| Description |
This seminar will take a close look at language ideology in English. Language ideologies are sets of shared beliefs about language use that are often grounded in political, social or aesthetic judgment; in Irvine’s (1989: 255) words, language ideology is “the cultural system of ideas about social and linguistic relationships, together with their loading of moral and political interests.” In this sense, studying language ideologies provides great insight into the relation between language, power, and identity.
Language ideologies are always part of our linguistic practice, whether we are aware of them or not. However, they become particularly critical in situations that constitute power hierarchies – the workplace, the legal system, or educational spaces. In this seminar, we will focus on language ideologies in the classroom and beyond, with particular emphasis on language ideologies and how they inform linguistic practices of teaching and learning. We will bring together linguistic domains that are the targets of language ideologies – from orthography, typography and handwriting, to matters of voice and pronunciation, to aspects of multilingualism and code-switching – with social arenas of discrimination – from age, gender and social background, to race, ethnicity and citizenship. We will examine our own linguistic practices as teachers and learners both in the academic setting, and in school contexts.
This class is primarily aimed at students in Lehramt study programs. Candidates from other degree programs will be admitted according to availability.
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