Language, Identity and

Symbolic Culture
 Also available from Bloomsbury:

Language and Identity, edited by David Evans

Language, Culture and Identity, Philip Riley
Second Language Identities, David Block
Language, Identity and
Symbolic Culture

Edited by
David Evans
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 Contents

List of Illustrations vii

Acknowledgements viii

Part One: Language and Identity: A Theoretical Perspective 1

1. Introduction David Evans 3

2. Meaning: From Inner Structure to Post-structure David Evans 7

3. Discourse Formation David Evans 27

Part Two: Urban Discourses 49

4. ‘DFLs’ versus ‘Locals’: Discursive Conflict on Social Media and the

Battle for Regional Identity Christopher Anderson 51

5. Youth Identities: Media Discourse in the Formation of Youth

Identity Patricia Giardiello 85

Part Three: Marginalized Discourse 103

6. Language-Culture: Marginalization or Opportunity in Cameroon’s

Official ‘State Bilingualism’ Henry Kum 105

7. Refugee Communities: The Disappearance of Voice and Impact on

Care and Identity Henry Kum 135

8. Subalternity, Language and Projects of Emancipation: An Analysis

of Dalit Literature Joseph Mundananikkal Thomas 161

9. Mandarin Chinese in Education and Society in Xinjiang

Mamtimyn Sunuodula 183
vi Contents

Part Four: Pedagogical Discourse 217

10. Cultural Discourses in the Foreign Language Classroom: Economic

Opportunity, Instrumental Motivation or Cultural Understanding
David Evans 219

11. Teacher Development through Classroom Discourse Analysis: The

Self-Evaluation of Teacher Talk Instrument Developed by Walsh
Karin Zotzmann 243

12. Conclusion: A Pedagogy for Marginalized Language-Culture

David Evans 259

Notes on Contributors 278

Index 281
 List of Illustrations

Figures

5.1 The questionnaire 92

6.1 A pro-English sign from the University of Buea 121

9.1 Student response to the importance of learning Chinese at school 200

9.2 An analytical framework for minority educational policies in China 203

10.1 Based on Fairclough’s (1989) socio-economic model of discourse 222

Tables

4.1 People (descriptions and roles) in the article 63

4.2 Behaviour in the article 64

4.3 Artefacts in the article 66

4.4 Margate (buildings, locations etc.) in the article 68

4.5 Discourse timeline 74

4.6 Reactions to the article 76

9.1 Ethnicity and language requirements specified in civil servant

recruitment examination in Xinjiang, Tibet and Inner Mongolia
in 2010 199
 Acknowledgements

I would like to acknowledge the support and encouragement provided for

this book by the Rev. Canon Professor Kenneth Newport, pro vice chancellor
(academic) and dean of education at Liverpool Hope University, as well as to the
University more generally
Furthermore, I would like to acknowledge, over the course of the project, the
support of Andrew Wardell, linguistics editor at Bloomsbury Publishers.
I also acknowledge all the chapter contributors, without whom our book
Language, Identity and Symbolic Culture would not have become a reality. My
thanks to all those contributing academics.
Deo Gratias
Dr David Evans
 Part One

Language and Identity: A

Theoretical Perspective

Editor’s introduction

This is a theoretical section, consisting of two chapters following on from the

introduction to the book as a whole in Chapter 1.
Chapter 2 charts a journey from a traditional Cartesian view of language
reflecting individual rational mind, characterized by the linguistics of Chomsky
and going towards a more social view of language and identity. The chapter
progresses to a view of language, meaning and identity as intersubjectively
constructed; then to a post-structural view of meanings and therefore identities
as multiple, fluid, located and subject to interpretation in the social world rather
than the mind of the individual. Chapter 3 focuses on the formation of discourse
as language use in social action reflecting the ideologies of speakers and texts
from their positions of sociocultural positions of power. It examines the extent
to which the individual is located inside or outside of discourse and with this the
extent of the power.
 1

Introduction
David Evans

The rationale of this book is to explore the interwoven connections between

language, identity and symbolic culture. The purpose for this rationale is the
analysis of the power of language, not only power occasioned by the application
of words and signs in language use or discourse, but also the ideologies that lie
within language and discourse. We see in the book how language and its social
use or discourse can be viewed as a ‘symbolic capital’ analogous to economic
currency where some languages and language types are more valued than others.
The book’s aim in the final section moves to ways of achieving linguistic and
therefore cultural equity as expressions of social justice through a much more
critical pedagogy where all languages and cultures of participants in education
are equally valued.
The book is organized over four sections: Part I is theoretical examining the
dual function of language as constructing reality subjectively and intersubjectively
and /or describing a pre-existent reality; therefore language as creative or
referential. This theoretical section also explores the connection between
language as internal in terms of its components such as lexis and grammar and
language as externally facing in its social usage, or in other words discourse.
Part II is a research section on urban discourses examining power,
marginalization and resistance in language and discourse. It examines some
current debates occurring in the interface and interrelationship between local
and metropolitan discourses in one instance and youth discourses in the
formation of identity in another. This involves looking at cultural issues of
marginalization by dominant discourses and the corollary of resistant discourse.
Part III broadens themes of language, cultural marginalization and resistance
from locations in the United Kingdom to case studies around the world in
Africa, India, China and migrant journeys across national borders.
4 David Evans

The case study in Africa explores the relationship between linguistic

marginalization and opportunity in Cameroon where French is the language
of opportunity and privilege, especially in the area of access to educational
resources. Unfortunately this linguistic dominance marginalizes both tribal
languages and the nationally understood and spoken Pidgin English which is
regarded as non-standard and prohibited from use in educational institutions.
Clearly here language use impacts on social justice in the discrimination between
language types resulting in the restriction of access to cultural and educational
resources. Chapter 7 narrates and analyses the geopolitical and sociocultural live
topic in the world today concerning the loss of refugee voice as refugees cross
national borders and struggle to gain acceptance in host countries. This chapter
narrates and analyses their shifting identities as they journey across geographical,
sociocultural and economic boundaries to unknown destinations. We see how
their identities are marginalized as they become depersonalized objects of debate
by the political media and framed within a negative and menacing discourse.
The consequence of this is the disappearance of their own voices.
The case study in India examines in particular the role of dalit literature as
a resistant language and discourse to the dominant Indian mainstream culture.
Dalits were historically regarded as ‘untouchables’ without voice but have now
made their voice heard through dalit literature. This literature is written in the
languages of Marathi, Tamil and Telugu and is expressed as poetry, ballads, short
stories and novels.
Chapter 9, which concludes Part III, is a case study set in the Uyghur province
of northwest China. It follows the struggles of the Uyghurs as they strive to
preserve their language and culture in the face of an encroaching Chinese
Mandarin language culture.
The interconnecting characteristic between Parts II and III is the notion
of language and discourse constituting a symbolic culture and the ideas of
Bourdieu (1977, 1982, 1989, 2013) figure strongly where language is a symbolic
capital analogous to economic currency. We further evidence this in Chapter 10
in the pedagogical Part IV, in terms of foreign language education in UK
secondary schools where clearly the decision on which languages are taught in
schools is based in large part on sociocultural and therefore economic power.
For instance, most secondary schools teach French and many teach Spanish and
German based on their current global and European economic reach and also
on the cultural historic legacy of these countries. In the past few years Mandarin
Chinese has been introduced into many secondary schools due to the emergence
of China as an economic superpower offering possibilities of extensive trading
 Introduction 5

links with the United Kingdom. Contrast this with European languages such as
Lithuanian, Hungarian, Serbo-Croat, Polish and Czech which are not taught in
schools nor are UK community languages because they lack the socio-economic
capital of French, German, Spanish and now Mandarin Chinese.
Moreover, in Part II, we see that linguistic capital also pertains to urban
discourse where some ways of speaking are more highly regarded than others
and therefore set in train resistant and alternative creative discourses.
The main lessons from the first three sections of the book are the notions
of language as ideological, constituting and expressing power and that the
consequences of this impact on identity. However the other lesson is that identity
and power are not unitary and monolithic imposed from above but diverse and
diffuse, negotiated situationally. We can then talk about identities in the plural
since language and power exist at many different social levels. So, for instance,
locally a particular urban or regional dialect may well carry more social capital
than the standard language. There may then well ensue a situation of conflict
between the local and the standard as we see in Chapter 4.
Part IV is a pedagogical section which explores the possibilities for the
valorization of marginalized language-culture. This section focuses on education
as a force for social justice and therefore foregrounding of marginalized culture.
The chapters in this section are research chapters which explore a more
critical view of education, challenging existing traditional power relations in the
development of teacher identity in Chapter 11 and the ‘banking system’ in foreign
language teaching in Chapter 10, which often overlooks cultural understanding
to focus on the economic outcomes of language learning.
In the concluding Chapter 12, Freire (1972, 1989) has much to say with
regard to democratizing the power differentials in education between teachers
and students. This can be achieved by viewing language, culture and knowledge
as processes which are co-constructed socially rather than imposed as finished
definitive products. Students and their teachers can then valorize or re-valorize
marginalized language by using it to learn knowledge and skill not just at
primary school but throughout the educational system. At the same time social
justice also includes economic opportunity and students should learn dominant
lingua francas such as Standard English alongside their own languages of local
community identity. This chapter therefore proposes a co-construction of
knowledge and skill through bilingual education where all students are open to
at least another language and culture. In the United Kingdom, the current Brexit
(British exit of the European Union) polemic, in 2017, should not close down
foreign language learning to favour the hegemony of the English lingua franca,
6 David Evans

nor should the only argument for learning a foreign language be for economic
outcomes but rather to engage in foreign language learning to understand the
alterity of otherness in language-culture and explore therein the possibilities for
identity.
Finally, education should not just address performance unquestioningly as in
Freire’s (1972) ‘banking system’ but critically question the status quo of socio-
economic distribution of cultural and linguistic resources so that they may be
more equitably allocated in the interest of social justice. In this respect we hope
that readers of this book will see that education, with an equitable access to
sociocultural resources through language in particular, can remain an agent for
social change.

References

Bourdieu, P. (1977). Outline of a Theory of Practice. Cambridge. Cambridge

University Press.
Bourdieu, P. (1982). Langage et pouvoir symbolique. Editions Fayard.
Bourdieu, P. (1989). ‘Social Space and Symbolic Power’. Sociological Theory 7.1: 14–25.
Bourdieu, P. (2013). ‘Symbolic Capital and Social Classes’. Journal of Classical Sociology
13.2: 292–302.
Freire, P. (1972). Pedagogy of the Oppressed. London: Penguin Books.
Freire, P., & Faundez, A. (1989). Learning to Question: A Pedagogy of Liberation.
Geneva: WCC Publications.
 2

Meaning: From Inner Structure to

Post-structure
David Evans

Introduction

Language in this book is conceived as closely and inseparably entwined with

the nature of being. Identity, as the nature of being, can be viewed differently as,
for example, unitary, continuous and located in the mind, or created socially,
communal and systemic or intersubjectively between subjects or alternatively
as fragmented into multiple levels and facets, all according to the philosophical
approach we take to language. The rationale of the book in the title Language,
Identity and Symbolic Culture, as explained in the introduction, is to explore the
relationships between the three elements of the title. This chapter will focus on
a progressive range of interrelations between language and identity, starting from
individual subjective identity of rational language as mind based, then towards more
social intersubjective accounts of language and identity, then systemic explanations
in structuralism and finally post-structural accounts of multiple and continually
developing identities. The next chapter will focus on the third element of the title
in terms of how language becomes discourse, invested with symbolic power to
promote some languages and forms of language while marginalizing others.
Hardcastle (2009) narrates historical philosophical approaches to language
from the European Enlightenment era of the seventeenth century onwards
starting with the English philosopher Locke and referring to the ideas of Herder
and von Humboldt. This reveals fundamental questions as to whether the
individual stands inside or outside of language. In other words, does individual
identity preexist language or is it constituted by and within language? Hardcastle
states Locke’s position for language as the transmission of preexisting ideas and
the vehicle of thought. Succinctly Hardcastle (2009: 186) states this position
as, ‘Ideas come first: words follow.’ Condillac in the 1700s placed language in
8 David Evans

a much more forward position as a tool for gaining mastery over thoughts.
Here, thoughts could only be organized and cohere through signs and symbols.
Condillac argued that psychology needs language to produce a psychologized
self, by opening up a space for consciousness and reflection, ‘unconstrained by
immediate circumstances’ (Hardcastle 2009; 187). Herder took Condillac’s view
of language much further by considering it to be more dynamic in constituting
identity itself. Hardcastle (2009; 189) states, ‘On this view, expression is the
process by which people make themselves.’ Von Humboldt in the nineteenth
century follows a similar line as Herder in viewing language as self-constitutive
of identity but differs from Herder in the notion that intellectually developed
identity is formed intersubjectively and communally with others. Hardcastle
(2009: 190) sums up Von Humboldt’s thinking, stating that ‘[t]he significant
point for von Humboldt was the shaping and ordering influences of languages
on the development of the mentalities of the peoples that speak them-their
whole orientation towards the world’.
We can see therefore that historically, philosophers viewed individual
identity shaped differently by different ‘takes’ on the nature of the relationship
between language and the individual. We will see the Cartesian view also in the
chapter where Descartes (2008) views language as a rational expression of the
individual’s preexisting rationality.
Consequently, following on from this historical perspective, this chapter’s
thesis is that different paradigms of linguistics can account for different
narratives of being in the world and to see identity not only as individual,
rational and located entirely in the head but also as progressively becoming
social and intersubjective. This progressive direction is important in terms of
the rationale of this book which aims to foreground the links between language,
its use and how this affects identities of individuals and groups concerning their
opportunities on the one hand and marginalization and cultural resistance on
the other. The chapter will outline movement and progression across paradigms
and to assist this dynamic, I argue that it is necessary to explore more fully the
earlier philosophical accounts already briefly outlined to provide this progressive
range of accounts for narratives of language and identity.

Historical philosophical accounts of language-identity

Two opposing Enlightenment philosophers proposed very different models of

the individual and subsequently how notions of identity would unfold over time.
 Meaning: From Inner Structure to Post-structure 9

Descartes’s view (Meditations; Moriarty 2008) was of the individual’s innate

rationality containing inner structures corresponding to the structures of
knowledge in the outside world. This is very much a metaphysical philosophy
where Descartes argues that God guarantees the individual’s epistemological
connection to the outside world. So the structures for all knowledge are contained
in individual rationality, meaning that the individual acquires knowledge in the
sense that he/she learns what he/she already knows. Knowledge is not actively
constructed by the individual but is simply out there awaiting discovery by
corresponding mental structures in the fullness of time. As it will be discussed
later in this chapter, Chomsky (2009) takes up the baton of Cartesian linguistics
in his notion of Universal Grammar where children in particular acquire
language rather than actively learn it. However Chomsky does not mention
any reference to a divine guarantor of subject-object interconnection although
neither does he lean towards linguistic evolution, referring instead to the origin
of language arising out of a chance mutation early on in human history.
Opposed to Cartesian views of epistemology is Locke’s (2010–15) view of
human knowledge which conceives of the individual as a ‘blank slate’. He states
his position as follows:

Let us then suppose the mind to have no ideas in it, to be like white paper with
nothing written on it. How then does it come to be written on? From where
does it get that vast store which the busy and boundless imagination of man has
painted on it – all the materials of reason and knowledge? To this I answer, in
one word, from experience. (18)

For Locke, knowledge is generated by a combination of experience of the world

and also reflection, being the ability to turn inwards to view the contents of mind
and reflect upon what the senses have experienced. Nevertheless the raw material
for knowledge is experience of the outside world as opposed to Cartesian
innate structures for knowledge. Therefore all knowledge including language is
empirical and not derived from innate structures beyond the ability to reflect.
The two opposed positions of Descartes on the one hand and Locke on the
other give rise to the linguistic positions of Chomsky and Vygotsky respectively.
Chomsky, on the one hand, talks about language being generated by innate
structures within mind which correspond to the structures of language just in
the same way that Descartes talked about structures for knowledge residing
innately in mental structures. Vygotsky, on the other hand, talks about language
being learned from experience of the outer world in the same way that Locke
referred to all learning being based on the raw material of experience of the outer
10 David Evans

world. The production of language, whether it is simply acquired as in Cartesian

linguistics or actively learned through the social world, reflects a philosophical
dichotomy between rationalism and empiricism.

Chomsky’s Cartesian linguistics

The key to Descartes’s philosophy and to subsequent Cartesian linguistics is

rationality based upon mind-body dualism. Descartes’s statement ‘Cogito ergo
sum’ ‘I think therefore I am’ (Second Meditation; Moriarty 2008) is derived from
the human mind or Descartes’s mind affirming its own existence and subsequently
affirming the existence of the body and the outside world. However this is very
much about the lone individual mind affirming its own existence in original
isolation. Therefore mental contents are rationally located inside the mind rather
than within any notion of the social world, because language is conceived as a
rational item of knowledge that the mind deploys to express inner rationality.
This rational based linguistics is taken up by the Port Royal grammarians in
the 1600s. Their book entitled The General and Reasoned Grammar is described
by Roy (1999) as not being about the grammar of a particular language but about
the relation of languages in general to Cartesian ideas. Roy maintains that for
the Port Royal grammarians ‘language and ideas are correlative and, as such,
are really inseparable. That the “art of speaking” lives and dies with the “art
of thinking” holds as true as the converse’ (132). Here there is no mention of
language as a means of communication or as relational but simply as a tool for
rational thought.
Similarly Chomskyan linguistics conceives the individual as a rational person
with language as the tool for expressing this rationality in thought without regard
for social communication or social identity. Language is therefore a rational
adjunct to the mind and as such idealized as an expression of logic.
This has implications for meaning because meaning is generated within the
inner structures of language and mind rather than socially.

Universal Grammar

The Port Royal grammarians of the seventeenth century used a notion of

universal grammar as mentioned above to apply linguistics to Cartesian ideas
of mind and Chomsky takes up this concept to explain the ease with which
 Meaning: From Inner Structure to Post-structure 11

individuals know and speak a language. Chomsky’s Universal Grammar is not

the grammar of any particular language but the blueprint for all languages. It
is an innate structure for language that exists within all humans so that, given
normal everyday circumstances of human contact, children will learn to speak
and know a language or languages, even if the linguistic content surrounding
them is limited or of a non-standard variety. For Chomsky and Lenneburg
(1967), his colleague, there is an optimum age for this which is infancy. This
means that if children are deprived of all human linguistic contact, they will
have missed the moment and grow up without a full linguistic facility.
Chomsky (2009) divides language into ‘deep structure’ and ‘surface structure’.
As we see in the following statement, it is the deep structure that contains the
universal grammar which is the rational facility for the construction of thought
across all languages, that which separates us from the superficial and instinctive
physicality of surface structure. It is therefore the deep structure which accounts
for our rational identity as human beings. Chomsky points out as follows: ‘[W]e
can distinguish the “deep structure” of a sentence from its “surface structure”.
The former is the underlying abstract structure that determines its semantic
interpretation; the latter, the superficial organization of units which determines
the phonetic interpretation and which relates to the physical form of the actual
utterance, to its perceived or intended form’ (79).
According to Chomsky language has a mind-body duality corresponding
respectively to semantics and phonetics. However the meaning of a sentence is in
the mind or the deep structures and this is the domain of semantics whereas the
surface structure is only the local expression of the deeper meaning. Chomsky
(2009: 83) goes on to reinforce the relations between deep and surface structures
as follows: ‘The deep structure that expresses the meaning is common to all
languages, so it is claimed, being a simple reflection of forms of thought. The
transformational rules that convert deep to surface structure may differ from
language to language’.
Chomsky (2006) argues for language study to form a central part of general
psychology because universal grammar or language universals are integral to
mental functioning. This would imply that mental processes can be understood
through language use. This is justified by Chomsky in the following statement,
‘[I]t is natural to expect a close relation between innate properties of the mind
and features of linguistic structure; for language, after all, has no existence apart
from its mental representation. Whatever properties it has must be those that are
given to it by the innate mental processes of the organism that invented it’ (83).
Here Chomsky is arguing that there is little to distinguish universal grammar
12 David Evans

from mind and so language is not something learned by repetition by a learning

mind alongside everything else. The young child internalizes external linguistic
data from the social world which corresponds to language shaped innate mental
structures. This innate approach should then be distinguished from language
learning as part of general learning strategies where one could argue that learning
any skill is much more easily done in childhood because of a heightened general
capacity of learning.
The innateness of the Chomskyan approach to the nature of language and
identity and concomitant language learning has its critics due to a perceived lack
of evidence concerning the internal mental structures of Universal Grammar.
Dabrowska (2015) criticizes Chomsky’s notion of universal grammar by arguing
that Chomsky has no empirical evidence for this, that he does not specify or
empirically verify what exactly universal grammar is, or in what it consists.
Dabrowska is a constructivist linguist and justifiably argues that universal
grammar as a concept should be fully justified through empirical evidence and
then posited as a conclusion rather than as an a priori principle or precept. Within
a paradigm of evidence based social science, Dabrowska is undoubtedly right in
stating that universal grammar is a hypothesis to be tested against rather than an
a priori principle. It needs the chance to be challenged by the evidence in order
to be falsified like any other scientific data. However Chomsky is a linguistic
philosopher rather than an empirical scientist and comes to his a priori precept
by logical inference. Universal Grammar can be framed as a specific structure
of mind which corresponds to language and serves as a body of organizing
principles. This logical inference is based on the notion of ‘necessary conditions’.
What are the necessary conditions for language to take place, for a child to
learn the basic forms of language in so short a time with only a minimum of
exposure and with even non-standard or incorrect grammar? Given frequently
unfavourable circumstances, universal grammar, generating meaning from
inner organizing principles via surface structures, would seem more plausible
to rationalists than the notion of learning a language by quantitative increments.
The rationalist method starts with innate organizing principles but then states
that the creative use of grammar can generate completely new sentences which
have not necessarily ever been heard, learned and repeated. Therefore, for
Chomsky, innate grammar accounts for the idea that we use language creatively
from a comparatively small strategic base.
However the social constructivist model is that we learn language by
exposure and repetition and then, by constant use, we learn which parts of the
 Meaning: From Inner Structure to Post-structure 13

lexis or vocabulary can serve as functional grammar to control and generate new
sentences. The former therefore works from the inside going outwards and the
latter model works from the outer sociocultural going inwards.
An argument running through this chapter is that the two opposing
paradigms of language represent two differing views of human identity-rational
individual on the one hand and sociocultural on the other. We proceed now to a
sociocultural model for language learning.

Social constructivism: language as a social phenomenon

For Vygotsky (1962) all meaning is at first social and meanings attach
themselves to word sounds before becoming individual through inner
speech within thought processes. Word and object are separate entities and
not intrinsically connected but nevertheless enter into each other by close
sociocultural association. It is possible for a child or even an adult to use a
word by repetition without being fully aware of its meaning. It is also possible
for the word to change meaning over time. The mechanism for the arbitrary
nature of word sounds and spellings will become clearer later on when the
chapter comes to focus on the work of Ferdinand de Saussure, the founder of
modern linguistics.
For Vygotsky the origins of the thinking process and language start in
different places but then come together in the human mind around the age of
two years. It is at this stage that word sounds start to take on the social meanings
from the outside world in the minds of young children. Before this time, basic
instinctive word sounds can exist in the young child without thought but rather
as prelinguistic emotion. Equally, thought in terms of basic instincts can exist
without language much as it does in mammals such as apes. It is only when
social language and the thought processes in the child intersect that thought
itself begins to develop and is able, in thought-language interaction, to attain
higher-order rational thinking. Higher-order thinking would not exist without
language and there is something of a consensus over this across the linguistic
paradigms of both Chomsky and Vygotsky.
The internalization of word sound social meanings and their intersection
with thought processes have implications for the construction of personal
identity. This is because the words that children encounter come with preexisting
meanings which they internalize and such preexisting meanings contain
14 David Evans

ideologies which children are not yet in a position of sufficiently fully conscious
thought to analyse and investigate. Vygotsky argues that children internalize
meanings by narrating actions to themselves in egocentric speech during play.
The meanings of particular words are therefore only understood in particular
situations of narrated play or sociocultural action. A full impact of all the
possible meanings of words may only ‘sink in’ at a later stage when the thought-
language interaction is more fully developed. Obviously the degree to which this
development occurs is a matter of personal education and development.
Vygotsky (1962) argues that language and linguistic interaction between
individuals are a major tool in the construction of thought and understanding.
He formulates the notion of the Zone of Proximal Development (ZDP) where
the higher level of linguistic and communicative ability of a capable peer can
help less experienced learners to reach out beyond their current understanding
to the more advanced concepts that would otherwise be beyond them. Therefore
much in line with the Lockean notion of the ‘blank slate’ and learning from
experience, Vygotsky’s view of learning is that it is active and social leading to
pedagogical strategies of group and pair work learning where students learn
from each other. The identity of the individual and learner here is social and not
individual and certainly not, as perhaps Chomsky and also Piaget would argue,
based on maturational levels of inner development. Again the identity of the
individual in the Locke, Vygotsky line of thinking is outer and not inner, social
and not innate.
Cole (1996) regards language as an artefact used by the individual to
mediate the world. Language is then a highly developed means by which
the world is presented or re-presented to us. We are then able to use these
linguistic representations as intellectual tools to further construct the world.
Social constructivism argues that we construct ourselves, each other and the
social and technical world through linguistic interaction. Space rockets, jet
airplanes, high performance motor cars or highly sophisticated scientific and
medical equipment could never have been developed if we had not first engaged
in thought-language interaction through education and secondly had never
interacted with each other. The implication of this is that if linguistic capability
is underdeveloped, then so is our intellectual and cultural identity.
If Vygotsky’s perspective of language and identity may seem socioculturally
deterministic and lacking in agency, then we should look to Bakhtin to restore a
sense of individual and group agency to language where individuals and groups
are able to appropriate preexisting meanings and change them according to
particular need and ideology.
 Meaning: From Inner Structure to Post-structure 15

An ideological view of language: notions of discourse

Bakhtin (1981) focuses on the internalization of social language, as does

Vygotsky, with the principal difference between them being the emphasis
by Bakhtin on dialogue and the presence of the Other within inner voice.
Bakhtin views inner identity being permeated by the voices of others within
individuals since, in the social world, they live in constant dialogue with others.
Bakhtin refers to this as dialogized heteroglossia where, in terms of language
and communication, the individual resides within the interactions at the
intersection between him/herself and others. Identity therefore is ongoing and
constantly being shaped within intersubjectivity. Along with Wertsch (1991),
Bakhtin maintains that words are half the property of others in that they are
borrowed with their pre-existent meanings but then adapted by individuals and
groups to their own situations. Therefore one appropriates the words of others
and personalizes them with one’s own meanings and ideologies. The voices of
others however still persist, in Bakhtin’s dialogism, as opposed to any notion of
dialectic that would imply synthesis of meanings. Bakhtin (1981: 341) states this
as follows, ‘[T]he ideological becoming of a human being . . . is the process of
selectively assimilating the words of others’. There is therefore always a tension
within the individual due to a struggle for meaning between the individual and
the other. This tension will remain and Rule (2011: 940) points out, Bakhtin
always views individuals as inter-relating within a ‘tense dialogic struggle that
each individual experiences on the boundary of his own and others’ words’
and that this ‘is a learning process of ‘selecting and assimilating the words of
others’ (940).
Bakhtin’s view of identity is then a ‘far cry’ from the idealized individual
identity proposed by Descartes and taken up by Chomsky in his rational
linguistics. Rule (2011: 934) maintains that Bakhtin (along with the educational
philosopher Paolo Freire) proposes the individual as a ‘social being, it is
being-with-others and being- in-the-world. Both Bakhtin and Freire reject
the notion of the isolated and divided individual human subject of Cartesian
philosophy. Humans become through a process that is with and through others’.
Consequently when the individual speaks, it is to take into account the
response of others and so the utterances become populated with the views and
voices of others and the sense of ‘I’ is shaped by how others might or do respond
to us. Therefore even when alone, the absent other is present in our own sense of
being. In this way the unitary notion of single identity is problematized where it
is difficult or impossible to separate out the ‘I’ from the other and where the ‘I’ is
16 David Evans

defined by both its otherness and connectedness to the ‘you’. Identity is therefore
not isolated but both differentiated and connected.
The notion of identity as ‘becoming’ is a feature of Bakhtin’s philosophy and
also of Derrida (1967) whom we shall encounter later on in this chapter. It is the
notion of all human identity being unfinished and always becoming rather than
any state of fixed being. Given Bakhtinian philosophy of the individual as being
always in dialogue, individual identity is seen as continually emerging from
dialogical interaction continuing through time. Individuals’ identities remain
always incomplete because time is as yet unfinished and ongoing. Therefore for
Bakhtin, ‘human existence, like language and meaning, is open-ended, always
“yet-to-be” ’ (Rule 2011: 934);. The open-endedness of identity depends on its
location in time and place, because identity, firstly, can be multiple according
to social context; therefore identities can exist as a plural rather than a singular
unitary concept. Secondly, identities can change over time. This second view
of identity depends on the concept of deferred meanings or deferral which is a
central plank of Derrida’s post-structural linguistic philosophy.
Bakhtin’s view of language is that it is at the same time the property of the
supposed linguistic system and also the property of the individual. Words are
borrowed from the common pool and instantiated by the individual within his/
her social group to locate a particular meaning appropriate to his/her context.
Bakhtin therefore places a strong emphasis on the identity of individual agency
where the individual is constituted by his/her own dialect or genre and by the
otherness of a supposed system.
Price (2014) proposes that Bakhtin’s system is really grounded on language
use which solidifies over time to appear objective. As such grammar is simply
the historical manner in which language has been arranged over time. Beyond
this, the language system and grammar are groundless and the only guarantee
of meaning is the potential interpretation of the addressee. Linguistic meaning
then is horizontal between social participants and not vertically grounded in any
system. Therefore identities in language are forged intersubjectively through and
by spoken utterances. Meanings fluctuate because individual utterances are part
of a continuous chain of utterances which precede and succeed the individual
utterance. Price points out that language has no real independent existence and
only exists through mutual participation. Price quotes Bakhtin as follows: ‘An
utterance is always a response to prior utterances’ and ‘any utterance is a link in
a very complexly organized chain of utterances’ (15).
This contrasts with the systemic view of structuralist linguistics proposed by
Saussure (1966), who nevertheless prepared the way for the post-structuralism
 Meaning: From Inner Structure to Post-structure 17

of Derrida in his disconnection between signified and signifier. For Bakhtin,

language is about communication whereas for Saussure language is a system.
In the next section we can see the contrasting view of language in relation
to identity between the interactional dialogism of Bakhtin and the systemic
approach of structural linguistics.

The structuralism of Saussure

Saussure (1959) provides a root and branch theoretical analysis of the linguistic
system including the relationship between language and the community of
speakers. This is not the Cartesian rational language of mind as individual
identity focusing on the grammatical system but rather an explanation of
language as a social system and historical identity.
Saussure (1915; 1959: 15) defines ‘language’ as follows: ‘It is a system of signs
in which the only essential thing is the union of meanings and sound-images
and in which both parts of the sign are psychological’. He goes on to say that this
union is only arbitrary as there is no intrinsic bond between the word or signifier
and the concept – object or signified. The association between sounds and
objects which forms meaning takes place in the individual mind although the
origin of both is in the social world. This is not far away from Vygotsky’s position
where meaning itself originates in the social world and then is internalized by
the individual. The difference in Saussure’s position is that the two elements that
form the sign, that is, sounds and objects, are located in the social world but the
meaning itself is created in the mind, rather than in the social world. Saussure
(1915; 1959: 23) states that ‘language is the social product deposited in the brain
of each individual.
Saussure divides language into spoken language or ‘parole’ and the underlying
linguistic system called ‘langue’. Parole is the interactional instantiation of langue
where socio-historical meanings have already been formulated by ‘langue’.
Individual meanings are then shaped by this in their reproduction in the mind
of the individual. Saussure argues that parole in terms of speaking is not the only
expression of language as a system or ‘langue’ but rather that this could equally
be sign language or gesture, for example. Therefore visual symbols could replace
acoustic symbols. This is why Saussure refers to sound-image as the signifier
and not simply the word. The arbitrary connection between the signifier and
the signified is guaranteed by the community of speakers as, sound-images
in themselves, without this guarantee, are totally meaningless and empty. The
18 David Evans

obvious exception to this are onomatopoeic words where the meaning itself is
derived from sound approximation caused by nature.
Saussure (1959) regards time as having a double function in that at one and
the same time its historical nature holds meaning in place and yet its continuous
nature into the future causes word meanings to evolve. He refers to this as the
mutability and immutability of the sign and suggests that ‘the principle of
change is based on the principle of unity’ (74). This idea is that continuity is
the basis upon which change is made. It means that change is change from
something and change and continuity act as a same-difference comparison.
In practice change involves a shift over time between the signified and the
signifier. I consider that this is not that far from Bakhtin’s view of difference and
sameness in language between the individual and the supposed system aligning
Bakhtin’s notion of centripetal forces unifying language and centrifugal forces
dispersing it. There are however differences in that, for Bakhtin, there is no real
linguistic system as it is merely a notional one which is groundless. However,
for Saussure, although signs are formed in the mind of individuals they are
influenced by the real system of ‘langue’ as a social structure. Saussure is after
all a linguistic ‘structuralist’.

Saussure’s formation of meaning through difference

In Saussure’s linguistic theory meaning is produced in a process of differentiation

between signs (objects linked to sounds) that stand in both association and
opposition with each other. The following statement by Saussure (1915; 1959: 111)
explains the basis for the construction of meaning: ‘psychologically our thought –
apart from its expression in words – is only a shapeless and indistinct mass’.
Signs therefore allow us to differentiate phenomena into distinct categories and
distinguish them from similar adjacent categories which can then be further
subdivided with the use of more refined and accurate sign use. Saussure states that
‘without language, thought is a vague, uncharted nebula. There are no pre-existing
ideas and nothing is distinct before the appearance of language’ (1959: 112).
Therefore the creation of meaning is a two-way simultaneous process. There
is a vertical action of the association between sound (signifier) and object
(signified) and at the same time a horizontal action between associated signs
to create differentiation between them. So a word meaning or sign depends
on the meanings of other word meanings, and as Saussure (1959: 114) points
out, ‘Language is a system of interdependent terms in which the value of each
 Meaning: From Inner Structure to Post-structure 19

term results solely from the simultaneous presence of others’. Consequently a

word-sign can totally occupy a meaning category as generic until another similar
word claims some of the space by exerting a difference in meaning. An example of
this would be the following proposition: vegetation in a field or on a plot of land
would be seen from afar as plants especially to the untutored eye. However on
closer inspection the observer might perceive flowers and he/she could do this by
differentiating them from other vegetation. So we would have flowers and other
plants. A subsequent refinement of perception could results in difference within
flowers and the attribution of further word categories such as roses, daffodils
and tulips. There may be another perception of difference for which no word is
available and a new word would need to be generated, perhaps using a variation
of a similar word-sign using a prefix or adding an adjective – yellow rose and so
on. The result of this practically is that a rose is a rose because it is not something
else and therefore a sign exists because of what it is not as much as what it is – in
other words by absence of meaning as by its presence of meaning.
In recent political-media language, the term ‘Brexit’ was widely used in 2016
to signify the UK exit from the EU. This has meaning only in relation to Remain
as its opposition and several years before the EU referendum debate, it would
have been a meaningless sound, out of context. A further development was that
in late 2016–early 2017, there was a division of the identity of Brexit into hard
and soft and it is not inconceivable eventually, with frequent use, for a new word
or word combination to be created to further designate each of these through a
linguistic refinement.

Structuralist implications for identity

Word difference between similar word associations has important consequences

in terms of how human identity is both constructed and constrained by language.
A girl is a girl because of her resemblance to other girls but also because of her
difference from boys. Saussure’s theory of meaning helps us to understand how
we construct meaning and how we come to define what is a boy or girl, for
example, but at the same time it limits us to binary classifications. One would
need to call into question such a limited view of classification in order to see
that gender is not confined only to the opposites of a continuum but may lie
at various points on the continuum. In educational terms simplistic binary
categories could limit and constrain identity by saying all boys are inclined
towards one attribute and all girls are inclined towards another. One could then
20 David Evans

end up by stating that English literature is a girls’ subject and design technology
is a boys’ subject at school.
In the next section we will see how post-structuralism can tackle the notion
of varied multiple identities as a search for emancipation from linguistically
constraining stereotypes.
Before this, one other item of importance should be highlighted from Saussure’s
linguistic theory which is the emphasis of association of word-signs as opposed
to the differentiation we have just mentioned. Saussure (1915; 1959: 126) argues
that ‘[a] word can always evoke everything that can be associated with it in one
way or another’. This means that word meanings can cohere through association
and form a discourse. Saussure gives an example of this starting with the word
‘education’ which subsequently through usage coheres with words such as
‘teaching, learning, training, apprenticeship, vocation’. Other words could then
be added from use within a contemporary school setting such as ‘development,
assessment and progression etc.’ One can easily see that this might be the start of
a professional discourse around education.
The next chapter will focus on this link between language as word-sign
and language as a larger discourse within the accumulated social repertoire of
meanings.
Writers such as Saussure, Vygotsky and Bakhtin have demonstrated how a
much wider view of human identity can be conceptualized through notions of
language and meaning originating from the social world rather than from an
isolated view of the individual. Language is then social communication as well
as being a tool for rational thought. It is also intersubjective in its construction
of meaning and Bakhtin alludes to the notion of ‘I’ being defined in relation to
the other. This evokes the problematic as to where ‘I’ ends and the ‘other’ begins
and to the idea that within one’s own identity there is indeed a sense of the other
and, as a consequence, a sense of interconnectedness.
Derrida (1967) picks up on this theme of fluidity of identity, not just in terms
of the ‘other’ but also related to the future in terms of unfinished identity. Post-
structuralism liberates meaning and identity from a monolithic unitary nature
by looking at language in terms of interpretation as well as meaning making.

Post-structural identities

Derrida (1967; 1978) moves language and identity forward beyond Saussure’s
structuralism of binary meaning such that an object is identified as a particular
entity because of its difference with everything else as well as its association
 Meaning: From Inner Structure to Post-structure 21

with similarity. For Derrida difference does not mean binary opposition but a
differentiation with all other possible absent meanings rather than oppositions.
The post-structuralism refers to a complete decentring of meaning from what
Derrida refers to as ‘Logos’. Logos for Derrida comes from the false consciousness
of presence which enforces finality of one meaning over another. Many writers
such as Foucault (1972) refer to power in the enforcement of meaning. Power
however is not a word mentioned by Derrida but is rather implied in the idea
that Western secular philosophy has been dominated by the God-like status of
Logos to impose meanings.
For Derrida meanings cannot be fixed and there is no transcendent signified
in terms of objects. In fact this idea of our inability to grasp essences is not just
the result of philosophical posturing but the result of sound argumentation by
Kant in the Critique of Pure Reason. Kant (1993) argues that individuals do not
really know the world as it is but only as it seems to be from sense perception.
He does not deny the existence of phenomena ‘out there’ but maintains that we
do not have direct access to it because our access and understanding are shaped
by the way we perceive. Equally Derrida points out that we cannot name the
world but only form ideas of it which in turn become signs. He states therefore
that all meanings are signs. Therefore everything that has a meaning is a signifier
which creates a meaning that in turn becomes a signifier and so on. The result
is that there is no final meaning because we live in time and time itself in always
unfinished; meanings therefore always move on with time and identities are
always in flux.

Post-structural implications for identity

This has far-reaching consequences for areas such as education because identities,
skills and knowledge should always be seen in a dynamic of development. Again
Derrida stands against the enforcement of presence which is contained in the
dominant voice that throughout history has been conceptualized as the closest
representation of the essence of mind. Writing has then always been relegated
to the external phonic representation of speech. Writing traditionally conceived
as externalized speech contains hidden dominant agency and the presence
of the writer enforcing meaning. However this dominant meaning is illusory
and all text needs to be ‘deconstructed’ to locate marginalized, suppressed or
absent meanings. Derrida’s view is that writing and speech are not separate as
in Saussure’s ‘langue’ and ‘parole’, which is a sort of division between theory
and practice. His view is that everything is text and a part of a linguistic system
22 David Evans

containing writing, speech and also signs, that is, in practical terms, images,
designs, gestures, clothing, music and so on. His now famous statement is that
there is nothing outside the text or ‘il n’ya pas de hors texte’ (1967: 158), a position
that can be hotly debated since it situates individual identity at the mercy of
language in its widest textual context. If the individual is totally constituted by
the linguistic system and the language we use, then it is difficult to find objective
meaning because we have to analyse language with language. Our analysis then
amounts to language looking at language.
Critical discourse analysts such as Fairclough (1989; 1992) find this position
of linguistic determinism unacceptable and Fairclough in particular sees
individuals as only partially situated within language and therefore able to find
a metalanguage to critique the influences language and sign have on the social
world. We will explore critical discourse analysis in much greater detail in the
next chapter. However the Derridean view is that metalanguage is nonetheless
still language and we would still be using arbitrary symbols, totally ungrounded
objectively, to analyse arbitrary symbols. Consequently the downside of
Derrida’s view is that meanings are always on the move as they go from signifier
to signifier with the result that the notion of identity becomes very unstable and
fragmented.
This position is the complete antithesis of Descartes’s view of a stable and
rational individual identity. Descartes’s dominant voice of God-like status or
Logos is the voice of Western philosophy that Derrida is attempting to disrupt.
Consequently in texts, in order to find alternative identities and meanings which
have been suppressed, the reader has to deconstruct the text. In doing this there
will be semantic meaning possibilities only available through interpretation and
so the outcome will not be objective truth but the subjective interpretation of
meaning of word-signs. Derrida (1967: 50) underlines this as follows, ‘From the
moment there is meaning there are nothing but signs. We think only in signs’.

Deconstruction

Polysemia or multiple meanings occurs due to a double movement that Derrida

refers to as ‘Differance’. This is a Derridean neologism deriving from the merger
of two words ‘difference’ and ‘deferral’. ‘Differer’ in French means both to differ
and to defer and Derrida has created the neologism to refer to the construction
of meaning as a double action of a word’s meaning occurring from both its
difference from other word meanings and its journey through time within the text.
 Meaning: From Inner Structure to Post-structure 23

This movement through time within text is referred to by Derrida as the ‘trace’.
The author has a meaning intention in his/her message but there are meanings
which are present that the author is unaware of, perhaps even occasioned by
punctuation or grammar use. There may be omissions that the author is aware
of but prefers to overlook due to ideological disposition, and this may concern
official documents in, for example, areas of politics, education, public health and
so on. The notion of text includes the punctuation, gaps, paragraphing, possible
omissions and absences; in fact anything that might contribute to meaning and
deconstruction is the project to discover all the possible meanings or in practical
terms, ‘to read between the lines’. Chouliaraki and Fairclough (1999: 121) point
out that ‘discourse is inherently open, and no hegemonic bids to achieve its
closure can ultimately prevail – there is always a surplus of meaning which
subverts it’. Deconstruction is not negative, its purpose is not to destroy ideas
but on the contrary to find the ‘surplus of meaning’ which prevents the closure
of meaning and keeps discourses open.
This is an emancipatory idea because it has the possibility of liberating
individual identity from imposed constraints and is crucial to the notion of critical
pedagogy which highlights the ideologies of institutions in shaping the lives of
people. Deconstruction therefore can be conceptualized as a democratic project
of foregrounding suppressed and absent meanings to include the forgotten and
marginalized and in this respect it is about deconstructing hegemony to find the
meanings away from the centres of power.

Conclusion

In this chapter I have argued that, far from identity being exclusively individual
and isolated, which is implied in Cartesian linguistics, identities and meanings
are multiple and constructed over time through difference and deferral. Identity
is not unitary and should be framed as identities and consequently self is not
a singular fixed object but varied, active and existential. We have seen Derrida
argue against the concept of a fixed object or signified and in favour of a system of
signifiers which actively make meaning. Similar ideas in terms of plural identities
are argued by Bakhtin when he states that ‘I’ is defined in opposition to ‘other’
and therefore must contain something of the identity of others in the process of
dialogue and dialogism. Wertsch (1991) says something similar in the concept of
heteroglossia where our speech contains the voices of others. However Derrida
details the process of meaning and identities through the interplay of presence
24 David Evans

and absence where presence is not final and complete but temporary invoking all
the absent meanings which have been displaced to the margins. Deconstruction
means unpicking the dominant hegemony and finding alternative readings in
these margins. Identities therefore contain otherness in all the other possibilities
and Derrida argues for open discourse and against the closures occasioned by
power. Derrida (1978: 114) quotes Levinas as follows, ‘If the other could be
possessed, seized, and known, it would not be the other. To possess, to know, to
grasp are all synonyms of power’; further on Derrida himself states, ‘To see and
to know, to have and to will, unfold only within the oppressive and luminous
identity of the same’. Derrida provides a linguistic base for the ethics of the
other or alterity although his views on language and identity amount more to
a spiritual philosophy rather than an overtly political one. We have to look to
sociologists of language such as Bourdieu, in the next chapter, to understand
how the power of linguistic hegemony marginalizes language and culture in
his concepts of language as symbolic and cultural capital. For Bourdieu (1982)
language is a symbolic power that shapes cultures into hierarchies based on social
class as opposed to equal differences. The power to rank language, languages and
therefore cultures into hierarchies of value or capital is a political act resulting in
the hegemony of same and marginalization of other. The consequence of this is the
suppression of difference. However equally the act of opening up discourse and
resisting linguistic and cultural hegemony is also a political act of resistance. We
can see how public institutions enact discursive cultural hegemony in everyday
social life such as the visual media including newspapers and advertising and
education. A recent example was media’s role in shaping public consciousness
in the EU referendum debate of 2016 where powerful popular press highlighted
problems caused by migration (sources quoted in the next chapter) and used this
‘threat’ to shore up feelings of nationalism. Indeed, the debate overlooked issues
of pan-European importance such as intercultural understanding, knowledge and
skill exchange through science and the arts. Sameness was highlighted, leaning
towards Britishness, and Alterity was denigrated as the menace of the other rather
than the celebration of cultural difference.
The next chapter will focus on the political nature of language and discourse
in the formation of wider sociocultural identities. There will be an exploration
of the nature of discourse where some, such as Derrida, argue that there is
nothing outside the text and, such as Foucault, that we are entirely constituted
by discourse, including our knowledge. However others argue that discourse
is only one social practice among others and that we still exercise our free will
through a rational critical analysis of discourse by understanding the power that
lies behind it.
 Meaning: From Inner Structure to Post-structure 25

References

Bakhtin, M. (1981). The Dialogic Imagination: Four Essays. M. Holquist (ed.).

Austin: University of Texas Press.
Bourdieu, P. (1982). Langage et pouvoir symbolique. Paris: Editions Fayard.
Chomsky, N. (2006). Language and Mind. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Chomsky, N. (2009). Cartesian Linguistics: A Chapter in the History of Rationalist
Thought. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Chouliaraki, L., & Fairclough, N. (1999). Discourse in Late Modernity: Rethinking
Critical Discourse Analysis. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.
Cole, M. (1996). Cultural Psychology: A Once and Future Discipline. Cambridge,
MA: Harvard University Press.
Dabrowska, E. (2015). Handbook of Cognitive Linguistics. Berlin/Boston: de Gruyter.
Derrida, J. (1978). Writing and Difference, trans. A. Bass. London: Routledge.
Derrida, J. (1967). Of Grammatology, trans. G. C. Spivak. Baltimore: John Hopkins
University Press.
Descartes, R. (2008). Meditations on First Philosophy, trans. M. Moriarty. Oxford:
Oxford University Press.
Fairclough, N. (1989). Language and Power. London/New York: Longman.
Fairclough, N. (1992). Discourse and Social Change. Cambridge: Polity Press.
Foucault, M. (1972). The Archeology of Knowledge. London: Routledge.
Hardcastle, J. (2009). ‘Vygotsky’s Enlightenment Precursors’. Educational Review 61.2:
181–95.
Kant, E. (1993). The Critique of Pure Reason, ed. Vasilis Politis. London: Everyman.
Lenneburg, E. (1967). Biological Foundations of Language. New York: Wiley.
Locke, J. (2010–15). An Essay Concerning Human Understanding: Book 2 – Ideas.
Jonathan Bennett. www.earlymoderntexts.com (accessed August 2016).
Price, S. (2014). ‘Student “Ownership” of Language: A Perspective Drawn from Bakhtin
and Derrida’. Journal of Academic Language and Learning 8.3: A12–A22.
Roy, B. (1999). ‘Reasoned Grammar, Logic and Rhetoric at Port-Royal’. Philosophy &
Rhetoric 32.2: 131–45. Pennsylvania: Penn State University Press.
Rule, P. (2011). ‘Bakhtin and Freire: Dialogue, Dialectic and Boundary Learning’.
Educational Philosophy and Theory 43.9: 924–42.
Saussure, F. de (1915). Course in General Linguistics. New York: McGraw-Hill.
Saussure, F. de (1959). Course in General Linguistics. New York: Philosophical Library.
Saussure, F. de (1966). Course in General Linguistics. New York: McGraw-Hill.
Vygotsky, L. S. (1962). Thought and Language. Cambridge: MIT Press.
Wertsche, J. V. (1991). Voices of the Mind: A Sociocultural Approach to Mediated Action.
Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
 3

Discourse Formation
David Evans

Saussure’s (1966) view of language is that it is a system that operates within social
structures. Meanings come from the social structure and become attached to
words by conventional association. Saussure’s renown comes primarily from
breaking the intrinsic link between word and object or signifier and signified.
Words in the Saussurean system derive their meanings from the surrounding
linguistic system in a community of speakers that ascribe meaning. Alone,
word-sounds are empty; there is nothing intrinsic in the letters forming the
word ‘house’ that denotes a built structure with four walls and a roof. Evidence
for this is that in different language areas and registers a different arrangement
of letters designates the same object, for example, in French, ‘maison’ and in
Spanish and Italian, ‘casa’. In British slang, ‘gaff ’ is the word for ‘house’ (Oxford
online dictionaries, 10 January 2017). Meaning therefore is essentially social and
meanings may change as long as the changes are supported by the linguistic
system of the community as Saussure (1915: 77) points out, ‘For the realization
of language a community of speakers is necessary.’
Of course the notion of discourse goes beyond individual word, phrases and
sentences. We will look at different definitions of discourse. Saussure does not
use the word ‘discourse’ very much; however he does say that meanings do not
have to be conveyed through word-sounds alone and can be carried by signs
and symbols other than words such as images, sign language and gesture. This
gives an indication that discourse will eventually amount to more than the linear
juxtaposition of words.
In structuralism then the system contains the meaning supported by social
convention, known by Saussure (1915) as ‘langue’ and individuals express their
variations on the system in daily language known as ‘parole’. Here language as a
system predates individual speakers and so the meanings are already available
socially and are ‘the social product deposited in the brain of each individual (23).
28 David Evans

He further points out that ‘language never exists apart from the social fact’ (77).
So it can be seen that words by themselves are not generating meaning since
meaning extends beyond the individual and into the social system. Meanings
find their expression in words as they are arranged consecutively in a linear
fashion. Here Saussure refers to a definition of discourse as follows: ‘In discourse,
on the one hand, words acquire relations based on the linear nature of language
because they are chained together’ (123).

Syntagmatic and associative relations in words

He describes this as a syntagmatic view of language where social meanings

expressed in consecutive juxtapositions of word-sounds (graphemes and
phonemes) are able to be expressed because of differences between the word
functions and between the meanings. The empty materiality of the consecutive
flow of graphemes and phonemes would be a continuous meaningless sound
until one is able to differentiate sound-grapheme meanings from each other.
Eventual meaning is therefore based on difference. Derrida (1967) also, as a post-
structuralist, as we saw in the last chapter, posits difference as one of the ways in
which meaning is discernible. If everything was one continuous and extended
materiality, there could be no discernible meaning. Analogous to this would be a
foreign language of which one has no knowledge because one is unable to make
any differentiation in sound-meaning, hearing just a continuous flow of sound.
As was mentioned in the last chapter, word-object associations, in this flow of
sound, are only associations in the arbitrary dividing up of sound into sense units
or words. However word meanings themselves can evolve over time and place.
For example, across languages such as French and English the same word, spelt
the same, can have different meanings. Some common examples are everyday
words such as ‘duvet’ which in French is a sleeping bag but has transferred
meaning in English as a continental quilt now designated by the word ‘duvet’.
‘Spectacle’ in French tends to have a positive connotation in terms of a show
or a visual entertainment. In English however there is a negative connotation
involving a display of inappropriate and embarrassing events. In French the word
‘courrier’ now refers to the mail itself whereas in English, it commonly refers
to a delivery operative for parcels and so on. In all these mundane examples
from everyday life, meanings have changed as the words have moved from one
language and evolved separately.
In Saussurean structuralism until convention says otherwise, a word
only means one thing at one time in one location because it does not mean
 Discourse Formation 29

something else and therefore has a discernible difference or binary opposition

with other linguistic items in the sentence-phrase. This was discussed in the last
chapter in contrast to the Derridean concept of polysemia, referred to in post-
structuralism, where a word can have many meanings, in the present, according
to context and also over time.
Saussure (1915) contrasts this syntagmatic view of consecutively arranged
language with one of associative relations between words which resemble each
other in meaning. He states that ‘[a] word can always evoke everything that
can be associated with it in one way or another’ (126). Saussure (1966: 126)
uses the word ‘education’ to give an example, as in the last chapter, of these
word associations as follows, ‘teaching’, ‘teach’, ‘instruction’, ‘apprenticeship’,
‘education’. Contemporary educational discourse, as mentioned in Chapter 1,
might also include ‘training, pedagogy, assessment, progression, achievement,
accreditation etc.’ Saussure’s definition of associative word relations, even back
then, seems to resemble a very early conceptualization of discourse where words
resembling each other in meaning gather around a subject area. This emphasizes
word associations beyond individual sentence structures so that words associate
to define a subject area or even constitute a hitherto unknown subject area.
It should be noted however that although the words which gather around
‘education’ in their associative value form a nascent discourse, their individual
meaning in use can only occur, in great part, due to their difference from each
other. Therefore in binary terms ‘teaching’ has its semantic value because it is
not ‘instruction’ or ‘apprenticeship’ or any of the other associated words. It is one
thing because it is not something else. By way of contrast, we may recall, from
the last chapter, Derrida’s progression from Saussure’s structuralism in which
he maintains that the absent meanings displaced in Saussure’s binary are still
present in their absence. However they can be foregrounded by a deconstruction
of all the possible meanings of associated items which have been excluded and
marginalized.
Meanings then in Saussurean structuralism are from both differences and
associations. Words within text can have similar meanings to form an association
or a discourse but these meanings only arise, in the first place, because of their
word meaning differences with each other in adjacent text.

The location of meaning

For structuralists, the location of meaning is within the system. For formal
linguists, such as Chomsky, the location of meaning is within the individual
30 David Evans

mind before anything else and for post-structuralists like Derrida, as we saw
in Chapter 1, meaning unfolds into the future and always remains unfinished.
However, as outlined in the last chapter social constructivists such as Bakhtin
(1981) proposed that meanings emerge from dialogic interactions. Bakhtin
did not acknowledge a system as in Saussure but emphasized that meanings
were generated between individuals and groups of individuals. Language is
therefore constantly differentiated according to the speakers. Clark and Holquist
(1984: 12) state the following: ‘My voice can mean, but only with others-at times
in chorus but at the best of times in dialogue.’
Bakhtin’s (1981) notion of heteroglossia is a diversification of meaning
because one is always evoking the voices of others in one’s own utterances. He
takes a very spiritual view of language in terms of the relationship between self
and other. This is because he views individual identity as located on the cusp
of the interface between self and other where the notion of the ‘I’ can only be
defined in relation to the ‘You’ and also, within dialogism, where the ‘I’ speaks
in anticipation of the response from the interlocutor as the ‘You’. There is then
a sense of diglossia, or dual voice, where ‘I’ in its subjective definition contains
elements of ‘You’ and therefore the boundaries between individual identities are
blurred within language. Bakhtin’s spiritual perspective holds that it is language
which does more than just communicate; it binds people and communities
together and enables us to take the perspective of the other thereby enabling
us to grasp what ‘I’ must be in the eyes of the other. Bakhtin understood along
with Derrida in a different linguistic tradition that the word cannot be exactly
mapped on to the object, including the notion of the pronominal subjects of ‘I’
‘You’, ‘She’, ‘He’ and so on, whose possible meanings and identities far exceed the
words that are assigned to subjects and objects. Whereas Saussure’s linguistics
are restricted to binary similarity and opposition, Bakhtin and Derrida thought
in terms of multiple meanings for identities or polysemia. Discourse in this view
is language in social interaction and is imbued with the voices and intentions of
others.
However, words inasmuch as they enable meaning can also constrain
meaning. They are a ‘double-edged sword’ in that they embody meaning as a
vehicle and yet like a vehicle contain and constrain meaning because meaning is
always in surplus to words. Clark and Holquist (1984: 83) underline this notion
of polysemia as follows: ‘It is not only that a tree is never the same as the sign
“tree” but also that I am never any of the signs that name me, least of all the
pronominal signs such as “I”. Non-linguists ignore the fact that the world does
not correspond to the system of language.’
 Discourse Formation 31

In terms of education, there are immense implications for Bakhtin’s and indeed
Derrida’s views of meaning and identity in the moral and spiritual damage that
labelling can do to vulnerable individuals and minorities. Derrida’s particular
emancipatory contribution with regard to the moral constriction of labelling is
that identity is forever unfinished and also subject to modification as we go into
the future. Identity is, in fact, always unfinished since it is developed in time and
of course time is forever unfinished. Even after an individual’s demise their post-
humous identity is still subject to time and modification.
We will discuss such implications of the changing nature of multiple identities
when we focus on language and power later on in the chapter. Clark and
Holquist make the important point that in claiming a unitary identity through
a correspondence between words and the ‘self ’ in such pronominals as ‘I’, ‘You’,
‘She’, ‘He’, we create ‘fictions of sameness’. Therefore not only is the world always
more than the language used to name it but we, as humans, are also always more
than the language used to describe us. Heidegger (1993) made his existential
claim that ‘[l]anguage is the house of being’ but he also needed to add that it can
also be the container of being through unequal power relations. Truly, then, a
‘double-edged sword’ of constructing and constraining.

Dialogism, heteroglossia and ideology

Bakhtin (1981: 341) states that ‘[t]he ideological becoming of a human being . . .
is the process of selectively assimilating the words of others’. Identities then are
being constructed and re-constructed within the dialogic interface between the
words of self and others. Individuals appropriate words for themselves but these
words are already imbued with the meanings of others. Identities therefore are
constructed in the intersubjective space between self and other. The notion of
‘heteroglossia’ (Bakhtin 1981; Wertsch 1991) is born from our words carrying
the voices of others within the content of what we say. Taking language from
the common pool means not only assimilating but perhaps also processing the
ideological content of language. Bakhtin (1981: 293) states the following: ‘All words
have the “taste” of a profession, a genre, a tendency, a party, a particular work, a
particular person, a generation, an age gap, the day and the hour. Each word tastes
of its socially charged life; all words and forms are populated by intentions.’
Language therefore is not neutral but saturated by the intentions and
ideologies of users or social groups of language users. Discourse is therefore more
than a language consisting of a neutral juxtaposition of words in a Saussurean
32 David Evans

sense. Discourse is the way people use language in a variety of ways to reflect
their subject positions. It has a profound constitutive effect on identity and
in particular the notion of unitary identity since one is born into preexisting
language marked by ideologies and subject positions which indeed constitute
different discourses. Therefore when we participate in discourse, we are using the
voices of others within our own intentional speech since we are using language
types already formulated in chains and threads of utterances by others who have
preceded us. We find ourselves within that chain. This could be as simple as using
the expressions and utterances we have heard in the media, on television or social
media. We may reformulate them or appropriate them for ourselves but we have
still used discursive language as our raw material and therefore we have taken
part in heteroglossia. The language we use then is only partly our own, taken
from a commonly used stock.
Examples of heteroglossia (Wertsch 1991; Bakhtin 1981) where identities are
constituted by the voices of others can be found among stakeholders within schools
in classroom interactions where we see a cross-current of interactional discourses.
Teachers are in a dialogic relation with pupils in anticipating responses to classroom
pedagogy and at the same time anticipating the monitoring requirements for
standards expected by management discourses which in turn are shaped by external
bodies such as Ofsted. Parental and local community discourses feed into this
heteroglossia as do expectations for professional development and performance
management. Pupils themselves interact at an intersection between the discourses
of local community and family, media, peer group, classroom teacher and school
managerial discourses. Interacting across these more localized voices are the
wider discourses such as socio-economics and gender which derive from wider
sociocultural forces but at the same time help to shape interactional discourses. If
we focus on wider societal discourses such as gender and socio-economics, we can
see how ideologies shape discourses within institutions and localized interactions.
We can also see that Bakhtin’s ideas provide a conceptualization of discourse
which, unlike structuralism, is based on the agency of participants and, due to the
notion of heteroglossia, contains the voices of others. However not all discourses
are equal since some are more powerful than others.

Ideological discourse

Fairclough (1989; 1992) posits three levels of discourse. At the societal level the
largest, most powerful he names the ‘Orders of Discourse’ which relate to the
way society has been organized over time with regard to sociocultural history;
 Discourse Formation 33

in the case of Western society the socio-economics of capitalism. This, he

argues, is the dominant social force and through the dominant social classes,
it is able to project its ideological force through government, parliament, law,
education, utilities, finance and so on into its institutions as discourse types. The
second level of discourse is at institutional level such as schools, universities,
advertising, health care, the police, public transport and so on. An example of
socio-economic discourse at institutional level is the establishment of internal
markets for financial provision and profit, where public institutions serving state
infrastructure are cast in the role of private companies competing against each
other to improve services and attract customers, making profits for shareholders.
The third level of discourse is at interactional level such as we might see in
the classroom itself at the point of contact between teachers and pupils. At this
level, such discourse interacts with other discourses at more local level within a
heteroglossia already mentioned.
Fairclough (1989; 1992) argues that the way economic power permeates
into these more everyday levels of discourse within institutions is by means of
ideology, being the ability to project a dominant way of thinking as perfectly
normal. This normalization is achieved through discourse by the manufacture
of the consent of the other. An institutional discourse type such as education,
at the level of schools, may well express the wider socio-economic discourse,
not only in its readiness to compete with other schools for funding via
greater numbers of pupils, but also organize curriculum and pedagogy to
prioritize knowledge and skills in the light of competitive economic forces.
Consequently the important subjects on the schools’ curriculum are the
STEM subjects leading to employability and economic competitiveness for the
nation. One should not forget that the nation is a major stakeholder in the
educational system. STEM is the acronym for science, technology, engineering
and mathematics. In most schools the domination of these subject areas is
normalized compared with RE, music, art, dance and drama where economic
outcomes are less visible.
While Bakhtin’s dialogism and heteroglossia do provide an understanding
of how language is dispersed and diversified into discourses, to complete this
understanding, the notion is needed first of power and dominant social forces or
classes. Second the means to project that power through the normalizing process
of ideology by making a situation seem as though it is perfectly normal and
beyond question. Hart (2016) reinforces this position with regard to ideology
arguing that he views ideology as normalized systems of beliefs and values that
are embedded in language so as to shape a world-view.
34 David Evans

Consequently the concept of heteroglossia or shared voices begs the question,

whose voices? This question of whose voices prevail leads to issues of power not
only behind discourse but also within discourse (Fairclough 1989).
Power behind the discourse, as we have seen, is the socio-economic orders
of discourse in capitalism which exist as the providers of the conditions for
the discourse types in institutions and subsequent interactional discourse.
Chouliaraki and Fairclough (1999) argue that discourse is but one element
of social practice among others and Fairclough (1992: 66) further argues
that ‘social practice has various orientations – economic, political, cultural,
ideological – and discourse may be implicated in all of these without any of
them being reducible to discourse’. Fairclough is therefore saying that although
ways of speaking and writing as discourse may be contained in socio-economic
practice, he does not view socio-economic and social practices to be reducible
to discourse itself. Consequently he is claiming that one can stand outside of
discourse and as such opposes linguistic determinism. Whereas the post-
structuralists such as Derrida argue that everything is text and Foucault (1972)
that everything is discourse, Fairclough, as a sociolinguist, adopts the position
of a dialectical relationship between discourse and social practice and although
discourse is contained to some degree within social practice, the latter is able to
have a position apart from discourse. The two interact dialectically where social
practice shapes discourse and in turn discourse contributes to the construction
of social practice.

