Fostering Pre-Service Teachers’ Critical Multilingual Language Awareness: Use of Multimodal Compositions to Confront Hegemonic Language Ideologies

Abstract Important components of the teacher knowledge base are how aware a teacher is of language (including how it is acquired and best taught), as well as their language ideologies. Because a combination of ideologies and awareness may guide many pedagogical decisions, this mixed-methods sequential explanatory study explored prevalent language ideological orientations of educators in a dual language immersion (DLI) context, their degrees of Teacher Language Awareness (TLA), and the relationship between the two. Findings revealed that participants with high degrees of TLA oriented significantly more positively towards additive language ideologies, while educators with low degrees of TLA were significantly more likely to orient toward deficit ideologies. Data from cases representing high and low degrees of TLA provide an in-depth view of the relationship between teachers’ TLA and ideologies in practice. This study extends an understanding of how language awareness and ideologies interact, along with implications for pre- and in-service teacher professional development.

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Theorizing Linguistic Racisms from a Language Ideological Perspective

The Oxford Handbook of Language and Race ◽

10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190845995.013.18 ◽

2020 ◽

pp. 67-89

Author(s):

Paul V. Kroskrity

Keyword(s):

Language Ideologies ◽

Theoretical Orientation ◽

Special Kind ◽

The United States ◽

Language Awareness ◽

Social Hierarchies ◽

Colonial State ◽

Nation States ◽

Critical Language Awareness ◽

Political Economic

Previous scholarship has linked the promotion of racializing projects to the larger political economic contexts of nation-states and their role in (re-)producing social hierarchies. Language, in the form of language ideologies (Kroskrity 2016), linguistic forms, and discursive practices, provides a special kind of resource in such racializing projects because it contributes not only overtly but also covertly to the hierarchical production of social inequality. This study builds on prior language ideological studies of linguistic racism in the United States (e.g., Hill 2008) and demonstrates how this theoretical orientation reveals patterns of overt and covert racism that derive from speakers’ consciousness across a continuum ranging from practical consciousness (Kroskrity 1998) to critical language awareness (Alim 2010). Language ideological data, including the publications of “salvage era” academic researchers, disclose a sector on the spectrum of linguistic racisms directed specifically at indigenous people and their culture by a settler-colonial state and its citizens.

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Understanding Heritage Language Learners’ Critical Language Awareness (CLA) in Mixed Language Programs

Languages ◽

10.3390/languages6010037 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 6 (1) ◽

pp. 37

Author(s):

Laura Gasca Jiménez ◽

Sergio Adrada-Rafael

Keyword(s):

United States ◽

Heritage Language ◽

Language Ideologies ◽

The United States ◽

Language Awareness ◽

Eastern United States ◽

Language Programs ◽

Mixed Language ◽

Critical Language Awareness ◽

Upper Level

Despite the prevalence of mixed language programs across the United States, their impact on the unique socio-affective needs of heritage language (HL) students has not been researched sufficiently. Therefore, the present study examines HL learners’ critical language awareness (CLA) in a mixed Spanish undergraduate program at a small private university in the eastern United States. Sixteen HL learners enrolled in different Spanish upper-level courses participated in the study. Respondents completed an existing questionnaire to measure CLA, which includes 19 Likert-type items addressing different areas, such as language variation, language ideologies, bilingualism, and language maintenance. Overall, the results show that learners in the mixed language program under study have “somewhat high” and “high” levels of CLA. The increased levels of CLA in learners who had completed three courses or more in the program, coupled with their strong motivation, suggests that this program contributes positively toward HL students’ CLA. However, respondents’ answers also reveal standard language ideologies, as well as the personal avoidance of code-switching. Based on these findings, two areas that could benefit from a wider representation in the curriculum of mixed language programs are discussed: language ideologies and plurilingual language practices.

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Ist Standarddeutsch für Deutschschweizer eine Fremdsprache? Untersuchungen zu einem Topos des sprachreflexiven Diskurses

Linguistik Online ◽

10.13092/lo.24.636 ◽

2005 ◽

Vol 24 (3) ◽

Author(s):

Sara Hägi ◽

Joachim Scharloth

Keyword(s):

Foreign Language ◽

Language Use ◽

Language Ideologies ◽

Private Life ◽

Point Of View ◽

Language Awareness ◽

Swiss German ◽

The Status ◽

German Speaking ◽

The Relationship

This paper is concerned with the question, whether the status of Standard German in German-speaking Switzerland is adequately described as that of a foreign language. It discusses typological aspects, language awareness and language ideologies among German-speaking Swiss people, the practice of language acquisition, the language use in private life and media and the linguistic discourse about the relationship between the use of Swiss German and Standard German. It argues that from a linguistic point of view in none of these fields a clear decision can be made whether Standard German is a foreign language or not. Thus, the authors suggest that the conceptual framework ought to be widened to adequately describe the status of Standard German in German-speaking Switzerland. Finally, they take occasion to develop the concept of "Sekundärsprache"/"secondary language" for language situations similar to that in German-speaking Switzerland.

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