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Session Information
[SYMP35] Family as a language policy regime: Agency, practices and negotiation
20230719T150020230719T1800Europe/Amsterdam[SYMP08] AILA ReN - Language Policy Research Network World Congress Syomposia
[SYMP35] Family as a language policy regime: Agency, practices and negotiationHybrid Session (onsite/online)AILA 2023 - 20th Anniversary Congress Lyon Editioncellule.congres@ens-lyon.fr
Language Learning Policies in the Age of World Englishes- a Case of Historic Exceptionalism?
Oral Presentation[SYMP08] AILA ReN - Language Policy Research Network World Congress Syomposia03:00 PM - 06:00 PM (Europe/Amsterdam) 2023/07/19 13:00:00 UTC - 2024/07/19 16:00:00 UTC
This paper presents text corpora analyses of political and public discourses on foreign language (FL) education alongside statistical data on actual uptake. It does so by comparing both declared (official) FL policy, debated policies and actual uptake of FL learning in a number of different European political entities: Ireland, the 4 nations of the UK, 4 Laender of Germany, and the EU. It thus compares FL education policy making in Anglophone and non Anglophone nation states, as well as those belong to the EU, and not, and addresses the questions: 1. Between Anglophone and non-Anglophone nations, and those part of the EU, and not, how do FL policies compare in respect of: policy and curricula demands for compulsory FL learning? rationales as expressed in curricula policies? 2. How do political (parliamentary) and public (journalistic) debates differ in these respects in these nations? 3. Concerning practised policies, does actual uptake match policy? Does this differ between Anglophone and non-Anglophone entities? How is the learning of a diversity of FL other than English safeguarded? The paper reports on a longitudinal project which examined political debates, journalistic texts and actual FL policy documents using Critical Discourse Analysis and Corpus Lingusitics, combined with latest uptake statistics.
In the context of Global English, and ever-increasing opportunities for (online and offline) English lingua franca communication, the learning of languages other than English (LOTE) is in decline. Anglophone countries in particular have seen language learning uptake decline over the last decades , and across Europe, we observe a drop in the learning of languages other than English. The trends indicate that Global English necessitates a rethink of rationales for learning LOTE- but to what extent do we see evidence of this in discourses around language policy and planning? This book investigates how different nations respond to the changing landscape of language learning, purposefully contrasting two perspectives: that of Anglophone countries (selecting two large Anglophone countries: UK and Ireland), and two non-Anglophone countries/entities. For this perspective, one large European country, Germany, and, as a large pan-national representative, the European Union, are selected. The language education policy of the European Union is chosen as a representative of a concerted response to the Global English challenge. Moreover, the book will investigate discourses at top-down as well as bottom-up levels: public news discourses (gathered via Nexis searches) political discourses (at the appropriate level, e.g. in UK, at the level of the 4 nations) language education policy documents and compare these discourses to statistics on actual uptake of languages, especially LOTE. The discourse analysis will use a range of text tools: Corpus Linguistics (keywords, keywords in context, collocations), Critical Discourse Analysis, thematic analysis, and metaphor analysis. The project bridges theoretical and empirical sociolinguistics and language, multilingualism, education policy and planning, and language ideology.
Presenters Ursula Lanvers Associate Professor In Language Education, University Of York
Oral Presentation[SYMP08] AILA ReN - Language Policy Research Network World Congress Syomposia03:00 PM - 06:00 PM (Europe/Amsterdam) 2023/07/19 13:00:00 UTC - 2024/07/19 16:00:00 UTC
This paper is about building solidarity in language-policy activism. If racialized hierarchies of languages-and of the people who speak them-are so stable, then under what conditions is it possible to unite across difference and combat racial and linguistic stratification?
The project behind the paper examines the Heritage Languages Program (HLP) in Ontario, Canada and the racialized conflicts over it between 1977–1987. Hardly had the ink dried on federal policies for official bilingualism (1969) and multiculturalism (1971) when the HLP and other policies like it were enacted in provinces across Canada (1971-1979). As Haque (2012) argues, official bilingualism was only possible by excluding and erasing demands of Indigenous and other racialized communities for their own linguistic and cultural rights. The HLP challenged the logic of official bilingualism, serving as a site for the renewed racial ordering of, but also for anti-racist resistance in, Ontario schools.
This paper analyzes a temporary alliance (Gale, 2001) among Black, Indigenous, South Asian, Italian, Portuguese, and Francophone communities in Toronto and their activism around the HLP. This paper tells three stories to consider the necessity, difficulties and vulnerabilities in building solidarity in/through/for language-policy activism today. (for LPReN 3)
This paper tells three stories to consider the necessity, difficulties and vulnerabilities in building solidarity in/through/for language-policy activism.
