Author's Copy Author's Copy Author's Copy Author's

0 downloads 0 Views 152KB Size Report
ideologies are negotiated in discourse through a configuration of linguistic resources ..... following paragraph uses an indirect projection to move us to the future.
Author's Copy

‘‘In whatever language people feel comfortable’’: conflicting language ideologies in the US Southwest border* MARIANA ACHUGAR and TERESA OTEI´ZA

This article explores how language ideologies about monolingualism and bilingualism are reproduced and challenged by the media in a Southwestern border community in the United States. We investigate the particular ways in which these language ideologies are constructed and reconstructed through lexicogrammatical and discursive choices that evaluate and position languages and their users. Through an appraisal analysis (Martin and White 2005) of local newspaper articles, we show how competing language ideologies are negotiated in discourse through a configuration of linguistic resources including: concession, modality, and polarity. These discursive configurations construct di¤erent evaluations of languages and their users; monolingual ideologies are associated to individual responsibility, whereas multilingual/bilingual ideologies are associated to social responsibility. The article points to the ways in which the print media in this community reproduces the dominant monolingual English-only ideology at the same time it opens up spaces for multilingual language ideologies. Keywords:

1.

language ideologies; bilingualism; Spanish in the United States; appraisal analysis.

Introduction

Even though Spanish is the second most spoken language in the United States with over 40,000,000 speakers according to the latest census (Pew Hispanic Center 2006), its domains of use have been typically restricted to the private sphere and it has not been considered a value added to its speakers (e.g., Urciuoli 1996; Zentella 1997). Spanish and its speakers in the United States are a minority that has not had the same rights and opportunities as speakers of the dominant language. This is a particular case 1860–7330/09/0029–0371 Online 1860–7349 6 Walter de Gruyter

Text & Talk 29–4 (2009), pp. 371–391 DOI 10.1515/TEXT.2009.020

Author's Copy

Author's Copy

Author's Copy

Abstract

Author's Copy Mariana Achugar and Teresa Oteı´za

since Spanish is a language spoken by more than 400 million people around the world (Mar-Molinero 2000) and historically has been a dominant language in other regions. The case of Spanish in the United States is unlike that of other minority languages in the country, since Spanish speakers have a long history in the region (since 1512), some were conquered by the United States (Mexico lost half of its territory after the war with the United States, 1846–1848), and others have come as immigrants. This particular sociohistorical context is where perceptions of the role, value, and place of Spanish and its speakers have been constructed. Language ideologies are ‘‘what people think, or take for granted about language and communication’’ (Woolard and Schie¤elin 1994: 56). These beliefs and attitudes influence the roles of language in a community and how language is linked to a group or individual’s identity and their social rights. These ideologies are fundamentally discursive and constructed through semiotic practices. Ideologies of language are not homogeneous; they are maintained and constructed through processes of negotiation and contestation to establish and maintain the recognition and legitimacy in the community. Hegemonic language ideologies are constantly challenged and as a result need to be constantly adjusting to maintain their legitimacy and dominance. At the individual level, there are also contradictions and changes that demonstrate the dynamic nature of these views about the meaning and value of languages. Language ideologies represent the views of language constructed to serve the interests of a particular group (Kroskrity 2000). Language difference is many times mapped onto class and race di¤erences (Urciuoli 1996). In the United States, speakers of languages other than English have been racialized and constructed as di¤erent (Leeman 2004) to construct a national identity based on homogeneity and assimilation. Languages other than English have been used as markers of di¤erence that explain certain groups’ success or failure in society. For example, ‘‘limited English proficiency’’ has constantly been marked as the reason and cause for Latino’s educational underachievement and poverty (Moll and Ruiz 2002). When language skills are used to justify social di¤erences and inequality, language ideologies have direct consequences on people’s lives. This paper explores ideologies of language that construct and reconstruct views of Spanish and English, its users, and the process of learning languages in the United States. The paper investigates the particular ways in which these language ideologies are constructed and reconstructed through lexicogrammatical and discursive choices, to find out how monolingual language ideologies are being challenged by ones that recognize and value multilingualism. The paper documents examples of how the

Author's Copy

Author's Copy

Author's Copy

372

Author's Copy Conflicting language ideologies

373

press in a Southwest border community reproduces national ideologies that present monolingualism and standard ‘‘English’’ as the natural and only option connected to social and economic success, and challenges this monolingual ideology by o¤ering instead Spanish and bilingualism as legitimate alternatives.

Bilingual border ecologies and language ideologies

In multilingual settings, languages are perceived to be in competition (Wiley 2000). This competition implies a potential shift in the meaning and value associated to the languages used in a multilingual community. The ways in which particular environments organize regimes of language can incapacitate individuals or provide them with more agency to deploy their linguistic resources (Blommaert et al. 2005). Therefore, regardless of the skills and repertoires individuals have, the function and value of these linguistic resources and skills in that particular environment may change, resulting in di¤erent possibilities for language users. This potential for change in the linguistic market creates the possibility to challenge hegemonic language ideologies. In the case at hand, the dominant national language ideology privileges monolingualism and homogeneity over bilingualism and diversity. In this paper, we explore how this ideology is negotiated and contested at a local level in a community where bilingualism and diversity are the norm. The case we analyze is set in the city of El Paso, Texas. This city is located between two nations and three states, and with its sister city Ciudad Juarez (Chihuahua, Mexico) comprises the largest metropolitan area in the border. El Paso is known in the region for its young, culturally diverse population shaped by 400 years of history. Since the early 1800s, language contact between Spanish and English has been a key characteristic of the linguistic landscape of this Southwest Texas border region. Today, people and products in the area move back and forth between Mexico and the United States (Garcı´a 1981; Richardson 1999; Sa´nchez 1993; Staudt and Coronado 2002). The interaction and exposure to both cultures has resulted in adaptations and transformations that help constitute a particular border culture that cannot be defined in reductionist national terms, it is neither Mexican nor American (Garcı´a 1981; Sa´nchez 1993). This is even reflected in the area’s demographic characteristics. According to the 2000 US Census, this county in Texas has a total population of 679,622, of which 78.2% are Hispanic or Latino (of any race) and 73.3% speak a language other than English at home (population 5 years and over). Only 27% of those are foreign born. In

Author's Copy

Author's Copy

Author's Copy

2.

