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The Language Teacher | |
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Return to The Language Teacher Online It has of course been only too possible from a number of perspectives to argue that language and language teaching are neutral endeavours, and that English, as the 'chosen language' of the world community, is even more neutral than other local languages. From this perspective, English language teaching is an issue of structures, methods, sentences and sounds. A more critical perspective, however, suggests that we need to understand English language teaching as one arm of global linguistic imperialism, as interlinked with the dominance of Western ideology, culture and capitalism, and a crucial element in the denial of linguistic human rights. Such a position, however, while presenting a far more useful analysis of the implications of the global spread of English, nevertheless presents us with several problems. The very power of this global framework is also part of its weaknessWe need to make a very clear distinction between the fairly obvious truism that English is now used as a global language, and the belief that this spread may have concomitant universal or global implications. This has been part of the problem of work that has sought to develop an overarching critical theory of the global spread of English. Thus, while we do indeed need an understanding of how the spread of English is bound up with much larger economic and political interests, we need also to understand how English is contextually bound. Indeed, the task seems to be a twofold one: On the one hand we need to problematize the very notion of language, of English being a global language, of one person's use of English in one part of the world somehow being connected to another person's use elsewhere; on the other hand, we need to develop a means of dealing with questions of power and English, since the use of English in many contexts is always tied to questions of power. Thus, we need ways of thinking about language and power that can help us in specific contexts to move towards a localised understanding of the implications of teaching, learning and using English. Rejecting the largescale theories of power presented by many theories of society or imperialism, I am interested in seeking to understand relations among language, power and context. Foucault gives us a more complex understanding of the multifaceted workings of power and language, and allows us to escape the traps of dichotomous thinking about domination and ideology; but he leaves us at times with an unhelpful metaphysics of power that defies contextual analysis. Bourdieu, by contrast, while problematic in many of his apparently deterministic frameworks, nevertheless provides a useful way forward through his concepts of economic, social, cultural and symbolic capital. This paper will look in very preliminary fashion at the usefulness of these concepts for the contextual theorization of the power of English. By looking at English use not as a coherent, global activity but rather as a series of acts of desire for capital, we can see how forms of capital accrue to English with detrimental effects in many contexts, and how both pedagogical and cultural strategies of opposition need to be developed. Bourdieu And CapitalMy question, then, is whether Bourdieu's notions of capital work well as ways of theorising issues to do with power and language, and thus ultimately as ways of discussing the implications of teaching English. Bourdieu (1986, 1991) describes power in terms of the forms of "capital" people have access to, use and produce in different cultural fields. Crucially, such capital is not simply something one has but something that has different value in different contexts, mediated by the relations of power and knowledge in different social fields. He identifies four types of capital: economic, cultural, social, and symbolic. Unlike standard, materialist views of political economy, Bourdieu sees economic capital as only one amongst the different forms of capital. Thus, one's ability to use one's differential access to material goods only relates to power to the extent that it is combined with cultural, social, and symbolic capital. Cultural capital takes three forms: Embodied cultural capital is the part of the habitus internalised through socialization and education. Importantly, then, what we learn at home and at school are not merely cognitive skills but rather are embodied practices. Objectified cultural capital takes the form of material cultural goods that can be transferred from one person to another. Institutionalised cultural capital takes the form of various credentials or certificates. It is often the case that whatever one may have gained in terms of embodied capital is of little significance without the sanctification of institutionalised capital. Cultural capital, furthermore, is of little value unless it can be used in specific social contexts, access to which is provided by one's social capital. Social capital, then, is one's group membership, one's ability to participate in different social contexts and thus to use and gain other forms of capital. One might, for example, have the embodied and objectified cultural capital to enter certain domains (business, academic communities, etc.) yet one may still be excluded on social terms (through issues of gender, ethnicity, race, sexual orientation, etc.). Finally, in Bourdieu's account, none of these forms of capital matter unless they are accorded symbolic capital, that is to say unless what they represent is acknowledged as having legitimacy, they will not be usable as capital. English And CapitalHow, then, can this be related to teaching, learning, and using English? First of all, we need to observe that there is nothing inherently powerful about English itself. This may seem an obvious point, but it is worth making. It is the history of the accumulated capital associated with English that gives it power. It is the potential it offers-to open social networks, to provide access to economic privelege, to help accrue the cultural capital of education systems, the potential perhaps above all to show one's possession of the symbolic capital of English-that gives it its power. Language has power, argues Bourdieu, because of the power of its users. What this view of capital suggests, then, is that we should not assume that "English" has power (somehow either in itself or automatically because it is English). Indeed what I want to suggest here is that we need to pull apart this very notion of "English." We all know that our definitions of language are fairly arbitrary, and that even when we apply the problematic notion of mutual intelligibility, English falls down on that score. In some ways we need to regard English as something of a fiction. Of course, for those of us that teach English, that's a bit of a hard notion to work with since we know that we are teaching something. It is not a fiction in that sense, but it is a fiction as a homogeneous whole. What we then need to consider is that using, learning, and teaching English are about, as Le page and Tabouret-Keller (1985) put it, "acts of identity" rather than just communication. In this sense, using a language-and naming that language use as such-and-such a language use-is an act of assertion of identity. Yet this does not seem to apply so obviously to using English as a second language. What I want to suggest, then, is that we see English use as, for want of a better term, acts of desire for capital. What, then, are the specific forms of capital linked to English? Of course, at this point we need to engage in localised forms of sociology of langauge use rather than try to sketch global capital connections. And it is here that I would invite teachers of English