Heteroglossia and discourse colonization

The different discourse types at institutional level may well interact with
each other resulting in a level of hybridization of identity where discourses
borrow each other’s features of language. Discourse types such as advertising,
counselling, education, finance companies, management discourses and
bureaucratic discourses, which are all social practices, may very well borrow
or even appropriate each other’s ways of speaking depending upon their power
relations. Chouliaraki and Fairclough (1999: 27) give an example of discourse
colonization as follows, ‘[M]anagerial ideologies in education are discursive
constructions of education which draw upon discourses which come from other
practices that are closely tied in with contemporary practices in education-
specifically from economic practices’. Therefore Orders of Discourse, which are
primarily economic in Western societies, provide conditions for economically
 Discourse Formation 35

instrumental orientations in discourse types within institutions. The prevailing

discourse type, in the example above, is then managerialism which permeates
into educational institutions shaping an economically instrumental frame
for schooling, hence the STEM subjects already mentioned above. Another
influential discourse type in schools is that of counselling which can be framed as
the manufacture of the subject’s consent in getting subjects to regulate themselves
in terms of dominant cultural behaviours and goals. Schools will endeavour to
get pupils to ‘take ownership’ of academic and behavioural performance targets
through counselling and guidance so that pupils engage in self-regulation rather
than coercive control from an external punitive force (Foucault 1972).
Discourse types of managerialism and counselling represent voices which
are traditionally outside of education, imported in from industry, commerce
and mental health therapy but which in schools combine to get pupils to take
ownership of target setting and managing their own performance in achieving
targets. Many pupils do resist the hegemony of these dominant discourses and
schools can become sites of ideological conflict rather than a totalizing consensus.
Pupils may adopt resistant discourses located in their own community cultures
or subcultures. However pupil unofficial discourses may interact with officially
approved discourses to construct a hybridity of identities drawing upon the
interaction of available discourses. Bhabba (1994) refers to this hybridity as a
third space where, in this case, pupils construct their own space by creating
their own voice from all the voices available. Young people in a school or other
setting may well engage in subcultural discourse to express identities, using anti-
establishment ways of speaking and being. Kramsch (1998) expresses this as
follows, referring to language use as a way of belonging, ‘[Y]ou belong through
language and you don’t belong through language.’ Therefore using an alternative
anti-establishment discourse constructs two cultural markers in terms of where
you belong, to a subculture, for example, and where you don’t belong, for
example, to the ‘establishment’.
Later on in the book we will look at the interface between dominant and
resistant languages and language types in various locations across the world
and in United Kingdom to see how dominant and marginalized languages and
cultures interact on a much larger national and regional scale.
So far we have looked at power behind the discourse where socio-economic
and cultural power strives to establish a platform of domination of one discourse
over another or even discourse colonization. We can now turn our attention
to power within the discourse, looking at language as a symbolic capital
constructing domination within language.
36 David Evans

Symbolic capital in language and discourse

Symbolic capital accounts for power, prestige and status within language
(Bourdieu 1990; 1991). Bourdieu argues that within language there is a symbolic
capital which legitimizes some language types over others. There is then a
linguistic capital in the type of language used within discourse. An interesting
question to ask is why English dictionaries are almost always Oxford English or
Cambridge English dictionaries? I have never yet seen a Liverpool, Manchester,
Glasgow, Cardiff, Belfast or Birmingham English dictionary! The answer is that
the interior of language, in terms of vocabulary, grammatical constructions and
pronunciation, is validated by the external conditions of language in its socio-
political and cultural context. Bourdieu (1991) situates this external validation
of linguistic capital historically and his analysis is predicated on the historical
emergence of a national standard language in France. Standard language was
cultivated in the centres of economic, political and therefore cultural power
in order to create national unity around the location of power. In the United
Kingdom the language spoken is referred to as English even though the
United Kingdom is a union of Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland and England.
Furthermore this language is very often referred to as the ‘Queen’s English’ or in
former times the ‘King’s English’. The locus of linguist power or linguistic capital
was determined by the other forms of power-economic, political and cultural
historically situated in the capital and in the medieval and oldest universities
of Oxford and Cambridge. Holmes (1992) points out that the language variety
spoken within the triangle bounded by London as the capital and the ancient
medieval universities of Oxford and Cambridge is the variety that became
standard due to its codification in the dictionaries of these universities and in
the accompanying grammar books. Merchants coming into this region of the
country from the provinces felt obliged to adopt the standard language to be
understood and accepted by power and, of course, over the course of history
standard language has become, throughout the United Kingdom, despite
regional variations in accent, the language of politics, education and commerce.
According to Bourdieu it is the linguistic capital of the standard which converts
socio-economic capital into symbolic capital and this symbolic capital becomes
the platform for legitimacy and credibility.
Bourdieu traces a parallel linguistic development in France, where the
national standard centred on the capital was created for the purpose of national
unity, enforced by the school system and monitored by the examination
system. Against this, all other regional variations were reduced to the status of
 Discourse Formation 37

‘patois’ and therefore delegitimized. Speaking a regional dialect then came to

lack credibility in terms of social value or capital. Values of words also change
and Bourdieu refers to the French word ‘paysan’ as an example which has
value in rural dialects but which, when used in standard language, becomes a
derogatory term. In English it should be noted that calling someone a ‘peasant’
is indeed now a term of abuse. Holmes (1992: 84) points out that ‘[a] standard
dialect has no particular linguistic merits, whether in vocabulary, grammar or
pronunciation. It is simply the dialect of those who are politically powerful and
socially prestigious’. Consequently the value given to words as a linguistic capital
is ideological. Between the two words ‘peasant’ and ‘entrepreneur’, there will be
an ideological social value which is not contained intrinsically within the words
themselves but is conferred by the prevailing ideological system which shapes
meaning. Volosinov (1994) points out that the word is the ideological sign par
excellence.
Bourdieu’s notion of language as a symbolic capital and, therefore, power
within discourse lies at the heart of this book. Consequently we shall see in the
case study chapters how this is expressed in the areas of the world and United
Kingdom where there is linguistic and cultural conflict between dominant,
marginalized and ensuing resistant languages and discourses. In the United
Kingdom, speaking the Queen’s English with ‘received pronunciation’ is highly
valued and seeking to undermine this by ignoring correct grammar, especially in
an educational context, would be highly controversial. Although regional accent
is permitted, grammatical inaccuracy would lead to lack of personal credibility
in official contexts. For Bourdieu language type is crucial in access to power
since linguistic capital, as Chouliaraki and Fairclough (1999) point out, converts
all other forms of capital into symbolic capital. They argue that ‘all forms of
capital are convertible into “symbolic capital” once they are (mis) recognized
as and have the effects of power’ (101). There are three important and related
points to make with regard to the statement above.
First for Bourdieu the concept of the state underwrites all symbolic capital
and is its ultimate source. Schinkel (2015: 219) points out that for Bourdieu the
state has ‘the function of providing ultimate consensus regarding the symbolic
order of the world’ and ‘has a strong symbolic and fiduciary character’. As such
it provides an underlying platform for fundamental meaning. Bourdieu refers
to the concept of measured time as an example of symbolic power in that the
state regulates the time of day and when, in the autumn, the state decides that
the clocks go back an hour, we all duly wind back our clocks. The state accredits
knowledge and skill through its schools, universities and professions and so
38 David Evans

provides a platform of basic symbolic power that very few people question.
Bourdieu refers to the notion of doxa which is a pre-reflective state of affairs
where the symbolic power of the state guarantees all the other capitals, including
social and cultural capital.
The second point is that, in Bourdieu’s view, the state does not really exist but
more importantly is believed to exist. Schinkel (2015: 220) points out that ‘[t]he
state, Bourdieu argues, is a relation which exists because it is believed to exist’.
The third point which comes from the quotation above concerns the notion
of (mis)recognition of the effects of power. This refers to the trust accorded
to symbolic power which exists only in the minds of individuals. Therefore
language and culture that are accorded a superior status are misrecognized as
such, given what Bourdieu regards as the transcendental and magical power of
symbolic capital. In other words any hierarchy of language, power and culture
as superior is a sham and only exists because it is unchallenged. Interestingly
van Dijk (2008) has a slightly less deterministic view than Bourdieu of
symbolic power. He also acknowledges state as underwriting symbolic power;
however, this is not exclusive due to the power of private corporations which
have immense financial power through advertising, marketing, investments
and a worldwide internet and media reach. For van Dijk such corporations
also have the power to underwrite symbolic power and produce symbolic
elites. According to van Dijk, these elites have control over channels of
communication and production of discourse and he cites media companies
as an example of having the symbolic power to shape consciousness. He also
refers to the notion of counter-power in Western democracies where as an
example, novelists and some academics have the freedom to challenge the
hegemonies of power.
Therefore language within discourse, or more specifically within the notion
of ‘field’ in Bourdieu’s sociology, draws upon sociocultural power externally
since we have seen that there is nothing of inherent power within the structure
of any given standard language variety. To think otherwise is to engage in an
act of ‘misrecognition’ which would be to buy into a fiction. The consequences
of misrecognition of dominant language and culture could be serious because
the result would be that those who are dominated could end up conspiring in
their own domination. The emancipatory strategy then would be to expose the
dominant language and culture as a position of domination, thereby promoting
a discourse of resistance. In the ensuing case study chapters we will see evidence
of language struggle and resistance against language and cultural marginalization
by potentially hegemonic language-culture.
 Discourse Formation 39

We have seen that the notion of power within language and discourse in
terms of linguistic capital draw upon power outside of language and discourse
and how this has developed historically and, as Bourdieu suggests, is ultimately
guaranteed by symbolic power.
We see with Bourdieu how important power is in securing meaning within
language and in securing the prestige and status of the language itself. Foucault’s
(1972) perspective of language goes even further into the realms of power by
suggesting that through language and discourse, power shapes the meaning of
knowledge itself

Foucault’s perspective on discourse

Power and meaning are two very important elements of this chapter and indeed
this book. First, in Chapter 2, we discussed the construction of meaning as ‘intra
cranium’ of Cartesian linguistics. Second, in Chapter 2 and in this chapter, we
discussed systemic meaning in Saussurean structuralism; third, intersubjective
meaning proposed by Bakhtin and finally alluded to in the unfinished Derridean
deferred meaning was also covered in the last chapter. Eventually the notion of
power has entered the debate with the sociolinguistics of Fairclough. Bourdieu
also looks at the relations between power and language in his notion of linguistic
capital as it converts socio-economic capital to a ‘meta’ capital which is symbolic
capital. Bourdieu is a sociologist of language and therefore examines the
relationship between linguistic capital and other capital outside of language
which interacts with language, so that we see that language is indeed powered by
external socio-political forces.
However for Foucault, as indeed for Derrida, there is no outside of language.
We will see in this section how Foucault relates language to wider discourse in
his proposal of statements and enunciations, what you can say and what you
cannot say. For the moment the striking feature of Foucault is that everything
lies within discourse. We will see that this is a totalizing position and indeed
a deterministic one in terms of free will. The social practices proposed by
sociolinguistics and sociologists of language are, for Foucault, all uniquely
discursive positions and always speak from within a discursive position. This
means that language and discourse always represent an ideology and never
occupy a neutral position outside of discourse. So there could be no ‘meta-
language’ of discursive analysis as an objective analytical position because this
itself is a discourse, and so one ends up analysing one discourse, not with a
40 David Evans

neutral language, but instead with another discourse. We would be analysing

language with language depriving us of objectivity. Therefore the non-discursive
practices proposed by Fairclough (1989; 1992) such as economics, managerial
practices, bureaucratic practices, counselling and so on are for Foucault all part
of discourse.
Foucault (1972) looks at discourse as containing the social power within
social practices to constitute knowledge itself. So ultimately the knowledge
we have does not connect directly with the world but is instead constructed
through discourse, meaning that the world, as we experience it, is a sociocultural
construction over historical time. If discourse had followed a different path,
our knowledge would have been different. Foucault (2002) argues that
knowledge and language are tightly interwoven which he maintains ‘share, in
representation the same origin and the same functional principle; they support
one another, complement one another, and criticize one another incessantly’.
Further on, he remarks, ‘It is in one and the same movement that the mind
speaks and knows’ (95) and, it is true to say, even as social constructivists
claim, that one cannot have knowledge without language. Both Chomsky
(2009) and Vygotsky (1962) posit that language leads to higher-order thinking
and knowledge. This has enormous implications for education as we will
discuss in the pedagogical section later in the book because it can be argued,
within educational contexts, that ways of speaking shape ways of knowing.
Ways of addressing the other and the culture of the other shape the way the
other is perceived. This reinforces the notion that language is never neutral
but inscribed by ideological positions that need to be critically analysed or
‘deconstructed’.
Foucault (1972: 52–3) refers to the notion that knowledge is grounded in
language as follows, ‘[T]he regular formation of objects that emerge only in
discourse.’ Furthermore, he states, ‘To define these objects, without reference
to the ground, the foundation of things, but by relating them to the body of
rules that enable them to form as objects of a discourse and thus constitute the
conditions of their historical appearance’ (53). Here Foucault states that even
objects are discursively constituted and have no transcendental basis. However
this perspective is not really new. Kant (1993) claims that, apart from some
a priori analytical exceptions, we do not really know the world directly. Our
knowledge of the world or phenomena comes to us through perception as
empirical knowledge. Therefore we can have no direct knowledge of the world,
although we can say that our perceptions are based on something but we do not
know exactly what it is. Foucault takes this idea much further by saying that the
 Discourse Formation 41

world itself is constituted by our way of talking about it. What perception was
for Kant, discourse is for Foucault. We, as individuals, are part of the picture we
constitute – we paint ourselves into the picture and cannot stand outside it as
objective observers.
Consequently discourse is not about the surface language of interaction; as
Foucault (1972: 52) declares,

I would like to show that discourse is not a slender surface of contact, or

confrontation, between a reality and a language, . . . the intrication of a lexicon
and an experience; I would like to show with precise examples that in analyzing
discourses themselves, one sees the loosening of the embrace, apparently so
tight, of words and things and the emergence of a group of rules proper to
discursive practice.

He further adds that ‘these rules define . . . the ordering of objects’. Foucault
is saying that discourse is made up of language in terms, not of words and
things, but in terms of what one can say, and the conditions which govern verbal
performances. These verbal performances group together into formulations
of statements and propositions. Therefore to analyse a discourse, one has to
analyse the conditions which have given permission for certain things to be said
and for certain things to be left unsaid. Again we see that what counts here is
the function of power and what power chooses to say leaves gaps and omissions
regarding what cannot be said. In this regard, supporters of Derrida might be
able to justify the project of ‘deconstruction’ in order to reveal everything that
can be said of a text, exploring the gaps and omissions to bring to the surface that
which power has silenced.
Foucault’s (1972: 121) statements and propositions group together to form
‘discursive formations’ and these constitute individual discourses such as ‘clinical
discourse, economic discourse, the discourse of natural history, psychiatric
discourse’ (121). We can see that, even though both sociolinguists and post-
structuralists focus on power in the construction of social realities through
discourse, the post-structuralism of Foucault defines discourse in a radically
different way in terms of its constitution of the conditions for the emergence of
all reality.
The conditions under which certain propositions and discursive formations
can be made require an analysis of who has the power to open up and shape
certain discourses and in doing so what was excluded? Language, knowledge
and power therefore are inextricably entwined.
42 David Evans

Implications for identity

With regard to individual identity as an object of knowledge and self-knowledge,

the ‘I’ or ‘You’ is not passively uncovered but discursively constituted in and
by language and power. One’s subjective identity is not therefore waiting to be
patiently discovered but actively constituted and elicited not by ‘who am I?’ but
rather ‘What do my social conditions permit me to do and therefore to be?’
Individual identity constituted in this way is much more existential and shaped
by one’s own active agency. This may also mean identities rather than identity in
the singular because one may act, interact and respond differently in different
situations. Post-structural accounts often refer to subjectivities rather than
identities since social life and the interrelations of power are different in different
situations.
Ironically, although some might view the post-structural position of a
more existentially constituted identity as liberating, others view Foucault’s
underlying position regarding discourse as deterministic. This is because he
views individuals as uniquely rooted in discourse and their a priori reality is
nowhere else but in language and discourse. They can only operate within the
discourses to which they have access and are therefore shaped by the power
relations of their context which changes from situation to situation over time
and place.
Foucault’s importance is in elucidating the deep relations between knowledge,
power and language and this knowledge is in itself liberating. However he does
not propose any sort of critical discourse analysis to challenge and question the
discursive nature of unequal power relations. A large part of the rationale of
this book however is to promote critical pedagogical positions to address power
imbalances in language and culture, through a revalorization of marginalized
language and an awareness of resistant discourses. This position implies that
the individual is not completely imprisoned by language but can use it critically
in an act of free will. This recalls the Cartesian cogito where Descartes (2008)
sets out to prove that he exists as a mind ergo in free will rather than as in a
dream. He arrives at his conclusion of ‘cogito ergo sum’ or ‘I think therefore
I am’ through doubt. The fact that he is able to question and doubt his thinking
and his thoughts proves he is a thinking being rather than idly drifting away in a
dream world. In terms of language, by analogy, a critical language embodies the
free will to doubt the veracity of a surrounding discourse rather than uncritically
reproduce it.
 Discourse Formation 43

Aside from this Cartesian caveat, we have travelled some way from Descartes’s
individualism of the last chapter although perhaps we do need to return towards
a more central position to acknowledge the notion of critical analysis within
and by language.

Discourse analysis, text and ideology

Fairclough (1992) argues that discourse is both a social practice and also a
constitutive element of non-discursive social practice. He furthermore argues that
there are some social practices that are wholly constituted by discourse. Examples
of the latter are advertising, marketing and counselling, which wholly depend
upon language. Nevertheless all the discursive elements of social practices come
to be made manifest in text. Fairclough (1992: 67) argues that discourses come
to be ideologically ‘invested’ by the social practice in which they are situated. He
further maintains that signs within discourse are ‘socially motivated’ (74–5). This
means that the Saussurean combination of signifier and signified which make
up signs becomes ideologically imbued. Therefore if the signified within social
practice has a particular characteristic, this will shape the signifier or the word as
its vehicle. The word or signifier will then reflect the underlying characteristic of
the signified as both the signified and signifier or object and word come together.
A previously mentioned example in an educational setting is the choice of
signifier between ‘student’ and ‘pupil’ to designate the child who learns in a school
setting. The choice is an ideological one according to how one frames the learner,
as either active or passive. The ideological tendency now is to view young learners
as active, researching knowledge, expressing opinion and acting out individual
agency in an entrepreneurial manner. Education is after all tied to the economy
and society has changed where young school leavers no longer automatically
follow their parents into the manual work of industry and agriculture because, in
terms of industry, the UK manufacturing base has declined over the past decades
in favour of service and financial sectors. Here it is vital to be able to research
and manipulate information and persuasively communicate to consumers.
Young learners are therefore framed as students researching knowledge, actively
learning how to learn as a skill in a technologically fast changing world rather
than pupils who are passive recipients of traditional knowledge. Learners are still
learners but they are being shaped ideologically through word choice designating
the independent, autonomous status of the ‘student’.
44 David Evans

Word usage has then a symbolic legitimacy and in Bourdieu’s terms this is
ultimately underwritten by state symbolic power. Another example of this would
be in the ideology of military terminology where a member of the British armed
forces is a ‘soldier’ and not a ‘fighter’. The word ‘fighter’ may be designated by the
news media as those combatants who are in irregular armies or terrorist groups.
Fairclough (1992) quotes the age-old example of the ideological difference
between ‘freedom fighters’ and ‘terrorists’. In Second World War–occupied
France, the French resistance were viewed as ‘freedom fighters’ by the French
and British and ‘terrorists’ by the occupying German forces.
Word-signs are therefore ideologically saturated by the social practice and
conditions in which they are situated and some words are contested. For example,
in industrial disputes a word such as ‘modernization’ carries ideological baggage
connoting, on one side of the dispute, efficiencies and, on the other side, job cuts
where technologies are seen as cost cutting. A concept such as ‘modernization’
is therefore a double-edged sword of being both a benefit and a deficit relative to
where one is situated in society.
Often the ideological nature of a word is much more powerful where its
contested nature is concealed resulting in its matter of fact routine normalization.
An example of this is in gender ideology where the verb ‘to man’ is frequently used
rather than to staff and ‘man power’ used instead of ‘work force’. ‘Mankind’ is often
used rather than ‘human kind’ in the media. Critical analysis or deconstruction
is able to foreground the suppressed alternative meanings revealing the power,
in this case, to appropriate male gendered ‘man’ to represent all genders and
humanity, thereby suppressing ‘woman’. ‘Woman’ becomes a hidden subsidiary
in favour of ‘man’ as universalized concept for humans.
A focus on ideological meaning in language does not just concern vocabulary
but also the way in which language is structured. Some texts may be impersonal
and bureaucratic making language seem scientifically objective and official,
thereby hiding agency. Therefore a bureaucratic notice from an employer could
read thus: ‘It is expected that all employees arrive at meetings on time’ rather than
‘ “I” or “We” expect all employees to arrive at meetings on time.’ The message is
thereby rendered more objective and less the result of the power of an individual
who has made a decision affecting the lives of many.
Hart (2016) points out that metaphor as imaged language is another means of
constructing normalized ideology. He states, ‘Ideologically, however, metaphor
may be exploited in discourse to promote one particular reality over another’
(137). Examples of this can be seen in the recent debates on immigration
surrounding the 2016 UK referendum on remaining in the EU or leaving
 Discourse Formation 45

where immigration into the United Kingdom was one of the arguments against
remaining, citing taking back control of UK borders. The notion of ‘taking back
control of our borders’ was depicted metaphorically in the imaged language of
long queues of migrants try to gain entry into the United Kingdom. The following
popular UK newspaper headlines illustrate the language used to normalize a
sense of invasion.

Text 1
One million migrants heading this way
(And we took 558,000 last year)
BY LYNN DAVIDSON
22nd September 2015, 11:01 pm The Sun newspaper

Text 2
A vote for Remain is a vote for mass immigration from Turkey
● PETER BONE – THE DAILY TELEGRAPH 17-05-2016

Text 3
MILLIONS of EU migrants grab our jobs: Time for Brexit to FINALLY take
control of borders
DAVID Cameron’s plan for cutting the migration surge suffered a shattering
blow last night when new figures showed that the number of EU
nationals working in Britain soared by nearly 200,000 last year.
Daily Express 18-02-2016

Text 4
Why we MUST speed up EU exit: New migrant surge on the way ahead of
Brexit curbs
BRITAIN risks falling victim to an immigration ‘surge’ as people seek to
beat post-Brexit curbs
Daily Express 27-07-2016

These headlines are from newspapers with mass readership in the United
Kingdom both in print and online and have an intention of constructing a sense
of invasion. Text 1 talks of ‘a million migrants heading this way’ giving a sense
of a mass invasion and Text 2 is directed at Turkey, leading people to believe
that, as a future likely EU member, the United Kingdom would be invaded by
large numbers of Turks. Finally Text 3 refers to migrants who already ‘grab our
jobs’ creating an illusion of theft given that the jobs are referred to as ‘our jobs’.
Finally Text 4 uses the metaphor of a ‘surge’ to create the sense of a tidal wave
and consequent fear.
46 David Evans

We can see therefore that metaphors in language can create, due to mass
circulation, popular images and a hegemonic vision of the refugee from economic
misery and war as a threat, constructing a social reality of a country under siege.
The critical discourse analysis model of sociolinguistics and the deconstruction
project of post-structuralism can be brought to bear on hegemonies of ideology
by foregrounding the hidden and alternative meanings in texts and highlighting
the motives behind such ideologies.
We see in this chapter that language and discourse are not neutral but
politicized by ideologies and invoke such questions as to who is authoring the
spoken or written text, what are the motives and what effects are the author(s)
trying to produce? The fact of being able to conduct textual analysis throws
again into question the extent to which individuals are determined by discourse.
A meta-language of analysis is still language, and it is true to say that such
analysis amounts to language investigating language. However critical analysis
through awareness of the effects of language rather than using any separate
specialist language nevertheless serves a purpose of highlighting social injustice
and inequality. This, again, recalls the Cartesian cogito, where Descartes’s ability
to use his mind to doubt and question his thinking actually proves the reality of a
reasoning mind. Descartes, in this way, shows that he is not locked into a dream
and, in the same way, an analytical language, by casting doubt on hegemonic
discourse demonstrates that individuals are not locked into discourse and can at
least step outside of the prevailing ideology, even though they can never step out
of language itself. This reinforces the real existence of not necessarily a separate
analytical meta-language, but rather using existing language, as a critical device
of challenge to analyse and doubt by questioning prevailing discourse.

Conclusion

The direction of travel of this chapter shows how notions of discourse have
developed from structuralist words, phrases and sentences to the way in which
discourses shape identities. Of course discourse is more than words, phrases and
sentences although it does contain them. In its wider sense, discourse is about
both language and sign in their external social use. The latter includes gesture,
dress, music and images, all of which can be found in multimodal media discourse
which will follow in a later chapter. The extent to which the individual and his/
her social group are shaped by discourse depends on one’s definition of discourse.
We have shown in this chapter that there is not just one definition of discourse
 Discourse Formation 47

but many and some of the discourse types compete with one another within
power relations. We have looked at discourse colonization and heteroglossia
where linguistic items infiltrate less powerful discourses and the most powerful
may achieve a status of hegemony where, within the discourse, ideological
meanings have become normalized. It is true in the Foucauldian sense that such
powerful discourses can determine what counts as knowledge, which cultures
and languages are framed as superior and which are marginalized. Discourse in
this sense deprives individuals of agency. Fairclough’s (1992) version of discourse
is much less totalizing, in that through critical discourse analysis, it is possible
to see the relationship of language and linguistic items to the discourse in which
they are situated. Foucault, by contrast, says very little about linguistic items and
grammatical structures but concentrates always on the notion of statements,
discursive formations and the conditions of power which make them possible.
Fairclough’s position is much more hopeful, where, through critical discourse
analysis, we have seen that discourses are supported by ideologically saturated
words, metaphors and grammatical structures concealing agency. Combined
with Bourdieu’s notions of linguistic and symbolic capitals, discourse analysis
promotes social justice through the realization that individuals are positioned
by ideologically saturated language and become more and more positioned
the more they use such language. Discourse analysis enables, through critical
pedagogy within education, individuals to step outside of totalizing discourse in
order to question the agency of statements, what they are trying to achieve and
the linguistic devices they use in order to achieve the desired effects.
In the following chapters, narratives and analysis will bear witness to the
various linguistic and cultural struggles in several continents of the world: Asia
(China), the Indian subcontinent and Africa as well as in UK urban life.
The linguistic situations are indeed varied and diverse but the core issues
are the same. Language and identity as a site of opportunity for some, but
marginalization and then resistance for others. However underlying these
opportunities and conflicts exists a defining rationale which is the construction
of discursive identities within power and power relations.

References

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Bhabba, H. (1994). The Location of Culture. London: Routledge.
48 David Evans

Bourdieu, P. (1990). Outline of a Theory of Practice. Cambridge: Cambridge

University Press.
Bourdieu, P. (1991). Language and Symbolic Power. J. P. Thompson (ed.).
Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Chomsky, N. (2009). Cartesian Linguistics: A Chapter in the History of Rationalist
Thought. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Chouliaraki, L., & Fairclough, N. (1999). Discourse in Late Modernity: Rethinking
Critical Discourse Analysis. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.
Clark, K., & Holquist, M. (1984). Mikhail Bakhtin. Cambridge: Harvard
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Derrida, J. (1967). Of Grammatology. Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press.
Derrida, J. (1978). Writing and Difference, trans. A. Bass. London: Routledge.
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Fairclough, N. (1989). Language and Power. London/New York: Longman.
Fairclough, N. (1992). Discourse and Social Change. Cambridge: Polity Press.
Foucault, M. (1972). The Archeology of Knowledge. London; Routledge.
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Hart, C. (2016). Discourse, Grammar and Ideology: Functional and Cognitive
Perspectives. London: Bloomsbury.
Heidegger, M. (1993). Basic Writings. New York: Routledge.
Holmes, J. (1992). An Introduction to Sociolinguistics. London: Longman.
Kant, E. (1993). The Critique of Pure Reason. Vasilis Politis (ed.). London: Everyman.
Kramsch, C. (1998). Language and Culture. Oxford: OUP Oxford online dictionaries
(accessed 10 January 2017).
Saussure, F, de (1915). Course in General Linguistics. New York: McGraw-Hill.
Saussure, F. de (1966). Course in General Linguistics. New York: McGraw-Hill.
Schinkel, W. (2015). ‘The Sociologist and the State: An Assessment of Pierre Bourdieu’s
Sociology’. British Journal of Sociology 66.2.
Van Dijk, T. A. (2008). Discourse and Power. London: Palgrave Macmillan.
Volosinov, V. N. (1994). ‘Language and Ideology’. In J. Maybin (ed.), Language and
Literacy in Social Practice. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters.
Vygotsky, L. S. (1962). Thought and Language. Cambridge: MIT Press.
Wertsch, J. V. (1991). Voices of the Mind: A Sociocultural Approach to Mediated Action.
Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Newspaper Extracts
The Daily Express Headline (18 February 2016).
The Daily Express Headline (27 July 2016).
The Daily Telegraph (17 May 2016). Headline by Peter Bone.
The Sun (22 September 2015). Headline by Lynn Davidson.
 Part Two

Urban Discourses

Editor’s introduction

This section examines discourses in the urban world in two UK sociocultural

contexts and how they are able to construct subject positions.
Chapter 4 focuses on the ideological power of metropolitan ‘hipster’ discourse
in the sociocultural category of ‘DFL’ (Down from London) and how this
discourse attempts to marginalize local discourse in an English seaside town.
Chapter 5 explores the empowerment of a youth discourse to creatively
construct identity in the face of more powerful media voices.
Both chapters see discourse as a possible site of conflict, expressing
marginalization, resistance and empowerment.
 4

‘DFLs’ versus ‘Locals’: Discursive Conflict

on Social Media and the Battle for Regional
Identity
Christopher Anderson

Introduction

This chapter concerns the discourses of ‘gentrification’ seen in a social media

conflict between a ‘gentrifier’ and those who resist her ‘gentrifying’ discourse.
‘Gentrification’ (Glass 1964) is the process whereby impoverished working-class
urban areas are initially found as an attractive place to locate to by artists, students
and bohemians for its cheap but architecturally attractive accommodation and
central locality. With the exponential rise of rents and house prices in London
as a whole, there has been a recent new form of ‘gentrification’ whereby artists
and people working in the creative industries more generally are relocating
to socially deprived seaside towns in Kent and Sussex which, with improving
transport links, offer cheap, architecturally attractive accommodation combined
with a closeness to the capital.
This chapter then explores a micro-level incident of online discursive
resistance to a dominant discourse of gentrification applying Holliday’s (1999)
notion of small cultures to provide a framework for understanding how
interpersonal communication conflict can be conceptualized within a critical
paradigm of intercultural communication (Humphrey 2007: 5).
On Wednesday, 7 November 2012, an article was published in an online
lifestyle magazine (Richards 2012a). On Thursday, 8 November 2012, the writer
of the article published an apology for her article on the Facebook page of her
pizza restaurant (Richards 2012b). The apology was a reaction to controversy
and complaints that her article created. Both the article and the apology were
52 Christopher Anderson

subsequently deleted from their respective sites. On Friday, 9 November 2012,

BBC South East Today television news covered the controversy with a written
version published on the BBC News website (BBC 2012) in what was to be
known as ‘Pizzagate’ on social media (Thanet Life 2012). I was made aware of
the original article on the day of its publication and followed the controversy it
caused with great interest as the subject was my own home town, Margate.
In following this controversy on social and mass media and in also examining
a whole range of related media texts subsequent to this on my region, it became
clear that this was worthy of an academic analysis. Beyond the fact that this is
an interesting case of how social media enables an incredibly quick turnover
of publication, reaction and then wider media coverage, it demonstrates how
social and mass media can be used by those with cultural and social capital as
a means to discursively support the process of gentrification, while at the same
time being used by the readers of the text to create feedback extremely quickly –
what I call reactive discourses. This chapter then concerns how the underlying
gentrification discourse in the original text (referred to as the article) caused
the initial controversy as well as looking at how the reactive discourses were
also created from the perspective of certain residents in Margate. An important
consideration in this work is my own place in this research. In dealing with
analysis that divides people into groups, one of which I am a member of, I have
to tread a careful line of reflexivity (Usher & Edwards 1994: 148). To that extent
this is a piece of insider research and I had to be conscious of my own subjectivity
and biases throughout the process (Hammersley & Atkinson 1995: 103–12).

Geographical and historical context

In order to make sense of the chapter, it is necessary to understand the

geographical and historical context in which it occurred. The article concerns
the town of Margate on the Isle of Thanet in Kent in the southeast of England.
Margate developed in the nineteenth century as a seaside resort primarily
servicing London (Jackson et al. 2016; Ward 2016). It serviced in particular the
working classes from northeast, east and southeast London. This link to London
was maintained with many Londoners relocating in the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s
to the coast either to retire or work in the tourism industry. As with more
recent migrant patterns of the British either moving or having second homes in
southern Europe, the internal migrant patterns to southeastern coastal towns
was a result of their holiday experiences, that is, positive holiday experiences
 ‘DFLs’ versus ‘Locals’ 53

led to holidaymakers moving to the holiday destination. In demographic terms,

therefore, often the people moving to the coastal towns reflected the social
classes of the holidaymakers they attracted. In addition to attracting Anglo-
Londoners, a notable Jewish community was established in the more middle-
class Cliftonville district of Margate and later in the early 1970s a Greek-Cypriot
community developed.
Like many other UK seaside resorts, Margate suffered a decline from the
1970s onwards in its tourism industry as holidaymakers chose the cheaper and
warmer destinations in the Mediterranean. During the 1980s a majority of the
hotels, guest houses and B’n’Bs were closed down. Many of them were converted
into multiple-occupancy dwellings and rented out to the unemployed who
moved to the area. Other buildings were converted into children’s homes, homes
for the mentally ill, nursing homes and retirement homes. These phenomena
were particularly noticeable in the wards of Cliftonville West and Margate
Central where many of the larger guest houses and hotels were, and which were
not easy to convert into single-occupancy dwellings. The 1990s saw waves of
immigration into these wards initially as a product of the Yugoslavian civil war
but then followed by others seeking asylum including Roma Gypsies and finally
a wave of eastern Europeans. The Isle of Thanet was ranked 65th out of 354
of most socially deprived local authorities in England (Thanet District Council
2010). Cliftonville West and Margate Central were ranked as the most socially
deprived in Thanet (ibid.).
From the beginning of the 2000s onwards there was a concerted effort to have
an arts-led regeneration of Margate built around the final opening of the Turner
Contemporary art gallery in 2011, which was originally conceived of in 1998.
A model following precedents set with former industrial towns such as Liverpool
and Gateshead (Ward 2016). Prior to the opening of the Turner, there began a
redevelopment of the ‘Old Town’, an area close to the then proposed Turner site
which had many empty buildings and vacant shops. The redevelopment could
be seen with the opening of both art galleries and artists’ studios as well as the
opening of cafes, bars and niche shops (vintage clothing, antiques and so forth).
Following the opening of the Turner, this regeneration slowly expanded beyond
the ‘Old Town’ towards the main high street and into the Cliftonville area.
This regeneration saw a concomitant new internal migration of Londoners
to Margate, typically hailing (but not originating) from the east-end of London
often from the borough of Hackney. Unlike their predecessors they were middle
class, typically working in the creative industries or actually artists. One of the
principal attractions of Margate was the cheapness of Regency, Victorian and
54 Christopher Anderson

Edwardian property in Cliftonville West and Margate Central; areas that were
avoided by many working-class and middle-class people from Thanet due to
the reputation of the area being socially deprived and therefore associated with
criminality. With the incessant rise in property prices in London in the 2000s;
it was quite feasible for Londoners to sell a small flat in London and get a large
house for less in Margate. The second attraction was the closeness of Margate to
London made more accessible by the opening of the high speed rail link in 2009.
Third, the perceived attractiveness of the area was its seaside location. The final
attraction was the perception of the town having a creative community shown
explicitly through the opening of galleries and studios.
This new migration was coupled with mass media coverage particularly
within broadsheet national newspapers (e.g. Turner 2011), lifestyle magazines
(e.g. Smith 2015) and property television programmes (e.g. Inside Out: London
2016) as well as coverage on social media typically in blogs presenting from
those who had either visited or relocated to Margate (e.g. the article). Common
to all of these forms of media was Margate being recommended for either a visit
or as a place for relocation.

Analysis of ‘Every Day Is Like Sunday’

The article, entitled ‘Every Day Is Like Sunday’, appeared in the London-based
‘digital magazine’ Civilian (2017a). The magazine is subtitled ‘global intelligence,
style and culture’, whose aims are ‘to inspire, inform and entertain you’ (Civilian
2017b). To ‘inspire’ suggests that beyond the functions of providing information
and entertainment, it wishes to institute change in its readers’ behaviour, that is,
to perhaps imitate the experiences their writers have had. In the ‘About’ page,
a great deal of effort is given to create an identity for the magazine itself given
in the first person (ibid.). It recognizes itself as a form of travel magazine but
at the same time it constructs an identity of ‘difference’ from what it defines as
a conventional ‘luxury travel’ magazine. This is done through a comparison to
the ‘conventional’ stating how it is ‘not like’ the others in a way it is not easy to
pigeonhole; in its attitude; in how it treats its subject matter; and in what it does
not do.

Civilian is contemporary, intelligent, inspiring, luxe, provocative, witty, offbeat,

literary, human . . . and largely in the first person.
If you insisted on the utmost brevity, we’d identify ourselves as a luxury travel
magazine. But, while many magazines execute ‘luxury publishing’ superbly and
 ‘DFLs’ versus ‘Locals’ 55

intelligently, and many of our writers – and readers – are very much a part of
that world, we feel that there’s room for something that embraces individuality
and irreverence. (Civilian 2017b)

The list of adjectives in the first sentence proposes a complex identity that
cannot be easily pigeonholed. This avoidance strategy can be seen in the way
it reluctantly identifies itself as a ‘luxury travel magazine’. The only other place
this is mentioned is on the title page to the left of the title ‘Civilian’ where there
is a vertical Japanese script that translates as ‘posh travelling’. In the ‘About’
page it gives its own definition of ‘luxury’ as being not about the consumption
of expensive goods and services, but rather an abstracted interpretation of
an experience. Avoidance can also be seen in how it states that it ‘embraces
individuality and irreverence’. The avoidance strategies help to create an
identity of being alternative and individual which is emphasized in a ‘0’
conditional sentence addressed to the reader. ‘If you’re looking for “best beach”
lists, celebrities or a bunch of picture galleries, then this isn’t the place’ (Civilian
2017b). This rhetorical identification device is not actually directly addressed to
the perceived reader that the editor conceives but to a reader not suited to the
magazine. I would suggest that the person looking for that type of content in a
magazine would not be reading this text in the first place, and so in essence it
means we don’t write for that normal type of reader and we know really that you
are like us and not like them.
The way in which this magazine constructs its identity as not mainstream,
as alternative and as not easily pigeonholed, I would argue, makes it part
of the ‘hipster’ culture that emerged in the early 2000s. ‘Hipster’ is a highly
contested term but what it appears to signify is a set of people who live in
urban areas often previously impoverished (e.g. Williamsburg in Brooklyn,
New York; Shoreditch in Hackney, London) and construct an alternative
consumer lifestyle in opposition to the mainstream in, for example, dress,
food, transport, work and leisure (Maly and Varis 2016; Schiermer 2014;
Scott 2017), a nomenclature that those described as ‘hipster’ often reject.
Civilian is very much in contrast to the mainstream and purports alternative
consumption patterns. Such consumption patterns are always threatened by
the fact that particular style choices made by ‘hipsters’ can become mainstream
(Michael 2015). The article is then located in this challenging dynamic of
what Saul (1994: 130) calls the self-destructing paradox of fashion: ‘In order
to be fashionable you must avoid everything in fashion.’ As will become
apparent in the following analysis, the article fits into the magazine’s identity
and perceived readership.
56 Christopher Anderson

Aims and structure

In this section I will look at the text as a whole in terms of purpose and structure.
A close reading of the text reveals that there is one primary and three secondary
purposes of the article, and therefore, one assumes, of the writer:
●
Primary:
• To persuade the reader to visit or to move to Margate permanently or to
have a second home there.
• The underlying argument is that although Margate has social problems it
is in the process of regeneration due to Londoners moving there.
• This is done through a ‘parallel’ narrative, that is, this was my
experience and it could be your experience which fits into the
magazine’s aim to inspire.
● Secondary:
• To demonstrate to the reader how a successful business was set up and
established in Margate (the writer’s own business).
• To promote the writer’s business.
• To promote the writer herself as a successful businesswoman who has set
up a ‘hipster’ restaurant.
• Perhaps to engender in the reader an admiration for what the writer
has done, that is, moved to a risky place and achieved success.

The text, although not demarcated as such through organization features such as
subheadings, can be easily identified as having four distinct sections.
● Section 1 (Paragraphs 1–3): Description of Margate as a location with
potential
● Section 2 (Paragraphs 4–5): An imagined itinerary for a day trip to Margate
● Section 3 (Paragraphs 6–14): Narrative of the writer’s relocation to Margate
● Section 4 (Paragraphs 15–16): Persuasive conclusion

Section 1 argues the potential of Margate in terms of its cheap property and
physical beauty, but at the same time notes the people of Margate and their
poverty as being problematic. This is counterbalanced with the identification of
the town being in a process of regeneration due to ‘DFLs’ (down from London).
This term is used in the article and has become a common term for describing
these new internal migrants from London by residents of Kent and Sussex
(Wiktionary 2017). This section has the primary purpose of persuading the
reader to visit or to move to Margate.
 ‘DFLs’ versus ‘Locals’ 57

Section 2 creates an imagined itinerary for a middle-class London visitor on a

day trip starting from St Pancras Station in London to catch the high-speed rail
connection to Margate. The narrative both identifies the negatives in Margate
and the positives beginning with more negatives on arrival at Margate station
but leading to more positives as the imagined visitor gets to the Old Town. As
with Section 1, this also shares the primary aim.
Section 3 is the writer’s own narrative of her relocation with her partner to
Margate. It begins with her initial visits from London leading to her conversion
to the place; then continues with her efforts to get accommodation and start
her catering business there eventually leading to her business success with her
restaurant. This section covers all the purposes while Section 4, the conclusion,
focuses on the primary aim. The main argument (reflecting the introduction) is
that it is a good place with a bright future despite its problems.

Paratext features: title, quotations, photographs

I adapt the term ‘paratext’ from literary theory (Genette & Maclean 1991) to
describe all the features additional to the actual text written whether verbal or
visual. These features are either the choice of the editor and subeditor or the
actual writer. What they do in this article is orient the reader to the subject
matter of the article while positioning the reader verbally and visually as a
London-based ‘hipster’.
The title of the article ‘Every Day Is Like Sunday’ is a reference to a song by
Morrissey with the same title released in 1988 as a single and as a track on the
album ‘Viva Hate’. The song recounts the misery of visiting a seaside town in
the United Kingdom reflecting the writer’s discussion of the negative features
of Margate and therefore is an apt title. However, there is another distinct
signifier in choosing this song. Morrissey and his former band, The Smiths,
as the leading purveyors of UK indie music in the 1980s is very much a ‘hip’
choice that one could assume would fall in the musical lexicon of the target
reader.
The subheading of the title is ‘The Art and Pizza-Based Regeneration of a
Forgotten Seaside Town’. On one level this describes the content of the article in
terms of the regeneration of a town. However, there are two elements of note.
First of all, ‘pizza-based regeneration’. While it could be acknowledged that the
regeneration of Margate is arts-led with the opening of the Turner Contemporary
central to this, the author’s opening of a pizza restaurant is a by-product of the
regeneration rather than an engine of it. A reading of this phrase then could
58 Christopher Anderson

be that the writer or subeditor is attempting irony; the use of irony being a key
‘hipster’ trope (Schiermer 2014). Second the use of the adjective ‘forgotten’ is
of interest. A town that is forgotten suggests that people have lost all memory
of it rather like a lost city discovered in an archaeological dig. Yet Margate was
evidently not forgotten by its residents. This suggests then that it is forgotten by
the assumed readers of Civilian. In that sense it is off the ‘hip’ radar but through
regeneration may gain recognition.
There are three large quotations from the text embedded in the right hand side
of the main article paragraphs to illustrate the subject matter of the text. The first
quotation, which comes from the Section 2 imagined itinerary, is a description of
the ‘locals’ using wordplay for assumed humorous effect based around the root
‘waste’ to counterpoint the literary traditions of Margate with the intoxicated
state of the inhabitants. ‘Carry on along the seafront, past the shelter where T.S.
Eliot wrote lines of The Wasteland, whose latter-day inhabitants create their
own take on wasted’ (Richards 2012a). The second quotation from the Section
4 conclusion contrasts the ‘excitement’ about the regeneration of the town using
the metaphor of scent, ‘There’s the whiff of excitement and possibility in the
air in Margate’ (Richards 2012a) which is contrasted to the smells associated
with the traditional seaside and the smell of social deprivation: ‘It mixes headily
with the potent seaweed, sickly sweet candyfloss and the stench of a polarised
populace facing crippling levels of unemployment’ (Richards 2012a). While
there appears to be sympathy for the unemployed plight of the ‘locals’, the use
of the noun ‘stench’ with its negative connotations draws on an history of the
middle and upper classes describing the poor in terms of their uncleanliness and
resultant body odour (Classen et al. 1994).
The final quotation comes from the writer’s narrative of relocation to Margate
in Section 3. This is from a description of the writer setting up her pizza restaurant
with her partner which is part of an explanation of the kind of restaurant they
have established. ‘There’s no theme or back story here – no witty press release
or cloying food trend. Small plates are banned’ (Richards 2012a). This is an
interesting example of the dynamic flow of always trying to be fashionable. The
denial of having a press release describing the theme or back story and not being
part of a food trend (cf. ‘small plates’) marks out the establishment as being
different; an alternative to how other restaurants are promoted. Yet Section 3
acts as a back story establishing a clear theme for the restaurant that actually
does follow a food trend for ‘gourmet’ pizza restaurants which she discusses as
an influence in paragraph 9. The three quotations highlight the different sections
of the text and more importantly function to pick out the themes of how the old
 ‘DFLs’ versus ‘Locals’ 59

Margate is contrasted with the new regenerated Margate while also promoting
the writer’s business.
The photographs used in the article also have a similar function of illustrating
the different aspects of the article while being oriented to the assumed tastes of
the readers. There are five photographs, four of which were taken by the author.
In order, they are of:

1. A young man jumping off the end of Margate pier into the sea
2. The Turner Contemporary art gallery
3. A pizza – presumably from the author’s restaurant
4. Margate harbour, the Turner Contemporary and the Old Town
5. Stencilled graffiti image of the artist Tracey Emin on a wall

In the examination of the style of the images, what these photographs share in
common is an abstracted quality in terms of framing, composition and use of
colour effects. In the ‘About’ section of the magazine, the importance of visual
imaginary for the magazine is made clear: ‘We are as driven by text as we
are by images’ (Civilian 2012b). In the example of the jumping man, it is not
immediately clear what he is jumping from and what he is jumping into with a
colourized sky dominating the frame. This abstracted theme is, I would argue,
part of the magazine’s aforementioned remit to be ‘different’ and therefore a
further signifier of ‘hipness’ oriented to the reader. A more standard composition
and lighting would be less attractive to the target reader.
The man is actually jumping off the end of Margate pier (renamed in the
regeneration process of Margate as the ‘Margate Harbour Arm’). At the time
this photograph was taken, this activity was associated with local male working-
class youth and the man’s Union Jack shorts acts as a class signifier (Jefferies
2014). To that extent he represents an example of the ‘locals’ discussed in the
article. The second photograph, of the Turner Contemporary gallery, is again
abstracted with two angular exterior walls and a blue sky. This photograph
centres on the architectural modernism of the gallery and could be seen as a
signifier of the new to the town. The photograph of the pizza is itself slightly
abstracted in being a close up of the item on what appears to be a wooden base
typifying an ‘artisanal’, slightly rough-hewn food product. Thus the writer is
not only promoting her product but is positioning what is a common type of
fast food as something alternative to the mainstream. The fourth photograph
while not abstracted appears to be heavily colourized. It is moodily lit at sunset
emphasizing the beauty of the location of the ‘harbour’ area, the gallery and
the Old Town – in essence the original focus of the regeneration of Margate.
60 Christopher Anderson

The final photograph is abstracted in the sense it is not clear where the wall is
or indeed if it is a wall. The photograph works on two levels. First of all, it is
an example of stencil art which has become fashionable particularly due to the
work of Banksy (Lewisohn & Chalfant 2009). Thus the choice of this type of art
work is another ‘hip’ signifier. Second, the picture is of the artist Tracey Emin.
The London-based artist originally from Margate acts as a transitional signifier
of both the old Margate which she refers to her in own art (Brown 2006) and the
new Margate of artists and creatives.
These paratext features are designed to be aesthetically appealing to the target
reader and give a set of recognizable signifiers that form part of the presumed
verbal and visual lexicon of this reader. At the same time it orients the reader
to the subject matter of the changing town, its people, the writer and her
achievements.

Constructions within the text

The writer through discursive strategies such as arguments, descriptions

and narratives constructs the key elements of the text. At the centre of this
is her construction of Margate that is dichotomous being both ‘down at heel’
(Richards 2012a) but also in the process of change, that is, improving through
regeneration. More subtly, as already discussed, the writer constructs the reader
as a London ‘hipster’. The writer indicates in her language a shared knowledge
with the reader of what is ‘hip’ by reference to signifiers that demonstrate a
cultural knowledge and therefore a cultural capital (Bourdieu 1992; Robbins
2000). In other words, you know about this stuff, they don’t. Furthermore, with
its primary aim to persuade the reader to visit or move to Margate, the writer
positions the reader as a potential ‘DFL’. The writer then by addressing the
reader as someone with a shared cultural capital (as well, it would be assumed,
financial capital to be able to relocate) is constructing herself to be similar to
the reader. However, at the same time she constructs herself as a ‘DFL’ – she
privileges her relocation in terms of being an early example of this, that is, a
‘pioneer’ (Richards 2012a). Thus she is in the privileged position to explain to
the uninitiated about Margate.
The construction of writer and reader contrasts with the construction of the
preexisting residents of Margate which primarily led to the negative reaction to the
article. The residents, referred to as the ‘locals’, are constructed as an ill-educated
impoverished underclass of either the unemployed or in low-status occupations
 ‘DFLs’ versus ‘Locals’ 61

with many social problems: a construction that posits these people as a negative,
problematic ‘other’ (Edgar and Sedgwick 1999; Said 1978). This construction is
not erroneous as Margate has suffered from poverty and unemployment (Thanet
District Council 2010; Margate Coastal Community Team 2016), but what is
absent from this construction are other types of residents in the area such as
the skilled working class, the middle classes and the migrant communities in
Margate, many of whom similarly suffer from poor social conditions. The writer
choses one particular subsection of the local population and from that creates a
stereotype of all ‘locals’.

The two major narratives in the text

Using the above constructions, there are two distinct but related narratives that
occur in the text. The first is a narrative of relocating to Margate. While most
explicitly realized in section 3 of the text with the narrative of the writer’s own
relocation, elements of this narrative occur in all sections. The narrative is as
follows:

1. Londoners visit Margate (Through increasing media coverage they

become aware that this is good place to visit for a day trip or weekend.
Margate beginning to regenerate.)
2. Londoners fall in love with Margate (They love its beauty – architectural,
historic and scenic – and see that there are more and more features of
‘hipster’ London life there, but they also recognize its social problems with
a white underclass.)
3. Londoners move to or buy a second home in Margate (Its social
problems mean that it is a lot cheaper to live in than London in terms
of property and general living costs. London is getting more and more
expensive to live in. Yet Margate is not far from London with improved
transportation. Due to the fact that they live in Hackney, they are used to
having social problems around them so are more willing to move to the
poorer wards than those from east Kent.)

The second narrative concerns the regeneration of Margate. Underpinning

the narrative of the ‘DFL’ is a narrative that in relocating to Margate (and
possibly setting up business), the ‘DFL’ will contribute to the regeneration of
Margate which in of itself will attract further Londoners which will increase the
value of their properties.
62 Christopher Anderson

1. Margate has negative qualities

2. It is, however, going through a process of change
3. Which leads to positive qualities (there are still negatives but in the
process the positives are outweighing the negatives)

This regeneration involves bringing from London aspects of ‘hipster’ culture in

terms of leisure and consumption. The local ‘unemployable’ (Richards 2012a)
culture is of no attraction to ‘DFLs’ so the ‘hipster’ culture and ‘unemployable’
culture is in conflict with the new culture taking over the old. Implicit in this is
the notion of gentrification although it is not recognized as such in the article
only being mentioned as a reason for people relocating from London. ‘This
time they’ve moved because the gentrification of London’s wildest boroughs has
forced out those that don’t earn six-figure sums’ (Richards 2012a). The locals are
unable to bring about change themselves while ‘DFLs’ can bring about change
for them and improve the locals’ world. The writer uses negative language to
describe Margate (e.g. ‘grimy, down-at-heel’) but contrasts this with a process of
change that is positive: for example, ‘dragged itself up’, so the town has agency.

Binary of the two cultures

The writer establishes in her constructions of ‘DFLs’ and ‘locals’ two distinct
and separate cultures. I used the term ‘culture’ following Holliday’s (1999: 247)
notion of small cultures as ‘the composite of cohesive behaviour within any
social grouping’. These cultures can be identified in how she describes people,
their behaviour and the artefacts they use, consume or venerate.
In her construction of a people binary, the writer, in her choice of adjectives
and adjectival phrases, nouns and noun phrases, creates a clear distinction
in her description of the two groups (see Table 4.1). ‘Locals’ are unattractive
(‘grubby kids’; ‘thick-necked’; ‘paunched’), ‘unloved’ and in a state of intoxication
(‘uncontrollable’; ‘drunks’; ‘wasted’). ‘DFLs’, however, are ‘well-heeled’ and
fashionable (‘perfectly topiaried facial hair’; ‘bespoke heeled’; ‘avant-garde
fashions’). As already stated, ‘locals’ are either unemployed or in low-status
occupations, while ‘DFLs’ are in a range of professions in the creative industries
and in other white-collar occupations. In terms of tastes and values, locals are
racist and anti-immigrant while ‘DFLs’ are ‘cultured and knowing’ and ‘clued
up’. In other words, they are knowledgeable about what is fashionable and hip.
Locals then lack cultural and financial capital; the ‘DFLs’ do not.
 ‘DFLs’ versus ‘Locals’ 63

Table 4.1 People (descriptions and roles) in the article

Nouns; adjectives + nouns

Locals DFLs
G Naming G Naming
° lowlifes ° hipsters
° locals ° day-trippers
G Description ° Pioneers
° discoverers
° grubby kids ° visitors
° thick-necked driver ° gallery-goers
° younger, slightly less paunched
version of him G Description
G Occupation ° bespoke heeled
° well-heeled Thanet dwellers
° unemployable ° hipsters visiting with their Leicas and
° polarized populace facing crippling perfectly topiaried facial hair
levels of unemployment
° the avant-garde fashions of visiting
° cab driver Londoners
G Taste/values G Occupation
° racist ° architects, gallery owners and
° anti-Eastern-European bile designers
° prime specimens of the master race –
tattooed thugs with short foreheads ° running a theatre
° artists, designers
G Condition and behaviour ° creatives
° unloved ° artists, designers, furniture makers,
° uncontrollable printmakers, chefs, photographers,
° drunks civil servants, stylists, shopkeepers,
° wasted hoteliers, restaurateurs, PR folk and
journalists
G Tracey Emin problem
° business owners and their businesses
° she is both in the Old Town
G Taste/values
° cultured and discerning
° clued-up people
G Tracey Emin problem
° she is both

Through verb phrases and clauses, the writer makes a strong distinction between
how the two cultures behave (see Table 4.2). For the writer, the behaviour of ‘locals’
is violent and disruptive (‘girl fights in Morrisons’; ‘marauding the streets’) to the
point of nihilism (‘launching themselves into the shallow water’). As mentioned
earlier there is much emphasis in her construction on far-right politics; this is
combined with a sedentary lifestyle associated with unemployment. This contrasts
64 Christopher Anderson

Table 4.2 Behaviour in the article

Clauses; S+V+O, verb phrases etc.

Locals DFLs
G Violent/disruptive G Consumer behaviour
° girl fights in Morrisons ° property
° marauding the streets ■ scouring . . . the streets for
° launching themselves into the property
shallow water ■ sensed an opportunity
■ artists . . . sniff out cheap studios
G Alcohol and drug use
and gallery spaces
° in-your-face drug use ■ searched for property
° wielding tins of Tennents Extra ■ found a one-bed flat
° sinking cans of Stella
° furnishing and decoration
G Far-right politics ■ bought furniture
° planning their manifesto for white ■ discovered dusty emporiums
supremacy filled to the rafters with sticks of
G Sedentary/unemployed lifestyle mismatched furniture, vintage
finds and upcycled lighting
° waiting for their benefit cheques ■ stripping floorboards, plastering,
to clear
painting and sourcing furniture
° sat at home sinking cans of Stella ■ vintage furniture was found
while playing his Xbox bought on the
never-never from Brighthouse ° food and drink
■ put together a picnic
■ sipping pots of tea surrounded by
their shopping bags and pedigree
pooches
■ finished up with pints of Kentish
cider at The Lifeboat and perfectly
formed burgers at Fort’s Café
° art
■ wandered around brilliantly
curated exhibitions at the Turner
G Alcohol and drug use
° sip a glass of bubbly
° pints of Kentish cider at The Lifeboat
G Establishing businesses
° set up shop, scrubbed their doorsteps
and filled their stores with cleverly
chosen pieces and work by local
artists
° tweeting
° built up a knowledgeable, passionate
support network
 ‘DFLs’ versus ‘Locals’ 65

Clauses; S+V+O, verb phrases etc.

Locals DFLs
° branding was created with the help
of a close friend who happens to be
one of the United Kingdom’s best art
directors
G Process of regeneration and
gentrification
° cleared the way for new inhabitants
° talked of the promise of this town
° gentrification

with ‘DFLs’ establishing businesses, buying properties and renovating them.

There is also a distinct difference in consumer behaviour. Alcohol consumption
for the locals is cheap, mass-produced beer (‘Tennents Extra’; ‘Stella’) while ‘DFLs’
consume more expensive drinks such as Champagne and craft cider. Underlying
this is a social-class based legitimization of consumer behaviour. While the
consumption of mass-produced beer in either public or in ‘rough pubs’ is framed
in derogatory terms, the consumption of more expensive alcoholic drinks in the
context of ‘a picnic’ or in a micropub (i.e. ‘The Lifeboat’) is acceptable.
Linked to behaviour are the actual artefacts associated with each culture. By
artefacts, I mean the anthropological notion of objects either made for or made
by a culture that are used by members of a culture in everyday life and ritual
(Hodder 1994). Thus artefacts can stretch from simple everyday tools to objects
that hold important symbolic meaning. Artefacts identified in nouns and noun
phrases generally involve what people buy and consume (see Table 4.3). There is
a distinction between the kinds of shops frequented by the locals, that is, mass-
market supermarkets and shops aimed at those on a low income (‘Morrisons’;
‘Brighthouse’) and the ‘DFLs’ in the Old Town with a range of niche shopping in
small independent shops. Property in terms of homes that ‘DFLs’ have bought
are distinctly period: ‘Georgian, Edwardian and Victorian’, which forms part of
a narrative of buying a property to renovate and furnish with objects that can be
found in shops in the Old Town.
Places to eat also show a class distinction between mass-market fast-food
restaurants (‘Wimpy’; ‘Pizza Hut’) and independent, more expensive eateries
from those in London that inspired the writer’s restaurant (‘Pizza East, Franco
Manca, Santa Maria and Pizza Pilgrims’) to new Margate eateries (‘Cup Cake
Café’; ‘Fort’s Café’). As already stated, alcohol is strongly separated between
mass-market and more expensive products. Leisure beyond food and alcohol
66 Christopher Anderson

Table 4.3 Artefacts in the article

Nouns; noun phrases

Locals DFLs
G Shops G Shops
° Morrisons ° Old Town
° Brighthouse ° Qing interiors
(shop for poor
G Property
where consumer
products can be ° Georgian, Edwardian and Victorian properties
bought on hire ° oldest Georgian square
purchase) ° bare plaster and brick wall
° vintage furniture
G Food and restaurants
G Arts
° Formica-clad
Wimpy ‘restaurant’ ° theatre
° studios and gallery spaces
° Pizza Hut
° Cinema
G Alcohol ° T.S. Eliot’s The Wasteland
° cans of Stella ° Margate Gallery
° Tennents Extra G Food and restaurants
° Sambuca and
Jägerbomb deals ° types of food
■ a picnic
° rough pubs ■ street food
G Other forms of ■ wood-fired pizza,
leisure ■ olives
° Xbox ■ ices by Gelupo Gelato
■ chocolate brownies
■ flat whites
■ locally roasted beans
■ good, simple food
° restaurants
■ pop-up
■ Sourced (Sourced market trendy food shop and café
at St Pancras station copying on farmers’ markets)
■ Pizza East, Franco Manca, Santa Maria and Pizza
Pilgrims in London
■ Cupcake Café
■ Fort’s Cafe
° equipment
■ pizza oven/Roman-style oven
■ La Marzocco coffee machine
■ GB Pizza Company
G Alcohol
° a glass of bubbly
° pints of Kentish cider
° The Lifeboat (micro pub)
° Bloody Mary
° barrels from Borough Wines
 ‘DFLs’ versus ‘Locals’ 67

Nouns; noun phrases

Locals DFLs
G Transport
° VW Campervan
° fixed-wheel bicycle
G Internet and social media
° Twitter
° website
° Tripadvisor
° Facebook

for the ‘DFLs’ involves art, theatre, cinema and poetry while for the ‘locals’ it
involves computer games.
In behaviour and the artefacts that people utilize in their behaviour, a strong
binary is evident between a rather limited world for ‘locals’ and a more elaborate,
sophisticated one favoured by ‘DfL’s. In literal terms, note that the ‘DFL’ list in
both categories is far longer. In terms of consumption patterns, ‘locals’ are limited
explicitly by poverty and more implicitly by a lack of sophistication in taste and
lifestyle choices. The text is replete with verbal signifiers of social class in terms of
consumer consumption. Among the many examples of this, two are particularly
illustrative in paragraphs 2 and 14 respectively.