Author's Copy 374

Mariana Achugar and Teresa Oteı´za

3.

Corpus and analytic framework

The production of ideologies in media practice can be explored through the processes of language valuation and evaluation that function to naturalize power di¤erences and interest in society (Fairclough 2004; Spitulnik 1998). However, it is important to note that one cannot read directly ideologies from texts. There is a dialectic relationship between the institutions, situations, and social structures that shape discourse, while discourse also shapes and a¤ects those institutions and social structures. Texts have e¤ects on the material world as well as being constrained by it. To this dialectic relationship between text and social context we need to add a third aspect: the language user. Language users display di¤erent strategies (e.g., alignment or resistance) within the realm of what the context and language a¤ord. Thus, to study the media’s role in the construction and reproduction of language ideologies, we need to analyze the complex web of social relations, identities, and group conflicts as they are enacted in discourse practices. The analysis of newspaper articles provides an opportunity to identify particular discursive practices that contribute to the reproduction and contestation of language ideologies (see, for example, Kumar 2007; Santa Ana 2002; Van Dijk 1988). Discourse analysis of newspaper’s evaluations of language abilities and language users points to socially accepted norms and expectations, which represent the prevalent language ideologies in the community, while at the same time allow us to explore the challenges to these ideologies. We investigate language ideologies from a dominance/

Author's Copy

Author's Copy

Author's Copy

comparison, for the total US population of 281,421,906, 12.5% are Hispanic or Latino and 17.3% speak a language other than English at home. Of those, 11.1% are foreign born. The linguistic repertoire of the community includes a wide range of regional varieties of Spanish and English, as well as the local border varieties. There are also several norms that co-exist, representing the diversity characteristic of all speech communities, even monolingual ones (Santa Ana and Parodi 1998). The linguistic landscape of this community is better described as two intersecting continua of Spanish and English that include monolingual users of standard and vernacular varieties in either language and bilingual users fully functional in varieties of both languages (Baugh 1984). The following section presents the corpus and analytic framework we used to explore the ways in which language ideologies are constructed and reconstructed through discourse.

Author's Copy 375

resistance model that examines both the ways in which the status quo is maintained, as well as how critical views emerge to contest it (Gramsci 1971; Kumar 2007). We are interested in identifying the discourse practices that index ways in which critical viewpoints find a way in the media. The corpus is made up of ten newspaper articles from the only Englishlanguage daily in El Paso, El Paso Times. The Media News Group and Gannet Company together own this newspaper, which serves far West Texas and southern New Mexico, and has a daily readership of about 180,400 people. The El Paso Times editorial board inclines toward conservative policies and Republican partisanship according to local as well as national critics (Bernstein 2003). The print newspaper has several sections: section A, which covers local, national, and international news; Borderlands section for metro section including neighborhood news; the Sports section with emphasis on the local university teams; the Business section focusing on local and national economic issues; the Living section including local and national events and culture; and Tiempo, a weekly entertainment guide. The articles analyzed in our corpus come from section A, the Borderland section, the opinion section (i.e., letters to the editor), the Living section, and from a special section focusing on an investigative report. The location of the articles across di¤erent sections of the newspaper reveals that this topic, i.e., language ideologies, permeates all aspects of life and news in the region. The articles were selected from the local electronic newspaper’s archive spanning from 1999 to 2005 and by doing a search with the following key terms: language, Spanish, and bilingualism. The articles belong to two di¤erent genres: opinion-based and report. The practical constraints of corporate media management have affected investigative reporting and as a result information comes typically from standard news services, government sources, and corporate-sponsored think-tanks (Kumar 2007: 39). Therefore, we looked at articles written by local reporters dealing with local issues to capture the construction, the reproduction, and the challenge of standard language ideologies at the local level. Our goal is to document not only the role of the media in the reproduction of the status quo, but also to capture the ways in which critiques to this ideology emerge even in corporate consolidated media like El Paso Times. As a result, only the articles written by local journalists about local themes related to language, Spanish, and bilingualism were included in the corpus; we did not include the articles whose sources were from agencies like Associated Press or Reuters. The small number of articles included in the corpus results from limiting our search to those that explicitly dealt with language issues, a

