As a student, I vividly recall an incident from my school days that left a lasting impression on me. It occurred during an English class, where my Malayali teacher reprimanded a student for conversing in Malayalam. What struck me most was her disparaging remarks about the Malayalam language, labelling it as “inappropriate, inferior, underdeveloped, and devoid of educational value”. Reflecting upon this scenario, I am compelled to address a call for immediate decolonization of language ideologies and practices in the present-day education system and the multilingual country -Bharat.
It is a common occurrence in our surrounding schools, both public and private, to implement English as a medium of instruction policy (EMI). Often, these institutions opt to hire teachers from English-speaking countries under the assumption that they possess better English proficiency compared to native teachers. Private schools, in particular, allocate significant financial resources to promote English medium education as their “salient feature” through elaborate advertising campaigns. This attitude only paves the way for more and more language “policies” that will hail English as an index of quality education. It perpetuates the belief that proficiency in English correlates with “high social status, language of the market and foreign employment”, thereby equating competence in English with higher levels of education and sophistication. Such practices stem from a monolingual ideology and language policy imposed by colonial powers, which prioritise the dominance of English and undervalue native languages and cultures.
Social man [sic] is surrounded by ideological phenomenon, by objects-signs…of various types and categories: by words in the multifarious forms of their realisation (sounds, writing, and the others) …, by scientific statements, religious symbols and beliefs, works of arts, and so on. In their totality, all these things comprise the ideological environment, forming a solid ring around man [sic]. Human consciousness does not directly come into contact with existence but through the medium of the surrounding ideological world. (Bakhtin, 1978).
Decolonising the linguistic ideologies requires first developing a comprehensive understanding of colonisation, linguistic imperialism, and its imposed colonial ideologies.
Colonisation involves settling on and controlling new lands, often inhabited by indigenous people. It includes economic and political exploitation, restructuring local economies, and altering political structures to favour the colonisers. Beyond economic and political impacts, colonisation has deeper consequences, involving strategic colonisation of the mind. This process aims to co-opt the colonised people, making them consent to their rule. The colonisation of the mind operates through overt/covert strategies, suggesting the inferiority of the colonised subject’s language, culture, history, religion, and practices. The goal is for the colonised to internalise their inferiority, nullifying resistance to imperial power. This subtle process occurs through rewriting histories, languages, and cultural texts.
Prof Robert Henry Phillipson (1988: 339) asserts that imperialistic forces employ their ideologies and structures to justify, implement, and sustain an unequal distribution of power and resources—tangible and intangible—among other groups by using their language or mother tongue. He terms this phenomenon as linguicism or linguistic imperialism. According to Galtung’s perspective, colonialists divide the world into the Center (powerful Western countries) and the Periphery (developing nations), with language serving as a crucial medium through which the elite in the Center control the Periphery. Language plays a pivotal role as a link between dominant and subordinate groups, symbolising the foundation of linguistic imperialism. Certain critics argue that the English language is crucial in perpetuating global inequalities and dependency structures. Phillipson (1992: 47) identifies two key factors legitimising the expansion of English.
Ethnocentricity involves judging other cultures by their standards and educational policy. These practices create a distinction between languages and reinforce the perceived inferiority of secondary languages compared to the norms set by the dominant culture. The devaluation of native languages is central to these notions, often perpetuated through the colonial dissemination of English. Phillipson takes this notion one step further with ethnocentricity transformed into that of ‘anglocentric’ with the consequence that the dominance of English is justified in terms of such oppositions as superiority/inferiority, civilisation/backwardness, progress/regress, the first element, is constantly attributed to the dominant English language.
Coloniality and Language Ideology
Language ideologies are about languages and representations, construing the intersection of language and human beings in a social world and linking language to identity, aesthetics, morality, and epistemology. Language ideologies help unravel the connections between language policies and individuals’ lived experiences, memories, struggles, and identity issues.
Importantly, language ideologies have an intimate connection to social power and legitimation. The dominant sociopolitical and economic discourses are constructed by and in the interest of a specific (dominant) social and cultural group. Influence language policies and also reveal how the legitimacy of a particular language can either support or deny symbolic violence and self-censorship among minoritised languages.
Significantly, language ideologies are intricately linked to social power and legitimisation processes. The prevailing sociopolitical and economic narratives, typically constructed by and for a specific dominant social and cultural group, exert influence over language policies. This dynamic also sheds light on how the legitimacy afforded to a particular language can either reinforce or negate symbolic violence and self-censorship within marginalised linguistic communities.
I perceive this phenomenon as a manifestation of coloniality, representing a broader framework of dominance and social organisation wherein the identities, language practices, and epistemologies of certain groups are systematically marginalised and denied recognition. Moreover, it perpetuates the superiority and hegemony of dominant ideologies and epistemologies by establishing hierarchies, dichotomies, and barriers within languages and language acquisition processes.
Recent studies have illuminated the perpetuation of inequalities in educational policies through coloniality. Upon analysing the dominance of English in language policies within the Philippines, a clear understanding emerges. The utilisation of English in the Philippines has been shaped by linguistic imperialism, where English serves a dual function in advancing and undermining Filipino society’s linguistic ecology.
English and Neoliberalism
Linguistic instrumentalism has been used to justify the importance of English. It supported the colonial legacy and created language hierarchies at the local level by restricting human consciousness (of a multilingual society) to think of language as a unitary, fixed, monologic and standardised entity, which I call “an imposed hegemonic, monolingual norm”.
The uncritical acceptance of English as a language of global education is a mirage e created by the neoliberal ideology to recognise multilingual people’s linguistic, cultural, and epistemic identities. This coloniality has, in a way, succeeded in constructing categories that valorise English as the medium of salvation and progress. At the same time, other languages are discursively regarded as inappropriate for educational and other purposes in public spheres.