My first sighting of a fixed-gear bicycle pedalling (sic.) along the seafront gave
me joyous palpitations. (Richards 2012a)
Margate might not have seen anything like it, but we’re pretty sure visiting
Londoners will spot the La Marzocco coffee machine and barrels from Borough
Wines immediately. (Richards 2012a)

The fixed-gear bicycle is for the writer a sign that as an early indicator others are
moving to Margate as this object is a key signifier of ‘hipster’ culture and would
be assumedly ridden by a ‘DFL’. The second quotation concerning the objects in
her restaurant makes this even more explicit – signifiers of a London culture that
locals would not recognize.
Another binary is of the description of Margate itself contrasting the old
Margate which is associated with the locals and a new regenerated Margate
instigated by the ‘DFLs’ (see Table 4.4). What has to be noted is that it is the
same town being described but the writer identifies it as having two, at times
contradictory, sets of qualities. Thus in the description of the state of the town it
is ‘exciting’ and ‘vibrant’ but also having evidence of a lack of investment (‘grimy,
down-at-heel’; ‘rough around the environs’). In the description of buildings, you
68 Christopher Anderson

Table 4.4 Margate (buildings, locations etc.) in the article

Nouns; noun phrases

Old – locals New – DFLs
G Description of state of town G Description of state of town
° this grimy, down-at-heel town ° exciting, vibrant little town
° no-go area G Old buildings/property
° rough-around-the-environs
° Georgian, Edwardian and Victorian
° bags of rubbish ripped open by properties
ASBO gulls
° Cliftonville, once the holiday spot
G Buildings: condition and current use for wealthy Victorians and which
° boarded-up pubs currently makes the ‘burbs of West
° looming brutalist building London look cheap with its incredible
° arcades with their ringing slot housing stock, was where we found
machines and glass cases filled with a three-bedroom flat with enormous
China-made toys proportions on the frontline of
° Currently home to privately run Walpole Bay for less than £90,000
children’s homes and hostels ° Victorian train station
housing those on probation,
G Arts
Cliftonville’s slipped into a less than
salubrious state. ° theatre
° studios and gallery spaces
G Echoes of the past as seaside resort ° glimmering piece of modern
° sickly sweet candy floss architecture by Chipperfield (Turner
° potent seaweed Contemporary)
° donkeys G Scenery
° sea
° a sweep of fine, golden sand, an
enormous sky that wouldn’t look out
of place in the Caribbean
G Old town
° vintage furniture stores, cute cafés
and alehouse

have a sense of buildings in a bad condition (‘boarded-up’) or being converted to

homes for children or ex-prisoners which is contrasted with these older Victorian
buildings being aesthetically attractive yet cheap. What is not made explicit is
that the very reason that these buildings are cheap is because of the poverty.
To that extent the text does not critically engage with the social conditions that
create this situation, but celebrates the possibility for internal migrants to buy
old, cheap properties ripe for renovation. Combined with this is the fact that
despite the run-down elements of the town, there is a broader attractiveness
due to its coastal location: ‘a sweep of fine, golden sand, an enormous sky that
wouldn’t look out of place in the Caribbean’.
 ‘DFLs’ versus ‘Locals’ 69

The binaries have so far been identified through the selection of lexis and
clauses. I will now examine how they operate by examining an extract of the text
in detail, that is, paragraph 4 in the section 2 imagined reader itinerary starting
at St Pancras station.

Sip a glass of bubbly at St Pancras, put together a train picnic from Sourced and
jump on the high-speed train to Margate as we did before making the move here.
As you’re emptied out onto the concourse of Margate’s Victorian train station
and are invariably met by lowlifes wielding tins of Tennent’s Extra, you may well
wonder whether the hype is really true or even possible. But try to look past the
boarded-up pubs and the looming brutalist building that has seen better days.
Carry on along the seafront, past the shelter where T.S. Eliot wrote lines of The
Wasteland, whose latter-day inhabitants create their own take on wasted; past
the rough pubs, with their Sambuca and Jägerbomb deals, and which are filled
on some nights with prime specimens of the master race – tattooed thugs with
short foreheads planning their manifesto for white supremacy. (Richards 2012a)

Using the imperative mood the writer makes a series of suggestion of what to do
and what the reader will experience on their trip. The first sentence tells the reader
to have a drink and buy food for a train picnic at the café-food shop ‘Sourced’ in
St Pancras station which identifies itself as a market built on its selling of locally
sourced food thus mentioning a ‘hip’ signifier. ‘Sip a glass of bubbly at St Pancras,
put together a train picnic from Sourced.’ Compare this clause to the description of
what the visitor will meet at Margate station – ‘lowlifes wielding tins of Tennent’s
Extra’. Here there is a contrast between legitimized consumption of alcohol in a
train station to that which is non-legitimized, that is, it is perfectly acceptable to
drink Champagne in a fashionable food market/café in a train station but it is not
acceptable to drink a strong lager on a train concourse. This is further emphasized
by the verbs used. Compare ‘sip’, which suggests taking small amounts of the
beverage to appreciate the taste, to ‘wield’, a verb that typically collocates with
nouns such as knife and sword. Therefore the local holds the beer as if it were a
weapon. This violence of the ‘local’ is emphasized later in the paragraph where
local unattractive ‘thugs’ drink to get ‘wasted’ in ‘rough pubs’ with far-right
politics which is contrasted later with drinking craft cider in a micro-pub.
Thus the following contrasts:
● Sourced – concourse (places to drink in a train station)
● sip – wield (verbs to describe the drinking process)
● bubbly – Tennents Extra (expensive wine versus cheap mass-produced
lager)
70 Christopher Anderson

What these binaries create is a social class distinction between an affluent

middle class and a poor underclass who look different, do different things and
consume different things. Like all binaries this concerns one binary privileging
another (Foucault 1991: 199; McQuillan 2000: 8). It is quite clear in the author’s
writing that she privileges the ‘DFL’ in every way over the ‘local’ in these areas.
Everything about the ‘local’ is problematic and negative. Everything about
the ‘DFL’ is positive. Furthermore, ‘DFLs’ have the agency to change their
environment in terms of work, starting businesses, buying and renovating
properties, while ‘locals’ appear to have no agency stuck in a spiral of poverty
and ignorance.

An unwitting gentrification discourse

I would argue that the constructions, narratives and binaries discussed above
are part of a discourse of gentrification, central to which is the otherizing
representation of residents of areas being gentrified. This representation was
central to the offence and subsequent controversy the article caused. Such
offensiveness is implicit to such a discourse in that the discourse operates by
justifying the actions of the gentrifying by identifying the need for change to an
area that has declined due in part to its indigenous population. This discourse
was unwitting on two counts. First, the author states in her Facebook apology
a complete surprise in the offence she caused and that she had no awareness
that her article could cause offence (Richards 2012b). Second, there is no direct
recognition that she is promoting gentrification and indeed as stated above,
only sees gentrification in London as the cause for the internal migration to
Margate.
The two major narratives in the text are then integral to the discourse of
gentrification. Gentrification is a term coined by Ruth Glass (1964), which is
now well-established in urban geography and sociology (e.g. Butler & Robson
2003; Lees et al. 2007; Brown-Saracino 2010; Lees 2010; Smith 2010) to explain
the phenomenon of bohemians (artists, students etc.) moving to impoverished
areas of cities attracted by their central locality and the cheap but architecturally
attractive accommodation. The impact of the new residents is the bringing about
of a material ‘improvement’ to the area in terms of renovated properties, new
shops and leisure facilities. This in turn makes the area slowly become attractive
to the more conventional middle class who move there leading to rising house
prices, the selling of rented properties and the rise in rents of any rented
 ‘DFLs’ versus ‘Locals’ 71

properties still in existence. This process leads to the displacement of the original
working-class inhabits who can no longer afford to live there (Slater 2006);
Notting Hill in London is a good example of this process starting in the 1960s.
I would argue further that this article is not unique in producing this discourse.
There is a large body of texts, whether personal blogs, print newspaper and
magazine articles, and television programmes, that form a complex discourse of
gentrification for Margate and similar coastal towns in Kent and Sussex. What
marks out this text as particular is the reaction it caused.
The explicit otherization of the residents that caused the reaction related to
what Wacquant et al. (2014) call ‘territorial stigmatization’. ‘Locals’ consist of
only an impoverished, uneducated underclass lacking any agency to change
their neighbourhood for the better. Thus it is the role of the gentrifier to
come and improve an area. Yet in this discourse, other types of ‘locals’ are
missing: skilled working classes, the middle classes and recent immigrants.
I would argue that the first two groups were ignored because they do not fit
the narrative as they indeed do have more agency to improve the area than
the ‘underclass’. Indeed, regeneration activity has not been exclusively in
the hands of ‘DFLs’, for example, The Turner Contemporary gallery was a
local initiative (Jackson et al. 2016) and several of the shops in the Old Town
were locally owned. The immigrant group, who populated the ‘down-at-heel’
area of Cliftonville where the author bought her property, are ignored even
though some of them are as socially deprived as the ‘locals’. An argument for
this omission is that if they were portrayed in a similarly negative light, the
author would be open to accusations of racism. A key point to note is that
‘hipster’ culture is one associated with the progressive liberal left (Schiermer
2014: 170).
Underlying the discourse is that gentrifiers have the financial capital to
buy property and set up (or relocate) businesses while they also have the
cultural capital to be able to organize activities to engender gentrification (e.g.
community associations, neighbourhood groups and campaigns). Furthermore,
financial and cultural capital give gentrifiers a confidence and independence
that easily allows for internal migration, resettlement and change of work.
This cultural and financial capital combined with the otherization of locals
legitimize gentrification. The central negative consequence of gentrification, the
displacement of the indigenous residents as rented properties are bought up and
rents increase (Slater 2006), is not considered in this discourse as problematic
and in fact advantageous in the article. The otherization of ‘locals’ means that
they are not consulted within the text; their opinions are not sought apart from
72 Christopher Anderson

cited examples of their backwardness and ignorance. For example, the author
cites a generic conversation with a taxi driver:

Not a cab journey goes by without having to firmly tell a thick-necked driver
to keep his anti-Eastern-European bile to himself – ‘Coming here, stealing our
jobs. My son can’t get no work . . .’ I imagine a younger, slightly-less paunched
version of him sat at home sinking cans of Stella whilst playing his Xbox bought
on the never-never from Brighthouse. (Richards 2012a)

In considering how the discourse is unremittingly positive about the processes

of gentrification and unremittingly negative about the ‘locals’, it is possible to
identify a level of regional and class prejudice that suggests an important element
of gentrification discourse is a colonialist discourse.

A colonialist discourse

Following the work of Said (1978) and Pennycook (1998), I would state that
a colonialist discourse is a construction that makes exotic stereotypes and
simplifies the colonized. This otherization process with the ‘locals’ lacking
agency is then a justification for colonialism. Somewhat akin to the Anglo-
colonial spread of Christianity to save the natives’ souls, there is a subtext that
the ‘DFLs’ can regenerate an area for the ‘locals’ that have not been displaced.
While the internal migration of middle-class Londoners to seaside towns is
not colonialism in its truest sense, that is, taking over a country or region with
physical force, there is a remarkable similarity to actual colonialism. There is a
justification for moving to an area and changing it not only in terms of economic
regeneration but also in terms of bringing the cultural artefacts and behaviours
of the colonizers’ culture.
In addition to this otherizing in the article, there is language that more directly
pertains to the ‘DFLs’ being like colonialists in the process of taking over the area
and removing the indigenous population. Paragraph 6 in the section 3 narrative
of the writer’s relocation to Margate illustrates this element of the colonialist
discourse in the most clear and direct manner. This begins with the narrative of
the writer’s relocation.
We’d been coming to Margate for two years. Firstly as day-trippers, stumbling across
the Old Town with its vintage furniture stores, cute cafés and alehouse, feeling like
we were its first discoverers. These shop and gallery owners were the pioneers –
when the Old Town was just another no-go area, full of drunks waiting for their
 ‘DFLs’ versus ‘Locals’ 73

benefit cheques to clear, they set up shop, scrubbed their doorsteps and filled
their stores with cleverly chosen pieces and work by local artists. Janet Williams
at the Margate Gallery, Anne-Marie Nixy and her Qing interiors store and Lisa
Hemingway’s Cupcake Café cleared the way for new inhabitants. These days the
Old Town is packed with visitors and well-heeled Thanet dwellers, sipping pots of
tea surrounded by their shopping bags and pedigree pooches. (Richards 2012a)

The paragraph describes the Old Town with its shops, cafes and pubs. The writer
describes how she and her partner felt like Margate’s first ‘discoverers’. The verb
‘discoverer’ is a quintessential colonialist lexical item discounting the fact that people
have actually already lived there for some time. Furthermore, the shop and gallery
owners are described as ‘pioneers’ – again a familiar term in colonial language – the
Europeans setting up communities in the newly discovered lands. However, the
language also emphasizes the displacement of the ‘native’ locals. It is apparent that
the owners of the new businesses have helped to remove the previous unemployed
drunk residents in the choice of the verb phrase ‘scrubbed their doorsteps’. This
suggests a cleansing of an area; removing the dirt left by the predecessors (cf. the
discussion above of the smell metaphor to describe the ‘locals’). These businesses
thus ‘cleared the way for new inhabitants’ further emphasizing the displacement
of the locals. These are unfortunate metaphors as they appear to be unwitting
intertextual references to ethnic cleansing and the Highland clearances.

Reactive discourses

As can be seen in Table 4.4, the internet and social media are key artefacts of the
‘hipster’ culture. In the article, the author stresses how she used social media to
promote her restaurant while the actual article appeared in an online magazine.
As already argued, the magazine and the article were aimed at a particular
London-based reader. However, with the openness of the internet, the article
was easily accessible to a far wider readership as can be seen in how quickly
there was a reaction to it. In a very fast process, the article was accessed by a large
audience it was not aimed at, that is, ‘locals’.
Table 4.5 illustrates the timeline from Wednesday, 7 November to Saturday,
10 November 2012 of the article’s publication and the various reactions
to it on social and mass media. It should be noted that these dates are for
the publication of the texts; the comments that followed the texts extended
over a longer period. For the social media posts on 7 and 8 November, there
are three examples: Margate & Local Family History (2012) and We Make
74 Christopher Anderson

Table 4.5 Discourse timeline

Date Discourse Event Media Reaction

7 Nov Publication of ‘Every Mass (online
Day Is Like Sunday’ on magazine
Civilian
7–8 Nov Posts on individual and Social media Majority negative;
group Facebook pages some positive
and Twitter conversation
8 Nov Boycott GB Pizza Social media Negative
Facebook page started
(earliest reference 12.40)
8 Nov Apology by the writer on Social media Negative and
the Facebook page of her positive
restaurant (at 18.17)
9 Nov Item on BBC South East Mass media Neutral reporting
Today news at 6.30 pm (broadcast and negative &
and on BBC news website internet) positive
9–10 Nov Item on local blogs Social media Positive
concerning local politics
and issues (Thanet
Online; Thanet Life;
Thanet Waves)

Margate (2012) both on Facebook; and a Twitter conversation with the author
(Glimbrick 2012). From the references made in the subsequent social media
posts and comments, it is evident there existed a far greater range of posts
but they are difficult to access for the following reasons. First, many of the
people whom I identified as the original instigators of the protest had private
Facebook settings so their past posts were not accessible. Second, those with
public settings such as Ian Driver (a local independent district councillor who
was a main instigator of the boycott campaign) had deleted their posts from
their Facebook accounts.
The discourse timeline shows the linear pattern of text production but also
reveals the range of responses in what I call the ‘reactive discourses’. Using
Foucault’s notion of discourse (McHoul & Grace 1993: 31; Foucault 1998: 100),
I would argue that the article is an example of a dominant gentrification discourse.
Dominant in the sense that gentrification is integral to capitalist societies and
in the sense that the gentrifiers are perceived to have a greater financial and
cultural capital than the indigenous residents. Yet, the indigenous peoples were
capable of reacting to the discourse through social media. The complexity and
 ‘DFLs’ versus ‘Locals’ 75

range of the responses means there was not a singular resistant discourse in the
Foucauldian sense (Foucault 1998: 100–101); rather, there was a complex range
of reactions some of which formed a resistant discourse. This resistant discourse
had its own power in that it led to an apology and mass media coverage, which
itself led to further blog reactions.
The social media response on 7 and 8 November formed the resistant discourse
being highly negative in response and linked to the instigation of the boycott
campaign with a Facebook page which was subsequently deleted (Boycott the GB
Pizza Company Margate 2012). There were, however, some positive comments
posted. The apology on 8 November was followed by 230 comments that were
both negative and positive, with the latter including comments from friends of
the author and people not located in the Margate area. The mass media response
on the BBC on 9 November examined both perspectives interviewing Ian Driver
and the editor of Civilian. The Friday and Saturday blog responses took a more
measured overview of what had happened from publication, boycott campaign
to TV coverage. The blogs (and their comments) tended to be more sympathetic
to the writer with a great deal of criticism towards Ian Driver for his role that
drew on past criticisms of his behaviour as a councillor. Furthermore, the writers
of the blogs took a wry, ironic stance rather reminiscent of Private Eye magazine
which is reflected in some of their comments.
On analysing all the reaction texts, a clear division can be found between
those positive towards the article and those who were negative. Emerging
from this data was a consistent set of themes in the comments which are
described in Table 4.6 above. It should be noted though that a few comments
were more balanced, particularly following the apology seeking a compromise
that recognized both perspectives. The following example from the apology
illustrates this.

I don’t think you deserve a total backlash, you are doing great things here, and
it’s true that a lot of people in Thanet are exactly as you describe. But by no
means all – they are the minority, honest! The problem comes, sometimes, when
people who have moved here from other areas (often but not always London)
come across as if they have somehow come to save the day, and that without
them, we would all be jumping around like monkeys, unable to articulate proper
sentences. So you may have touched a few nerves is all, but not deliberately . . .
I think maybe the article doesn’t give enough credit to the fact that Thanet is also
home to many, many intelligent people with no criminal records or dependency
issues, some incredibly good schools and some amazing home grown businesses
. . . and most have either stayed or returned because it’s home, we love it and it’s
76 Christopher Anderson

Table 4.6 Reactions to the article

Negative Positive
G Overall assessment of article G Overall assessment of article
° ‘Nasty little review of Margate’ ° thought provoking, well written,
(Margate Local & Family History) amazing, love it
G Construction of ‘locals’ and Margate G Construction of ‘locals’ and Margate
° personal criticism (e.g. taxi driver) ° balanced, accurate – shows
° insulting, rude and offensive to locals negatives and positives of town
° stereotyping, negative, patronising ° these people exist
° colonialist ° honest, truthful
° don’t insult the family metaphor G About Margate and regeneration
G Tone ° optimistic, positivity
° snobbish, condescending ° more positive than negative about
the future of the town
G Comparison
° DFLs/London improving
° reaction if about Brixton or town – needed
Newcastle?
G Writer’s role in Margate and DFLs
G Perceived attitudes and beliefs of writer
and DFLs/Londoners ° supportive of local community
° commitment to Margate
° arrogant, smug
° invested in Margate
° DFL/London snobbery
° DFLs/writer ‘saviours’ of Margate and G Positive about the restaurant
its peoples
G Non-local comments
G Imbalanced/factually incorrect ° positive towards writer as friend
° critical without dealing with issues ° positive as fellow DFL
° positives only about DFLs/hipsters G Reaction to the negative reactions
° similar social problems in London/
UK ° in general ‘you should be ashamed’
addressing other locals; ‘jealous of
G Problem people came from London, success’
UK, abroad ° Richards victim of cyber bullying
G Writer – naïve/error/backfire ° critiquing Ian Driver’s behaviour
(boycott, seeking publicity on
° alienate locals as customer base TV etc.)
G Boycott restaurant
G Acceptance of apology
G Personal criticisms of writer
° assumption that previously critical
° don’t like it here, leave
° the restaurant
° cashing in on the area

ace! . . . Some would say it takes a while to qualify to slag off Thanet – my dad’s
been here since 1962 and still gets told he’s not a proper local! My tip – never
underestimate the pride of Thanet. The seafront may have a few drunks and
crappy arcades, but they are OUR drunks and crappy arcades, and we’ll defend
them till we die. (Comment on Richards Facebook Apology 2012)
 ‘DFLs’ versus ‘Locals’ 77

This comment recognizes why offence has been caused citing some of the
aforementioned themes. In terms of the positives, the writer acknowledges the
construction of ‘locals’ and Margate but notes that they are a ‘minority’. What
is particularly interesting, and something that comes up in many comments,
is how the ‘minority’ forms part of the group identity of writers. Therefore
denigrating them is a broader face-threatening act – they don’t insult the family
metaphor. This is then a strong sense of a Margate identity including its negative
elements which locals will defend even if they do not recognize themselves to
be part of the problematic group. In both negative and positives comments, the
construction of the ‘locals’ was accepted but the majority of locals writing did not
seem themselves as part of that grouping. The writer also picks out the negative
perceived attitudes of ‘DFLs’ of a patronising snobbery and being ‘saviours’.
There is then in the negative texts a concern with how Margate and ‘locals’
are constructed in terms of the stereotyping which does not pertain to them.
Therefore, there was a clear anger that all locals were tarnished with the same
brush. ‘Whoever is behind writing this article is clearly well educated, and yes
you have hit the nail on the head that with time, effort and regeneration projects
Margate will flourish. However, the constant stereotyping and pompous belittling
of us “Margate people” who live here is awful’ (Comment on Margate Family &
Local History 2012). The concerns with how the writer and ‘DFLs’ more generally
stereotype locals was linked in the negative comments with the attitude towards
the area and its peoples in terms of how ‘DFL’ actions (e.g. setting up businesses)
are the engine of regeneration helping to improve the lives of the ‘locals’, that is,
being ‘saviours’. One commentator made the link, as I have, with colonialism.

When I read the article my gut reaction was ‘Shit! this sounds like the justification
of Colonialists’. ‘Colonialism is a relationship between an indigenous (or forcibly
imported) majority and a minority of foreign invaders. The fundamental
decisions affecting the lives of the colonized people are made and implemented
by the colonial rulers in pursuit of interests that are often defined in a distant
metropolis. Rejecting cultural compromises with the colonized population, the
colonizers are convinced of their own superiority and their ordained mandate
to rule.’ Jürgen Osterhammel’s book; Colonialism: A Theoretical Overview.
(Comment on Richards Facebook Apology 2012)

It is interesting here that the writer used her cultural capital with an academic
quotation to rebuke the article. In essence, the negative commentators often
recognized the negative elements pointed out in the article but it was the tone of
the article, the stereotyping and the perceived attitude of the writer that caused
78 Christopher Anderson

the negative response. Like the positive commentators, many of the negative
commentators recognized the improvements to the town brought about by
‘DFLs’ (if not exclusively by them).
Another very important element was the use of humour by both groups.
This was often ironic and sarcastic referencing elements of the article, or critics
of the article particularly Ian Driver who was at the centre of much criticism.
The humour used the themes noted in Table 4.6 but it was not always clear
whether the authors were being positive or negative. ‘Taxi for pizza Gb. . . oh
hang on . . . taxi! Taxi!’ (Comment on Margate Family & Local History 2012).
The following clearly negative comment particularly plays on the fact that a key
part of the restaurant’s online publicity was photographs of the owner’s dog in
situ. ‘This woman must be out of her mind writing this. Rule number 1. Don’t
insult the locals. Rule number 2. Don’t insult the Taxi Drivers. Rule number
3. The environmental health officer doesn’t like large slobbering dogs in catering
establishments no matter how POSH your pizza’s are’ (Comment on Margate
Family & Local History 2012). The ‘Don’t insult the locals’ element was a very
common among the negative comments as a whole, that is, the author has made
a naïve error in insulting locals, her key customer base, particularly during the
off season. The following positive comment on one of the blogs plays on the local
perception of local government (n.b. TDC = Thanet District Council). ‘I can
certainly agree with the comment regarding bigoted cab drivers! Why don’t they
become TDC Tory councillors instead?;)’ (Comment on Thanet Waves 2012).
Of all the posts and comments, I found only one where the writer recognized
themselves as part of the people being represented and, in the case, vehemently
disapproved of the perceived stereotype.

I have been driving a Cab in Margate for 22 yrs . . . And didn’t just live in
Hackney. For your yuppie NAZI effect I was born there . . . How dare you
insult my children by suggesting they drink Stella Artois . . . And play on games
consoles that are on HP . . . Damage Done. And I will refuse to take anyone or
pick up anyone from your establishment!!!! And I will spread the word believe
me You are a NAZI.(Comment on Richards Facebook Apology 2012)

This comment emphases a personal hurt that the article caused. In the actual
apology, there is no recognition of why she caused offence beyond being
arrogant. She claims that her article was an expression of her experiences
which were positive and negative; she was not aware that how she framed and
described these experiences could be offensive. There is a focus on how the town
is improving which was emphasized in the article and was for her the focus
of article – she is surprised that readers did not get this element. Much of the
 ‘DFLs’ versus ‘Locals’ 79

apology is concerned with the business and how it supports Margate and then
how the business communicates to customers outside of Margate the positives of
Margate. What is interesting here and perhaps unsurprising is that she is doing
this from the perspective of the business rather than as individual writer – it
therefore reads as a public relations exercise in protecting her business.
A final consideration is that the writer in both her portrayal of the ‘locals’
and ‘DFLs’ may have been using stereotypes for humorous purposes. This could
well have been the case and indeed this would fit into the irreverent identity
of Civilian. The author may have intended to give an irreverent and arch tone
using stereotypes that the reader recognizes and finds funny. Indeed some of the
humorous comments also played with these stereotypes. Furthermore, it could
be assumed that she had met ‘locals’ who did not fit that stereotype. Whether
she was being humorous or serious, the article offended many ‘locals’ through
their representation. Furthermore, whether humorous or serious, this is still an
example of gentrification discourse.
These clashing discourses can be understood in terms of intercultural
communication conflict (Ting-Toomey and Oetzel 2001: 17). While in more
traditional understandings of communication, this would be classified more
in terms of interpersonal and (social) media communication conflict as all the
participants theoretically share national culture and identity, taking the more
recent critical paradigm of intercultural communication (Humphrey 2007: 5),
one can see that this is an intercultural conflict based around culture and cultural
identity in terms of region and class (cf. Collier 2003). The article contains
within it a set of face-threatening acts threatening the positive face of the ‘locals’
(Brown & Levinson 1987). In other words, it threatens their own self-identity in
the way that she denigrates the ‘locals’ and their regional identity in the way she
denigrates the old Margate. Finally, I would argue that her position of her culture
and cultural identity being superior to the indigenous one is also face threatening.
The resistant texts are evidence of this. This cultural superiority with a presumed
cultural and financial capital was particularly irritating to those residents who
felt they were being patronised and felt that they indeed had cultural capital and
possibly financial capital. I would include myself in this category.

Conclusion

This chapter has considered a social and mass media discourse event consisting
of the publication of an article and the reaction to it including the writer’s own
apology. This event is an example of how computer-mediated communication
80 Christopher Anderson

allows for a far quicker response time to a publication when compared to

traditional print media in the pre-internet age. It would have been inconceivable
then for an magazine article to be published one day followed by an apology the
day after, and mass media coverage the day after that. For discourse researchers,
this new online operation of social and mass media is a rich vein of textual data
not only in illuminating on how readers respond to texts but examining the
complex patterns of discourse production and reproduction.
This particular example of discourse production and reproduction provides
textual evidence of a new type of gentrification where movement is to beyond
the city rather than within it. Necessitated here by London accommodation
prices but also made easier through new remote working patterns enabled
by new media technologies and high-speed public transport, whereby the
provincial gentrified town is conceptualized as a satellite of London rather than
geographically remote from the metropolis. As evidence of this, Margate has
gained in the media the new nomenclatures of ‘Shoreditch-on-Sea’ and ‘Dalston-
sur-Mer’ (Smith 2015; Inside Out: London 2016). What is interesting about
looking at gentrification from a discourse perspective is that it gives an insight
into how gentrifiers construct themselves and their actions, and how preexisting
residents construct the gentrification in terms of themselves and the gentrifiers.
The examination of discourse in providing evidence of intercultural relations
(in this case intercultural conflict) is what I call an ethnographic approach
to discourse analysis where language is examined as a rhetorical device for
constructing self and other as well as cultural behaviour, identities and norms.
As with much recent qualitative work (Merrill & West 2009), this is partly a
research of the self in that I am a native of Margate and I was offended like many
other ‘locals’ by the article. Beyond using reflexivity to monitor how I dealt with
these texts, an examination of my own reaction provided another complex
example of seeing this as a face-threatening act to my own cultural identity by
an outsider but at the same recognizing that the people described in the article
existed.

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 5

Youth Identities: Media Discourse in the

Formation of Youth Identity
Patricia Giardiello

Introduction

In today’s postmodern society the media has become as important as food

and clothing. It plays a significant role in ‘informing’ a society and notably our
current generation of children and young people spend more time with media
than engaged in any other activity (Zemmels 2012).
Using data from a recent qualitative study of teenagers attending Millgate
Community School’s Extended Day and Residential facility this chapter seeks
to uncover some of the ways in which the media, in its multimodality, shapes
youth’s personal and social identity and sense of belonging. In carrying out
the research I was particularly concerned with how the media influences the
identities and aspirations of youth and also how youth use the media to define
self. Individual decisions about who they are and their lifestyle choices, while
often appearing to be unbounded and, therefore, solely a consequence of agency,
are, in reality, made within cultural and social constraints, what Bourdieu (1977)
terms ‘habitus’. In my small-scale study of youth’s everyday encounters with the
media, Bourdieu’s theory of habitus provides the theoretical framework from
which to examine how the media impacts on youth perspectives within the
cultural and social contexts of their community.
This chapter begins with unravelling what is meant by identity and how the
sense of self emerges from our earliest experiences and what others do to us
and for us. It then moves on to explore the way in which media has potentially
profound effects on the social identity formation of young people. The chapter
will present ideas concerning new technologies such as digital media, internet
and social networking sites and the way they have transformed youth culture
86 Patricia Giardiello

in the home, school and community. Discussion will include the way in which
youth culture draws from the media to collectively construct what is valuable
and worthwhile including how adolescents develop identities by adapting to
these peer cultures through social processes (Manago et al. 2012; Larson 1995).
Finally, by allowing a more nuanced understanding of the relationship between
youth identity and the media I intend to reverse the traditional research stance
which focuses on what the media does to children and youth (Heim et al. 2007)
by discussing instead what children and youth do with the media in developing
their own intersectional identities within a postmodern society.

Unravelling what is meant by identity

I wonder if I’ve been changed in the night? let me think, was I the
same when I got up in the morning? I almost think I can remember
feeling different. But if I am not the same, the next question is
‘who in the world I am? As that’s the great puzzle.
– Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll

Alice’s words are both nonsensical and comprehensible yet serve to illustrate
the struggle many young people experience in developing a clear sense of self or
identity. As Buckingham (2008: 1) points outs, ‘[I]dentity is an ambiguous and
slippery term.’
In unravelling what is meant by ‘identity’ it can be useful to distinguish
between two main types. There is the personal identity, which Alice is grappling
with, and there is something often referred to as the ‘social identity’. Social
identity theory posits that a portion of one’s self-concept is dependent on the
importance and relevance placed on the group membership(s) to which an
individual belongs (Turner & Oakes 1986).
By contrast dictionary definitions of ‘identity’ tend to reflect a more simplistic
notion of ‘identity’ made popular during the 1950s by the developmental
psychologist Erik Erikson (1959; 1968) through his work on psychosocial stages
of development and his coining of the term ‘identity crisis’. For example: ‘The
characteristics determining who or what a person or thing is’ (OED, Online).
Erikson’s concept of ‘ego identity’, a term extending from Freud’s (1938)
psychoanalytic personality theory, suggested that identity is shaped by the
interaction of three elements: a person’s biological characteristics, their
psychology and the cultural context. Erikson focused on the concept of identity
 Youth Identities 87

as it emerged and changed in developmental stages across the life course but that
in childhood it was only a provisional type of identity, for example, in role playing
or when girls want to be princesses and boys want to be superheroes. In Erikson’s
view such identifications do not have the same depth and directing functions as
those of adult identity, believing that the essential development of proper identity
takes place during the period of youth. According to him the development of a
coherent and organized sense of identity is a key task in adolescence (Erikson
1950; 1968; Illeris 2014). Erikson proposes that, in order to move on, adolescents
must undergo a ‘crisis’ in which they address key questions about their values
and ideals, their future occupation or career and their sexual identity. Through
this process of self-reflection and self-definition, adolescents arrive at an
integrated, coherent sense of their identity as something that persists over time
(Buckingham 2008). Erikson’s use of the term ‘crisis’ reflects the tradition of
treating adolescence as a period of Sturm und Drang (storm and stress) imported
into psychology from German literature in the late 1880s by the American
psychologist Granville Stanley Hall who is usually accredited with the ‘discovery’
of adolescence (Rattansi and Phoenix 1997). Ching and Foley (2012) point out
that Erikson’s description of what he believed to be a universal picture of human
development based on the experiences of Western middle-class individuals
has come under criticism. Erikson, like many of his contemporaries in early
developmental psychology such as Piaget (1969), sought to articulate a universal
hierarchical framework of development that could account for human change
over time. It is particularly the aspiration for a universal, stage based model of
development that lacks resonance in the context of a new discourse on human
development that privileges the long-neglected role of culture (Hammock 2008).
Rogoff (2003) reinforces the view that human development must be understood
as a cultural process, not simply a biological or psychological one.
A number of individuals have attempted to extract operational definitions
and to derive testable models and hypotheses from Erikson’s writings. The most
commonly used conceptualization of Erikson’s identity theory is Marcia’s (1966)
identity status paradigm. Building on Erikson’s account, Marcia focused on
the notion of adolescence as a period of ‘identity crisis’. Through this period,
the young person has to consider potential life choices and eventually make
a commitment or psychological investment in particular decisions. Marcia
suggested, based on the amount of exploration and commitment,1 that an
adolescent’s identity can be classified into either one of four distinguishable
identity statuses: diffusion, which is low in exploration and low on commitment;
foreclosure, which is little exploration but strong commitments; moratorium,
88 Patricia Giardiello

which is high on exploration but no stable commitments as yet; and achievement,

which is high on commitment after a period of extensive exploration (cited in
Klimstra et al. 2010). Much of the research in identity formation has traditionally
used Marcia’s identity status paradigm to examine the ways in which adolescents
move through a period of identity exploration to a state of commitment, that
is, dedication to an autonomously negotiated set of stable self-structures that is
adaptive to one’s social world (Manago 2015). From this perspective, adolescence
is seen primarily as a state of transition, a matter of ‘becoming’ rather than
‘being’. A further perspective is that adolescents’ key dilemmas are to do with
what they will become, particularly in terms of their future occupation and their
relationships; their current experiences are only significant insofar as they help
them resolve their crisis and hence move on (Buckingham 2008). However,
Marcia’s identity status paradigm is criticized for its narrow focus and its failure
to take into account the sociocultural aspects of identity formation (Bennett
and Robards 2014). For example, Adam and Marshall’s (1996) developmental
contextual approach to identity formation draws on Bronfenbrenner’s (1977)
ecological model of development which takes the view that development is
influenced by embedded and connected environmental systems.
During adolescence youth are increasingly identifying themselves within
social peer groups as they distinguish themselves from their parents or primary
carers (Erikson 1959; 1968; Harter 1999). This involvement in the task of identity
building leads to concern with marking one’s identity for others. According to
Deutsch and Theodorou (2010: 231), ‘[T]his dual exercise, of individuation of
self and connection to a social group, results in a relationship with material
culture wherein consumption is used to both mark and mask difference.’ The
omnipresent physical displays of identity through clothing, hairstyles and
accessories not only reinforce individual identity but also establishes one’s
place in the larger peer group (ibid.). Here, identity is about identification with
others, presumed as being similar, if not exactly the same, in some significant
ways, which brings us back to social identity as mentioned earlier. According to
Hammock (2008: 227): ‘[T]o understand the full embellishment of an identity,
beyond what Erikson would term its “ego” functions but what we might prefer
to dub its purely “cognitive” features, we must theorize the formation of social
identity – that part of identity that, as Erikson argued, contains an awareness of
an individual’s location within the solidarity of a particular group.’ Using data
from my recent small-scale qualitative study of teenagers attending Millgate City
School, the chapter moves on to report on some of the ways in which the media,
in its multimodality, shapes youth’s identity both personal and social.
 Youth Identities 89

In order to place the teenagers’ narratives into context the next section of the
chapter discusses the influence of media in youth identity formation.

Media and the construction of identity

The sociocultural context in which young people live is characterized by

competing, complementary and divergent values and beliefs provided by
parents, school, the consumer society, peer relations and of course the media.
However it is this last element that has gained significant importance as it has
come to play a more central role in the way children and young people interpret
the world, particularly since the inception of the internet (Marôpo 2014). Part of
young people’s lived experiences growing up in the United Kingdom and other
industrialized countries around the world is the frequent exposure and often
daily use of a variety of media. Media has potentially profound effects on the
social identity formation of young people. The various media including local
radio, film, television, music and print media such a magazines, newspapers and
comic books privilege either sight or sound, or both as well as playing on a broad
range of emotions influencing how young people think and behave and how
they construct their identities. According to Kellner (2003: 1): ‘Media culture
provides the material to create identities whereby individuals insert themselves
into contemporary techno-capital societies and which is producing a new
form of global culture.’ Emerging from his concerns about the dominance of
television Gerbner et al. (1994) pointed out as far back as 1994 that children
heard more stories and facts through different media than through parents,
schools or community. Livingstone (2002) identified this phenomenon as a
mediated childhood which emphasizes the role of media and its importance for
children and young people in everyday life. In contrast to over twenty years ago
television is viewed in different ways depending on the audience. Many young
people in current times use devices to ‘zap’ from one programme to another,
channel ‘hopping’ or ‘grazing’ to merely see what is happening and to go with the
disconnected flow of images (Kellner 2003). A more recent notable development
in the tie between television and youth media culture is the shift to video sharing
internet websites such as YouTube, together with the advanced capabilities of
video recording and educating equipment, that has fostered the creation of
content for and by youth (Bronner and Clark 2016). Hamley (2001) adds that
as we live in a media-saturated environment it is an inevitable consequence that
young people make use of imagery derived from the use of popular media to
90 Patricia Giardiello

construct their identity. Similarly Coiro et al. (2008: 526) argue that today’s youth
experiment with different identities in ‘dynamic and shifting constructions and
presentations of self ’. Furthermore in an era that is often referred to as the ‘digital
age’ children and young people do their learning and entertain themselves
through technologies that were unimagined just twenty years ago. Hague and
Williamson (2009) concur that many young people are now spending significant
amounts of their own social and leisure time using digital media such as video
games, social networking sites, video sharing, music editing, animation and
different forms of online communication, as well as carrying out a host of more
prosaic activities. Media and the tools of modern technology play an important
role in the developmental processes of childhood, including adolescence, as they
learn ‘to find their [sic] way around in the world’ to discover who they are in
relation to the wider human family and their social and physical environment
(Edgar and Edgar 2008). For many young people, especially in the industrialized
parts of the world, digital media are significant modalities through which they
are seeking, consciously or unconsciously, the answers to identity questions,
looking for what Buckingham (2008: 28) describes as ‘the me that is me.’ This
also has implications for schools; Buckingham points out that young people
need to be equipped with a new form of digital literacy that is both critical and
creative. In today’s society new technologies and new social practices rapidly and
repeatedly redefine what it once meant, in traditional literacy terms, to be able to
read, write and communicate effectively in the shared language of a culture. Just
as school subjects provide young people with the knowledge and skills to make
sense of their world, including its history, geography, religions, arts, languages
and sciences, education should also supply the skills and knowledge to make
sense of this digital media world. It is worth noting however that the success or
otherwise of school-based innovation is often related to local circumstances and
to the characteristics of particular schools, teachers and children.
Stemming from Bloom’s (1956) original taxonomy of learning domains in 2008
a digital taxonomy was produced which supplied a number of verbs related to
technology and media under each of Bloom’s headings. This taxonomy suggested
that ‘creating’ in a digital context might involve ‘designing, constructing, planning,
producing, inventing, devising, making, programming, filming, animating,
blogging, video blogging, mixing, re-mixing, wiki-ing, publishing, videocasting,
podcasting, directing or broadcasting’ (Hague and Williamson 2009: 18). The
children and young people who attend the school used in my small-scale study
are fortunate as they are given the opportunity to develop these skills as a direct
result of attending the extended day and residential facility. For example, some
 Youth Identities 91

young people have been involved in film-making. To showcase their work, recent
films made by these young people are shown annually at ‘The Millgate Oscars’
ceremony (Ofsted report, 2016). Research has shown that what young people
learn from their participation in film-making indicates that these are learning
environments for multimodal production that involve identity construction.
Willett et al. (2005:2), for example, argue that ‘identity’ features prominently in
multimodal composition: ‘New media production is as much about producing
identities and social spaces as it is about creating media . . . Through different
media forms young people are described as performing, defining, and exploring
their identities.’ This can be seen in the productions available on the school’s
YouTube website,2 most notably ‘Mighty Mighty Millgate’ which was part of a
whole school project nurturing the pupils’ clear sense of self and identity.

The small-scale study

Identities are more like spots of crust hardening time and again on the top of
volcano lava which melt and dissolve again before they have time to cool down
and set.
– Bauman (2000: 71)

The study set out to explore a group of young people’s quest for identity and
the influence the media has on the formation of both their personal and social
identity. The influences that shape teenager’s choices and the wider challenge
that they face to conform to the notion of being media ‘savvy’ were also explored.
I chose to carry out my study in a community school’s residential facility,
currently operating for five nights a week, term time only, and accommodating
up to ten students, as it gave me an opportunity to chat with the young people
in a relaxed homely atmosphere. These are young people with emotional,
behavioural and social challenges who benefit from the school’s ethos and values
of ‘respect’, which is also used as an acronym for responsibility, education, safety,
perseverance, excellence, caring and tolerance. This positive approach within
the school emphasizes the manifest potentialities rather than the incapacities
of these young people, often from the most disadvantaged backgrounds and
those with the most troubled histories. Furthermore, experiences that promote
a sense of personal identification with one’s school and local community provide
a young person with a positive set of aspirations that point the way to a socially
and personally productive future (Damon 2004).
Who I Am – Name Age
Thanks for taking part in this study about your use of media. There are not many
questions to answer
1. What type of music do you like best?
Please circle one: Indie / Guitar – Rock / Heavy Metal – Emo – Soul – Hip / Hop
/ Rap -
R&B - Dance / House - Pop - Drum & Bass - Garage - Other (please
state)

2. What group do you think your friends and classmates would describe you as
being part of? Please circle one
Trendy - Goth - Emo - Chav - Skater - Greb - Punk – Other

3. Why do you think this is? Please circle if it is your . . .

Personality - Clothes - Music preference - All three – Other

4. Please circle the different kinds of electronic devices you use

PC/Laptop, Radio - mobile /smartphone - tablet pc / I pad - TV - music player
Xbox/Nintendo - other (if other please state)

5. Please state how strongly you agree/disagree with the following three statements.
• My friends are really important to me; they understand me more than
my family
1 = Strongly Agree 2 = Agree 3 = Disagree, 4 = Strongly Disagree
• I feel very much a part of my city, local town/community
1 = Strongly Agree 2 = Agree 3 = Disagree 4 = Strongly Disagree
• I feel very much a part of my school community
1= Strongly Agree 2 = Agree 3 = Disagree 4 = Strongly Disagree

6. How do you talk or meet with friends outside school? – circle the two most
important ways:
in person / Face to face - text message - email - facetime/ skype - social media
(e.g. facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, twitter)

7 I feel very much a part of web community such as Facebook, Instagram and
Snapchat
1 = Strongly Agree 2 = Agree 3 = Disagree 4 = Strongly Disagree

8. Social network is an important part of my life

1 = Strongly Agree 2 = Agree 3 = Disagree 4 = Strongly Disagree

9. Why do you use an online social network? (you can circle more than one choice)
To find information - To play games - To keep in touch with friends - To get
opinions - To share videos, pictures, music - To share experiences

10. The use of social networks helps me to find out who I am (my identity)
1 = Strongly Agree 2 = Agree 3 = Disagree 4 = Strongly Disagree
Many thanks for answering these questions

Figure 5.1 The questionnaire (adapted from Cassidy and Van Schijndel 2011)
 Youth Identities 93

Bourdieu’s (1990) concept of habitus is used to discuss how the social context
in the varying ‘fields’ shapes young people as they are in the process of shaping
themselves. Young people internalize ‘rules of the game’ and ‘ways of being’ from
the institutional rules and interactions in their social context (68). Hence, the
social discourse and values of the school are integrated into the students’ attitudes
and identity formation, as can be seen in the research findings discussed below.
Marcia’s (1966) identity status paradigm will also be used in the discussion of the
young people’s identity formation.
With the ethical considerations and logistics completed I chose as my
methodology a focus group approach. This approach provided the ability to
capture deeper information more economically than individual interviews.
The focus group also provided authentic insights into how the young people
thought about identity and their use of media. In order to set the tone and for
the participants to not feel too intimidated they were given beforehand a short
questionnaire (see Figure 5.1) using a Likert scale and funnelling technique, with
the first question being very general enquiring into the young person’s musical
taste and thereafter probing further and deeper. The length of the questionnaire
was deliberately short using appropriate adolescent language and terminology. The
results of the questionnaire were used to facilitate the later focus group discussion
and were effective in keeping the young people focused on the topic area.

A discussion of the findings

Popular media was represented through the music preference of the participants.
The majority of the group preferred rock/heavy metal but rap and hip hop also
proved to be popular among the group. However heavy metal and rap/hip-hop,
have a particularly negative image, especially in the media. Media reports often
invoke moral panics surrounding the negative effects on ‘vulnerable minds’ of
the aggressive composition and dark lyrical content of heavy metal. Dan Silver,
assistant editor of the music magazine New Musical Express (NME), in defence
of heavy metal is reported as saying that ‘many themes of heavy metal are about
alienation. If you have these kinds of feelings there is a lot you can get out of
the music and the community of fans who are into it’ (cited in Fleming 2007).
This is supported by research carried out by Miranda and Claes (2004) who
found that music taste plays a unique role in explaining adolescent transgressive
behaviours. Their research suggests that the unique explanatory value of music
taste lies in the strength of the sociocultural identity some types of music can
94 Patricia Giardiello

offer. For example, in response to question 2 on the questionnaire Xander, aged

15, indicated that his group identity is dependent on his music preferences. He
enjoys listening to rock music through his headphones and expressed an interest
in becoming a Radio DJ although conversely he does not listen to the radio
which would place him in Marcia’s (1966) category identity foreclosure which
in this case is little exploration of radio but a strong commitment to listening
to rock music. On average, adolescents listen to music for up to three hours
daily and accumulate more than ten thousand hours of active music listening
throughout adolescence (Roberts et al. 2009). Moreover, time spent listening
to music keeps increasing due to ever more media-socializing and multitasking
smartphones and tablets. Xander’s knowledge of music has resulted in numerous
school prizes for the category of Best Sound and Visual Effects in film production
as part of performing arts.
Other participants used question 2 to reflect on how others saw them.
Brendon, aged 13, and Syrus, aged 11, who are both heavy metal fans have a
developing sense of self with Brendon using a self-abusing language term ‘dick
head’ to describe how others in the community regard him. When asked why he
thinks this he replied because of the way other young people talk to him. During
adolescence, when belonging to a peer group can become vital, language and
naming is a primary resource to establish the self, social categories and social
relations. It is the continual vocal branding of ‘other’ in order to identify ‘self ’ and
the combination of exclusion and bonding which make slang and swearwords
especially attractive to teenagers (de Klerk 2005).
Syrus revealed that his peers often find him annoying and a ‘funny little
monster’; however he does not set out to be annoying but he does like to make
people giggle. Although Syrus falls into the category of identity foreclosure he is
also closely aligned to Marcia’s category of Identity Moratorium as he is lively,
engaging but conflicted, and sometimes tiring to be around as can be seen
from the comment about being annoying. With adolescence come heightened
interest, concern, commitment and conflict associated with interpersonal
relationships, especially with peers. As yet these two young people are finding it
hard to connect to a specific group identity but both felt a sense of belonging to
the school community.
As discussed in the first part of this chapter, adolescence is known to be a
period of exploratory self-analysis and self-evaluation ideally culminating in
the establishment of a cohesive and integrative sense of self or identity (Erikson
1968). Based on Marcia’s (1966) categories, Brendon and Syrus display identity
foreclosure as they tend to correspond to the expectations of others. In contrast
 Youth Identities 95

Pratham, aged 15, sees his identity as being strongly tied to the words or label
used to describe him in his Education and Health Care Plan (ECHP). When
challenged by others in the focus group that this label, a standard social and
emotional problem child (Pratham’s interpretation), is not his real identity he
argued that without this label he ‘wouldn’t be me’. This suggests something about
how strong and influential labels can be. Certainly labels are harmful when, as
a result of that label individuals are degraded, discriminated against, excluded
from society or placed in classrooms without regard for their individuality but
this is clearly not the case with regards to Pratham. Describing his identity
as someone who is a sensible, trusted young man and, good looking, Patham
clearly displays Marcia’s category of identity achievement as using (Kroger and
Marcia 2011) the description he impresses one as being solid with an important
focus in his life and while retaining some flexibility he is not easily swayed by
external influences in his chosen life direction.
In response to question 4, all research participants indicated that they use
electronic devices such as Xbox and PlayStation on a daily basis. These are known
as Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Games (MMORPGs) which are
fully developed multiplayer universes with an advanced and detailed visual and
auditory world wherein players create an individualistic character (Griffiths
et al. 2004). Brendon and Xander play online with each other, in their own room
at home, thus maintaining their media related identity while away from school.
They told me they also play with other friends online. Yee (2001, 2006, 2007) has
carried out research into MMORPGs and notes that they allow new forms of
social identity and social interaction. Yee’s research has shown that MMORPGs
appeal to adults and teenagers from a wide range of backgrounds, and they
spend on average more than half a working week in these environments. Gaming
devices such as Xbox and PlayStation encourage users to join an online global
community of online players; in these virtual realms new social relationships are
developed within youth culture when playing role- games. Forms of successful
play and being able to cope with the technical challenges often lead young people
to a feeling of success and personal self-stabilization. Furthermore in a virtual
realm ‘adolescents are able to express themselves as competent and powerful
. . . and [sic] as a coping strategy . . . transfer forms of rationality recognised
within the virtual realms to their real lives’ (Dinter 2006: 239). Internet based
role play was featured in a short film that Xander made as part of his performing
arts coursework where he acted out different roles and characters from an
online ‘shooter’ game which opened up powerful new perspectives around the
difference between fantasy and reality.
96 Patricia Giardiello

Pratham identified using just three electronic devices: laptop, smartphone

and TV. He told the focus group that he hasn’t got time for playing games on the
internet, or PlayStation saying that he is a busy person preferring to do more
constructive activities such as baking. A recent media phenomenon that has
had an impact on Pratham’s identity as a baker is the television show The Great
British Bake Off (GBBO, BBC). Joining Millgate’s vocational catering course,
Pratham learnt the skills and techniques of baking so proficiently that his teacher
entered him into a local GBBO competition which he won much to his obvious
satisfaction. Credit must also be given to the teacher whose understanding of
how to blend the teaching and learning of baking skills with the ideas from the
show enabled Pratham to discover both his talent and identity as a baker. With
regards to GBBO, here is a perfect example of a factual entertainment mix that
appeals across a double demographic; the traditional older audience and also
the younger audiences such as Pratham with an interest in how to get on in the
world of employment and/or business (Hill 2015). Here we see how secondary
involvement of the media has impacted on Pratham’s transformative learning
and identity formation. According to Illeris (2014) when reasonable stable
structures are gradually developed in more and more areas the young person
has reached a situation or habitus in which identifiable patterns take form and
a fairly comprehensive identity has been reached. However this does not always
happen so easily as for many young people in today’s neoliberal and globalized
society identity development is considerably more uneven and problematic.
This is because on the one hand there is an enormous variety of what could be
seen as identity offers or suggestions, for example, in the form of celebrities as
role models appearing in commercial adverts and mass media. There are also
a range of activities, forms of behaviour and language use as differing form of
expression that can contribute to identity formation. One example is the use of
street slang and ungrammatical codes mainly made up from exotic terms. On
the other hand there are more normative or conventional identity offers from
society, policymakers, parents, teachers and the many categories of supporters
who give advice, guidance and supervision, when at the same time they are
trying to assist, to help, to push and to press young people through to a result
that is acceptable and desirable to both the young people themselves and to
society (ibid.). This serves to illustrate the long and often complex processes
that young people today must cope with and overcome to fulfil the development
of their identities.
The role of friends was evaluated through the findings of question 5 which
showed that all the participants either strongly agree or agree that friends
 Youth Identities 97

understood them more than family. This is an expected result as in the course
of adolescence, relations with peers assume increasing importance. Friends
gradually come to occupy just as central a position in the relational network
as the parents. However, only some of the focus group feel part of their local
community. This is not surprising taking into account the multilayered and
complex sense of identities and how young people relate to and engage within
the wider world. According to Bourn (2008) young people are in one sense
citizens of a mediated global culture but at the same time struggle for a sense of
acceptance in the local societies in which they live. Where the young people in
the focus group have a sense of acceptance is in the school community. It was
clear from their comments that the young people in my study feel that there
is a bond and friendship between staff and themselves. For instance, Xander
feels that he has become a lot more caring about people and that the staff here
are a lot more encouraging and that ‘if you take time to get to know them
they are not much different to being with the students’. Given the role of the
school community in the young people’s personal, social, emotional and moral
development, including attachment to the teachers and the residential childcare
officers, there is good reason to believe that important links exist between the
school climate and their moral and social identity.
The majority of the group meet with friends outside school through social
media and face to face contact. Syrus, who is the youngest in the group, does not
feel part of an online community but did circle all the choices with regards to the
way he uses online social networks. He admitted to being too lazy to read a book
and prefers to get his information from online news channels such as YouTube
FTD News which is a new kind of visual targeting the younger audience with
the strap line: Stay up to date with the latest and craziest news Monday to Friday.
Whereas, earlier generations turned to conventional media such as newspapers
and television to feed their curiosity and explore others’ and their own identities,
today’s young people have an unprecedented array of powerful new digital tools
to help them with these processes.

Conclusion

Drawing on Bourdieu’s concept of ‘habitus’ I have endeavoured in my small-scale

study to capture a sense of the mediated environment of the participants’ lived
experiences. Habitus describes the individuals’ way of seeing, interpreting and
acting in the world, in accordance with their social position and it is internalized
98 Patricia Giardiello

and consolidated in childhood and youth through family, educational structures

and circumstances. What emerged from my investigation into the young people’s
use of the media was their strong sense of belonging to the school community. It
was clear the residential provision was very well organized and run for the benefit
of these young people who clearly had ownership of their own school habitus.
This made my role easier as investigator, as the participants were forthcoming in
their views about their own identity formation and the role media played in this
process. This reinforces Bourdieu’s (1992) notion that when ‘habitus encounters
a social world of which it is the product, it is like a fish in water, it does not feel
the weight of water and it takes the world about it for granted’.
I turned to Marcia’s identity status paradigm to understand further the
young people’s identity formation. However, I discovered that there can be a
great variation in determining a young person’s personal and social identity and
I question whether or not the identity statuses are sensitive enough to measure
the identity formation process. A broader longitudinal study is needed in order
to provide more compelling results.
The study set out to explore a group of young people’s quest for identity
and the influence the media has on the formation of both their personal and
social identity ownership. In this regard my aims were met, however due to
the small sample in one location larger-scale surveys using many locations are
now necessary in order to make strong generalizations about young people’s
use of media. This brings to conclusion the discussion of the findings from my
small-scale study.
This chapter began by unravelling what is meant by identity using a range of
theoretical lenses. This was followed by an exploration of the media and its role
in constructing identities. The final section was a discussion around my recent
empirical small-scale study which set out to explore a group of young people’s
quest for identity and the influence the media has on the formation of both their
personal and social identity.

Notes

1 ‘Exploration’ refers to the adolescent’s active questioning and weighing up of various

identity alternatives. ‘Commitment’ refers to the presence of strong convictions or
choices.
2 Millgate School YouTube website: https://www.youtube.com/channel/
UCpxXqwQokAR75mXFF1B7Teg
 Youth Identities 99

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 Part Three

Marginalized Discourse

Editor’s introduction

This section focuses on the socio-political nature of language itself across

countries and regions in Africa, India and China. In each case languages and
cultures are locked into conflict with each other where dominant languages-
cultures attempt to colonize or marginalize minority languages and cultures.
The nature of language as symbolic and cultural capitals are examined, and
in their sociocultural interaction we see how languages become ranked
within hierarchies of varying degrees of sociocultural capital and power. The
consequence of such linguistic hierarchies are marginalization for some, often
with acts of resistance, and opportunities for others.
 6

Language-Culture: Marginalization or
Opportunity in Cameroon’s Official ‘State
Bilingualism’
Henry Kum

Introduction

Hoffmann (1991: 13) believes that ‘over half the population of the world is bilingual’.
This view cannot be more credible considering the cosmopolitanization of
citizenship and the move towards globalization rather than towards nationalistic
and border-protected politics. Appel et al. (1987) highlights the fact that language
contact is a persistent and irreversible trend happening every second of human
life, and it becomes even more evident that the passing of each day witnesses, at
least, one language user becoming bilingual to some degree, whether at home
or abroad. Being bilingual would be an opportunity to increase access to people
who are different from the speaker; however it also poses practical managerial
implications for individual and societal language usage, but, most importantly,
for the short-term and long-term implications for language legislation at the
national or macro levels. It becomes even more complex when the perceived
bilingualism in a country embraces two or more foreign languages at the expense
of the national languages of that country. This often leads to a disconnect between
local realities and official political discourses with local communities valuing
their cultures through their indigenous languages while the politicians look
outward on how to gain access to the international community using a medium
of expression that opens more economic, social and political ‘doors’. Cameroon
is one such country where a foreign biculturalism based on colonial identities
has enshrined English and French as the two officially recognized languages of
a country made up of over 300 tribes, each with its own local language. There is
an inherent conflict between state language policy and reality not just between
106 Henry Kum

indigenous languages and the two official languages but also between English
and French as the only official languages of the country.
Jikong (2001) problematizes the inherent bilingual cultures of French
and English speaking Cameroon as marginalization and opportunities and
he further argues that the linguistic and cultural complexity of Cameroon is
a source of both wealth and misfortune. As the political class of the country
is of the dominant Francophone ethnicity, French has become the language
of power and leadership (Fonlon 1969; Kouega 1999; Anchimbe 2005). In
this chapter, I adopt a historico-sociological approach (Rosemary 2001) to
elaborate on the identity conflict that is a product of the colonial languages
of English and French in a postcolonial Cameroon. This chapter examines
the internal cultural and linguistic issues in Cameroon in order to determine
how Cameroon’s postcolonial language identity is a source of marginalization
and of opportunities. These internal cultural issues are explored through the
theoretical lenses of Bourdieu’s language and symbolic power and Skutnabb-
Kangas’s theory of linguicism or languagism. This is discussed within a climate
of colonial and postcolonial discourses.

Cameroon: history and politics

Cameroon’s population is estimated to stand at 23,924,407 million inhabitants

as of January 2017 (Countrymeters.info 2017). It is located in the Central West
of Africa bordered by French speaking countries of Chad, Central African
Republic, Gabon and Congo; a Spanish speaking country of Equatorial Guinea
and an English speaking country of Nigeria. Of the estimated population above,
over 70 per cent is made up of French speaking Cameroonians (Francophones)
who make up eight of the ten governing regions of the country. The English
speaking Cameroonians make up less than 30 per cent of the total population
and occupy two of the ten administrative regions of the country.
Founded in 1472 by a Portuguese navigator called Fernando Po, Cameroon
has passed through the colonial rule of Germany, Britain and France (Fanso,
1989). The Germans were defeated in 1918 during the First World War and that
paved the way for Cameroon to be divided between Britain and France, and
administered first under the League of Nations mandate and later under the
United Nations trusteeship. Britain got one-third of the country in which the
north was called ‘Northern British Cameroons’ and the south was called ‘Southern
British Cameroons’ (Echu 2004). The French got two-thirds of Cameroon and
 Language-Culture 107

administered it as an independent territory, whereas the British administered

theirs from Lagos in Nigeria. French Cameroon became independent on 1
January 1960. On 11 February 1960, British Southern Cameroons voted to start
unification negotiations with the Republic of Cameroon, which already had
independence from France. This commencement of the desire for unification
between the two entities was decided in a UN plebiscite on 1 October 1961
in which a federation made up of two states called West Cameroon and East
Cameroon was created. The federation survived till 20 May 1972 when a unitary
state made up of provinces was created. Later in 1984, the number of provinces
was increased to ten through a presidential decree which also changed the name
of the country from ‘The United Republic of Cameroon’ to ‘The Republic of
Cameroon’. Therefore, although Cameroon has been the product of two equal
states of two different colonial cultures of English and French, the realities in the
country render a verdict of opportunities to one culture and marginalization of
another.
The language situation in postcolonial Cameroon is often described as official
state bilingualism where French and English are the two official languages. While
opening the Bilingual Grammar School in Buea in 1962, the first secondary
education institution in the country located in the English speaking region,
Ahmadou Ahidjo, Cameroon’s first president, stated that ‘[b]y bilingualism
we mean the practical usage of our two official languages, English and French,
throughout the national territory’ (Ayafor 2005: 127). That statement defined the
official language policy of Cameroon which was enshrined in its constitution.
Thus, state bilingualism functions within a complex framework of over 270
indigenous languages, several regional lingua francas and a quasi-national
Pidgin English (Koenig et al. 1983). It is what Mbassi-Manga (1973) describes
as the presence of French and English in a multilingual setting. This complex
postcolonial setup has led to, among other individual discontentment, several
complaints of sociolinguistic disadvantages by various groups which affect
the people’s interaction with others, their choice of identity and their socio-
economic opportunities (Anchimbe 2005; Fonlon 1969; Kouega 1999; Bobda
2003). Nationally, the most visibly marginalized identities are the minority
English speaking Cameroonians (Anglophones) who make up less than
one-third of Cameroon against the more privileged majority French speaking
Francophone ethnicity that has also been in political power since the birth of
independent Cameroon in 1960 (Kouega 1999; Bobda 2003). The marginalization
of Anglophones and the abounding opportunities of Francophones posit
competing tensions where one group closes its social borders to the other;
108 Henry Kum

identity construction and preservation of in-group qualities become the norm

and continue to affect the internal stability of Cameroon as a country.
The broad stratification of Cameroonians into two major linguistic subgroups
of Francophone and Anglophone has built identity boundaries around them
which have become predominantly exclusionary in a country whose political
catch phrase is ‘national integration’. It has led to tensions where the minority
Anglophones view their majority Francophone counterparts as a privileged
neocolonial clan that is determined to assimilate and stifle the Anglophone
culture. However the majority Francophones view the minority Anglophones
with suspicion as an emerging force that seeks the reterritorialization of itself
into social, political and economic spaces that were earlier dominated by the
Francophones. In most social, economic and political spheres, English speaking
Cameroonians are disadvantaged and therefore feel compelled to speak French
in order to be recognized as Cameroonians within Cameroon. In high profile
professional schools like the National School for Administration and Magistracy
(ENAM), the National School for Police, the Military Academy (EMIA),
Advanced School for Mass Communication (ASMAC) and the International
Relations Institute (IRIC) at least 80 per cent of the courses are taught in French
(Mforteh 2006). Where similar schools exist in English speaking territory,
they are often devalued to first cycles and annexed to the main schools in
French speaking Cameroon where power is centralized. This phenomenon
resonates well with Bourdieu’s (1977) theory of language, power and politics,
for he concludes that language is not only a means of communication but also
a medium through which power is enacted. The ruling elite of Francophone
Cameroon has protected the status of French above English in order to assert
their authority and influence over Anglophones. French doubles up as a medium
of communication and as an oppressive weapon to marginalize Anglophones.

