Documenti di Didattica
Documenti di Professioni
Documenti di Cultura
POST-COLONIAL SCHOOLING
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McKinney
Language and Power in Post-Colonial Schooling: Ideologies in Practice: Crosscurrents
and Complexities in Literacy Classrooms
Fecho/Clifton
Dialoguing across Cultures, Identities, and Learning
Mirra/Garcia/Morrell
Doing Youth Participatory Action Research:Transforming Inquiry with Researchers,
Educators, and Students
Kumagai/Lpez-Snchez/Wu (Eds.)
Multiliteracies in World Language Education
Vasquez
Negotiating Critical Literacies with Young Children: 10th Anniversary Edition, Second
Edition
Janks
Doing Critical Literacy:Texts and Activities for Students and Teachers
Basterra/Trumbull/Solano-Flores (Eds.)
Cultural Validity in Assessment: A Guide for Educators
Chapman/Hobbel (Eds.)
Social Justice Pedagogy across the Curriculum:The Practice of Freedom
SCHOOLING
Ideologies in Practice
Carolyn McKinney
First published 2017
by Routledge
711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017
and by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, OX14 4RN
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
2017 Taylor & Francis
The right of Carolyn McKinney to be identified as author of this work
has been asserted by her in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the
Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
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Typeset in Bembo
by diacriTech, Chennai
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Introduction 1
Index 173
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FOREWORD
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accounts of work with students in the U.S. who speak a non-dominant language
(mainly Spanish) or a non-dominant variety of English (mainly, African American
English). Large flows of people across national boundaries make monolingual
classrooms the exception, not the norm, particularly in urban contexts. Education
has to have a better way of meeting the language needs of all students. McKinney
has opened the way for a more hopeful approach to language education.
In my view, it should be required reading for teachers, testers and policy
makers everywhere. It is time that policy and practice caught up with new and
better knowledge about language.
Hilary Janks
February, 2016
References
Barthes, R. 1972. Mythologies. London: Paladin.
Bourdieu, P. 1991. Language and Symbolic Power (J. B. Thompson, Trans.). Cambridge:
PolityPress.
Gee, J. 1990. Social Linguistics and Literacies. London: Falmer Press.
Gonzales, N., Moll, C. and Amanti, C. (eds.) 2006. Funds of Knowledge:Theorizing Practices in
Households, Communities, and Classrooms. London and New York: Routledge.
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PREFACE
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How is it possible that the most valuable resource a child brings to formal schooling,
language, can be consistently recast as a problem?
The purpose of this book is to expose, and deepen our understanding of, the
way in which beliefs about language profoundly influence childrens access to
quality education around the world.The notion of what language is, and the rela-
tionship between language, society and diversity, has undergone paradigm shifts in
language disciplines such as Sociolinguistics, Linguistic Anthropology and Applied
Linguistics. However I argue that these shifts have made little impact on policy,
curricula and classroom practice in language and literacy education. My aim is to
highlight the implications of these paradigm shifts for language and literacy edu-
cation. In order to do this, I draw on fields of inquiry that are related but often not
brought together within the same study: Bilingualism, TESOL, Multiculturalism,
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innovative examples of language and literacy pedagogy from SouthAfrica and the
USA that do position children as linguistically resourceful, and expose the injus-
tices of language and power to children.
The analyses presented and arguments made in this book are relevant to
contexts of inequality and diversity, and especially relevant in contexts with a
history of institutionalized racism across the Global North and South. I explicitly
draw connections to post-colonial contexts as well as to the USA.
For student readers and teaching purposes, I end Chapters 17 with questions
for further thought and discussion as well as suggestions for further reading on
the topic. The questions are designed to ensure understanding of key theoret-
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ical concepts as well as to enable readers to apply such concepts to their own
educational contexts.
Overall, the book aims to inspire change in language policy and curriculum,
assessment practices, learning materials and, particularly, classroom practice.
Myhope is that the book will have some impact on shifting the deficit positioning
of children from non-dominant backgrounds on account of their language
resources.
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
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There are a number of people I would like to thank for their different roles
in inspiring, supporting and encouraging me to write and complete this book.
Iexpress deep gratitude to Pam Christie, who convinced me that I should write the
book in the first place and who supported me in many different ways throughout
the journey. I feel honored to be publishing this book in Sonia Nietos Language,
Culture and Teaching Series, and am very grateful to Sonia and p ublishing editor
Naomi Silverman, for their enthusiasm and belief in the project right from the
outset and all the way through. I want to acknowledge Hilary Janks, whose critical
literacy work first ignited my interest in language and power, and from whom
Ihave learned so much, as well as Bonny Norton and Theresa Lillis for their inspi-
ration and support. I was incredibly fortunate in having a generous colleague like
Heather Jacklin who offered me a wonderful space to write. My dear colleagues
Pinky Makoe and Rochelle Kapp very generously read and gave critical feedback
on my draft chapters thank you so much!
I thank the University of Cape Town research office, and Mignonne Breier
in particular, for enabling my participation in the Mont Fleur writing retreats
that made writing so pleasurable. I am also grateful to the many Masters and
PhD students with whom I have discussed and debated the ideas in this book.
Iespecially want to acknowledge previous Masters students Alex Marshall,
Laura Layton and Hannah Carrim, who agreed to the use of data from their
research, as well as current graduate students Soraya Abdulatief, Xolisa Guzula
and Robyn Tyler. I am very fortunate to be able to work with such fabulous
people! I would not have completed this book without the support of my ded-
icated colleagues in the Friday Shut Up and Write! Thula Ubhale group, and
Iam immensely grateful to them for making writing a sociable and pleasurable
activity. Last, but of course not least, a huge thank you to my long-suffering
xxAcknowledgements
friends (you know who you are) and family. And a special thank you to Di,
who having been subjected to endless discussions on our mountain runs prob-
ably knows more about the content of the book than anyone else! My partner
John and my children Luka and Noah have been incredibly supportive and
understanding of my absences. Enkosi kakhulu/Baie dankie almal/Ke a leboga/
Muchas Gracias.
I gratefully acknowledge the permission granted for the re-use of material
from the following publications:
suburban schools. Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development 35(7): 116. DOI:
10.1080/01434632.2014.908889 (Taylor & Francis)
Makoe, P. and McKinney, C. 2009. Hybrid discursive practices in a South African multilin-
gual primary classroom: A case study. English Teaching Practice and Critique 8(2): 8095.
(University of Waikato)
Maungedzo, R. and Newfield, D. (eds.). 2005. Thebuwa Poems from Ndofaya Lamula Jubilee
High School Soweto. Johannesburg: Denise Newfield and Wits Multiliteracies Project.