Author's Copy

Author's Copy

Author's Copy

Conflicting language ideologies

Author's Copy Mariana Achugar and Teresa Oteı´za

particular time frame, and because we wanted to conduct a detailed text analysis. To conduct this type of close text analysis at the lexicogrammatical and discourse-semantic level requires intense work with texts, which cannot be achieved using larger corpora and computer mining programs. Our methodological choice was to go for depth over breath since we were attempting not to generalize, but to demonstrate the possibility of emerging counter-ideologies in a multilingual community. Our goal was to establish the discursive ways in which hegemonic ideologies are challenged in contexts where it is not likely to happen, such as in the consolidated corporate media level like the newspaper we investigated. The analytic framework we use comes from work in evaluation from a systemic functional linguistics model as exemplified by Martin and Rose (2003), Martin and White (2005), and White (2003, 2005), among others. This framework provides analytic tools to explore the interpersonal meanings integrating the grammaticalized realizations (mood and modality) as well as the lexicalized realizations (attitudes and graduation). In addition, there is a more metaphorical realization of interpersonal meanings that evokes particular evaluations without having them inscribed in the text. This type of evaluation requires readers to have the background knowledge to be able to make sense of them. The reader’s position then becomes important when analyzing evaluation. Readers can adopt compliant, resistant, or tactic strategies to approach texts. As analysts, it is also important to declare our reading position since it will inevitably affect our interpretation of the texts. In our case, we are two Latin American women who have lived in the United States for a long period of time and have worked with Spanish speakers in the United States in di¤erent capacities (as teachers, researchers, and community advocates). Authors tell their listeners/readers how they feel and think about things and people, that is, what their attitudes are. According to Hunston and Thompson (2000), evaluation is important because it plays a crucial role in the construction of the ideological foundation of a discourse. Therefore, it is possible to situate a reader and author in an ideological space that allows us to understand the value system of that person and of his/her community. Evaluation is relevant also because it helps to build and maintain a relationship between speaker/author and listener/ reader, and because it plays an important role in the organization of a discourse, that is, how the argument is constructed in discourse. Appraisal is a system of interpersonal meanings. Martin and White (2005) suggest that there are three main appraisal systems: attitude, graduation, and engagement. Attitudes are the ways of feeling seen as a system of meanings. This system involves three semantic regions: emotions (a¤ect), ethics ( judgment), and aesthetics (appreciation).

Author's Copy

Author's Copy

Author's Copy

376

Author's Copy Conflicting language ideologies

2.

Author's Copy

3.

A¤ect registers positive or negative feelings as un/happiness, dis/satisfaction, or in/security. For example, ‘‘[. . .] Leon said, he became frustrated with dealing with ‘numbers and the same six faces everyday’.’’ (dissatisfaction) Judgment deals with attitudes toward people’s behavior in terms of institutionalized emotions. This means how people should or should not behave in a community. It can be subdivided into social esteem (normality, capacity, tenacity) and social sanction (veracity, propriety). For example, ‘‘Supporters say those opposed to bilingual education fight it on a political rather than educational front, defending English-only or English first over bilingualism’’ (propriety), implying that the bilingual education opposition does not use the ‘‘right’’ criteria to combat bilingual education. Appreciation involves the evaluation of semiotic or natural things in terms of their composition, our reaction to them, and their value. For example, ‘‘In El Paso, not knowing Spanish could be as much a hindrance at times as not knowing English.’’ (value)

Attitudes can also be raised or lowered through graduation. ‘‘Evaluations can be less or more intense, that is they may be more or less amplified’’ (Martin and Rose 2003: 22), and we can say how strongly we feel about someone or something. We can intensify our meanings (force); or we can ‘‘sharpen’’ or ‘‘soften’’ our evaluations (focus) with words like ‘‘exactly,’’ ‘‘sort of ’’/‘‘kind of.’’ The resources of evaluation that position the speaker’s/author’s voice with respect to the information in the text allow them to acknowledge or ignore other viewpoints. Utterances invoke, acknowledge, respond to, anticipate, revise, or challenge alternative utterances and social positions (White 2005). According to Thibault (1997: 53), ‘‘no utterance is free from subjective presencing of the speaker.’’ Even those utterances that seem to be factual have interpersonal value. The main rhetorical choice in the system of engagement is between a monoglossic option (the bare declarative) and a heteroglossic option (network of resources that encode the possibility of other voices and points of view). Engagement incorporates a wide range of lexicogrammatical resources such as projection (reported speech), modal verbs, modal and comment adjuncts, reality phase (indicative, subjunctive), negation, conjunctions and connectives of expectation and counter-expectation (White 2005). The appraisal framework deals with the language of evaluation that construes interpersonal meanings in a text. It is interested in the linguistic resources used to negotiate and naturalize ideological positions.

Author's Copy

Author's Copy

1.

377

Author's Copy 378

Mariana Achugar and Teresa Oteı´za

In the following section we apply this analytic framework to the corpus to point to the various evaluative practices through which ideologies are reproduced and challenged.

Analysis

In our analysis, we focused on how languages, their users, and language learning are evaluated in the community. We identified what was being evaluated (social actor, thing, event), who was evaluating it (author, other source), the type of attitude that was constructed (a¤ect, judgment, or appreciation), the graduation of those attitudes (force, focus), and finally the type of engagement with other voices/positions (monogloss, heterogloss). In this paper, we mainly focus on the analysis of the subsystem of engagement, which helped us to identify the sources of evaluations and how authors construct more monoglossic or heteroglossic positions in media discourse. We divided each newspaper article into clauses and then identified all of the evaluative language (inscribed or evoked) in the text. Then, we coded each evaluation in terms of the type of attitude, its graduation, and the type of engagement with it. Afterwards, we searched for patterns in the ways languages (Spanish or English or bilingualism) were evaluated, how their speakers/users were evaluated, and how language learning was evaluated. In the next section, we present part of our analysis focusing on how competing language ideologies are represented in the texts exploring how a configuration of linguistic resources helps to construct these heteroglossic texts. The following section presents how these ideologies are positioned in relation to each other in these texts. 4.1.

Contrasting monolingual and multilingual ideologies of language

These competing language ideologies are positioned and contrasted through resources of engagement realized through a configuration of concession, polarity, and modality choices. Concession is one of the resources deployed to construct heteroglossia, the inclusion of multiple voices in a text. This resource functions to create a counter-expectation to what the ‘‘ideal’’ or ‘‘expected’’ reader assumes or expects and adjusts them to the position or point of view the writer wants to advance. To monitor readers’ expectations, writers use conjunctions to concede (e.g., but, even if, although) or to continue (e.g., already, finally, still ) supporting readers’ expectations. Polarity is a resource through which by negating a proposition its alternate is introduced into the dialogue. The negative is not only an

Author's Copy

Author's Copy

Author's Copy

4.

