Abstract
The interface of education and linguistics can be seen as a complex cross-over field of (multi)discipline-based knowledge, ideologically driven policy positions and professional choices. This chapter will explore the question, ‘How do we account for the work that we do in educational linguistics?’ I will invoke the concepts of structure and agency in the discussion. Aspects of the work in English as an Additional/Second Language pedagogy and assessment in schools will be used to illustrate how research has responded to and worked within curriculum policies and practices. Specific examples will be drawn from educational linguistics research in England and elsewhere in the past 15 years or so. Overall, the contention is that the work of educational linguistics researchers can contribute to both education (as public service) and intellectual and academic enquiries of the source disciplines, but developments must be seen against the backdrop of complex interplay between disciplinary knowledge, ideological and policy constrictions, and researcher values.
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Notes
- 1.
Spolsky (2008) reminds us that the early efforts to establish educational linguistics as a distinct intellectual field were at least in part a reaction to the strong but conceptually restricted link between applied linguistics and second/foreign language education.
- 2.
- 3.
In other educational systems the term English as a Second Language is used. In the USA increasingly the terms English Language Learning and English Language Learners are used. EAL is the preferred official term in England.
- 4.
Lemke’s (2000) pan-anthropological use of the notion of heterochrony is relevant here. In human activities the here-and-now events can be influenced by long(er)-terms practices. Lemke’s own classroom example is helpful: “... when a teacher asks a question, several students begin looking through their notebooks. The notes they look at now were written days and weeks ago. The answers they give are influenced in part by what they read and how they interpret it in relation to the question just asked.... At another juncture, the teacher reads aloud from the textbook, writes on the board, and asks a question that would not have been written or asked as it was without the influence of the textbook’s words.” (Lemke 2000, p. 281).
- 5.
Current official statistics indicate that approximately 22% of the 8.1 million school population in England is classified as ethnic minority; 13.5% of elementary and 10.5% of secondary students are classified as speakers/learners of EAL (National Statistics 2007).
- 6.
See Zentella (1997) for an example of this approach in relation to the boundary-breaking study of bilingualism in a specific community context.
- 7.
As argued earlier educational linguistics is a cross-field endeavour. It is therefore possible that research output in educational linguistics can be fed into other disciplines such as psychology, sociology and so on.
- 8.
The notion of objectification is derived from Marx (1939/1993, p. 712): “When we consider bourgeois society in the long view and as a whole, then the final result of the process of social production always appears as the society itself, i.e. the human being itself in its social relations. Everything that has a fixed form, such as the product etc., appears as merely a moment, a vanishing moment, in this movement. The direct production process itself here appears only as a moment. The conditions and objectifications of the process are themselves equally moments of it, and its only subjects are the individuals, but individuals in mutual relationships, which they equally reproduce and produce anew. The constant process of their own movement, in which they renew themselves …”.
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Leung, C. (2010). Educational Linguistics: Working at a Crossroads. In: Hult, F. (eds) Directions and Prospects for Educational Linguistics. Educational Linguistics, vol 11. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-90-481-9136-9_1
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