33.2271, Review: Applied Linguistics; Sociolinguistics: Lytra, Ros i Solé, Anderson, Macleroy (2022)

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Subject: 33.2271, Review: Applied Linguistics; Sociolinguistics: Lytra, Ros i Solé, Anderson, Macleroy (2022)

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Date: Thu, 14 Jul 2022 17:03:03
From: Achilleas Kostoulas [achilleas at kostoulas.com]
Subject: Liberating Language Education

 
Discuss this message:
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Book announced at http://linguistlist.org/issues/33/33-791.html

EDITOR: Vally  Lytra
EDITOR: Cristina  Ros i Solé
EDITOR: Jim  Anderson
EDITOR: Vicky  Macleroy
TITLE: Liberating Language Education
SERIES TITLE: New Perspectives on Language and Education
PUBLISHER: Multilingual Matters
YEAR: 2022

REVIEWER: Achilleas I. Kostoulas

In the edited volume entitled ‘Liberating Language Education’ (2022;
Multilingual Matters), Vally Lytra, Cristina Ros i Solé, Jim Anderson, and
Vicky Macleroy, bring together 14 contributions that aim to broaden the way in
which language education is conceptualized. The content of the volume is
summarized in the first section of this review, and this is followed by brief
evaluative remarks.  

SUMMARY

The volume is organized in four broad parts, which are flanked by introductory
and concluding editorial contributions. Each part consists of several chapters
and a commentary section that highlights common themes and discusses
implications. 

The volume begins with a non-numbered introductory chapter (“Why Liberating
Language Education?”; pp.1-20) by the editorial team, which outlines the
theoretical backdrop and rationale that informs the edited volume. As the
authors explain, the aims of the collection are to challenge “dominant
paradigms of language and language education” which “continue to be based on
static notions of language as code, as a rule-governed system that is
coterminous with stable communities and identities” (p.1), to question the
“prescriptive ideologies'' (p.2) that inform language education, and to
harness “the pedagogical potential that comes with valorising and
strategically deploying the multilingual repertoires of learners and teachers”
(p.1) in order to address “increased linguistic and social inequalities”
(p.1). An unusual and interesting aspect of this introductory chapter is the
overt positioning of the editors, who use metaphors to critically examine
their linguistic identities and to provide insight into how this positionality
shapes their understanding of the book themes.

Part 1 of the volume, which comprises four chapters, brings into focus the
ideological backdrop that underpins language education, as well as its
manifestation in discourses and policies. This discussion begins with a
chapter entitled “‘I Don’t Think We Encourage the Use of their Home
Language…’: Exploring ‘Multilingualism Light in a London Primary School”, by
Thomas Quehl (pp.23-39). This chapter reports on an ethnographic study that
was set in a multilingual primary school in Inner London. Two critical
incidents are presented, which drew attention to representations of
multilingualism in the school context and to how language use was shaped by
language ideology. The data show that the monolingual ideology that pervades
the school limits the communicative and expressive affordances available to
children, and that translanguaging pedagogical practices are generally not
present. Furthermore, any attempts to acknowledge linguistic diversity seem to
be largely symbolic in nature, thus producing what the author terms
“multilingualism light”, a set of beliefs and practices that pay lip service
to multilingual ideologies but do not threaten established norms.

In Chapter 2 (“Recognising the Creole Community: Discursive Constructions of
Enslavement and the Enslaved in Kreol Textbooks in Mauritius”; pp.40-54),
Ambarin Mooznah Auleear Owodally discusses how the Creole community in
Mauritius, which defines itself as descendants of the Enslaved, is represented
in education. This is accomplished by critically examining the textbooks used
in a recently introduced Kreol language course, since “curricular artifacts”
are viewed as “repositories of meaning about languages, people and places”
(p.44). Using extensive examples of textbook content, the author shows that
the Enslaved are presented in an unambiguously positive light, e.g., as
authentic Mauritians, as agents of resistance against colonialism, and as
contributors to economic and cultural growth. In doing so, it is suggested,
the textbooks may create an ideological space for the renegotiation of
pervasive negative sentiment (‘malaise’) among the Creole community.