Author's Copy 379

opposite of the positive, it carries within it the positive (Martin and White 2005). The negative then invokes the positive. Modality functions as a sign to the reader on how to interpret the possibility, probability, or necessity of a proposition. This resource construes the writer’s subjectivity against the backdrop of other’s voices (Martin and White 2005). The analysis of the grammatical resources that help to build a heteroglossic discourse can be complemented by a lexical analysis. In this section, our purpose is to highlight how the above-mentioned resources work together, understanding that they are only some of the ones that construct ideological meaning in the discourse. With the analysis of attitudes toward languages, their users and language learning, we have identified three main topics where these competing ideologies emerge in these texts. These topics are: (i) the discussion about the role of Spanish as a minority language in the workplace, which is related to attitudes toward language and its users; (ii) the type of educational program that best serves the needs of children in the community; and (iii) the loss of languages in the community, which is related to attitudes in the three areas of language, its users, and language learning. 4.1.1. Minority language in the workplace. Debates about the importance of Spanish as a key criterion for obtaining a job have been a regular topic of discussion in the community and are present in our corpus in articles from 1999 until 2003. The competing ideologies here diverge on the importance they attribute to speaking the language of the community, Spanish, in addition to English (which is considered the default requisite). The monolingual ideology considers English to be the only necessary requirement for a job and that Spanish knowledge is an added value, but not something to be considered when making the final hiring decision. On the other hand, multilingual ideologies consider that speaking the language of the community should be a requirement for jobs within that population and that bilingualism is a key requirement for job selection. The following examples illustrate how these competing ideologies are contrasted through the use of a configuration of concession, polarity, and modality choices. (1)

(‘‘Peers, residents call Leon natural leader,’’ 8 January 1999) Now 47, he [Carlos Leon] downplays his bilingualism as a factor in his nomination as El Paso’s next police chief but embraces the benefits it could bring. ‘‘That wasn’t, and rightly so shouldn’t have been, a consideration for my selection,’’ he said. But it’s always a bonus, an asset, when you can get into conversations in whatever language people feel more comfortable.

Author's Copy

Author's Copy

Author's Copy

Conflicting language ideologies

Author's Copy Mariana Achugar and Teresa Oteı´za

In Example (1), Carlos Leon, the next police chief, recognizes it is important to be able to talk ‘‘in whatever language people feel more comfortable,’’ but at the same time he stresses the idea that bilingualism ‘‘shouldn’t have been a consideration for my selection’’ using a moral evaluation (social sanction) that judges the propriety of that behavior. Immediately after, concession is used to foreground the improper behavior of using bilingualism as the key criterion for job selection while accepting the benefits of bilingualism. He uses modality to present the potential of bilingualism as a positive attribute. The direct quotation from the source is framed by the reporter’s commentary that uses similar resources: modality and concession to create a contrast between the acceptability of using language as the key criterion for job selection and the potential of bilingualism in the job. Spanish-speaking abilities, and in particular bilingualism, are presented as positive aspects in the job, but within certain limits. The question this contrast highlights is: why shouldn’t it be counted, if it is a bonus or asset? This statement could be read as answering other discourses that may consider this as a case of a‰rmative action. Since speaking Spanish has been racialized and is a marker of minority status, the chief of police wants to make clear he does have the credentials and experience needed for the job. On the other hand, in Example (2), the issue of bilingualism as the key criterion for job selection is presented from a di¤erent angle. Example (2) comes from an article that reports on why an English monolingual principal was not given a job at a heavily Hispanic district. (2)

(‘‘YISD board rejects principal candidate,’’ 11 May 2001) Guinn does not speak Spanish but believes he can handle the job at Del Valle—a heavily Hispanic and Spanish-speaking area.

Through the use of polarity, concession, and modality, the example highlights the fact that for this candidate (Guinn), Spanish-speaking ability is not considered a key factor in the fulfillment of job responsibilities. In this case, the school board had not hired this candidate because it determined that Spanish was a key variable in selecting the principal that would serve the Spanish-dominant community. That decision was challenged by the candidate, Guinn, and other members of the community, and it is reported through an indirect projection where the use of but counters the negation of ability with a modal of ability can that stresses Guinn’s qualifications for the job and implicitly discounts the importance of knowing Spanish to satisfy the job requirement. This example contrasts with the previous one by highlighting the fact that not speaking Spanish is not an impediment to achieving important goals. Spanish knowledge is dispensable in contrast to English knowledge.

Author's Copy

Author's Copy

Author's Copy

380

Author's Copy Conflicting language ideologies

381

Author's Copy

(3)

(‘‘Bill would void penalty for bilingual speakers,’’ 9 April 1999) ‘‘This bill does not seek to place unnecessary burdens on employers but rather, the purpose of this bill is to stop employers who place unnecessary burdens on their employees.’’ Chavez told the committee. She contends legislation is needed because some employers pick on employees who chat with each other in a foreign language even when the conversation is not related to work. Chavez’s bill allows employers to require employees to speak English while dealing with customers or others who understand only English. Employers also could require English if it’s necessary for the job.

The first clause negates the potential challenges to the argument presented in the legislation and uses concession to present the counter-argument explaining what it will mean. This direct projection is followed by an indirect projection that further elaborates the need for this legislation by giving an example of the situations it tries to amend. Here again concession is used to continue that argument and negate readers’ expectations (i.e., that the legislation will include work-related conversations). This negation implies that restrictions to minority language use are appropriate in cases where the topic is directly related to work. In the following clauses, modality is used to lower the impact of the legislation by ensuring the possibility of requiring English in the job profile. At the same time, the writer is trying to balance this concession with the counter-argument that it is necessary to defend bilingual and multilingual people’s rights. The reference to the ‘‘stigma’’ of bilingualism and multilingualism points to the well-established monolingual ideology that considers English as the only possible code for public spaces. Using minority languages in the public sphere is presented as an individual right, thus bringing the debate to the civil liberties arena. In a similar way, Example (4), a letter to the editor, comments on a proposed state legislation that would require high school students to take two years of Spanish before graduation and critiques it as a disregard for individual rights.