(Sunboys Praise Poem and The Tsonga Me; Thando Tshabalalas Soweto for
YoungFreaks)
McKinney, C. with Carrim, H., Layton, L. and Marshall, A. 2015. What counts as lan-
guagein South African Schooling? Monoglossic ideologies and childrens participation.
AILA Review 28(1): 103126. (John Benjamins)
McKinney, C. 2011. Asymmetrical relations of knowing: Pedagogy, discourse and identity
in a de(re)segregated school. Journal of Education 51: 2951. (UKZN)
McKinney, C. 2010. Schooling in black and white: Assimilationist discourses and subversive
identity performances in a desegregated South African girls school. Race, Ethnicity &
Education 13(2): 191207. (Taylor & Francis)
McKinney, C. 2007. If I speak English does it make me less black anyway? Race and
English in South African desegregated schools. English Academy Review 24(2): 624.
(Taylor & Francis)
McKinney, C. 2014. Moving between ekasi and the suburbs: The mobility of linguis-
tic resources in a South African de(re)segregated school. In Mastin Prinsloo, Chris
Stroud (eds.), Educating for Language and Literacy Diversity. Basingstoke, U.K.: Palgrave
MacMillan.
Phemba Mfundi Journal 2014 IJenali Yemibhalo Yabantwana Journal of Learner Writing.
EastLondon: Nelson Mandela Institute for Education and Rural Development,
pp.2122.
INTRODUCTION
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Sumaya: ok I feel like that like I hardly talk in class because of the way Inormally
speak like Im scared to talk in class because of the way I speak. Ispeak differently
from the way they do the way the rest of them do. (Home language speaker of Cape
Flats English, Cape Town Girls Grade 10)
Sumaya speaks English as a home language, but feels silenced in school because
she speaks a non-dominant variety of English with a non-prestigious accent.
Asit happens, she is a 16-year-old teen attending school in South Africa, but her
predicament is shared by an increasing number of young people in a globaliz-
ing world whose linguistic resources are regarded as different from mainstream
school versions of English, and therefore viewed as inadequate. Sumaya is thus
no different to the vast majority of children around the world, who arrive at
school with an astonishing capacity for meaning-making and an immense curi-
osity about the world around them. However, at school, the form of English she
speaks and her accent mark her as different and other. To erase these feelings of
otherness she retreats into silence.
This problem is not limited to non-mainstream varieties of English. There are
many children whose non-dominant language resources are invisible to teachers
because they are not speakers of the legitimate official language of the school. In
most post-colonial contexts, this language is, of course, English. Children such as
these are often positioned as being without any linguistic resources at all as is
evident in the following comment by the deputy principal of an urban English
medium primary school in Johannesburg, South Africa, who described African
language speaking children coming to his school from rural areas as kids [. . .]
who have basically no language (Makoe, 2007, 66). The consequences of this
are dire for these students. They are deprived of the capacity to be heard (or in
2Introduction
Blommaerts terms [2005], voice) and they are also deprived of the o pportunity
to learn through using familiar linguistic and communicative resources. Children
who speak different forms of English struggle to have their language use
recognized and acknowledged, whether they speak African American English,
or are emergent Spanish/English bilinguals in the USA or African language
speakers in South African schools. Their situation resonates with struggles over
the recognition of language resources in post-colonial contexts worldwide.
This book aims to answer the disturbing question:
How is it possible that the most valuable resource a child brings to formal schooling,
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To answer this question, I explore the ways in which language ideologies peoples
beliefs about what language is, as well as what particular uses of language point
to or index are central in shaping whose language resources count in formal
schooling, which languages (and varieties of language) are chosen as languages of
instruction, and how language is taught. For Sumaya, the fact that her variety of
English is not recognized as the legitimate language in her schooling context is
linked to complex relationships of language and power. Language/power relation-
ships enable the language use of dominant groups to be privileged over others,
and for this to be normalized as a matter of course. This book seeks to illuminate
the complex relationships between language and power in schooling, and the
ways in which language is involved in the reproduction of inequality in schools.
I argue that changing the ways in which we understand what language is as well
as what counts as legitimate language resources for learning is a central step in
disrupting the reproduction of inequality.
In this regard, it is important to consider developments in the scholarship on
language and society, which has undergone several paradigm shifts in recent years
(Blommaert and Rampton, 2011). We now understand that languages are not sta-
ble, discrete or bounded entities. English, the name we may give to the resources
Sumaya deploys, exists along a continuum with fuzzy boundaries, and what is rec-
ognized as English in one geographical location may not necessarily be recognized
as such in another (Prinsloo, 2012). In contrast to the mythic view of language as
a stable, and clearly bounded entity, is the reality of diverse language and semiotic
practices in everyday life, where people may draw on resources from more than
one named language and more than one variety or register. Language[s] is cur-
rently understood as a socially, culturally, politically and historically situated set of
resources (Blommaert and Rampton, 2011, Heller, 2007) and as part of a multi-
modal1 repertoire that is used in meaning-making.The recognition of the central-
ity of non-linguistic modes in meaning-making helps us to get to grips with the
embodied nature of meaning-making. These shifts have significant implications
for our understanding of what it means to know [a] language. They also have
challenging implications for the description and analysis of everyday language use
Introduction 3
and Torres-Guevarra, 2010, May, 2014, Ricento, 2006, Spotti and Kroon, 2015).
More commonly, as succinctly argued in the US context by Celia Genishi and
Anne Haas Dyson, institutions like schools work to suppress the inherent vari-
ability of language by authorizing uniformity (2009, 13). Increasing transnational
and translocal mobility (both physical and virtual through the Internet) makes
individual sociolinguistic flexibility essential for enabling people to communicate
successfully across a range of languages and modes, as well as varieties of a named
language. However, schools around the world, including in South Africa, fre-
quently operate as if all people do or should use one language in the same way.This
ideology of homogenous standard languages also underpins standardized testing
of language and literacy, which proceeds from the assumption that there is a single
best way to speak and to write (Genishi and Dyson, 2009, 12). Needless to say,
this ideology promotes the standard languages and language practices of powerful
groups. Global and national language and literacy testing agendas continue to
impose linguistic uniformity, while the realities of diverse language practices ren-
der such tests invalid. One of the reasons for writing this book is to engage with
these issues, which are taken up in Chapters 2 and 3.
