Language ideologies in L2/multilingual contexts

General abstract

Language ideologies are a “cultural system of ideas about social and linguistic relationships, together with their loading of moral and political interests” (Irvine, 1989, p. 255). They are more than mere beliefs about or attitudes towards language – they refer to a wide range of phenomena including: (1) ideas about the nature of language itself; (2) the values and meanings attached to particular codes; (3) hierarchies of linguistic value; and (4) the way that specific linguistic codes are connected to identities and stances (Jaffe, 2009, pp. 390-391).

In L2 and multilingual contexts, language ideologies are an important part of understanding processes such as language acquisition and learning, code switching, language shift and language attrition. They are “expressed through talk about language” and “refracted in patterns of use as learners negotiate meaning’ (Jaffe, 2009; Seargeant, 2009; cited in De Costa, 2011, p. 349). Language ideologies, much like discourses, are talked into being and negotiated.

On a broader scale, language ideologies can be borne out in language policies, including educational policies and language tests, and in small scale policies in communities, families, and classrooms. They can be the reasons behind the normalisation of monolingualism, or the celebration of multilingualism (Lauwo, 2022) and they are often at the root of the maintenance of boundaries between speakers and groups of languages (Blackledge & Pavlenko, 2002) and where images of ‘self/other’ or ‘us/them’ associated with language are located (Schieffelin & Doucet, 1998).

In this thematic session, we present five papers examining language ideologies in L2/multilingual contexts, ranging from individual language ideologies among speakers of migrant, minority and indigenous languages, to those found on an institutional level in contexts of language education and policy. In these ideologically charged contexts, language ideologies are often contested (Blackledge 2005), where both monolithic and inclusive views towards language are brought into dialogue from different societal, institutional, and individual positions (Park & Bae, 2009).

Discussant: Peter De Costa

Colloquium organisers: Chloé Diskin-Holdaway & Trang Nguyen

Paper 1

English tests and the production of ‘desirable’ migrants: a discourse historical approach to interrogating the ethics of testing-immigration policy entanglements

Kamran Khan, University of Birmingham

Kellie Frost, University of Melbourne

Abstract

In this paper, we adopt a discourse historical approach to examine the discursive constructions of migrants, their language abilities, and the notion of employability in media reports and political debates in Australia, surrounding the introduction of an English test requirement for partner/spouse visa applications and their permanent resident sponsors, announced in 2020.

Drawing on Foucault (2008), our findings support a view of language testing as a technology of neoliberal governance, operating at a distance and no longer serving to produce docile subjects, as conceptualised in work by McNamara (2012) and earlier work by Shohamy (e.g., 2001).  We argue that language testing is part of a broader apparatus to produce active, enterprising, mobile and adaptive migrant workers, capable of and willing to invest in enhancing their own resilience and human capital value. We tie the Australian context together with broader global entanglements around testing regimes and mobility to argue that language testing practices are not only implicated in the construction of language ability as a static, disembodied, and thereby legitimised basis for discriminating between ‘desirable’ and ‘undesirable’ workers and migrants, but that these practices produce a racialized and gendered ordering of ‘desirability’ for both employment and migration purposes. In these ways, we argue, testing, whether viewed as a tool of measurement or in its socio-political dimensions, functions to support existing social and ideological hierarchies and to reinforce cycles of discrimination, exclusion, and insecurity.

Paper 2

Language ideologies and sociolinguistic awareness among Chinese migrants in Melbourne

Chloé Diskin-Holdaway, University of Melbourne

Language ideologies play a crucial role in L2 contexts, involving the intersection of attitudes, beliefs, and identities (see e.g., De Costa, 2011).  Awareness of sociolinguistic variation, for example, can reveal standard language ideologies (see Diskin & Regan, 2017), or other language ideologies around ethnicity, race, or gender. However, sociolinguistic awareness in an L2 is complex, as it requires the capacity to distinguish phonetic, phonological, or morpho-syntactic differences, but also the ability to map these differences onto the various social meanings they convey.

This study focuses on 14 young Chinese students and professionals in Melbourne. They took part in semi-structured interviews recorded with the author in 2017 and were asked both directly and indirectly about their views of Australian English (AusE). In many cases, participants reported difficulty in recognising and replicating lexical and phonological features of AusE, reporting e.g. “I try to say 'mate' several times […] in the Australian accent but I just, cannot do it properly” (CH_021). A certain ambivalence emerged among some, e.g., “I don’t stick to a specific accent. I just uh learn whatever I came across” (CH_004). Others reported that they had noticed “people wearing hoodies” speaking with noticeable AusE features, but that they couldn’t “understand the cultural reference” (CH_015). Considering the indexical field of social meaning (Eckert, 2008; 2012), it could be argued that migrants’ language ideologies are affected by indexical ‘blind spots’, whereby limited access to discourses about language result in ideologies that are not as fixed or predictable as those found among L1 speakers. The findings have theoretical implications for conceptualisations of sociolinguistic competence (Canale & Swain, 1980) and raise questions about Third Wave sociolinguistic perspectives in L2 contexts.