Author's Copy

Author's Copy

These competing ideologies also emerge in discussions about legislation that assign more importance to Spanish in the public sphere. The right to use the minority language in public spaces or to require majority speakers to learn the minority language in schools points to the negotiation of boundaries and division of labor between the languages spoken in the community. Example (3) comes from an article that discusses legislation regarding the use of minority languages in the workplace.

Author's Copy

Author's Copy

(4)

Mariana Achugar and Teresa Oteı´za (‘‘Don’t require Spanish classes,’’ 9 March 1999) Bilingualism, and even trilingualism, will certainly be an employment benefit, but the Texas Legislature has no business dictating our options to us.

Here the writer first acknowledges the validity of others’ position through the use of a modal and an adverb that elevates the force of the statement presenting bilingualism as a benefit, but immediately uses the conjunction but to present the counter-argument that the legislation has ‘‘no business’’ intruding in individual’s rights. Polarity is reinforced by the use of modality ‘‘certainly’’ and emphasized by the use of possessives, ‘‘our’’ and ‘‘us’’ versus ‘‘them.’’ This example contrasts with Example (3) in which legislators designed a bill to ensure minority language users’ rights because, in this case, what is legislated is majority language users’ rights. The previous examples point to conflicting views on what the role of the state should be in legislating language use: protections or demands for minority language users are acceptable, but demands on majority language users are not acceptable. More recent discussions relating to the role of languages in the community are about the importance of learning or developing more than one language to succeed professionally and economically. Example (5) illustrates competing views regarding what is necessary in terms of linguistic resources to do well in economic and professional terms. (5)

(‘‘Poverty linked to poor proficiency,’’ 25 November 2001) ‘‘Living on the border you think it’s not very important [learning English] until you find yourself out of a job and looking for work’’, said Gomez, who was laid o¤ from the Sun Apparel garment factory a few years ago. In fact, language is directly related to the area’s low economic and education levels, some experts said. ‘‘Birthplace and language impact education, which of course impacts income’’, said Cheryl Howard, professor of sociology at the University of Texas at El Paso.

The direct quotation of a source presents speakers’ expectations using negative polarity and introducing a counter-expectation using a conjunction of time to signal a change in perceptions brought about by the harsh reality of the value of English in the job market. The following commentary of the reporter uses the continuative in fact to support the argument that English is needed to succeed economically. This idea is further reinforced by the comment adjunct of course that extends the known information by elaborating on why language proficiency impacts jobs and in turn income. The expression of course also highlights the naturalized character

Author's Copy

Author's Copy

382

Author's Copy Conflicting language ideologies

383

of this position, which constructs this population’s economic problems as the consequence of their poor English-language proficiency. In Example (6), we observe how the multilingual ideology has been developing through time. Bilingualism in the field of journalism is now seen as a crucial tool, while in the past a journalist in a Spanish newspaper could manage without knowing English. (‘‘Cultivating bilingual journalists,’’ July 12, 2003) Jose Luis Sierra, an assistant managing editor for news at La Opinio´n, learned the basics of journalism from older, seasoned Latino journalists who could write long-winded essays but could get by without taking the time to master English. Sierra, 45, is convinced that all journalists will increasingly have to master two or more languages, given the dynamics of the Hispanic population in the United States and U.S.–Latin America relations. ‘‘The whole scenario calls for bilingual journalists,’’ Sierra said. ‘‘More and more, it’s not just added value—it’s a requirement.’’

In the first paragraph, the writer presents a scenario of how things used to be in the past when Spanish was enough for Spanish newspapers in the United States. In the same clause complex, the writer introduces the contrast between the professional experience and bilingual skills with the use of concession and modality to mark the contrast of the possibilities. The following paragraph uses an indirect projection to move us to the future through the use of will as a time marker and also a modal of certainty that connects current demographic shifts to the new importance of bilingualism for the profession. The final paragraph introduces, through a direct projection, the actual words of Sierra to evaluate the importance of bilingualism. It also foregrounds, through a lexical contrast, the move from ‘‘added value’’ to ‘‘requirement,’’ which implies fewer options for new journalists. The previous examples show how competing ideologies respond to debates over how to organize and give value to the linguistic resources available in this multilingual community. Those supporting monolingual ideologies expect English to be the dominant language and key factor in gate-keeping decisions. On the other hand, supporters of multilingual ideologies stress the importance of valuing and using all the resources available in the community. 4.1.2. Education. The second topic where these opposing ideologies are contrasted through configurations of concession, polarity, and modality resources relates to discussions about educational programs. Monolin-

Author's Copy

Author's Copy

Author's Copy

(6)

Author's Copy 384

Mariana Achugar and Teresa Oteı´za

gual and multilingual ideologies di¤er on what type of educational services should be provided to children in the community. For monolingual ideology supporters, the best educational program is the one that ensures children’s English-language development in the shortest amount of time. In contrast, for multilingual ideology supporters, the best educational programs are those that develop bilingualism by maintaining the home language and developing an additional language. The following examples illustrate these competing views. (‘‘Bilingual programs to grow,’’ 18 April 1999) ‘‘I agree that our children should be bilingual, but not at the expense of English and academics,’’ said Armando Centeno, an avid supporter of immersion where non-English speakers are taught solely in English.