Chapter 3 (pp.55-71), by Cátia Verguete, is entitled “Appropriating Portuguese
Language Policies in England”. This chapter is part of a larger multi-site
ethnographic study on Portuguese overseas language policy and its local
implementation in the UK. Using data from interviews with three UK-based
teachers of Portuguese, the study shows evidence of tensions between policies
that are created centrally, and the power of individuals to re-create,
re-interpret and appropriate policies locally. More specifically, the data
show that official language policy has shifted from language maintenance to
the internationalization of Portuguese, but this reorientation is not
reflected in the highly standardized curriculum, suggested content, and
teaching methodology. Also, the teachers did not seem to align their practices
with the espoused language policy. This lack of alignment “is mediated by
multiple factors which are discursive, ideological, structural and
institutional in nature” (p.68), and language teaching remains constrained by
influences such as resilient monolingual ideologies.

The final contribution to Part 1 is entitled “Making Sense of the Internal
Diversities of Greek Schools Abroad: Exploring the Purposeful Use of
Translation as a Communicative Resource for Language Learning and Identity
Construction” (pp.72-90), and is authored by Vally Lytra. This chapter reports
on a study that is described as a ‘slow ethnography’ of a school serving the
Greek community of Lausanne, in Switzerland. The chapter begins with
information about the school and the “increasingly heterogeneous” (p.73)
population it serves. This description is followed by an outline of three
loosely connected theoretical strands that inform good practice: (a) that
linguistic proficiency should be viewed in terms of repertoires; (b) that
identities are “emergent, fluid and discursively constructed” (p.76); and (c)
that translation, seen here as a form of translanguaging, can be pedagogically
useful in linguistically diverse contexts. Examples of pedagogical practice
that align with these principles are presented, drawing on the author’s
experience as a parent whose children attended the school and on interviews
with the head teacher, leading to some discussion about the tensions between
monolingual thinking and multicultural practice. 

Part 1 concludes with a commentary by Ana Souza (pp.91-96), which summarizes
the tensions among the diverse influences that shape language education
policy, and problematizes the extent to which multilingual practices have
replaced monolingual ideologies in education. 

The second part of the volume relocates language-related discourse from
cognitive engagement and instrumental use to “living” the languages. Nuria
Polo-Pérez and Prue Holmes initiate this broad discussion in Chapter 5
(“Languaging in Language Cafés: Emotion Work, Creating Alternative Worlds and
Metalanguaging”; pp.99-119). This ethnographic study, which took place in two
Language Cafés in the UK, proposes a distributed understanding of language
immersion, to include not just sojourns in polities where the target language
is spoken (what Phillipson [1992] would have called the ‘Centre’), but also
linguistic and cultural socialization in spontaneously created linguistic
communities. The ecological outlook that underpins this study is one of the
strengths of the paper, as it moves beyond views of language development as
cognitive engagement with an abstract 'code'; rather, it is seen as the
emergent outcome of meaningful interaction in a linguistic ecology (van Lier,
2004). The findings are grouped in three broad categories: (a) the affective
dimensions of languaging in a language cafe, which ranged from initial fear to
a sense of accomplishment; (b) the role of language cafes as a transient
mechanism where languaging is made possible, perhaps akin to a 'third place'
(Kramsch, 1993) where cultures and identities are fused; and (c) reflection on
and discussion of the participants' relation with the target language
(‘metalanguaging’).

Chapter 6, by Eszter Tarzoly and Jelena Ćalić, is entitled “Language Studies
as Transcultural Becoming and Participation: Undoing Language Boundaries
across the Danube Region” (pp.118-142). This chapter problematises a
distinction, common in academic curricula, by arguing that language should not
be viewed as an instrument for delivering content, and that language courses
can have an intrinsic 'content' orientation. To achieve this, they present
aspects of a university course on the languages in the Danube region. Their
expansive discussion involves a theoretical and an empirical component. The
former argues for a return to teaching of linguistic form and metalanguage and
for the “thorough and precise analysis, description and interpretation” (p.
138) of decontextualised texts, suggesting that learning about language in
this level of abstraction and encouraging cross-linguistic comparisons in a
Sprachbund promotes intercultural learning and challenges essentialist
linguistic ideologies. The empirical component of the chapter uses metaphor
analysis to reveal how students conceptualize language, and what their
perception of 'content' is. A survey among course participants suggests that
some, though not the majority, viewed the course as having both 'content' and
'language’ elements. Based on this evidence, the authors propose that
rethinking the balance between communicative and metalinguistic goals
constitutes “linguistically informed” (p.140) language teaching.