Cameroon’s indigenous languages

Cameroon has over 300 tribes with over 270 languages (Breton & Fohtung 1991;
Wolf 2001). The Cameroon government refers to these languages as local or
indigenous languages (also known as local, tribal, vernacular and sometimes
national languages) thereby acknowledging that Cameroon functions within
a biculturalism of foreign languages of English and French in a multilingual
context. These languages comprise of 55 Afro-Asiatic languages, 2 Nilo-Saharan
languages, 4 Ubangian languages and 169 Niger-Congo languages (Bitja’a Kody
 Language-Culture 109

1999). The Niger-Congo languages are further divided into Fulfulde which
is a Senegambian language; 28 Adamawa languages and 142 Benue-Congo
languages. These local languages are limited to oral usage mostly in rural and
family circles and for the conduct of petty trading. For example, Bitja’a Kody
(1999) carried out a survey to determine the spread of the three most popular
local languages of the tribes in Yaoundé (the nation’s capital) and found that 32
per cent of young people between the ages of 10 and 17 did not speak any local
language. The conclusions of these findings reveal that the population would
have increased alarmingly because the younger generation would not have been
able to transmit the language to the future generation due do their incompetence
in the local languages. French has become the language of prestige, public
service, education, law and all aspects of meaningful communication. It has
become the currency to access the linguistic market. Bourdieu (1977) maintains
that linguistic utterances or expressions can be understood as the product of the
relationship between a ‘linguistic market’ and a ‘linguistic habitus’. Many young
people, as shown by Bitja’a Kody’s (2001) research, deploy their accumulated
linguistic resources in the French language in relationship with the social,
economic and political markets which French as a currency can grant them
access. It is a similar trend in most cities including Anglophone Cameroon where
the younger generation will invest in English as well as French as a currency to
access the country’s resources.
After the defeat of the Germans in Cameroon in 1918, indigenous
languages were and are still restricted to ethnic or tribal settings and for
the transmission of the cultural heritage of their respective communities
(Chumbow 1980). The French and the British continued with the erosion of
indigenous languages. Although the British colonial policy was that of indirect
rule where indigenous cultures were encouraged, this was partially applied
as far as the use of indigenous languages was concerned. While encouraging
the colonized Cameroonians to develop their cultures, English became the
language of business, politics and education. It was pronounced as a language
that should be taught and employed as a medium of instruction and by 1954,
Britain declared that it was no longer possible to use any vernacular (indigenous
language) as a medium of instruction in English speaking Cameroon (Ndille
2016). As English was protected as the preferred language of English speaking
Cameroon, it was a much more assimilatory policy in French speaking
Cameroon because French colonial policy was that of direct rule and complete
assimilation. France passed an Order in 1917 emphasizing that French was to
be the only language of instruction in schools and later in all state affairs. All
110 Henry Kum

schools in which indigenous languages were taught or served as the medium of

instruction were closed down. By 1938, there were 1,061 unrecognized schools
with over 30,914 pupils that had been required to shut down because of their
use of indigenous languages (Ndille 2016). Earlier in 1936, the French colonial
administration prohibited the production, sale, collection or distribution of
publications written in indigenous languages and a tax of 12.8 per cent was
imposed on books written in other foreign languages while books written in
French only paid a tax of 4 per cent (Stumpf 1979). All indigenous languages
were classed as foreign languages and paradoxically, French was the nationally
recognized language. Therefore, in terms of citizenship and functioning in
the social, political and economic institutions of Cameroon and in terms of
relating to the international community, English and French became the only
officially recognized languages at work ‘nationally’ in Cameroon. In line with
Skutnabb-Kangas and Philipson’s (1995) theory of linguicism, the focus of the
state on a bicultural policy based on two foreign languages has been interpreted
as fostering linguistic discrimination against local languages whose speakers
continue to be placed in a dilemma as they struggle to address the convergence
between home language, identity and access to economic opportunities (see
also Bourdieu’s theory of language and symbolic power).
Indigenous languages have suffered a reclassification and a redefinition and
have become under-resourced (Breton & Fohtung 1991). Fourteen of the local
languages are extinct and four others (Duli, Gey, Nagumi and Yeni) are on the
verge of extinction (Ethnologue 2006). Some of the local languages that have
survived and continue to spread regionally include Fulfulde, Ewondo, Basaa,
Duala, Hausa, Wandala, Kanuri, Arab Choa and Bamun; these are languages
used by highly populated tribes or include opportunities for local trade and have
surviving folklores and music. Some of the languages, such as Bali Mungaka and
Bafut in the northwest, were used by missionaries to spread Christianity but such
preference quickly reduced as soon as most local people started to understand
English or French and also as more interpreters became available (Bitja’a Kody
1999). Some of the tribal leaders of these languages fought hard to standardize
their languages in the precolonial and colonial eras but received minimal or no
support from the colonial masters and subsequent Cameroonian politicians. For
example, some two main indigenous languages – the Bamun language, used in
education long before the arrival of the German missionaries; and also Fulfulde,
which had been used for the dissemination of Islam in the three northern
provinces – became undervalued and extinct in education. Schools that taught
in these languages were closed down. For example, the 47 schools opened by
 Language-Culture 111

King Njoya of Bamun in his tribe were all closed down and 1,800 schools run by
the American Presbyterian missionaries in which Bulu was taught for the spread
of Christianity were also closed down (Bitja’a Kody 2001).
With the closure of schools that had indigenous languages as the medium
of expression, a huge and significant amount of the Bamun and Fulfulde
culture disappeared. This move could be interpreted as a systematic process of
increasing the social and economic dominance of French and English in public
services, education, law, the military, commerce, health and all national life.
And with this was the rise of French and British history, literature and foreign
ways of life in Cameroonian public life as opposed to indigenous Cameroonian
cultures. Cities and towns like Victoria were renamed along colonial lines, street
names changed, for example, Avenue Charles de Gaulle, and people changed
their accents and names to adapt to their new colonial languages (Alobwede
1998; Mbangwana 1983, 2002.). This shows the marginalization of indigenous
Cameroonian identities. Although in 1998, parliament passed a bill on the
general orientation of education in Cameroon with special emphasis on the
teaching of national languages, very little has been done to promote the survival
of indigenous languages (Mba and Chiatoh 2000; Echu 2004). None of the
indigenous languages is studied at university or teacher training institutions.
Therefore, there is no expertise in this area and that explains why the policy is
not implemented.
The denigration of Cameroon indigenous languages has become at best
exclusionary, whereby many of the indigenous populations of the country remain
largely ignorant of the emblems and general policy direction of the country. They
are deprived of understandings and debates about the constitution, awareness of
the penal code and legal systems, presidential briefings and mainstream political
discourses that affect their daily lives because these are rendered in French and
English which are not their indigenous languages (Makoni & Ulrike 2003).
According to Echu (2004) the ignorance of most indigenous populations on
public affairs has made the state function as an elitist society of a selected few
who are able to operate more importantly in the traditions of the French and
less importantly as Anglophones rather than native Cameroonians. Chumbow
et al. (2000) do not see any future for indigenous languages in Cameroon partly
because these languages are not tolerated or encouraged in schools and also
because the present language policy excludes indigenous languages from the
curriculum thereby encouraging parents to clamour for their children to be
introduced to French and English at the earliest opportunity in their schooling
and education.
112 Henry Kum

Evidence from the French colonial reports (1921, 1924 and 1952) show
that the French provided financial incentives to schools that embraced French
as the language of instruction and also rewarded Cameroonians who could
demonstrate a mastery of the French language. Such individuals were fast
tracked into administrative roles and they further helped the French to stamp
out the traces of indigenous languages in official circles. The support given
to French and English over indigenous languages is linguistic discrimination
leading to prejudice in public life. Ngugi (1986: 3) blames colonialism for the
erosion of indigenous languages and concludes that ‘[t]he biggest weapon
wielded and actually daily unleashed by imperialism is the cultural bomb. The
effect of a cultural bomb is to annihilate a people’s belief in their names, in their
languages, in their environment, in their heritage of struggle, in their unity, in
their capacities and ultimately in themselves’.
Ngugi adds credence to the Skutnabb-Kangas’s (1985) theory of linguicism
whereby language is used to promote discrimination and prejudice and to
denigrate a particular ethnicity while protecting another. Drawing from this
stance of linguistic discrimination, Ashcroft et al. (1995: 325) quote Fanon’s
summation of the colonial impact on indigenous languages as a situation in which
speakers of vernaculars are forced to be seen as ‘hating the negro-vernacular’ and
‘reaching out for the universal’ (in this case being English and French) as a result
of linguicism. In the words of Fanon (1967: 190), ‘[C]olonialism brought about a
strong sense of inferiority; a divided sense of self . . . a veritable emaciation of the
stock of national culture . . . banished the native customs . . . created a sense of
alienation in the self-identity of the colonized peoples.’ It is what Ndille (2016: 17)
refers to as ‘the intentionality and colonial representation and the failure of a
Cameroon-centric identity’. The French and British have continued with their
colonial policy of cultural deracination started by the Germans. The Germans had
earlier banned the public use of indigenous languages in schools and other state-
run affairs (Ndille 2016). The Duala language which had been far advanced in
its vocabulary and dictionary was banned in 1904 and 1910 by the Germans and
only German was authorized. The French and British simply continued with this
systematic and persistent trend of linguistic marginalization which excluded the
indigenous Cameroonians from national public life and forced them to give up
or renegotiate their devalued identity in order to share in the country’s territorial
rights. The Cameroonian was subjugated by the colonial masters to deny them
their original identity through an oppressive language policy first by the adoption
of German and later through a policy of biculturalism in a multilingual country
in which French and English are now promoted as superior languages.
 Language-Culture 113

Official state bilingualism: French and English

As stated above, Cameroon is estimated to be made up of over 270 indigenous

language and 2 colonial languages of English and French (Breton & Fohtung
1991). As a result, most Cameroonians are considered to be bilingual or
multilingual – speaking either more than one indigenous language or one or the
two official languages with one or more indigenous languages. Mackey (1970)
describes this linguistic competence in more than one language as individual
bilingualism. However, speaking more than one indigenous language even with
one of the two official languages is without merit in Cameroon as the state does
not recognize or accord national status to indigenous languages. Therefore, the
state in Cameroon will not consider somebody bilingual if he or she speaks
many indigenous languages and even if in addition to competence in indigenous
languages, he or she is competent in one official language of English and French.
Therefore, the official state definition of ‘bilingualism’ in Cameroon is the ability
to speak English and French.
Thus, Cameroon is ethnically heterogeneous comprising of more than 300
tribes and 2 main political Anglophone and Francophone national identities,
which already posit a fundamental challenge to a national policy of integration
and language policy. Ayafor (2005: 124) indicates that ‘although multiculturalism
in terms of ethnic diversity is unexpectedly not yet a problem for national unity,
ethnicity along the Francophone-Anglophone dichotomy is, and has whisked
away attention such that it threatens national unity in terms of territorial
integrity more than anything else in the country’. Ayafor maintains that these
ethnic differences have led to a preference of a foreign ‘biculturalism’ that has
been adopted to dominate an existential national multiculturalism based on the
historico-cultural strengths of Cameroon as a country. And this has impacted
on the choice of state languages when language policies are enacted. According
to the Cameroon government, the bicultural acquisition of English and French
as national languages helps to solidify the link between ‘state bilingualism’ and
the recognized national identities of Cameroon. The Cameroon government
also argues that because of the multi-ethnic tribal groupings of the country into
regional local languages, a national language from one of the ethnic groups will
be a source of conflict as other groups will feel excluded. It therefore argues for
a foreign colonial language in line with Cameroon’s history to serve as a policy
instrument for national integration. In addition, these foreign languages offered
common grounds between the many tribes of English speaking Cameroon and
French speaking Cameroon to form a unity state in 1961. However, this unity
114 Henry Kum

through foreign biculturalism also paved the conflicting direction of official

state bilingualism as an opportunity as well as marginalization for some parts
of Cameroon.
The state has been able to make more political capital of its bicultural policy
by aligning Cameroon to two political and economic blocs: La Francophonie
and the Commonwealth of Nations, giving its citizens wider international
choices in gains made as a result of its membership to these two blocs. La
Francophonie is made up of former French colonies under the leadership of
France while the Commonwealth of Nations is made up of former British
colonies under the leadership of the United Kingdom. Arguments to join these
two blocs were made for economic, political, social advantages offered. It also
offered employment opportunities in the translation and interpretation sectors,
education and trade. The government, for instance, created a pool of pedagogic
animators and inspectors for each of these languages in the ten provinces and
the central administration in Yaoundé, the nation’s capital. Central services at the
Presidency, the Prime Ministry, the Ministries and most parastatal companies
have permanent translators and interpreters who make texts available to the
population in both official languages. The use of foreign languages as national
medium of expression exposed Cameroonians to funding opportunities in
Francophonie and Commonwealth countries as fluency in French and or English
as well as an awareness of educational systems common to these countries led
to Cameroonians gaining scholarships to study abroad in fields that were not
offered in Cameroonian universities. Some scholars may challenge this and
accuse it of brain drain where the brightest Cameroonians left on scholarship
and ended up being employed on better wages where they studied (see Tebeje
2010; Nguyen et al. 2008). But it is important to point out that most managers,
governors and ministers, including the president and high profile private and
state employees in Cameroon, studied abroad. Thus, Cameroon’s political elite
saw its bilingual culture as a window of opportunity internally and externally.
The adoption of one dominant cultural policy of French traditions in Cameroon
where the French-styled administrative system and territorial integration
indicates patterns of gross political centralization has exposed the weaknesses
of official state bilingualism. The geographic and demographic division of
the country makes the English speaking region a minority. The territorial
representation of English and French automatically follows this division, hence
giving French a numeric ascendancy over English. This ascendancy is the
factor which also makes the English speaking region a linguistic minority in
 Language-Culture 115

the view of Francophones. Besides, due to the fact that Anglophones have to
make both a linguistic adjustment from English to French, and a geographic
movement from the English to the French speaking region to perform most
of their civic duties, it has become one negative impact of the lack of language
planning. Thus, it pushes them to feel assimilated; hence, language policy has
become one major factor among the socio-political grievances of Anglophones
which has led to social and political unrests threatening the existence of a united
Cameroon. The Anglophones view bilingualism as an obligatory one-sided push
for Anglophones to move towards French while Francophones do not have the
need, political will or choice to embrace the English language. By implication,
Anglophones are conscious of bilingualism as a tool to assimilate Anglophones
into a dominant French culture and erode any traces of their Anglo-Saxon
traditions.
The policy of bilingualism has been more in text than in practice (see
Tchoungui 1983; Kouega 1999; Anchimbe 2005) leading most critics to
conclude that Cameroonians as individuals are monolingual and it is the state
of Cameroon that is bilingual (Bobda 2003; Anchimbe 2005). This conclusion
is drawn from what Anchimbe refers to as ‘anglophonism and francophonism’.
Echu (2004) challenges the stance on official state bilingualism by emphasizing
that the language policy in the country lacks an implementation strategy and
does not sufficiently promote or guarantee the opportunities for Cameroonians
to function as bilingual citizens but rather promotes Cameroonians to identify
under an Anglophone identity (anglophonism) or a Francophone identity
(francophonism). According to Echu, the policy of official state bilingualism,
originally aimed at guaranteeing political integration and unity in Cameroon,
now seems to constitute a source of conflict and political disintegration. The
constitution of Cameroon (1996) states that ‘[t]he official languages of the
Republic of Cameroon shall be English and French, both languages having
the same status. The State shall guarantee the promotion of bilingualism
throughout the country. It shall endeavour to protect and promote national
languages’. The interest in the clause above is in the emphasis on ‘English and
French, both languages having the same statuses’. Official state bilingualism was
intended to foster a unified national identity but this has existed only in theory
because of the Francophone-Anglophone divide. Therefore, French, which
is the language in over 70 per cent of the territory of Cameroon, dominates
national service, the media, public works, the military, administration and
education among others
116 Henry Kum

French speaking Cameroon: francophonism

As earlier stated, Francophones are the French speaking Cameroonians who

make up over 70 per cent of the population of Cameroon and occupy eight
of the ten administrative regions of the country. Their sociocultural identity
in postcolonial bilingual Cameroon is described by Anchimbe (2005) as
‘francophonism’, a term coined from the subscription of Francophones to the
French way of life that distinguishes them from Frenchmen from France and
English speaking Cameroonians from Cameroon. Francophones, until recently,
never had the motivation to learn and speak English, not only because of failure
in government policy to enforce state bilingualism but also due to the fact that
discourse in Cameroon public life including government, education, professional
life, politics was a preserve of the French language. For example, Bobda (2003)
states that the total number of Francophones learning English in the various
language centres is far below 10,000, which is insignificant compared with the
total population of 12 million Francophone Cameroonians (Bobda 1986; 1993;
2002; 2003). This was in the 1980s and the number would be higher now with the
increase in the population of Cameroon. English remained the less favoured and
generally marginalized of the two official languages. Administrative, political
and diplomatic transactions were and are still conducted in French. For example,
the president of Cameroon, who took power in 1982, is French speaking; he
addressed Cameroonians during his inauguration speech in English in 1982
and for over thirty-four years now, he has never again addressed the country
in English. This means that all state policies are presented in French and are
sometimes poorly translated into English.
On 13 November 1995, Cameroon, which had been a member of the Economic
and Customs Union (CEMAC) of neighbouring French speaking countries and of
La Francophonie of former French speaking colonies, joined the Commonwealth
of Nations, thus ushering in a new wave of cultural and economic opportunities
of relating to English speaking communities in the world. This exposure enabled
Francophones to realize the influence of English as a major world language and
to ascertain that educational and business opportunities could be available for
them in countries like the United Kingdom, the United States, Australia and
Canada among others. Francophone Cameroonians did not perceive embracing
English as a shift in cultural identity; rather it was perceived as a negotiation
of opportunities for political and economic benefits within the international
community. English is not considered as one of the identity markers of
Francophone Cameroonians but it is seen as that bridge to international success
 Language-Culture 117

that everyone, irrespective of official language background, wants to cross.

Francophone families now send their children to the most high profile English
speaking schools in the two regions of English speaking Cameroon and also to
schools that the government of Cameroon has classified as ‘bilingual schools’.
There is a proliferation of privately owned English speaking nursery, primary
and secondary schools in French speaking cities owned by Francophones but
staffed by English speaking teachers.
Many former French-medium schools have gained bilingual statuses to
include education along the Anglo-Saxon educational culture. Eighty per cent
of these schools introduced the teaching of the English language to pupils as
young as 4 years (Bobda 2003). In the 2004/2005 academic year, for example,
Francophone children constituted up to 28 per cent of the total number of
students admitted to the first year of studies in some schools in English speaking
Cameroon (Mforteh 2006). This new breed of Francophone children who are
drilled in the English speaking curriculum add this opportunity to their acquired
French competencies as an advantage to dominate their English counterparts
in Cameroon and compete with them in English speaking countries outside
Cameroon. Their ‘francophonism’ is challenged outside Cameroon but remains
a currency as they access national services and the political landscape both in
Cameroon and in countries of La Francophonie. Francophone Cameroonians
have become interested in English language as an opening to embracing
globalization in which English has reinforced its position as the main
international language.

English speaking Cameroon: anglophonism

Anglophone Cameroonians are the English speaking Cameroonians who

make up less than 30 per cent of the population of Cameroon and occupy two
of the ten administrative regions of the country. These two regions are former
colonies administered by the British after the Second World War and in a UN
organized plebiscite of 1961, they joined the Republic of Cameroon to become
the United Republic of Cameroon as two equal states. Their sociocultural
identity in postcolonial bilingual Cameroon is described by Anchimbe (2005)
as ‘anglophonism’, a term coined from their subscription to the British way of
life that distinguishes them from Francophones and British citizens from the
United Kingdom. The union with the French speaking Republic of Cameroon
has become highly contested with the English speaking Cameroon losing its
118 Henry Kum

political, cultural and economic institutions to the French speaking political

class. Anglophone Cameroonians consider themselves to have been stripped of
the political and cultural autonomy that they exercised under British rule, and
they look back with nostalgia, discomfort and frustration at the ‘second class’
citizenship they enjoy as a minority population in Cameroon. Appointments of
senior administrators in the country do no longer subscribe to legible rationality
with no Anglophone heading any important ministry out of fifty-one ministers
and fifteen secretaries of state (Cameroon Post 2015). Of the two presidents that
the country has had since unification in 1961 till 2017, both are from the French
political class (Amado Ahidjo: 1960–82; and Paul Biya: 1982–till date). All
ministries, the presidency, national inspectors, important government branches
covering law, the military, education, finance as well as most professional
colleges and universities/branches are located in French speaking Cameroon.
Up till 1990, there was only one university, the University of Yaoundé, which
was located in French speaking Cameroon where English speaking students
who had been educated in English in nursery, primary and secondary school
were registered to be taught in French.
Faced with what they see as accumulated injustice perpetrated against their
language, themselves and their culture, Anglophones have, after a quarter of a
century of coexistence with their Francophone countrymen, started to react in
all kinds of ways. Reactions to the alleged marginalization of the Anglophones
have grown to include pressure groups and civil disobedience, which crystallized
in the 1990s into a force that seriously threatened the unity of the country with
the creation of the first opposition party, the Social Democratic Front (SDF),
by an Anglophone Cameroonian (Ni John Fru Ndi). After a huge militarization
and police brutality of the two Anglophone provinces, the party was recognized
and is considered by many to have won the presidential elections of 1992 which
were rigged to favour the incumbent French speaking president. Anglophone
nationalism rose and led to civil disobedience and they were branded as ‘les
enemis dans la maison’ (meaning, enemies in the house). By implication,
Anglophones were not considered as Cameroonians and they were often
branded as ‘Biafrans’, a tribe in Eastern Nigeria.
Anglophones have united through various pressure groups like the
Cameroon Anglophone Movement (CAM), Southern Cameroons National
Council (SCNC), Cameroon Anglophone Students Association (CANSA)
and Confederation of Anglophone Parent-Teacher Associations of Cameroon
(CAPTAC) which continue advocating for the restoration of the linguistic,
cultural, political and infrastructural cultures of Anglophone Cameroonians
 Language-Culture 119

either through federalism or the complete separation of the English speaking

Cameroon from the Republic of Cameroon. In 2016/2017, these accounts of
the alleged marginalization of Anglophones in Cameroon led to violence in
which many Anglophone Cameroonian lawyers, teachers, students and other
professionals took to the streets demanding a restoration of the Anglophone
system of education, law and the federal state that was the product of unification
in 1961. Students were tortured with some deaths reported and massive arrests
made. The stalemate continues with teachers and lawyers on an indefinite strike
in Anglophone Cameroon where there are no court hearings and schools are
closed indefinitely.

The bridging language: Cameroon Pidgin English

The arrival of the colonial masters and the struggle for territories meant that
colonial and postcolonial countries emerged along geographical lines rather
than on cultural or tribal identities. Boundaries were drawn and redrawn
according to the treaties that colonial masters concluded with other colonial
masters. That gave rise to Francophone Cameroon and Anglophone Cameroon
which emerged as colonial territories awarded to the French and English after
the Germans were pushed out of Cameroon. The inhabitants of Cameroon were
now faced with new colonial masters whose language and way of life was new.
However, there was the need to interact with these newcomers who had become
the new masters of Cameroon. As Cameroonians in the territory accorded to
the British tried to learn the language, a new form of language emerged that
was neither English nor any of the indigenous languages. It was a mixture of the
English words that the native Cameroonians could master and their indigenous
languages. As many tribes had merged into one country now known as British
Southern Cameroon (Anglophone Cameroon), this medium of expression
did not only serve the local population to interact with the colonial masters
but also became a bridging language among tribes whose languages were not
mutually intelligible. This became known as Cameroon Pidgin English (CPE;
Alobwede 1998), which is a mixture of formal English expressions and local
languages, in which the speaker is fluent. Cameroonians who served the British
colonial masters needed a medium of expression for official interaction but their
competence in English was minimal. They resorted to code switching in their
local languages with a blend of the few English sentences or words that they
could afford.
120 Henry Kum

When the two Cameroons united in 1961, Pidgin English widened to

include words from local languages, English and French and linked many tribes
across the united Cameroon. CPE has become a widely used lingua franca in
most communities in Cameroon and even the political elite that condemns
this lingua franca in official circles use it during election campaign to get
across their messages to a varied and linguistically diverse population. CPE
has become a bridging language. It is used in business milieus, in churches,
and many informal situations. It is a ‘no man’s language’ that is structurally
closer to the indigenous languages and English language. It has no rules of
grammar, no exclusive vocabulary thereby enabling every Cameroonian to
use it, blend existing components with French and new indigenous words in
order to pass across their message. It is the only lingua franca in Cameroon
which is not associated with a tribe, religion or any foreign power. The absence
of ownership of this language enables it to be a unifying language. As earlier
stated, although its lexicons have a high proportion of words of English origin,
it has a neutral identity as the interlocutors can add to it drawing from their
own repertoires. Most Cameroonians would advocate for this language to
be developed, standardized and promoted to become the official language of
Cameroon replacing French and English. It is Cameroon Pidgin English that
Cameroon can claim ownership of due to the fact that it draws significantly
from the Cameroon local setting, cultures and geography, and offers a much
more unique identity to Cameroonians than the foreign bicultural languages
of French and English. Despite this, the ruling political elite of Cameroon
discourages its use and does not allow it in schools, publics service, mass media
and state institutions.
CPE is considered as a non-standard form of English by the state and this
allows the state to allocate it an inferior status. Speakers of CPE are often the
target of linguicism as they are often perceived to be of low intelligence, illiterate
and limited education who resort to CPE because they cannot construct a
meaningful sentence in French or English. In most schools, there are billboard
signs written in bold prohibiting the use of CPE in and out of the classrooms and
prescribing strict punishment to anybody caught speaking in CPE. Users of this
lingua franca cannot use it to get employment, or admission into schools and
universities especially as any reference to it during official state business is judged
as a mark of intellectual limitation. Sometimes Francophone Cameroonians who
cannot speak English will retort to Anglophone Cameroonians that they are
‘Biafran Nigerians’ (Nigerian immigrants) or that they are speaking in ‘Pidgin
English’ which is not allowed. In official state circles, CPE has no currency; it
 Language-Culture 121

has no power and no pride. Take, for example, the caption at the entrance of the
University of Buea, the first English speaking university in Cameroon, shown in
Figure 6.1.
Bourdieu (1977) states that every linguistic interaction, however personal or
insignificant it may seem, bears the traces of the social structure that it both
expresses and helps to reproduce. This explains why linguistic usage varies
according to considerations such as class and gender. Bourdieu therefore expands
on the process through which the state (infused with the authority and values of
the dominant group) helps in the preservation of that group’s linguistic and social
power. The political class in Cameroon seeks to protect the colonial languages
and inherent values, identities, power and values of French and English against
a widely spoken and understood lingua franca like the CPE. The Cameroon state
is not prepared to give up the prestige of French and English as foreign colonial
languages for a unifying CPE that is original, inclusive and draws more from
the Cameroonian cultural settings. The official languages are bound up with the
state of Cameroon, both in its creation as a state from colonial ruins and now in

Figure 6.1 A pro-English sign from the University of Buea. This caption shows the
extent to which Cameroon Pidgin English is devalued and discouraged in institutions
of the state.
Source: Signboard obtained at entrance of University of Buea.
122 Henry Kum

its determination of the social values of the state. As a result, CPE is devalued as
a slang and is an inferior but popular mode of expression.
However, although CPE remains the most commonly used language between
linguistic groups and the most nationally understood and spoken language in
Cameroon, speakers of this language often suffer stigmatization and do not enjoy
the status of bilingual speakers because the state considers Pidgin English as
inferior, crude and a language of an uneducated population, often reflecting the
master-servant relationship of a colonial past (Ayafor 2005). Despite the attempts
to stifle the popularity of CPE, Mbangwana (1989: 87) concludes that ‘Pidgin
English is very crucial as a communication bridge, for it links an Anglophone
to a Francophone. It also links an Anglophone to another Anglophone, an
educated Cameroonian to another educated one, a non-educated Cameroonian
to another non-educated one, and more importantly an educated Cameroonian
to a non-educated one’.

The bilingual-multilingual culture: opportunity

or marginalization?

History has given Cameroonians a sublime challenge: to build a united state

based on a singular course of the country, capable of constituting a model for the
reconciliation and integration of the various colonial heritages and its traditional
old values. This is marred by the non-respect of bilingualism in education and
the public sector although the constitution makes French and English the two
official languages of equal value (Kouega 1999). Public policy in Cameroon is
described as best as a penchant for institutional mimicry that fails to capitalize on
its multicultural heritage to be united in diversity. The aftermath of institutions
of the unitary state, in its political discourses, emphasized the bilingual and
pluricultural identities of the state but in reality the French political elite
gradually assimilated the Anglophone cultures through subversive policies of
cultural deracination. Fifty-five years after independence, Cameroon’s language
policies remain unique to a history of confusion, uncertainty and frustration,
unlike in other multilingual countries in Europe and North America. For
example, in Canada, laws like the 1969 Language Act and the 1977 Bill 101
enforce bilingualism. The Office of the Commissioner of Official Languages in
Canada deals with complaints about violations of language rights (Bobda 2003).
In Cameroon, no provision of any law seriously compels citizens to learn or use
the other official language.
 Language-Culture 123

Humans naturally identify with others and this is done sometimes through
the categorization of individuals into specific social groups like gender, ethnicity,
race and language. As a result of this categorization, some groups become more
visible and others remain less salient. Indigenous communities have become
less salient compared to dominant colonial identities recognized through the
mediums of French and English due to state bilingualism in Cameroon. And
most visible is the sub-normalization of ‘Anglophones’, which has become a less
salient identity when compared to a dominant Francophone identity. Schutz and
Six (1996) explain the competing tensions between two languages that are used
as vignettes of social categorization as a product of linguistic discrimination and
prejudice of language. In this sense, prejudice is considered to refer to negative
attitudes towards an individual based solely on their membership of a social
group. Discrimination, however, becomes the acts towards the individual. This is
what Schutz and Six (1996) refer to as linguicism which often targets oppressed
and marginalized social minorities. In the case of Cameroon, the state bilingual
policy and official language practice has been credited to successfully raise the
status of French over English whereas both languages are politically mandated
to be of equal status in ‘official state bilingualism’ (Jikong 2001; 2002; Ubanako
2004). The Francophone Cameroonians through education, political and public
discourses, the military, law and order and high profile civil service professional
seek to establish complete domination over the Anglophones by gradually
assimilating the Anglophones into a monolingual French speaking Cameroon.
And this stems as far back as the change of names from United Republic of
Cameroon to the Republic of Cameroon.
During the referendum of 1972, English speaking Cameroon which was an
independent country voted to join La Republique du Cameroun in an equal
union of two distinct, independent federated states. That union gave rise to a
United Republic of Cameroon which was enshrined in the constitution as two
federated states uniting with each preserving its social and cultural characteristics
in language, law and education among others. Any change to this union would be
a constitutional change to be validated by the people of the two states in another
referendum. But in 1984, the president changed the name from the United
Republic of Cameroon to the Republic of Cameroon. This was interpreted as
a major constitutional change without the validation of the English speaking
state. It became an act of separation, which was considered to have started the
social, political and cultural annexation and assimilation of the minority state
of English speaking Cameroon. This and subsequent presidential decrees have
continued to force the Anglophones to give up their territorial rights in all its
124 Henry Kum

forms. English speaking Cameroonians have had their right to education and
employment greatly curtailed as most state-owned universities and professional
schools are located in French speaking territory and the medium of instruction
is French. The Francophone population has since 1972 dominated politics with
over 90 per cent of cabinet positions, the judiciary and the military filled by
Francophones. Francophones have become the Cameroonian ruling class and
French is the language of public affairs. This has Anglophone resistance which
considers the Francophones to have subjugated the Anglophones to the extent
of denying them their political and cultural rights as a nation. This sharply
contrasts with the abounding opportunities enjoyed by the Francophones
who have been systematically guided through privileges and great-nation
chauvinism to believe that Francophones are superior Cameroonians. Today in
2017, an Anglophone is refused service or discriminated if his/her request is
made in English as this automatically presents him/her as a second-class citizen.
Moreover, all schools in Anglophone are on strike, all law firms are on strike and
the government interrupted internet supply for four months (from January 2017
to April 2017) as a way of curbing the coordination and flow of information in
Anglophone Cameroon about the strike action.
At a speech to the nation amid the uprisings in the two English speaking
regions of Cameroon, Paul Biya, the French speaking president of the Republic
of Cameroon, who has been in power for 34 years having succeeded the former
French speaking president Amadou Adhijo, stated that ‘Cameroon is one
and indivisible’. Emphasis here is on a ‘one Cameroon’ as one nation which
is an optimistic political slogan from the dominant Francophone ruling class
which simply seeks to deny the Anglophones’ right to self-determination
while at the same time legitimizing the superiority of the Francophones over
the Anglophones. Federalism that was the basis for the 1972 reunification was
abolished and Anglophones now operate a diluted Anglo-Saxon education
system dictated to them by Francophone education ministers and sometimes
taught to them by Francophone teachers. This education system disadvantages
the Anglophone Cameroonians in high profile public service recruitment jobs
and professional entrance examinations. For the few Anglophones who succeed
to access these professional schools, they graduate to serve both Francophones
and Anglophones in the French language because English is not the language of
the Cameroon public service. The situation is equally bad in the law courts where
Francophone magistrates preside over courts in the Anglophone regions and
force Anglophone lawyers to present submissions in French. This is one of the
grievances of the Anglophone lawyers who have been on strike since November
 Language-Culture 125

2016 to date calling for the reinstatement of the English speaking judiciary
culture. Similarly, in health care, it is common to find a Francophone medical
doctor consulting patients in French in a hospital in the English speaking region
and this often leads to poor diagnoses since the medical doctor is not fluent in
English. It can be concluded that ‘official state bilingualism’ in Cameroon is a
justification for the national oppression of the Anglophone minorities and it
is used to promote the assimilation of Anglophones into a ‘one and indivisible’
Cameroon.
Bilingualism provides opportunities to Francophone Cameroonians but it
serves to hide the oppressive and assimilatory state policies that have become
consistent with transforming Cameroonians into monolingual French speaking
citizens. Students, teachers and lawyers who demand their territorial rights are
branded by the president as extremists and some are arrested, tortured, raped
and forcefully imprisoned without trial as opponents of a ‘one and indivisible’
Cameroon. The dominant Francophone political class gives the impression
that it values the bilingual cultures of both Anglophones and Francophone
Cameroon as equal but in reality the state uses overt and covert brutal strategies
to destroy Anglophone institutions, render its leaders powerless and promote
the superiority of French over English in a ‘one and indivisible’ Cameroon. In
the first presidential elections held in 1992, the Anglophone leader Ni John Fru
Ndi is believed to have won the elections but the narrative that emerged from the
French ruling class was that he is ‘Anglophone’ and therefore should be perceived
as threatening the very existence of the French language and ‘francophonism’
and all its inherent privileges. As a result, the elections were rigged to favour the
French speaking incumbent. Fru Ndi was branded as ‘les enemis dans la maison’
who could not be president of a dominant French speaking Cameroon.

Conclusion and implications for national identity

This chapter develops a synthesis between the colonial legacy of Britain and
France in Cameroon that has resulted in official state bilingualism where English
and French are celebrated as visible national identities as opposed to many
indigenous languages (Boum & Sadembouo 1999; Makoni & Ulrike 2003).
Cameroonian speakers of English and French are able to adopt national social
positions that define them either as Anglophone or Francophone. Norton (2000)
stresses that language practice is connected to symbolic and cultural capital,
which underpins identity. By implication, a speaker therefore speaks from a
126 Henry Kum

particular social position belonging to a social network and having access to

symbolic resources drawn from socio-economic power and knowledge. French
and English as official languages of Cameroon privilege the thought processes
and knowledge of former colonial masters than the local languages that bind
different tribes together in Cameroon. French and English are deemed to possess
a higher value and have become the languages of the media, public service,
education, the military and the judiciary whereas local languages have become
more regionalized, non-standardized and almost extinct in official discourse.
With this can be attributed the silent nature of local Cameroon identities. In
official circles, when a Cameroonian is asked to be introduced, the question is
often if (s)he is Francophone or Anglophone and not if (s)he is Ewondo, Nso,
Bamoun or Bakossi. Hence to draw from the work of Bourdieu (1977), French
and English are considered to have more value than local Cameroonian values.
While this could be interpreted as a major course for tension and conflict, it is
hardly perceived in official state discourses because the languages of instruction
in Cameroonian schools, the courts, the military, the media, government,
parliament and national businesses are designated to be French and English by
government.
Wolf (2001) argues that the preference of colonial languages over indigenous
languages leads to a de-territorialization of national identities and a
reterritorialization of foreign but more powerful identities. Cameroonians first
define themselves in terms of Francophone or Anglophone before their tribal
affiliations. However, as has been illustrated above, the more visible form of
conflict is in the application of official state bilingualism with a persistent and
irreversible overt and covert marginalization of English by the French speaking
political class. English language becomes a language of less value and a language
of an inferior identity.
Although Cameroonians are able to take on a multiplicity of identities from
tribal to national state bilingually recognized identities, linguistic capital still
determines opportunities and marginalization in the country. French has
been privileged by the Francophone political elite to stand out as a powerful
linguistic form associated with the legitimacy and prestige of an enviable social
position over English. It has become the language that wields non-negotiable
political, social and economic influence in the Cameroonian context. French
has more political and cultural capital and Anglophone Cameroonians need
it to survive more than Francophone Cameroonians need English. Blackledge
(2005) describes the dominance of one language over the other as a situation in
which one language, in Cameroon, French, becomes a highly valued monetary
 Language-Culture 127

currency that pulls everyone towards it so that they can survive professionally,
socio-economically and socioculturally (Giles & Coupland 1991). When
Anglophone Cameroonians are ‘forced’ to learn and speak French, they become
part of the French community and inadvertently adopt a French identity, its
values, its codes and start perceiving the world through the concepts that
underpin ‘francophonism’. For example, even when Anglophone police officers
are posted to serve in the English speaking region, they still communicate to the
Anglophones in French, eat like Francophones and issue summons in French
and apply French judiciary jargons. I say ‘French judiciary jargons’ because
according to French law, a suspect is guilty until they prove that they are innocent
while in English law, a suspect is innocent until proven guilty by the courts.
These police officers display assimilatory attitudes which become interpreted
as further attempts to assimilate the Anglophones to become Francophone-
Anglophones. Their social world becomes structured by the ‘francophonism’ in
them and they align their thoughts with ‘francophonism’ which they approve as
the norm and perceive ‘anglophonism’ as socially undesirable. As Llamas and
Watt (2010) argue: ‘Language not only reflects who we are, it is who we are, and its
use defines us both directly and indirectly’ (see also Giles & Coupland 1991). An
example can be illustrated with Bamenda, which is the capital city of the North
West Anglophone region and the most populated city in the two Anglophone
regions. It is in Bamenda that the first political party to oppose the Francophone
ruling class was launched in 1990 leading to protests, civil disobedience, ghost
towns, strikes against French domination. Bamenda has become established as
the symbol of Anglophone resistance. Moreover, when a Francophone refers
to a Cameroonian that ‘tu fais comme un Bamenda’ (You are behaving like a
Bamenda) the Francophone actually means that you are primitive, uncivilized,
an extremist who does not know their place in society. Bamenda has become a
synonym for the inferiority of Anglophone Cameroonians.
It is important not to treat Anglophone Cameroon as linguistically
and ethnically homogenous (Biloa et al., (2008). Anglophones are tribally
heterogeneous and they agreed in 1972 to move from an ethnic to a more civic
conceptualization of national identity. Oakes and Warren (2007) consider an
ethnic national identity as one which is based on common ancestry and shared
cultural heritage, whereas civic national identity is manifested in a common
loyalty to a territory and rooted in a set of political rights, duties and values
(see also Roshwald 2006). Hence, the vote in a plebiscite in 1961 and later in
a referendum in 1972 for the Southern Cameroon Anglophone state to unite
with La Republique du Cameroun and form one nation was a move towards
128 Henry Kum

more national integration than the elaboration of regional identities (Chumbow

1980). That is why English and French were enshrined in the constitution as two
national languages of equal status. It is important to point out that one weakness
of the unitary constitution was the fact that local indigenous languages were
neither mentioned nor protected. However, it is not the subject of this chapter.
In hindsight, one wonders if mentioning or protecting the local languages in
the constitution would have made any difference in an increasingly assimilatory
Francophone political machinery. It is what Wardhaugh (1987) refers to as
‘languages in competition’. The tension and conflict is between English and
French with English and Anglophones being marginalized, whereas the
constitution protects this equal status. That explains why most critical discourses
about bilingualism in Cameroon often talk of ‘official state bilingualism’ (see
Bobda 2003; Fonlon 1969; Tchoungui 1983; Kouega 2001; Anchimbe 2005). It is
the state that is bilingual while its citizens are monolingually normalized in the
dominance of the French language.
On another level, Francophones have started recognizing the value of English
as an international window for scholarships and international jobs. A huge
appetite for learning English emerged in the early 1990s when Cameroon
suffered a great economic recession. The few opportunities that were reserved
for Francophones could not sustain them in need and many of them started
looking outwards to more affluent societies like Canada, the United Kingdom,
Australia and the United States among others. That meant that learning and
speaking English became a shift in language identity for the purpose of surviving
abroad. Many language centres emerged in Francophone cities where English
as a foreign language was taught and where preparations for English language
proficiency exams were administered. That trend became an eye opener to most
Francophones and those who could afford to send their children to English
speaking schools did not hesitate to do so. The recognition that English is widely
used in science, technology, mass media, commerce, tourism, industry, academia
and the United Nations has pushed Francophone Cameroonians to send their
children to English speaking schools. The surge in studies in English language
has continued to reshape the identities of Francophone Cameroonians. It is
important to note that this emerging trend of Francophones embracing English
needs to be interpreted as an enabling factor to acquire an international currency
to navigate and negotiate spaces in affluent English speaking countries abroad. It
does not make provision for English as an internal currency because the French
language internally provides all the openings for Francophone Cameroonians to
fulfil their potential.
 Language-Culture 129

Internally, French remains the language of upward mobility and a visible

identity. Francophone speakers are readily noticeable while Anglophones are less
salient. The bilingual language culture of Cameroon provides opportunities for
Francophones and marginalization for Anglophones. Most significant work places
that provide important services to Cameroonians are located in Yaoundé and
other French speaking cities and it is common knowledge that these services do
enforce a French-only policy. The Francophone ruling class gives the impression
that it values the varied ethnic and cultural backgrounds of Cameroonians
through its emphasis on national integration and a bilingual policy. In reality,
the policy of bilingualism is used to deny the social and cultural rights of the
Anglophones that were protected in the 1972 unification constitution.
This chapter has clearly illustrated that language provides a bridge for
opportunities to dominant groups and for prejudice to occur for the less salient
social groups (Norton 2000). Although the 1961 Constitution of the Federal
country of Cameroon clearly stated that English and French shall remain the
two official languages of Cameroon of equal status, article 39 contradicted this
by stating that the constitution shall be registered and published in the national
gazette, the French version being the valid one. This already undervalues the
English status as its official version cannot be referred to in case of any dispute.
In addition, the two presidents who have ruled Cameroon from 1961 till today
(2017) and their high profile associates are Francophones who do not speak
English and they deliver all public, official discourses in French even when on
a visit to the English speaking regions of Cameroon, or internationally to any
English speaking country or in the Commonwealth of Nations. Therefore, they
do not profess any example of bilingualism but rather validate the claim that
official state bilingualism in Cameroon means being proficient in the French
language. Furthermore all official documents are published in French and only
offer poorly translated versions in English (if any). Emphasis is more on having
aptly translated documents of English origin into French rather than providing
accurate translations of state policies into English. Even the Franc CFA, the
currency used in Cameroon, has only French renditions on it and no English
translations in what is expected to be a bilingual country of two equal languages.
In 1984, the French speaking president changed the name of the country
from the United Republic of Cameroon to the Republic of Cameroon, which
is the name of the French speaking Cameroon before reunification of 1961.
This was interpreted as removing all the traces of the English speaking country
that had agreed to be united to the French speaking Republic of Cameroon.
It is interpreted in Anglophone Cameroon that the change of name was an
130 Henry Kum

official annexation of the English speaking Cameroon state by the Francophone

Republic of Cameroon. Ayafor (2005) argues that bilingualism has been an
alienating rather than an integrating policy, often used by the state to keep the
Anglophones in an unequal union rather than actually addressing the linguistic
complexities of state bilingualism in a multilingual Cameroon.
This chapter provides historical, social and political insights into the language
policy and situation in Cameroon that has empowered the Francophones as
beneficiaries of official state bilingualism while at the same time marginalizing
the Anglophone Cameroonians who have been ‘frenchified’ in a country of
constitutional equal status of French and English. It highlights the genesis of
the crisis, which has led to a shutdown of schools, strikes by lawyers, arrests,
imprisonment and extra-judiciary killings in English speaking Cameroon
where people continue the struggle for self-determinism and the fight against
assimilation. The chapter does not only recommend the inclusion of indigenous
languages as well as CPE in the language policy of Cameroon but also argues that
the language policy should be reconstructed under the banner of multilingualism
than official state bilingualism. This will help to restore an eroded culture and
identity of Cameroonians in their own country.

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 7

Refugee Communities: The Disappearance of

Voice and Impact on Care and Identity
Henry Kum

Introduction

One of the most challenging questions today is why the ‘refugee’ has become
a label of widespread scorn and ridicule. It is not only a very dreaded concept
among host communities but also a contentious topicality in Western stable
societies as they strive to balance human rights obligations and border controls.
Refugees have been made to represent a stratum of people synonymous to human
degradation where persecuted victims have become scapegoats for politicians to
work out their electioneering experiments. The reluctance of countries whose
people have seen an access to modest privilege to open their doors to those
with immeasurable suffering helps to explain a general hostility and rejection
of refugees (Smith 1998). In this chapter, it is my contention that within public
spaces, refugees have been rendered within a narrow prescribed framework that
erodes their voice. There is an expectation that refugees have to fit a particular
set of criteria. Arendt (1958) makes a distinction between what and who a
person is. A person may be identified and categorized as a woman, Jew, Muslim,
asylum seeker or ‘boatperson’ from characteristics such as dress, appearance
or context, such as on an overcrowded boat off Australia’s northern coast.
However, s/he can reveal who s/he is in particular, only through her/his own
speech and action. The individual characteristics that distinguish each unique
person can be discerned only through the revelations of that person, gained
intersubjectively through interaction and engagement on a basis of equality. The
‘what’ of a person can only ever be an approximation of humanity, consisting
of stereotypes into which individuals are grouped with little or no regard for
the uniqueness of each person. To treat a person according to what rather than
136 Henry Kum

whom s/he is, Arendt contends, dehumanizes the person, as s/he is denied the
opportunity to reveal herself/himself to the world, denied entry to the public
sphere as an initiating and equal person and reduced to a representative sample
of the category into which s/he has been placed. From the beginning of forced
movement of people, the voice of forced migrants continues to disappear from
social, political, economic and public life. Seeing refugees as passive recipients of
humanitarian aid, as benefactors of host country generosity imposes normative
values of people who are begging for care rather than human beings who need
enabling in their quest for sanctuary.
Refugees’ political lives often disappear into the background, and their ‘voices’
tend to become apolitical. The term ‘refugee voices’ becomes synonymous with
the personal and human side of the story, marginalizing individual or collective
self-representation. Abstracting refugees from specific political, historical and
cultural milieus may ultimately lead to the silencing of refugees. While refugees
flee their country as political subjects, during their journey they appear to
lose political agency to become, upon arrival in host countries, the objects of
migration and asylum policies, the beneficiaries of assistance or individuals with
traumatic stories. This de-politicization regularly persists after they have settled
in their host society. They lose their voice and increasingly become powerless.
In this chapter, I use case studies to discuss instances of how the voiceless
refugee is marooned into an inescapable cycle of ‘silence’. In order to do this,
I retrace some historical facts to buttress the point that refugeeness is not a
recent concept, which as its ancient character seems to suggest is as old as the
voicelessness of refugee. The erosion of refugee voices has evolved with multiple
reconceptualization of who refugees are, all summing up to silence people with
silent voices. I go further to illustrate insightful reflections on the impact of
these silent voices on refugee identities and their sense of worth. The chapter is
grounded on the theoretical underpinning of care and rights in order to posit
that the absence of a voice is similar to the absence of care.

Historical context of refugee migration

into the United Kingdom

By establishing a snapshot of migration trends into the United Kingdom,

this section draws from history to position the erosion of voice in refugees as
a result of the ‘othering’ that is inherent in the identities of forced migrants.
Forced movement has been on the increase in recent years and people forcibly
 Refugee Communities 137

displaced because of persecution, conflict, generalized violence and human

rights violations as on 31 December 2015 was estimated by the United Nations
High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) at 65.3 million. Of that number,
40.8 million were internally displaced persons, 21.3 million were refugees and
3.2 million were asylum seekers most of them coming from countries like Syria,
Afghanistan, Iran and the continent of Africa. The exact number of immigrants
is not known today but figures in 2006 put their numbers to about 191 million
(UNFPA 2006; Deen 2006). Global Issues (2008) gives a break down and adds
in their report that immigration has doubled in the past 50 years. It has been
estimated that 119 million immigrants live in developed countries; 20 per cent
(approximately 38 million) live in the United States of America alone, making up
13 per cent of its population; 33 per cent of all immigrants live in Europe and 75
per cent live in just twenty-eight countries. It is safe to posit that migrants are a
growing community in many countries, for example, the richer countries of the
European Union, United States, Canada and Australia. Migration now shapes
virtually most national societies on the planet, playing a crucial role in how our
societies are constituted and how different populations link and come together
as well as how nation states form political relationships with one another. There
are increasing debates both historical and contemporary about migration and
these debates have an impact on the analysis of present and future patterns of
migration, policy development, economic development and social development.
The focus of this chapter is on refugees, which involves forced migrants fleeing
from persecution and this dates as far back as the seventeenth century.
In the late seventeenth century, the word ‘refugee’ started gaining prominence
in the political circles in England following the arrival of the Huguenots, French
Protestant refugees (Rutter 2003; 2004; 2006; Greig 2009). But the ratification of
the Geneva Convention of 1951 on refugees, by most countries, including the
United Kingdom, meant that people fleeing their country of origin, or unable
to return to it owing to a well-founded fear of persecution for reasons of race,
religion, nationality, membership of a particular group or political opinion, can
officially request and fight for refugee status. This change was provoked by mass
displacements of people during the two world wars especially after the Second
World War.
Cole (2004) identifies three periods of immigration to Western Europe since
the Second World War. First, primary labour migration between 1950, and
1973–74, driven mainly by West European reconstruction. Second, secondary/
family migration which accelerated in the mid-1970s; and third, that which
developed in the aftermath of the end of the Cold War in 1989–90. Gedde (2003)
138 Henry Kum

looks at the third migration phase in the United Kingdom and comments that
in Britain, economic crises in the 1970s and the 1980s, welfare state pressures
and changed welfare state ideologies since the 1990s have structured people’s
perception of those migrants deemed to be bogus. He stretches this further by
adding that it is the ways in which such migrants are categorized by institutions
and organizations in the receiving countries that creates these perceptions, rather
than the migrants themselves. Yet there are documented trends of systemic
migration of people to the British Isles (BCAR 1969; 1980; 1981).
Hungarian refugees who were evacuated to the United Kingdom from camps
in Austria in 1957 started arriving in the United Kingdom. Between 1939
and 1949, nearly 3,60,000 Polish refugees including other eastern Europeans,
Jews and Belgians who were fleeing Nazi persecution arrived in the United
Kingdom (Sword 1989; Rutter et al. 2007). Hungarians who, like Poles, came in
the aftermath of the Second World War and later the Chileans and Vietnamese
were programme refugees because their immigration status had been granted
overseas and, after arrival in the United Kingdom, they were also entitled to a
resettlement programme comprising housing and social welfare support. Many
were resettled in reception hostels and later to large reception centres and some
found work mainly in construction, mining and agricultures as well as unskilled
industries experiencing a shortage of labour (Ambrozy 1984; Kunz 1985). The
poor reception and coordination of the massive influx of these group of refugees
led to the formation of the British Council for Aid Refugees (BCAR) in 1950
(Rutter et al. 2007). Having ratified the Geneva Convention in 1957 Britain saw
the need and regard for the refugees’ welfare in terms of settlement, integration
and employment and BCAR started supplying flats/accommodation to the
refugees especially for those that had found work (Refugee Council 2010; Rutter
et al. 2007). Following the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968, another
group of 5,000 from Czechoslovakia arrived in the United Kingdom and was
received with mixed reaction; some granted temporary visas and permission to
work as guest workers while others were refused sanctuary. The welcoming of
these passive victims of war was becoming problematic to the host community.
The demands of expanding postwar economy meant that Britain, like most
other European countries, was faced with major shortages of labour (Castles and
Cossack 1985). The demand for labour was met by a variety of sources, including
5,00,000 refugees, displaced persons and ex-prisoners of war from Europe
between 1946 and 1951 and a further 3,50,000 European nationals between
1945 and 1957 (Sivanandan 1976). However, the overwhelming majority of
migrants who came to Britain were from the Republic of Ireland, the Indian
 Refugee Communities 139

subcontinent and the Caribbean (Miles 1986). The labour migration from the
Indian subcontinent and the Caribbean proceeded by informal means with little
effort made to relate unemployment to existing vacancies. Instead, it was left to
the free market forces to determine the size of immigration (Sivanandan 1976;
Universities UK 2005).
Those industries where the demand for labour was greatest actively recruited
Asian, black and other minority ethnic workers in their home countries (Fryer
1984; Ramdin 1987). Employers such as the British Transport Commission, the
London Transport Executive, the British Hotels and Restaurant Association
and the Regional Hospitals Board all established arrangements with Caribbean
governments to ensure a regular supply of labour (Ramdin 1987). By 1958, a
decade of labour migration comprised 1,25,000 Caribbean and 55,000 Indian
and Pakistani immigrants in England (Fryer 1984). They came to occupy the
overwhelmingly semi-skilled and unskilled positions in the English labour
market. Furthermore, they found themselves disproportionately concentrated in
certain types of manual work characterized by shortage of labour, shift working,
unsocial hours, low pay and unpleasant working environment.
Historical links between Britain and many colonies proved to be a
major push towards immigration. Britain’s links with Africa and Asia were
particularly long standing. For example, there were African soldiers and slaves
in the Roman imperial army that occupied the southern part of the British
island for three and a half centuries before the Anglo-Saxons (the English)
arrived (Fryer 1984). There has been a long history of contact between Britain
and India leading to the presence of Indians in Britain (Visram 1986). India
and many countries in Africa and the Caribbean had been colonized by Britain
and were just becoming independent. Many people from these countries had
worked in factories that helped sustained Britain in the war. After the war,
wages were higher in Britain than in the colonies and it became a natural step
for some of their population to migrate here. The relationship with Britain
as shown above was the reason why people from these countries moved to
Britain.
In the 1950s, there was a growing concern within Parliament, the media and
the major political parties of the dangers of unrestricted immigration (Cole &
Virdee 2005). Britain was used to ruling people with different cultures in the
colonies but having them living in the United Kingdom in large numbers was a
new experience. This contributed to an important shift in public policy towards
migrant labour from one of support for unrestricted immigration of non-whites
to one that stressed that the immigration of non-whites had to be curbed if the
140 Henry Kum

social fabric and cohesion of the country was not to be irreparably undermined.
As a result, in 1962, an Immigration Act was introduced which had as its primary
objective the curbing of non-white labour from the Indian subcontinent and the
Caribbean with immigration from the Republic of Ireland unaffected (Miles &
Phizacklea 1984).
With Britain being a signatory of the 1951 Refugee Convention that
guarantees the right for every persecuted human being to apply for asylum, the
economic factor ceased to be the only cause and type of migration to the United
Kingdom (Kum 2006; Kum et al. 2008). People who suffered persistent fear of
religious, social, political or ethnic persecution in their home country could
apply for asylum in any safe country including the United Kingdom. In Europe
from the 1980, the wind of new democracies swept through the east especially
with the fall of the then Soviet Union and dictators were tested and overthrown.
Human rights were preached the world over. Crises in Kosovo, the Middle East,
Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran and Lebanon threatened civilian peace and stability and
more people moved about in search of freedom and safety. Britain received most
of those who were able to make it to the UK borders.
In 1972, the Ugandan dictator Idi Amin had expelled the entire Asian
population from Uganda, blaming them of controlling the economy for their
own ends. He gave them ninety days to leave the country. Most of them who
already had roots and relations in the United Kingdom migrated there. Despite
public hostility, the British government accepted 28,000 Ugandan Asians who
held British travel documents and some 400 stateless households (Kushner &
Knox 1999). In 1974 and 1975, about 10,000 Cypriots fled to the United Kingdom
following the partition of the island. This group only joined a larger Cypriot
community who had earlier migrated to work in the United Kingdom or had
fled ethnic violence from groups that supported the independence of Cyprus.
Around the same time, about 1973–76, over a million Chileans (Kay 1987) fled
their homeland following the military coup that toppled the Chilean socialist
government of Salvador Allende. Due to public campaigns from trade unions,
the media and labour party activists, about 3,000 Chileans were admitted into
the United Kingdom (World University Service-WUS UK 1974). They were
granted refugee status, housed in reception centres and later resettled in housing
by local committees.
This was followed by the admission of 24,000 Vietnamese between 1979 and
1992 following the fall of Saigon at the end of the Vietnam War, and a further
1,500 from camps in Hong Kong and later 10,000 more from Hong Kong (Refugee
Council 1991). A second Vietnamese programme ran between 1983 and in 1988
 Refugee Communities 141

and comprised three groups: boat rescues, members of the orderly departures
programme from Vietnam (4,475 people) and family reunion cases (Duke &
Marshall 1995). The third and final admission programme, administered by
Refugee Action, took place in 1989 when the government agreed to admit a
further 2,000 Vietnamese refugees.
The 1980s marked a turning point in both asylum migration and the
government responses to asylum seekers. Before 1980s, most refugees either had
come from a small number of eastern European countries, or had been admitted
as programme refugees. The 1980s saw a much more diverse range of asylum
seekers arrive into the United Kingdom, from African and Asian countries as
well as Eastern Europe. Between 1980 and 1988, the two largest refugee groups
to enter the United Kingdom were Iranians and Sri Lankan Tamils (Rutter et al.
2007). Other significant groups of asylum seekers were Iraqis, Turkish nationals
(including Kurds), Poles, Ugandans, Ghanaians, Ethiopians, Eritreans and
Somalis. This was essentially a migration to London between 1980 and 1997
and it was estimated that some 90 per cent of the United Kingdom’s refugees
lived in London (Refugee Council 1997). Asylum applications increased
significantly in 1989, with 11,640 lodged that year, and continued to increase in
the 1990s (Refugee Council 1997). Most of the new arrivals came from conflict
zones: Bosnia-Herzegovina, Eastern Turkey, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Sierra Leone,
Somalia, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Angola, Iraq, Sri Lanka, Columbia
and Afghanistan.
Nevertheless, despite more complex migratory flows, total asylum applications
started dropping (British Refugee Council 1989; Rutter 2003; 2006). This has
been due to much restrictive legislation, in the form of restricted asylum seekers’
economic and citizenship rights; new immigration rules on welfare benefits
and the use of biometric passports, finger printing and high rejection rate of
asylum applications (Morris 1998; Levy 1999; Rutter 2003; Refugee Council
2010). Owing to tighter immigration controls, acceptance of persons either
recognized as refugees, or hence granted asylum or who were instead granted
leave to remain increased during 1998 following the publication of the white
paper entitled ‘Fairer, Faster and Firmer – A Modern Approach to Immigration
and Asylum’ (National Statistics 2005). Several proposals contained in this
document were implemented, as there was no need for primary legislation.
Many people who applied for asylum prior to July 1993 and were still awaiting
an initial decision were granted settlement from 1999 under measures aimed
at reducing the asylum backlog. Decisions on applications made in the period
from July 1993 to December 1995 were also considered sympathetically.
142 Henry Kum

However, many people from new conflict zones like Bosnia-Herzegovina,

eastern Turkey, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Sierra Leone, Somalia, the Democratic
Republic of Congo, Angola, Iraq, Sri Lanka and Columbia kept on arriving in the
United Kingdom. During 1994–95, Kosovar Albanians and Algerians arrived in
great numbers and many were unaccompanied children. There were insufficient
hostels and temporary accommodation available in London, where most asylum
seekers lived. By 1997, significant numbers of asylum seekers were moved to
accommodation outside London, often to poor quality hostels in seaside towns
(Rutter et al. 2007). Some arrangements were also made with private property
owners whose homes were mostly located in deprived outer-city estates.
From the discussion above, the United Kingdom has experienced immigration
flows stretching from immigrant conquerors such as the Romans, Anglos, Saxons
and Vikings and, during the quest for colonies, the British Empire expanded to
include many other regions of the world (Cole et al. 2008). After the great world
wars and during the political changes in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe,
more people moved to Britain and the crisis in Iraq, Syria and Afghanistan have
continued to push refugee figures up. The complex immigration trends show a
complex mix of identities and cultures arriving the United Kingdom and Europe
and there was never any active political move to position these new arrivals as
active members of the communities. Their voices were eroded and consequently
their identities were compromised.