Once again we see an acknowledgement of the others’ position through the use of modality referring to an idealized situation, and then a counterargument introduced through the conjunction but to limit the scope of the previous concession. The use of negation here reinforces the counterargument by negating the possible implication of validating bilingualism (i.e., the demotion of English from its dominant position to one of equal value to other languages). Example (8) presents the position of English-dominant supporters of bilingual education. (8)

(‘‘Educators rush to teach in two languages,’’ 10 September 2001) When Stephanie Crouse moved to El Paso from Wisconsin six years ago to work in a Juarez maquiladora, she hoped that her two sons would be immersed in the culture of the city. She did not however, expect them to learn how to speak, read and write Spanish fluently.

Through an indirect projection, the reporter presents the source’s (Stephanie Crouse’s) change in expectations signaled by the use of irrealis mode, highlighting how her expectations were challenged by reality. Negation and concession are used to contrast the real situation and present a positive evaluation of the value of bilingualism. This is a clear example of how common-sense views are countered by the use of concession presenting reality as something di¤erent from our expectations. Stephanie Crouse did not think it was a possibility to learn another language to high level of proficiency. There seem to be di¤erent expectations and presuppositions about what is possible and doable in terms of language learning. For English monolinguals, learning a foreign language seems like an almost impossible task. On the other hand, expectations for

Author's Copy

Author's Copy

Author's Copy

(7)

Author's Copy Conflicting language ideologies

385

Author's Copy

(9)

(‘‘Bilingual programs to grow,’’ 18 April 1999) ‘‘This nation is still not quite embracing bilingualism as a value,’’ she said. ‘‘But other countries see it as intellectual enhancement, an asset or resource. That’s what we’re doing in El Paso, and as we move more toward that belief, you’re going to see enrollment rise.’’ Bilingual education programs—overwhelmingly in Spanish—are expected to flourish as more schools implement dual language courses here and nationwide. Dual language, an extension of bilingual education, is when a class is taught by two teachers at once, one in English and another in a second language. But as in the past three decades, bilingual education will be scrutinized, challenged and even threatened—so much so that the program’s growth could be stumped before it’s allowed to blossom by shortage of funds and a greater shortage of teachers.

The direct projection brings in an authority to present strong evaluations and comparisons between the local and national situation. The use of a continuative discourse marker, still, with negation, points to a clear contrast in time frame and manner of evaluating bilingualism. The second direct projection begins with a conjunction, but, that presents the counterargument, which serves to validate the local support and value of bilingualism. By making reference to other countries, El Paso is aligned with other strong communities, validating El Paso’s position against the dominant national ones. Toward the end of the reported quote, the source again uses but to introduce some historical perspective that explains the problems this position, valuing bilingualism, has encountered in the past. The use of modality also signals the high probability of these challenges to bilingualism emerging once again. The continuative even reinforces the strength of the previous statement by giving more reasons why countering hegemonic positions is di‰cult. It adds a negative evaluation of a¤ect (fear/insecurity) about the future of bilingualism in the nation (‘‘in danger,’’ ‘‘challenged and even threatened’’). The preceding examples illustrate how these configurations of concession, polarity, and modality choices function as a resource to position members of the community in relation to these two competing ideologies (monolingual versus multilingual).

Author's Copy

Author's Copy

English-language learners are much higher, since they are expected to operate in all realms of life in English, learning academic content through English and performing their jobs in English. These ideas are prevalent at the national level also, as is highlighted in the following Example (9), which contrasts the programs and beliefs prevalent in the community with those operating at the national level.

Author's Copy 386

Mariana Achugar and Teresa Oteı´za

Author's Copy

(10)

(‘‘Losing Spanish: U.S. students may neglect native language,’’ 4 January 2005) Nelly Dominguez is proud of how much English her two sons have learned in the year and a half since the family moved from Juarez into a South Side home. But as time passes she notices the two boys talking to each other in English more, she wonders what will happen to their Spanish.

The first clause provides the naturalized version of reality (i.e., learning English is good). However, in the following clause the writer introduces a counterargument using but that defies the previous assumptions of the dominant point of view that supposes learning English is the problem for this population. To show the other side of the argument, the author uses an indirect projection of the mother’s concerns stressing a¤ect evaluations (e.g., pride) and evoking fear through the indirect question ‘‘she wonders’’ about the e¤ects of learning English that have the potential result of losing the first language. In Example (11), there is another illustration of the consequences of an English-only ideology. (11)

(‘‘Losing Spanish: U.S. students may neglect native language,’’ 4 January 2005) ‘‘My mom and dad tell me that it’s important to speak both English and Spanish, but I don’t know if I’m going to speak Spanish very well when I’m older,’’ she said.

Here through the use of direct projection the source (child) acknowledges the importance of being bilingual and how parents instill the value of learning both languages in their children. However, this concession is countered by the use of the conjunction but that introduces the other position: the fear of losing a language because it is not used in the school. Concession here operates again to create the counter-expectancy in the reader, since the first part of the message echoes the dominant belief that parents are doing what is necessary for supporting language learning. The

Author's Copy

Author's Copy

4.1.3. Language loss. The final topic where these ideologies of language collide is in relation to issues of language loss. For monolingual ideology supporters, the loss of English during the summer months is a critical aspect in students’ education and potential life chances. In contrast, supporters of multilingual ideology foreground the importance of first language loss caused by the English-language immersion programs. The following examples illustrate how concession operates in texts that favor each of these positions. Example (10) demonstrates how the process of first language loss is evaluated in a¤ective terms that signal dissatisfaction and unhappiness.

Author's Copy Conflicting language ideologies

387

use of concession together with a negative evaluation of a¤ect (insecurity) and the use of negative polarity create the sense that language loss is a problem for heritage speakers of Spanish. Example (12) points to how monolingual ideology supporters construct the issue of language loss. (‘‘Students in bilingual classes can lose their English skills during summer,’’ 26 May 2005) ‘‘The bottom line is that parental support needs to be there. Otherwise, it will be hard for them to learn,’’ she said. ‘‘I see children spend many years in bilingual education, and that’s because there is no parental support.’’