In her contribution to Part 2 (Chapter 7: “The Textures of Language: An
Autoethnography of a Gloves Collection”; pp.143-158), Ros i Solé foregrounds
the personal dimension of multilingualism, as a counterbalance to narratives
that “focus on the objective of languages” (p.144), and highlights “sensory
and visceral” (p.144) experiences of multilingualism. The author proposes
transcending the binary between abstract and tangible meaning-making, and
attempts to show how their intersection (“the wild” in language; p.146)
connects to materiality and memory. This is accomplished by
autoethnographically documenting her involvement in an arts-based project that
involved multilingualism. Details are provided about how the author created a
collection of gloves which were decorated with greetings in multiple
languages. Throughout the text, the description of her actions is interspersed
with discussion of emotions and personally significant memories. What emerges
is a perspective of how language is lived in uniquely personal ways. This
perspective is subsequently used to interrogate language ideology drawing on
the works of Bakhtin and Vološinov, Deleuzean views on language, and the
notion of intentionality as inherent meaning-making potential.

In the commentary (pp.159-163) that concludes Part 2, Simon Coffey situates
the three preceding chapters in an interdisciplinary meeting point that
synthesizes elements of applied linguistics, education science, and the
humanities.

Part 3 of the volume centers on the role of aesthetics and transculturality in
language education. This discussion opens strongly with a contribution by Jim
Anderson (Chapter 8: “Visual Art in Arabic Foreign and Heritage Language and
Culture Learning: Expanding the Scope for Meaning-Making”; pp.167-185). This
chapter broadens instrumental perspectives of language teaching that are
associated with communicative approaches, by adding elements of intercultural
learning, symbolism, and aesthetics. Specifically, the chapter proposes
re-thinking the role of language as just one mode of meaning-making within a
broader repertoire of semiotic processes, and shows how the paintings of the
contemporary artist Ermes were used to accomplish this in a course on Arabic
as a foreign and heritage language. A structured pedagogical approach which
involved 'approaching', and 'exploring' the cultural artefact, before
re-imagining, re-mediating, and re-presenting it ('creating'), was used to
engage learners in multimodal meaning-making. Such approaches to language and
culture learning, it is suggested, can help to overcome “the damaging divide
that exists currently between language and culture earning” (p.182).

Following that, in Chapter 9 (“Creating Pedagogical Spaces for Translingual
and Transcultural Meaning-Making in a London Greek Complementary School”;
pp.186-204), Maria Charalambous 
describes aspects of meaning-making in the context of a complementary school
that served the Greek and Cypriot diasporic communities in London. There are
two loosely connected foci in the case-study, namely the role of learner
agency and the pedagogical potential of storying around cultural artefacts.
Following two brief sections that contextualize and theoretical position the
paper, various incidents are presented which showcase how the learners
collaborated, deployed their agency and creativity, and interacted
translingually (in English, Standard Greek and Cypriot Greek) to produce
multimodal artifacts.

Chapter 10 (“Opening Spaces of Learning: A Sociomaterial Investigation of
Object-Based Approaches with Migrant Youth in and beyond the Heritage Language
Classroom”; pp.205-225), by Koula Charitonos, covers similar ground, as it
reports on a learning project that took place in two complementary schools
that serve the Greek and Greek Cypriot diaspora in the UK. In the project,
students interacted with various culturally significant objects, such as Greek
banknotes, using diverse modes of inquiry (e.g., observation, reflection,
etc.). This mode of work helped to engage participants with different
linguistic profiles and varying levels of proficiency in Greek. According to
the author, the project is an example of a ‘safe space’ for learning, where
“principles of dialogue, meaning-making and intercultural exchange” were
deployed (p.222).

Similarly, Dobrochna Futro’s contribution (Chapter 11: “Translanguaging Art:
Exploring the Transformative Potential of Contemporary Art for Language
Teaching in the Multilingual Context”; pp.226-247), explores the pedagogical
potential of contemporary works of art in language use and meaning-making.
Coupling exploratory practice with a critical enquiry methodology, the author
designed and implemented eight workshops where learners engaged with works by
three visual artists, ranging from an installation to a performance-based
video. In these workshops, learners explored creative ways to visually
represent phrases that fused elements from more than one languages. This
sustained engagement with translanguaging reportedly had a beneficial impact
on the affective dimensions of language learning (e.g., agency, motivation,
confidence), and on their metalinguistic and metacognitive skills.