Refugees identities: dehumanization and rehumanization

Identity is a topic that has been dealt with in different forms including the discourse
on migration. Once refugeeness is discussed with identity, the issue arises of
‘hyphenated’ identity. Identity is significant on discourse about assimilation
and integration and this raises conflict within the concept of ‘structural versus
identificational integration’ as described by Lucassen (2005). While structural
integration can be measured more or less objectively by mapping social mobility,
school results, housing patterns and so on, identificational integration is
subjective and refers to the extent to which migrants and their offspring keep
on regarding themselves as primarily different and to the extent that they are
viewed as ‘primarily different by the rest of society’ (Tololyan et al. 2004: 2).
Theories of identity development propose specific stages, which children and
adolescents progress through. Phinney (1996), for example, suggests that earlier
stages known as stage one reflect a time when the identity in question is neither
 Refugee Communities 143

explored nor committed to (which he refers to as Diffusion), or stage two when is it

accepted on the basis of others’ opinions (Foreclosure). Some kind of discriminatory
life event may push the young person into the next stage known as Moratorium,
where exploration of, and immersion in, one’s ethnicity occurs. The final stage
is Identity Achievement, where the young person is clear and confident in his or
her identity, though this does not necessarily imply a high degree of involvement
with the ethnic group. A further stage is thought to be the most sophisticated, but
it is not necessary that all individuals will achieve a developmental progression
through the stages and research indicates that individuals can regress as well as
progress through the stages. Phinney’s model relates primarily to adolescence,
though other models are tailored to pre-adolescent childhood and emphasize
individual differences to a greater or lesser extent.
These developmental models allow critical examination of developing
identities, while the broader Social Identity Theory (Tajfel & Turner 1979) can
help when exploring the psychological (mental health, attitudes, beliefs) and
behavioural (actions directed at group members) consequences of identification.
This theoretical framework has the potential to understand the extent to
which group-level behaviour is emphasized as well as the type and strength of
identification that refugees report in relation to performance towards their self-
image in public spaces. For example, awareness of the practices and values of the
school, church, courts, hospitals, parks, shopping centres, school ethos, political
institutions, rights and responsibilities of the host community can affect the way
refugeeness is enacted.
With restricted voices, it becomes difficult to understand how to enact self in
public spaces in a new society where refugee rights are limited, contested and
mediatized. Individual identities become dormant in favour of group identities
as refugeeness becomes a homogenous label. I welcome Bakhtin’s (1984) theory
on identity, which is further explored by Kearney (2003; 2004). In the theory,
the complexity and dilemmas of crossing borders, geographically, politically and
psychologically, show how complex the process of negotiating identities can be.
Kearney (2003) looks at the complexity which is central to how humans maintain
‘a coherent, yet ever changing, sense of self identity. It is how this connects with
cultural heritage’. Goodman (1989) has written that the way we speak is an
emblem of who we are and if refugees do not negotiate the social and cultural
capitals of the host societies, voice becomes a symbolic gesture, at best unused
and at worst silent. As refugee identities become homogenized by the host
community, voice also becomes a privilege and not a right; it is controlled by the
host community and rationed out conditionally. If rationed out, refugees are told
144 Henry Kum

how to use this in the top down approach of policy and integration expectations.
Hill and Hessari (1990) reject this micro management of voice through identity
homogination. Through the lens of culture, they elaborate on the fact that cultures
are not as monolithic or homogenous as it is often assumed. For example, the
‘blanket label “Africa” embraces many nations, cultures, religions, and languages
and tries to impose a camouflaging, even patronising unity over a vast, diverse
land mass’ (Hill & Hessari 1990: 2). Kearney (2003) agrees with Hill and Hessari
(1990) by arguing that cultures are dynamic and changing especially as they
interact with histories, expectations and migration or conquest practices across
borders. So for host communities to be pre-deterministic of who should belong
to this boxed-in group-identity is to restrict the refugee voices; deny them the
same spaces that are needed to individualize their identities and deconstruct the
ascribed homogeneity believed to encompass them. To tell refugees who they
are rather than to allow them spaces to act out their identities is a continuation
of the erosion of their voices.
Subscription to the fluidity of identities (see postmodernist investigations of
identity in Hall 1996; Brah 2007) and its multifaceted nature, viewed as being
about belonging based on the recognitions of what is shared with some people
and what is different with others is very important to how refugee identities
are viewed. Vigouroux (2005: 254) carried out research with Francophone
Africans in Cape Town, South Africa, to understand how language practice
and identity repertoire are constructed among Francophone Black Africans in
Cape Town. He concludes by showing that modifications of any dimensions
of space can produce variations in language practice and lead to change in
identities. He found out that space influences language practice and attitudes
and that ‘territoriality’ indicates the way a speaker negotiates their position in a
space. According to Vigouroux, ‘ “[T]erritoriality” . . . thus provides a dynamic
and interactional frame for understanding how different layers of context are
interrelated and how they shape each other.’ This adds relevance to the need to
investigate the individual identities than grouping all refugees as a homogenous
group who think the same, all seeking safety, unable to return and can or should
claim benefits or do menial jobs. This imposes a normative value on all victims
of forced migration and only the negotiated spaces for refugee voices can
deconstruct this imposed normative value.
In the United Kingdom, government and community labels of the public
define the refugee according to imposed normative characteristics. In a top
down policy approach to refugee issues it is common to hear refugees referred
to as bogus asylum seeker, failed asylum seeker, NHS destroyer, benefit cheat,
 Refugee Communities 145

health tourist, absconder, overstayer among other denigrating identities.

Some right-wing media organs seek to criminalize refugee communities with
derogatory media captions like ‘How to destroy a nation’, ‘Destruction of a sense
of belonging’, ‘Asylum seekers hit jackpot’, ‘Africa – World’s begging bowl’, ‘The
right to discriminate’, ‘How to colonize Britain’, ‘Foreign Invader’, ‘Africans are
less intelligent than Westerners’ and so on (The Independent 2008). ‘Tabloid
Press stokes up racism against immigrants’ (Workers Power 2007). Such media
captions do have a damaging effect on self-esteem of refugees and offer a
stereotypical view of refugees by subverting a more accurate understanding of
who they are and why they are forced to flee their homelands (Cole & Virdee
2005; Fielden 2008). This has fuelled anti-refugee rhetoric from some members
of host communities who have emerged with anti-immigration ideologies within
the European Union, Australia and the United States motivated by fear that
immigration is out of control (UNHCR 1993; 1994). Such has been the reactions
of governments in Serbia, Hungary, Macedonia, Bosnia, Romania and recently
the United States of America concerning the acceptance and resettlement of
Syrian, Afghan, Iraqi refugees among others, who have arrived through various
borders. Therefore, in these spaces where refugees are talked about, talked down
and defined rather than talked with or listened to, there is no place for their
voices to counter such negative perceptions and provide a true picture of who
they are. Some case studies below will further explain the tensions of refugee
voicelessness and ascribed identities.

Case studies: public spaces and voicelessness

Coll (2001) in a study involving 308 Dominican, Cambodian and Portuguese

refugee parents in the United States, whose children were between the ages of 6
and 12, confirmed anecdotal complaints about parents’ lack of interest in their
children’s education. In the survey, immigrant parents overall reported a relatively
low level of involvement in a range of educational participation, including
meetings with teachers, setting rules about when to be home after school and
establishing a place in the house for homework. The survey established that pre-
immigration experiences with literacy and formal schooling, as well as aspects
of the receiving communities, all influenced the differences between ethnic
groups. As a result, the Portuguese who have been part of the immigration wave
of that part of United States since 1800s and have a well-established community
registered a higher participation rate compared to the other two immigrant
146 Henry Kum

groups. The immigrant groups included political immigrants (refugees) and

economic immigrants but the study illustrates considerations that are necessary
in creative active community groups including refugee community groups.
Coll’s (2001) study found that lack of participation was because refugee parents
felt that they were never listened to and that their opinions did not count even
when making decisions about their pre-exile conditions or about their children.
The schools always knew more than the refugees and handed down value-laden
judgements, which made refugee parents feel objectified rather than subjectified.
The absence of voice here in school spaces affected attainment and achievement
of refugee pupils.
In addition, McCollum (1996) and Bhachu (1985) explored the importance
of recognizing different cultures because of persistent migration. McCollum
(1996) researched with migrants in the United States and established that there
is a tendency for educators at all levels to complain about today’s refugee parents
whom they claim are the real source of children’s difficulties. In his research,
he concluded that refugee parents’ jobs, lack of understanding of policies, their
language difficulties and values are the weaknesses that need to be addressed for
effective communication, which can lead to effective social inclusion. The issues
that McCollum points out above account for why refugee voices are not visible.
In the same light, Bhachu (1985) looked at cultural conceptions of immigrant
parents in the United States where educators tend to believe that parents should
ideally be interventionists in their children’s learning. He added that middle-
class parents demonstrate that they value education and are concerned about
their children’s learning by attending meetings, volunteering for activities,
helping their children with homework and ensuring their children begin school
knowing their numbers and letters as preparation for school literacy instruction.
In this research, McCollum is celebrating what middle-class parents are doing
for their children’s education and he seems to implore refugee parents to do the
same. The middle-class normative values are imposed on refugee parents, who
do not have the social and cultural capital, have come from a different culture
and education system and may have linguistic issues. McCollum fails to create
spaces for policy dialogue where refugee parents will articulate their difficulties
and propose solutions for the right kind of support required. The author uses
middle-class voice to silence the refugee voices. While parents from diverse
cultural backgrounds may not demonstrate the expected degree of engagement
with the school according to whites or middle-class values from superior ethnic
groups and communities, they can show that they value and support their
children in other ways like ensuring their children’s regular school attendance.
 Refugee Communities 147

Writing on cultural transmission among Italian refugee families living

in Nottingham, Ganga (2004) interviewed thirty-five individuals from ten
three-generational families. She found that identity was developed through
a continuous exchange between the self and a variety of ‘others’ both within
and without the immigrant group. The physical invisibility of the group
played an important role in the identity building process. The importance of
her discussion on identity as a continuous exchange of the self and a variety
of others and the role played by religion shows the fluidity of identities across
religion, gender, cultural and social grounds. Identity is a continuous exchange,
a story that needs to be narrated. If refugees lose their voices and are not given
the spaces to articulate their perception of self, who they are and what they stand
for, they become instrumentalized as passive beneficiaries of the generosity of
Western governments. In Ganga’s research, the significance lies with how policy
recognizes this, rather than initiating identities to be fixed and placed into boxes
that can be ticked endlessly.
Ganga (2007: 45) writes about the family as a place where the older
generations work hard to keep Italian traditions and language alive; but that the
English school was the one site, unforeseen by the parents, where the children
of immigrants start to acquire that ‘hyphen’ in their identity, which will require
them to come to terms with some inexplicable or incoherent sides of their close
ones’ attitudes or behaviour, when in contact with the ‘others’. Ganga’s results
here show how this has become difficult to achieve because the refugee is the
silent recipient of the policy and discourse on integration, on multiculturalism
without having the space to actively contribute. Refugee’s voicelessness exposes
them to become victims of assimilation.
Hopkins (2007) interviewed young Muslim refugees who had become British
citizens living in Glasgow and Edinburgh about their feelings with respect
to their Scottish and Muslim identities. Hopkins’s informants used different
markers to identify their Scottishness; such as ‘place of birth, length of residence,
a commitment to place as well as upbringing and accent’; one of his informants
said: ‘Everything is Scottish about me . . . Yeah, I’m a practising Muslim, and
I practice Islam, but that doesn’t mean I’m not Scottish. I do all the things that
other Scottish people do. I play football, I go out.’ Another informant used the
imagery of a ‘blue square’, which formed the title of Hopkins’s paper, showing
how he feels that his Muslim identity and his Scottishness are intertwined:

I don’t think there’s a tension at all . . . I’m Scottish Muslim because I’m Scottish
and I was born in Scotland. So it’s my culture, it’s my background, it’s my home.
148 Henry Kum

Muslim is my goal. Being Muslim is my philosophy or my belief system. It

doesn’t contradict my nationality in any way because they deal with different
questions, you know. It’s like being a . . . blue square . . . A blue square, it’s blue
and it’s a square. Its being a square doesn’t interfere with it being blue. It’s being
blue doesn’t interfere with it being a square. (68)

Another of his informants, however, felt that others could never see him as
Scottish:

The first thing is my colour, and secondly my accent . . . thirdly if I was to

abandon my Muslim morals and things, yeah, and I was to become like totally
westernised, I still wouldn’t be accepted by you lot as I’ll still be seen as an
outsider, you know what I mean. It’s the same in Scotland; you’ve got to be white
to be Scottish. (72)

Hopkins raises the fact that the feelings of ‘otherness and difference’ can be either
‘enforced upon refugees through others or through personal choice’ and states that
‘being Scottish still has strong connections with whiteness, and either secularism
or other religions’ (73). I agree with Hopkins that ‘otherness and difference’ can
be ‘enforced through others’ but I disagree with his conclusion that ‘otherness’
can be enforced through personal choice. The refugees may choose to embrace
the identity of the host community but such a choice is irrelevant because
choice goes with rights. If they do not have the rights that nationals of the host
community enjoy, they cannot express the informed choice of belonging. They
may agree to belong but their hosts who deny them those rights may not consider
them as belonging. The last interviewee articulates this view and they do not
have the voice to articulate and enforce the desire to belong and enjoy the rights
of belonging. The process of migration undermines what Alheit and Dausien
(2002: 15) refer to as their ‘biographically acquired landscape of knowledge’ and
as the case studies above illustrate, refugees are forced to learn new behaviours,
understand new rules and adapt to new values and another type of social
organization. This is necessary in order to empower them with a voice capital
although this does not usually amount to that because of the contested rights of
refugees. Castel (2003), Lyn and Lea (2003), Bloch (2002) and Zetter (2007) agree
that much of these contested rights are related to the homogenous identification
of refugees which creates negative association and reinforced by political and
popular discourses, which represent refugees as a burden to an overstretched
welfare system, as a security threat and as a feared other threatening national
identity and social cohesion. These negative associations show the imbalance
between refugee care and their rights as a result of the erosion of their voices.
 Refugee Communities 149

Refugee voice, refugee care and refugee rights: worlds apart

Two related themes are discussed in this section as a response to contest popular
discourse on how human rights pattern refugee care. This section argues that
care is a right to people in need and if refugees are fleeing persecution, they are a
vulnerable community in need of care. The absence of voice reinforces a particular
contemporary problem, although not entirely new, of the degradation of the
idea of refugeeness. This in effect predicts the limits of care. The reconciliation
of justice and care as an inclusive impartial moral value can and needs to be
protected by the voices of the actors involved. Smith (1998) has argued that a
reconciliation of the tensions between the conflicting claims of justice and care
is important, if a sense of empathetic engagement is to have any implications for
the quality of collective social life of vulnerable or marginalized people in need.
As he explains, in many Western states the absence of such a sensibility creates
the stark marginalization and exclusion of many vulnerable groups, especially
refugees who depend on the very Western communities for care and protection.
Therefore, it is not difficult to see how the ethic of care that rejects the false
dichotomy between justice and care can have substantive implications for the
everyday lives of marginalized groups like refugees. Citing Barry (1995) and
O’Neill (1996), Smith argues that impartial justice and Gilligan-inspired care
can be reconciled in that they function at different orders or levels of moral
deliberation – there is a set of rules of justice at the general level, but there is also
room for care in shaping one’s life. Justice is about seeking supporting institutions
and policies that reject injury and suffering so that caring activities are enabled.
Can justice and care as rights of refugees be protected where they are rationed
out to refugees who have no say in what is handed down to them? We all need
care in life: a disabled person, a mentally ill person, a child, the elderly, a sick
person, a servant and even a master. Care goes with voice, which underpins
justice and rights. However, in the world today, refugee identities are devalued
and they are assimilated to function as victims without any social and political
spaces because they lack a voice to be heard and to articulate this persistent
injustice. That voice is absent in their personal circumstances, in political circles
where policies are adopted about them and in the media where host community
sentiments are whipped up against refugeeness in a far from objective manner
rendering them to be represented as victims only.
Tronto (1993) and Clement (1996) posit a similar response: in their writings,
justice is connected to care, solidarity, compassion and empathy. Both justice
and care, it is argued, are involved in how people live their lives. Both are about
150 Henry Kum

the inclusion of different perspectives on situations; justice cannot be reduced

to care and vice versa, for each is required for the other. Thus, justice connected
to care does not accept the status quo unquestioningly, but seeks progressive
change ‘on the basis of an enlarged and continuously enlarging moral sphere
that seeks to respect and engage the largest number of moral viewpoints possible’
(Gleeson and Kearns 2001). Recognition of value pluralism (Berlin 1990; 2002),
however, does not mean the abandonment of general principles or the rejection
of progressive policy change that has real effects on the inclusion of marginalized
groups (like refugees) in society. The fact that refugees on seeking sanctuary in
civilized communities where freedom of expression is a right are immediately
cramped into detention centres is seen by many as a rejection of their voice and
power. They are represented by legal practitioners who are devoid of compassion
about persecution and sometimes are often deported to the same countries
where wars and conflict are the persecuting forces. This is because their plight
lacks narrative spaces and their stories are either unheard or untold. The context
of expression requires an understanding of what it means to seek sanctuary and
also what it means to be at the mercy of the person who is listening.
Furthermore, a focus on care could provoke policy changes about the
justice of the treatment of refugees. In this way, care and justice are not seen as
competitors, but as allies in the formation of democratic and inclusive practices
and policies. As Clement (1996) asserts, care helps us recognize our justice
obligations to others (regardless of whether they are close or distant from us).
Thus, the capacity to empathize with others who suffer requires something more
than a simple focus on relationality (found in feminism and communitarian
discourses); it requires renewed political economies and institutional
arrangements grounded in justice. This is to advocate a concept and practice of
an enlarged and constantly enlarging justice through the reconceptualization
of an ethic of care. An ethic of care, then, expands the consideration of justice
obligations to others, a process that produces new and unexpected moral
imaginaries of ‘caring communities’ (Gleeson & Kearns 2001). This should form
the pinnacle of democratic citizenship as an instrument of care. In addition,
democratic citizenship functions better with the expansion of justice to
recognize those who are the ‘others’, those who are not privileged to be ‘us’ and
coming from societies that devalues their right to democratic expression of self
through voice. It involves accepting that refugees are different but in need of the
same values that sustain our thinking of freedom and liberty as instruments of
justice. It requires negotiating their care and caring with them rather than caring
for them in a top down approach where their voices are stifled.
 Refugee Communities 151

In another development, in exploring the relational aspects of care and the

question of how far we should care, Sevenhuijsen (1998; 2000) examines the
ethic of care as a principle of modern citizenship and suggests that care can
be seen as providing a more universalistic set of ethical principles for public
life rather than being defined as intensely personal. Thus, drawing together
different strands of the ethics of care, a new remoralization of care, that is,
care as an inclusive moral issue (Kabeer 2005) is utilized in conjunction with
notions of caring as a humanitarian practice (Sevenhuijsen 2000; Tronto
2001). This reconceptualization highlights the right of each citizen to be able
to give and receive care. More specifically, Knijn and Kremer (1997) argue that
citizenship should be reconceptualized so that every citizen will be a caregiver
sometime in their life: all human beings were dependent on care when they
were young, and will need care when they are ill, handicapped, frail or old.
Care is thus not a women’s issue but a moral humanitarian issue. Although
this approach to caring as a humanitarian practice is clearly contextualized
within the boundaries of modern nation-states and citizenship which reflects
winners and losers in the political game (Tronto 2001), there is no reason
why human beings should be responsible (as caregivers) only to those with
whom we share citizenship rights (or have shared understandings). There is
no need why ‘the other’ should be stripped of the power of their voice and
have care rationed out to them in measurable proportions because they are the
‘other’. If this is not checked, care ceases to be a humanitarian moral issue and
polarises the societies, between those who have the right to care (us) and those
who should be deprived of care (refugees). It becomes an antipodal society of
‘them’ and us’, which contrasts with justice and democratic citizenship and
inclusivity. And to break the stigma of ‘us’ versus ‘them’, the others need to be
empowered by listening to them, acknowledging their humanity and sense of
social and cultural identities and providing them with the right democratic
spaces to belong, to be heard and to regain a sense of worth which has been
lost through flight.
Both Knijn and Kremer’s as well as Tronto’s accounts do not unseat the image
of the citizen within classical definitions of citizenship in modern nation states.
However, Kershaw (2005) argues that human rights are above any responsibility
connected to citizenship rights, the point being that those to whom one may
be accountable (morally or legally) need not be members of one’s own legal
community. So Western states need not only care for their citizens but also
those in need like refugees and this comes across as a fundamental human
principle. That right to expression needs to be challenged by deconstructing and
152 Henry Kum

challenging right-wing, mediatized anti-refugee discourse and giving them the

voice to display the values inherent in their respective identities.
Morris (2001) also makes an appeal for an inclusive ethics of care built on the
concept of human rights. As she writes:

We need an ethics of care which is based on the principle that to deny the
human rights of our fellow human beings is to deny our own humanity . . . Most
importantly we need an ethics of care which, while starting from the position
that everyone has the same human rights, also recognizes the additional
requirements that some people have in order to access those human rights. (15)

Clearly, such an ethics of care differs from the ethics of care proposed by
feminist moral philosophers working in the tradition of Gilligan, Noddings and
Tronto. For Morris, an ethic of care is a measure of justice based on access to care
as a human right. The political recognition of caring – that is, the practice of caring
as political citizenship (see also Kershaw 2005) – raises the issue of rethinking the
meaning(s) of the politics of care. For instance, caring as a democratic practice
forms the basis for an approach that rejects the discrimination of individuals
(refugees and others) by those in authority (policymakers, immigration officers,
etc.) on grounds of their ethnicity. This approach creates openings for a public
dialogue that recognizes the visible labour contributions that refugees make
to the prosperity of many American, Australian, Canadian and European
countries, as opposed to the lack of rights and recognition accorded to them
by the state (Fortier 2005; Zembylas 2010). An active political discussion about
the changing nature of care opens up a number of possibilities within which to
develop renewed institutional policies and practices concerning immigration.
Refugees may not even have the required capitals to recognize where their voices
could be articulated and by not recognizing this difference, host communities
and governments are turning a blind eye by compromising the spaces necessary
for self-expression. By not recognizing the handicaps refugees face at the level
of language, difference in education, cultural practices, gender interpretations
among others, policymakers cannot develop the right policies to empower
refugee voices. The ability to recognize that refugees may have additional
requirements to access rights in a specific country means that governments
can help to identify mechanisms that enhance those additional requirements
as enablers for refugee voices. There is a difference between equality and equity.
While equality requires everybody to be provided equal opportunities and
a level playing field to function, equity recognizes that those with additional
needs require more resources proportionate to their needs in order to enable
 Refugee Communities 153

them to fulfil their potentials. In addition, a look at the torture, suffering and
unsafe cross-border corridors that refugees negotiate to reach safety, added to
interrupted education, work and family life, strengthens the case that they have
additional requirements to access rights in receiving communities. They need
the spaces to articulate what those additional needs are.
Most industrialized countries seems to make an effort in the direction of Geras
(1995) and Corbridge (1993) who invite humans to empathize with one another
especially those who are disadvantaged like refugees. And as Singer (1995: 222)
earlier suggested, ‘[W]e can see that our own sufferings and pleasures are very
like the sufferings and pleasures of others, and that there is no reason to give
less consideration to the sufferings of others, because they are others.’ Tronto
(1993; 2001) sustains this line of reasoning further by stating that care should
be institutionalized because a right to care (like all welfare rights) is linked to
social responsibility and not only to individual duty. In addition, the right to
be heard, the right to a voice and the right to self-expression are all parts of
the social responsibility that must be supervised by every government worthy
of a democratic culture. The lived experiences of refugees, their experiences of
integration in the host communities, whether good or bad, need to be articulated
for effective integration and social policies.
These authors all agree on care as inseparable from human nature and this
leads to the conclusion that the politics of care could provide useful guidance
on how humans, countries and political blocs like the EU could interrogate their
policies and approach to refugee crisis. Cohen et al. (2000: 40) consider ‘research
as a tool for advancing knowledge, promoting progress and enabling humans
to relate more effectively to their environment, accomplish their purposes and
resolve conflicts’. An interrogation of the policy context of the United Kingdom,
EU and all democratic societies on refugee voices provides a platform for further
political debates on how to relate to the ever-increasing refugee crisis affecting
Europe and the world.

Conclusion

The voices of forced migrants, exiles and refugees are rarely heard in most contexts,
except to reinforce their passivity, vulnerability and ‘neediness’ as humanitarian
aid recipients in an undefined space between nation-states. This chapter, through
a historical snapshot of immigration into the United Kingdom and refugee
crisis, indicates that immigration is as old as human civilization. In addition, the
154 Henry Kum

perennial problem of fleeing migrants has remained that of the disappearance of

voice. Through a series of case studies, the chapter draws from different research
projects in many parts of the world to show the effect of the absence of refugee
voice on the construction of identities and on the interpretation of self. The
competing tensions surrounding refugees are determined by people outside their
voices concerning what they would have been known to represent if they had
voice. One should posit the argument that the care refugees receive is related to
the disappeared voices that should represent them. In order to elaborate on this
argument, I delve into the philosophical and theoretical underpinning of the ethic
of care with Kantian moral philosophy and in the context of rights, justice and
democratic citizenship. This discussion helps to explain why refugee voices or
expressions of the displaced and dispossessed are crucially necessary as a means
of understanding the effects of displacement in terms other than those of the
nation-state. The frequently silenced voices of refugees who exhibit adaptability,
resilience, longing and resistance in the grey zones and borderlands between states
and state bureaucracies are challenged in this chapter as instruments promoted
by anti-immigration rhetoric from some right-wing politicians and media houses
that work against them. This denigrates the care that refugees receive.
The chapter concludes with the need not only for articulation but also for
dialogue/conversation; the difference between having voice and being heard –
soliciting refugees’ voices is one dimension, but genuinely listening to what
those voices say is a much deeper phenomenological process. It is recognized
that dominant discourses marginalize or even exclude refugee experiences and
often as ‘the other’. The discussion here acknowledges that the vulnerability of
refugees is a key factor in understanding how readily they are excluded from
or integrated into dominant narratives. The willingness of state authorities to
promote specific refugee narratives raises important questions about the means
by which refugee voices can be heard. The refugee voices that can be likely
heard are those that celebrate the generosity of the host countries as welcoming
to desperate forced migrants in search of sanctuary. Nevertheless, the actual
accounts of the exclusionary realities, racism and discrimination that refugees
go through as they try to forge a sense of individual and collective identity are
silenced. Speech and action are fundamental dimensions of the human condition
and distinguish us from other animals. If we are deprived of the opportunity to
speak and act, and to engage with other human beings on a basis of equality, we
are denied an essential aspect of our humanity.
When someone’s speech and action are not recognized, s/he is treated and
judged, not according to who s/he is (through his or her words and deeds),
 Refugee Communities 155

but according to his or her membership in a category. This refusal to recognize

someone’s individuality is a refusal to recognize a fundamental aspect of his or
her humanity and is profoundly dehumanizing. When Arendt (1958) speaks
of the individual, it is not the preexisting abstract autonomous individual of
Enlightenment thought, upon which modern politics is based, but rather, she
is referring to an ontologically intersubjective and interdependent individual.
The self for Arendt is the self of a human community that is formed through
and cannot exist without interacting in the world. The power of speech and
action is not only a capacity for self-revelation, consisting of the disclosure of
a pre-formed and complete self to a waiting world, but is simultaneously self-
constituting. Humanity is fundamentally plural, and plurality is an inescapable
and a desirable dimension of humanity. Refugees who have remained passive
actors in the political games of governments and the media are recognized in this
chapter as social actors who can also become narrating subjects; who challenge
portrayals of refugees as passive, vulnerable, needy victims or threatening
outsiders and whose accounts refer to personal, lived and first-hand experiences
of persecution, displacement and exile. The chapter argues by appealing to host
governments to provide active public spaces for ‘speaking refugees’ rather than
maintaining the status quo of ‘listening refugees’.

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 8

Subalternity, Language and Projects of

Emancipation: An Analysis of Dalit Literature
Joseph Mundananikkal Thomas

Introduction

This chapter is essentially an analysis of what has come to be known as ‘Dalit

Literature’ (Dalit Sahitya, in Marathi and other Indian languages). The authors
of such literature are people belonging to communities designated as dalit by the
protagonists themselves. ‘Dalit’ as a term takes its meaning from the context of
stratification of society in large parts of the Indian subcontinent, namely, caste.
Caste has been the predominant system of social stratification prevalent in India
for many years. The term ‘caste’ refers to two separate but interrelated concepts
such as varna and jati. Jati refers to particular bounded communities in local
areas which are largely endogamous with their own notions of commensality
within themselves and with other jatis. It provides the most basic communitarian
identity to most Indian citizens.
Varna, however, refers to the pan Indian scheme for categorization of jatis
into five broad categories. Among these the first four categories are termed
the chaturvarna (four groups) which consist of the categories of Brahman
(traditionally the priestly class), Kshatriya (the warrior class), Vaishya (the
trader class) and Shudra (the menial class). In addition to these categories, there
is a fifth category which does not have a fixed name. This category consists of the
people outside the fourfold division mentioned above. In a specific sense dalits
(along with tribals) are traditionally categorized as the fifth category (panchma).
This implies that people belonging to dalit jatis are outside the very organization
of the caste structure. Because of this they have been called ‘out castes’.
Jatis designated as dalits have been subjected to various forms of
discrimination and civil disabilities and exclusions. In the traditional structure
162 Joseph Mundananikkal Thomas

of Indian villages, their dwellings were outside the main village where people
of other jatis dwelt. They have been ‘outcastes’ in such a geographical sense as
well. Disabilities such as prohibition in the use of public wells, public roads
and temples were in full force in many parts of India. Though there have been
significant changes in these practices of exclusion over the years, especially after
independence from the British, many of such practices still remain entrenched
across the length and breadth of India.
Due to the prohibitions imposed on them in the traditional caste order, they
have been called ‘untouchables’. During the colonial period, the term ‘depressed
classes’ was used to include dalits. From the year 1935, ever since the government
of India commenced the practice of making a schedule of all the jatis who are
categorized into the fifth category, another term originated, that of ‘scheduled
castes’. The legal and administrative term in vogue in contemporary India is
‘scheduled castes’.
At the height of the movement for freedom from the British, Mohandas
Karamchand Gandhi (Mahatma Gandhi) had initiated many movements in
several parts of India for the removal of untouchability as a practice. To bring
about a semantic transformation in the term used to refer to the untouchables, he
coined the word harijan (literally ‘people of God’). Article 17 of the Constitutions
of India refers to the abolition of untouchability and related practices. Eventually
untouchability as a practice was constitutionally banned by the Indian State
through an Act of the Indian Parliament in the year 1955. Taking cognizance
of extreme forms of atrocities unleashed on dalit communities, the Indian
Parliament enacted ‘The Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of
Atrocities) Act’ in the year 1989. The government of India has also put in place
measures of compensatory discrimination known as ‘reservations’ by making
specific provisions for the dalits (along with tribals and other social groups who
are victims of backwardness) in terms of certain percentage of reservation in
employment and seats in educational institutions in the public sector. Despite
these provisions, practices of exclusion still persist in different parts of India. In
some areas they have metamorphosed into newer forms of discrimination.
At a basic level endogamous jatis remain the bedrock of social organization as
well as identity in India’s villages. Though there is marked diversity and mobility
in the urban areas, in many ways one can notice an extension of jati identities
and practices of exclusion and discrimination. On the psychological level, the
jati becomes a major component of one’s sense of self. For those belonging to
the dalit jatis this would translate itself into an internalized sense of disability
buttressed by the experience of victimhood through generations.
 Subalternity, Language and Projects of Emancipation 163

From a sociocultural point of view, dalit literature takes its inspiration from
the earlier writings of people from a dalit location and from the writings and
politics of leaders from the movements against Brahmanism1 as an ideology.
The most significant of such movements was initiated by Dr Bhimrao Ramji
Ambedkar2 (1891–1956) who gathered inspiration from earlier leaders,
particularly Jotirao Phule.3 Ambedkar belonged to the Mahar jati, one of the
preeminent untouchable jatis in the state of Maharashtra. At every phase of
life, he was subjected to various practices of exclusion and ill-treatment at the
hands of people belonging to higher castes. He articulated coherently hitherto
one of the most powerful critical treatises on the caste system, epitomized in
his Annihilation of Caste, the text of a lecture which he was to have delivered at
Lahore in the year 1935. In that treatise he made a pointed argument saying that
the entire architecture of caste stands on the sanction given by Hindu religious
texts. Therefore, one cannot imagine a reversal unless the religious texts are
questioned and challenged. In effect, his argument pointed to the idea that exit
from caste system is possible only by destroying its very foundation, that is, the
religious scriptures.
This treatise of Ambedkar followed his attempts at reform of the caste order.
From 1925 ce onwards, he led many movements for the emancipation of dalits
such as temple entry movements, movements towards access to water from public
wells and prevention of other instances of civic discrimination. His efforts met
with stiff and vehement resistance from the high caste Hindus. Consequently in
the year 1935 he made a declaration that he was born a Hindu of which he had no
choice but would not die a Hindu as he has a possibility of choice on the matter.
From then, his efforts were geared towards the possibility of conversion for him
as for other dalit jatis in India to another religion. His efforts materialized into
the conversion event of 14 October 1956 when Dr Ambedkar, along with his wife
and around 4,00,000 people, mostly dalits, converted to Buddhism at Nagpur,
Maharashtra, in the presence of Mahasthavir Chandramuni, the seniormost
Buddhist monk in India at that time. This gave rise to the growth of a distinct
religious identity for dalits, namely, Buddhism which is today referred to in
popular parlance as Neo-Buddhism or Navayana Buddhism.4
Over the years, even though conversion to Buddhism has been largely confined
to those who belonged to the Mahar jati, it inaugurated a template open to all
dalit jatis to emulate. Subsequently, instances of dalit communities in different
parts of India converting to Buddhism have occurred in recent years. However,
the most potent transformation associated with Babasaheb Ambedkar is the way
he has become the preeminent icon for dalit emancipation across India. He has
164 Joseph Mundananikkal Thomas

come to symbolize the most powerful of sentiments towards dalit assertion and
has become the central axis on which projects of dalit emancipation are foisted.
His persona is combined on the one hand with his status as the architect of the
Constitution of India as well as his contributions as a statesman par excellence
and on the other with his iconic struggle and contribution towards emancipation
of dalits. References of him abound in dalit literature.

Dalit literature

Historically, dalit literature5 grew as a distinct genre of Marathi literature comprising

of works of poetry, plays, short stories, life-stories, folk songs and novels, and got
wide acceptance for its specificity.6 It is a literary-cultural movement, promoting
the growth of a composite dalit identity. The dalit ‘littérateurs’ perceived a close
connection between literature and the society at large. Their initial revolt against
mainstream Marathi literature represented a rejection of the social order from
which that literature originated. ‘They considered it their duty to expose the actual
conditions of Indian society, to shatter the complacent illusion of middle-class
Hindus, and to reveal the empty façade which scarcely concealed the unrealised
dreams and broken promises of Indian Independence’ (Gokhale 1993: 311).
The predominant theme of dalit literature is the break with the past and the
transformed sociocultural situation of the dalits. They engage with the horrors of
the past and the promise of the present. Social justice and the transformation of
society resound as important themes in some of the dalit writings. Dalit literature
took upon itself to show the ugly face of varna ideology. A major portion of dalit
literature thus ‘was devoted to scathing denunciations of Hinduism, derision
directed at Hindu gods and goddesses, contempt for its irrationality and
superstitions, and hatred for its principle of caste. The language used was often
deliberately provocative, blasphemous, and even obscene, designed to flaunt
their rebellion and shock the orthodox’ (Gokhale 1993: 312).
At the same time dalit literature contains strands that portray sentiments
of ‘comportment’.7 Dalit writing revolutionized Marathi literature with down-
to-earth phrases and language which mirrored the stark reality of lower caste
existence in the villages and cities of Maharashtra. The city, especially Bombay, is
represented in dalit literature as both a locale of possibilities and a site of squalor
and struggle. The poems and short stories penned by dalit writers gave vivid
details about dalit life-worlds, ranging from the deprived sections of urban dalit
populace of the slums to the world of the dalits working in offices in Bombay.
 Subalternity, Language and Projects of Emancipation 165

Dalit literature found a niche for itself in the wider domain of Marathi
literature.

As early as 1970, Dalit literature was accorded a place in the Marathi Sahitya
Sammelan (Marathi Literary Conference), with a panel discussion on the
subject. Dalit works are regularly reviewed in Marathi newspapers as well as
in English language publications. With the Ford Foundation awards that Daya
Pawar and Laxman Mane received, international recognition was also conferred
on Dalit literature. Thus the movement has been able to acquire a stature as
a serious literary-cultural form at the same time that its creators are accorded
recognition as arbiters of literary-cultural values which is an unprecedented
event in Indian cultural history. (Gokhale 1993: 328)

Since 1950 there have been various dalit literary organizations. The literary
journal called Asmitaadarsh has remained a prominent forum for the publication
of dalit literary works. Of late numerous publishing houses are springing up
among the Buddhists of Maharashtra.
At one level, dalit literature is steeped in notions attributable to European
Modernity. There is an emphasis on scientific outlook, rationality and a concern
with pedagogy of the masses. Dalit literature is equally about the dalit life-world
and its attended complexities and plural ways of engagement.8 Here too, one can
notice the tension between the idiom of the universal and that of the particular. For
example, one of the points of debate among the dalit writers was on the focus of
their writing. While one group argued that they need to address the larger domain
of the dalits, another group wanted a specific Buddhist literature.9 A majority of
dalit writers are Buddhists10 and the Buddhist theme like sentiments of devotion
towards Babasaheb and the Buddha abound in some of their writings.11
Among works specifically belonging to a Buddhist idiom, there are popular
songs that ‘deify’ both the Buddha and Babasaheb. These are found mostly in
the pamphlets distributed at the sites of importance to the Buddhists. In her
study of the songs of the Buddhists from Vidharbha region of Maharashtra, I. Y.
Junghare (1988) writes of the various images of Babasaheb that are portrayed.
She talks about two processes that are evident in those songs: a process of
‘ascension’ by which Babasaheb is raised to a level akin to that of the divine and
the process of ‘descent’ which positions Babasaheb like an ‘avatar’ (94). She has
also demonstrated that folk poetry such as the palna12 and the ovi13 also engage
with the theme of the heroism of the Buddha and Babasaheb.
T. J. Gajarawala (2013) places dalit literature in the larger context of writings
of social realism. She argues that as a protest literature, it shows remarkable
166 Joseph Mundananikkal Thomas

continuity with literature of social realism both in European and Indian

languages. ‘Despite its oppositional and exclusionary stance, however, dalit
literature has been irrevocably shaped, and indeed produced, by the critique
of the very non-dalit sphere it excoriates. These upper-caste literary forms
function as oppositional parameters, in dialectical fashion; dalit literature
should therefore be read as constructing an antigenealogy’ (4). Basing herself
largely on developments of dalit literature in Hindi language, Laura Brueck
(2014: 21) suggests that it represents ‘cultural performance’ representing the
emergence of a counter public which seeks to forge into a larger canvas of the
‘dalit’ all the marginalized communities privileging their life-world and their
experiences. One may characterize dalit literature as an expression of ‘subaltern
counterpublic’.14 The works of dalit writers need to be read as negotiations on
defining the contours of the counterpublic with claims of authentic experiences
of life which were hitherto represented largely by the non-dalit writers.
What follows is a more detailed analysis of the themes related to dalit
literature.

Dalit

The term ‘dalit’ (originally from Marathi language) literally means ‘broken’.15
Today in academic circles this term is used in a specific sense to refer to
communities that were formerly called as ‘untouchables’ and ‘depressed classes’.
In some ways the word ‘dalit’ corresponds to another technical term currently
in vogue in India, namely, ‘scheduled castes’.16 In addition to this, the term ‘dalit’
has also been employed by different people to refer to all the communities and
groups who are marginalized or ‘subaltern’ as victims of the hegemonic social
structure. There has been a move on the part of some political parties and
movements to employ the term in conjunction with ‘bahujan’ (literally, diverse
peoples) to refer to all the marginalized and subaltern groups. There are also a
few communities in India who are in the category of scheduled caste but have
expressed the view that they don’t want to be referred to as ‘dalit’ as it refers
to a state of victimhood. The term was popularized by the Dalit Panthers, a
movement of dalit revolutionaries in the city of Mumbai which originated in the
year 1972 and was modelled on the Black Panthers movement.
However, it is argued by academics and activists alike that the term ‘dalit’
holds within it a dual focus: a focus on subalternity as in brokenness as well
as a focus on awakening from the state of brokenness. The term takes its
 Subalternity, Language and Projects of Emancipation 167

semiotic accent from the social movements of dalits across India, particularly
in Maharashtra. Commenting on this connection, P. Constable (1997) argues
that the present power of dalit literature needs to be understood in the context
of the historical movements of dalits, particularly the Mahars17 of Maharashtra.
He situates the setting that inspired dalit consciousness in the latter half of the
nineteenth century in Maharashtra to the work of Gopal Baba Valangkar18 and
the organization that he gave shape to, namely, Anarya Dosh Pariharik Mandal
(Association for the solution of the disabilities of non-Aryans).

Dalit subalternity

The term ‘subaltern’ gained currency in its relation to postcolonial literature.

The subaltern came to be understood in terms of colonialism and its histories
of erasure. The Subaltern Studies Collective brought to the fore a corpus of
literature which sought to interrogate the moments of erasure and let the
subaltern speak. While the dominant canvas on which subalternity is imagined
is that of colonialism, the canvas on which dalitness is imagined is that of caste
and its ramifications, particularly the lived experience of inclusion by exclusion
which defines the dalit subject. Dalit settlements are outside the boundaries of
villages. Dalits in that sense become the other of all that non-dalits are. Dalit is
part of the wider society, and yet his/her being part of the society is by being
outside of it, by being the other. This is the subalternity of dalitness which gets
reflected in the writings of dalits. ‘The dalit’s subaltern status is inherited from
birth and sanctioned by sacred authority. It is eternal and unalterable’ (Alok
Mukherjee in Limbale 2004: 3).
From a historical point of view, dalit subalternity has had a dual pronged
engagement with colonial rulers. On the one hand, they recognized the violence
of the colonizers and made common cause with anti-colonial struggles but
at the same time, they engaged with colonial regimes in order to enlist their
help in ameliorating the tyranny of caste. Dalit subalternity positions itself at
the intersection of particularity and representation. It privileges the particular
experience of the dalit subject whose experience is singularly carved out and
explicated. At the same time, the experience of one subject is pictured as
representing the generalized dalit experience where, in the term, dalit stands for
its most extended and plural of meanings, enveloping the range of subalternity
occasioned by structures of caste, class, the non-indigenous as against the
indigenous and patriarchy.
168 Joseph Mundananikkal Thomas

Dalit literature as subaltern writing

Dalit literature (Dalit Sahitya in Marathi) is used to refer to the corpus of writings
of dalits with particular focus on the dalit life-world. The writings of the dalits are
full of vivid descriptions of the settings, the villages and the slums along with the
narratives of experiences filled with comportment. They grasp the reader with
counter narratives of powerlessness, victimhood as well as stories of aspiration
and assertion. The genre spans into various forms such as life narratives,19
biographies, poems, short stories, novellas, novels and drama. It celebrates
the vivacity of the dalit life-world. As mastery of the English language was not
accessible to the dalits due to various reasons, both structural and situational,
their writings have been largely in the regional languages containing therein
particularity of both form and content, language and experience. Arjun Dangle,
one of the earlier dalit writers, has this to say of dalit literature: ‘Dalit literature
is not simply literature . . . dalit literature is associated with a movement to bring
about change . . . At the very first glance, it will be strongly evident that there
is no established critical theory or point of view behind them [dalit writings];
instead, there is new thinking and a new point of view’ (quoted in Limbale
2004: 2). Essentially dalit literature is literature of protest rooted in anti-caste
politics propelled by a clear sense of dalit consciousness. Initially the writings of
the dalits were not accorded the status of literature as the latter term was used
exclusively for elitist writings. Gradually as the popularity of the writings by the
dalits grew, there was increasing recognition. At the present time, the writings of
the dalits are not only acknowledged as literature but they are also widely read
by the literary public. Celebrated publishing houses are today concentrating on
publishing English translation of the works of dalit writers from many of the
Indian languages. Speciality publishing houses concentrating particularly on
dalit literature have also sprung up.20 The popularity of dalit literature in the
Indian subcontinent can also be gauged by the invitation extended regularly to
dalit writers for participation in the iconic Jaipur Literary Festival year after year.

Theorizing dalit literature

Though his writings are necessarily read in the genre of postcolonial literature,
some concepts developed by Homi Bhabha (1994) come handy in making sense
of dalit literature. For instance, dalit literature can be located in the domain
of ‘cultural difference’ that Homi Bhabha refers to in his works. In the way it
 Subalternity, Language and Projects of Emancipation 169

has marked a niche for itself in opposition to what has been hitherto certified
as literature of the high culture, dalit literature consciously positions itself at
the ‘ambivalence of cultural authority’. Bhabha calls this act as the moment of
enunciation or the third space of enunciation wherein the traditional forms of
authorized cultural production are put through a process of interrogation by the
emerging new forms of cultural resistance. Or rather, dalit literature represents
‘the disruptive temporality of enunciation’ because it problematizes the unitary
renderings of nation produced by the hegemonic discourses of nationality and
nationhood in postcolonial India.
As Homi Bhabha argues rebellion, mobilization and resistance can be the
most poignant when they are enunciated in cultural production, in the form
of what he calls ‘discursive temporality’ and ‘negotiation’. Negotiation is a term
that Bhabha (1994: 26) uses to refer to forms of political ‘iteration’ which seek
to name oppositional elements without being subsumed into the rationality of
transcendence. The ‘other’ represents itself, not in essentialized binaries but in
hybrid renderings wherein the poignancy of otherness laced with interrogations
of socio-political circumstances makes itself heard in cultural production that
can be singled out for its authenticity of experience.
Dalit literature can be situated in the ‘in-between’ spaces (interstitial
perspectives) that Homi Bhabha refers to. For him these are liminal spaces
located between the narratives of the ‘originary’ subjectivities on the one hand
and the moments of the articulation of cultural difference on the other. It is
within these in-between spaces that new senses of the self become possible with
new strategies for selfhood aligned with modes of collaboration and contestation
leading to novel ideas about society itself. Such articulations constitute ongoing
processes of negotiation with dominant and other subaltern cultures. Dalit
literature in that sense can be placed as part of the project of a reconstruction
of society itself. ‘Social differences are not simply given to experience through
an already authenticated cultural tradition; they are the signs of the emergence
of community envisaged as a project – at once a vision and a construction –
that takes you “beyond” yourself in order to return, in a spirit of revision and
reconstruction, to the political conditions of the present’ (Bhabha 1994: 3). For
Bhabha, such art of reconstruction engages with time in novel ways. It forges a
new relationship between the past and the present wherein the past is configured
as an ‘in-between’ space that ‘innovates’ and ‘interrupts’ the performance of the
present (7). In the case of dalit literature, there is this imagining of the new
present with its possibilities of emancipated subjectivities, which make sense in
relation to the bondages of the past.
170 Joseph Mundananikkal Thomas

The social realism that reverberates in the writings of dalits is akin to ‘the
affective experience of social marginality’ that Bhabha (1994: 172) talks about
and which ‘forces us to . . . engage with culture as an uneven, incomplete
production of meaning and value, often composed of incommensurable demand
and practices, produced in the act of social survival’.

Thematic presentation of selections from dalit literature

Rejection of Brahmanism and Manusmriti

Generally, dalit literature gives painful details of dalit lives and engages in a
questioning of the social structure that sanctions violence against them at all
levels. The hegemonic ideology of Brahmanism represented by texts such as the
Manusmriti (The Code of Manu) is castigated in the most virulent language by
the dalits. Brahmanism broadly refers to the corpus of ideas, legal codes and
systems of practice that legitimizes discrimination on the basis on caste. The term
takes its origin from the word ‘Brahman’ which denotes the caste legitimized
as highest of all castes in the hierarchy of castes. Manusmriti is a code of law
which contains modes and sanctions related to inter-caste living and contact.
As a text which legitimized the most inhuman of the oppressions that dalits
have endured over generations in India, Manusmriti has come in for particular
opposition not only in the writings of the dalits but also within the larger dalit
movement. One of the high points of the movement for emancipation of dalits
spearheaded by Babasaheb Dr B. R. Ambedkar was at the event in which he
and his followers burned the pages of the Manusmriti, which had come in for
severe criticism even before Dr Ambedkar. For instance, Kondaji Ramji known
as Pandit Kondiram, a dalit had written a poem and added it to the famous
petition submitted to the British by Valangkar in the year 1894 ce. In this poem
Kondiram singled out Manusmriti as the text that sanctioned the indignity of
the Mahars and argued for an escape from the Hindu caste order through the
means of bhakti21 to personalized deities. Among the various verses that make
up the poem, he writes of the condition of the Mahars, ‘[L]ive in a hut which you
must build outside the village! That is what the Brahmans write in this books’
(Constable 1997: 320).
Eleanor Zelliot (1996: 283) presents in translation a selection of short
couplets from dalit writers who have commented on Manu (‘the Brahmanical
law-giver’):
 Subalternity, Language and Projects of Emancipation 171

(a) A couplet by dalit poet Waman Nimbalkar:

O heirs of Manu! For millennia we have watched our own
naked evening. In half a dozen huts on the village
boundary our countless bodies have been burning, set afire by your feeble
thoughts.

Through these lines, Nimbalkar seeks to portray the existential condition of the
dalit subject whose dwellings are outside the boundaries of the main village and
whose bodies are bearing the brunt of caste oppression sanctioned by the text of
Manu (Manusmriti).

(b) By Shashikant Lokhande:

When you try to heat the bread of your sweat or pull up
the lungoti (loin cloth) of your pain they slash at your buttocks,
your breast, your hand, they bind on your neck the
burden of Manusmriti

Here dalit poet Lokhande alludes to instrumental use of violence by the upper
castes that keep the caste system in place where the dalit becomes the principal
victim.

(c) By Daya Pawar:

By the mixture of our blood
Manu’s wall will be demolished brick by brick.

Daya Pawar is one of the most popular dalit writers. In this couplet he expresses
the general theme that runs through dalit writings: the assertion of resolve to
break the system legitimized by the code of Manu.

Engagement with bhakti tradition

Gopal Baba Valangkar at the turn of the twentieth century advocated bhakti
as a way for dalits to take the shackles of untouchability off their shoulders. He
was himself devoted to the bhakti tradition of the Ramanandi sect. He found
doctrinal justification for the ignominy of untouchability in the vedas and other
Hindu texts and put forward bhakti as a way out of the quagmire. He pointed
out that in the bhakti tradition, what matters is one’s inner purity and not the
ritual status given by the custodians of the structures of society. He also singled
out the maxim of equality that reverberated in the works of the bhakti saints. The
172 Joseph Mundananikkal Thomas

name of Chokhamela, the bhakti saint who is said to have belonged to the Mahar
jati was pointed out by Valangkar as an example of egalitarianism that reigns in
the bhakti tradition. The persona of Chokhamela is again invoked by other dalit
writers over the years in a clear indication of the dalit connection with the bhakti
tradition.
One can notice strong traces of protest in some of the verses (abhangas) of
Chokhamela. For instance, one verse reads thus:

In the beginning,
at the end
there is nothing but pollution.
No one knows anyone who is born pure.
Chokha says, in wonder,
who is pure? (Zelliot 1996: 270)

Chokhamela is revered as a saint-poet of the particular bhakti tradition popular

in the state of Maharashtra called the varkari sampradaya. While the other bhakti
saints of the tradition belonged to higher castes, predominantly the Brahman
varna, Chokhamela is said to have belonged to the untouchable jati of Mahar.
Even as a saint in the tradition of bhakti, there is no question of erasure of his
caste status. The above mentioned lines echo his lament as an untouchable who
is stigmatized as impure. He asks in a philosophical sense whether there is any
human being in the world who is actually born pure.

Centrality of Babasaheb Dr B. R. Ambedkar

Babasaheb Dr B. R. Ambedkar, who relentlessly fought for annihilation of caste
by launching movements on multiple fronts culminating in his conversion to
Buddhism along with his followers in 1956, is a central figure in most of the
narratives of the dalits. In writings and speeches he examined with a critical
lens and from the standpoint of someone hailing from the untouchable caste
the history, myths and sacred texts of Hinduism thereby carving out space for
dalit assertion. The dalit life narratives emanating from across India, particularly
from the state of Maharashtra (from where Babasaheb hailed), bear the imprint
of his intervention in Indian society. A marked departure from being victims
to claimants of rights and harbingers of assertion and resistance is evident in
dalit life narratives. Many of them depict the pre-Ambedkarite era as one of
victimhood and the post-Ambedkarite era as one of resistance and assertion.
 Subalternity, Language and Projects of Emancipation 173

The following poem by Namdeo Dhasal is representative of the many works

by dalits which honour Babasaheb:
It was Friday
An arithmetic book a slate
and one piece of chalk
mother with eagerness brought from the bazaar
She was very tired that day
In the light of the brass lantern
she made me massage her hands and feet.
Then she said,
‘Baba – until I fall asleep
take a look at this book
I never learned but you do this
To start your education
make B for Babasaheb.
He was far more beautiful than Lord Ganesh.
So don’t trace
Shri Ganesh.
The lord of the people is never ugly
He is from among the True/holy/beautiful
Babsaheb Ambedkar
is true, holy, beautiful
Otherwise this book has no meaning’
(Zelliot 1996: 312)

Namdeo Dhasal is one of the founders of the Dalit Panther movement which
took shape in Bombay (now Mumbai) in the year 1972. His writings have been
very revolutionary and have remained inspirational for a whole generation of
dalit activists. Here in this poem he articulates the unique space that Babasaheb
Ambedkar has in the dalit life-world. It specifically refers to the stress on
education which was a cornerstone of the dalit movement led by Babasaheb. For
instance, the slogan that he coined for the movement read, ‘Educate, Organise,
Agitate’.

Buddhist conversion and new life

Dalits who consider themselves Buddhist post the conversion event of 1956
when Babasaheb Ambedkar and his followers embraced Buddhism write about
174 Joseph Mundananikkal Thomas

the new life in Buddhism and the sense of liberation it gives them. Some of the
dalits have written poems and other works of literature on being a Buddhist.
Here is a poem by Bhagwan Sawai:
Then the primordial man within me exclaimed
I will lay a stone on my chest
and carve on it
images of my sorrow
songs of pain
that bear witness to my wounds
and welcome tomorrow’s sun.
Tathagata
I’ve come to you
my sorrows interred in my bones
bringing my darkness within the radius of your light
Take me within your fold, away from this darkness
Out there, I’ve worn myself out, slogging in their carnival
losing my self-identity.
Tathagata
Ask no questions, questions are alien to me,
I do not know myself
Out there, there was nothing but darkness and rocky muteness
So transmigrate into me from that picture
in flesh and blood, into my effusive being.
(Dangle 1992: 29)

Bhagwan Sawai is one of the dalit writers. In this poem he portrays the Buddha
(Tathagata) as the giver of refuge. The emphasis is on the experience of pain and
powerlessness in the social order and his looking up to the light of the Buddha
for deliverance. The Buddha was pictured by Babasaheb Ambedkar as a person
who showed the way to an enlightened life. Sawai’s poem here evokes the Buddha
as a saviour from the ills of suffering and bondage.

Language
One of the dominant characters that strike a reader of dalit narratives is its
difference in the language that is used. The expressions are direct and evocative
and reflective of both the pathos as well as the sense of revolt that comes out of
dalit imagination. For instance, here is a selection from a poem by Arun Kamble
(translated by Gauri Deshpande into English):
 Subalternity, Language and Projects of Emancipation 175

Bone-chewing grampus
at the burning ghat:
permanent resident
of my own heart:
with the weight of tradition
behind his back
yells: Saddling bastard
I tell you,
stutter with our tongue!
Picking through the Vedas,
buttering his queue,
the Brahmin teacher at school
bellows: Speak my pure tongue
whoreson!

Now you tell me which speech

am I to tongue? (Quoted in Zelliot 1996: 279)

Arun Kamble juxtaposes the earthy language of the dalit with that of the
Brahman. Implicit in the rendering is the utter disdain the Brahman holds for
the language of the dalit.

Dalit versus non-dalit literature

It is also a rhetorical device on the part of dalit writers to promote a sustained
distinction of dalit writing from the non-dalit one. The debate on the specific genre
of dalit literature has thrown up many responses. One of the responses is that dalit
literature embodies specific experiences of life and hence is directed towards specific
audiences implying that dalit writers are not addressing a universal audience. It is
added to this response that the particular audience that is intended by the writers
has a bearing on the literary and aesthetic styles that they adopt. However, Laura
Brueck argues that it will be an incomplete treatment of dalit literature if we stop
with this characterization. Her analysis throws up novel areas of adaptations from
which dalit writers have ventured into developing narrative styles of resistance and
protest. The tropes that dalit writers employ portray multiple forms of assertion
of their personhood as against the portrayal of abjectness that envelops the dalit
characters in literature produced by the non-dalits.22

Dalit women
Within dalit literature there are now voices of dalit women who not only voice
their protest against caste oppression but also stand up against the tendency
176 Joseph Mundananikkal Thomas

among dalit writers and activists not to address issues of patriarchy within the
dalit fold.23
We get a sense of the tenor of dalit women’s writing from the themes that
they have explored therein. Most of these writings are again autobiographical in
nature. The ignominy of humiliating experiences are recounted in great detail by
many of the writers. The harsh experience of life that has become part of a dalit
women’s world is explicated in all its vividness by Jyoti Lanjewar in the following
poem titled ‘Why Were You Born?’

And why were you born

in this ghetto
of rotten lampposts
dust-choked streets
and stumps of trees
with elephantiases
why were you born?

No shelter here
not even a hoarding
or a cement column
and behind barbed wires
flowers bloom
for maggots and worms;
Shoemakers are barefoot
why were you born?

Shoemakers are barefoot

why were you born?
and barbers hirsute,
toothless dentists tout
used false teeth;
even thorns make a point
so why were you born?
Here horses are redundant
and elephants retired;
recruitment has begun
to enlist men into stables
for dragging humanity along.
Why were you born? (Quoted in Deo & Zelliot 1994: 47–8)
 Subalternity, Language and Projects of Emancipation 177

The writings of the women dalits also resound with the sense of defiance and
assertion demonstrated by dalit women of grit against the systemic acts of
violence which has marked their everyday lives. For instance, in her memoir
Aydan, Urmila Pawar recounts the experience of humiliation she suffered within
the school and how in the strong retort of her mother, she found strength of will
and experienced a transformation of self. She talks about the way her father, at
his deathbed, instructed her mother to educate the children so that they would
be able to escape the humiliations of being dalit. One day, despite the insistence
of her mother, Urmila was reluctant to go to school because of the treatment that
she habitually received at the hands of the teacher. He used to make her sit in
the last row, insist on her sweeping the floor of the classroom after the class was
over and pick up dung from the courtyard. One day when she refused to clear
the dung from the yard, the teacher hit her hard and ordered her not to come to
the school again. The mother noticed the swollen cheeks of her dear daughter
and confronted the teacher in public. Urmila quotes her mother in her work, A
Childhood Tale:

‘Look here, I am not a respectable woman. I live under a tree, by the roadside.
With my children like an exile. Why? So that they can study . . . become
important people, and you harass a girl like this?’ Aai (mother) was speaking
ungrammatically, incorrectly. In a loud voice she threatened Guruji (teacher),
‘Look here, after this if your finger so much as touches my daughter, I will see to
it that you will never walk on this road . . .’
After that day many things became easier . . . collecting dung and Guruji’s
beating were no longer part of my fate and destiny. But the main thing was
that I began to see my mother as a tremendous support. And my life got some
direction. (Pawar 2002: 54–5, as quoted in Chakravarti, U. 2013: 140).

In an analysis of the oral poetry and paintings of dalit women, Gopal Guru
introduces the idea of ‘labouring intellectualism’. He situates the language of
resistance of dalit women in their oral poetry, not in the written word. Here
orality becomes the major medium through which a language of resistance takes
shape. His analysis demonstrates that the oral poetry of dalit women contains a
critique of the dominating structure of caste as well as self-critique of the dalit
self. The context of labour done collectively has produced the distinct genre of
dalit women’s oral poetry in Marathi known as ovi (folk poetry sung at harvesting
time) (cf. Guru 2013: 59–61).
Within debates in feminism, strong arguments have been made about the
unique location of dalit women and the need for according their experiences a
178 Joseph Mundananikkal Thomas

specific space in the wider feminist discourse in India. Such debates pinpoint the
need to foreground caste as an important factor in feminist analysis and praxis.
They lament the way movements of the labouring communities mobilized
primarily on class lines as well as movements of women bordering on ideas of
eco-feminism have excluded the life-world and experience of dalit women.
Within the dalit fold itself, women have implicated men by pointing out the
different forms of patriarchy. Gopal Guru (1995: 2548–50) explains that dalit
women have expressed reservations about the way dalit men have overwhelmingly
captured the dalit political space and the prominent space in dalit literature.