The direct projection introduces the voice of a teacher evaluating Englishlanguage learners’ parents. The use of modal of necessity implies that parental support may not be there. The following clause elaborates on the reasons why parental support is necessary through the use of a conjunction, otherwise, that continues the argument, followed by a modal with a high degree of necessity, will, that highlights parents’ responsibilities in ensuring students’ success. Here concession and modality are used to link the consequences of parental inaction to English language loss. The following clause continues the direct projection and establishes an explicit causal connection between children’s English language development and parents’ actions. The reason why children ‘‘spend many years in bilingual education’’ is because of no parental support. This example is also illustrative of the di¤erent ways in which ‘‘bilingual education’’ and bilingualism are conceptualized by these two competing ideologies. From the viewpoint of monolingual ideology, bilingual education is equal to English-language immersion or transitional programs, whose goal is to help learners become English-language proficient, while bilingualism is seen as a problem that interferes in the process toward English monolingualism. In contrast, multilingual ideologies construct bilingual education as dual language development to achieve bilingualism, which implies an expansion of linguistic resources and opportunities. Example (13) illustrates these contrasting views on bilingual education and how they impact the educational experience of the community. (13)

(‘‘Losing Spanish,’’ 4 January 2005) Although bilingual educators—especially those just leaving graduate school—advocate more dual-language programs, they are also aware that districts may not be inclined to create them anytime soon. But they encourage parents to help their children learn well in both English and Spanish, even if they are in a transitional program and not a dual-language one.

Author's Copy

Author's Copy

Author's Copy

(12)

Author's Copy 388

Mariana Achugar and Teresa Oteı´za

In this example, bilingual educators indirectly, through the use of the conjunction but, are presenting the parents in a less negative way (compared with Example [12]), by viewing them as the main resource in language maintenance (or as a compensatory resource). In this case, the lack of official support for bilingual education shows how a monolingual ideology prevails over a multilingual ideology.

Conclusions

The analysis of newspaper articles provided us the opportunity to explore media’s role in how language resources are used and valued in a bilingual community, El Paso. Even though newspapers tend to ensure the reproduction of dominant and naturalized language ideologies, challenges and critiques to these dominant views also find a space in the media. Our analysis demonstrated how these language ideologies are constructed and challenged through discursive practices. We showed how lexicogrammatical and discursive resources function in these texts to reproduce and challenge monolingual and multilingual ideologies. From this analysis it is evident that the media presents contradicting ideologies and positions with respect to the value of the linguistic resources available in the community. In spite of these contradictions, our discourse analysis also demonstrated that a multilingual ideology is an established set of beliefs in the community. This is evidenced by the fact that the multilingual ideology has to be engaged with in some way or another and cannot be avoided. It would be interesting for future analysis to focus on a contrast with the local Spanish daily newspaper and also with the national press to investigate how these competing ideologies are represented by representatives in the minority language and at the national level. Our analysis provided evidence of how dominant views about the place and role of Spanish and their speakers are reproduced and contested in a multilingual community in the United States, where monolingualism is the dominant ideology. As the analysis revealed, these language ideologies emerge in media reports with reference to people’s lives at di¤erent levels from education to the workplace. While language ideologies may not directly a¤ect the material life of people, they construe ways of imagining social relationships and the meaning and value of linguistic resources. So indirectly language ideologies impact peoples’ lives through evaluations naturalized in institutional spaces, practices, and policies. For example, a key issue that our analysis highlights is that monolingual ideologies are associated to individual re-

Author's Copy

Author's Copy

Author's Copy

5.

Author's Copy 389

sponsibility (problem), whereas multilingual/bilingual ideologies are associated to social responsibility (resource). One of the clear e¤ects of the multilingual/bilingual ideology in this community is the acceptance of the belief that learning Spanish can be useful in the job market. This translates into gate-keeping practices in job hiring (i.e., selecting bilingual candidates) and activism practices (e.g., parents’ demand for more heritage language support). On the other hand, the endurance of monolingual ideologies in the community results in moral evaluations of parenting and attribution of responsibilities to account for students’ performance. As is the case in other communities in the United States, parents are seen as the only ones responsible for their children’s language development (Rogers 2003). The role of the community or the schools is backgrounded in this monolingual ideology, which links language development to individual responsibilities. However, these ideologies are maintained and challenged through particular linguistic practices. The analysis demonstrated how the grammatical resources of concession, polarity, and modality accompanied by lexis with attitude construct particular beliefs about language, language users, and language learning. It also showed that although the multilingual ideology is valued and has a space in the community, it is still not ‘‘mainstream.’’ It seems the processes by which the monolingual ideology is being challenged have been more successful in work-related areas (e.g., hiring practices and job qualifications) than in educational contexts. In education, monolingual ideologies are still dominant; as a result, the development of academic language competencies in Spanish is not perceived as a priority when imagining educational success and school achievement. Multilingual spaces are complex and reveal the co-existence of contradictory beliefs about languages, language users, and language learning. This complexity and contradiction of language ideologies is revealed in configurations of linguistic choices that construct the discourses about languages and their value in the community. The role of the media in the reproduction and critique of language ideologies is also contradictory and reveals that even in a corporate monopolized press, there are always porous spaces where oppositional ideologies emerge.

Note * We would like to thank the editor and the anonymous reviewers for their helpful suggestions. All the remaining problems with the article are our responsibility.

