The Specter of the Semilingual

• In Event: Raciolinguistic Perspectives on Language and Schooling

Abstract

There has been a long tradition of academic research that has described the language practices of racialized communities from a deficit perspective. While once discussed in overtly racist ways, more contemporary representations take on seemingly more objective discourses such as an alleged “word gap” or difference in “linguistic richness” between White middle class and low-income racialized families (Hart & Risley, 2003).This paper argues that these seemingly objective description are, in fact, raciolinguistic ideologies that obscure racial inequality through a focus on the supposed deficiencies and need to fix racialized communities.

In order to prove this assertion, paper describes the findings of a Foucauldian genealogy (Foucault, 1984) of semilingualism, an idea that emerged in the 1970s as a way of explaining the academic challenges confronted by Latinos in US schools (Cummins, 1976). In contrast to Latino Civil Rights activists who pointed to institutional racism as the primary factor in explaining the academic challenges faced by Latino students (DelValle, 1998), semilingualism posited that the primary factor was their lack of fluency in any language. The paper then traces the ways that the specter of the semilingual continues to be modified throughout the following decades in ways that obscure racial inequality through the perpetuation of a meritocratic myth that increased language proficiency will lead to upward mobility for Latino children. This genealogical work ends with a critical reading of the so-called “Long-Term English Learner” who can be seen as the latest manifestation of the specter of the semilingual (Flores, Kleyn & Menken, 2015).

The paper ends with a call for a new approach to educational linguistics that moves away from attempts to study and modify the language practices of racialized students toward a raciolinguistic perspective that systematically examines the ways that language and race have historically and continue to be co-constructed in US society. This raciolinguistic perspective illuminates the ways that the specter of the semilingual masks racial inequalities by placing the burden on racialized communities to undo centuries of racial oppression without offer a fundamental challenge to white supremacy.

Cummins, J. (1976/2001). The influence of bilingualism on cognitive growth: A synthesis of research findings and explanatory hypotheses. In C. Baker and N. Hornberger (eds.), An introductory reader to the writings of Jim Cummins. (pp. 26-55). Clevedon: Multilingual Matters.

Del Valle, S. (1998). Bilingual education for Puerto Ricans in New York City: From hope to compromise. Harvard Educational Review, 68: 193-217.

Flores, N., Kleyn, T. and Menken, K. (2015). Looking holistically in a climate of partiality: Identities of students labeled ‘long-term English language learners.’ Journal of Language, Identity, and Education. 14, 113-132.

Foucault, M. (1984a). Nietzsche, genealogy, history. In P. Rabinow (ed.), The Foucault reader. (pp. 76-100). New York: Pantheon Books.

Hart, B. & Risley, T. (2003). The early catastrophe: The 30 million word gap by age 3. American Educator, 27, 4-9.

Author

• Nelson Flores, University of Pennsylvania