Conclusion

The diverse registers that envelop the larger corpus of dalit literature today attest
to the fact that dalit writing has entrenched itself into a discursive field with
both a passionate interrogation of the claims of representation on the part of
the non-dalit writers and an assertion of plural literary representations of dalit
personhood in all its vitality, vigour, spirit of resistance and revolt.
Dalit literature has brought into the literary public a deeper awareness of
the dalit life-world. The inanity of the life of the dalits is something that people
belonging to the high caste would rather not talk about. In intellectual and
academic circles, there have always been efforts to camouflage the stark realities
of the life of the dalits with idioms and images. Dalit literature has exploded into
the public sphere with real life experience, in earthy language giving the reader a
ringside view of the life lived on the margins of the social order. It has called into
question the contemporary Indian’s propensity to argue away the stranglehold of
caste or talk about caste by other means such as ‘hygiene’ and ‘merit’. It has not
only brought the violence of caste to centre stage but also developed a language
and a voice for dalit emancipation and assertion. In addition, dalit literature
imparted global visibility to the life-world of the dalits as translations of dalit life
narratives were not only published internationally but also the protagonists were
invited to international forums to comment on their life and their work.
Dalit literature sought to forge a larger dalit identity among the various
dalit jatis by interrogating the logic of hierarchy among the various ‘them’ who
traditionally conceived of themselves in a scale of graded inequality based on
notions of which of them was more pure and more impure. Dalit literature in
that sense gave wider currency to ‘dalit’ as an overarching identity of all former
untouchable jatis.
 Subalternity, Language and Projects of Emancipation 179

Notes

1 The ideology that privileges the hierarchy of jatis as per the fourfold division is
broadly termed as Brahmanic ideology. The most pointed juridical text associated
with Brahmanic ideology is that of Manusmriti (the code of Manu) whose origin is
generally attributed to ca. 100 bce.
2 Reverently referred as ‘Babasaheb’ (an honorific title for one’s ancestor/father).
3 Jotirao Phule was the leader of anti-Brahman movement in the western Indian state
of Maharashtra. He along with his wife Savitribai Phule is credited with the starting
of the first school for women and untouchables in India. The schools were set up
around the year 1850 in the city of Pune (then known as Poona). He is now referred
to as Mahatma Jotiba Phule.
4 Navayana Buddhism of Babasaheb Ambedkar can be positioned along with
similar movements in different parts of the world which fall under the rubric
‘socially engage Buddhism’. For more details on this, cf. S. B. King, Socially Engaged
Buddhism (University of Hawaii Press, 2009). It can also be seen in continuation
of other movements in late colonial India where people belonging to untouchable
jatis opted for modern interpretations of Buddhism. For instance in Southern
India, there was a movement among the Paraiyar caste called Sakya Buddhism
spearheaded by a leader named Pundit Iyothee Thass. Navayana Buddhism
represents a Buddhist identity interpreted for modern times, or rather a modern
rendering of tradition. One of the major events at the ceremony of conversion
which inaugurated Navayana Buddhism was the twenty-two vows that Babasaheb
Ambedkar presented before his followers. Prominent of among them are the
explicit denial of the theological and ritual foundations of Hinduism that legitimize
the practice of caste.
5 According to Dangle, the term ‘Dalit Literature’ was coined at the first ever Dalit
Literary Conference in 1958, which passed a resolution defining the term. See
Dangle (1994 [1992]: xi).
6 Though the beginnings were in the state of Maharashtra, within Marathi language,
the specific form of writings known as dalit literature spread to other Indian
languages. Today there is a corpus of writing designated as dalit literature in almost
all Indian languages.
7 D. Ganguly (2005) deals with this theme in her analysis of Marathi Dalit Literature.
She reads dalit literature from the point of view of experiences taking place in
the everyday life-world of the dalits, not as products of an ideological battle.
‘Comportment is not quietism or a resigned acceptance of one’s place in an unjust
world order. It is rather an orientation towards all that is life-giving in a slippery,
treacherous, aggressive, sorrowful, oppressive, unjust world. It points to truths
that are larger than the pedagogical truths of either the social sciences or those of
180 Joseph Mundananikkal Thomas

political activism.’ She focuses on those works of dalits which address the issue of
oppression in ‘non-pedagogical and non-ideological terms’, not overtly conscious of
‘contributing to transforming the social order’ (177).
8 Within the literary movement, Gokhale (1993) finds three different groups of dalits.
The first group comprises of well-established dalit writers with an institutional
presence. They are recognized by the other Marathi litterateurs and most of them
hail from middle-class backgrounds. The second group is younger, more radical
and organized, and is more oriented towards action. The third group is that of the
older, less-educated folk poets, who represent a continuity from the tradition of
jalasa and whose work is more accessible to the dalit masses (299).
9 As a consequence, a plurality of themes has developed. According to an estimate
made by J. Gokhale, the dateline probably being in the late 1980s, there were three
main groupings of dalit writers. The first group is that of Dalit Sahitya Sansad headed
by Baburao Bagul. The second the Asmitaadarsh group of G. Pantawane and the third
the Bauddh Sahitya Parishad initiated by Bahusaheb Adsul. Each of these groups
holds its conferences in different parts of Maharashtra (see Gokhale 1993: 328–9).
10 There are also prominent non-Buddhist dalit writers. For example, a very popular
dalit writer Annabhau Sathe belonged to the Matang community and his poems
and other writings contain strong sentiments of revolution.
11 For example, two poems of this variety are included in the anthology of dalit
literature in English titled Poisoned Bread. They are: Tathagatha authored
by Bhagwan Sawai, and Yashodhara by Hira Bansode. See Dangle (1994
[1992]: 29–30; 31–2).
12 Lullabies.
13 ‘Verses, a distich of a particular measure in vernacular language, and the light air
sung by women while grinding, lulling infants etc’ (Poitevin 2002: 373).
14 Subaltern counterpublic is a term developed by Nancy Fraser (1990). She explains
it thus: ‘[T]hey are parallel discursive arenas where members of subordinated
social groups invent and circulate counterdiscourses, which in turn permit them to
formulate oppositional interpretations of identities, interests and needs’ (67).
15 According to Sharmila Rege, renowned academician and pioneer of studies on the
dalit-feminist standpoint, the word ‘dalit’ was first coined by Babasaheb Dr B. R.
Ambedkar in the year 1928 ce in his writings in the journal Bahishkrut Bharat
(India of the ex-communicated). Cf. Rege (2006: 11).
16 ‘Scheduled castes’ refer to caste groups which are categorized as such in the
schedule prepared by the central as well as the state governments primarily
marking them eligible for benefits of compensatory discrimination in public
educational institutions and undertakings.
17 The Mahar is a caste group (jati) belonging predominantly to Maharashtra state.
They constitute the largest jati in terms of population among all the jatis of the
former untouchables.
 Subalternity, Language and Projects of Emancipation 181

18 Gopal Baba Valangkar is considered a pioneer in the assertion of dalits in

demanding rights from the British administration. In a petition that he submitted
to the British in 1894 he demanded of them to ensure equal civil rights and
employment to untouchable communities. The ‘Valangkar Petition’ is considered as
a benchmark in the evolution of dalit consciousness in western India.
19 The particular accent of dalit literature has been in the form of testimonio as
commented upon by writers such as Sharmila Rege (cf. Rege 2006). Rege talks of
dalit literature as posing an ‘epistemological challenge’ (1). She considers dalit life
narratives as testimonios ‘which forge a right to speak both for and beyond the
individual and contest explicitly or implicitly the ‘official forgetting’ of histories of
caste oppression, struggles and resistance’ (13).
20 For instance, Navayana Publishing House, based at New Delhi.
21 Bhakti (literally translated as devotion) refers to a range of religious movements
that spanned the length and breadth of present day India. These movements
were anti-Brahmanic in the sense that they insisted on the devotee’s personal
relationship with a deity as central to religious belief. The promoters of bhakti
movement are generally called sant (saint) and held views of equality of all persons
before deities thereby directly attacking ritual-ortiented Brahmanic priesthood.
22 Two characters gleaned from writings of non-dalit writers referring to the dalit
subjects that Laura Brueck mentions are: (a) the character of Velutha in God of
Small Things by Arundhati Roy and (b) the personality of Mangal in Premchand’s
novel Dudh ka Daam (the price of milk).
23 Laura Brueck particularly mentions the example of Kusum Meghwal, a dalit
woman writer who has stood up to the tendency on the part of the dalit writers to
silence the voices of dalit women when they address the violence of patriarchy that
they encounter at the hands of dalit men. Cf. Brueck (2014: 178).

References

Bhabha, H. K. (1994). The Location of Culture. London and New York: Routledge.
Brueck, L. (2014). Writing Resistance: The Rhetorical Imagination of Hindi Dalit
Literature. New York: Columbia University Press.
Chakravarti, U. (2013). ‘In Her Own Write: Writing from a Dalit Feminist Standpoint’.
India International Centre Quarterly 39.3,4: 134–45.
Constable, P. (1997). ‘Early Dalit Literature and Culture in Late Nineteenth and Early
Twentieth Century Western India’. Modern Asian Studies 31.2: 317–38.
Dangle, A. (ed.) (1992). Poisoned Bread: Translations from Modern Marathi Dalit
Literature. Bombay : Orient Longman.
Deo, V., & Zelliot, E. (1994). ‘Dalit Literature – Twenty-Five Years of Protest? Of
Progess?’ Journal of South Asian Literature 29.2: 41–67.
182 Joseph Mundananikkal Thomas

Fraser, N. (1990). ‘Rethinking the Public Sphere: A Contribution to the Critique of

Actually Existing Democracy’. Social Text 25/26: 56–80.
Gajarawala, T. J. (2013). Untouchable Fictions: Literary Realism and the Crisis of Caste.
New York: Fordham University Press.
Ganguly, D. (2005), Caste, Colonialism and Counter-Modernity: Notes on a Post colonial
Hermeneutics of Caste. London and New York: Routledge
Gokhale, J. (1993). From Concessions to Confrontation: The Politics of an Untouchable
Community. Bombay : Popular Prakashan.
Guru, G. (1995). ‘Dalit Women Talk Differently’. Economic and Political Weekly 30.41 &
42: 2548–50.
Guru, G. (2013). ‘Labouring Intellectuals: The Conceptual World of Dalit Women’. India
International Centre Quaterly 39.3,4: 54–68.
Junghare, I. (1988). ‘Dr. Ambedkar: The Hero of the Mahars, Ex-Untouchables of India’.
Asian Folklore Studies 47: 93–121.
Limbale, S. (2004). Towards an Aesthetic of Dalit Literature: History, Controversies and
Considerations, trans. A. Mukherjee. Hyderabad: Orient Longman.
Poitevin, G. (2002). The Voice and the Will: Subaltern Agency: Forms and Motives. New
Delhi: Manohar Publishers and Distributors & Centre de Sciences Humaines.
Rege, S. (2006). Writing Caste/Writing Gender: Reading Dalit Women’s Testimonies. New
Delhi: Zubaan, An Imprint of Kali for Women.
Zelliot, E. (1996). From Untouchable to Dalit: Essays on the Ambedkar Movement. New
Delhi: Manohar Publishers.
 9

Mandarin Chinese in Education and

Society in Xinjiang
Mamtimyn Sunuodula

Introduction

The passage and coming into force of ‘Law of the People’s Republic of China on
the Standard Spoken and Written Chinese Language’ (also known as ‘Law on
National Common Language’) in 2000 and 2001 marked the beginning of a new
era in language planning and policy in China (Budao 2001; People’s Republic of
China 2001; Xu 2001). The law placed a renewed emphasis on Mandarin Chinese
as the national ‘common language’ of China and provided a legal framework
for language planning and policies to promote and enforce the standard
language nationally. This was followed by provincial and local implementation
directives and policy guidelines issued by governments at subnational levels
(Kumul City Government 2006; XUAR Government 2004). While the law and
the subnational level directives and guidelines reinforced the ongoing efforts
to promote and enforce Mandarin Chinese as the standard spoken dialect in
areas where other Chinese spoken dialects are in use, the effects on the areas
with predominantly non-Han populations, many of whom are educated and
proficient only in their mother tongue, have been far greater. One such area
is Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR, or Xinjiang hereafter), which
has the official autonomous region status with the main local language being
Uyghur, recognized as a regional official language, along with the national
majority language, Mandarin Chinese (People’s Republic of China 2001; XUAR
Government 2002). The Xinjiang government began implementing what it
dubbed as ‘bilingual’ (Baker 2006: 213–26) education policy in which Mandarin
Chinese replaced the minority languages as the medium of instruction and
Chinese writing instead of minority scripts at all levels of minority education,
184 Mamtimyn Sunuodula

pushing the minority languages into being a mere school subject. The XUAR
government described it as ‘leap frog development’ (跨域式发展) in ethnic
education (Gu 2010; XUAR Government 2011a), while some critics used the
familiar term ‘great leap forward’ (R. Ma 2009), invoking memories of China’s
disastrous industrialization campaign which took place in the late 1950s. The
change came in the backdrop of rapid increase in population mobility, high
economic growth, social transformations and growing individual, ethnic and
regional disparities. In this chapter, I will examine the following:

1. How the current and historical language policies in Xinjiang relate to

the Chinese state-building projects, especially in its ethnic and linguistic
peripheries.
2. The local dynamics of language practices and agency of local actors in
producing, reproducing and transforming their linguistic habitus, often in
opposition to the what is ascribed for them by the state and its agents.
3. The ways in which current language policies represented, articulated and
implemented and the manner in which we understand the underlying
forces and counter-forces within the framework of relations of power.
4. The (in)effectiveness of the state’s policies in achieving the stated goals and
how we understand the gap between the goals and actual outcomes.

Unified language and Chinese state-building

In his widely cited work, James Scott (1998) notes the importance of language
in state knowledge, control, authority and maintenance and reproduction of its
power over its subjects. This is how he put it:

The great cultural barrier imposed by a separate language is perhaps the most
effective guarantee that a social world, easily accessible to insiders, will remain
opaque to outsiders. Just as the stranger or state official might need a local
guide to find his way around sixteenth century Bruges, he would need a local
interpreter in order to understand and be understood in an unfamiliar linguistic
environment. A distinct language, however, is a far more powerful basis for
autonomy than a complex residential pattern. It is also the bearer of a distinctive
history a cultural sensibility, a literature, a mythology, a musical past. In this
respect, a unique language represents a formidable obstacle to state knowledge,
let alone colonization, control, manipulation, instruction, or propaganda.
Of all state simplifications, then, the imposition of a single, official language may
be the most powerful, and it is the precondition of many other simplifications . . .
 Mandarin Chinese in Education and Society in Xinjiang 185

One can hardly imagine a more effective formula for immediately devaluing
local knowledge and privileging all those who had mastered the official linguistic
code. It was a gigantic shift in power. (72–3)

Scott asserts that modern nation-state is deliberate political construct based

on centralization, including the centralized single language. The increasingly
forceful promotion of Mandarin Chinese over the past decade and through it a
linguistic centralization over the diverse population of Xinjiang is not only about
the learning of Mandarin Chinese and achieving communicative competence
in the language by non-Chinese speaking peoples, it is, more importantly,
also about setting Mandarin Chinese as the norm and the bearer of superior
civilization (Bourdieu 1991; Harrell 1995) and devaluation of local knowledge.
Learning of Mandarin Chinese by minority language speakers has frequently
been represented in the media, political and so-called expert discourses as
bringing to indigenous peoples of Xinjiang more than five thousand years of
Chinese civilization, Confucian values, Chinese literature, contemporary
popular culture, economic progress and access to scientific knowledge (Guan
2001; L. Wang 2001). China’s political leaders envisage it as part of a wider
political project to make Uyghur culture and Uyghur people ‘legible’ within a
scheme that they consider universal, inevitable and grandly utopian. They see
Mandarin Chinese medium education as superior and more sophisticated in
quality than minority language medium education and mean to inculcate
political loyalty among Uyghurs towards the state and assume identity positions
that make them identify with the Chinese motherland and an imagined Han-
centric nation. The process of linguistic centralization requires Uyghurs not
only to have the necessary proficiency in Mandarin Chinese, but also to embrace
majority Han culture, for example, Han mythologies that claim ancestry from
the mythical Yan and Huang emperors (Hu 2010).
Whereas the basic competence in Mandarin Chinese and loyalty to the
Communist Party had once defined participation in political and economic life
for some Uyghur elites, a full command of the language and embrace of Chinese
cultural norms is now demanded from every Uyghur in order for them to qualify
for participation in the economy, politics, education and social structures which
are dominated by the majority Han. The implicit logic is to define a hierarchy of
languages and cultures, devaluing the Uyghur language and culture to an inferior
status in the public domain, such as education and government. At the apex of
this implicit hierarchical order are the Han culture and Mandarin Chinese and
the embodying institutions such as schools, universities and businesses in Han
186 Mamtimyn Sunuodula

dominated cities and provinces. Competency in Mandarin Chinese and Han

cultural norms has become the focal point of total political power in Xinjiang
upon which physical mobility, economic advancement, political patronage,
public services and education system are all hinged, as well as a pointer to
the path of social advancement and material success. The project offers both
coercion and inducements promising to reward those who comply with its logic
and to penalize those who ignore it (Scott 1998: 72–3).
Uyghur language, a key code to Uyghur history, sensibilities and ethnic
identity, has now become the logical focus of the Chinese government’s
modernist ambitions and linguistic centralization project. For Uyghurs, the
Uyghur language is an emblem of their identity, which is often deeply felt. As
Mandarin Chinese has been made at once powerful and exclusionary (Hill 2004)
through state institutions, mediating access to sought after resources, privileging
its legitimate speakers, the Uyghur language faced economic and political
devaluation and marginalization.
But the learning of Mandarin Chinese is not a simple process that involves
memorization and reproduction of vocabulary, grammar and standardized
meaning, that is, the abstract linguistic code (Schieffelin 2007: 140–1). As Bakhtin
(1981) reminds us, activities of passing ideas from one language to another
is not and has never been neutral. Not only are they imbued with language
ideologies and culture-bound textual practices, in the context of Xinjiang,
issues of power are never far from the surface. As Bakhtin puts it: ‘Language is
not a neutral medium that passes freely and easily into the private property of
the speaker’s intentions; it is populated – overpopulated – with the intentions
of others. Expropriating it, forcing it to submit to one’s own intentions and
accents, is a difficult and complicated process’ (294). In the following sections,
I will discuss the issues of Chinese state-building, language centralization and
local responses in Xinjiang within the framework of norm setting, authority and
power relations.

Mandarin Chinese as a school subject

in Uyghur education

After Xinjiang was incorporated into the People’s Republic of China in 1950,
the Uyghurs were recognized as one of the fifty-five minority nationalities in
China and, in 1956, Xinjiang was named the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous
Region (XUAR), one of five province-level administrative units in the country
 Mandarin Chinese in Education and Society in Xinjiang 187

to be designated as an autonomous region, in recognition of the dominant

demographic position of the Uyghur population (CCP Central Committee
Archival Research Office and CCP XUAR Committee 2010). The Uyghur
language was legitimized as an official regional language, along with Mandarin
Chinese. In the first decade prior to 1959, most primary school pupils followed
the system of learning Uyghur and using it as the medium of instruction. Chinese
was not taught till they reached secondary school (Ouyang and Liu 2009).
Expansion of Uyghur schools continued after 1949. There were 182,427
(20% enrolment rate) Uyghur and other ethnic minority students studying at
1,335 primary schools and there were only 4,191 at secondary level and 185
at university level (XUAR Local History Editorial Office 1985: 496). In 1952,
there were 40 middle schools in Xinjiang employing 540 Uyghur and other
ethnic minority teachers (XUAR Local History Editorial Office 2007: 659). The
education system only managed to produce a few people who were sufficiently
proficient in Mandarin Chinese to act as translators and interlocutors between
the Han officials and local Uyghurs (XUAR Local History Editorial Office
2000: 604–607). Many Han who migrated to southern Xinjiang had to learn
to speak in Uyghur as they found themselves to be in the absolute minority in
linguistic terms and population size (Ouyang and Liu 2009).
After Mandarin Chinese was made an optional school subject in 1950 at
Uyghur middle schools, along with Russian (XUAR Local History Editorial
Office 2000), the position of Chinese language was gradually strengthened (A.
Wang 2012). As very few Uyghurs attended school and even fewer went on to
study at secondary school, the actual impact of Mandarin Chinese education,
especially on those living in rural southern Xinjiang, was minimal. For those
rural Uyghurs, Uyghur language is the only one they know and with which they
communicate, mostly with each other. There was also a shortage of qualified
Chinese language teachers and lack of suitable teaching material and adequate
learning resources that contributed to the poor learning outcome.
At the second XUAR Secondary Education Congress in 1956, specific
Chinese language requirements were put forward for Uyghur schools. It
stipulated that Uyghur middle schools must offer four to six hours of Mandarin
Chinese lessons per week and students must learn at least 2,500 Chinese
characters, as well as acquire basic competency in oracy by the end of three-
year middle school education. It also demanded that students learnt further
2,000 characters at high school level and achieve competency in scientific
language so that they can be educated in Mandarin Chinese at tertiary level
(Benson 2004; Ouyang and Liu 2009). This was a very ambitious goal, if not a
188 Mamtimyn Sunuodula

totally unrealistic one. Among the 56,000 characters in modern Chinese, the
most commonly used 2,400 characters make up 99 per cent of all characters
used in Chinese publications. Considering the large number of characters, it is
a challenging task for anyone to learn it regardless of their cultural background,
or ethnic origin (Sun 2006). Accordingly, the Uyghur students were expected
to reach the same level of literacy and oracy in Mandarin Chinese as the native
Mandarin Chinese speakers.
It was not clear how many Uyghur students at Uyghur medium schools
succeeded in achieving what was required of them, but considering the
linguistic ecology, availability of qualified teachers and resources to support the
learning as well as resistance from at least some sections of the Uyghur society
who saw the move as a threat to their traditional way of life, it is not difficult
to see that, for most Uyghurs, the document remained only on paper without
bringing about the desired effects. Many Uyghurs also hold the view that they
are the indigenous and rightful owners of the territory of Xinjiang and the Han
migrants to the region should learn to speak Uyghur, rather than demanding
that the Uyghurs speak Mandarin Chinese (Smith Finley 2013: 34; Tsung 2014).
In 1957, Uyghurs were offered the choice to attend Chinese language
schools, but the take up was negligible. However with the rapid increase in Han
migration to Xinjiang from late 1950s, the number of Uyghurs who chose to
send their children to Han schools has increased, especially after the Cultural
Revolution. But considering the relatively high number of Uyghurs from well-
educated backgrounds being located in a major city with nearly 80 per cent of the
population being Han, the take up of places in Han schools by Uyghurs appears
not high. This can be an indication of Uyghur attitude to Han education and
their strong desire to maintain Uyghur language and culture through education
in Uyghur language, despite the lure of economic and political advantages for
being educated in Chinese schools.
However, the lack of interest or resistance by Uyghurs in sending their
children to Chinese schools did not stop the government from stepping up its
efforts to strengthen the teaching of Mandarin Chinese, or investing in new
Chinese language textbooks, at Uyghur schools.
The teacher training institutions in Xinjiang started recruiting Han students
from Inland cities and provinces to be trained as Mandarin Chinese teachers.
At one such institution, over a thousand students were being trained in 1966.
They were recruited to several different strands, including majoring in Uyghur
language. By 1965, the number of Uyghur secondary schools and the number
of teachers increased to 339 schools and 3,709 Uyghur teachers, but the figures
 Mandarin Chinese in Education and Society in Xinjiang 189

were still very small compared with the total population – 300 Mandarin
Chinese teachers across Xinjiang in 1965 teaching in Uyghur and other non-
Chinese language instruction schools (Ouyang and Liu 2009).
After ten years of disruption and destruction to the education system
in Xinjiang, the ending of the Cultural Revolution in 1976 and its official
repudiation provided a window for the exertion of Uyghur political strength
(Hill 2004). Despite the official rhetoric about the importance of achieving
Mandarin Chinese competency, a degree of local autonomy in Xinjiang can
also be seen in some aspects of regional language and education policies. The
number of teachers teaching at Uyghur medium schools increased fourfold
between 1976 and 1997, an indication of rapid expansion of Uyghur medium
education during this period. The latitude given to the regional authorities and
those at subregional level in how and to what extent they implement policies
emanating from the national level has increased. What is clear, from the numbers
and education qualifications of Mandarin Chinese language teachers employed
at Uyghur schools, is that systematic, long-term Mandarin Chinese language
education programmes of proven effectiveness were poorly funded in Uyghur
majority areas.
Against the backdrop of the restoration of the traditional Uyghur written
script and a relatively liberal period for Uyghur language in education after the
Cultural Revolution, policies related to language provision for Uyghurs continued
to emphasize the importance of teaching Chinese to Uyghur pupils. The XUAR
government issued a document in 1977 entitled ‘The Directive on Strengthening
the Mandarin Chinese Teaching at Minority Schools’ requiring that Mandarin
Chinese be introduced as a core subject from Year 3 of primary schools at ethnic
minority schools. In 1984, the XUAR CCP Committee put forward a goal of
achieving universal proficiency in both Mandarin Chinese and Uyghur language
in education by 1995 (Ouyang and Liu 2009). A further government document
issued in 1985 asserted that within five years schoolteachers and administrators
in the region were required to use Chinese in all formal domains, such as
classrooms and meetings. All secondary school leavers were required to have
competence in Chinese.
From 1987, the investment on resources devoted to the teaching of Mandarin
Chinese began to be accelerated. An additional 500 vacant teachers’ positions
were diverted from other subject areas to Mandarin Chinese teaching posts
at Uyghur schools annually on the government’s order (XUAR Local History
Editorial Office 2007: 603). By 1988, the number of Mandarin Chinese teachers
at Uyghur schools reached 5,661, of which 2,958 were secondary school
190 Mamtimyn Sunuodula

teachers. The total number increased to 7,337 in 1990 and by 1999, the number
of Mandarin Chinese teachers at schools reached 13,776 (Ouyang and Liu 2009)
and, again in 2005, the number increased to 19,989 (Y. Wang 2009).
The level of proficiency in Mandarin Chinese among the Uyghurs remained
low, despite the general increase in the level of education and drives to achieve
universal compulsory education. An official survey conducted in 1986 showed
that only 4.4 per cent of the Uyghurs reported that they were fully communicative
in Mandarin Chinese, with 90 per cent reporting that they did not have the basic
communicative competence in the language (CASS Institute of Ethnology and
Anthropology 1994).

Education in Mandarin Chinese: a new phase-

ethnic minority language policy discourse

In contemporary Chinese political, media and academic discourses, it is normal

to consider minorities as backward or inferior in any aspect, including their
languages and cultures, compared with the superiority and advancement of the
majority Han (J. Ma 2013: 219; Postiglione 2007: 99). The pejorative perception
of ethnic minorities, and by extension the languages they speak, is apparent in
much academic and political discourse about them. The following examples
illustrate how widespread and influential such discourses are:

Improving the quality of labour force is the most important precondition for
infrastructure development. The first problem to resolve is the language barrier.
When the cadres in Inland1 areas do mass ideological persuasion work (i.e.
propaganda), they can at least be understood by the masses after a few repeats.
But in Xinjiang, that won’t work because of the language barrier makes it
impossible to communicate. Moreover, the ethnic minority languages have great
limitations; some new terms are impossible to explain in minority languages,
this is particularly evident in the age where information technology is highly
developed. Therefore, the first task we need to do now is to have the schoolteachers
to teach in Mandarin Chinese. But, it is not sufficient for the teachers who teach
in Mandarin Chinese to understand only Chinese, we must build an army of
teachers who can understand both Mandarin Chinese and Uyghur languages at
the same time. Secondly, we need to attach importance to improving the quality
of ethnic minority cadres. The simple and straight psychological characteristics
of ethnic minorities are very advantageous for communicating and building
trust and understanding with them.’ (L. Wang 2001)
 Mandarin Chinese in Education and Society in Xinjiang 191

Wang was the party secretary of the CCP XUAR Committee for more than a
decade from 1994 to 2010, as well as a member the CCP Central Politbureau.

With the great economic transformation and the massive movements of people and
goods, more and more people form ethnic minority areas began to realize that ‘for
them, in order to integrate into the world, they must first integrate into the nation,
in order to integrate into the nation, the language barrier must be overcome’
As citizens of China, they must deepen their sense of mission and
responsibility towards the motherland. They can only foster identification with
the culture of the motherland through understanding the Chinese culture which
goes back to time immemorial, and understanding the history of development
of ethnic groups. (Turahun 2010)

Turahun is an ethnic Uyghur government official who was charged with

implementation of the ‘bilingual’ education policies.
In the long historical process, Han ethnicity has been the unifying core to
which all other different ethnic groups yearned for. This is because Han people
possessed a superior natural conditions and stable geographic entity, strong
state power, advanced economy and abundant culture. Meanwhile, Han
people, like an ethnic melting pot with its characteristic inclusivity, accepted
and integrated those ethnicities and their culture and continuously radiated in
all directions and grew bigger and bigger like rolling snow ball. (Guan 2001)

Guan Yanpo is a professorial fellow at the Institute of Ethnography and

Anthropology in the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, specializing in the
history of ethnic relations in China.
As evidently shown in those sample quotations from powerful political
figures and prominent intellectuals, a body of discourse about different value
of languages in China has ideologically been shaped by these actors and in turn
the discourse has shaped the government’s language policies towards ethnic
minority languages. In the broader context, the government’s political discourse
of ethnic integration in education and the position of Uyghur language in its
linguistic stratification are interdependent (Y. Chen 2008).
Policymakers as well as majority of the Han population in China believe that
national minorities lack proper education and the state should take measures to
enhance the chances of minority students being able to participate in the kind of
‘regular’ education that already exists among Han students, that is, the education
in Mandarin Chinese as opposed to minority language education (Hansen
1999: 6–8; Harrell 1995). The socially and politically constructed categories of
regular ‘education’ for Han majority as opposed to ‘ethnic education’ for non-Han
192 Mamtimyn Sunuodula

peoples form constructed structural inequalities (C. Wang and Zhou 2003). ‘The
ideology of inequality is legitimized by the conviction that the dominance of
the center is truly helping and thus is to the benefit of the culturally inferior
peoples’ (Hansen 1999: 243). Language education policies are planned, devised
and implemented in Xinjiang within the context of paternalistic and hierarchical
approach to ethnic relations (Sautman 1998).

Bilingual education policy

Of the many language policies officially promulgated in the history of Xinjiang, it
can be argued the one that has caused the most far-reaching consequence for the
fate of Uyghur language and culture is the region-level document promulgated
by the Xinjiang government on the promotion of ‘bilingual’ education. The
2004 ‘bilingual education’ document stipulates that Mandarin Chinese be made
the primary or the sole language of instruction in elementary and middle-
school classrooms (A. Feng and Sunuodula 2009). A further document issued
in 2005 expands the scope of the policy to preschool education (Turahun 2013).
‘Bilingual education’ has come to mean that Mandarin Chinese is the medium
of instruction from kindergarten onwards and minority languages are to be
relegated to a school subject where it is offered (Ma 2009).
The small-scale experimental ‘bilingual’ classes with Uyghur and Mandarin
Chinese languages as the language of instruction were set up in 1992 with the
ostensible aim of improving the quality of minority education and the proficiency of
Uyghur students in Mandarin Chinese. By 2000, there were around 4,000 students
receiving ‘bilingual’ education in Xinjiang and the figure increased to 36,000 in 2004
(Y. Wang 2009: 224). Xinjiang University, the top university in the region, had long
maintained two faculties, one for Chinese language and one for Uyghur language
instruction. In 2002, the government ordered that all classes except Uyghur literature
would be taught in Chinese, and professors accustomed to lecturing in Uyghur were
given a year to brush up their Mandarin (Millward 2007: 345).
Since 2004, the campaign was pushed to an unprecedented new level. The
pace of ‘bilingual’ education reform greatly accelerated and the language of
instruction switched from Uyghur to Mandarin Chinese in all basic education.
The changes were implemented within a short space of time, leaving schools, the
teachers and the students unprepared, resentful and often confused (R. Ma 2009;
Turahun 2013). In 2006, the number of Uyghur students who were receiving
‘bilingual’ education jumped to 1,45,000, more than fourfold increase in two
years’ time (Y. Wang 2009: 224).
 Mandarin Chinese in Education and Society in Xinjiang 193

The stated aim of the programme has had a number of strands, which
evolved over time, but it is clear the overriding priority is a political one and it is
ideologically driven. Initially, it was dubbed as a human resource development
issue to improve the chances and competitiveness of Uyghurs by improving their
proficiency in Mandarin Chinese through intensive Chinese language education,
but this was quickly overtaken by political consideration. A ten-year planning
document issued by the XUAR government in 2011 sets out the rationale and
objectives of the ‘bilingual’ education drive:

China is a multiethnic country. Mandarin Chinese and standard Chinese writing

is the National Common Language. Learning and mastering of the National
Common Language is beneficial for the strengthening of different ethnic groups’
sense of belonging to the Chinese motherland and their Chinese national
identity. It is also beneficial for the promotion of interethnic communication
and exchange among the youth from different ethnicity and benefits their
all-round development for the rest of their lives. Advancement of ‘bilingual’
education with the National Common Language at its core supplement by
ethnic minority languages in Xinjiang is a strategic measure to raise the quality
of ethnic minority education and develop ethnic minority multilingual talents
who are proficient in both Mandarin Chinese and an ethnic minority language.
This is an inevitable necessity for deepening the implementation of the Great
Western Development Strategy, building a harmonious socialist society and to
realize Xinjiang’s leapfrog development. It is a pressing demand for protecting
the ethnic and national unity, common prosperity, development and progress of
all ethnic groups and achieving long lasting peace and stability in Xinjiang. The
Party and the State attach great importance to the development of ethnic minority
‘bilingual’ education in Xinjiang and consider the advancement of the ‘bilingual’
education as strategically important measure for achieving Xinjiang’s long lasting
peace and stability and leapfrog development. As an important task in realizing
the leapfrog development of education in Xinjiang, the ‘bilingual’ education is
placed in an strategically important place. (XUAR Government 2011b)

While the statement is careful to avoid using the term ‘official language’ for
Mandarin Chinese, it nevertheless confirms the position of Mandarin Chinese
as the core and dominant language in education, society, economic and political
life, universally applicable to all diverse peoples of China. Likewise, it also
explicitly states that the ethnic minority language is supplementary, regardless
of the geographic location, demographic composition, diverse linguistic and
cultural traditions. By restating the obvious that China is a multiethnic country
and describing Mandarin Chinese as the ‘common’ language for all peoples, it
194 Mamtimyn Sunuodula

suggests that it is an obligation for all Chinese citizens to be proficient in Mandarin

Chinese. As Scott (1998: 72–3) pointed out, this created a hierarchy of languages
and cultures in China with Mandarin Chinese and Han culture being imagined
at the apex of that hierarchical order. It is also telling that, in political discourse
and official statements, the politically loaded construct ‘bilingual education’ has
totally different meaning for the majority Han and minority peoples like the
Uyghurs. For Uyghurs, it meant to be fully proficient in Mandarin Chinese and
Han cultural norms to catch up with the Han, while the Uyghur language plays
an auxiliary role in their lives. For the Han, it is largely conceptualized as being
proficient in English and Mandarin Chinese and becoming globally competitive
and culturally cosmopolitan, rather than putting an effort to learn Uyghur or
other ethnic minority languages (A. Feng 2007).
It is stated in the passage that the learning of Mandarin Chinese by Uyghurs
would improve their quality, help them to catch up with the modern world and
become more civilized. Implied logic in this statement is that the goal of learning
Mandarin Chinese language is not only to become communicative in the
language, rather the language itself embodies a more advanced civilization and
higher quality than Uyghur language and culture. By mastering the Mandarin
Chinese language, Uyghurs become more ideologically and politically acceptable
only if they also recognized the superiority of the Mandarin Chinese language
and inferiority of their own Uyghur language.
In specific terms, it meant the fluency in Mandarin Chinese has been made
one of the defining requirements in order for Uyghurs to qualify for a job, to
participate in the economy and political life and become a qualified Chinese
citizen. The link between development, modernization and fluency in Mandarin
Chinese is viewed as direct, inevitable and scientific conclusion. By this insertion
the Party-state is attempting to establish an absolute regime of truth in which
Mandarin Chinese and Han cultural practices are the authorized and legitimate
norms by which all other languages and cultures in Xinjiang are ideologically
judged, economically evaluated and politically assessed, while at the same time
signifying those minority languages and cultures as backward, unrefined and
not fit for a modern world.
Countless propaganda articles in government controlled or mediated
national, regional and local newspapers and other media outlets have been
published praising the benefits of the ‘bilingual education’ for the Uyghurs and
singing the achievements of the ‘bilingual education’ campaign. Numerous
so-called bilingual education experts have been assembled, or sprung up by
themselves seeking a political opportunity or an economic reward, to justify
 Mandarin Chinese in Education and Society in Xinjiang 195

the switch of the language of instruction in education at Uyghur schools from

Uyghur to Mandarin Chinese. The phrase ‘bilingual education’ has become a
buzzword for political figures and they lined up one after the other stressing the
importance of learning Mandarin Chinese by Uyghurs and praising the benefits
of ‘bilingual’ education.
‘Bilingual education’ has come to mean the promotion of Chinese through an
education system in which Chinese is taught both as a school subject and used
as the medium of instruction for other subjects, regardless of the special status
of Uyghur as a minority language (A. Feng 2005; Schluessel 2007; XUAR Office
for Bilingual Education Steering Committee 2012).
The document sets out 2020 as the goal to achieve a comprehensive all
Mandarin Chinese medium education system from age 5 onward for Uyghurs
and other ethnic minorities, ending the support for the Uyghur language
medium education across all parts of Xinjiang. According to the document,
2020 is also the target date for all Uyghur high school graduates to achieve full
proficiency in the National Common Language (i.e. Mandarin Chinese). The
document adds that Uyghur language will be supplementary, but it doesn’t
specify any required standards and assessment targets or how that might be
achieved (XUAR Government 2011b).
The conceptualization of ‘bilingual education’ as Mandarin Chinese medium
education replenished by a few hours of Uyghur language classes a week has
posed unprecedented challenge to the position of the Uyghur language in
political, economic, social and cultural spheres and for the Uyghurs living in
Xinjiang who use Uyghur as their primary language (Economist 27 June 2015).
The most directly affected have been the students and staff at minority language
medium schools and other educational institutions. They are now required to
become fluent (or near fluent), within a short space of time, in both spoken and
written Chinese. The teachers also have had to switch from Uyghur to Chinese
in conducting their teaching (R. Ma 2009). The symbolic effect of this change on
Uyghur ethnic, social and cultural identity is just as great as the economic and
tangible impacts.

School mergers and changes to teaching staff

Large-scale school-merging campaigns were launched in 2004, with an ostensible
aim of creating a better Chinese language environment by requiring Chinese
medium schools and Uyghur medium schools to move under the same roof
(CCP XUAR Committee and XUAR Government 2005; XUAR Local History
196 Mamtimyn Sunuodula

Editorial Office 2005: 323), and effectively placed under Han school leadership.
Where schools previously had almost all Uyghur employees in predominantly
Uyghur populated areas and created precious little white collar employment
opportunities for well-educated Uyghurs, they now faced with increased squeeze
by Han teaching staff as they are favoured by Han school heads and school
management. Between 2000 and 2007, a 71 per cent increase in the number of
merging schools could be observed, from 461 up to 791. Experienced Uyghur
teachers who had difficulty in switching the language of instruction to Mandarin
Chinese were assigned to menial jobs while a few lucky ones were assigned to
teach Uyghur language, which has now become a school subject.
While the official rhetoric states that achieving competency in both Uyghur
and Mandarin Chinese languages is the goal of the current Mandarin Chinese
education drive, it is clear in practice that only minimal level of Uyghur language
provision is offered as a school subject, at some schools where Model 1 ‘bilingual’
education curriculum is adopted. Uyghur is not even offered as an optional subject
at schools which have chosen Model 2 curriculum, which follows the national
curriculum standards. This has led to many Uyghur schoolteachers who were
experienced in teaching academic subjects in Uyghur but were judged not to be
proficient to conduct their teaching in Mandarin Chinese, using strict set of tests
in Mandarin Chinese, and other criteria such as political loyalty to the CCP, to
be deemed no longer fit for teaching jobs. Their expertise in academic subjects,
pedagogical experience and training became worthless (XUAR Government 2011b;
XUAR Government Education Department 2011; XUAR Government Education
Department and XUAR Government Human Resources Department 2015).
Now new teachers who are recruited from non-Mandarin Chinese native
speaker background must reach the appropriate level in the National Mandarin
Chinese Language Graded Test for Ethnic Minorities. ‘New teachers whose
mother tongue is Mandarin Chinese will receive training in the minority
language to enable them to gain basic communicative competence in the
language and adapt to the requirements of “bilingual” education’ (XUAR
Government 2011b). While the document sets out specific, stringent and hard
to achieve Mandarin Chinese test requirements for Uyghur language speaking
candidates for teaching jobs, it only sets vaguely defined training and basic
competence in minority languages for Mandarin Chinese speaking candidates,
without specific test targets. Furthermore, the document specifies a number of
preferential employment terms and conditions for those Han candidates who
come to Xinjiang from the Inland to teach.
 Mandarin Chinese in Education and Society in Xinjiang 197

The document also makes explicit the position of Mandarin Chinese in

relation to Uyghur language in bilingual education. It states that the aim is
to ‘develop a bilingual education where the national common language (i.e.
Mandarin Chinese) is central and Uyghur language is secondary’ (XUAR
Government 2011b).

Uyghur response: case studies

Language policy discourses in Xinjiang consistently present justifications and

rationales, which distinguish Mandarin Chinese from the other languages as
the language of modernity, economic progress and national unity and tacitly
approve it as a measure of the level of civilizing Uyghur and other ethnic
minorities. Language education policies explicitly represent Chinese medium
education for Uyghurs as the only means by which to increase their human
capital, job opportunities and political loyalty to the state and improve their
human ‘quality’. However, the political and administrative decisions taken
cannot explain fully how the boundaries of the linguistic field are set or
changed on the ground. The impact and outcomes of the language policies
and discourses are contingent on them being legitimized by the society and
recognition by the Uyghur students, as well as the degree of complicity and
acceptance by the wider Uyghur society.
Presented here is the research data relating to Mandarin Chinese collected
at multiple research sites in Xinjiang over a period of three years using a mixed
methods approach. The qualitative interview data was gathered at a university
using semi-structured interviews with Uyghur university students following
ethnographic interviewing method. The aim was to solicit the students’
views on different language practices and reflect on their own language
practices and linguistic ideological dispositions at home, at school and in
wider society. The qualitative data is supplemented by a quantitative research
conducted at a later date at four high schools in four different locations. The
research sites were chosen on the basis of linguistic demography, rural-urban
difference, languages of instruction in education and types of institutions,
as well taking into consideration the accessibility from both logistical and
political perspectives. The analysis of data follows the emerging themes from
the data and is conducted within Bourdieu’s framework of capital, market
and power.
198 Mamtimyn Sunuodula

Value of Mandarin Chinese as economic capital

Learning and achieving proficiency in Mandarin Chinese by Uyghurs is
portrayed in political, media and academic discourses as a crucial part of
human resource development in Xinjiang (L. Wang 2001). Current Mandarin
Chinese – Uyghur ‘bilingual’ education policy and practices, which place
Mandarin Chinese in an all-powerful position – is consistently defended
with utilitarian economic and political justifications rather than cultural or
other reasons. As professional and technical jobs, by definition, require higher
education and higher education in Xinjiang is only conducted in Mandarin
Chinese since the early 2002, Mandarin Chinese has a gatekeeping function
which allows, or prevents, choice of continued education and, thus, future job
opportunities for the individual and fulfilment of labour market needs for the
society.
As a result, Mandarin Chinese has become the language of political power
and prestige, socioeconomic mobility and advancement.
Data shows (Table 9.1) that over 90 per cent of the civil servant vacancies
required proficiency in Mandarin Chinese in Xinjiang in 2010, in contrast to
only 10 per cent required proficiency in minority languages, including Uyghur
language. The ethnicity requirement specify 60 per cent from Han ethnicity
who make up 40 per cent of Xinjiang’s population and from 27 per cent
minorities, who make up 60 per cent of Xinjiang’s population. The unspecified
default 10 per cent can be added to Han ethnicity, as this is what happens in
practice. Considering language and ethnicity quotas include Chinese speaking
Hui Muslims and others, such as Xibe and Mongolians who are more closely
assimilated into Chinese language and culture than Uyghurs, they stand better
chance of being successfully qualified as civil servants than Uyghurs and it
can be speculated that the actual figure for Uyghurs can go even lower. It is an
indication of how powerful the Mandarin Chinese language and its legitimate
speakers, Han, has become in Xinjiang. Comparative figure for Tibet shows
a more favourable picture for Tibetans than what we see for minorities in
Xinjiang.
Analysis of my quantitative questionnaire responses and qualitative interview
data below shows how Uyghur students view the changing fortunes of capital
and value ascribed to different languages in Xinjiang’s multilingual linguistic
market and how they intend to invest their time and resources on different
languages based on the students’ understanding of the material and symbolic
value and capital associated with each language.
Table 9.1 Ethnicity and language requirements specified in civil servant recruitment examination in Xinjiang, Tibet and Inner Mongolia in 2010

a. Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region

No. of Language requirement Ethnicity requirement
vacancies
Mandarin Chinese Uyghur Unspecified Han Minorities Two ethnicities Unspecified
1973 1385 (70.2%) 209 (10.6%) 379 (19.2%) 1196 (60.6%) 541 (27.4%) 43 (2.18%) 193 (9.78%)

b. Tibet Autonomous Region

No. of Language requirement Ethnicity requirement
vacancies
Unspecified Han Ethnic minorities Unspecified
1986 1986 23 (1.16%) 58（2.92%） 1905 (95.92%)

c. Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region

No. of Language requirement Ethnicity requirement
vacancies
Unspecified Chinese / Mongol Unspecified Ethnic minorities (Ewenki, Daur)
Bilingual
Mandarin Chinese in Education and Society in Xinjiang

3408 3235 (94.93%) 173（5.07%） 3397 (99.68%) 11 (0.32%)

Source: Tursun (2010). The Protection of Minorities in Court Proceedings: A Perspective on Bilingual Justice in China.
199
200 Mamtimyn Sunuodula

S2

3% 3%
14%
39%

41%

1 2 3 4 5

Figure 9.1 Student response to the importance of learning Chinese at school.

Source: Sunuodula and Cao (2015).

Following is the response to one of the questions asked in the questionnaire

survey (Figure 9.1):

Statement: Chinese language teaching and learning should be further enhanced

in my school.
The scale: 1 = strongly disagree, 2 = disagree, 3 = neutral, 4 = agree,
5 = strongly agree

As the chart shows, a significant majority of respondents (80%) supported the

learning of Mandarin Chinese language at school. This demonstrates that majority
of Uyghur students are willing and keen to improve their Chinese language skills
and recognize the growing dominance and market value of Mandarin Chinese
in the linguistic marketplace of Xinjiang. They are willing to invest their time,
financial resources and effort to learn Mandarin Chinese so that they can gain
the economic capital valued by the Han dominated economy and polity in order
to prepare themselves for the employment market. Here is the observation of one
of the teachers interviewed: ‘They are very hard working. They get up very early
and spend all day studying. You don’t know how much energy they put into study
(Mandarin Chinese).’ Qualitative data from the student ethnographic interviews
and responses to open-ended questions on the quantitative questionnaire confirm
the conclusion from the quantitative data analysis. In both cases, the Uyghur
students show strong extrinsic orientations about learning Mandarin Chinese,
that is, not seeing it as means of identity and affiliation, rather for financial reward
and communication (Bourdieu & Passeron 1990: 116). Following are some of the
students’ comments about learning Mandarin Chinese:
 Mandarin Chinese in Education and Society in Xinjiang 201

‘Mandarin Chinese is very important for me to find a job.’

‘I want to be a teacher in the future. It is a must that I learn Mandarin Chinese well.’
‘My parents wish me to learn Mandarin Chinese well.’
‘Mandarin Chinese is our national language. We have to learn it to communicate
with others outside Xinjiang.’
‘I will take College Entrance Exam in Mandarin Chinese, so I will need to study
it hard.’

This shows the current Chinese medium education is socializing these students
into the acts and stances associated with being successful in the job market,
rather than socializing them into the acts and stances associated with what they
are politically expected to be by the state.

Perception of threat to mother tongue

While the Uyghur students showed keen interested in learning Mandarin
Chinese in order to improve their life chances where Mandarin Chinese occupies
an unassailable dominance, many interviewees also showed anxiety about the
rapid increase of the majority Han population and its growing economic and
socio-political dominance on the region, diminishing status of Uyghur language
in official discourse, negative influence on their education of being educated in
a language that they did not fully grasp and about their own future for lacking
Mandarin Chinese competence. The following are some typical answers from
the Uyghur university students interviewed:

I am more worried about the great influx of Han immigration into Uyghur
areas. This trend will have greater impact than the language assimilation policy.
(Uyghur male, fifth year in journalism)
Mandarin Chinese is a difficult language to learn. I am required to write my
thesis in Mandarin Chinese. There is little originality and creativity in it because
I don’t have deep enough knowledge of Mandarin Chinese to fully express
myself. What is happening is language assimilation, not bilingual education.
Most lectures are about politics, Han China’s history and culture. I can’t relate
myself to what was taught about Qing history. (Uyghur male, first year MA in
humanities)
I am very concerned about the overwhelming influence and pressure to learn
Mandarin Chinese. Uyghurs are least knowledgeable in Mandarin Chinese
compared with most other minority nationalities in China. I am not sure if I will
202 Mamtimyn Sunuodula

be able to progress to Master’s degree course when I finish my BA. (Uyghur

male, fifth year in social sciences)
I used to be able to compose poetry and short stories in Uyghur and had a lot
of creative imagination when I was at school. My mother tongue is the essential
tool for me to think and create and it can never be replaced. I am now becoming
a passive learner because I lack proficiency in Han language and I am not able to
think creatively in Han language. I am losing interest in the subjects as I am not
able to understand, digest and internalize the knowledge I have learned using
Han language. (Uyghur male, fifth year in journalism)

Decades of rigorous, top-down promotion of Mandarin Chinese language

education does not seem to bring about desired outcomes. The data as a whole
suggest that the strong influence of the majority culture and the government
policy to promote it cause anxiety leading to resistance which may well be the
major hurdles for Uyghur students to acquire the Chinese language they wish to
acquire (Dörnyei 2003).
The responses to the quantitative question on the position of Uyghur
language in education show an overwhelming support for strengthening its
position in schools. It is interesting to note that the responses received from
the students who were enrolled at the Inland boarding schools, where there is
no provision of Uyghur language and surrounded by Chinese linguistic and
cultural landscape, were even stronger than students studying at schools in
Uyghur majority areas.

Economic and symbolic value of Mandarin Chinese in Uyghur society

Policymakers interviewed were strongly supportive of the forceful promotion
of Mandarin Chinese in Xinjiang. They believe that teaching Mandarin Chinese
to Uyghur students will lead them to better employment and greater economic
benefit. Uyghur language is also important, but with a lower ranking in
comparison with Mandarin Chinese. As one official at the Xinjiang Education
Department put it:

It is a choice between development and culture. If Uyghur people hope to raise

their incomes and improve their living conditions, they must learn to speak
Mandarin Chinese. It is a basic tool for them to participate in the country’s
economic development. It is unavoidable that minority language and culture
will be affected to some extent. But they have to make the choice.

They appeared to be concerned with the lack or shortage of qualified

teachers who, in their definition, ideally would be Uyghur teachers and can
 Mandarin Chinese in Education and Society in Xinjiang 203

perform teaching tasks in Mandarin Chinese. They claimed it was the biggest
challenge for carrying ‘bilingual’ education. As one put it: ‘To improve our
education, the precondition is the quality of teachers. We are in great demand
of bilingual teachers who can teach in Mandarin Chinese. Good teachers
won’t stay. Natural environment is bad here and salary is not high.’ They all
agreed that teaching Uyghur students in Mandarin Chinese would lead them
to better employment prospects and greater economic benefits and Uyghur
language and culture are collaterals worth sacrificing for the sake of economic
benefit and modernization of Xinjiang and China as whole. Such views were
particularly evident in data from the two Han officials who expressed that
Uyghur language is also important, but with a lower ranking in comparison
with Mandarin Chinese.
In comparing empirical evidence obtained in several different minority
populated regions in China, Feng and Sunuodula (2009) propose an analytical
cycle for the process of minority language education policymaking (Figure 9.2).
The evidence showed that the education in different regions had different
degrees of integration into the national curriculum and that language education
policies and practices differed from region to region, depending on the flexibility
of the national policies in accommodating different conditions on the ground
and interpretation of national policies by the local actors in accordance with the
local priorities.
The stark difference in the implementation of two different sets of language
education policies in Xinjiang, that is, the processes of implementing Uyghur
language education policy and the Chinese language education policy,
showed the dynamic relationship among the key actors and factors in a clear
picture. For the policy process with the aim to promote Chinese language

Figure 9.2 An analytical framework for minority educational policies in China.

The dotted line between educational and social outcomes suggests a weak link between
the two as social outcomes would usually derive from the entire society with schools
forming only part of that society (Feng & Sunuodula 2009).
204 Mamtimyn Sunuodula

in education, all actors specified in the model are fully mobilized to play
their respective roles. The literature and the data show that policymakers
at regional, prefectural and county levels tend to carry the state policy
exceedingly far by overemphasizing the promotion of Chinese, whereas
parents and pupils make use of the system to balance the benefits and time
and resources invested on it.

Autobiographical account of an Inland

Xinjiang Senior Class student

Adil is one of the thousand students of the first cohort of Inland Xinjiang
Boarding Class, which the government initiated in 2000. When he left Xinjiang
in 2000, he was still a child aged 14. After four years of boarding school
education at a prestigious high school located in one of the major trading centres
in southern China several thousand miles away from his isolated hometown in
southern Xinjiang and, surrounded completely by Han cultural and linguistic
environment, he then goes on to enrol onto a degree programme at a university
in another major coastal city in southern China where he spends four more
years studying business management. On his graduation, he decides to take his
chances and stays in the city and manages to find a job in a private company
there, rather than returning back to Xinjiang to work. Very quickly, he becomes
a successful and key employee of the company. After a long period of living in
eastern China, his Mandarin Chinese is fluent and even carries the traces of
slight southern Chinese accent.

Excerpts from Adil’s Autobiographical Account

As Inland Xinjiang Senior Class students, we are the real sufferers. In fact,
everyone wanted return to Xinjiang, but from an ideological viewpoint we
couldn’t adapt to and accept the conditions in Xinjiang, and Xinjiang also
couldn’t accommodate us.
The biggest question was employment. Everyone wanted to live and work in
Urumqi. But, there is no hope of being able to get into one of the big national
companies. I have not heard of any Uyghur who was able to succeed in getting
a job in these big companies in Xinjiang. The Uyghurs had the following four
types of employment options: civil servant, local government worker, special
 Mandarin Chinese in Education and Society in Xinjiang 205

police and specially appointed temporary teacher. There was a great demand
for temporary teachers as Xinjiang was implementing the ‘bilingual education’
policy and there were severe lack of qualified teachers. Any Inland Xinjiang
Senior Class graduate can be competent in that job.
My friends from the Inland Xinjiang Senior Class had all returned to
Xinjiang. I learned that one of them became a local policeman in Urumqi
after graduating from a top university in China and another one found a job
as prison guard after being unemployed for more than a year. These are the
ones with good family connections. To pass the civil service recruitment exam,
one must first have good family connections. Passing the written test is only a
formality. Our ‘Class Flower’ took the civil service test in her hometown and
she came first in the written test result, but she failed at the interview stage.
So, she is now employed as a temporary teacher at a county school. Civil
service positions were also tight in Xinjiang. Because there aren’t much good
employment opportunities there, one couldn’t even think about starting up a
business enterprise.
While studying in the Inland, we all had plans and ambitions, but after
returning to Xinjiang, nothing was up to us. For those of us graduated in my
cohort, we were made to feel that the state attached great importance to us as
the students of first Inland Xinjiang Class and we had great expectations. But,
after we graduated we felt we were almost forgotten. Not only did we grow
fluent in Mandarin Chinese language, we also became fully knowledgeable in
Han culture and social norms, which is still a very difficult task to overcome for
the vast majority of ordinary Uyghurs. Chinese language education at the local
schools is useless, there were no Han speakers in their living environment and
the Han language they learn is impossible to use for communication. But we
grew up in Inland Han society and are used to the way the Han people think.
So, I always believe that people like me will have great opportunities in the
future.
Two or three outstanding students in our cohort found employment in
Beijing and stayed there. Perhaps they are also faced with the same questions that
I am facing now. In the Inland, it wasn’t so difficult for us to find employment.
Despite the ethnic differences and misperceptions, the discrimination against
the Uyghurs is still less in the economically developed areas of eastern China
than in Xinjiang. The environment is fairer and the opportunities are more
equal. But, it is not our hometown and there are many inconveniences living
there and I miss my family.
206 Mamtimyn Sunuodula

Conclusion

Modern Uyghur education and formation of

unified Uyghur linguistic market
Education, both formal and informal, plays a decisive role in the process that
leads to the construction, legitimation and imposition of an official, or a formal,
language. Through education the pupils are inculcated with the ideology
of legitimate language and ‘the similarities from which the community of
consciousness which is the cement of the nation stems’ (Bourdieu 1991: 48). But
the education does not exist in a vacuum. It is situated within a web of cultural,
social and ideological beliefs and practices that shape both educational practices
and the way that these practices are interpreted (Friedman 2010).
With the introduction and expansion of modern education in Xinjiang from
the early part of the twentieth century, the parallel education system, that is, the
state-sponsored formal education versus the schools set up and run by Uyghur
community organizations, continued. The Chinese warlord governors Yang
Zengxin, later Jin Shuren, continued with the policy of state supported education
in Chinese using the old Confucian style content and pedagogical methods
more or less unchanged (W. Ma 2006). They even saw modern education for the
Uyghurs as a threat to their despotic minority rule and obstructed its expansion
(Millward 2007: 173–4). This has further alienated the newly emerged Uyghur
intelligentsia as well as wider public, moving them further apart from the state
education system, which was conducted in Chinese (Y. Wang 2009).
Harrell (1995) points out that the success of civilization projects depends not
only on the efforts of the civilizing centre, but also on the degree of complicity
and acceptance of it by the conceived peripheral peoples who are the objects
of these projects. And, in Xinjiang’s case, we can clearly see that the complicity
and acceptance by Uyghurs of the Confucian civilizing project directed against
them was minimal leading to an almost total failure of the project. In Bourdieu’s
(1991: 56) terms, the linguistic domination can occur only if a unified linguistic
market and its social conditions exist with ‘unequal distribution of the chances
of access to the means of production of the legitimate competence, and to the
legitimate places of expression’. Only then, the group that possesses the legitimate
linguistic competence, such as Chinese, is able to impose it as the only legitimate
language in formal linguistic markets. As long as the social and cultural basis for
the production and reproduction of Uyghur language and a language ideology
that considers and receives Uyghur as the norm exists, the top down efforts to
change it are often doomed to fail (Billig 1995).
 Mandarin Chinese in Education and Society in Xinjiang 207

The modern education system established by progressive Uyghur intellectuals

and wealthy businessmen in the first half of twentieth century, which
was modelled on education systems in Turkey or Soviet Central Asia, laid
the foundation for the expansion of literacy among the Uyghurs and the
formation of a standard Uyghur language. Some of the individuals educated at
these schools later became the leaders of Uyghur nationalist movements who
established the two short-lived independent East Turkestan Republics (1933–34,
1944–49) and became key figures in the debate about the unified Uyghur language
and national identity (Millward 2007: 171–5; Thum 2014: 171–4). This has had
profound effect on the development of modern Uyghur ethnic and national self-
consciousness and the development of modern Uyghur language and literature.
By the time when Xinjiang was incorporated into the newly established
People’s Republic of China in 1950, the Uyghur education was well established
and widely spread among the Uyghurs, especially those living in urban areas,
and it was incorporated into the state education by the new communist
government (Benson 2004). The Uyghur medium education rapidly expanded
in the following decade and again after the Cultural Revolution in 1976, in
line with the state’s goal of increasing literacy rates and education levels for the
production of efficient workforce. This has created mechanisms for cultural
and linguistic homogenization of Uyghur population and social conditions
that make it possible for them to identify as members of the imagined Uyghur
community (Anderson 1991: 6). Uyghur education and Uyghur language
became the bedrock of modern Uyghur ethnic identity through which the
identity itself is performatively realized. Among the many symbolic resources
available for the cultural production of identity, language is the most flexible
and pervasive (Bucholtz and Hall 2004). The individual novices are socialized
into speaking Uyghur language and acquiring Uyghur ways of speaking,
acting and being in the world that are recognized as legitimate within the
Uyghur community (Friedman 2010). For most Uyghurs, speaking in Uyghur
language is a natural, automated, unconscious or semi-conscious act, which
formed the basis of their linguistic habitus that linguistically predispose
them in their social interactions. The Uyghur medium education created the
social conditions for the production and reproduction of a standard Uyghur
language and unification of linguistic market within the Uyghur community,
in parallel with the state-sanctioned official language, Mandarin Chinese. This
has created a formidable resistance in defence of Uyghur language practices
against the state efforts to promote the national majority language, Mandarin
Chinese.
208 Mamtimyn Sunuodula

Mandarin Chinese as the ‘common language’

and symbolic domination
After more than a century from the introduction of state-sponsored Chinese
medium education for Uyghurs in Xinjiang and the state’s continuous efforts
in assimilating the Uyghurs culturally and linguistically through education and
political measures, the gap between the state’s goal and linguistic and cultural
practices of Uyghurs in reality remained as wide as ever. In fact, as statistically
shown in this chapter, there was little progress in the number of Uyghurs who
are considered to be proficient in Mandarin Chinese, let alone those who
acknowledge Mandarin Chinese and idealized Han culture as the norm. It is too
complex to trace an exhaustive list of explanations for this, but the individual
Uyghur linguistic habitus and the collective social institutions that have been
shaped and shaping the Uyghur linguistic and cultural practices remained
strong, playing decisive roles in the endless reproduction of their linguistic
predispositions and cultural habitus.
It is evident that most Uyghur interviewees in my qualitative research, as
well as the respondents to my quantitative questionnaires, are well aware of
the conditions they live in and are eager to improve their Mandarin Chinese
competence in order to improve their life chances. They are also strongly
supportive of maintaining or strengthening of the teaching of Uyghur language
in their education, which has been in steep decline in recent years. What they
perceive negatively in terms of language ideological orientation is not the
learning of Mandarin Chinese and achieving the required communicative
competence in the language; rather it is the efforts to culturally and linguistically
assimilate them into the Han norms and practices and attempts to devalue the
Uyghur language, by implication the Uyghur identity, in the all aspects of public
life, a situation which Bourdieu (1991: 46) calls ‘linguistic domination’.

Language and power

As Bourdieu (1977) informs us, language is a social practice rather than an
abstract system which can be exchanged between users of different languages.
It is a practice that is not distinct from other forms of everyday social activity.
Practice is habitual social activity, the series of actions that make up our daily
lives and being in the world. Thus through repetition and reproduction of
Uyghur language, along with other Uyghur social practices, the Uyghur’s way of
being in the world, which Bourdieu called habitus, is shaped. Similarly, Bakhtin
 Mandarin Chinese in Education and Society in Xinjiang 209

(1981) reminds us that every utterance that we spell out is overloaded with the
intention of others, past, present and imagined.
Thus the legitimate competence in Mandarin Chinese is far more than the
competence in the language code, whether it is the spoken Mandarin Chinese
or the literacy in Chinese writing. The linguistic relation of power is not solely
dependent on the linguistic competences present at the time of exchange.
‘The weight of different agents depends on their symbolic capital, i.e. on the
recognition, institutionalized or not, that they receive from a group’ (Bourdieu
1991: 72; emphasis in the original). Bourdieu defines legitimate competence as
‘the statutorily recognized capacity of an authorized person – an authority – to
use, on formal occasions, the legitimate (i.e. formal) language, the authorized,
authoritative language, speech that accredited, worthy of being believed’. In other
words, the legitimate competence of a language includes, but is not limited to,
the abstract notion of language and deeply embedded within the sociohistorical
conditions.
We see clearly from the qualitative and quantitative data presented in this
chapter the predicament of Uyghur students on a scale of not being competent
in Mandarin Chinese to being fully communicative in the language and
aspects of Chinese culture. The data clearly demonstrates the unequal power
relations between Uyghur language and Mandarin Chinese in a rigidly regulated
hierarchical social and political structure as well as in the current Mandarin
Chinese education drive. While the students on the lower end of the scale
struggle to obtain the linguistic competence in Mandarin Chinese demanded
of them by the language policy, the biographical account of a successful Uyghur
who became fluent in Mandarin Chinese language and socialized into Chinese
culture throughout his education tells us that Mandarin Chinese communicative
competence is part of a larger unequal process in which power is distributed
unequally. Here, only the legitimate speakers are imbued with the symbolic
capital that makes them ‘accredited, worthy of being believed’ (Bourdieu
1991: 72), which is a necessary condition for equal power and status.
‘Symbolic capital’ consists of resources that may be drawn upon to build
social and economic success (Bucholtz and Hall 2004). In order to make a
symbolic profit in the linguistic market measured by the dominant language, the
capacity to speak a language is not sufficient as most people have the biological
capacity to learn it. As Bourdieu (1991: 55) puts it: ‘What is rare, then, is not the
capacity to speak, which, being part of our biological heritage, is universal and
therefore essentially non-distinctive, but rather the competence necessary in
order to speak the legitimate language which, depending on social inheritance,
210 Mamtimyn Sunuodula

re-translates social distinctions into the specifically symbolic logic of differential

deviations, or, in short, distinction.’ Thus, the social distinction authorized as
legitimate by the society and often rendered invisible, along with competence
in the standard language, is crucial for individuals to succeed in increasing their
linguistic capital in the social hierarchies.
By acknowledging the centrality of power relations in the linguistic exchange
between Uyghurs and Mandarin speakers in Xinjiang, my focus is to shift the
emphasis from examining the merits of languages in the abstract to the actual
predicaments of their speakers (May 2012b: 4). Official languages are social and
political constructs that are ‘created’ out of the politics of state-making, and not
the other way around (Billig 1995: 13–36). There is nothing ‘natural’ about the
status and prestige attributed to particular majority languages and, conversely,
the stigma that is often attached to minority languages, or to dialects (May 2000).
The emphasis on cultural and linguistic homogeneity within nation-states and the
attendant hierarchizing of languages are neither inevitable nor inviolate. In short,
national identity, its parameters and its constituent elements, including the standard
or ‘common’ language, are social, ideological and political constructs, rather than
based on natural, primordial characteristics of a particular group (May 2012a: 8).
The current Mandarin Chinese medium education policy process is more
about differential power relations than anything else, rather than being about
‘modernization’ and ‘aiding’ the economic development of Uyghurs, as is often
constructed in political, media and academic discourses. Bourdieu’s (1982; 1991)
notions of ‘linguistic markets’, ‘symbolic capital’ and linguistic domination provide
an explanatory framework for my discussion – particularly with regard to the
differential status and value accorded to majority and minority languages. The
ascendancy of Mandarin Chinese is principally achieved by its legitimation and
institutionalization within the increasingly monolingual and monocultural Chinese
nation-state and the subsequent marginalization of Uyghur and other language
varieties. The formation and bolstering of the nation-state based on Mandarin
Chinese as the norm is, more than anything else, responsible for the marginalization
of Uyghur and other minority languages and perpetuating the linguistic (and wider)
inequalities experienced by Uyghur language speakers (May 2012b).