There is much to be learnt about the problems of monolingual ideologies from
language policies in post-apartheid South Africa including the assumption that
monolingualism in a single mainstream variety of a language is the norm. South
Africa has a notorious history of ignoring the resources that Black and non-
middle-class children bring with them to formal schooling and lamenting instead
what the average child does not have/know and cannot do.This is starkly apparent
in relation to learners language resources,2 which are characterized as a problem
either if they are resources other than mainstream English (Makoe, 2007, Makoe
and McKinney 2014) or if they do not approximate the standard pure form of
a language. This applies not only to English, but also in the case of the named
official African languages as well as Afrikaans (Vinjevold, 1999, NEEDU report
2012). This ideological stance is echoed in the denigration of teachers use of
diverse language resources in classrooms, where practices such as the use of more
than one named language in the same space, (e.g. code-switching3) are officially
discouraged. It is also in evidence when the use of English in ways that do not
align with White ways of speaking are stigmatized. Monolingual ideologies have
4Introduction
taught are key to achieving social justice in education. This argument has been
convincingly made by a number of critical language and literacy researchers
and teachers.4 But there are different and often competing understandings of
social justice and of how best to achieve it in language and literacy education.
Philosopher Nancy Fraser (1995, 2000, 2005, 2008) argues for a complex
three-dimensional approach to social justice that goes beyond the redistri-
bution of resources that are currently grossly unequally distributed. Fraser
acknowledges the ways in which sustained cultural domination (1995, 71)
(such as having to access education through a colonial or unfamiliar language)
and economic disadvantage are deeply entangled and mutually supporting.
Thus in her view [p]eople who are subject to both cultural injustice and
economic injustice need both recognition and redistribution (1995, 74).
Alongside economic redistribution and cultural recognition, Fraser adds the
third key element of political representation, i.e. taking account of who gets to
participate in political decision-making and acknowledging the complexities
of this in an increasingly globalized world (Fraser, 2008).
Frasers approach to social justice has been applied in educational debates
about inequality and achieving social justice through schooling (Keddie, 2012;
Christie, in press) as well as debates on the purpose of schooling. For example, the
redistribution of resources has been related to the need for the redistribution of
powerful knowledge for students from marginalized backgrounds (Zipin, Fataar,
and Brennan, 2015). Some have argued that inequality is reproduced through
schooling because marginalized children (whether on the basis of social class, race,
gender, immigrant status or other) are not given an equal opportunity to access
powerful knowledge (Young, 2008) or powerful literacies (see Delpit, 1988).
However, in thinking about the achievement of social justice through educa-
tion, the need for recognition of non-dominant groups socio-cultural resources
forces us to question the construct of powerful knowledge, and how it is selected
and constructed, as well as whose knowledge is visible and invisible, included or
excluded from official curricula. In Frasers sense, recognition means not only
acknowledging the resources children bring with them to school, but foregrounds
the need to expand what counts as powerful knowledge as well as teaching
children to interrogate relations of power.The notion of recognition also reminds
Introduction 5
us that how we give access to knowledge and language and literacy resources, that
is the pedagogical choices we make, are as important as what resources we give
access to. All children need to be recognized and positioned as legitimate learn-
ers who bring with them valuable resources for learning. The fact that only the
language and literacy resources of dominant groups are recognized as powerful
or legitimate is, however, linked to the problem of representation. In education
policy making, and in the case of the prescribed South African curriculum and its
revisions, a monolingual habitus has informed the approach to language and lit-
eracy in the curriculum. Who informs curriculum decisions, especially in terms
of their own language resources, histories and social class, as well as racial posi-
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tionings, matters.
Frasers calls for redistribution and recognition alongside representation resonate
strongly with long-held debates in language and literacy education. Researchers
and teachers have often been divided over the need to provide students with access
to dominant languages and literacies (such as in calls for explicit pedagogy, reading
recovery programs and Australian genre pedagogy) versus the need to acknowl-
edge, and enable children to build on, the frequently marginalized language and
literacy resources that they bring with them to school. Such acknowledgement
entails effectively challenging what counts as powerful language use, thus involv-
ing political representation as well.
There are also approaches to language and literacy education that explicitly
aim at bringing together the seemingly incompatible goals of access to power-
ful forms of language and literacy, i.e. redistribution of powerful resources, and
the recognition of diverse language and literacy resources. We can see the three
goals of redistribution, recognition and representation in synthesis models such as
Hilary Janks model of critical literacy (2010) and the multiliteracies framework
(New London Group, 2000). Janks (2010) argues for
educational policy makers the paradigm shifts that have been taking place in
the study of language in society (Chapters 1 and 2);
secondly, to show the contradictions between recent conceptualising of
language and language practices and the dominant normative views of
language constructed at the macro level in educational policies and curricula
as well as at the micro level of everyday practice in schools (Chapters 3, 4
and 5); and
thirdly, to show hopeful examples of childrens language and literacy prac-
tices that resist the imposed monolingual norm as well as transformative
pedagogical approaches that position children as linguistically resourceful
(Chapters 6, 7 and 8).
Fairclough resists talking about the relationship between language and society
because in his view, language cannot be separated from the social language
constitutes the social. This aligns with a central insight of post-structuralism,
namely the constitutive force of discourse. In relation to the object of named
languages, colonial linguistics has shown us how the work of missionaries in
codifying language in use in particular geographical areas in Southern Africa con-
structed or invented, to use Makoni and Pennycooks (2007) term, a range of
discrete languages which could be named, for example, isiXhosa and isiZulu.
(This is taken up in Chapter 2.)
8Introduction
(Davies, 1989, 1990, 2000; Davies & Harr, 1999; Weedon, 1997). Following a
Foucauldian approach, discourse is not just a descriptor for language in use,
but signals ways of organising meaning that are both linguistic and embodied.
Discourses are practices that systematically form the objects of which they speak
(Foucault, 1972, 49). Discourses both open up and close down possibilities for
meaning-making and understanding, and it is within the discursive systems of
power/knowledge (pouvoir/savoir) [ . . . that we . . . ] take up subject positions
(Pennycook, 1994, 128). Sumayas discourse at the opening of the chapter shows
how she has categorized and constructed herself as different from the norm
in her class, taking up this subject position. Such subjective sense of difference
is linked to discourses circulating in her classroom and school about legitimate
language use. These discourses are in turn connected to broader socio-political
and socio-historical discourses about language
While Sumaya might constitute herself as different from the norm and as
silenced in the classroom, in informal discussion with her peer and myself she
takes up a different positioning and claims her right to speak. This illustrates how
subjectivity (or the sense of oneself) is not unified and fixed, but rather is in
process and discursively constituted in different ways which are sometimes con-
tradictory in different moments (Weedon, 1997, Davies, 2000). Thus subjectivity
can be understood as a conscious site of struggle between competing discourses
in which the individual plays an active role. This struggle, Weedon (1997) argues,
enables individuals to resist being positioned in particular ways and to produce
new meanings from conflicting discourses. Resistance thus conceptualised relies
on Foucauldian notions of power. Key elements of the latter that inform my
understanding of language and power in this book are that power not only oper-
ates as domination, but potentially also
dren the (mis)recognition (Bourdieu, 1991, 62) of English as the only legiti-
mate resource for learning without providing them with meaningful access to
the set of resources named as English, or to the broader curriculum. Children
acquire the language ideologies legitimizing English without gaining meaning-
ful access to English as a resource. At the same time, monolingual ideologies
exclusively recognizing prestige varieties of English teach children to devalue the
non-English languages and non-mainstream varieties of English that that they
bring with them to school, and continue to use on a daily basis. This injustice is
a widespread problem the real language problem in schooling.