Author's Copy

Author's Copy

Author's Copy

Conflicting language ideologies

Author's Copy 390

Mariana Achugar and Teresa Oteı´za

Baugh, John. 1984. Chicano English: The anguish of definition. In Jacobo Ornstein-Galicia (ed.), Form and function in Chicano English, 3–13. Rowley, MA: Newbury House. Bernstein, Jake. 2003. Gannett’s man in El Paso. The Texas Observer. http://www. texasobserver.or/article.php?aid=1468 (accessed 21 October 2008). Blommaert, Jan, James Collins & Stef Slembrouck. 2005. Spaces of multilingualism. Language & Communication 25. 197–216. Dijk, Teun van. 1988. How they hit the headlines: Ethnic minorities in the press. In Geneva Smitherman & Teun Van Dijk (eds.), Discourse and discrimination, 221–262. Detroit, MI: Wayne State University Press. Fairclough, Norman. 2004. Semiotic aspects of social transformation and learning. In Rebecca Rogers (ed.), An introduction to critical discourse analysis in education, 225–236. Mahwah, NJ & London: Lawrence Erlbaum. Garcı´a, Mario T. 1981. Desert immigrants. The Mexicans of El Paso, 1880–1920. New Haven: Yale University Press. Gramsci, Antonio. 1971. Selections from the prison notebooks. London: Lawrence and Wishart. Hunston, Susan & Geo¤ Thompson. 2000. Evaluation in text. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Kroskrity, Paul V. 2000. Regimenting languages: Language ideological perspectives. In Paul Kroskrity (ed.), Regimes of language: Ideologies, polities and identities, 1–34. Santa Fe, NM: School of American Research Press. Kumar, Deepa. 2007. Outside the box: Corporate media, globalization and the UPS strike. Urbana & Chicago: University of Illinois Press. Leeman, Jennifer. 2004. Racializing language: A history of linguistic ideologies in the US Census. Journal of Language and Politics 3(3). 507–534. Mar-Molinero, Clare. 2000. The politics of language in the Spanish-speaking world. London: Routledge. Martin, Jim R. & David Rose. 2003. Working with discourse. London: Continuum. Martin, Jim R. & Peter R. R. White. 2005. The language of evaluation: The appraisal framework in English. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Moll, Luis C. & Richard Ruiz. 2002. The schooling of Latino children. In Marcelo Sua´rezOrozco & Mariela M. Pa´ez (eds.), Latinos. Remaking America, 362–374. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Pew Hispanic Center. 2006. http://pewhispanic.org/ (accessed 15 July 2006). Richardson, Chad. 1999. Batos, bolillos, pochos and pelados: Class and culture on the South West Texas border. Austin, TX: University of Texas Press. Rogers, Rebecca. 2003. A critical discourse analysis of family literacy practices. Power in and out of print. London: Lawrence Erlbaum. Sa´nchez, George J. 1993. Becoming Mexican American. Ethnicity, culture and identity in Chicano Los Angeles, 1900–1945. New York: Oxford University Press. Santa Ana, Otto. 2002. Brown tide rising: Metaphors of Latinos in contemporary American public discourse. Austin, TX: University of Texas Press. Santa Ana, Otto & Claudia Parodi. 1998. Modeling the speech community: Configurations and variable types in the Mexican Spanish setting. Language in Society 27. 23–51. Spitulnik, Debra. 1998. Mediating unity and diversity: The production of language ideologies in Zambian broadcasting. In Bambi Schie¤elin, Katherine Woolard & Paul Kroskrity (eds.), Language ideologies: Practice and theory, 163–188. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Author's Copy

Author's Copy

Author's Copy

References

Author's Copy Conflicting language ideologies

391

Mariana Achugar received her Ph.D. from the University of California, Davis and is currently Associate Professor of Hispanic Studies and Second Language Acquisition in Carnegie Mellon University. Her work investigates language, identity, and ideology from a critical discourse-analytic perspective. Her most recent book-length publication deals with the discursive construction of traumatic pasts and institutional identity, titled What We Remember: The Construction of Memory in Military Discourse (2008, John Benjamins). Address for correspondence: Department of Modern Languages, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA15213-3890, USA [email protected]. Teresa Oteı´za received her Ph.D. from the University of California, Davis. She is Associate Professor of Linguistics in the Department of Linguistics and Literatures at the Universidad Austral, Chile. Her research interests include language ideology, critical discourse analysis and systemic functional linguistics. She has recently published the book titled El discurso pedago´gico de la historia. Un ana´lisis lingu¨´ıstico sobre la construccio´n ideolo´gica de la historia de Chile (1970–2001) (Santiago: Frasis, 2006). Her work has appeared in Discourse & Society, Estudios Filolo´gicos, and Signos. Address for correspondence: Department of Linguistics and Literatures, Universidad Austral de Chile, Casilla 567, Campus Isla Teja, Valdivia, Chile [email protected].

Author's Copy

Author's Copy

Author's Copy

Staudt, Kathleen & Iracema Coronado. 2002. Fronteras no ma´s: Towards social justice at the U.S.–Mexico border. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Thibault, Paul. 1997. Mood and eco-social dynamics. In Ruqaya Hasan & Peter Fries (eds.), On subject and theme: A discourse functional perspective, 51–90. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Urciuoli, Bonnie. 1996. Exposing prejudice: Puerto Rican experiences of race, class and language in the U.S. Boulder, CO: Westview Press. White, Peter R. R. 2003. Beyond modality and hedging: A dialogic view of the language of intersubjective stance. Text 23(2). 259–284. White, Peter R. R. 2005. The appraisal website. http://www.grammatics.com/appraisal/ (accessed 12 August 2006). Wiley, Terrence. 2000. Continuity and change in the function of language ideologies in the United States. In Tom Ricento (ed.), Ideology, politics and language policies: Focus on English, 67–85. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Woolard, Katherine & Bambi Schie¤elin. 1994. Language ideology. Annual Review of Anthropology 23. 55–82. Zentella, Ana C. 1997. Growing up bilingual. Malden, MA: Blackwell.