in Alberta
Oral Presentation[SYMP08] AILA ReN - Language Policy Research Network World Congress Syomposia01:15 PM - 04:15 PM (Europe/Amsterdam) 2023/07/20 11:15:00 UTC - 2024/07/20 14:15:00 UTC
Selected symposium theme: LPReN #3: Social Justice, Hegemony, and Complicity in Language Policy The socio-economic integration of immigrants, especially skilled workers in the economic class, is one of the top priorities of Canada (GC, 2020). However, a disconnect can be observed between the top-down policies informing the current integration model that mandates the use of one of Canada's official languages (English or French) for settlement, and the social multilingualism where multiple languages are spoken by various indigenous peoples and immigrant populations (Lopez, 2007; Raza & Chua, 2022). Building upon existing research on the effects of Canadian official bilingualism (English and French) on immigrant languages in Canada (e.g., Ricento, 2013; 2021), and drawing on findings from a study of Pakistani, Indian and Bangladeshi skilled immigrants, we conclude that the current integration policy seems to be problematic in three ways. First, the requirement for proficiency in one of the two official languages of Canada as a pre-requisite to integrate into the Canadian society and economy undervalues proficiency in other languages and the human capital developed in those languages (Raza & Chua, 2022; Ricento, 2021). Secondly, since newcomers, especially those who do not possess sufficient proficiency in English (in Alberta and most other Canadian provinces) rely upon help from ethnic communities to integrate into Canadian society, such reliance seems to create, reinforce and strengthen ethnic enclaves in provinces like Alberta, fostering over-representation of selective ethnicities in different economic sectors, isolation from the mainstream Albertan community, and creation of isolated ethnic and political groups. Finally, government-supported language programs (e.g., the Language Instruction for Newcomers to Canada (LINC) program) are woefully inadequate in their instructional design, curricula, and pedagogy to achieve meaningful linguistic or cultural integration into Canadian society. Unless and until these language programs recognize, value, and utilize the acquired linguistic, social and cultural capital of immigrants through fundamental changes in curricula and pedagogy, large numbers of newcomers will continue to be ghettoized in low-skilled jobs, with substantial reduction in wages and opportunities for upward socio-economic mobility, with negative consequences for the Canadian economy and political stability.
References Government of Canada. (2020). 2020 Annual Report to Parliament on Immigration. Retrieved from https://www.canada.ca/en/immigration-refugees-citizenship/corporate/publications-manuals/annual-report-parliament-immigration-2020.html Lopez, E. (2007). The Canadian point system and its discontents: Integration of immigrants into the labour market into the 21st century. [Unpublished master's dissertation]. Ryerson University. Raza, K., & Chua, C. (2022). Linguistic outcomes of language accountability and points-based system for multilingual skilled immigrants: A critical language-in-immigration policy analysis. Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development. https://doi.org/10.1080/01434632.2022.2060242 Ricento, T. (2021). Refugees in Canada: On the loss of social and cultural capital. Palgrave Macmillan. Ricento, T. (2013). The consequences of official bilingualism on the status and perception of non-official languages in Canada. Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development, 34(5): 475-489.
Presenters Kashif Raza PhD Student, University Of Calgary
Hegemonic discourses of assimilation in multilingual educational policy: Educators as negotiators for social justice
Oral Presentation[SYMP08] AILA ReN - Language Policy Research Network World Congress Syomposia01:15 PM - 04:15 PM (Europe/Amsterdam) 2023/07/20 11:15:00 UTC - 2024/07/20 14:15:00 UTC
In primary and secondary education in the United States, where multilingual policies have recently expanded, tension has emerged between discourses of plurality aiming to center linguistically, culturally, and racially minoritized communities on one hand and hegemonic privileging of white, English-dominant communities on the other. Drawing on a conceptualization of language policy as heterogeneously resourced and scaled, this study investigated how educators negotiate dialectical discourses of multilingual education and perceive its implementation across the state of Massachusetts, where recent policy change has enabled the growth of multilingual policies. Data included survey responses, which were collected using an instrument measuring educators' beliefs about language and language policy, as well as interviews, which were conducted with educators working with multilingual populations. Qualitative data analyses used critical discourse analytic methods, and factor analysis was used for quantitative data. Findings indicate that the critical aims of multilingual education may be realized as educators implement practices and policies that center minoritized communities, yet hegemonic discourses and policy mechanisms often inhibit such attempts. Despite these powerful processes of subjugation and assimilation and the ideologies they discursively embody, evidence also suggests that state-sanctioned support of local social justice-oriented discourses and policies may transform multilingual education.
In recent years, multilingual education has expanded in K-12 contexts throughout the United States. Paradoxically, this expansion of pluralist language policy has been linked to neoliberal aims that often result in the gentrification of multilingual education by white, English-dominant communities (Flores, 2016). At the same time, the potential of multilingual policies to center and support the empowerment of the linguistically, racially, and culturally minoritized students they were meant to serve remains prominent (Heiman & Yanes, 2018). Given this tension between often superficial discourses of plurality in multilingual education and its transformative potential, it is crucial to interrogate the policy processes through which practices and discourses that reproduce oppression persist in conjunction with social justice efforts. Drawing on a conceptualization of language policy as heterogeneously resourced and scaled (Mortimer & Wortham, 2015), this study investigated how educators negotiate dialectical discourses of multilingual education and perceive its implementation across the state of Massachusetts, where recent policy change has enabled the growth of multilingual programming. Data were collected using a survey measuring educators' beliefs about language (Fitzsimmons-Doolan et al., 2017) and specifically about language policy in Massachusetts, as well as through interviews conducted with educators working with multilingual populations. To better understand which and how educators were taking up multilingual discourses, practices, and policies, qualitative data from the survey and interviews were analyzed using critical discourse analysis (Wodak & Fairclough, 2010), and quantitative data were analyzed using factor analysis (Brown, 2015). Findings suggest that while educators who serve multilingual students in their professional roles support the critical aims of multilingual education and attempt to implement policies that center minoritized communities, several barriers impede its full realization within the ideological and policy context of Massachusetts. Educators identified specific affordances of state-level support of multilingual education, such as the symbolic recognition of multilingualism as an asset and the enactment of more inclusive practices locally. However, they also described a lack of resources and guidance, as well as assimilationist forms of resistance through competing policies and underlying beliefs, community discourses, and accountability linked to monolingual curricula and assessment. Discussion will focus on connections between specific discourses of assimilation and plurality and oppressive as compared with transformative policies in multilingual education and will suggest means for disrupting barriers therein.