use in schools in South Africa is the visibility of the ways in which language use
is racialised. In my view, lack of recognition of (mostly Black) childrens linguistic
resources due to the dominance of English in South African schools and in other
post-colonial contexts is a form of racism. South African schools thus provide a
challenging and illuminating context in which to research social justice and social
inequality in language and literacy education.
The tools of linguistic ethnography8 informed all the research projects drawn
on in this book and in each case I will sketch the context necessary to under-
stand what kind of schooling situation is presented. Chapters 4, 5 and 6 all
draw substantially from a research project on Language, Identity, Inclusion and
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Exclusion conducted in South African schools that were designated for White
children during apartheid and physically located in historically White suburbs in
Johannesburg and Cape Town. Such schools, one primary and four secondary
schools, all became desegregated post-apartheid. Collectively, these schools pres-
ent a picture of historically White schools in South Africa as a space where the
power of whiteness continues, despite the post-apartheid shift in political power.
Data collection involved fieldworkers (including myself) observing in schools for
two full days of the week for a minimum of two school terms with observation
captured in field notes and video and audio recording as well as group and indi-
vidual interviews and informal conversations with students and teachers. Some
high school students carried digital recorders to capture out of class language
practices. The focus in secondary schools was on the Year 10 students (1516
years old) and in the primary school on Year 1 students (67 years old).
The primary school and three of the secondary schools (one all girls and two
co-ed) were situated in the urban metropolis of Johannesburg, and one all girls
school was situated in Cape Town. The Johannesburg primary and all girls high
school were what Orfield (2004) has described as resegregated, that is they were
attended by Black children only and no longer attracted White students. All of the
schools used English as the language of instruction with English offered as a home
or first language only. While government-funded schools, they all charged fees
and thus would be placed on the elite end of public schooling in South Africa. It is
however important to recognize the huge range that exists even at the elite end of
public schooling in South Africa. The Johannesburg primary and girls-only high
schools charged fees significantly lower than the other schools and only 50% of
students paid fees with the majority coming from working class backgrounds.The
primary school ran a feeding scheme. The two co-ed schools and the Cape Town
girls school on the other hand were far wealthier, serving mainly middle-class and
upper-middle-class students.
Chapter Overview
I turn now to an overview of the chapters to follow. Chapter 1 explores the ques-
tion of what counts as [a] language, or as legitimate language use, in schooling.
12Introduction
Iintroduce the study of language ideologies and give an overview of recent shifts
in our understanding of languages as artefacts or social constructs as well as het-
eroglossic approaches to describing and understanding language in use. Chapter2
extends the conversation on what counts as language with a specific focus on
education policy and curricula in South Africa and post-colonial Anglophone
contexts. I look at the consequences of language policies in schools on childrens
opportunities to participate in learning and in processes of meaning-making in
the classroom. Chapter 3 focuses on whose language resources count in schooling
in the United States and in South Africa. I explore the striking parallels between
the positioning of users of African American language and Spanish/English bilin-
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guals or emergent bilinguals, with the positioning of Black children whose home
languages are indigenous to South Africa.
Chapters 46 present an analysis of discourses and language practices in
five historically White, now desegregated schools. In Chapter 4 I introduce
the notion of Anglonormativity to describe the dominant language ideology that
makes proficiency in particular forms of standard English compulsory, and
analyse the ways in which this is racialised and classed. I show how English
monolingualism in a particular prestige variety is continually constructed as
the most prized asset while multilingual repertoires and use of non-prestige
varieties of English are conversely constructed as problems. Chapter 5 presents
an in-depth analysis of one English/Language Arts lesson with Grade 10 girls
illustrating how Anglonormativity further entrenches the power and authority
exercised by the White, middle-class teacher. While the English class is char-
acterised as a contact zone (Pratt, 1991), I show the missed opportunities to
recognize the students experiences and ways of knowing. The case illustrates
the consequences of Anglonormativity and monoglossic positioning of students
in the micro-practices of everyday lessons.
The data analysed in Chapters 4 and 5 shows the injustices of positioning
students as deficient meaning-makers, through invoking Anglonormative and
monolingual ideologies in schools. In contrast to this, in Chapter 6 I fore-
ground students agency in interrupting Anglonormativty through their cre-
ative, heteroglossic language practices. Despite the language regimes of schools,
studentsare frequently able to reposition their officially marginalized resources
in everyday practices of meaning-making. Continuing this theme of hope,
Chapter7presents three cases of transgressive or transformative language and lit-
eracy pedagogies from the USA and South Africa that actively work to reposition
learners as resourceful meaning-makers and to interrogate the unjust relationship
between language and power as it is currently constituted. Finally, Chapter 8
concludes the book, drawing attention to some of the difficulties in implement-
ing transformative language and literacy pedagogies and in challenging domi-
nant language ideologies, but also reminding us of how much has already been
achieved by innovative language and literacy teachers and researchers in many
parts of theworld.
Introduction 13
Conclusion
Throughout the book I am arguing for a paradigm shift in the ways in which
we approach language in education: in language in education policy; in lan-
guage curricula and classrooms; and in language teacher education. This is
central to realizing a social justice agenda which takes seriously the complex
inter-related goals of redistribution, recognition and representation (Fraser,
2008). Dominant monolingual language ideologies I will argue not only posi-
tion multilinguals as deficient meaning-makers but also disadvantage mono-
lingual speakers of powerful languages such as Mainstream United States
English because they keep these children monolingual. In a context where
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Notes
1 Multimodality acknowledges that meaning-making draws on a range of representa-
tional resources of which language is only one. It focuses on meaning-making across a
range of modes, e.g. image, gesture, gaze, sound, writing, music and speech (Kress and
van Leeuwen, 2001; Jewitt, 2008).
2 In contrast to this, research which foregrounds childrens language resources includes
Bloch (2002) Janks and Comber (2006), Prinsloo (2004) and Stein (2008).