Story 1: By 1982, a racist backlash against the Heritage Language Program had developed in Toronto schools. This backlash centred on an initiative to integrate heritage-language programs into the school day. At public meetings to discuss this initiative, the media described "explosive confrontations" over a "language battle ready to explode" (Spears, 1982, p. A6), with "voices raised in anger against foreign tongues" (T. Star, 1982, p. G6). Harish Shah, a parent of three, described hecklers at one meeting: "They told me next time they'll bring white sheets" (Maychak, 1982, p. A6). In this first story, I focus on how parents from Black, South Asian, Italian, Portuguese and Francophone communities forged a temporary alliance to combat this backlash and expand racially and linguistically just programs in Toronto schools.
Story 2: The story focuses on the conditions that undermined the very solidarity described earlier, specifically how anti-Blackness circulated in advocacy among advocates for heritage-language education. Italian and Portuguese advocates regularly failed to understand the arguments made by Black parents for an expanded conceptualization of heritage languages that would also include Black language practices. Here, I connect this story to my experience of telling it, specifically being challenged as a queer white person whether it is appropriate for me to explore this history at all. I read these challenges not as personalistic, but rather as the consequence of the past failures this story is about. White advocates for heritage-language education excluded the insights and demands of Black advocates in the past. Why would we not be expected to do so again?
Story 3: The third story considers the (in)commensurability of heritage and Indigenous languages. Today, it is taken for granted in Canada that these two categories refer to different language communities. However, the history of the HLP allows for different ways of thinking about this assumption and what solidarity might look like. Whether or not Indigenous communities considered their languages as "heritage languages" is moot: they organized themselves to benefit from this new provincial policy. In fact, by 1983 the province implemented its first policy in support of "Native Languages." What can we learn from this synergy across language communities while understanding and respecting the distinctions between them?
Literature Bale, J. (2016). In defence of language rights: Re-thinking the rights-orientation from a political economy perspective. Bilingual Research Journal, 39, 231–237.
Flores, N., & Chaparro, S. (2018). What counts as language education policy? Developing a materialist anti-racist approach to language activism. Language Policy, 17, 365–384.
Gale, T. (2001). Critical policy sociology: Historiography, archaeology, and genealogy as methods of policy analysis. Journal of Education Policy, 16, 379–93.
Garland, D. (2014). What is a "history of the present"? On Foucault's genealogies and their critical preconditions. Punishment & Society, 16, 365–84.
Haque, E. (2012). Multiculturalism within a bilingual framework: Language, race, and belonging in Canada. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.
(for LPReN 3)
Presenters Jeff Bale Associate Professor, University Of Toronto
Discourses shaping language-in-education policy in Nepal: An intersectional perspective
Oral Presentation[SYMP08] AILA ReN - Language Policy Research Network World Congress Syomposia03:00 PM - 06:00 PM (Europe/Amsterdam) 2023/07/19 13:00:00 UTC - 2024/07/19 16:00:00 UTC
In multilingual contexts such as Nepal, language policy planning has been contested due to the co-existence of multiple contradictory discourses concerning teaching and learning of local, national, foreign, and international languages. Due to this, attempts, both in policy and practice, in creating spaces for minority ethnic/indigenous languages have been complex. This paper explores multiple discursive forces shaping decision-making in language policy, theorizing on the perspective of intersectionality of discourses. While a few studies have paid attention to teaching and learning of the lesser taught languages, exploration of discursive orientations contributing towards enabling (or constraining) the use of such languages in education has yet to receive scholarly attention. Drawing on in-depth interviews with policymakers, headteachers, teachers, students, and their parents of five schools of Nepal, this paper illustrates interplay between broader discourses such as globalisation, neoliberal marketisation and nationalism in shaping language policy decisions and localised practice of language(s), and thereby threatening Nepal's multilingual education and linguistic diversity.
