17.160, Review: Socioling/Lang Planning: Canagarajah (2005)

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LINGUIST List: Vol-17-160. Tue Jan 17 2006. ISSN: 1068 - 4875.

Subject: 17.160, Review: Socioling/Lang Planning: Canagarajah (2005)

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1)
Date: 14-Jan-2006
From: Elizabeth Erling < berling at zedat.fu-berlin.de >
Subject: Reclaiming the Local in Language Policy and Practice 

	
-------------------------Message 1 ---------------------------------- 
Date: Tue, 17 Jan 2006 22:33:59
From: Elizabeth Erling < berling at zedat.fu-berlin.de >
Subject: Reclaiming the Local in Language Policy and Practice 
 

EDITOR: Canagarajah, A. Suresh 
TITLE: Reclaiming the Local in Language Policy and Practice 
SERIES: ESL & Applied Linguistics Professional Series 
PUBLISHER: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates 
YEAR: 2005
Announced at http://linguistlist.org/issues/16/16-2275.html 

Elizabeth J. Erling, Freie Universität Berlin

DESCRIPTION

Canagarajah's edited volume reports on ways that language planners 
and educators are responding to the way in which local and global 
discourses and practices meet and intermingle. As the editor states in 
the preface, the chapters primarily address researchers and graduate 
students in applied linguistics (AL). Readers require a background in 
AL and knowledge of contemporary discussions in the field; 
nevertheless, the texts are clearly written and make for fascinating 
reading. Each context the contributors describe sheds light on the 
complexity of globalization, migration, and language use -- from a 
village school in Brunei to the Dominican community in New York City. 
We are presented with an overwhelming amount of variables and an 
impressive view of diversity that needs to be taken account of in each 
context where policy and practice are planned. Some texts argue for 
taking great account of local practices and cultures and respecting 
their value and validity. Others call for a reconfiguration of the 
discipline to allow for different conceptions of identity, knowledge 
practices, and social networks. Overall, the volume demonstrates a 
clear need for ''disciplinary reorientation'' in the field of AL.

Part I, Redefining Disciplinary Constructs, deals with the critical effect 
that acknowledgement of local practices has on global paradigms. The 
contributions deal with central constructs in the field of AL that need to 
be revised in order to reflect the complex reality of the local contexts. 
In the first chapter, Canagarajah shows how ''knowledge from hitherto 
suppressed traditions serves to constructively challenge and 
reconstruct dominant paradigms, exposing their biases and vested 
interests'' (xix).    

In the second chapter, Rakesh Bhatt critically examines the notion of 
standard language/s in the context of postcolonial India. He retells the 
story of how New Englishes challenge the standard language 
paradigm. He presents an analysis of hybridity in Indian English and 
shows how Indian English speakers move between various norms of 
English at local, national, and global levels. He argues that such 
findings must be considered in mainstream linguistics and that multiple 
standards and negotiation between varieties must be endorsed. 

In chapter 3, Dominique Ryon exposes the ideological slant in 
language death studies that ignores local resistance and assumes 
assimilation, sometimes to the detriment of the language that 
protectionists were intending to save. She shows how the story of 
Cajun French in the southern US is different when told by academics 
and politicians then when told by the local population, who report on 
cultural struggle and painful conflict that is by no means over yet. 
Ryon argues that in an attempt to remain objective or ''scientific,'' 
many sociolinguists neglect to consider issues of power and cultural 
struggle in linguistic assimilation. 

In chapter 4, Lynn Mario de Souza looks at the grapho-centric 
dominance in literacy studies, which has led to the suppression of 
alternative (multi-modal) literacies. She reports on the importance of 
words, pictures, icons, color, and spatial arrangement in Brazil local 
traditions and compares them to postmodern forms of communication 
that, for example, the New London Group (1996) encourages us to 
teach and embrace.

Part II is dedicated to Interrogating Language Policies. In chapter 5, 
Kanavillil Rajagopalan discusses the local resistance to the perceived 
threat of English in Brazil and the fear that globalization will destroy 
national integrity. He then compares this to Brazilian linguists' 
approach to the topic, which does not take into account local attitudes. 
He makes clear that an appreciation of the reasons for the continuing 
stand-off between expert and lay knowledge is needed for fruitful 
dialogue and appropriate policy. Thus, Ryon concludes that linguists 
need to realize that there is more to language policy than linguistics 
and they need address the needs and concerns of the common 
people. 

