The Ideological Construction of "Academic Language"

• In Event: 66.034 - Rethinking and Undoing Academic Language

Abstract

The concept of “academic language” pervades contemporary discourses of language use in educational contexts. Rather than simply taking the notion of “academic language” at face value as a concrete set of linguistic practices associated with formal educational settings, this paper critically reexamines “academic language” by viewing it as a language ideology. Defined broadly, “language ideologies are attitudes, opinions, beliefs, or theories that we all have about language” (Ahearn 2011:20). “Academic language” is a quintessential example of a language ideology in that it represents “a rationalization or justification of perceived language structure and use” (Silverstein 1979:193). The notion of “academic language” positions particular forms as “academic” and, by extension, others as “non-academic.” However, this paper argues that these positions are ideological perceptions rather than direct reflections of language structure or practice.

In educational contexts, language ideologies play a key role in “establishing associations between ‘educated’ and ‘uneducated,’ ‘sophisticated’ and ‘unsophisticated,’ ‘official’ and ‘vernacular’ language use and types of students” (Wortham 2008:43). This paper advances the claim that “academic” and “non-academic” is another such ideologically constructed difference, and seeks to interrogate the implications of this distinction. Powerful allegiances to linguistic norms persist regardless of whether anyone actually adheres to those norms in practice; that is, people embrace notions such as “academic language” even if they cannot locate them empirically. This insight suggests that seeking to identify the specific linguistic practices that constitute “academic language” is a futile effort. Instead, educational language scholars should concern themselves with the ways that “academic language,” as a language ideology, participates in the reproduction of educational inequality across contexts.

In order to advance these claims about the ideologically constructed nature of the distinction between so-called “academic” and “non-academic” linguistic practices, this paper draws from two years of ethnographic and sociolinguistic fieldwork conducted in a predominantly Latina/o Chicago public high school and its surrounding communities. Despite language ideologies that construct “academic” and “non-academic” as mutually exclusive contexts, this paper shows how students reject the “academic”/“non-academic” distinction by simultaneously engaging in linguistic practices associated with each of these spheres. In this context, linguistic practices defined as “academic” are often learned and used effectively outside of formal academic contexts; conversely, linguistic practices defined as “non-academic” are often learned and used effectively in formal academic contexts. The erasure of this fact justifies a vast system of educational and popular language remediation, which works in a feedback loop to reinforce the notion that “academic language” provides readymade access to educational achievement, employment, and other such totems of meritocratic “success.” Thus, “academic language” must be understood not as a linguistic solution to educational underachievement but rather as a language ideology that contributes to the reproduction of inequality.

Ahearn, Laura. (2011). Living language. Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell.

Silverstein, Michael. (1979). Language structure and linguistic ideology. In R. Clyne, W.
Hanks, & C. Hofbauer (Eds.), The Elements: A parasession on linguistic units and
levels (pp. 193-247). Chicago, IL: Chicago Linguistic Society.

Wortham, Stanton. (2008). Linguistic anthropology of education. Annual Review of
Anthropology, 37, 37-51.

Author

• Jonathan Rosa, University of Massachusetts - Amherst