3 Code-switching is defined as the juxtaposition of elements from two (or more)
languages or dialects. (McCormick, 2001, 447). This definition will be interrogated
in Chapter 1.
4 Notable examples are Alexander (1999), Alim (2010), Corson (1997), Cummins (2000),
Gee (1990), Janks (2010) and Nieto (2010).
5 Subjectivity sense of oneself - here is used to signal what others have termed identity.
Weedon (1997) points out that poststructuralist accounts prefer the term subjectivity as
it signals a move away from the notion of an essentialist, core, or unified sense of self.
6 As described by Wikipedia, Rhodes Must Fall (#RhodesMustFall) is a protest move-
ment that began on 9 March 2015, originally directed against a statue at the University
of Cape Town (UCT) that commemorates Cecil Rhodes.The campaign for the statue's
removal received global attention and led to a wider movement to decolonise educa-
tion across South Africa (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhodes_Must_Fall).
7 Notably, Oriel College in Oxford, UK (www.theguardian.com/education/2015/
dec/22/oxford-students-campaign-cecil-rhodes-statue-oriel-college) and Yale
University, Brown and Princeton in the USA (www.nybooks.com/articles/2016/
01/14/the-trouble-at-yale/?sub_key=5684aeb2677b9).
8 I align with Rampton et al.s definition (2014, 2): Linguistic ethnography generally
holds that to a considerable degree, language and the social world are mutually shap-
ing, and that close analysis of situated language use can provide both fundamental and
14Introduction
distinctive insights into the mechanisms and dynamics of social and cultural production
in everyday activity. Linguistic ethnography is particularly powerful in showing how
processes of structure and agency are entangled at various scale levels and that there
are different kinds of constraining processes that occur at various scales (Wortham
and Rhodes, 2013, 539). Such relations may be resisted individually or collectively at
different scale levels. See also Blommaert and Dong Jie, 2010; Lillis, 2008; Snell, Shaw
and Copland, 2015.
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Introduction 17
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1
WHAT COUNTS AS [A] LANGUAGE?
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Language Ideologies
The ways in which people value languages and speakers differently and frequently
position each other differentially in relation to the ways in which they use lan-
guage and the kinds of language they use is largely informed by their beliefs about
language; what particular instances of language use index is similarly informed by
language ideologies. Language ideologies can be defined as
the sets of beliefs, values and cultural frames that continually circulate
in society, informing the ways in which language is conceptualized and
represented as well as how it is used. Such ideologies are constructed
through discourse, that is, systems of power/knowledge (Foucault, 1980).
(Makoe and McKinney, 2014, 659)
alanguage is always a discursive project rather than an established fact (Woolard and
Schieffelin, 1994, 64), and further that this project serves particular interests.
The fact that language is ideological is not necessarily a problem in itself, but
rather like any social phenomenon, it means that we need to look at the kinds of
ideologies being constructed, and significantly for this book, the effects thereof.3 As
Blommaert (2006) points out one of the essential functions of language is ideolog-
ical (metapragmatic and indexical) framing: providing contextual cues about who
speaks, in what mode, on which topic, and under what circumstances. This ideo-
logical function is central to contextualization procedures (Blommaert 2006, 512).
This means that some kinds of language use are enregistered (Agha, 2003, 2005) as
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superior to others, that is, they are viewed as more accurate or precise, purer, more
aesthetically pleasing. Agha explains that he uses the verb to register to mean both
to notice and to record such that processes of e nregisterment signify
We can move from this notion of enregisterment to seeing how different kinds
of language use (and different named languages themselves) that are differently
valued index different social values. If a hearer makes an interpretation about
where I come from based on the phonological aspects of my speech and then
makes a judgement about where and how well I have been educated based on
the same evidence, this can only be as a result of the phonological features of my
speech having obtained particular social and cultural values (Agha, 2003). We can
then say that the phonological features of my speech have come to index par-
ticular social values. Silverstein argues that the link between particular linguistic
elements (here the phonological features of my speech) and what they are gen-
erally agreed to point to, or to index, is constructed through ideology: ideology
construes indexicality. Such indexicality does not however operate in an isolated
way clusters of linguistic features are seen to work together to index particular
values. This clustering is what Agha defines as enregisterment.
It should be clear that the notion of language ideologies as taken up
heredrawson a Foucauldian notion of discourse as constitutive of the social, as
practices which systematically form the object of which they speak (Foucault,
1972, 49). I pay attention to the need for deconstruction and continual revisiting
of the discursive objects and subjects that are formed. It is my argument that lan-
guage ideologies are central to the reproduction of social inequality in schooling.
Dominant monolingual ideologies as outlined above inform the language in edu-
cation policy, language curricula and everyday practices in schools and classrooms
of both teachers and students. However, co-present with processes of reproduction
are discursive practices that work to subvert and unsettle dominant discourses and
ideologies. Iwill be exploring both of these in the chapterstocome.
22 What Counts as [a] Language?
(Ivanov, 2000, 100, my addition in square brackets). This emphasizes the ways in
which different resources are not necessarily equally valued or distributed, i.e.,
the stratification of linguistic resources as well as value in indexicality. Drawing
on Silversteins (2003) notion of indexical order, Blommaert has argued that
indexical meanings are ordered in the form of stratified complexes, in which
some kinds of indexicality are ranked higher than others (Blommaert, 2005, 73).
Following Foucaults orders of discourse, Blommaert uses the term orders of
indexicality to capture the regular stratification involved in indexicality.
Heteroglossic language practices involving movement across different named
languages have commonly been described in variationist sociolinguistics using
the term code-switching, broadly defined as the juxtaposition of elements
from two (or more) languages or dialects (McCormick, 2001, 447), or as the
alternate use of two or more languages in a single piece of discourse (Myers-
Scotton, 1993).There is a large body of research on the structure and functions of
code-switching in everyday language use (e.g. Auer, 1998; Heller, 1988). In applied
linguistics, code-switching in classrooms has been a research focus, frequently in
post-colonial settings (Ferguson, 2003; Arthur and Martin, 2006; Chimbutane,
2011). Underlying the notion of code-switching as defined above is
People learn, acquire, and deploy features, some of which are conventionally
(that is, ideologically) attributed to a language such as Danish, whereas
others are part of recognizable indexical orders such as genres, styles,
registers, jargons, and so forth. Language, thus conceived, is an emergent
indexical order, a non-random arrangement of features that can be enregis-
tered as a conventionally recognizable language X or Y. (2013, 614)
In the table below (Table 1.1) I aim to provide a pathway through the maze
of new terminology describing heteroglossic language practices, highlighting the
origins and definitions of many of these concepts.