Brown, T.A. (2015). Confirmatory factor analysis for applied research (2nd ed). New York: Guildford Press. Fitzsimmons-Doolan, S., Palmer, D., & Henderson, K. (2017). Educator language ideologies and a top-down dual language program. International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism, 20(6), 704–721. Flores, N. (2016). A tale of two visions: hegemonic whiteness and bilingual education. Educational Policy, 30(1), 13–38. Heiman, D., & Yanes, M. (2018). Centering the fourth pillar in times of TWBE gentrifcation: "Spanish, love, content, not in that order." International Multilingual Research Journal, 12(3), 173–187. Mortimer, K., & Wortham, S. (2015). Analyzing language policy and social identification across heterogeneous scales. Annual Review of Applied Linguistics, 35, 160–172. Wodak, R., & Fairclough, N. (2010). Recontextualizing European higher education policies: The cases of Austria and Romania. Critical Discourse Studies,7(1), 19–40.
Indexicality and Intertextuality in Multimodal Language Policy Analysis
[SYMP08] AILA ReN - Language Policy Research Network World Congress Syomposia01:15 PM - 04:15 PM (Europe/Amsterdam) 2023/07/20 11:15:00 UTC - 2024/07/20 14:15:00 UTC
The field of language policy and planning (LPP) has traditionally been focused on policy documents and other written texts as foundational data sources. In recent years, however, empirical investigations of language practices, ideologies, and sociolinguistic norms in a wide variety of contexts have engendered a re-conceptualization of what counts as "language policy". This paper presents a framework for multimodal language policy analysis. While language policy scholars have utilized discipline-specific methodological techniques to analyze language in public spaces in, for example, linguistic landscape analyses (Hult, 2018), this paper proposes leveraging the tools from Critical Discourse Studies and Semiotics to examine how a wide range of images and public signs – or "the full range of possible sign vehicles" (Keane, 2018) – deploy, and are appropriated for, language ideologies and policies.
Indexicality and Intertextuality in Multimodal Language Policy Analysis
LPReN #3: Social Justice, Hegemony, and Complicity in Language Policy
The field of language policy and planning (LPP) has traditionally been focused on policy documents and other written texts as foundational data sources. In recent years, however, empirical investigations of language practices, ideologies, and sociolinguistic norms in a wide variety of contexts have engendered a re-conceptualization of what counts as "language policy". This paper presents a framework for multimodal language policy analysis. While language policy scholars have utilized discipline-specific methodological techniques to analyze language in public spaces in, for example, linguistic landscape analyses (Hult, 2018), this paper proposes leveraging the tools from Critical Discourse Studies and Semiotics to examine how a wide range of images and public signs – or "the full range of possible sign vehicles" (Keane, 2018) – deploy, and are appropriated for, language ideologies and policies.
This is part of a larger project focused on developing and refining LPP-specific research methods that are not tethered to their disciplinary homes (Hult & Johnson, 2015). In this paper, I explore a transdisciplinary approach (Halliday, 1990) to language policy analysis, that relies on research in semiotics and indexicality. In particular, I utilize Silverstein's (2003) notion of "indexical order" to examine how public signage indexes macro-social frames, including language policies and ideologies. I argue that the meaning of these signs emerges as a product of intertextuality, or what Agha (2005) calls "semiosis across encounters" whereby features of discourse establish forms of connectivity across speech events. The signs analyzed in this paper comprise bounded speech acts that index larger sociohistorical frameworks. Of particular concern is empirically capturing connections between micro and macro discourses. However, this analysis also raises questions about definitions of what counts as "language policy". While an expanded definition of "language policy" has been incorporated to interrogate issues of social justice and hegemony in language policy, I end with a critique of the idea that language ideologies and practices are language policies.
Agha, A. (2005). Introduction: Semiosis across encounters. Journal of Linguistic Anthropology, 15(1), 1-5. Halliday, M.A.K. (1990). New ways of meaning: The challenge to applied linguistics. Journal of Applied Linguistics 6, 7-36. Hult, F.M. (2018). Language policy and planning and linguistic landscapes. In J.W. Tollefson & M. Pérez-Milans, (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Language Policy and Planning. Oxford University Press. Hult, F.M. & Johnson, D.C. (eds.) (2015). Research Methods in Language Policy and Planning: A Practical Guide. Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell. Keane, W. (2018). On semiotic ideology. Signs & Society, 6(1), 64-87. Silverstein, M. (2003). Indexical order and the dialectics of social life. Language & Communication, 23, 193-229.
Presenters David Johnson Associate Professor, University Of Iowa
Kashif Raza
David Johnson