In Nepal, the language policy and planning (LPP) phenomenon has been embedded in complex social structures such as histories, social class, ethnicity, caste, and religion. Language education policy decision-making in schools, therefore, is affected by several discourses pertaining to these social structures, and to values. While the complex interplay of social, educational, geopolitical, and economic aspects of national and international languages has been well documented in the research literature (see, Canagarajah & De Costa, 2016; Poudel & Choi, 2021), how discursive forces such as globalisation, nationalism, ethnicity, social inequalities and equity intersect as inherent part of policy-crafting in the schools' LEP in Nepal deserves scholarly attention. We bring in the construct of 'intersectionality', as well as discourse, to understand how intersecting discursive forces collectively shape LEP decisions at the school level in Nepal. The intersectionality approach does not necessarily involve discourse analysis that adopts analytic tools for exploring the values in the texts (talks and written). We take policies (both formed and enacted) as outcomes of discoursal contestations or negotiations of multiple material (e.g., economic) and social (e.g., identity and mobility) orientations of the subjects of the discourses. Moreover, the recent emergence of increasingly mobile communities has brought multiple but interlocking discursive forces such as globalisation, neoliberal capitalism, nationalism and ethnolinguistic identity into schools and have affected the language policy choices. Some of these are aligned with each other and thus create synergy, while others are in conflict and cancel each other out. In such contexts, the theory of intersectionality as an analytical framework (Gay, 2018) unravels the relationships between different but co-existing and interconnected forces shaping LEP. It also reports how policy actors in Nepal's schools reference dominant (e.g., globalisation and nationalism) and dominated (local ethnolinguistic) discourses and their power relationships while making LPP decisions. The dominant forces, such as globalisation, neoliberal marketisation, and nationalism, have attributed to ascendence of English-only monolingualism-in-practice in the schooling contexts of Nepal since the beginning of formal schooling in mid-nineteenth century, contrasting with macro multilingual policies' imagined goal of sustaining linguistic diversity that has promoted ethnic/indigenous languages since the last decade of twentieth century. Hence, these findings have important implications for Nepal and similar multilingual contexts globally in relation to their language policy and planning initiatives that aim at promoting linguistic diversity. References Canagarajah, S., & De Costa, P. (2016). Introduction: Scales analysis, and its uses and prospects in educational linguistics. Language and Education, 34, 1–10. Gay, G. (2018). Foreword: Considering another view of intersectionality. In N. P. Carter & M. Vavrus (Eds.), Intersectionality of race, ethnicity, class and gender in teaching and teacher education (pp. vii–vxi). Brill Sense. Johnson, D. C. (2011). Critical discourse analysis and the ethnography of language policy. Critical Discourse Studies, 8(4), 267–279. Poudel, P. P., & Choi, T.-H. (2021). Policymakers' agency and the structure: The case of medium of instruction policy in multilingual Nepal. Current Issues in Language Planning, 22(1-2), 79–98.
Presenters Prem Prasad Poudel Assistant Professor, Tribhuvan University, NepalTaehee Choi Associate Professor, University Of Southampton
The trajectory and impact of French language policy in francophone Africa: trends, challenges, and opportunities
Oral Presentation[SYMP08] AILA ReN - Language Policy Research Network World Congress Syomposia03:00 PM - 06:00 PM (Europe/Amsterdam) 2023/07/19 13:00:00 UTC - 2024/07/19 16:00:00 UTC
France's colonial linguistic assimilation policy which imposed a French-only medium of instruction has been cited as a barrier to optimal education in French and in other subjects. Consequently, linguists and educators have advocated for education policy that place African languages, and French at the center of nations' national development through bilingual and multilingual educational models. Piloted models implemented in countries such Niger, Mali, and Burkina Faso, have demonstrated the potential for success. However, implementation has been hindered due to lack of political will, recent sociolinguistic developments including the change in linguistic capital. Through an educational framework, this study systematically reviews selected studies on educational models implemented in francophone west African nations from early post-colonial era to today. The review will consider their successes, challenges and call to mind whether francophone west African nations should maintain the use of French, promote African languages to higher functions as French, or adopt a new policy that will use the multilingual setting as a resource to improve on the learning of the colonial and African languages. Improving on education, developing human capital, increasing social and national development of francophone Africa are all embodied in the mastering of colonial and African languages.
For most former French colonies in Africa, the transition from colonial policies to independence remains incomplete as colonial languages continue to serve as privileged official languages of greater usefulness in economic and social development. In Francophone west Africa, the role of French as official language in education, mass communication, and in administration means that majority of the population is exempted from actively participating and benefitting from the educational and economic development of their societies. This is because about 90% of the population are not literate in the official language. Consequently, the post-colonial advocacy of "French-only" medium of instruction that had been established through France's policy of cultural assimilation has received criticisms for several decades. Academic inefficiencies, high school drop-out rate, and illiteracy have been attributed to the use of French as the language of learning and teaching of school children who mostly use variety of African languages in their linguistic communities. Hence, linguists and educators have argued for language policies that place African languages at the center of African nation's education and national development. The benefits for every child to receive literacy through his or her mother tongue has been extensively and less arguably established, but limited focus has been placed on the level of implementation that appear to have remained a challenge due to lack of political will, and sociolinguistic developments within each nation. Through educational framework, this study systematically reviews selected work on educational language policies and implementations in francophone west Africa from 1960s to today. Recent work has shifted away from a long-standing focus on French-only and African language-only models. Currently, more emphasis is being placed on bilingual and multilingual language policies where French and African languages co-exist in education. Results from experimental models in Niger, Mali, and Burkina Faso have demonstrated how French and African languages used as languages of instruction impacted student learning. These experiments showed challenges but also successes that indicate ways in which they represent a prospective choice for francophone nations. Nevertheless, these models have not been fully embraced for reasons that will be presented. This paper also aims at evaluating the current status and roles of African languages and French in various functions. For instance, the widespread use of French as the first language in a significant number of African children in urban areas has been identified. This sociolinguistic development calls for educational considerations that were not necessary during early post-colonial era. This study ends with suggestions for future research deriving from recent developments in language shift between colonial languages, advocacy for maintenance of colonial language and/or the possibility of promoting more African languages to higher or more impactful status. Reviewing how French language has evolved will help linguists, educators, and policymakers, to consider a more informed, historically grounded and politically engaged policies that will allow francophone nations in west Africa to benefit from their multilingual settings to improve on their learning of African and colonial languages and advance in education as a whole.