Translanguaging Developed from the original Welsh term trawsiethu, the term
translanguaging has been developed by a number of scholars
in the US (e.g. Garcia, 2009; Canagarajah, 2011) and the UK
(e.g. Wei, 2011; Creese and Blackledge, 2010). Translanguaging
refers to an approach to the use of language, bilingualism and
the education of bilinguals that considers the language practices
of bilinguals not as two autonomous language systems as has
been traditionally the case, but as one linguistic repertoire with
features that have been societally constructed as belonging to
two separate languages (Garcia and Wei, 2014 2). It also refers
to specific language practices: the act performed by bilinguals
of accessing different linguistic features or various modes of
what are described as autonomous languages (Garcia, 2009, 141,
my emphasis).
The principle difference between the term code-switching and the range of
terms introduced above is itself ideological in that all of the authors of the terms in
Table 1.1 distance themselves firstly from the notion of named languages as pure
and bounded entities, and secondly from monoglossic orientations to the study of
language in society (Canagarajah, 2007; Bailey, 2007; May, 2014). In language use
described by all of these terms, users of language or languagers (Jrgensen, 2003;
Garcia and Wei, 2014) are understood to draw on whatever resources are avail-
able in their repertoires to make meaning. They are not expected to have equal
What Counts as [a] Language? 25
competence in the different named languages in these repertoires. They are thus
aligned with critiques of the notion of equivalent competence in more than one
language as signaled by a term like balanced bilinguals (Creese and Blackledge,
2010). In the case of crossing and polylanguaging, speakers may not even know
the named languages they are drawing on and in the case of plurilingualism and
urban vernaculars, languagers may have competence in the fused urban vernac-
ular rather than monolingual competence in the named languages from which
linguistic features are drawn.
There will be discursive practices where it is clearly possible to identity two
(or more) named languages being used simultaneously in the interaction such as
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in Extract 1.1 below from a Grade 8 Science lesson where the teacher switches
fromEnglish (the official language of learning and teaching) to isiXhosa (the
shared home language of the learners and teacher) before reading from the
English textbook:
Extract 1.1
Teacher:And then kengoku kuthiwe [now it says] The maggots help
to break down the dead plant or animal material (isiXhosa
italicized) (Probyn2006,399).
But even in cases such as Extract 1.1, identifying the particular languages used
in communicating does not take us very far in understanding how language is
being used for meaning-making in this classroom. Whether one or two or more
named languages is used, our focus needs to be on the meaning that is made and
on how language resources are being used or recruited for meaning-making. In
other cases however, and increasingly with urban vernaculars, the heteroglossic
nature of language use is more complex. Consider Extract 1.2 where a bus con-
ductor is addressing passengers in Harare, Zimbabwe. This example is taken from
Makoniet al. (2007, 37) who describe the language practice of the conductor as
drawing on an amalgam of English, chiChewa and chiShona, which is sometimes
called chiHarare, after the capital city of Zimbabwe where it is used.
Extract 1.2
1. Bus conductor (to passengers): mapassengerz yimani mukiyu,
mosatchita zatchigororo.
[translation: Passengers stand in a line, do not behave like hooligans.]
2. Bus conductor: Pindai tiende muface.
[translation: Get in so that we may leave, my acquaintance.]
those that are focused on the individual as starting point (albeit a social indi-
vidual), that is, the individual as the locus of linguistic resources, in notions
such as linguistic repertoire (Busch, 2012; Blommaert and Backus, 2011);
those that are focused on movement (trans) and the plurality of linguistic features
(poly), thus moving amongst linguistic resources, in notions such as polylan-
guaging (or polylingual languaging) and translanguaging (code-meshing,
Canagarajah, 2006 could also be included here); and
Pennycook and Otsujis own notion of metrolingual multi-tasking where
they argue that space as the locus of activities and language practices needs
foregrounding, and include the notion of spatial repertoire, i.e the avail-
able and sedimented resources deriving from repeated language prac-
tices of the people involved in sets of activities related to particular places
(Pennycook and Otsuji, 2014, 1645).
Linguistic Repertoire
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linguistic and other meaning-making resources that includes their past, present and
future trajectories as the more recently developed notion of linguistic repertoire
outlines. It requires consideration of the possibilities for enabling meaning-making
that come from movements across different linguistic resources as well as the use
of integrated or mixed codes. It also requires consideration of what the space of
the classroom enables and disables in relation to childrens language and literacy
practices. Finally, it requires developing teachers and childrens metalinguistic and
sociolinguistic awareness of the ways in which language resources are differentially
distributed and socially valued. The recognition of childrens full linguistic reper-
toires as resources for meaning-making will enable them to take up positions as
knowers, and as legitimate learners from their entry into formal schooling.
A brief example illustrates how monoglossic ideologies that ignore childrens
linguistic repertoires result in the deficit positioning of children. The example is
taken from observation of a class of Grade 1 children (67 year olds) in a relatively
well-resourced school in Cape Town that during apartheid was legally reserved for
White children but now is attended exclusively by Black children who commute
some distance daily to attend the school (in Orfields (2004) terms, a resegregated
school). Mrs West, the teacher, has asked Sipho to stand and tell his morning news in
English. Sipho comes from an isiXhosa speaking home while Mrs West is an English
home language speaker. As Sipho stands, Mrs West comments to the researcher:
Extract 1.3
anything
In this school, the language of instruction is English only. South African lan-
guage in education and curriculum policy dictates that children must follow the
home language (or first language) curriculum of the language of instruction in
What Counts as [a] Language? 29
the school, in this case English, regardless of whether they are English language
learners. Using the mode of gesture, Mrs West constructs Sipho as unable to
speak when he began at the school. Here, it is not just the power and privileg-
ing of English that renders childrens non-English linguistic resources invisible. In
addition, it is essentialist and monoglossic conceptions of language that inform
language in education policy, planning and curricula, whether monolingual or
multilingual, following the notion that languages must be kept in separate silos,
that have profoundly inhibiting effects on childrens participation in classrooms
and ultimately their access to quality education. In the case of Sipho, the year 1
child referred to above, teacher knowledge of his linguistic repertoire upon entry
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Extract 1.4
1. Ms Mbuli:honest, who did not do my homework? Tell me before I
6
3. Ms Mbuli: How do you know Tumi? Were you with her at home?
4. Tumi:She told me. (Tumi looks at Lerato with whom she shares
thedesk.)
O entse homework? (in Sepedi) [Did you do your homework?]
5. Lerato:(Shakes her head moving left to right, indicating that she
didnot.)