In chapter 6, Maya David and Subra Govindasamy show what can 
happen when nationalistic language policies are implemented, and 
how the result can be detrimental when the cognitive and social 
advantages of bilingualism are not recognized. The chapter presents 
us with the situation in Malaysia, where nationalistic policy was 
implemented in the late 70s to promote the indigenous language and 
counter the postcolonial influence of English. The decision not to 
teach English has resulted in Malays being left behind in global 
developments, while the Chinese and Indian communities in Malaysia, 
who continued to learn English, are better prepared to work in the SE 
Asian region and are more globally competitive. The authors then 
present the complexity of reviving this community's skills in English. 

In Chapter 7, Sharon Utakis and Marianne Pita discuss the effects of 
transnationalism on education with the example of Dominicans living in 
New York City. They show how members of this community shuttle 
between the Dominican Republic and the US, speaking both English 
and Spanish. They also show that education in the US -- which 
promotes assimilation -- does not serve the needs of these 
transnational migrants. Thus, the authors argue that language policy 
in education should support balanced bilingual competence with dual 
language programs and a bicultural curricula that values Spanish and 
incorporates critical language awareness into the classroom. Such 
pedagogical practices involve empowering the identity of students and 
drawing from their local knowledge to facilitate their biliterate 
development. 

Part III, Reframing Professional Lives, presents us with the hybrid 
professional and personal identities of educators who create a space 
in which they can balance their cultural practices of the home with 
practices of the host community. 

In chapter 8, David Block examines the attitudes and experiences of 
French teachers of French in England. Through narrative analysis, he 
shows how these individuals, who are not yet British but are no longer 
entirely French, struggle with staying or leaving and with their roles as 
instructors within British National Curriculum. Block argues that their 
local knowledge and experience should be used as a source of 
critique and reform. 

In Chapter 9, by Angel Lin, Wendy Wang, Nobuhiko Akamatsu, and 
Mehdi Riazi, the authors use autobiographic narratives to report and 
interpret common experiences in learning English and how these 
shaped their teaching and research practices. The implications of 
these accounts suggest the need to change the focus in AL from 
TESL to TEGCOM (Teaching English for Glocalized Communication). 
According to the authors, this alternative theoretical orientation 
requires ''a deeper understanding of diverse local pedagogical 
practices and beliefs in their sociocultural situatedness, deeper 
understand of issues of agency, identity, ownership appropriation, 
resistance, and English language learning, teaching, and use in 
diverse sociocultural contexts and a deeper understanding of various 
cross-cultural encounters'' (218). This would also involve 
experimenting -- as the authors of this article do -- with new modes of 
research inquiry that better reflect the local, such as anthropological 
research methods, interpretive sociological, narrative analysis, and 
autobiographic studies. 

In the final section, Part IV, Imagining Classroom Possibilities, 
particular classroom contexts are presented. Here it is shown how 
local identities, knowledge and discourses need to be brought in to 
negotiate the learning of unfamiliar codes and content in ELT. 

In chapter 10, Peter Martin presents a discourse analysis of one class 
in a small community in rural Brunei, where there are students who 
speak several different indigenous languages. He shows how the 
teacher uses multilingual literacy pedagogies to localize the lesson 
and have it make sense for the children. This contribution highlights 
the struggle in the quest for knowledge and the attempt of classroom 
participants to incorporate both local and textbook knowledge into 
their talk. 

In chapter 11, Jasmine Luk argues that communicative intent is the 
most important aspect of language teaching and looks into how this 
can be promoted through opportunities for students to express their 
local identity, interests and values. She presents two lessons taught 
by native English-speaking teachers where communicative 
competence is supposedly promoted. One activity, while typical of 
communicative language teaching, does not promote communication 
of local identities, nor does it provoke interest or motivation in the 
students. The second activity, however, allows students to express 
themselves, their opinions, and to have a valuable cross-cultural 
experience, even though the instructor does most of the talking. Luk 
argues that in this situation, the desire to assert ''self'' motivates 
learners' active participation. She thus concludes that in appropriating 
global discourse, it is essential for learners to be able to assert their 
selves in cross-cultural global interactions so that multiple, or 
pluralistic, language user identities can be constructed. She argues 
that native English-speaking teachers can help to promote this type of 
intercultural understanding, but only if they promote communicative 
intent. 

In chapter 12, Elisabeth Mermann-Jozwiak and Nancy Sullivan 
consider the relevance of Mexican culture and language in the 
borderlands of Corpus Christi, Texas, where minority school failure is 
endemic. The authors argue that curricular inclusions of language and 
literatures produced by Mexican American writers can help bridge 
cultural and linguistic discontinuities present in the current education 
system and work against anti-immigrant, antiminority, antibilingual 
positions. They describe how the classroom can be turned into a 
learning environment where students' cultures and languages are 
valued and how students can be encouraged to engage in activities 
where they can show their expertise and their linguistic and cultural 
experiences and knowledges. Finally, they show how local diversity 
can be a valuable tool in fostering citizenship that is attuned to global 
connectedness. 