Bibliography Albaugh, E.A. (2009). The Colonial Image Reversed: Language Preference and Policy Outcomes in African Education. International Studies Quarterly, 53 (2), 389-420. Alidou,, H. (2000). Stratégies pour le développement un secteur editorial en langues nationales dans les pays du sahel Burkina Faso, Mali, Niger et Sénégal, London: Groupe de Travail sur les Livres et le Matériel Educatif. Annamalai, E. (2003). Reflections on language policy for multilingualism. Language Policy, 2, 113–132. Bamgbose, A. (1991). Language and the nation: The language question in Sub-Saharan Africa. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. Bokamba E.G. (1984). French Colonial Language in Africa And its Legacies (part1). Studies in the Linguistic Sciences. 14 (2), 1-35. ___1981. Language and national development in Sub-Saharan Africa: a progress report. Studies in the Linguistic Sciences 11(1), 1-26. ___ 1984. Language and literacy in West Africa. In R.B. Kaplan, ed. Annual Review of Applied Linguistics, vol. 4: Literacy Issues, pp. 40-74. Rowley, MA: Newbury House Publishers. __and J.S. Tlou. (1977). The consequences of the language policies of African states vis-a-vis education. In P,A. Kotey and H. Der-Houssikian, Bolibaugh, J.B. (1972). Educational development in Guinea, Mali, Senegal, and Ivory Coast. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office. Crowder, M. (1967). West Africa under colonial rule, Evanston, IL: North- western University Press. De Klerk, V. (2002). Language issues in our schools: Whose voice counts? Part 1: The Parents Speak. Perspectives in Education, 20 (1), 1 -14. Denny, N. (1963). Languages and education in Africa. In J. Spencer, ed., op. cit., pp. 40-52. Kahane, H. and Kahane, R. (1979) Decline and survival of Western prestige languages. Language, 55(1), 183-98. Kamwangamalu, N.M. (2009). Reflections on the language policy balance sheet in Africa. Language Matters: Studies in the Languages of Africa, 40 (2), 133–144. Kanana, F.E. (2013). Examining African languages as tools for national development: The case of Kiswahili. The Journal of Pan African Studies, 6 (6), 41-68. Krashen, S.D. (1976) "Formal and informal linguistic environments in language acquisition and language learning," TESOL Quarterly, 10, 157–68. Lodhi, A.Y. (1993). The language situation in Africa today. Nordic Journal of African Studies, 2 (1), 79–86. Mazrui, A. (1997). The World Bank, the language question and the future of African education. Race and Class, 38/3, 35–48. Nikièma, N. (2011). A first-language-first multilingual model to meet the quality imperative in formal basic education in three 'francophone' West African countries. International Review of Education, 57, 599-616. Orekan, G. (2011). Mother tongue medium as an efficient way of challenging educational disadvantages in Africa: The case of Nigeria. Scottish Languages Review, 23, 27-38. Prah, K. (2003). Going Native: Language of Instruction for Education, Development and African Emancipation. In B. Brock-Utne, Z. Desai., & M. Qorro (Eds.), Language of instruction in Tanzania and South Africa (LOITASA (pp. 14-35). Dar es Salaam: E & D Publishers. Teferra, D., and Altbach, P.G. (2004). African higher education: Challenges for the 21st Century. Higher Education, 47, 21-50. UNESCO. (2009). Advocacy brief on mother tongue-based teaching and education for girls. Bangkok: UNESCO.
Presenters Antoinette Barffour Assistant Professor, Missouri State University - Springfield, MO
Ursula Lanvers
Jeff Bale
Prem Prasad Poudel
Taehee Choi
Antoinette Barffour