Tumi is the first to respond to Ms Mbuli by revealing that Lerato has not done
the work, thus exposing or telling on her friend Lerato in the process. Tumi
here positions herself as the good girl (or good learner) but seems to be inter-
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Garcia and Sylvan (2011; see also Garcia and Wei, 2014) point to the
relationship between translanguaging, languaging and transculturacin:
Extract 1.5
How dlka:d became du: laik ai du, or how dlka:d became English
CM:ok. Do you wanna do the other one? [Do you want to explain
the other circle game/song?]
Grace: the second one is eh, is basically . . .
Friend: . . . has lots of things
Grace: ja.8 Ok.
Friend:(inaudible)
CM:yes
Grace: its called Dulakadu (dlka:d)
CM: Dulakadu (dlka:d)
Grace:ja. What we do is we form a big circle and everybody sings and
the person who is in the centre of that circle has to, you know,
eh, dance.
CM:aha
Grace:. . . everybody around the circle is gonna do, they gonna do what
shes doing, the one in the circle.
CM: so, they have to copy the one in the centre?
Grace: ja
CM: the style?
Grace:ja. Then she is gonna go back and then the person she picks has
to go in . . .
CM:ok.
Grace: . . . again and so on.
CM: ok. So, you keep picking different people to come in?
Grace: ja, ja
Friend: . . . (inaudible) lots of things
Grace: lots
What Counts as [a] Language? 33
Friend:do like I do, ah, and then she says do like I do and then the
people say I do, I do
Grace: oh! do like I do (laughs)
Friend:do like I do, I do, I do. And she does whatever and everyone
does it.
In keeping with the previous game described which was characterized as using
Zulu by the girls, I had named the game described above as dulakado in my field
notes and had assumed that it was a made-up word drawing on the phonological
features of either Zulu or Sotho. At the outset of the interview, the language of
this song was not recognizable as English either to me or Grace (though her friend
does seem aware of this). Arguably it is the language ideology of the interviewer
(myself ) that transforms the term dulakado into the recognizable English phrase
do like I do both for Grace and myself. It is my fronting and lengthening of the
linguistic feature known as the GOOSE vowel when I repeat the beginning of
the phrase du/d as du:, a phonological feature associated with ethnolinguistic
repertoires (Benor, 2010) of white South African Englishes, together with the
context of Graces explanation that the girls do what the person in the centre
of the circle does, that makes the word become recognizable as the English word
do to me. I then convince Grace that this is the English phrase do like I do:
How to characterize Graces use of the phrase dulakadu has been a puzzle for
me one which heteroglossic approaches to understanding language are helpful
in teasing out but do not necessarily provide the solution to. To begin with we
can see the limitation of naming languages and what counts as examples of a
particular language. What to me and Grace did not count as English did count
as English for Graces friend. However that Grace did not recognize this sign as
English did not prevent her from engaging fully and appropriately in playing the
game which drew on other embodied semiotic and musical resources as well as
34 What Counts as [a] Language?
linguistic ones to work. Full participation in this game did not require one to
recognize it as using the resources of English.
Graces use of the term dulakadu in the interview could be described as
an example of polylanguaging (rather than code-switching, which implies some
awareness of ones practice in switching across languages).While Jrgensen et al.
gloss polylanguaging as the use of resources associated with different languages
even when the speaker knows very little of these (Jrgensen et al., 2011, 27),
they do not discuss whether the speaker is aware that the features used are asso-
ciated with a particular named language. In a more elaborated explanation of the
polylingual norm, Jrgensen (2008) implies knowledge of language sources:
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One can also consider Blommaert and Backus discussion of language compe-
tence where they consider different contexts of language learning more or less
comprehensive, specialized and ephemeral and outline four large categories of
competence along a sliding scale of maximum competence, partial compe-
tence, minimal competence and recognising competence. Blommaert and
Backus point out that we often learn bits of language(s) without being aware
of it (Blommaert and Backus, 2011, 15). We might describe Graces use of the
phrase dlika:d as unacknowledged use of bits of language, but she does not
initially display the recognising competence which Blommaert and Backus
(2011, 17) name as part of the fourth, or most basic level of linguistic compe-
tence. On the other hand, Graces command of English puts her competence far
beyond that of recognizing competence. She is at a monolingually oriented
English medium school, is taught by English speakers and does all her reading
and writing in English. She is well able to recognize the use of English in many
different contexts, but not in this one, even though she explained she had been
playing the game for years. Thus while it is helpful to think about different kinds
of competence, we have to recognize how fluid even categories such as maximum
competence and recognising competence can be. Competence is not something
which can be described once and for all, but may be a case of this bit of language
I recognize and this bit I dont. Dulakado for Grace thus is not really a learned
bit of language; rather it seems to be a bit of language that has been appropriated
and is deployed in a ritualistic way. An English phrase here has been recontextu-
alized as a made up or nonsense word for Grace.
Why does this matter? I use Extract 1.4 as a way of getting us to think about
some of our assumptions and preconceived ideas about the stability of even the
set of resources named as English. It would be dangerous to make the claim that
What Counts as [a] Language? 35
languages that have not gone through processes of standardization are the ones
that are more likely to be fluid and unboundaried, such as the use of urban
vernaculars like ChiHarare illustrated in Extract 1.2 above (Makoni, B rutt-Grifler
and Mashiri, 2007).
The second example is taken from the same school. In a Year 10 (1516 year
olds) English lesson, one girl, Zweli, was standing at the front of the class and giv-
ing an oral presentation on George Orwells Animal Farm, and mistakenly replaced
the word apples with animals, both pronounced using the phonological fea-
tures associated with White South African Englishes, or with what Mesthrie and
colleagues (2015) have recently termed an upper-middle-class/middle-class vari-
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ety of South African English. I was sitting (as observer) at the back of the class
behind her peer Catherine who I noticed quickly correcting her by providing
the word apples using phonological features associated with White Englishes.
Extract 1.6 was the exchange that then followed.