The four chapters that make up Part 3 are discussed in the commentary
(pp.248-252) by Alison Phips, which highlights the role of art in opening
discourse spaces and pedagogical possibility. Importantly, readers are
cautioned that expanding the scope of the language education is not
self-evidently benign or useful, and the argument is made for a pedagogy that
is grounded on a “tolerance of ambiguity, ethics, creativity, political
empathy and critical reflection” (p.249). 

The final section of the volume examines questions of identity, voice, and
citizenship in language education, often through the lens of digital pedagogy.
In Chapter 12 (“How weird is weird? Young people, activist citizenship and
multivoiced digital stories”; pp.255-276), Yu-chiao Chung and Vicky Macleroy
explore how the use of digital technology, in the context of teaching English
to young learners, can help the latter construct “narratives of freedom and
social justice” (p.255). This exploration is theoretically premised on the
beliefs that digital storytelling allows for a democratic deployment of
learner agency, and that it facilitates a critical interrogation of how
identities are formed. To illustrate the potential of digital storytelling,
two examples of digital storytelling projects are presented, both having taken
place in the context of English as a Foreign Language classes in Taiwan. The
projects, which showcased stories of discrimination and belonging, are
described in detail, and with ample reference to the perspectives of
participants involved. This leads to a brief discussion of “the transformative
power of putting digital technology into the hands of children and teenagers”
(pp.272-273).

The pedagogical affordances of digital storytelling are also explored by
Gabriele Budach, Gohar Sharoyan and Daniela Loghin in Chapter 13 (“Animating
Objects': Co-creation in Digital Story Making between Planning and Play”; pp.
277-296). A central idea in this chapter is that the use of storyboarding, as
a preparatory step in the production of digital stories can be usefully
replaced by more flexible methods that encourage spontaneity. Using a
combination of interview data, ethnographic observation and written
reflections, the chapter reports on the experiences of students involved in a
university course on digital story creation. In the process, the data
highlights how emotional connections were made with the ‘boundary objects’,
which often had significant psychological resonance or represented aspects of
their identity, and how students engaged with them in ways that involved
linguistic creativity. This process reportedly generated a psychological state
of flow as well as harmonious collaboration, and it is suggested that such a
way of work is more pedagogically desirable than “pre-thought and previously
scripted” processes (p.293).

Chapter 14 (“Visual Representations of Multilingualism: Exploring Aesthetic
Approaches to Communication in a Fine Art Context”; pp.297-317) by Jessica
Bradley, Zhu Hua and Louise Atkinson completes the substantive part of the
collection by reporting on the “Visual Representations of Multilingualism”
project that ran in 2018-2019 in the UK and aimed to encourage thinking about
multilingualism as “normal, unremarkable everyday practice” (p.297). The
chapter contains a thoughtful discussion of how the authors perceive the
post-monolingual paradigm, which is helpful given the multitude of partially
overlapping perspectives. At the core of their discussion is the belief that
translanguaging, and multilingualism more broadly, “reflects the ways in which
humans communicate every day and have always communicated” (p.299). Also
notable is the authors' cautioning commentary on how the uncritical use of
translanguaging might result in unnecessary ontological confusion as well as
“damage to the emancipatory potential” of the translingual practices (p.300).
After these positioning comments, the authors discuss how they appraised the
artistic submissions to the project and showcase and analyse some examples of
the creative work that was submitted. The chapter concludes with a discussion
of the potential such artistic creativity has for fostering transdisciplinary
dialogue and participatory work.

Part 4 concludes with comments by Kate Pahl (pp. 18-320), who summarizes the
three chapters and uses them as a prompt for re-examining the role of theory,
or “living with theory a bit more dangerously” (p. 320).

In the final chapter of the volume (“Language Education Collages”; pp.
321-330), the editors synthesize the perspectives that were outlined in the
preceding chapters. This loosely connected discussion includes a one-page
presentation, in bullet-point format, of some implications for pedagogical
practice and research, and summarizes the contribution that the collection
aspires to make on ongoing debates including diversity, inclusion,
citizenship, and communication.