Note

1 Inland (Neidi in Chinese) is used in Xinjiang to denote the areas of China east of
Xinjiang, especially the provinces where population is predominantly Han.
 Mandarin Chinese in Education and Society in Xinjiang 211

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 Part Four

Pedagogical Discourse

Editor’s introduction

In this pedagogical section, education is seen as a source of empowerment

contrasting with education as a structural reproduction of existing power
arrangements. This entails arguing in favour of education as a cultural dynamic
rather than predominantly economic with cultural ownership by its participants
who are actively engaged in the construction of pedagogical discourse in the
classroom, whether these be teachers or students.
Chapter 10 focuses on student and teacher discourses in the foreign language
classroom and Chapter 11 on teachers’ developmental discourse.
Chapter 12 concludes by arguing against economic instrumentalism in
pedagogy as a predominant force or the ‘banking system’ of Paolo Freire and
in favour of education as primarily an agent for social change for intercultural
understanding in the contemporary world.
 10

Cultural Discourses in the Foreign Language

Classroom: Economic Opportunity,
Instrumental Motivation or Cultural
Understanding
David Evans

Introduction

In this chapter foreign language classroom pedagogy is seen to be traversed by

different and often competing discourses such as socio-economic, bureaucratic,
disciplinary/regulatory, developmental, locally based community/family and
cultural-intercultural. It demonstrates the connectedness between some of
these classroom discourses and larger societal discourses through ideological
power in the construction of student learner identities. The chapter is able to
establish such connections through classroom based observations and student
interviews. I acknowledge previously covered theoretical concepts explored
in Chapters one and two such as heteroglossia (Bakhtin 1981; Wertsch 1991)
and symbolic capital (Bourdieu 1991) and, as a consequence, we will see that
classroom participants in the research are traversed by different voices, some of
which are more powerful than others.
We will see a dominant economic voice for language learning and also witness
an alternative cultural voice for a positive regard towards alterity and difference.
In this chapter I argue that the voice or discourse that promotes cultural empathy
towards alterity and cultural understanding should be promoted because this
inhabits the language itself rather than existing as an external instrumental
motivation.
The chapter consequently argues that a foreign language is not English in
translation but is constituted by a different culture within the spoken and written
220 David Evans

foreign language. Therefore one can only understand a culture through learning
the language which both constitutes and expresses the culture of ‘otherness’. In
doing this, some students understand that they are able to explore and develop
their own identities by engaging with the alterity of a different language and
culture.
The theoretical base for this chapter lies in the relationship between
language, culture and ideology, and I argue here that individuals construct their
identities at the intersection of different and often competing discourses. It is
also important to consider, as Lave and Wenger (1991) point out, that learning
and identity are bound up in the same process. According to one’s discursive
learner identity, modern foreign language learning can be a practical holiday
activity, an economic activity for employment prospects, an activity for cultural
discovery, an intercultural reflection on difference, a technical word/sentence
based grammatical activity, a literary activity or finally a combination of many of
the above. I argue that pedagogical activity cannot exist in isolation from wider
social structure and that educational undertakings are always sociocultural and
framed by sociocultural ideologies.
Fairclough (1989; 1993) argues that cultural discourses help to shape
individual identities within a dialectical relationship to non-discursive
formations of society such as financial, socio-economic institutions and modes
of production. Discourse therefore is more than language.
Foucault (1972) talks about discourse as ways of being in social practice
and, therefore, the foundation of our being in the world is shaped by discourse.
Foucault’s ‘discursive formations’ establish the rules that determine what can
be stated about the social world and what cannot. Discourse is then more that
linguistic utterances, it is also about silence in terms of what cannot be said and
encompasses those who have voice and those who, often as a consequence, do not.
In this respect discourse is permeated with notions of power. This is particularly
relevant in an educational context in terms of control over curriculum content,
types of assessment and teaching methods.
Foucault argues furthermore that the way we use discourse as a social practice
governs the type of knowledge we construct for ourselves and so different
discursive practices would have resulted in different types of knowledge.
Discourses are then social ways of being that ‘systematically form the objects
of which they speak’ (Foucault 1972: 57) There is then a sense that collectively
we talk ourselves into knowledge. Indeed educational/pedagogical knowledge
practices have changed over time from being largely regulatory and disciplinary
in the past with an emphasis on physical punishment to a contemporary liberal
 Cultural Discourses in the Foreign Language Classroom 221

developmental construction where pupils are now students. Now, students

co-construct knowledge and express student ‘voice’ more democratically
as opposed to the rigorous didactical passivity of former times. This is an
example of pedagogical knowledge that has changed over time as education
has been constructed differently over time. This is because epistemologically,
knowledge is often now viewed as sociocultural phenomena to be constructed
rather than inert static phenomena to be uncovered, as though it is passively
awaiting discovery. These are philosophical differences concerning the nature
of knowledge and the position of the ‘knower’ and indeed come to be translated
into pedagogical practices.
Seen in this light, modern foreign languages (henceforth MFL) as well
as other subjects have different meanings and interpretations from different
positions occupied by different stakeholders, although these stakeholders may
not have equal access to structures of power.

A Socio-economic educational discourse

I have adapted Fairclough’s (1989) socio-economic model of discourse to the way

in which the ideological construction of classroom pedagogy can be constructed
in the Figure 10.1 below.
The adaptation I have made is to place the MFL classroom as the setting
for interactive level of discourse production at the centre of a circular model
where orders and types of discourse are labelled. The rationale for this is to show
the manner in which MFL discursive meanings are subject to the same socio-
economic and cultural forces as other social phenomena.
The rationale behind this diagram is to show the ‘situatedness’ of classroom
pedagogy and the classroom itself within larger social structures. Therefore
the classroom does not exist in isolation from wider discourses and to a large
extent the wider structures find their representation within patterns of classroom
interaction. An example of this is in the notion of social order, implicit in the
larger Orders of Discourse which can be seen in the exercise of a regulatory
power discourse within the classroom. Oral (2013: 96) argues that second
language pedagogical research has mainly ignored regulatory discourse thereby
treating the classroom as autonomous and isolated from wider society and as
she maintains ‘insulated from socio-political concerns and power relations’.
Regulatory discourse, as Oral points out, interacts with teacher/student relations
in terms of issues such as student autonomy, treating learners as active students
222 David Evans

Figure 10.1 Based on Fairclough’s (1989) socio-economic model of discourse.

as opposed to passive pupils and enabling students to take control of their own
behaviour for learning. She further points out that classrooms are ‘conceptualized
as sites of cultural struggle where different modes of teaching and learning,
different ways of thinking and being, and different versions of the world are battled
over’ (97). Gillette (1994) points out that, in spite of official teacher pedagogical
and regulatory discourse, students learn for their own reasons as opposed to the
stated aims of the lesson. Therefore within the same classroom and lesson some
students may simply wish to conform to the teacher’s demands, others resist and
still others learn for much wider or different reasons from those that are officially
stated. So, although in the diagram above, we see a representation of societal
forces within the classroom, one also has to take into account student agency
which in turn draws upon its own family and community discourses.

Gender as discourse within the classroom

Gender can be seen as an example of a dialectical interaction between the

wider cultural influences of orders of discourse and the way in which students
and others enact their gender in their daily interactional lives by perhaps not
 Cultural Discourses in the Foreign Language Classroom 223

conforming to a powerful binary male-female gender model (Butler 1990). This

can be seen as dialectical because the enactment of gender in daily interaction
over time eventually acts back on the wider social orders of discourse that may
have viewed gender as a binary construction. Eventually a different view of
gender might emerge within the larger societal discourses. Creese et al. (2004),
as an example of this, refer to masculinities and femininities in terms of gender
as multiple rather than binary identities. They argue that gender identity is not
a finished product but is continually being constructed and reconstructed in
daily social interactions. Maleness and femaleness may therefore be seen along
a continuum of multiple identities rather than a simple male-female binary.
Baxter (2003) supports this view in arguing that she does not recognize gender
meanings as fixed and unchanging, as subject identity is always constructed
within discourse. Individuals should therefore be seen as negotiating their
gendered learner identities within the classroom discourses themselves rather
than shaped solely by wider social forces.
However in terms of these wider societal discourses, Pollman (2016: 9)
refers to the current neoliberal hegemony in education which consigns
less socioculturally dominant forms of cultural knowledge to institutional
marginalization and ‘curricular obliteration’.
In terms of foreign language education Pollman argues that, within MFL
pedagogy, intercultural competence is not considered important and so very
little MFL linguistic content in terms of vocabulary, grammar and syntax is
deployed in favour of cultural understanding.

Learner identities

The classroom is then a contested ideological space containing a conflation of

differing tensions at the intersection between different and often conflicting
influences, the more powerful of which are shaped by wider orders of discourse.
Within classroom discursive spaces and interactions students construct
their learner identities individually and in their own social groupings,
shaped by the discourse of teacher pedagogy and, behind that, official school
curriculum pedagogy. Kramsch (1993; 1998) takes the view that the individual
is instrumental in shaping cultural learner identity through his/her own agency.
She rejects the notion of a hegemonic socio-economic determinism in MFL
learning and favours a position where the individual can challenge accepted
normative cultural meanings, constructing alternative meanings for language
224 David Evans

learning in interaction with the language of the ‘Other’. Kramsch’s view of

MFL learning leans towards the discovery of the language of the ‘Other’ and
the community of the ‘Other’. She maintains that students need to begin their
exploration of the ‘Other’ from where they are at the present moment, since
the act of using language is also the act of using culture in one’s own situation.
This is because, as Kramsch (1998) argues, culture is inscribed within language
and therefore using language is also using culture. Van Lier (2000: 247) takes a
similar position to Kramsch in terms of the cultural nature of learning by arguing
for the ‘ecological’ nature of language where language is part of a sociocultural
whole with which one interacts through one’s use of the foreign language. Van
Lier proposes the notion of ‘Languaculture’ where a new language contains new
and different realities which amount to new ways of seeing the world and new
possibilities for the learner’s exploration of self and identity.
However Kramsch’s (1993: 242) particular take on the student’s use of the
foreign language concerns the construction of a ‘third culture’ which represents
a dialectical hybrid between the student’s native culture and the target language
culture. Therefore the cultural context for Kramsch is more than plagiarizing
a foreign language culture but rather the self-empowerment of appropriating
the culture for one’s own needs not only in terms of language use but also for
one’s own critical cultural analysis. Kramsch’s emphasis is on the way students
construct culture as an ongoing process from where they are in the present.
The ‘third place’ is an ongoing dialectical reconciliation between the student’s
subjective active interpretation of the foreign language-culture and the objectivity
of the foreign language-culture as cultural product. The dialectic is therefore
between culture as ongoing process and culture as an objective product. From
the ‘third place’ the student can then move forward in his/her interaction with
the language and culture and in doing so continually find new ‘third places’.
Kramsch (2009: 6) argues that, for example, the third space in learning English
as a second language (ESL) is the ‘right of non-native speakers to appropriate
for themselves the English language and give it other meanings than native
speakers would’. The notion of third place is then a subversive one and one of
‘bricolage’ (Kramsch 2009) where learners make do with the imposed meanings
of others and so ‘thirdness’, as Kramsch argues, is ‘speaking our meaning with
their language’ and ‘reading against the grain’. This creates a third culture which
is a hybrid one between the learner’s own culture and the dominant culture
of the foreign language. Furthermore because culture is fluid, third spaces are
necessarily fluid and not located in a place but more a way of thinking and being.
 Cultural Discourses in the Foreign Language Classroom 225

Consequently, Kramsch now favours a notion of ‘thirdness’ rather than ‘third

place’ to emphasize being rather than place.
Dornyei and Ushioda (2009) offer a more psychological paradigm for foreign
language learning which is rooted in the individual as opposed to sociocultural
context. Their model is weighted towards the future rather than the present in his
notion of ‘imagined future selves’. This looks towards the individual’s potential
future self-concept rather than the construction of culture in the present. Dornyei
and Ushioda state that learning a foreign language is such a long-term activity
that the learner needs to envision an ideal future self that combines the use of
the language with how he/she would be in terms of self-concept having achieved
mastery of the language. This positions future identity on the desire to integrate
within a target language community. Their paradigm of identity is a psychological
one rather than sociological and develops from earlier socio-psychological
theories advanced by Gardner (1985) based on his notion of integrative
motivation, defined as a desire to integrate to the target language community.
This was differentiated from a purely instrumental motivation as purely ‘end-
on’ socio-economic motivation in terms of passing exams or applying for jobs.
Instrumental motivation was entirely extra-linguistic rather than internal to
language. Dornyei’s ideal future self model combines present and future states
within the individual; however this is not a cultural model narrating an ongoing
process, but rather a psychological and ideologically neutral model.
A more socio-economic paradigm for language learning is adopted by Norton
(2000) is terms of learning a language as a ‘cultural capital’ which serves as a
motivation because of a possible future socio-professional and economic return.
In this ‘social investment’ paradigm cultural capital is analogous to economic
capital and frames the learner as an integral member of a socio-economic
community rather than just a linguistic community. This economic model of
cultural capital advocated by Norton is drawn from the work of Bourdieu (1991)
who refers to language as having a symbolic value which is the prestige value
bestowed upon it by dominant socio-economic discourse.
In the light of the preceding lines of argumentation one could argue that
socio-economic, intercultural and psychological future self-concept paradigms
for learner identity are separately framed in opposition to each other rather than
interacting with each other. This chapter proposes a methodological approach
to learner identity, drawing upon ethnographic data which might come either to
illuminate the relevance of the above theories, add to them or perhaps reconcile
them acknowledging their interaction with each other.
226 David Evans

Research study

In the following research conducted in Longmount Academy in the south of

England, in a mixed methodology of interviews with secondary school students
and lesson observations, we see student constructions of meanings for foreign
language. The research participants were drawn from a year 9 Spanish class
and consisted of fourteen students, seven male and seven female aged 14 years.
The school, fictionalized as Longmount Academy, is a wide ability community
school which became a ‘converter’ academy to gain independence from Local
Authority control, and in terms of demographic profile is not dissimilar from
others in the general locality. The year 9 Spanish class was a mixed ability class
and the research participants were volunteers with parental consent to be
interviewed and observed in lessons. All names of research participants have
been fictionalized. As researcher, I had the support of the classroom teacher to
undertake research on cultural discourses and learner identities in the classroom
and also of the headteacher to undertake this research within the school.
An ethnographic style of observation was carried out twice a week over ten
weeks and so there are in total twenty whole lessons, one-hour observations.
Qualitative data of observations were recorded in my research diary during each
observation from which extracts are used to illuminate learner identities.
There were fourteen semi-structured informant based interviews (Robson
1993) where students were asked about their ideas and attitudes relating to
language learning. These interviews were recorded and extracts are used to
highlight learner identities and triangulate against the observations for internal
validity.

Interviews

The first student I interviewed was Georgina, a year 9 female student. Georgina
expresses mixed motives in learner identity, partly socio-economic in terms of
getting a job and partly intercultural appreciation.

Extract 1
(DE = researcher; G = Georgina)
1
DE: Is it important to learn a foreign language?
2
G: I think it is important to learn a foreign language because it can help
3
you like when you’re older with getting jobs and when you go on holiday
4
there’s more chance of being able to make friends and understand people
 Cultural Discourses in the Foreign Language Classroom 227

5
and also it’s fun to learn a language because you can learn about different
6
people’s way of lives and how they are in different countries.

Georgina’s response draws upon different ideological discourses. The socio-

economic one is in terms of employment – line 3. The leisure consumer one
is about holidays in line 3 but then she expands on this with regard to getting
to know and understand people in line 4. She thus widens the leisure holiday
discourse into something of wider cultural interest. This becomes more than
the functional language of ordering food and drink and would require a
wider linguistic range. Much later in the interview when asked the question,
‘What is culture in your opinion?’, she responds by saying, ‘Culture is a way
of life and people’s culture is important to them’. An interesting answer as
not only does she say what culture is in her opinion but she also ascribes
value to it.
This triangulates with the interview data in lines 5 and 6 where she says
that it’s fun to learn a language because you learn about different ways of life
in different countries. The following extract refers to a reason as to why other
cultures are to be valued.

Extract 2
7
DE: D’you think it’s an important thing to do (learning about cultures)
8
G: Yeh because otherwise you just be kind of stuck to your way of life
9
and think that everywhere is like how the U.K is. But different places
10
have different cultures and things.

Georgina sees learning about different cultures as liberating in that you can
break away from being ‘stuck to your way of life’ (line 8). She sees learning a
foreign language and culture as emancipatory and the opposite of localized
cultural confinement.
When asked about the connections between language and culture Georgina
responds as shown in extract 3 from the interview.

Extract 3
11
DE: D’you think that language and culture go together?
12
G: yeh, coz your language kind of reflects your culture like some
13
people use slang.
14
DE: yeh
15
G: and that reflects the way that they are and are brought up

This does not seem to reflect a socio-economic discourse but rather a wider
cultural discourse in terms of the nature of language.
228 David Evans

Similarly the interview with Lizzie and Aimee in the following extract shows
that both girls have a keen cultural interest in Spanish.

Extract 4
(DE = Researcher; L = Lizzie; A = Aimee)
1
DE: what do you think are the main reasons for learning a foreign language?
2
L: there’s loads of reasons
3
DE: give me all the reasons then
4
A: Holiday, because if you don’t know a language you can’t ask for things.
5
L: Employment cos you can get loads of jobs with languages.
6
A: and culture so you can learn what they do and what they eat and stuff
like that.
7
DE: which of holidays, employment and culture are the most important
reasons?
8
A: culture
9
L: employment and culture.
10
DE: why culture
11
L : Because it is important to know what people are like, to be different and stuff.

In the interview Aimee’s priority is the cultural reason for learning a language
whereas Lizzie combines employment and culture. In line 6 Aimee defines
culture as the way people live their lives which would be of interest to her. In
line 11 Lizzie also defines culture as the way people are and she also mentions
difference. She says that it is important to know about this perhaps implying
cultural exploration or discovery. In the next extract Lizzie expresses a view
that we are all different because we say things in different ways and that the
Spanish identity would be different from another national group due to the fact
of speaking a different language (lines 13–17).

Extract 5
12
DE: Are the Spanish different from English people?
13
L : they will be different because we might speak in a different way to them-
14
it’s the way we say things so they are bound to be different anyway and
15
their culture as well.
16
DE: is that caused by the different language?
17
L: Well not everything but it has a lot to do with the language.

In the next extract Aimee expresses the view that you have to appreciate the
target culture to speak the language well. Lizzie concurs with this.

Extract 6
30
DE: Do you think that in order to speak Spanish or any language fluently, you’ve
 Cultural Discourses in the Foreign Language Classroom 229

31
got to like the country and the people?
32
A: if you don’t like the culture, what they do and stuff like that, then there’s
33
no point learning the language, coz you’re not going to go there because
34
that’s what you go there for, because of what it looks like and what’s the
35
food like and how people do stuff
36
L: yeh, actually I agree with you Aimee

Aimee’s viewpoint reflects her cultural identity as supporting the foreign

language learning, because the foreign language expresses a cultural context. She
says in lines 32–35 that the language is supported by the way of life and therefore
one cannot learn the language well if one has no interest in the context. In line
36 Lizzie agrees with this.
As with Georgina, Lizzie displays a tentative awareness of some sort of
connection between different languages and different cultural identities,
transcending concepts of socio-economic necessity, while not denying the
socio-economics of learning a language.
Shannen supports a wide cultural view of language learning in the following
exchange

Extract 7
(DE = researcher; Sh = Shannen)
1
DE: But would it be better if they (Spanish people) all spoke English and
then you
2
could go (Spain) and there’d be no problem?
3
Sh: no because there’d be no excitement in learning a new language.

In this extract Shannen wants to learn a foreign language for the ‘excitement’
(line 3) of difference. In the following short exchange with another female
student in the case study, Leah explains her need for cultural research.

Extract 8
(DE = researcher; Lh = Leah)
1
DE: What do you understand by culture?
2
Lh: like different sets of beliefs and things like that
3
DE: are you interested in getting to know culture and beliefs?
4
Lh: yeh before I go on holiday I usually look up the culture of the place I’m
5
going to

Leah explains her cultural interest in lines 4 and 5 by researching the culture of
her holiday destination before her departure.
The following interview extract with Alex, a male year 9 student, may be
seen as a contrast to the cultural identity of Georgina, Lizzie and Amy and the
230 David Evans

other female students, because in the following extract, the cultural content for
language learning is more instrumental in undertaking holiday transactions.
While entirely legitimate as a reason for learning a foreign language, instrumental
reasons may be seen as external to the language itself as opposed to reasons
intrinsically contained within the language and its cultural expression.
In the following extract Alex views the MFL for its instrumental value.

Extract 9
(DE = researcher; A = Alex)
The following is an interview extract between Alex and the researcher.
1
DE: what importance do you see in learning a foreign language. Is it important
and why?
2
A: yeh because you can go to other countries and ask for stuff
3
DE: right any other reason; is that the main reason?
4
A: that’s the main reason
5
DE: right so what d’you think the attraction is for going to….
6
A: the weather
7
DE: The weather?
8
A: yeh
9
DE: ok have you been to Spain at all?
10
A: I went to Costa Brava
11
DE: ok and were you able to speak any Spanish?
12
A: I spoke to ask for crisps and a drink

Alex’s view of the importance of MFL is instrumental in being able to buy food
and drink.
Alex considers the connection between language and culture in the next
extract.

Extract 10
22
DE: D’you think you need to know the culture well to speak the language well?
23
A: No
24
DE: So you think you could speak the language fairly well or very well without
knowing the culture?
25
A: I think it would help to know it but it wouldn’t make you speak
26
better Spanish I don’t think.

As can be seen in lines 25 and 26 Alex does not consider that there is a close link
between language and culture.
With regard to the interview participants it seemed to me that the two
interviews were polar opposites in that the cultural resources which Alex and
 Cultural Discourses in the Foreign Language Classroom 231

Georgina draw upon for their meaning are completely different. Georgina
understood that culture resided inside the language whereas for Alex culture and
language seem to be separate from each other. Alex is however not interested in
cultural difference at all as can be seen in the following extract.

Extract 11
87
DE: Would you like to live and work in a foreign country?
88
A: I think so yeh
89
DE: what would be the advantage of this?
90
A: Nice place to work
91
DE: nice in what way?
92
A: better weather
93
DE: so what is important to you?
94
A: sunny weather
95
DE: are you interested in life and culture in other countries or is that
96
not a big interest for you?
97
A: it’s not a big interest
98
DE: thanks very much for taking part in this interview.

Alex’s learner identity seems very different from that of Georgina. Although
he enjoys Spanish and is developing his language skill, his cultural subject
position is much narrower than Georgina and he does not as yet relate to the
language as a way of life.
Fred shares a similar instrumental view of MFL to Alex as we can see in
extract 12

Extract 12
(DE = Researcher; F = Fred)
1
DE: so what are the main reasons for learning a language?
2
F: cos if you know the language you can go to other countries like
3
Brazil and other countries that speak Spanish instead of just Spain
4
DE: yeh
5
F: I mean if you learn you can ask for anything
6
DE: so you think it’s mainly for holidays or are there other reasons as well?
7
F: well if you’ve got a job speaking Spanish down the telephone or
8
something and if you go on holidays it would be helpful cos you can
9
ask for stuff
10
DE: are you interested in different ways of life and different ways in which
people live their lives?
11
F: you mean different routines of when they get up and that?
12
DE: yeh, different cultures and ways of doing things
232 David Evans

13
F: no not really to me but to other people that could be interesting-like
14
they want to know when a Spaniard gets up in the morning, what he
15
does, if he has breakfast in a different way or goes out. Some people
16
like that but I don’t really mind how people do things. It’s not really
17
interesting to know what people do.

Fred has a definition of culture and appreciates what this interest could mean
for some people but he is frank when he says that this does not hold any interest
for him at all.
The next interview I set up was with Sam, a male student. I was interested in
finding a male student with a cultural interest in difference and cultural identity
favourable to language learning. Although Sam does not speak the foreign
language much in class, he does write it very well and has a sound grasp of word
structure and grammar.

Extract 13
(DE = researcher; S = Sam, a male year 9 student)
1
DE: D’you find it important to learn M.F.L?
2
S: yeh, maybe if you want to move countries and speak their language. It’s
interesting as well to learn about it.
3
DE: right- what d’you think the main advantage would be?
4
S: maybe if you wanted to move countries for business and stuff
5
DE: d’you think it would be important to understand how other people live?
6
S: yeh it’s important to learn other people’s cultures
7
DE: why do you think that?
8
S: you’ve got to respect their culture
9
DE: right ok. Are you fascinated by the way people live?
10
S: yeh coz they live a lot differently to us, obviously bull-fighting and things
like that
11
DE:So do you think Spanish people are different or the same as us?
12
S: They’re a lot more different

Sam’s answer to the following question later on in the interview, ‘What is culture
in your opinion? is that ‘Culture is something people do which is different to
us’. He sees culture therefore as difference rather than as the way we all live.
However he clearly appreciates the sense of ‘Other’ in this difference. In the
following extract he is excited by cultural difference.

13
DE: And do you like to know about this difference? Is difference important to
you or should we all be the same?
14
S : difference is good cos then you can learn things off them. If we were all the
same it would be boring wouldn’t it, so it’s exciting
 Cultural Discourses in the Foreign Language Classroom 233

15
DE: so you like the excitement of difference? Would you like to work in Spain?
16
S: yeh that’s one of my ambitions, to move out to Spain and maybe start my
own business or something like that.
17
So does that give you motivation for the language?
18
S: yeh

Sam seems to combine an interest in cultural difference with a desire to start a

business. The following extract focuses on the relationship between language
and culture.

19
DE: D’you think you can speak the language more fluently if you get to know
the culture?
20
S : um
21
DE: or does it not matter?
22
S: No I don’t think it matters really if you learn the culture or not. It’s more
enjoyable if
23
you do but I don’t think you need to learn the culture to be able to speak it.

Sam likes to appreciate cultural difference but unlike Georgina, he does not make
connections to language. Nevertheless he has an interest in Spanish culture and
understands that cultural and economic reasons in learning a language make it
attractive for him.

Cultural definitions

If teaching and learning a foreign language is a cultural event, then the cultural
disposition an individual may have towards the language is important for
progression in learning. Norton’s (2000) ‘social investment’ model of motivation
and Dornyei’s ‘imagined future selves’ connect students like Georgina and Sam
with the future, in that there is a future element of the possibilities of wider
horizons lying within their present study of Spanish. For Sam it is the possibility
of pursuing a business in Spain while for Georgina it involves an implied future
of cultural difference and not being ‘stuck to your way of life’ as well as social
investment (line 8 interview extract 2). Van Lier’s (2002) notion of ‘languaculture’,
where culture and language are learned together since culture is inscribed into
language, is particularly relevant to Georgina’s sense of the ‘otherness’ of foreign
language. Lizzie, Aimie, Lauren, Louisa and Leah all support a learner identity
focused on cultural difference and cultural meaning.
Alex and Fred show a far more instrumental learner identity in terms of
learning a language to gain a material end result based on asking for consumer
items.
234 David Evans

Although much has been written on gender differences in foreign language

learning and achievement, it would be unjustified, solely based on these interviews,
to extrapolate Alex and Fred’s more instrumental attitudes to learning Spanish to a
general gender difference. For example, Sam’s (a male student) stated learner identity
is based on an appreciation of cultural ‘otherness’ and so it would be simplistic to
attribute either instrumental learner identities on the one hand or culturally based
learner identities on the other to a binary male-female gender. An enquiry into the
meanings for gender as either a priori or socially associative characteristics and
differences is beyond the scope of this chapter and so the most that could be stated,
at this moment, would concern very loose associations based on observation.
This could be, for example, that the majority but not all of male students exhibit
a particular disposition or that the majority of females but not all, display another
disposition. Any such differences should be acknowledged but not extrapolated to
any generalized form of knowledge beyond the scope of this research.
It seems reasonable to say, from interview evidence, that there are two
principal learner identities within the data. The main distinguishable identity
that predominates among the female students is one that concerns an interest in
knowing and exploring cultural difference. This identity is therefore internal to
the notion of language-culture or the term used by Van Lier (2000; 2002) known
as ‘languaculture’. Within this, a further refinement can be discerned in the
learner position of Georgina which is that of cultural difference within language
itself, in terms of the notion that culture exists within language and not simply
as a surrounding context. To contrast with Georgina, the interview with Sam
shows that he is interested in the ‘otherness’ of culture but he does not see culture
as being connected internally to language but rather to the external context of
language. The other learner identity concerns Alex and Fred’s language learner
identities which are external to language-culture in that language is simply an
instrument for an end result external to the language itself.
We should also take into account the students’ own discourses in action within
their own groups in the classroom in order to see them actively constructing
culture. The best way to capture this and see how this impacts on the learning
process is through ethnographic observation.

Observational fieldwork and analysis

The year 9 Spanish class was observed sixteen times over the space of six
weeks or a half term. The students became used to my presence and, in gaining
their permission and parental permission, I had explained the purpose of my
 Cultural Discourses in the Foreign Language Classroom 235

research in general terms which was to research student learner identity in

foreign language classes. I got to know the students and being a qualified foreign
languages teacher in French and Spanish was able, on occasions, to help and
advise them in their tasks. I had the full support of the teacher with the research
and in interacting with the students.
The following is taken from my research diary notes which are an interaction
involving male and female members of the class, between Fred and Alex on the
one hand and Georgina on the other. We have already heard from these students
in the interview data and have had some idea regarding the cultural positions
they claim to occupy.

Lesson starts with Latino music from Santana coming from the computer. There
is a presentation on computer white board on preterite tense of ‘er’ and ‘ir’ verbs.
Pupils have to copy down and make holiday diary using past tense activities.
Fred and Alex seem ‘hyped up’ – taking Georgina’s £1 coin. Georgina is trying
to work. Fred makes as if to hand it back to her but drops it at the last moment.
This leads to a commotion as Fred and Alex scramble about for it on the floor.
(End of observation)

We can see a problematic encounter between two discourses, that of Fred and
Alex, a pupils’ discourse that is playful and not quite in line with the teacher-led
discourse and that of Georgina who is following the official teacher-led discourse
by trying to work.
In the following observation we see the classroom space dominated by a
pupil discourse that is disengaged from the official teacher-led discourse. The
girls are trying to work although Charlotte, a female pupil who does not feature
in the interview data sample, is drawn into the boys’ banter. The extract also
contains participation from George, Mitchell and Adam, male students who do
not feature in the interview data samples shown.

The lesson starts with a presentation of the preterite tense. The teacher
remonstrates with George for messing around with Charlotte. George lets go of
Charlotte and turns to Fred laughing and joking about penis size. George starts
to make monkey sounds and then puts up his hand to answer a question by the
teacher about verb endings. Mitchell gets out of his chair and pretends to be an
old man whilst bending down to pick up his pen. Alex, Fred and Adam are quiet,
copying preterite verbs from the board. Fred is playing with coins on the table
and turns round to Adam to play ‘shove ha’penny’. Alex turns round to disturb
Georgina who is quietly working. (End of observation)

The interesting thing to note here is the hybrid discourse of the boys who mix
the teacher-led discourse with their own. Alex, Fred and Adam have spent quiet
236 David Evans

moments working, copying down preterite tense verbs but they rarely do this for
any length of time without returning to their own discourse. George tries to draw
Charlotte in to this discourse and nearly succeeds until the teacher intervenes.
Georgina however remains faithful to the pedagogic discourse of the lesson.
The next classroom observation highlights this discourse hybridity in the
lesson participation of George and Alex.

How they would write ‘Que hiciste ayer? = What did you do yesterday?’ George
comes to the board and writes ‘Que’ in minute letters that can hardly be seen
even from close up let alone from the back of the room. Then in very big letters
that take up most of the board space he writes ‘hiciste’ and then in normal letters
writes ‘ayer’. He knew the answer but did not have to present it this way except to
evoke humour. Alex comes to the board and writes a correct answer in normal
sized letters ‘escuche musica’ (I listened to music). (End of observation)

Here Alex decided to respond without acknowledging the call for humour.
The dichotomy between the official lesson objective discourse and pupil
discourse can be seen clearly at this moment whereas the two discourses are
often intertwined and overlapping. In his write up on the board George sticks
with pupil discourse to evoke humour and perhaps also to invoke a likeminded
continuation from the next person to write on the board. I fully expected Alex
to reciprocate. However to my surprise and relief, he conformed to teacher-led
lesson discourse in his write-up.
Alex has a serious side in his work and the following is taken from my
research diary

We were revising the preterite tense and creating a powerpoint Easter holiday
diary on laptops. Every student has a laptop computer for this type of activity
and students become quickly absorbed within the creative possibilities that the
computers are able to afford in terms of the graphics and varieties of text. At
the end of the lesson Alex showed me the text he had quietly created in Spanish
which was grammatically correct. (End of observation)

Although, from his interview in extract 11, Alex claims no ‘intercultural’ interest,
he enjoys writing correct sentences in Spanish. He seems to enjoy the intellectual
challenge of creating Spanish text and to show flexibility of movement between
teacher-led discourse and pupil discourse. There are then male students who
involve themselves in the teacher-led discourse but who still remain in the camp
of pupil discourse, moving between the two.
Observation notes for another lesson once more show pupils constantly
alternating between the different discourses. This is evident from the boys in
 Cultural Discourses in the Foreign Language Classroom 237

the class because it is undisguised in terms of volume. There is also Natasha who
was not part of the interview group because of irregular attendance at school.
The notes are as follows:

Presentation of ‘Las Asignaturas’ (school subjects) on powerpoint. Pupils write

down vocabulary and repeat for pronunciation practice. Pupils start to get overly
noisy in their repetitions and told to quieten down. Fred is using this as a cover
to turn round and chat. Class now quieten and take part in question and answer
session with teacher in Spanish on which subjects they study. George comes out
to do the powerpoint presentation to the class. He presents a few frames then
Shannon is invited to take over. Alex then goes up, has a change of mind, turns
around then goes back again. George then starts arguing with Mitchell about
whose turn it is to continue the presentation. Fred goes up to the whiteboard.
While Fred presents, other pupils are talking amongst themselves – George,
Alex, Natasha. (End of observation)

Initially it seems from the data that it is only the boys who are overtly constructing
their own discourse within the teacher-led discourse of the class. Natasha
however is particularly vocal when she is in the lesson. She is often absent but
her presence is felt when she is there.
In the next observation we see the way the boys project their personalities
into the social space while the girls are chatting quietly to each other. At one
point I go up to join in a work group of girls.

Class does me presento exercise (I introduce myself) in the text book Listos
3. The written work is undertaken quietly. This is followed by speaking dialogues-
asking and answering questions about each other. Fred and Alex can’t agree on
who’s asking the questions and so they both ask each other the same questions.
They keep asking each other the same questions and neither is answering. They
keep this going for some time and eventually Alex starts to answer and with each
answer, he says ‘Fred smells’. Georgina, Lizzie, Aimee and Shannen are doing
the dialogues quietly in pairs. I go to sit next to Georgina and Leah to revise the
preterite tense with them and ask Que hiciste el sabado pasado? What did you
do last weekend? (End of observation)

In the next lesson the gap between the boys’ pupil discourse and official teacher-
led discourse seems to widen. Joel, a male member of the class who was not
included in the interview samples, is present.

Lizzie and Georgina are working on vocab asking the teacher how to say ‘my
parents are called’ in Spanish? – reply from teacher ‘mis padres se llaman’. Next
question is ‘How do you say they are divorced?’ Aimee’s hand is up, Shannen’s
238 David Evans

hand is up. At the back of the class George is playing with a football, bouncing
it against a table. Mitchell is at the back talking to George and Adam and Fred
are tying a white scarf around Mitchell’s head. Towards the front on the left hand
side Aimee, Shannen, Leah and Georgina are sitting around the table as a four.
The talk is on personal issues as they work. Just in front of the back row on the
right hand side Alex and Joel are arguing about a dictionary – Alex is trying to
get it back from Joel and leaning over to prod him. Alex gets out of his seat and
Fred leans over and puts his hand on the chair to prevent him from sitting back
down. Adam is again bouncing his football against the table and Sam is now
drawn into this. (End of observation)

A ‘laddish’ discourse type is taking over the back two rows of the class with
normally well behaved male students getting drawn in such as Joel and Sam.
In the classroom observations so far, we can see the relationship between
pupil and teacher-led discourses. The boys’ pupil discourse seems to be a hybrid
discourse which moves between the official teacher-led discourse and a ‘laddish’
discourse much as outlined by Sunderland (2004) in her notion of gender
differences discourse. On occasions, we see a laddish discourse dominate the
pupils discourse as some of the boys appear to completely disconnect from the
teacher-led discourse. It must be acknowledged that the pupil discourse does
not neatly map onto gender since, for example, Joel and Sam, two male pupils,
remain within the teacher-led discourse most of the time whereas a female pupil,
Natasha, often disconnects from it.

Findings: cultural identity and learner identity in interaction

An issue may arise here of whether cultural identity as a background feature

accounts for learner identity or vice versa. Emphasis, in the classroom
observations, has been on the agency of students to construct their own learning
identities constituted within classroom discourse. They are thus able to create
their own ‘cultural capital’.
Two of the students however, Fred and Alex, do not see the foreign language
as connected to intercultural awareness. This can impact upon learner identity
in different ways. For example, Alex, at times, enjoys the creation of Spanish
text even though he does not seem to have the cultural resources to connect the
words he creates to wider meanings and discourses. The language is for him at
present a classroom word game. The issue seems to be one of cultural learner
identity and gender. Some of the boys do not evoke wider cultural awareness. By
 Cultural Discourses in the Foreign Language Classroom 239

contrast all the girls interviewed and also, one of the boys expressed intercultural
interest and awareness, although not to the sophisticated extent that Georgina
and Lizzie make in connecting culture to the forms of language. Georgina
connects language and culture from her own independent study interests and
imagination even though she has never been to Spain.
Georgina’s learner identity seems connected to her cultural involvement with
Spanish and this feeds back into her language use. So this is more than just an
instrumental motivation of learning Spanish to get a job. The cultural identity
here should be seen as an active one where the student is engaged in the process
of research and discovery for him/herself as opposed to culture as a finished
product. This is therefore where culture as product interrelates with culture as a
process. Culture as an active process seems to be a means of transporting one’s
identity from one place to another through language, much as in Kramsch’s
(2009) notion of third place.

Gendered identity

In this case study, the only students who saw learning Spanish solely in terms of
functional uses with regard to holidays and jobs were male. Yet generally male/
female gender difference in wider cultural awareness is often blurred. Gender
can be seen as a continuum between characteristics deemed male at one end
and female at the other. As mentioned previously in the chapter, Creese et sl.
(2004) refer to masculinities and femininities in the plural where gender is
not a finished product at any given time but is in a constant process of social
construction. Natasha, a girl, has little cultural interest in the target language
whereas Sam, a boy, is keen on the cultural aspects of the foreign language.
There is no simple and clear-cut dichotomy with regard to male/female cultural
identity but it seems here there are tendencies for female students to assume
a greater cultural interest in the language than male students. From the data
gathered there is more of a tendency for boys to see the end result of language
learning in terms of gain rather than appreciate the process in terms of cultural
enquiry.
Fred has a definition of culture and appreciates what this interest could mean
for some people but he is frank when he says that this does not hold any interest
for him at all (interview extract 12, lines 13–17). We have seen in the classroom
observations that Fred remains very much on the outside of the language
activities, engaging in the pupil discourse ‘banter’.
240 David Evans

Powerful socio-economic discourse often seems to supply the default for

learning a foreign language in the absence of wider culture. Here Fairclough’s
(1989) notion of orders of discourse permeating down to the socio-economic
discourse type at institutional level and then to interactional practice seems
particularly relevant. If one is disinclined or unable to learn for intrinsic interest
in language and culture and no other meanings seem available, one can always
supply economic motivations of employment prospects, the need to sell to the
Spanish in their own language or working in leisure and tourism. The problem
here is that the focus on learning is geared towards the end result through
acquiring linguistic transactional skills rather than a focus on the process of
language acquisition. Metaphorically, it is the goal that counts rather than the
beautiful game. MFL learning should be more than communication skills and,
as Kramsch (1993) argues, the bland target language culture that MFL does
communicate is portrayed as ideologically normative in terms of people’s lives,
families, interests, jobs and so on. It does not reflect ideological and discourse
tensions that exist within the classroom space. Kramsch argues that the subject
area must break out of its normative ideological stranglehold and it can ‘no
longer be the one-sided response to national and economic interests, and the
pursuit of economic happiness; it must include the search for an understanding
of cultural boundaries’ (12).

Conclusion

In terms of the research study the data that emerges shows a conflation between
cultural frameworks of interculturality/cultural understanding, psychological
notions of identity, socio-economics and gender. The relationship between these
cultural elements is complex and more often exists as an interrelationship rather
than the categories standing alone.
The learner cultural identities for MFL in the research are recognizable in
relation to the theoretical considerations at the beginning of the chapter although
in practice they are mainly interrelated. Cultural/intercultural learner identities
often interrelate with socio-economic considerations and notions of future
identity and are divided between male and female students although not equally.
From the findings, mainly the female students express cultural/ intercultural
interest in the language learner and only a female student, Georgina, expresses
the notion of culture residing within language. However it is only male students
who express an instrumental learner identity, external to language-culture.
 Cultural Discourses in the Foreign Language Classroom 241

In the research we see student agency in the way students construct their
identities in class. Yet we can also see that these identities are not constructed
in isolation from the outside world but draw upon all the personal and
ideological identity possibilities afforded by the larger discourses outside
the classroom. Therefore gender is enacted from the repertoires available for
male and female and pedagogical meanings are drawn from the cultural and
socio-economic affordances in the wider structures of society and community.
The balance therefore that we can see is between the freewill of agency and
the determinism of structure which are played out in every classroom time
and again.
In terms of the rationale of this book where both languages and language
learning are a site of conflict between dominant economic capital and an
intrinsic linguistic cultural capital which is often marginalized, we can see from
the research study a balance between the two types of capital. At the edges this is
exemplified in a gender divide but more often than not the two types of capital are
interrelated where students learn a language for both intrinsic cultural reasons
as well as economic reasons external to language itself. Ultimately however,
from this small-scale research, we can see that although students may draw
upon wider societal and institutional discourses, they interpret them according
to their own learner identities in the classroom context. They exercise agency
in enacting their own learner identities and consequently contributing to the
construction of their own learning cultures.
However findings from a relatively small-scale research population can
only express trends in a tentative manner based on necessarily unfinished
interpretations. The findings are taken from a particular locality and not
amenable for extrapolation to generalizable knowledge. Nevertheless they may
point the way for further research into how learners construct and explore their
identities, not just in terms of foreign language pedagogy but also the cultural
contexts around and within language.

References

Bakhtin, M. (1981). The Dialogic Imagination: Four Essays. M. Holquist (ed.). Austin:
University of Texas Press.
Baxter, J. (2003). Positioning Gender in Discourse: A Feminist Methodology. Basingstoke:
Palgrave Macmillan.
Bourdieu, P. (1991). Language and Symbolic Power. J. P. Thompson (ed.). Cambridge:
Harvard University Press.
242 David Evans

Butler, J. (1990). Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity. London:
Routledge.
Creese, A., Leonard, D., Daniels, H., & Hey, V. (2004). ‘Pedagogic Discourses, Learning
and Gender Identification’. Language and Education 18.3: 191–206.
Dornyei, Z., & Ushioda, E. (2009). Motivation, Language Identity and the L2 Self.
Clevedon: Multilingual Matters.
Fairclough, N. (1989). Language and Power. London/New York:. Longman.
Foucault, M. (1972). The Archeology of Knowledge. London: Routledge.
Gardner, R. (1985). Social Psychology and Second Language Learning: The Role of
Attitudes and Motivation. London: Edward Arnold.
Gillette, B. (1994). ‘The Role of Learner Goals in L2 Success’. In J. Lantolf and G. Appel,
Vygotskian Approaches to Second Language Research. Norwood, NJ: Ablex Press.
Kramsch, C. (1993). Context and Culture in Language Teaching. Oxford: Oxford
University Press.
Kramsch, C. (1998). Language and Culture. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Kramsch, C. (2009). The Multilingual Subject. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Lave, J., and Wenger, E. (1991). Situated Learning: Legitimate Peripheral Participation.
New York: Cambridge University Press.
Norton, B. (2000). Identity and Language Learning: Gender, Ethnicity and Educational
Change. London: Longman.
Oral, Y. (2013). ‘ “The Right Things Are What I Expect Them to Do”; Negotiation
of Power Relations in an English Classroom’. Journal of Language, Identity and
Education 12.4: 96–115.
Pollmann, A. (2016). ‘Habitus, Reflexivity and the Realization of Intercultural
Capital: The (Unfulfilled) Potential of Intercultural Education’. Cogent Social
Sciences 2.
Robson, C. (1993). Real World Research. Oxford: Blackwell.
Sunderland, J. (2004). Gendered Discourses. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
Van Lier, L. (2000). ‘From Input to Affordance: Social Interactive Learning from
an Ecological Perspective’. In J. P. Lantolf (ed.), Sociocultural Theory and Second
Language Learning. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Van Lier, L. (2002). The Ecology of Language Learning and Sociocultural Theory.
Monterey Institute of International Studies.
Wertsche, J. V. (1991). Voices of the Mind: A Sociocultural Approach to Mediated Action.
Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
 11

Teacher Development through Classroom

Discourse Analysis: The Self-Evaluation of
Teacher Talk Instrument Developed by Walsh
Karin Zotzmann

Introduction

Communication and interaction are essential for successful language learning,

including, for instance, the negotiation of meaning, the modification of output
and the exposure to a wide range of spoken and written genres (Ellis 1994;
Swain 1995; van Lier 1996). Being able to create such a communication-rich
learning environment requires sophisticated pedagogical and methodological
competences on the part of the teacher. Effective pre-service, as well as
in-service teacher training and development therefore often include opportunities
to explore and reflect upon the discursive patterns of teachers’ own classrooms.
Awareness of the specificities of classroom discourse, that is, the relationship
between communication and learning opportunities, is regarded as crucial
if teachers want to facilitate their students’ learning processes effectively and
expand what Walsh (2006; 2011) calls their classroom interactional competence.
This chapter reports on a teacher development project with four in-service
teachers of Spanish in Mexico who analysed a transcript of their own classes
through a discourse analytical instrument developed by Walsh (2006; 2011).
Discourse analysis (DA) is particularly interesting as it focuses on language in
context, that is, communicative events are described, analysed and interpreted
as they unfold over time in specific social situations, involving social actors with
particular intentions and objectives. Walsh’s discourse analytical instrument
(Self-Evaluation of Teacher Talk, henceforth SETT) consists of a range of
analytical concepts and procedures designed to foment the awareness of teachers
about the language they use in class, the appropriateness of these discursive
244 Karin Zotzmann

patterns to the pedagogic aims they pursue and the learning opportunities they
thereby create for their students. SETT thus allows teachers to reflect upon their
own classrooms. It responds to the call for attuning professional development to
context-specific everyday practices (Wallace 1991; Gebhard and Oprandy 1999;
Gebhard 1984).
In the professional development project I report on, four experienced
teachers of Spanish were introduced to SETT, employed it in an analysis of their
own classroom discourse and then reflected upon the experiences with this type
of self-analysis in a semi-structured interview. Their respective class sizes ranged
from five to twenty adult students either from the United States or Europe who
had come to Mexico either to work, to do an internship or to study a semester
abroad. Two of the four classes took place at a large private language institute,
the other two at different private universities. The lessons, each of them fifty
minutes long, were taped several weeks after the term had begun in order to
ensure that students and teachers already knew each other and had established
norms for and ways of working together.
Based on the interview data, transcripts and video-recordings of the respective
classes, my initial aim was to find out whether the four participants experienced
SETT as user-friendly, whether it indeed helped them to generate new insights
about their own behaviour in the classroom and, conversely, whether or not
the instrument constrained them in any way in their reflection. On a more
theoretical plane, I thus wanted to explore the affordances and limitations of
SETT, an instrument that was explicitly designed to make the link between
classroom discourse, teaching objectives and context visible and accessible to
teachers.
While all four participants pointed to a large number of benefits and a
smaller amount of deficiencies of SETT, they also frequently referred to factors
outside of the classroom that had influenced their decisions and reasons for
specific communicative behaviour inside of this micro-institutional space. As
individuals with specific identities and sense of agency, values (reasons) and
abilities, they naturally differed in their interpretation of and responses to these
multiple interlacing institutional and larger macro-level structures. By design,
the SETT, however, focuses exclusively on classroom discourse and interaction
as if teaching occurred in a social vacuum. Taking into consideration that a DA
instrument needs to be practical and viable, I suggest that SETT might benefit
from combining the micro-level discourse analysis with a broader account of
the interplay between agency and structures as ‘the enduring, affording and
constraining influences of the social order’ (Sealey and Carter 2004: xiii). To this
 Teacher Development through Classroom Discourse Analysis 245

end, I draw upon an ecological framework as proposed by van Lier (2000), Doyle
(2006) and Kramsch (2003). In a first instance, though, I outline the concepts,
theoretical foundations and procedures of SETT, explain the adaptations that
the particular context of the investigation required and present evidence from
interview data of how teachers reflected upon and explained their decisions and
behaviour.

The Self-Evaluation of Teacher Talk developed by Walsh

The SETT instrument developed by Walsh (2006) consists of a range of analytical

concepts and procedures that were designed to foment the awareness of teachers
about the language they use in class, the appropriateness of these discursive
patterns in relation to the pedagogic goals teachers pursue and the learning
opportunities they thereby create for their students. The SETT is informed, in
a first instance, by Conversation Analysis (CA) in that it emphasizes both the
sequential and dynamic development of talk over time and the use of ‘naturally’
occurring classroom data. Similar to CA, the author also acknowledges that
teachers have more power over turn taking patterns than students: They
commonly begin, frame and end the interaction, hold the floor longer and select
students to respond. In line with CA he assumes that in real-world classrooms
the default option of discursive patterns still consists of a turn initiated by the
teacher, a response by the student and feedback (IRF) (Sinclair and Coulthard
1975; 1992) or an evaluation of this response (IRE) (Mehan 1979) by the teacher.
While Walsh is sympathetic to CA, he also criticizes the framework for
analysing instances of classroom discourse in isolation, that is, without
establishing links to context and purposes. He argues that micro-linguistic
behaviour such as scaffolding, direct repair, content feedback, extended wait-time,
referential questions, seeking clarification, extended learner turn, display questions
or form-focused feedback have to be interpreted in context, that is, in relation to
the purpose a teacher pursues in this particular moment in class. Walsh calls
these micro-contexts created by the teacher modes and differentiates between
four empirically derived types: The skills and systems mode is characterized by
a focus on language as a system constituted by, for example, lexical items and
syntactical rules as well as learning strategies. While this could be regarded as
one of the principal function of foreign language classes, teachers also have
to organize students, check attendance lists, distribute them into groups for
particular activities and ensure that they contribute to the class in a constructive
246 Karin Zotzmann

manner. The author subsumes this type of activities under the managerial mode
and sets it apart from the materials mode, where teachers direct the attention of
students to any material employed for pedagogic purposes such as, for example,
written texts or audio recordings. Instead of treating students exclusively in
relation to their role in the classroom, teachers can also engage them in an
integral and holistic manner, that is, as individuals with emotions, attitudes and
opinions. The author calls this the classroom context mode.
The concept of mode allows Walsh to analyse classroom discourse with
greater precision: Instead of classifying a sequence or even the totality of a
lesson as ‘missing authentic communication’, the question is rather whether the
intention the teacher pursues in a particular segment actually requires the holistic
communicative involvement of students. The managerial mode, for instance, is
usually teacher driven and includes mainly instructions. The communicative
mode, in contrast, engages students as individual human beings and thus allows,
at least potentially, for a broad variety of speech acts.
In terms of procedure, Walsh suggests that teachers audiotape between
ten and fifteen minutes of their class, preferably a sequence with particularly
intense interaction. Immediately after the lesson they are invited to listen to the
recording several times, choose parts that appear interesting to them, transcribe
these sections, decide which modes are operating in these transcribed sequences
and evaluate the language they used in relation to their intentions. In a third
step, they discuss this analysis with the teacher trainer or researcher in a post-
observation dialogue. Since the procedure relies heavily on proactive teachers
who can invest a considerable amount of time, several changes had to be made
in the context of the project.

The context of the investigation and the

need for changes in the procedure
The four participants worked, similar to as many foreign language teachers
around the world, in somewhat precarious situations. Although experienced
practitioners, they had always been employed on short-term contracts, that is,
they were subjected to fluctuations in student demand. They worked long hours,
sometimes in different institutions, and had little or no institutional support for
professional development. As time was a scarce resource for them, I met the
four teachers individually and provided extensive support to ensure continuing
commitment throughout. Instead of them audiotaping their own classes,
 Teacher Development through Classroom Discourse Analysis 247

selecting interesting sections and transcribing these, as suggested by Walsh,

I decided to videotape the classes and transcribe the entire lessons myself. Two
further considerations influenced this decisions: In comparison with audiotapes,
videos do not only offer richer data including information on body language,
gestures and facial expressions, they also allow teachers to see the interaction
from different angles and to, potentially, detect details which had escaped their
attention while they were teaching. In addition to this, analysing a whole class
instead of isolated passages seemed beneficial as sequences, key moments and
points of transition came into focus. After teaching the class, they were asked to
watch the videotape and write a short reflective text about students’ participation
and engagement during the class.
Since the four participating teachers had no experience in analysing their own
classroom discourse and no previous exposure to individualized professional
development, I anticipated that they needed more guidance in relation to the
concepts and procedures of SETT. In order to know more about SETT and
activate their knowledge the teachers were invited to explore their teaching
philosophy beforehand through a semi-structured questionnaire, including, for
instance, their attitudes towards the use of the L1 in the classroom, the role of
grammar and interaction, the inclusion of cultural aspects and the nature of
feedback and error treatment.
In order to facilitate the actual analysis via SETT, I designed a worksheet
with three columns: The first column contained the transcription. In the second
column, participants noted down the overriding mode or purpose of a specific
phase of the lesson. In the third column they noted down the corresponding
linguistic realization at the micro-linguistic level.

Transcription Mode Teacher talk

Teacher: . . . ok, let’s begin . . .

After having analysed the transcription of their classroom discourse and

discussed it with me, teachers talked about their experiences with and their
evaluation of the usefulness and viability of SETT. I explained to the participants
that I did not favour any particular, positive or negative, evaluations but was
interested in their truthful opinions. In addition to this, teachers were also
invited to digress and explore any issues that they regarded as relevant in relation
to their class and the analysis.
248 Karin Zotzmann

The utility of Walsh’s model to foster

reflexivity and awareness in teachers
All four teachers evaluated the experiences with SETT very positively and
stressed that they had discovered new aspects about their own teaching practices
and ways of communicating with students:

I very much liked this project because . . . you are not aware of what you are
doing in class. You often take it for granted that they [students] understand and
that you are doing a magnificent job. (teacher D)

They found a variety of opportunities for improvement, for example, in relation

to equitable participation, classroom management, choice of material, variation
of activities, change of and transition between different modes, function
of questions, length of pauses, quality of feedback and so on. Teacher A, for
example, describes how she became aware of her tendency to respond to her
own questions:

For example, I make them . . . I asked them a question: ‘So what can we see
here in this picture?’ And then immediately I myself respond to the question!
Poor guys! I think they had not even understood the question. I did not give
them time to reflect about what they wanted to answer and then immediately
do I answer myself. And it seems to me that this is something that I do regularly
in class . . . Maybe I do not ALWAYS answer to my own questions . . . but in this
case where I can see the transcript over and over again I NOTICE it.

The same teacher realized that she tended to rely on the participation of stronger
students and thus disadvantages learners who need more time to answer:

I very much tend to . . . I don’t know, to use the strongest in the class, for example
when we introduce the forms. And then, I become too quick and probably do
not give the others enough time.

Teacher D reported of a lack of transitions between different activities and modes:

When I saw the transcription I really focused on the language: How do I manage
the class? Do I give them an opportunity to speak or don’t I? How do I make
the transition from one phase to the next? Because what I also noticed is that
I do not have a structure . . . I begin one thing . . . and then later I stop and then
I begin something else . . . I do not link them or relate them to each other. As if
I stopped and continued, stopped and continued.

After the analysis, she therefore tried to improve her teaching by signposting
and explaining transitions to students. Similarly, teacher A reports of an
 Teacher Development through Classroom Discourse Analysis 249

immediate effect of her reflection on her teaching practice: ‘Now every time
I teach I think: Ok . . . slowly . . . Give them time! . . . Wait! . . . Let them reflect!’
While it would need a long-term empirical study to investigate the actual
effects on teaching practices and routines of each individual teacher, the use of
SETT generated an awareness in all four participants that learning opportunities
are generated through the language employed. Teacher D, for instance, explains:

When I watched myself in the video I thought: ‘How lovely, nice and witty’ but
then I saw in the transcription: five lines teacher and then the student says: ‘Aha.’
Then again, four lines the teacher and the student says: ‘Yes’ . . . This is what
I became aware of. It made me see that it is the student who should participate
in class, not me.

Teacher B explains how the analysis changed her understanding of classroom

communication:

No, no, before I had never thought of how you can . . . guide a student through
. . . these interventions that you do . . . I had never thought about how these can
motivate or stop them . . . And that is also why it was so interesting for me to
analyse the language.

The necessity to improve and complement the model

Although the evaluation of the instrument SETT was very positive in all four
cases, some of the theoretical assumptions underpinning the model, above
all the concept of mode, generated analytical difficulties for participants. For
teacher D the concept was in a first instance very helpful:

But it helps you really a lot because you say: Ah, and here I did this activity
and then this sequence and then I changed the mode. Well, I think it helps you
enormously in clarifying what you are doing in class, does not it?

At the same time, she mentions that the four modes seemed ‘very general’ to her
and that it was difficult to categorize different phases of the class into different
modes: ‘Some of them just did not fit . . . they did not fit in any of them. So
I said to myself: The closest one is probably this one.’ She concludes that the
four modes are insufficient and not clearly delimited, an opinion voiced by the
other participants, as well. Teacher B thought that ‘maybe there should be more
[modes]. I do not know’ while teacher A reported: ‘In some cases, I just lost
it. But then you told me that sometimes two purposes can be mixed and then
I thought: Ah, that makes sense.’
250 Karin Zotzmann

One problem with the four modes is that although Walsh came to this
categorization through empirical research the distinctions between them appear
ambivalent. The material and the managerial mode, for instance, seem to merge
as it is not always possible to distinguish an action that is oriented towards the
organization of students in general and the organization of students in relation
to specific tasks and materials. Furthermore, the separation between language
(grammar, vocabulary and learning strategies) oriented sequences (skills
and systems mode) and communication that involves students holistically as
individuals (classroom context mode) replicate a commonly found phenomenon
in traditional teacher centred classrooms. It does not take into account principles
of communicative language teaching, task based teaching and learning and
Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL) that combine the involvement
of students with a focus on language as a meaning making resource in particular
contexts.
Walsh himself emphasizes that modes have a process character and appear
often in mixed forms. To this end, Walsh (2011: 129) introduced the concept
of mode switching (movements between one mode and another), mode side
sequences (movements between main and secondary modes) and mode
divergence (interactional features and pedagogic goals do not coincide). In
addition to this, the framework allows for other modes to be added, should they
arise. Nevertheless, SETT is designed around four empirically derived modes
and teachers tend to perceive them as predetermined or definite concepts, a view
that can only be amended through further explanations.
The problems teachers in this professional development encountered are
partly due to the fact that the concept of mode has little to offer in terms of
analytical depth. In general terms mode designates the form or condition of a
task or a way of performing it. It has been adopted in education, for instance, to
differentiate between forms of interaction (face-to-face versus blended learning)
or between different semiotic systems (visual, verbal, written, oral, physical
or musical) and their ‘multimodal’ ensembles (Kress and van Leeuwen 2001).
The notion of genre, in contrast, has been widely discussed in academia and
increasingly refined. In a first instance, the term draws attention to the fact that
people commonly attempt to standardize and stabilize recurring actions which
have been successful in the past. These conventionalized forms of interaction
or ‘interactional genres’ (Lefstein 2008; Hanks 2005; Rampton 2006) make
behaviour relatively predictable without determining it. They are understood
to be governed by specific purposes, similar to what Walsh aims to achieve
with the concept of mode, although there is a widespread acceptance that
 Teacher Development through Classroom Discourse Analysis 251

‘communicative purpose’ is a rather ‘fuzzy and sometimes subjective’ concept

(Bhatia 2004: 113). The functional view of linguistic interaction as linked to and
determined by specific intentions is hence regarded as too rigid, a concern that
was voiced by the four participants. Since genres are semiotic resources based
on previous experiences that people draw upon in specific social practices and
in relation to their particular, often mixed and sometimes even contradictory
purposes, they become actualized with differing degrees of variance. The degree
of possible creativity and genre hybridity depends, however, on the openness or
stability of the respective social situation and context. ‘Participants always have
the possibility of improvising, both within the bounds of generic expectations
and also by stretching or breaking them, for example, by importing resources
from other communicative genres, rejecting role expectations, or otherwise
attempting to redefine the situation’ (Lefstein 2008: 709). In particular expert
members such as experienced teachers can employ and mix generic and
discursive resources in order to integrate ‘additional private intentions within
the socially accepted and shared communicative purposes’ (Bhatia 2004: 130).
Instead of classifying different microcontexts as modes according to overriding
purposes, a genre perspective might therefore achieve a balance between
conventionalized forms of interaction and creativity and elevate hybridity to a
normal feature of classroom discourse. It could function as a ‘sensitizing’ instead
of a ‘definite’ concept. Sensitizing concepts, according to Charmaz (2003), might
lack the security of fixed categories but provide clues about where to look for
certain types of phenomena. This is particularly important in the context of the
complex task the teacher trainer or researcher has to accomplish during the post-
observation dialogue. While she has to provide and explain analytical concepts
and instruments, scaffold their use and facilitate the construction of a narrative,
she also needs to remain open to emergent themes so that teachers can explore
topics and analytical avenues they find relevant and thereby become owners of
their own professional development.
The case of teacher C is particularly telling in this context. While she had
prepared the lesson, she seemed to be very flexible in changing the course of the
classroom conversation according to students’ needs, comments and questions.
As a result, the lesson appeared fragmented and the analysis of the transcription
displayed constant changes of modes. The teacher herself described it in the
following way:
If we look closely at the column for the modes, we can see that there is a dense
mixture of modes. Apparently the dialogues between teacher and students, or
between students, or between one student and the teacher, is good, fluid and
252 Karin Zotzmann

above all in Spanish. But if we talk in terms of Spanish as a foreign language

class, the absence of a structure that includes appropriate management of
time dedicated to modes, intentions, turns, activities, materials, state of mind
of the students and classroom atmosphere is quite clear. This structure can be
understood as a lack of a pedagogic discourse that is conscious and efficient. So,
if you ask me to what extent the language and the pedagogic purpose coincide
. . . and if we add the column with the language of the teacher, we can guess
that there is a good intention, but nothing else. This means, there is dialogue
and there is a class. But what is missing is an awareness that the mode and the
language employed should be coherent instead of being a collage or disperse
fragments of activities.