Extract 1.6
Zweli: Oh, sorry apples
Catherine:[laughing] Hayi t -lyt (No, too late) [ in t, fairly back and
not lengthened]
Again here describing Catherines style shift in relation to named languages is prob-
lematic. The phrase Hayi t -lyt could be described as a switch to Zulu in the
word for No, Hayi, followed by a switch back to English using the phonological
features associated with Black South African Englishes that Catherine did not usually
use when speaking English in the classroom (whether in the English class or other
lessons). Since she was correcting Zweli, and taking on a teacher voice in this inter-
action, the use of a shared informal code in the Zulu hayi could be explained as
softening the authoritative position she takes up in relation to her peer. The phrase
could also be described as not a switch between languages but the seamless use of
urban vernacular Zulu (Makoni, Brutt-Griffler and Mashiri, 2007) with the BSAE
accented too late (t -lyt) as part of the phrase. However, whether a switch to
Zulu and Black South African English or to urban Zulu alone, Catherine is clearly
moving away from the linguistic norms expected both by the English teacher and
her peers in this top streamed English lesson. Isuggest in switching to features of
a linguistic repertoire that is commonly only used in informal spaces at the school
(at break times, in the corridor), Catherine softens her earlier move of taking up
a teacher voice, or positioning herself as more powerful, to correct Zweli. Thus in
this incident Catherine is simultaneously indicating her power to show Zweli up in
front of the class by taking on the teachers voice, as well as showing some solidar-
ity with Zweli through the use of urban Zulu and possibly a differently racialized
variety of English. Furthermore, language choice here enables her to distance her
censure from that which would be produced by the English teacher (in English and
36 What Counts as [a] Language?
using the ethnolinguistic repertoires of White Englishes). Again whether this bit
of language counts as English or not is not particularly important then for the inter-
pretation of the communicative work that it is doing. I draw attention here to the
difficulty of naming languages only to emphasize the point about our assumptions
regarding how easy it should be to classify language use according to the construct
of named languages.That the fuzziness of language boundaries has important impli-
cations too for what it means to know a language was demonstrated in relation to
Graces misrecognition of dulakado as a nonsense word. Jrgensen argues
Since we cannot determine with certainty where one language ends and
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the other one begins, it follows that we cannot always be sure to be able
to count languages. We cannot determine exactly which languages an indi-
vidual knows, and consequently we cannot tell how many languages this
person knows. We can, however, observe that there is a wide spectrum of
variation available to any individual, and we can also observe that this spec-
trum is different from person to person. (2008, 165)
In Extracts 1.5 and 1.6 above, the construction of language boundaries has no
relevance to the languagers themselves. They are deploying the semiotic, includ-
ing linguistic, resources at their disposal, or in their representational repertoires
(Pratt, 1991, 36) to successfully participate in the social life of schooling. There
is more focus on linguistic meaning in the conventional sense in Extract 1.6
thanin1.5, but both cases involve engaged participation.
Conclusion
This chapter has introduced and defined the notion of language ideologies and
has argued that these have great impact in [mis]conceptions about language. I have
presented a view of language as a resource and have emphasized the increasing
recognition of the highly heteroglossic nature of language in contrast to dom-
inant monoglossic ideologies that construct individual named languages as dis-
crete and hermetically sealed from each other. Recognition of languages as fluid
and of the complexity of heteroglossic language practices has given rise to a
range of new descriptive terminology such as polylanguaging, metrolingualism
and translanguaging, which are reviewed in this chapter. Discussion has focused
on translanguaging as the descriptive term which has been taken up most widely
in educational settings or for the goals of teaching and learning. The latter part of
the chapter has demonstrated the fuzziness of language boundaries through two
examples of youth language practices in a resegregated suburban school in South
Africa. The reconceptualising of what language is has profound implications for
educational policy and practice, and yet such implications are largely unexplored.
In the next chapter I examine some of these implications in attempting to answer
the question of what counts as a language in educational policy and curricula?
What Counts as [a] Language? 37
Notes
1 E.g.Woolard and Schieffelin, 1994,Woolard, 1992, see Blommaert, 2006 for an o verview
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Language& Linguistics, Second Edition, volume 6. Oxford: Elsevier, pp. 51022.
Blommaert, J and Rampton, B. 2011. Language and superdiversity. Diversities 13(2): 121.
Busch, B. 2012. The Linguistic Repertoire revisited. Applied Linguistics 33(5): 50323.
Makoni, S. and Pennycook, A. 2007. Disinventing and reconstituting languages.
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Clevedon, Avon: Multilingual Matters, pp. 141.
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Notes
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1 The language use of African Americans has been named in a number of ways:
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I follow the terms used by particular authors when drawing on their work.
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Notes
1 For example, as mentioned in the Introduction, two are girls only and two are co-ed;
schools ranged from relatively elite (with fees of USD 2000 p.a. and almost 100 percent
of families paying fees) to lower middle and working class (with fees of USD 500 and
only 50 percent of families paying fees); of the two girls schools, one was attended only
by Black girls, while the other was still majority White (just over 50 percent).
2 Ethnolinguistic repertoire is defined by Benor (2010, 160) as the fluid set of linguistic
resources that members of an ethic group may use variably as they index their ethnic
identities.
3 For important discussions of heteronormativity, see Warner (1991) and Butler (1990).
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of a common male ancestor whose names becomes the clan name. Although people
cannot actually trace their genealogy as far back as the assumed clan founder, members
of a clan share the same clan name and assume they are related to each other. The
clan names is the strongest way of identifying someone, even stronger than a father or
grandfathers surname because it identifies a persons whole family group and forebears.
Traditional law does not allow people of the same clan to marry each other. The late
Nelson Mandelas clan name was Madiba.
4 This is by no means a comprehensive account. See also Manyak (2004, 2008), Creese
and Blackledge (2010) in the UK context and Busch (2014). The edited collection by
Blackledge and Creese (2014) includes a number of examples of inspirational pedagogy;
see also Busch (2010) and Makalela (2015) in the South African context.
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5 See also Gutierrez (2008) for an inspirational account of the Migrant Student
Leadership Institute (MSLI) at UCLA, which worked with high school students
fromimmigrant farm worker backgrounds.
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Alim, H.S. 2010. Critical Language Awareness. In N. Hornberger and S. McKay (eds.).
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Hope II 159
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Conclusion 171
Notes
1 Alim and Smitherman (2012, 197n22) note Wolframs significant contribution to
research on marginalized language varieties and point out that his well-meaning com-
ments here were not at all controversial to the majority of sociolinguists when American
Tongues was produced with some notable exceptions including Geneva Smitherman.
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2 I am using decolonial here following Walter Mignolo and others (see Mignolo, 2002,2009)
3 See www.britishcouncil.rw/programmes/education/language-supportive-textbook-
project-last (accessed on 14 September 2015).
4 Heugh writes: The only significant data at hand are from the Pan South African
Language Boards national sociolinguistic survey (PANSALB, 2000), which show,
much to the surprise of many, 88 percent of South Africans over age 15 support both
strong mother tongue education and strong teaching of ESL (my addition: English
Second Language) not only through the school system but also in higher education
(PANSALB, 2000). Only 12 percent support English-only or English-mainly, including
the 9 percent of English speakers at the time of the survey (Heugh, 2013, 226).
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172Conclusion