Interrogating the “Language Line”: Teacher Agency and Implicatedness in Global Language Education

• In Event: Agency and Implicatedness in Postcolonial, Global Contexts of Education: Interrogating Race, Language, Policy, and Practice

Abstract

In a context of capitalism, English is a commodity that, when bought, allows one to gain access to economic, social, and political power. Indeed, capitalism plays a role in maintaining the language line (Hopson, 2003) in educational and social contexts (Heller, 2002; Heller & Duchêne, 2011; Tikly, 2009). Hopson (2003) extended Du Bois's (1903) metaphor of “the color line” to describe the hegemonic nature of attitudes towards language. Just as the color line referred to the reproduction of 'obvious' and 'understood' differences between Whites and people of color, the language line describes reified hierarchies of superior and inferior languages, varieties (African American Vernacular vs. Bostonian), and registers (social vs. academic). This is in contrast to what research in linguistics – beginning with Labov's seminal 1972 work, “The logic of nonstandard English” – has clearly shown: the equivalent internal logic of all languages. The language line is evident in education in terms of language used in textbooks and assessments, and the struggle to embrace multilingualism and multicultural perspectives on language and learning in the context of globalization. Therefore, the central questions discussed in this paper are: how do linguistic discrimination, or linguicism (Phillipson, 1992), and commodification of language reify and sustain each other in education? In what ways are educators implicated in this process, and what efforts can they make towards transformation? To this end, I draw on Anzaldúa’s (1987) understanding of mestiza space in relation to language education to offer one path toward balancing between instruction in language(s) of power, and an embrace of multilingualism in our classrooms and community contexts in global times.

Author

• Beth Dillard­ Paltrineri, University of Minnesota - Twin Cities