EVALUATION

At the core of “Liberating Language Education” is an invitation to readers to
problematize how they perceive language education. The diverse contributions
that make up this volume engage with this question from multiple perspectives,
and effectively challenge views of communication that are narrowly linguistic
and views of learning that are narrowly formal. The effectiveness of the
volume lies in the suggestive power of the various contributions, and in the
opportunities these diverse chapters create for imagining alternative to
normative practice in language education.

The theme of ‘liberation’ that is indexed in the title of the volume is
present in most of the chapters, although with differing levels of intensity.
Although some chapters, especially in Part 4, explicitly tackle issues of
unjust world orders and suggest how these can be problematised in the context
of language education, the questions ‘who is liberated’ and ‘from what’ are
answered in rather different ways in each contribution. For instance, in
Chapter 3 what is brought into focus is freedom from top-down influences in
shaping language policy; in Chapter 2, positive re-imaginings of the Enslaved
are viewed as providing ‘liberation’ from racist ideological representations;
and in Chapter 8, liberatory practice involves transgressing the boundaries
between narrowly linguistic and narrowly cultural learning. Center-periphery
relations, which are only overtly problematized in Chapter 3, are implicitly
present in many contributions, for readers to tease out through engaged
reflection. It is perhaps disappointing, given the theme of the book, that the
subaltern, minoritized, and vulnerable student populations remain largely
invisible, and that precedence is sometimes given to correcting perceived
injustices in the academic curriculum or to challenging ‘strawman’
representations of language pedagogy. However, the overarching call for a
restructuring of language education is powerfully and persuasively made.

The central theme of ‘liberation’ places the volume in a growing discourse
space that brings together critical theory in education and critical
perspectives in applied linguistics, a discourse which the book extends with
insights from the arts and humanities. The volume stands in a somewhat
singular position in this space, in the sense that it seems relatively
unconcerned with establishing a firm grounding on the existing literature that
is commonly associated with ‘liberatory’ outlooks in education (e.g., the
works of Freire or Giroux, or any of the literature on Critical Theory). Also,
despite the central role of ideology in many contributions the discussion is
generally unburdened by references to work in Critical Applied Linguistics,
which could help to trace the linguistic contours of ideology more visibly.
This is not to say that connections with the informing theory are absent:
various chapters make insightful linkages to philosophical work ranging from
semiosis to intentionality, and the concepts of meaning-making and
translanguaging run through the text (sometimes with surprising
re-connotations). Rather, what is suggested is that these connections tend to
function as implicit theoretical springboards rather than as explicit
grounding.

Overall, this is a volume that invites a specialized readership. The
methodological opacity of many chapters (especially the ones that position
themselves in the ethnographic tradition) might mean that the book lends
itself best to readers who are more concerned with the ‘what’ of education
rather than the ‘how’ of research, and that it might be less suitable as a
teaching resource for MA and doctoral students. Equally, the book will likely
reward readers who are prepared to invest intellectual effort in appropriating
its content and working out context-specific ways of implementing the pedagogy
described, since specific pedagogical guidance is not typically present in the
chapters. This is a volume that presupposes a readiness, on behalf of the
reader, to engage with implicit meaning, to reconcile ambiguities and
contradictions in a polyphonic text, to draw connections across chapters, and
to raise questions beyond the ones that the authors ask.

Ultimately, the value of this book does not rest on either the empirical rigor
of the studies that are described or the strength of the theoretical
connections to existing literature. The contribution that this book makes is
in the bold proposal for a new way to re-imagine what ‘liberation’ might mean
in the context of language education.

REFERENCES

van Lier, Leo. 2004. The ecology and semiotics of language learning: a
sociocultural perspective. London: Kluwer.

Kramsch, Claire. 1993. Culture and context in language teaching. Oxford:
Oxford University Press.

Phillipson, Robert. 1992. Linguistic Imperialism. Oxford: Oxford University
Press.


ABOUT THE REVIEWER

Achilleas Kostoulas, PhD, is an applied linguist at the University of Thessaly
(Greece). Previous academic affiliations include the Universities of Graz
(Austria) and Manchester (UK). He is the author, with Juup Stelma, of The
Intentional Dynamics of TESOL (2021, De Gruyter). His research interests focus
on the interface between language, education, and ideology.





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