Iconisation, Linguistic Nationalism, and Standard Language Ideology: Colonial Products
‘Iconisation’ is a crucial discursive process through which colonial language ideologies persist in local language policy discourses and practices. Iconisation involves constructing ‘social images’ and identities of languages, encompassing the categorisation, labelling, and identity attribution to speakers of different languages. It also addresses the indexicality of a language, including its prestige, value, and power. Iconisation is a means to understand how English and other indigenous languages are assigned varying values and prestige in language policy discussions.
As a discursive process, Iconisation plays a significant role in reproducing the ideology of linguistic nationalism. Scholars like Gellner, Anderson, and Blommaert have explored the relationship between language and the creation of the nation-state. They argue that the 18th-century European ideology of the nation-state promotes language as a homogenous and unifying force to strengthen nationalism. This ideology defines national identity based on the ability to speak a national language, predominantly used in print and spoken by the upper classes. Monolingual policies of the nation-state categorize one language as ‘national’ and others as ‘mother tongue’ or ‘ethnic languages.’
However, Anderson criticises monolingual nationalism as limiting and marginalizing, emphasizing that only a small fraction of the population engages with the national language in conversation or writing. Notably, this ideology excludes the multilingual language practices and identities of multilingual speakers from national policies. Standard language ideology is the conviction that there exists solely one accurate spoken form of the language, mirroring a single correct written form. This ideology predominantly draws from the spoken language of the upper middle class. It establishes language hierarchies by categorizing minoritized languages as ‘incorrect’ and ‘inappropriate’ for nationalist purposes and modern education. Consequently, “non-standard language” practices employed by marginalized groups face a lack of acknowledgement as legitimate languages in educational settings. Notably, multilingual learners receive designations like ‘English language learners’ (ELL) and ‘students with limited English proficiency’ (LEP) based on their non-standard English usage. Such labels symbolically construct the identity of multilingual learners as ‘deficient’ and ‘weak,’ dismissing their linguistic and cultural assets, identities, and voices.
Furthermore, the adoption of standard language ideology in education perpetuates racial inequalities and discrimination. The perpetuation of standard language ideology in language policy establishes an indexical order, as defined by Blommaert (2005). An indexicality order refers to “stratified normative complexes that organise distinctions between, on the one hand, ‘good,’ ‘normal,’ ‘appropriate,’ and ‘acceptable’ language use and, on the other, ‘deviant,’ ‘abnormal,’ etc. language use.”
However, recent studies underscore that, despite recognising the advantages of multilingualism, current language policies, even those intended to be multilingual, are largely influenced by monolingual ideologies. Piller’s work highlights how these monolingual ideologies contribute to social injustice and the self-marginalisation of multilingual individuals. Despite its multilingual and multiethnic nature, India still perpetuates monolingual ideologies in education and beyond. Despite some discourse on language rights and mother tongue education, indigenous languages remain marginalised, and multilingual practices are excluded from public policies and discussions.
It is happening solely due to the ideological tension between monolingual ideologies constructed by nation-states and neoliberal discourses and multilingual practices that embrace their identities, voices, and epistemologies. To address this situation, there’s a need for a conceptual framework that challenges language ideologies influenced by prevailing language policy discourses driven by nation-states and neoliberal ideologies.
Decolonising Language Ideologies
Decolonising language ideologies necessitates examining the historical origins of colonial language ideologies. Scholars advocate for exposing discriminatory language ideologies and resisting the colonial portrayal of language as a fixed marker of ethnic identity. This process involves unravelling implicit and explicit mechanisms through which monolingual ideologies are perpetuated in language policies, requiring a critical understanding of power dynamics.
Decolonisation efforts involve fostering awareness among language policy actors about sociopolitical dynamics challenging coloniality and promoting alternative perspectives. Coloniality undermines the legitimacy of certain groups’ identities and perpetuates dominance through hierarchies within languages and learning processes.
Decolonisation does not reject dominant ideologies outright but prioritises local concerns and perspectives. It examines how language policies enforce specific ideologies and aim to transform prevailing language ideologies by fostering critical awareness and offering alternative understandings of language legitimacy.
The Role of Engaged Language Policy(ELP): An Ultimate Solution
Recent formulations of Engaged Language Policy (forthcoming) merge agency and structure by actively involving language policy actors in ideological analyses. This engagement aims to cultivate critical ideological awareness and translate this awareness into transformative actions. The approach centres on dialogical engagement to comprehend ideological tensions and enhance critical awareness regarding what qualifies as fair language ideologies. It underscores counter-public spheres, highlighting alternative ideologies, identities, and knowledge within language policy. Engaging language policy explores how language policy actors gain insights into the ideological significance of language policies and practices, playing an active role in transformative endeavours with a focus on maintaining critical ideological awareness. This awareness entails a critical consciousness of the political meanings associated with language ideologies embedded in language policies.
The framework of Engaged Language Policy involves multilingual natives, teachers, and youth engaged in ethnographically rooted discussions on language ideological issues. Grounded in ‘indigenous critical praxis’ and ‘indigenous epistemology’, the dialogic engagement with participants is informed by collaborative ethnography, counter-narratives, critical language awareness workshops, and focus-group discussions. This ethnographically rooted dialogue aims to foster participants’ critical consciousness regarding multiple language ideologies and empower them to reclaim their identities as knowledgeable and transformative agents for shaping a multilingual school.
Specifically, the dialogic engagement contributes to ‘ideological becoming’, signifying participants’ critical awareness of the dominance of the nation-state and neoliberal
ideologies. Participants are encouraged to embrace roles as social critics, advocates, and activists. This transformative process also involves ‘ideological clarification’ concerning the colonial nature of nation-states and neoliberal ideologies within dominant and resistant language policy discourses.
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