Paper 3

English language ideologies among migrants in linguistically cosmopolitan Australia: How does “good English” or “proper English” matter?

Trang Nguyen, University of Melbourne

This paper concerns migrants’ ideologies about speaking English in Australia, which has traditionally been a migrant-receiving country and has transformed to a linguistically cosmopolitan society in recent decades. Specifically, the talk will address what speaking “good English” or “proper English” means to migrants in their daily life. I will refer to De Costa and Jou’s (2016) concepts of universalist cosmopolitanism and dialogical cosmopolitanism and Dörnyei’s (2005) idea of the ideal L2 self as a theoretical lens to gain insights into migrants’ beliefs about the “right” way(s) of speaking English.

The discussion will draw on qualitative data gathered from semi-structured interviews with migrants speaking a language other than English as their mother tongue, taken from an ongoing project investigating migrants’ language experiences in Australia. Findings suggest that many participants hold a dialogical cosmopolitan view towards speaking English. They believe that good English or proper English just means speaking an English that people can understand, and that aspects such as “accent”, “standard”, “native-like”, or “local-like” are not important, thereby indicating their support for an “acceptance of everyone's difference” (Canagarajah, 2013). Some others, however, seem to lean towards a universalist cosmopolitan perspective, suggesting that good English or proper English means being able to speak a standard, native-like or Aussie-like English, and that if they could speak such an English, they would have more advantages and opportunities. The participants’ universalist and dialogical cosmopolitan ideologies may additionally be related to the ideal English self they would like to maintain or become and to an imagined linguistic cosmopolitanism in Australia. In light of the findings, I will provide recommendations for building more healthy and inclusive language environments in Australia and beyond.

Paper 4

How can an intercultural approach in language education challenge monolingual ideologies? An analysis of language curriculum as a means of developing emerging multilingual identity

Ruth Fielding, Monash University

Intercultural understanding (ICU) is increasingly sought as an outcome of language learning yet meaningful and long-lasting ICU remains elusive in many language classrooms, often encumbered by broader monolingual ideologies (Holliday, Hyde and Kullman 2016; Moloney, Harbon, and Fielding 2016). In this talk I will share the Multilingual Identity approach to Intercultural Understanding (Fielding, 2021), which shows how fostering multilingual identity in the bilingual classroom can foster deeper intercultural understanding for students. Using an analysis of curriculum documents in Australia I demonstrate how this framework allows all students to undergo identity transformation in the language classroom and foster an emerging multilingual identity, in this way they also challenge enduring monolingual ideologies in schools (Fielding, 2021). I will illustrate the ways in which curriculum documents can foster this identity transformation and ensuing intercultural understanding, or can limit the ways in which this transformative multilingual teaching might be implemented (Fielding et al, 2023). I discuss how intercultural experiences in the language classroom have the potential to challenge the dominant monolingual discourses in schools, facilitate student development of multilingual identities (existing and emerging) and have the potential to become transformative experiences for multilingual students.

Paper 5

Multilingual worship: language ideological assemblages at the Maningrida church

Jill Vaughan, Monash University

The community of Maningrida in north-central Arnhem Land (northern Australia) is acknowledged to be a ‘hotspot’ for linguistic diversity. The local small‐scale multilingual ecology (e.g., Lüpke, 2016) is home to several diverse language families, with individual linguistic repertoires drawing from as many as eight traditional languages, as well as from English, a range of contact varieties like Kriol, and local alternate sign language. Traditional religious rites and ceremonies are sustained and reshaped in contemporary spiritual life in the community, with an increasing local role of Christian Fellowship since the 1960s and 70s (Bond-Sharpe 2013). The Maningrida Uniting Church is a major focus of local social integration, with the West Arnhem Uniting Church providing a mobile network which connects local worshippers to those further afield.

This paper explores how multilingual repertoires are deployed in Christian ritual practices in Maningrida. I take up the concept of language ideological assemblages (Kroskrity, 2021) to consider how longstanding language ideologies interact with institutional language policies in the local space. I draw on collaborative and community-led research in Maningrida since 2014, and in particular recordings of Good Friday celebrations, a re-enactment of the Stations of the Cross at the church and first-hand commentary from participants. Analysis reveals conflicting and contested ideologies in operation in this highly performative, multilingual event. Reflexes of ‘traditional’ ideologies are readily observable and are called into dialogue with the official ‘scripts and counterscripts’ (Gutiérrez et al., 1999) of the church as a localised institution. Taking a language ideological lens to these local practices provides insight into broader phenomena such as variation, register and code mixing in small-scale multilingual contexts, as well as factors in language maintenance and shift in contexts of sociopolitical marginalization and resistance.