The use of the SETT instrument had clearly helped her to identify an apparent
lack of classroom management and pedagogic purposes. At the same time,
though, she points to the fact that the dialogues are ‘good, fluid and above all in
Spanish’. As a matter of fact, all students participated in her lesson; they appeared
motivated and seemed confident in expressing ideas and doubts despite their
beginners’ level.
Encouraged to explore her reasons for communicating with students the way
she did, the teacher explains that she wants ‘to create a community’, a culture
or a ‘fictitious atmosphere between us’ ‘having our own topics, for instance, . . .
having our own secrets’. Through these shared moments and experiences they
can speak about life: ‘This has nothing to do with grammar . . . this has to do with
life . . . with human life’:

I am trying to do something good . . . they are also human beings . . . and they are
under pressure, pressure, pressure . . . you are worth as much as you produce . . .
Well, that is how it is . . . this is the time we live in. I am not sure if this is good or
bad but it is the reality. So that is why I think that . . . what we need are strategies
of how to survive all this, without getting bitter . . . so I try to make people have
a good time . . . if they have to let off steam, then let us do that, if they are angry
then they should say it: ‘Have you now let off steam?’ ‘Have we discussed this
now? Ok, then let’s continue with the class.’ And what they like . . . they end up
talking a lot about their family, about their private life.

Viewed through her eyes, the lack of order in class and the often abrupt topic
changes appear only on some level as deficiencies as they are in accordance
with her intention to prioritize the ‘human element’ through a flexible and
spontaneous conversation. The ambivalence emerges further in the interview
where she admits that it is this flexibility and apparent chaos that generates
opportunities for students to talk:
 Teacher Development through Classroom Discourse Analysis 253

I am not worried about the mess anymore because it already happened . . . so . . .

but thinking the mess was very interesting because it helped me first of all to
understand the . . . I knew the problem. And of course, I would like to solve it . . .
and the other thing is not to lose the mess that makes them talk. This is like the
challenge now.

What emerges here is ambivalence between order and disorder, planning and
chaos, grammar and personalized communication which could not be neatly
categorized in one of the four modes. In order to arrive at his reasoning it was
important that both the researcher and the teacher felt comfortable to go beyond
definite categories such as modes and explore the interactional genres she had
co-created with her students in relation to her intentions.
While the notion of genre can remind us of the unavoidable hybridity of
classroom discourse and sensitize us to the interactional work that is being done
it also brings into view that classroom internal practices are shaped by classroom
external factors.

The need to go beyond the classroom

Social groups do not develop patterned ways of interacting and communicating

or interactional genres in a social vacuum. Each classroom is embedded in
an institution and a sociocultural context with particular constrains and
affordances. The fact that all three institutions the four participants worked in
were private had an effect on the relations between teachers and students and
by implication on the ways students were taught. The participants were, for
instance, continuously being evaluated by students. Their re-employment and, in
the case of the private language institute, the level of payment they received was
dependent on the satisfaction of their ‘clients’. Teacher A reports of the influence
of her students on her income: ‘but at the end of the year there is an evaluation
and it depends on the feedback whether you get five pesos more or less, right?’
As she explains the choice of modes has ‘LOTS to do with the personality of the
teacher’ but likewise with the expectations of the students: ‘the type of clients we
have needs a lot of organization and structure.’ She continues:

Yes, I think we are pretty influenced by working with Germans and for this reason
our classes are shaped like this. It is because they like to have a structure: You
begin one way and ‘Now we are going to talk a bit, but then we are moving on to
grammar’! ‘Because I want to know the irregular forms of the indefinite.’ So, they
demand it from you . . . in an indirect way, right? They will never say: ‘I want this’
254 Karin Zotzmann

but . . . they do ask for it. They are very happy when they can write something
about grammar in their notebook . . . this is what they want, what they expect,
what the client asks for.
Teacher D who works in the same institution makes a similar comment: ‘German
students are terrible . . . They always ask for grammar.’ She also feels obliged to
comply with their clients’ expectations although this is contrary to her belief: ‘the
problem is to learn the structures as rules. When they speak, it does not help
them to search for rule No. 44 for the subjunctive, does it?’
Although teacher B designed her class herself, the syllabus was heavily adapted
to the demands and goals set by the Spanish coordinator at the US-American
University where students came from: ‘Before they [the students] arrived, the
coordinator got in contact and told me: “This is what I want them to do.” ’ She was
asked to concentrate on conversation and avoid giving grammatical explanations.
This stirred a conflict in her as she felt the students needed grammar in order to
converse adequately. Her solution of separating questions concerning grammar
from the actual conversational part of the lesson caused further problems as
she had to respond to students’ questions about grammar in a decontextualized
way. In addition to this, the conversation part itself did not flow either but for
different rather macro contextual reasons: ‘They do not speak, they do not
react. And I give them topics and try to make them talk and . . . there is simply
no answer.’ She describes the motivation for learning Spanish as instrumental
‘because learning a foreign language is obligatory. The foreign language for them
is Spanish because the Latin population is increasing in the U.S.’
While all four teachers regarded contextual factors as crucial to the actual
communication and interaction inside of the classroom, the SETT instrument
itself does not provide a conceptual framework to account for these. This is
partly due to the social-constructivist perspective Walsh adopts. Even though
Walsh (2006: 60) acknowledges that L2 classroom are linked up with a series of
social, political, cultural and historical contexts, classroom discourse remains an
autonomous object of study which bears, neither theoretically nor analytically,
any relation to the contexts it is embedded in. As a consequence the reflection
through SETT can aim at a better understanding of the classroom discourse
but falls short of indicating causality and explanations. Without a critical
reflection on the institutional context it is difficult to gain a new perspective
on what is actually possible, practical and desirable in particular institutions
(Kumaravadivelu 1999)
To relate classroom discourse with the institutional and educational conditions
that enable certain practices and limit or inhibit others, an ecological framework
 Teacher Development through Classroom Discourse Analysis 255

as proposed by van Lier (2000), Doyle (2006) and Kramsch (2003) might be
fruitful. Kramsch (2003: 5) describes the ecology metaphor in the following
way: ‘[T]he “ecology” metaphor is a convenient shorthand for the post-
structuralist realization that learning is a nonlinear, relational human activity,
co-constructed between humans and their environment, contingent upon their
position in space and history, and a site of struggle for the control of social power
and cultural memory.’ Such a perspective would share similar assumptions
as Walsh’s model, namely, that the L2 class is guided by different pedagogical
purposes which in turn influence the language used. Instead of limiting teaching
and learning however to the interaction in the classroom, an ecological view
would take into account the impact of wider social forces. Students, for instance,
would come into view not only as learners but as agents with certain positions
in particular societies who learn a language for specific reasons in accordance
with their ambitions and the affordances this language offers to them. They
come to the classroom with particular expectations and engage in interactional
genres that are in turn shaped by the institutions and cultural traditions they are
embedded in. Understanding classroom discourse from such a wider perspective
would help teachers not only to function better in terms of being a more effective
communicator; it would also help them to become aware of conflicts between
their own values and views and institutional policies and practices.

Conclusion

The aim of this investigation was to evaluate the viability and utility of the SETT
instrument for the professional development of foreign language teachers and to
generate suggestions for improvement. In a first instance, several adjustments to
the procedure had to be made for practical reasons, such as, for example, giving
more support to teachers, both in terms of how to use the SETT and in terms of
transcribing the lessons.
All four participants confirmed that the reflection about patterns of linguistic
interaction through the transcript and the analytical instrument nurtured a new
understanding of the communication that takes place in their classroom. They
expressed that the awareness they gained had inspired them to change established
routines and find new and more effective ways of communicating. At the same
time, the participants reported of difficulties in assigning modes to different
classroom sequences. I have argued that the concept of mode is analytically
unhelpful as it suggest a predetermined concept that is imposed upon a rather
256 Karin Zotzmann

complex and messy classroom reality in which purposes are not always clear
and sometimes contested, where expectations of all participants intersect and
communication evolves dynamically. In contrast, the notion of genre draws
attention to both conventionalized forms of interaction and emergent meanings.
A discourse analytical instrument that helps teachers to achieve a closer
understanding of how language use affects learning opportunities has to be
fairly specific in order to generate a detailed and fruitful analysis. At the same
time, it needs to be user-friendly for and comprehensible to practitioners who
might come from diverse academic and professional backgrounds. This is a
complicated balance to achieve and requires on the one hand predetermined,
universal categories, and on the other an in-built context-sensitivity of the
instrument itself. Walsh’s great achievement is to have developed a procedure
teachers can handle fairly easily. SETT offers a metalanguage that allows teachers
and teacher trainers to exchange interpretations, ideas and experiences and to
analyse the classroom discourse in a theoretically informed way. SETT thus
generates new insights and knowledge which in turn might influence teaching
practices. The viability and practicality is, however, achieved at the expense of
specificity, that is, the instrument has no components which could capture the
constraining or enabling effects particular contexts offer, such as, for example,
teaching traditions, institutional preconditions related to the curricular,
assessment and obligatory teaching material, the nexus between payment
system and course evaluations of students, differences in socio-economic class
and status of teachers and learners and so on. In this context, I have suggested
that an ecological framework would be beneficial. Combined with a more
critical view of classroom discourse it could ask for the reasons behind specific
communication patterns and thereby help teachers not only to become more
effective communicators but to become more responsible and conscious of their
own values and choices.

References

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Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. 249–91.
 Teacher Development through Classroom Discourse Analysis 257

Doyle, W. (2006). ‘Ecological Approaches to Classroom Management’. In C. M.

Evertson and C. S. Weinstein (eds), Handbook of Classroom Management. Research,
Practice and Contemporary Issues. New York: Routledge.
Ellis, R. (1994). The Study of Second Language Acquisition. Oxford: Blackwell.
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(ed.), Advances in Spoken Discourse Analysis. London: Routledge. 1–34.
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 12

Conclusion: A Pedagogy for Marginalized

Language-Culture
David Evans

This concluding chapter sums up the key themes of marginalized language,

discourse and culture from the case studies and then explores critical pedagogy
as a resistant discourse and a means to revalorize marginalized language.
Bourdieu (2013) signals the way in which marginalization occurs in the
relationship between symbolic and material value. He regards symbolic capital as
being founded upon material economic capital. For him the Marxist analysis of
material value comes first, which then generates symbolic value through notions
of scarcity, demand, exclusivity and finally prestige. Material value and economic
capital alone therefore do not tell the whole story of sociocultural hierarchy
without the second layer of symbolic capital. This second layer tells a story of
legitimacy of social properties which for Bourdieu can include phenomena
such as lifestyle, clothing, interior design and also language. Bourdieu states
as follows ‘There is not a simple practice or property, . . . , characteristic of a
particular manner of living that cannot be given a distinct value as a function
of a socially determined principle of pertinence and therefore express a social
position’ (297). Of course language is a social property but it is also the means
through which we represent other social phenomena to others and to ourselves
in its linguistic structures. So language has an objective symbolic commodity
value but also and more importantly a subjective value for the construction of
social and cultural reality.
Bourdieu (2013) places emphasis on the distribution of social and material
properties in his analysis of social inequality. Unequal distribution of material
and social resources leads to exclusive and restricted access, subsequent demand
and consequently a high symbolic value which needs to be maintained as
exclusive in order to retain that value. Bourdieu argues that people who fail to see
260 David Evans

the social conferment of value on social goods as a result of unequal distribution

are guilty of ‘misrecognition’ because they view these properties, including
language, as containing inherent rather than conferred value. They see the
inherent value of the properties such as standard language or ‘Queen’s English’
as part of the natural order of the social world as opposed to an outcome of
social conflict. Consequently prestige is viewed mistakenly as the inherent high
value of a normative social order and not as a result of sociocultural domination
and symbolic violence. Bourdieu states as follows, ‘Any capital, whatever the
form it assumes, exerts a ‘symbolic violence’ as soon as it is recognized, that is,
misrecognized in its truth as capital and imposes itself as an authority calling for
recognition’ (299).
Social goods therefore which have been ‘consecrated’ (Bourdieu 2013: 299)
into symbolic capital and highly valued due to unequal distribution are
‘misrecognized’ (299).
Consequently, a language or a language type becomes highly valued as a
symbolic property through the symbolic power of ‘King’s/Queen’s English’ or
socio-economic standing as world language but this is misrecognized value
if considered to be inherent. Its value is conferred symbolically by dominant
culture and to acknowledge it mistakenly as intrinsic by a marginalized culture
is to conspire into one’s own domination and submit to symbolic violence.
With regard to the symbolic violence suffered by marginalized language,
Bourdieu (1989) makes the following comment about the domination subjected
to the Creole of Guinea-Bissau by Portuguese, ‘It is clear that throughout the
period of colonial domination the colonialists pointed out to their colonial
subjects that the only elegant and cultured language, capable of expressing
beauty and scientific exactitude, was theirs, the colonialists. For them, their
colonial subjects did not have a language, properly speaking’ (117).
We have also witnessed a similar phenomenon currently taking place in
Cameroon in Chapter 6 where Kum describes the historical development
of Cameroon Pidgin English (CPE) in which indigenous Cameroonians
interacted with their colonial rulers using a hybrid mixture of English followed
by French on the one hand when the country united in 1961 and indigenous
language on the other hand. Kum describes this hybrid language as a ‘bridging
language’ because it is a unifying language understood across the country in
tribal contexts as well institutions. Many Cameroonians would like CPE to be
the official national language replacing French and English but although it is
understood, its active use is discouraged in favour of French and English. CPE
is considered to be a non-standard English and occupies an inferior linguistic
 Conclusion 261

status, not actively used in institution and not taught in schools or used as a
medium for education. Kum points out that indeed there are notices in schools
forbidding the use of CPE with strict sanctions for anyone caught speaking it. As
we see in this chapter, Kum highlights the prestige of French as the language of
knowledge and culture used in all levels of education as a language of prestige.
The language relations in Cameroon reflect similar hierarchical language
power relations in the Uyghur province of northwest China. Sunuodola analyses
the power relations between Mandarin Chinese spoken by the dominant Han
majority in China and the regional Uyghur language. Sunuodola narrates the
way in which Mandarin Chinese has gradually taken over socio-political and
educational life in the Uyghur Xinjiang region to the point where the Uyghur
language only officially exists now as a school subject. Although surveys show
that students wish to speak Mandarin fluently and this is now the language
medium of their education, they only want to do this for economic opportunity
and not to enhance or maintain a civic bond with the dominant Han culture.
Sunuodola refers to Bourdieu’s analysis of language as a symbolic capital to show
that the linguistic and cultural ‘superiority’ of the dominant Han language and
culture is just a conferred one by dint of political power and contains no intrinsic
value. To think otherwise is to engage in Bourdieu’s concept of misrecognition
(meconnaissance) and to conspire with domination. In this he demonstrates
that state languages are simply social and ideological constructs.
In Chapter 4, in the southeast county of Kent, there is a parallel situation
of cultural colonization where young entrepreneurial Londoners described by
Anderson as expressing an alternative urban ‘hipster’ culture are migrating
to Margate to establish an alternative metropolitan culture. This is perceived
by locals as an incursion into their local culture by outsiders. The ‘hipsters’
see themselves according to a magazine article as culturally superior and in a
position to transform the area.
Acknowledgement of such prestige culture, conferred value by a dominant
culture, would be deemed ‘misrecognition’ according to Bourdieu and therefore
an act of conspiring into one’s own domination. This is not a phenomenon that
just occurs across different languages with regard to perceived hierarchical value
but also within an individual language, deemed to be a standard language or a
language of prestige as opposed to that which is deemed to be a regional dialect.
Dalal (2016) refers to Bourdieu’s notion of symbolic violence, in Dalal’s
definition, as the inculcation of meaning by the dominant group over the
dominated through the education system. For Bourdieu, school is not an agent
of liberation in itself but a means where the social order is reproduced by those
262 David Evans

in power. So school plays an important part in reproducing social divisions and

classes through the construction of forms of symbolic and cultural capital. These
different forms of capital are constructed within different forms of ‘habitus’
(Dalal 2016; Bourdieu 1977)

Habitus and field

Dalal (2016) points out that ‘habitus’ are the mental structures that one acquires
in one’s social milieu or ‘Field’ relating to ways of being, doing and thinking.
Someone’s habitus then comes to them as a natural way of being in the world
but this could be radically different from another person’s mental and cultural
disposition. Bourdieu is criticized for his notion of habitus because it does not
emphasize the agency of the individual and consequently has been regarded as
deterministic. Dalal points out that in answering his critics, Bourdieu argues
that it is necessary to first of all, gain knowledge of the constraining mechanisms
of habitus and field in order to break free from such sociocultural positioning
and consequent possible exploitation. If sociocultural lives are contained and
constrained within fields leading to mental dispositions which adapt them to a
particular social ecology as though natural, then other lives and language styles
from other fields will seem alien or foreign. This may be the case in communities
whose habitus is completely different and unique, where a particular valued
sociocultural and linguistic capital would not have the equivalent value
elsewhere; examples of this could be marginalized youth subcultures with styles
of anti-establishment urban dialects such as rap and hip-hop.
Nonetheless as, Clark and Gieve (2006) point out, individuals are capable
of multiple identities and therefore by extension, of speaking an urban dialect
in one situation and a standard language in another. Consequently we should
beware of framing language and culture as essentialistic by confining the
individual to one sociocultural and linguistic place.
Bourdieu (1977) views the individual as being a re-enactment of history in
his/her current life because his/her habitus is a product of history. He claims as
follows, ‘The “unconscious” is never anything other than the forgetting of history,
which history itself produces by incorporating the objective structures it produces
in the second natures of habitus’ (79). He goes on to claim that ‘[t]hus, when we
speak of class habitus, we are insisting, . . . that interpersonal relations are never,
except in appearance individual-to-individual relationships and that the truth of
the interaction is never entirely contained in the interaction’ (81). Individuals
 Conclusion 263

are then framed here as products of history even as they remain unaware or
unconscious of this and so they are the history that they have forgotten.
This raises philosophical questions of individual identity between a
dichotomy of the individual and language-culture as product on the one hand
and as a process, on the other. A post-structuralist account of language and
culture would see the individual’s identity rather as a process continually being
constructed and also actively constructing itself over time. This means that the
individual is not linguistically locked into an essentialistic habitus in terms of
language and culture but can move between contexts adapting and changing
language styles and discourse from situation to situation.

Post-structuralism

A post-structuralist approach to language, culture, meaning and identity is

therefore orientated towards process rather than product. This is radically
different from structuralism due to post-structuralist insistence on social
phenomena being in flux and continually unfinished. Identity is unfinished
because identity is existential rather than essential. This is because identity and
language are not objective but ongoing social processes generated by social
participants. As we have already seen, Bakhtin (1981) regards objectivity in
language as an outcome of shared perception rather than materially grounded.
In other words for post-structuralists language and meanings are actively
constructed in social interactions and have no essentialistic grounding. This
approach, as we have seen, is exemplified by Derrida (1978; 1997) who argues
that meaning is iteratively constructed and reconstructed in an endless deferral.
Foucault’s (1972) position is that meanings, and knowledge therein, can only
remain stable through power but then the configurations of power can change
where meanings are framed differently. This contrasts with Bourdieu’s version of
power which ultimately is centred on the state as the main foundation.
With regard to culture, Bhabba (1990) distinguishes between cultural difference
and cultural diversity. It is impossible to view cultures as different encompassing
the notion of alterity or otherness if they are regarded as a part of the notion of
diversity. This is because the idea of diversity results in a culture as being viewed
not in itself but as being viewed from a dominant perspective. The latter would be
more of a structuralist view where one particular language-culture is privileged
from which one is able to survey all the surrounding language-cultures and
therefore represents hegemony because all cultures are then defined through the
264 David Evans

dominant culture. Bhabba points out that this is cultural essentialism favouring
a concept of diversity but not difference. By contrast cultural difference would
involve Derrida’s concept of deconstructing and decentring the dominant culture
to be regarded as just one culture among others.

Language-culture as process rather than product

With regard to language itself, and from a sociolinguistic position, Creese

and Blackledge (2015) argue that separate languages do not map directly onto
separate identities or subject positions as fixed bounded units. Instead identities
are performed through the linguistic resources at the disposal of participants
in language use and we should therefore focus on the user and use of language
to construct identity rather than focusing on the language itself. Creese and
Blackledge support the view that languages conceptualized as separately
mapped onto national borders is an ideological social construct. They point out
as follows that ‘it is now well established in contemporary sociolinguistics that
one language does not straightforwardly index one subject position, and that
speakers use linguistic resources in complex ways to perform a range of subject
positions, sometimes simultaneously’ (3). Therefore language users are able to
perform their own identities within their own cultural processes of linguistic
interaction rather than through the imposition of fixed cultural linguistic
products.
We have seen that Bourdieu’s view is that individuals are constrained by
their own linguistic and cultural habitus often imposed upon them by a locus of
power such as the state and the requirements of education and the exam system.
This position does not always hold true in a more post-structural or social
constructivist approach where power is less monolithic and more diffuse. Social
groups and subcultures have their own locus of power and privilege which is not
underpinned by state institutions and their subsets.
Bhabba (1990) argues for a cultural hybridity based upon language-culture
as a continual process constructed in social interaction as opposed to a static
fixed product. Consequently cultural borders are not fixed but fluid allowing
for overlap and the formation of new cultural positions which Bhabba refers
to as ‘third space’. He states as follows, ‘But for me the importance of hybridity
is not to be able to trace two original moments from which the third emerges,
rather hybridity to me ‘is the third space’ which enables other positions to
emerge (211).
 Conclusion 265

For these ‘third spaces’ to emerge the necessity, according to Bhabba

(1990: 213), is for a decentring of the self leading to ‘non-assimilationist claims
of cultural difference’. Difference then is in terms of language-culture a result
of fluid non-essentialistic identities. Languages therefore like the cultures they
embody and generate are not pure and fixed but constituted by vocabularies
imported from other languages over time. Most linguists not only know that
English is constituted historically by other languages such as Latin, Norman
French, Welsh, Saxon and so on but also contemporaneously by linguistic
practices through heteroglossia, articulating the voices of others in one’s own
discourse (Bakhtin 1981). Metaphorically therefore language-culture is then
more like a sea of currents and cross-currents than adjacent static plots of land.
Bilingualism and biculturalism imply a notion of linguistic and cultural agency
where users can use the languages at their disposal, exploiting the resources of
language-culture as active ingredients to sociocultural exchanges.

Language-culture both as product and as process

Language and culture as product and as process reflect the interaction respectively
between objectivity and subjectivity. A view of the world exclusively as objective
or as constructed entirely subjectively could be conceived as reductionist.
Objectively reductionist because it does not take into account lived experience
or subjectively reductionist because it contains the world view solely in terms of
the boundaries of individual subjective experience and perception.
In discussing the work of Michel de Certeau, Terdiman (2001: 407) states
the following: ‘[N]o one formulation or monothetic conceptualization can ever
be adequate to our complicated lives- a complication that arises not only on
account of empirical profusion or plethora, of the multiplicity and scattering of
facts, but from an authentic and multivalent diversity of interests that can never
be subsumed, never to be reduced to a single hegemony.’
Terdiman explores the heterology of de Certeau in expressing the notion of
meaning occurring in difference where difference lies at the edges and on the
borders between something and something else. Terdiman (2001: 399) states,
‘For meaning is the consequence of a limit, meaning is the effect of margins.’
This acknowledges the objective existence of hegemony, of a dominant sameness
of language among other things. National language, for example, is an objective
reality, propped up by ideological power which Bourdieu would acknowledge
as a reality. Bourdieu would have been fully aware that the French Academy
266 David Evans

polices the French language and allows some neologisms and foreign words
in the public domain but prohibits others. Of course this doesn’t affect the
way people speak on the streets and anti-establishment languages such as ‘le
Verlan’, an urban dialect, have appeared in the suburbs of French cities. However
de Certeau would point out that these areas of street language are indeed at
the margins of hegemony or as Bhabba would state as ‘third spaces’ where
individuals and groups create their own social space to construct hybridity of
language-culture. Meanings have been forced into the margins by hegemony of
power as Terdiman (2001: 400) claims that ‘marginalization inevitably embodies
the cruel reality of power’. Again, we have seen this currently occurring in the
Cameroonian case study of Chapter 6 where Cameroonian Pidgin English is a
hybrid language-culture reflecting a national identity constructed as a bridging
point by indigenous people to communicate with colonial rulers and yet it is
pushed to the margins by the dominant sociocultural power arrangements. It is
in fact a national language that is refused official state acknowledgement.
We also see marginalized language-culture pushed to the sidelines of
mainstream life in the lived experiences of the ‘dalits’, otherwise known as
the ‘untouchables’ in Indian society. In Chapter 8, Joseph narrates how dalits
have developed a literature of resistance revealing their atrocious living
conditions and exclusion. He analyses this exclusion defining it as an inclusion
by exclusion so that dalits’ inclusion acts as a way of being acknowledged as
excluded and outsiders. A resistance to this has been the development of a dalit
literature criticizing Hinduism for its endorsement of this system of exclusion
and calling for a transformation of society. This literature therefore is not just
descriptive of dalits’ outrageously deprived conditions but is also generating a
new consciousness of the need for transformation of society. Dalit literature is
now gaining in cultural capital within mainstream India as a counter-culture.
Chapter 8 is an example of de Certeau’s thesis of looking for truth at the margins
and this is indeed Derrida’s purpose in deconstruction of the mainstream centre
to reveal that which has been ignored.
Linguistic and cultural differences are consequently pushed to the sidelines
and need therefore to be explored, valorized and foregrounded if meanings and
forms of knowledge are not to be forever lost. Forms of knowledge then exist in
the margins and power has to be claimed and handed over so that knowledge
may resurface.
I believe that de Certeau adds a moral vision to the notion of difference
expounded by Derrida, who is correct in saying that meaning is generated by
difference since if all is the same and indistinguishable from anything else, then
 Conclusion 267

there are no meanings. Meaning proliferates under the conditions of difference,

where many things differ from each other to the extent that the differing elements
are named and to be named is to exist. Power is the element that perpetuates
uniformity and sameness and with this, difference is pushed to one side. The
moral argument of de Certeau is that the meanings at the margins need to be
foregrounded and revalorized.
Hegemony of culture and language represent sameness and therefore the
antithesis of difference whereas ‘heterology’ being de Certeau’s theory of social
differences represent the differences which have been marginalized and need to
be empowered and resurfaced (Terdiman 2001).
Moreover, not only do the margins need to be empowered but also according
to Saltmarsh (2015), spaces need to be opened up within hegemonic continuity
for agency and cultural difference. The educational project of a pedagogy of
marginalized language-culture would be to seek the voice of the other within
hegemonic discourse through other languages, either foreign languages or
indigenous native languages such as the Creole already cited in Guinea Bissau or
the more established Celtic languages in the United Kingdom, Ireland and France.
This has educational implications particularly in a UK system of education often
predicated on socio-economics which promotes the economically marketable
scientific and technological STEM subjects within the curriculum to the
detriment of the arts and humanities subjects.

Post-structural agency in media discourse

The notion of discourse is important in the construction of identity since

discourse concerns forms of communication in a much wider sense than the
language based on internal features of grammar and lexis and internalized socio-
political status from culturally conferred value. Discourse in then language use
enacted in social context.
Discourse encompasses language types vis-à-vis social contexts and is language
use in social action including other features of communication surrounding
language such as gesture, dress, music, fashion, image and appearance much of
which is now expressed through the social space afforded by the digital media of
the new technologies. As Giardiello points out, ‘In today’s post-modern society
the media has become as important as food and clothing’ (p. 85 in this volume).
In Chapter 5 she argues that the digital media provides a social space for the
construction of youth identities, in giving youth its own voice. This can be
268 David Evans

construed as liberating in a situation where youth could be disempowered and

marginalized by more powerful adult discourse. Social media does contribute
to shaping identity although as Giardiello argues, this is part of an interactive
process rather than a deterministic product. In her small-scale study at Millgate
School, she shows how young people use media such as YouTube and Facebook
to create their own space for the construction of identity and presentation of
self. These social media platforms represent multiple areas where young people
explore different possibilities for identity and even constructing not just one
identity but multiple identities. Giardiello argues against the traditional notion
of universal biological and psychological developmental stages of identity
proposed by the American psychologist Granville Stanley Hall in the 1880s, who
maintained that adolescence was a period of crisis or Storm and Stress imported
from the notion of Storm und Drang within German literature. Giardiello
argues for a notion of psychological development being shaped by culture and
the Bourdieusian concept of ‘habitus’ that we have already mentioned in this
chapter.
Digital media platforms offer possibilities, in the context of an active
developmental pedagogy, for users to co-create spaces of habitus with fellow
users where identities can be co-constructed and maintained in dialogues,
experiments of presentation of self and the creativity of video production.
What emerges from Giardiello’s study of youth media discourse is that today’s
youth, far from being marginalized, have a much wider array of media resources
to explore identity resulting in a much lesser sense of deterministic identity
than was experienced by previous generations of youth who did have television,
radio, music and magazines but nonetheless had far less opportunity to actively
contribute to their own identity construction.
We may conclude from this particular study that new technologies have the
potential to liberate identities although at the same time also note the downside
of the use of anonymity provided by virtual identity to bully and abuse others.
In this regard Anderson demonstrates how social media on the internet can
become a site of conflict in the construction of regional identity. In Chapter 4,
‘ “DFLs” versus “Locals” ’, Anderson shows how the struggle for regional identity
in a Kent coastal town in southeast England became polarized when opposing
cultural discourses competed over identities in Margate. Much like chapters in
the international section 3 dealing with dominant languages seeking hegemony
by marginalizing and colonizing minority language, we see in Chapter 4 how
colonization operates at the level of discourses in an English setting. In this
chapter, we see how young middle-class Londoners, many of whom Anderson
 Conclusion 269

defines as ‘hipsters’, are seeking to ‘colonize’ Margate by speculating on much

lower property prices than in the capital and yet at the same time benefitting
from the high speed train links allowing them to return to London in little over
an hour. These ‘hipsters’ seek alternative urban lifestyles, working in the creative
industries or in the arts themselves, and are looking to transform Margate which,
as Anderson states, has suffered from massive deprivation since its Victorian
heyday as a seaside holiday resort for working-class Londoners. The current
discursive polemic revolves around a controversial article in an online lifestyle
cultural magazine promoting Margate as a new cultural Phoenix emerging from
the depths of deprivation with the locals being depicted in very derogatory
terms as ‘drunk’, ‘jobless’, ‘ill-educated’, ‘racist’ and ‘wasted’ in opposition to the
new young middle-class migrants who are ‘cultured’, ‘well-heeled’, ‘creative’ and
‘avant-garde’. Such polarized identities are quickly established and circulated
because of the communicative speed of the internet and then rapidly descend
into an aggressive polemic of claim and counter-claim between the online
magazine author and local middle-class residents who feel that they are being
stereotyped and not represented. We witness then in this conflict a cultural
power struggle over identity where in this local situation, much like in the
international situations in the international section 3, a metropolitan powerful
discourse seems to be attempting to marginalize a less powerful local discourse.
These are ethical issues of power that need to be researched and resolved in
the area of abuse over the internet in terms of such unjust misrepresentation.
Nevertheless new technologies of social media and the internet can provide an
educative means of foregrounding and valorizing marginalized discourse as we
see in the establishment of resistant discourse.

Pedagogy and the voice of alterity; empowering

marginalized language-culture

Freire (1972: 46) views education as an emancipatory force for humanizing the
voice of the other in a system which, contrary to the notion of emancipation,
he describes as the ‘banking’ concept of education. The ‘banking’ system is an
instrumental system of education orientated to socio-economics where the
student is loaded up with knowledge and skill necessary to further economic
prosperity for him/herself through performance rather than to question or
challenge the ethics and justice of the system itself. Learning a language in
this system would be learning an economically powerful language such as
270 David Evans

French, German, Spanish and now Mandarin Chinese for national trade and
development rather than cultural understanding in itself. Therefore the goals
of education and language education are often economically extrinsic and not
intrinsic. However, in terms of language as shaping intrinsic political identity in
opposition to an externally dominant language-culture, we often see language as
a powerful force in creating cohesion as an act of resistance.
In Montreal, for example, Bill 101 has bolstered the French language for
employment and civic cohesion in a situation which was being dominated by
the economic exigencies to speak English. Without this law, French may have
become a marginalized language and so language use and value is not just
cultural but also a socio-political issue of identity. This argument runs somewhat
counter to the notion that language cannot be mapped on to national or political
boundaries but used existentially as a readily available resource. We see that
this might not be the case where languages and cultures are under threat and
struggle then ensues for regional, national, linguistic and cultural identity all
within the same package such as in the areas of Catalonia or the Basque country
of Spain. Therefore whether one sees language as borderless, free from national
and political ideology, or as part of a geographical identity may well depend on
whether one occupies a marginalized socio-political position. In the example of
Wales, without the Welsh government’s support for the language in schools and
political institutions as part of a national identity Welsh may also have become a
language in danger of extinction.
Unfortunately in other areas of the world (see Chapter 6 for the Cameroon
case study), where many languages are spoken in multilingual communities,
the pupils’ home language may well be ignored as teaching takes place in
the hegemony of the dominant language-culture. Chapter 6 witnesses the
marginalization of tribal languages in Cameroon such as Bamun, Fulfulde and
Bulu which were not allowed to be used in education and where schools, which
used these languages for teaching, were closed down. French was the required
language for education, although English is now becoming more valued for its
commercial global currency. This is echoed in Sunuodola’s Chapter 9 where
the Uyghur language in Xinjiang province of China is no longer the language
medium for education and has been marginalized as a school subject by the
dominant Han language and culture. In a similar way to French in Cameroon,
Mandarin Chinese in the Uyghur province of China is the language of economic
success as well as sociocultural recognition and symbolic cultural capital.
In Chapter 7, Kum narrates and analyses a situation where there is a complete
loss of voice during and resulting from refugee journeys across national borders
 Conclusion 271

in their search for sanctuary. We see the loss of voice occurring due to economic
and social powerlessness since they are uprooted and without a cultural and
linguistic locus to act as a base for social capital. Their voice is consequently
at the mercy of the hegemony of the host or transit nations and their media
resources in transmitting derogatory and menacing labels and metaphors
depicting images of invasion or incursion. An example of this is the Daily Express
front page news headline as follows: ‘Migrant summer chaos as thousands try
to get into Britain, French official warns’ (Daily Express 31 March 2017). This
is an example of hegemony in language and communication where the other is
objectivized by power through media.
In education, hegemony is expressed in Freire’s notion of a ‘banking’ system
where the dominant culture is inculcated rather than critiqued so that students
concentrate on performance rather than analysis. According to Freire (1972: 45),
‘Education thus becomes an act of depositing, in which the students are the
depositaries and the teacher is the depositor.’ Freire furthermore states that
the teacher-pupils power imbalance reflects the inequalities in societies where
the purpose of education is to possess and to acquire and where those who have
set the cultural agenda both for themselves and for those who have not. The
result of this is that pupils are authoritatively positioned to assimilate language
and knowledge rather than develop critical awareness. As we recall, Bourdieu
(1982) argues that this authoritarian process occurs through the imposition of
standard language which is then monitored in the examination system.
To resist the ‘banking’ system, pupils need to become active student
participants in education and this requires a change in the ontological perspective
of social life. This changed perspective would be that reality is not a fixed given
but instead that it is dynamic, in flux and co-constructed intersubjectively by
all its participants, teachers and students alike. This is not to deny the existence
of objective facts but to acknowledge that much of objectivity has already been
socially constructed intersubjectively over time through historical processes and
so students also in turn need to engage in a process which constructs and critiques
facts intersubjectively rather to have them passively inculcated as pre-packaged
knowledge. This means co-constructing knowledge through questioning and
dialogue in the language of the learner rather than through the imposition of
perceived dominant language alongside the imposition of facts. This also means
engaging in textual critical analysis where headlines such as the Daily Express
headline mentioned above are not just accepted as fact but questioned through
the analysis of language and the effect it is intended to produce such as possible
fear and/or outrage in the reference to ‘migrant summer chaos’.
272 David Evans

Freire’s underlying rationale is that the world itself is an unfinished process

where knowledge and identities are always working towards completion. This
provides an underlying dynamic for education. Language is crucial therefore
and is involved within the process of moving forward in the construction of
identity and knowledge.
Bilingual education is then part of this process of learning within the
language of the learner as part of an emancipatory construction of knowledge,
free from the domination of a language-culture hegemony. This sort of
pedagogic action would valorize or revalorize the marginalized language of
the learner.

Bilingual education

Creese and Blackledge (2010) support a view that communication transcends

the borders of languages as separate bounded units. Languages that come into
contact with each other through their speakers, reciprocally drawing upon
their linguistic resources and so consequently labelling them as separate, is
an ideological act based upon geographical territory. Creese and Blackledge
in their work on translanguaging, focus upon speakers in their use of linguistic
resources rather than languages themselves as objective, bounded units. Garcia
(2009: 44) defines translanguaging as follows, ‘Translanguaging, or engaging in
bilingual or multilingual discourse practices, is an approach to bilingualism that
is centred not on languages, as has been often the case, but on the practices
of bilinguals that are readily observable.’ Indeed Garcia has initiated the use
of the term ‘languaging’ (43) to refer to discursive practices as opposed to
speaking languages and therefore translanguaging is an acknowledgement
that in everyday interactions bilinguals move across their linguistic resources
irrespective of language boundaries that can be viewed as politically ideological.
Therefore linguistic identity is not so much objectively imposed but
rather subjectively and intersubjectively negotiated through language use by
participants in linguistic interactions.
Languages are not hermetically sealed and even within a particular language,
language users mix registers and discourses, as we have seen in the notion of
heteroglossia as using the voices of others (Bakhtin 1981; Wertsch 1991).
Emphasis should therefore be placed upon what users are doing with language
rather than languages themselves as separate entities since speakers are capable
of drawing upon the totality of linguistic resources at their disposal.
 Conclusion 273

Garcia (2009) maintains that translanguaging is a form of bilingual pedagogy

that contrasts with separate bilingualism where two or more languages are
acknowledged as distinct units between which occasional code switching occurs
as participants select different languages to express different items.
However the aim here is not to focus systematically on a particular form
of bilingualism, among the many that exist, due to a belief that the issue of
bilingualism may well be shaped by the socio-political nature of the language and
the socio-political position of user. In Quebec, for example, Blackledge (2005)
points out that French is highly regarded by Anglophones and also, I may add,
immigrants, as an affective civic and socio-political attachment to community.
This seems to express a notion, in a bilingual society, of languages being spoken
separately for different purposes and, in the case of Quebec, immigrants may
also favour English for economic reasons as opposed to those of social cohesion
and acceptance.
However in small-scale interactions, boundaries may well be fluid where
language is used as a resource by bilingual users without linguistic borders. The
aim of this chapter then is to focus on the way in which using both languages
generally in bilingual education within a teaching and learning situation can
revalorize and revitalize a marginalized language at the same time as maintaining
the economic opportunity afforded by the dominant language.

Bilingualism for social justice

Asgharzadeh (2008) states Freire’s position that social justice entails that
education should take place in one’s own language as opposed to a colonial
language since this represents one’s own voice. He points out that in multilingual
societies, ‘this voice cannot be that of the oppressor, the colonizer or the
dominant’ (350). For Freire the linguistic emancipation to use one’s own voice is
an integral and foundational aspect of sociocultural justice.
In the context of bilingual education, social and economic justice would be a
goal by using the languages at the disposal of the learner to privilege the learner’s
position at the intersection between his/her own conceptual learner identity, the
local community identity and opportunities afforded by the wider world. This
may be by drawing upon his/her linguistic resources either consecutively or
concurrently. Garcia (2009; 320) points out that the ‘consecutive’ or ‘concurrent’
debate depends on the language ideology and practice of the school and its
sociolinguistic context but that the crucial matter is to value each language
274 David Evans

equally and respectfully and not to forbid the use of any of the languages in a
learning situation, since ‘an equitable pedagogy under no circumstances forbids
a student to use either language’. Garcia acknowledges that traditional bilingual
pedagogy separates languages where some curricula are taught in one language
and some in another language but that this is not a natural way since languages
are not naturally but ideologically divided. Garcia therefore states that ‘a
bilingual education that values only disconnected wholes and devalues the often
loose parts, and insists on the strict separation of languages is not the only way
to successfully educate children bilingually, although it is a widely conducted
practice’ (8).
Quite apart from the cultural discourses surrounding bilingualism, there
are also other claims with regard to bilingual use of languages and these
concern flexibility in thinking in being able to move easily between languages.
There are claims that bilingual students are more likely to succeed at school
academically as Christoffels et al. (2015) argue that bilinguals are able to switch
between languages, resulting in the exercising of cognitive abilities. According
to their research among Dutch students, their findings indicate that bilinguals
outperform monolinguals even on non-linguistic tests of cognition and mental
flexibility. This advantage includes those who learn a second language at
school in the case of additive bilingualism since the crucial factor is not the
age at which one learns the second language but the frequency with which one
switches between language codes during the day. Christoffels et al. conclude
as follows: ‘[O]ur results indicate that bilingual education may promote
cognitive flexibility and a bias towards a more focused “scope” of attention’
(377). Garcia (2009), who is a proponent of translanguaging, supports this view
acknowledging the personal cognitive benefits of bilingual education due to the
development of a greater metalinguistic awareness. This arises due to linguistic
analytical effects derived from the process of switching between languages
because children come to have a greater understanding of underlying linguistic
structures. Garcia states, ‘Bilingual children’s ability to use two languages
makes language structures more visible as children have to organize their two
language systems’ (95). They therefore gain an understanding in how language
works in terms of underlying structures besides the ability to use the languages
at their disposal.
It seems therefore that bilingual education can perform not only the role of
social justice in foregrounding marginalized language so that learners use their
own voice but also that code switching between languages gives them a greater
cognitive advantage over monolinguals. Additionally, in using the language of
 Conclusion 275

economic opportunity which may be a global lingua franca as well as their own
language, bilinguals gain in terms of community cohesion, cognitive flexibility
as well as economic opportunity in the wider world.

Teacher professional agency in pedagogical discourse

In Chapter 11, Zotzmann addresses a methodological approach to teacher

development in foreign language education called SETT – the self-evaluation
of teacher talk where a group of teachers analyse their own classroom based
interactions. They analyse this to understand their own styles of communication
and its effectiveness. In this process of professional reflection, teachers take
ownership of their own development and become aware of themselves in
the classroom in such areas as how much time they allow their students to
communicate, how they move from one topic to another and the extent to
which their interactions are teacher centred or student centred. In the chapter,
it becomes clear that teachers’ pedagogy is more than classroom discourse
since this itself is shaped by wider social discourses which place external
expectations on teachers. Zotzmann concludes that this particular methodology
of self-evaluation is empowering in providing teachers with a metalanguage to
take theoretical ownership of pedagogical practice, yet still a more ecological
context is also required for teachers to understand how their practice is also
shaped by external social forces. This amounts to connecting micro classroom
discourses with the exigencies of a wider sociocultural discourse. This chapter
supports the professional agency of teachers who, like the students, in the
preceding Chapter 10, are caught within the cross-currents of discourses and,
without critical awareness or even a metalanguage, risk being at the mercy of
powerful wider discourses. This would be then teachers and students at risk of
losing voice and ownership within educational systems. Despite this Chapter 10
shows student agency where students formulate their own cultural motivations
for learning a foreign language constructed from their own ways of seeing the
world rather than that generated by official school discourse. This is because,
in this particular case study, official school discourse embodied professionally
by the teacher did not enjoy hegemony in the classroom but competed with
other discourses embodied by the students which drew upon larger community
and sociocultural discourses such as media. Consequently students were and,
indeed, are able to construct their own motivations for learning from their own
cultural resources (Gillette 1994).
276 David Evans

Conclusion

This concluding chapter has proposed that a critical pedagogy, as proposed by

Freire, is a process for redressing cultural and linguistic inequalities and for a
revalorization of minority language and culture. Bilingual education, in terms
of equal status for languages as opposed to dominant and subsidiary language-
culture, is seen as a way of creating intercultural understanding where the
minority language can operate in education alongside the dominant economically
propitious language. The translanguaging model of bilingual education (Creese
& Blackledge 2010; 2015) appears to exemplify this approach to pedagogy.
Even in areas deemed to be monolingual, a second language is necessary to
gain a view of another language-culture as a valued other and a difference from
one’s own otherwise fixed point of view.
Students themselves, through creativity in the use of new technologies, can,
as we have seen, empower their own voice and equally, as we have also seen,
teachers can construct their own professional voice through their own language
and metalanguage for their own autonomy and the benefit of students.
Pedagogy then as microcosm for society can also be seen as a model for
society in an attempt to redress sociocultural power inequalities through a more
process-led education, asking questions and constructing answers in dialogue
rather than imposing prepackaged deposits of knowledge. Pedagogy needs to
model a construction of knowledge as a process examining why things occur in
such or such a way, as well as stating how things happen, therefore analysis as well
as narrative, and process constituting product rather than just product alone.

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 Contributors

Christopher Anderson is senior lecturer in applied linguistics and

communication at Canterbury Christchurch University, United Kingdom.
His research interests cover discourse analysis, intercultural communication
and qualitative research methods. In specific terms, he is interested in the
intercultural dimensions of social media use and in epistemological and ethical
questions in applied linguistics.

David Evans is fellow in education at Liverpool Hope University, United

Kingdom. His research interests are in language and identity within education
and pedagogy. Wider research interests are in marginalized language-culture
and multilingualism for social justice and opportunity. He is co-author and
editor of Language and Identity: Discourse in the World (2014).

Patricia Giardiello is lecturer in childhood and youth studies at Manchester

Metropolitan University, United Kingdom. Formally a senior lecturer at
Liverpool Hope University, Patricia is now working part time to allow more
time for academic writing and pursuing her research interests around children’s
and young people’s voice, rights and participation. Wider research interests
include empowering early childhood educators, international pedagogies and
intergenerational learning.

Henry Kum lectures in education studies at Liverpool Hope University, United

Kingdom. He has taught in schools and universities in Cameroon, France,
Scotland and England. His research interests include voice and inclusivity of
marginalized children; the intersectionality of class, race and gender; post-
conflict education and the education of refugee communities. His wider focus is
on issues around inequality and equality in schooling and education.

Mamtimyn Sunuodula teaches Asian politics and international relations in the

School of Government and International Affairs at Durham University, United
Kingdom. His research interests include language and identity in multi-ethnic
and multilingual political entities; language, power and social equality; and
language-in-education policies.
 Contributors 279

Joseph Mundananikkal Thomas is assistant professor in the Sociology

Department at the University of Mumbai, India. His abiding research interests,
among others, are centred on life worlds of dalits in contemporary India, with
particular reference to the state of Maharashtra.

Karin Zotzmann is lecturer in applied linguistics at Southampton University,

United Kingdom. Her research interests include the ways in which socio-
economic, political and institutional factors and processes impact upon the
teaching and learning of foreign languages. She has also published widely in the
field of intercultural learning and education
 Index

absence(s) 19, 23, 24, 29, 120, 136, 146, Buddha 165, 174
149, 154, 240, 252 Buddhism 163, 172, 174, 179
absent 15, 21, 23, 24, 29, 61, 149, 237 Buddhist 163, 165, 173, 174, 179, 180
achievement 29, 60, 88, 95, 143, 146, 194,
234, 256 Cameroon Pidgin English 119–21, 260
adolescence 87, 88, 90, 94, 97, 143, 268 capital 24, 37–9, 152, 197, 198, 241,
adolescent(s) 86–8, 93–5, 142, 143 260, 262
agency (of individual) 14, 16, 21, 32, 42–4, economic 198, 200, 225, 241, 259
47, 62, 70–2, 85, 136, 184, 222, 223, linguistic 5, 36, 37, 39, 126, 210,
238, 241, 244, 262, 265, 267, 275 242, 262
alterity 6, 24, 219, 220, 263, 269 social 5, 38, 52, 143, 146, 271
a priori 12, 40, 42, 234 symbolic 3, 4, 35–7, 39, 47, 103, 125,
Arendt, H. 135, 136, 155 209, 210, 219, 259–62, 270
assimilation 109, 123, 125, 130, 142, capitalism 33, 34
147, 201 care 136, 148–54
association(s) 13, 17–20, 27–9, 71, Cartesian 1, 8–10, 15, 17, 23, 39, 42, 43, 46
148, 234 caste(s) 161–4, 166, 168, 170–2,
associative 28, 29, 234 175, 177–81
asylum 53, 135–7, 140, 141, 142, 144, 145 Chomsky, N. 1, 9–15, 29, 40
Chomskyan 10, 12
‘banking’ system 5, 6, 217, 269, 271 citizenship 105, 110, 118, 141, 150–2, 154
Bakhtin, M. 14–18, 20, 23, 30–3, 39, 143, Cogito 10, 14, 46
186, 208, 263 colonial (ist) 72, 73, 76, 77, 105, 106, 109,
Bhabba, H. 35, 263–6 110–12, 119, 121–3, 125, 126, 162,
bhakti tradition 170–2, 181 167, 260, 266, 273
biculturalism 105, 108, 112–14, 265 languages 106, 113
bilingual 105, 113, 115–17, 122, 123, 128, colonialism 72, 77, 112, 167
129, 183, 192, 203, 272–4 colonies 114, 116, 117, 139, 142
bilingual culture(s) 106, 114, 125 colonization 34, 35, 47, 184, 261, 268
bilingual education 5, 191–8, 201, 203, community 5, 17, 27, 32, 35, 53, 54, 71, 76,
205, 272–4, 276 85, 86, 89, 91–8, 105, 110, 116, 127,
bilingualism 105, 107, 113–16, 122, 123, 137–40, 143–6, 148–51, 155, 169,
125, 126, 128–30, 265, 272, 273, 274 180, 206, 207, 219, 222, 224–6, 241,
Bloom, A. 90 252, 273, 275
‘blue square’ 147, 148 Condillac, E.B. 7, 8
Bourdieu, P. 4, 24, 36–9, 44, 47, 85, 93, constructivist 12, 30, 40, 254, 264
97, 98, 106, 108–10, 121, 126, 197, critical analysis 24, 43, 44, 46, 271
262–5, 268, 271 critical discourse analysis 22, 42, 46, 47
Brahman 161, 170, 172, 175, 179 critical pedagogy 3, 23, 47, 259, 276
Brahmanism 163, 170 cultural capital 24, 38, 60, 71, 74, 77, 79,
Brexit 5, 19, 45 103, 125, 126, 143, 146, 225, 238, 241,
Bronfenbrenner, U. 88 262, 266, 270
282 Index

cultural identity 14, 79, 80, 93, 116, 117, economic dominance 111
195, 229, 232, 238, 239, 270 egocentric speech 14
process 87, 264 emancipation 20, 163, 164, 170, 178,
product 169, 207, 224 269, 273
understanding 5, 24, 217, 219, 223, emancipatory 23, 31, 38, 227,
240, 270, 276 269, 272
empiricism 10
empower 130, 148, 151, 152,
dalit literature 4, 161–70, 175, 178–81, 266
267, 276
deconstruction 22–4, 29, 41, 44, 46, 266
empowering 275, 278
deconstruct(ing) 22, 144, 151, 264
empowerment 49, 217, 224
deferral 16, 22, 23, 263
Erikson, E.H. 86–8
Derrida, J. 16, 17, 20–4, 28–31, 34, 39, 41,
exclusion 94, 149, 161–3, 167, 266
263, 264, 266
existential 23, 31, 42, 113, 171, 263
Derridean 22, 29, 39
Descartes, R. 8–10, 15, 22, 42, 43, 46
Fairclough, N. 22, 23, 32–4, 37, 39, 40, 43,
deterministic 14, 38, 39, 42, 144,
262, 268 44, 47, 220–2, 240
determinism 22, 34, 223, 241 ‘field’ 262
dialectical 34, 166, 220, 222, 223, 224 ‘foreclosure’ 87, 94, 143
dialogic 15, 16, 30–2 Foucault, M. 39–42, 47, 74, 220
dialogism 15, 17, 23, 30–3 freewill 24, 39, 42
dialogue 15, 16, 23, 30, 146, 152, 154, 237, Freire, P. 5, 6, 15, 217, 269, 271–3, 276
246, 251, 252, 268, 271, 276
digital media 85, 90, 267, 268 Gandhi, M. 162
diglossia 30 gender 19, 32, 44, 121, 123, 147, 152, 222,
discourse(s) 1–7, 20–4, 27–51, 70–4, 79, 223, 234, 238–41, 278
80, 87, 93, 105, 106, 111, 116, 122, globalisation 105, 117
123, 128, 129, 142, 147–52, 169, Graphemes 28
178, 180, 185, 190, 191, 194, 197,
201, 217–27, 234–44, 256, 259, 263, habitus 85, 93, 96–8, 109, 184, 207, 208,
265–9, 272–5 262–4, 268
academic 190, 198, 210 cultural 208, 264
classroom 219, 223, 238, 243–7, 251, Harijan 162
253–6, 275 hegemony 5, 23, 24, 35, 47, 223, 263,
pedagogic 217, 236, 252 265–8, 270–2, 275
reactive 52, 74 hegemonic 265, 267
regulatory 221, 222 Heidegger, M. 31
resistant 35, 38, 42, 75, 259, 269 Herder, J.G. 7, 8
urban 5 heteroglossia 15, 23, 30–4, 47, 219,
discourse analysis 22, 47, 80, 243, 244 265, 272
types 33–5, 47 hindu(s) 163, 164, 170, 171
discursive formations 41, 47, 220 hinduism 164, 172, 179, 266
dominant culture 224, 260, 261, 264, 271 Hipster 49, 55–8, 60–3, 67, 71, 73, 76,
language 38, 103, 193, 209, 268, 270–3 261, 269
discourse(s) 3, 35, 51, 154 human development 87
domination 33, 35, 38, 123, 127, 260, hybrid 169, 224, 260, 266
261, 272 discourse 235, 238
linguistic 206, 208, 210 hybridity 35, 236, 251, 253,
socio-cultural 260 264, 266
 Index 283

identity construction 91, 108, 268 linguistic market 109, 198, 200, 206–10
ideology 14, 33, 39, 44, 46, 163, 164, 170, linguistics 1, 8, 9, 10, 13, 15–17, 23, 30, 39
179, 192, 206, 220, 270, 273 Locke, J. 7, 9, 14
ideological 5, 15, 23, 31–5, 37, 40, logos 21, 22
43, 47, 49, 180, 190, 191, 193, London 36, 49, 51, 52, 54–7, 60, 61, 62,
194, 197, 204, 206, 208, 210, 219, 65–8, 70–6, 80, 139–42, 269
221, 223, 225, 227, 240, 241, 261,
264, 265, 272, 274
managerialism 35
identities 1, 4, 5, 7, 8, 16, 20–4, 30–2,
Marathi 4, 161, 164–8, 177, 179, 180
35, 42, 46, 47, 80, 85, 86, 89, 91,
Marcia, J. 87, 88, 93–5, 98
96, 97, 98, 105, 107, 111, 113, 119,
Margate 52–62, 65–7, 69–80, 261, 268, 269
121–6, 128, 136, 142–54, 162, 220,
marginalisation 3, 4, 8, 24, 38, 42, 49, 103,
223, 229, 241, 244, 262–9, 272
106, 107, 111, 112, 114, 118, 119,
learner 219, 223, 226, 234, 238,
126, 129, 149, 186, 210, 223, 259,
240, 241
266, 270
youth 267
marginalised 4, 21, 23, 29, 37, 47, 107,
immigrant(s) 62, 71, 120, 137–42,
116, 123, 128, 149, 150, 166, 241,
145–7, 237
262, 267–70
imagined future selves 225, 233
culture 5, 260, 266, 267
inclusion 130, 146, 150, 167, 247, 266
language 5, 35, 42, 259, 266, 267,
indigenous languages 105–13, 119, 120,
270, 272–4
125, 126, 128, 130
media 4, 19, 24, 32, 38, 44, 49, 51, 52, 54,
injustice 46, 118, 149
61, 67, 73–5, 79, 80, 85, 86, 88, 89,
innate 9, 11, 12, 14
90–8, 115, 126, 139, 140, 148, 149,
instrumental (motivation) 35, 171, 219,
154, 155, 185, 190, 194, 198, 210, 267,
223, 225, 230–4, 239, 240, 254, 269
268, 271, 275
intercultural communication 51, 79
mass media 52, 54, 73, 75, 79, 80,
relations 80
120, 128
intersubjective 20, 31, 39, 155
media discourse 46, 79, 268
intersubjectively 1, 3, 7, 8, 16, 135,
metalanguage 22, 39, 256, 275, 276
271, 272
middle class 53, 54, 57, 61, 70–2, 87, 146,
intersubjectivity 15
164, 180, 268, 269
migrants 45, 56, 68, 136–8, 142, 146, 153,
jati(s) 161–3, 172, 178, 179, 180 154, 188, 269
justice 3–6, 46, 47, 149–54, 164, 269, migration 24, 45, 53, 54, 70–2,
273, 274 136–48, 188
mind (as concept) 1, 7, 9–13, 17, 18, 21,
Kant, I. 21, 40, 41 30, 38, 40, 42, 46
knowledge 5, 9, 10, 21, 24, 28, 33, 37–43, misrecognition 38, 260, 261
47, 60, 90, 94, 126, 129, 148, 153, 184, ‘moratorium’ 87, 94, 143
185, 201, 202, 220–3, 234, 241, 247, multicultural 122
256, 261–3, 266, 269, 271, 272, 276 multiculturalism 113, 117
multilingual 107, 108, 112, 113, 122, 130,
languaculture 224, 233, 234 193, 198, 270, 272, 273
langue 17, 18, 21, 27 multilingualism 130
Lenneburg, E. 11 multi modal 46, 91, 250
lingua franca 5, 107, 120, 121, 275 multi modality 85, 88
linguicism 106, 110, 112, 120, 123 multiple identities 20, 31, 223, 262, 268
Linguistic habitus 109, 184, 207, 208 Mumbai 166, 173
284 Index

network 97, 126 rational 1, 8, 10, 11, 13, 15, 22, 24

networking 85, 90 mind 1, 7, 17, 20
neutral 31, 39, 40, 46, 74, 120, 186, 225 rationalist 12
normalisation 33, 44, 123 rationalism 10
normalised 33, 44, 47, 128 reactive discourse 52, 73, 74
normalising 33 refugee voice 4, 136, 144, 146, 149, 152–4
regeneneration 53, 56–62, 65, 71,
opportunity 4, 5, 47, 105, 111, 114, 117, 72, 76, 77
136, 154, 194 resistance 3, 8, 24, 38, 51, 103, 124, 127,
orders of Discourse 32, 34, 221–3, 240 154, 163, 169, 172, 175, 177, 178, 181,
‘other (s)’(as concept) 7, 8, 15, 19–24, 30– 188, 202, 207, 266, 270
3, 40, 94, 107, 143, 151–4, 167, 169, resistant discourse 3, 35, 42, 75, 259, 269
209, 224, 232, 259, 265, 271, 272 revalorisation 42, 276
othering 70, 72, 136
otherization 71, 72 sameness 18, 24, 31, 265, 267
otherness 6, 16, 24, 148, 169, 220, 233, Saussure, F. 13, 16–21
234, 246 Saussurean 27–30
‘outcaste(s)’ 162 semantic(s) 11, 22, 29, 162
Shudra 161
Panchma 161 sign(s) 3, 8, 17–22, 27, 30, 37, 43, 44, 46,
Parole 17, 21, 27 67, 120, 121, 169
pedagogical 4, 5, 14, 40, 42, 179, 180, social class 24, 33, 53, 65, 67, 70
196, 206, 217, 220–2, 241, 243, social constructivism 13, 14
255, 275 social constructivist 12, 30, 40, 254, 264
pedagogy 3, 23, 29, 32, 33, 47, 165, sociocultural 1, 4, 6, 13, 14, 24, 32, 38,
217, 219, 221, 223, 241, 259, 267, 49, 88, 93, 103, 116, 117, 163, 164,
268, 273–6 220, 221, 224, 260, 262, 265–7, 273,
peer group 32, 88, 94 275, 276
perception 19, 21, 40, 41, 54, 78, 138, 145, construction 40
147, 190, 201, 263, 265 context 49, 89, 225, 253
performance 6, 14, 32, 35, 41, 143, 166, hierarchy 259
169, 269, 271 socioeconomic (s) 5, 6, 32, 33, 36, 39, 107,
personal identity 13, 86 198, 219, 220, 221, 223, 225, 226, 227,
phonemes 28 229, 240, 241, 256, 260, 267, 269, 279
phonetics 11 discourse 34, 221, 225, 227, 240
Piaget, J. 14, 87 power 35, 126
polysemia 22, 29, 30 social identity 10, 85, 86, 88, 89, 91, 95, 97,
Port Royal 10 98, 143
postcolonial 106, 107, 116, 117, 119, investment 225, 223
167–9 justice 3, 4–6, 47, 164, 273, 274
post modern 27, 85, 86, 144 media 32, 51–4, 67, 73–5, 79, 92, 97,
post structural 1, 7, 16, 20, 28, 29, 34, 41, 268, 269
42, 255, 263, 264 networking 85, 90
post structuralism 16, 20, 21, 41, 46, 263 networks 92, 97
power relations 5, 31, 34, 42, 47, 186, 209, practice 24, 34, 39, 40, 43, 44, 90, 208,
210, 221, 261 220, 251
presence (as concept) 15, 19, 21, 23, 24 power 40, 121, 255
prestige 36, 39, 109, 121, 126, 198, 210, reality 46
225, 259–61 relations 94
 Index 285

relationships 95 time (as concept) 8, 9, 13, 16, 18, 21–3, 28,

structure 18, 27, 121, 166, 170, 185, 29, 31, 37, 40, 42, 87, 221, 223, 245,
220, 221 265, 271
system 17, 28
value 37, 122 universal grammar 9–12
sociopolitical 39, 103, 115, 169, 201, 221, untouchability 162, 171
261, 270, 273 untouchable(s) 4, 162, 163, 166, 172,
standard language 5, 36–8, 183, 210, 178–81, 266
260–2, 271 Uyghur(s) 4, 183, 185, 186–210, 261,
STEM subjects 33, 35, 267 270
structural (linguistics) 17
structuralism 7, 17, 20, 27–9, 32, 39
Vaishya 161
structuralist 16, 18, 19, 29, 46, 263
Varna 161, 164, 172
Sturm und Drang 87
video games 90
subaltern 166, 167
video sharing 89, 90
subaltern culture 169
voice(s) 4, 15, 21–3, 30–2, 34, 35, 49,
subalternity 166, 167
135, 136, 142–54, 175, 178, 181,
subject position 32, 49, 231, 264
219–21, 265, 267, 269–76
subjectivity 42, 265
von Humboldt, A. 7, 8
symbolic culture 3, 4, 7
Vygotsky, L. 9, 13–15, 17, 20, 40
power 7, 24, 37–9, 44, 106,
110, 260
value 198, 202, 225, 259 word-signs 19, 20, 22, 44
violence 260, 261 word-sounds 27, 28
syntagmatic 28, 29 writing (as language system) 21, 22, 34

‘third culture’ 224 youth culture 85, 86, 95

‘third space’ 35, 169, 224, 264–6 youth identity 86, 89, 267
‘third place’ 224, 225, 239 youth media culture 89
‘thirdness’ 224, 225
thought-language 13, 14 zone of proximal development 14