E is for English in the world
Photo: Christopher Collins
I've just completed a hugely enjoyable but challenging semester as instructor on a course I designed for The New School online MA in TESOL. It's called English in the World, and replaces an earlier version of the course that was a casualty of some curriculum restructuring a few years back Here is the official description of the new course:
Throughout today's postmodern, globalized and highly mobile world there are millions of students, both young and not so young, studying the English language. This phenomenon raises many questions, not only about the educational implications of teaching English as an International Language (EIL) – such as standardization – but also about economic, political and ethical considerations. In order to address these questions, this course will introduce basic concepts of sociolinguistics, including societal multilingualism and language contact and conflict, in order to contextualize the spread of English and its consequences. The relationship between language and culture, and language and identity, will also be explored, especially insofar as these issues impact on the fostering of intercultural communication. And, in response to charges of linguistic imperialism and the commodification of English, proposals for a socially-sensitive pedagogy will be explored, along with an examination of how English teaching might better serve the needs of societies in development.
Topics covered include:
Language variation and standardization
The history of English
World Englishes
English as a lingua franca
The ideology of English in the world
A pedagogy for English in the world
English and development
Given the somewhat disparate nature of the course content, readings come from a variety of sources: names often invoked include Sandra McKay, David Graddol, Zhu Hua, Ryuko Kubota, B. Kumaravadivelu, Claire Kramsch, Adrian Holliday, Jennifer Jenkins, Sureish Canagarajah, John Gray and David Block, and many others. Thankfully, the connections between these scholars, and their relevance to the topic of English in the World seemed to cohere. One student wrote (in his reflective journal) 'Everything we learned in this class was interconnected.' And he added, 'Luckily this course wasn't just theory. It gave us very specific answers on how to apply this theory into practice.' Some other comments (from students' journals):
'My mind is a lot more open than it was just three months ago.' 'Throughout the roughly four months spent on this course I have undergone a transformative period of growth and self-evaluation.' 'The course … has challenged my preconceived ideas and philosophies about language and teaching.'+
One student homed in on this quote, which to her captured the essence of what the course was about:
"The broader social, cultural, political, and economic contexts in which [English language programs] occur have major implications for what occurs in the classroom, and what occurs in the classroom has great significance for the outside world […] ELT is a controversial activity, and its implementation in any context is shaped by, and shapes, cultural politics at multiple levels" (Appleby, et al. 2002: 343).
Coursework included regular online discussions on such topics as 'native speakerism', cultural stereotyping, code-switching, the ELT global 'industry', standard English, and one on English in the linguistic landscape. To give you a flavor, here is my video feedback on this discussion: Reference Appleby, R., Copley, K., Sithirajvongsa, S., & Pennycook, A. (2002) 'Language in development constrained: three contexts.' TESOL Quarterly, 36 (3).
Thanks to MA TESOL alumnus Christopher Collins for the photos.
Tags: ELF, English in the world, Global English, globalization, linguistic landscape, MA TESOL, multilingualism, The New School
L is for Linguistic landscape
I took the photos (below) in one 20-minute walk from home to the gym last week. (You may need to click on them to see the details of their texts).
They all feature language, or better, languages, and are typical of the multilingual 'linguistic landscape' that is Barcelona – or, for that matter, any large cosmopolitan centre in the 21st century. Barcelona may be an extreme case of public multilingualism, given the fact that it is the capital of a region that already has two official languages, as well as being a major tourist centre. Nevertheless, as English extends its (some might say insidious) global reach, there must be few places in the world where public signage and advertising hoardings don't intermix languages. (An exception is/was Libya, where the law proscribes anything but Arabic).
The term linguistic landscape (LL) is a relatively recent one, and
refers to the visibility and salience of languages on public and commercial signs in a given territory or region. It is proposed that the linguistic landscape may serve important informational and symbolic functions as a marker of the relative power and status of the linguistic communities inhabiting the territory (Landry and Bourhis, 1997: 23).
In a recent collection of papers, Shohamy and Barni (2010: xiv) add that, 'the notion "linguistic landscape" … includes any written sign found outside private homes, from road signs to names of streets shops and schools. The study of LLs focuses on analysing these items according to the languages utilised, their relative saliency, syntactic or semantic aspects'. (Elana Shohamy gave a memorable plenary on this very subject at the IATEFL Conference in Cardiff in 2009).
This kind of analysis – or a simplified version of it – is not beyond the reach of English language learners. As I have blogged elsewhere this week, learners have the means (e.g. their mobile phones) and the opportunities (unless they live in Libya) to collect examples of signage in English, or English mixed with a local language, in their own context.
In a recent article, Peter Sayer (2010: 152) describes how he documented and classified the uses of English in the linguistic landscape of Oaxaca, Mexico, and adds that such a study 'can easily be reproduced as a classroom project, with the students taking on the role of "language detectives"', thereby becoming more aware of their own sociolinguistic context.
The photos they bring to class could become the focus of the following questions:
How many languages can you see?
What is the relative status of the languages? How can you tell?
Who wrote the text? For whom?
Why is (some of it) in English?
Is there a translation? Why/why not?
Is there anything you don't understand?
Is there anything you would like to remember?
Particularly interesting is the way that the use of English indexes specific discourses, such as the aspirational culture of brand-name consumer goods. But it can also frame the language of dissent and resistance. Here, for example, is a piece of graffiti spray-painted on the rocks at a beach (Canet de Mar) north of Barcelona. It says 'NO MORE GUIRIS IN CANET'. (Guiri is a fairly pejorative Spanish word for tourist).
It intrigues me that, while the language chosen to frame the message is English (easily intelligible to foreign visitors), the author uses a Spanish word (guiri) that most tourists would not understand. Which raises the question: for whom was the message written – and why? Clearly, there is an intertextual element – the use of English in graffiti is widespread, and the NO MORE-frame is a recognisable feature of the discourse of protest. At the same time, the use of the word guiris serves to exclude a wider readership – reflecting (intentionally or not) the way that the writer seems to wish to exclude tourists from Canet. The interplay between the global and the local – through the use of an in-group expression embedded in an international catchphrase – captures the essence of the message, making it less an expression of out-group-directed protest and more an expression of in-group-directed solidarity.
Such are the language affordances provided by the linguistic landscape!
Landry, R. and Bourhis, R. (1997) 'Linguistic landscape and ethnolinguistic vitality: an empirical study', Journal of Language and Social Psychology , 16, 1.
Sayer, P. (2010) 'Using the linguistic landscape as a pedagogical resource', ELT Journal, 64, 2.
Shohamy, E. and Barni, M. (2010) Linguistic Landscape in the City, Bristol: Multilingual Matters.
Tags: discourse, discourse analysis, intertextuality, linguistic landscape, multilingualism, text