EVALUATION

The blurb on the back of the book states that ''the authors make a 
case for why it is important for local social practices, communicative 
conventions, linguistic realities, and knowledge paradigms to actively 
inform language policies and practices for classrooms and 
communities in specific contexts, and to critically inform those 
pertaining to other communities. They illuminate the paradox that the 
local contains complex values of diversity, multilingualism, and plurality 
that can help to reconceive the multilingual society and education for 
postmodern times.'' Indeed, the book does not disappoint. While most 
contemporary literature dealing with globalization focuses on 
homogenization, this volume shows the vast diversity of local cultures 
and languages that need to be taken account of in language policy 
and practice. It presents numerous examples of hybrid groups who 
fluidly move between languages, varieties and registers. 

Any faults the book has are points that the authors recognize and 
mention in their chapters. Open questions in one chapter may be 
answered, or at least echoed, in other chapters. For example, after 
reading Parts I and II, it was clear that education fails to equip 
students for real-world needs and that students have to be proficient 
in ''negotiating multiple dialects, registers, discourses, and if possible, 
languages, to function effectively in a context of postmodern 
globalization'' (xxv). However, while reading the text I felt frustrated by 
the fact that the reader is not given a realistic approach that could 
influence national policies nor solid advice as to how to go about 
doing this. But the final chapters in Part III and IV follow up by 
presenting practical responses that could be incorporated in language 
education policy and in the classroom.

One crucial problem that several contributions in this volume deal with 
is the dynamics between local communities, national language 
education policies, and global forces. Often these issues can present 
frustrating realities in which nationalist positions do not allow for 
policies and practices that would actually benefit local people. For 
example, the chapter on the complex situation of Dominican students 
in New York City recommends the introduction of a bilingual and 
bicultural curriculum. In light of current national ideologies in the US, 
which seem to strongly enforce the notion of Americaness, it is not 
likely that the US education system would, even if it could, offer the 
means to promote bilingual, bicultural transnationalism. As Mermann-
Jozwiak and Sullivan show in the final chapter, many US Americans 
have negative attitudes towards those who cling to their ''other'' 
languages and cultures. The struggle between national language 
policies and global realities is echoed in the chapters on Malaysia and 
Brazil. Here the clash between national education to create national 
citizens and the promotion of transculturalism, multilingualism, and 
multiliteracies is also highlighted. These complex issues will surely 
continue to play an important role in language policy and practice. 

While many of the ideas in this volume may not be new -- for example 
the need to challenge the notions of language standards or the native 
speaker -- the contributions offer new insight into these discussions 
and reemphasize the need for a paradigm shift within AL. The authors 
use a number of different and innovative research methodologies to 
get at questions concerning globalization and local responses. It 
seems that future studies of this type could continue to draw from 
research done in other disciplines, for example sociology and 
economics (e.g. Grin 2003, Smith and Favell forthcoming, Urry 2005, 
etc.). The volume as a whole -- but especially the contribution from 
Lim et al -- paves the way for new platforms of research which will 
continue to take account of socially, culturally, historically, and 
intuitionally situated perspectives. 

REFERENCES

Grin, F. 2003. ''Language Planning and Economics.'' Current Issues in 
Language Planning, 4(1): 1-66.

New London Group. (1996). ''A pedagogy of multiliteracies: Designing 
social futures.'' Harvard Educational Review, 66(1): 60-92.

Smith, M. P. and Favell, A (eds). forthcoming 2006. The Human Face 
of Global Mobility: International Highly Skilled Migration in Europe, 
North America and the Asia Pacific.,New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction.

Urry, J. 2005. ''Globalisation and complexities'' In I. Rossi (ed) 
Frameworks for Globalization Research. Amsterdam: Kluwer. 

ABOUT THE REVIEWER

Elizabeth J. Erling has her PhD from the University of Edinburgh's 
Department of Theoretical and Applied Linguistics. Her dissertation, 
Globalization, English and the German University Classroom (2004), is 
a sociolinguistic profile of English use at the Freie Universität in Berlin, 
where she has taught in the language center since 1998. She has 
published articles in English Today, The Globalisation of English and 
the English Language Classroom (Gnutzmann & Intemann 2005), and 
Speaking from the Margin: Global English from a European 
Perspective (Duszak & Okulska 2004). Her academic interests are 
World English(es), second language writing, and European language 
policy and education.





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