in Japan to work towards their own contextualised sociologies of language and power. Some general observations, however, are clearly useful. One immediate issue that comes to mind is the problem of the inherited capital of the native speaker of English (NSE). It is worth noting here the importance of specifying that it is the native speaker of English who has capital, not native speakers of languages themselves. To be a native speaker of other languages may have very little capital. Japanese has reasonably high capital; Korean in Japan very low capital. Like the child of the rich industrialist, able to lead a life of leisure while the chidlren of workers will spend their life engaged in scraping together a living, so the native speaker of English is the inheritor of wealth. And the NSE does not, we should note, trade this in but rather lives off the interest, accumulating more wealth in terms of work and money (frequently at differential rates to the NNSE). The NSE also often has different social status, looked up to for the privilege of having the habitus of English written on the body. Of course, others can accrue something close to this cultural/linguistic capital, but it is a long job and rarely given the same status. One of the problems of English is the symbolic capital it is given. Because it accrues this status of the language of truth (or at least the language in which the world is best described; see Pennycook, 1994, forthcoming), the language of social and economic prestige, it always has more symbolic capital than other languages. It is always seen as of more worth than other languages, of conferring greater possibilities-social, cultural, economic-on those that learn it. We also might want to observe the effects of institutionalised cultural capital in relation to English. By this I mean the forms and processes of accreditation, the exams and tests of English. A small difference on the TOEFL can have immense implications for employment, study overseas, and so on. English accreditation has huge institutional capital. Other questions to do with capital come to mind: How do we understand English in terms of cultural capital? What is it that makes up the embodied cultural capital of English? Clearly, it is in part the language itself, the grammar, lexicon and so on. English as cultural capital is the language as form, and in this respect we need to ask what types of English are going to be taught. As Bourdieu suggests, the type of language, the particular accent and form are closely linked to questions of standardization and power. The standard language, or various forms of the standard language have always been linked to the maintenence of power and status, and indeed it is the teaching of a particular version of the standard language in schools that is one of the cornerstones of the transmission of cultural capital. Children who already have access to the standard come bestowed with cultural capital. Once again, then, we are faced by the dilemma of, on the one hand, finding ways of giving people access to the standard forms of language and, at the same time, challenging those forms, promoting other possible forms of English that do not simply reproduce the class relations of English. But we also need to take the cultural side of English seriously, since Bourdieu sees these as indelibly linked. We need to ask, therefore, what the cultural load may be when we teach English, what concepts, ideas, cultures we are teaching in and through English, and what interests such cultural loads serve. For Bourdieu, all cultures are interested (and we may note the double meanings of interest here), and all cultural forms, all cultural capital, need exploration for the interests and inequalities they support. So what are the cultures, discourses, and ideologies we teach in conjunction with English? We also need to ask what kinds of conversions are possible from the cultural capital of English to other forms of social and economic capital. What are the social and economic networks of English? What pathways may English open up, what problematic connections may it help or hinder? We need to ask who will get to speak on the behalf of others as a result of their social capital in English? And we need to explore the constant ongoing social relations produced in the use of English as a social practice. What does English do, and what do different forms of English do in the ongoing activities of daily life? Turning to the paths that English may open up, but other social conditions may equally close down, we need to ask what other forms of social regulation may still keep our students away from where they want to go. As we know, the lure of English probably holds out many more false promises than it delivers real goods. What are the social, cultural, and other barriers that will not be removed even through a good command of English? And we need to ask not only how might we help our students 'make it' in the mainstream but how can we educate them critically to be aware of all the inequalities of that mainstream. The very doors and pathways that English may open are also doors and pathways that I believe we need to use to change the way things are. And finally, it seems to me, we need to address the symbolic capital of English, for it is this that legitimizes it, it is this that makes its global use seem natural, normal, beneficial, as things should be; it is this that makes English have a status that other languages do not have; it is this that makes the Native speakers of English appear to be people of inherent worth and value, while the native speakers of several other languages (multilingual speakers) may be discarded as inadequate. We need to oppose the symbolic capital that gives English a status beyond what it can really do, we need to work to give other languages symbolic power and to prevent the symbolic violence of English. ConclusionAs teachers of English, the implications of what we do are partly in our hands. On the down side, we are dealing with a language (or with constant practices of acts of desire for capital) that is so linked to forms of capital, or so embedded symbolically as a language of wealth and power, that it is hard to know what we can do other than reproduce those same relationships of power. On the more optimistic side, however, we need to start to engage with the forms of capital with which English is linked. We cannot afford, if we are teachers with a concern about inequality, to bury our heads in the sand and "just teach the language." We need to examine the forms of capital accumulation, the social, cultural, economic, and symbolic capital tied to English, and ask ourselves what forms of inequality do these contribute to? We need localised understandings and critical positions on the reproduction of inequality through the forms of capital that accrue to English, its users, speakers, and teachers. What does it mean for other languages? What does it mean for speakers of other languages? What other ways might we start to think about English and its role? What visions of the world do we have and how is English related to them? How can we work through English and how against English in order to work for more equitable social, cultural, and economic relations?
ReferencesBourdieu, P. (1986). The forms of capital. In J. G. Richardson (Ed.), Handbook of theory and research for the sociology of education (pp. 241-258). New York: Greenwood Press. Bourdieu, P. (1991). Language and symbolic power. Oxford: Polity Press. Le page, R., & Tabouret.-Keller, A. (1985). Acts of identity. London: Cambridge University Press. Pennycook, A. (forthcoming). English and the discourses of colonialism. London: Routledge. Pennycook, A. D. (1994). The cultural politics of English as an international language. London: Longman.
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