What is it about?
The role of the English language worldwide has often privileged monolingualism, the “Queen’s English” (sic) and the native speaker/teacher. There has been an inherent assumption that “white is right”. This colonial or neo-colonial ideology denigrates varieties of non-standard English, and other indigenised or minoritised languages. It has been associated with neo-liberal educational policies resulting in a hierarchy of knowledge and worldviews. Now, however, the sharp edges of conflict are being mitigated by new thinking focussing on transcultural competence. English is no longer regarded as the property of the Anglophone world. Boundaries in our globalising world are growing more porous, and English has become a language of commerce, of international communication and even of potential ethnic harmonisation in countries such as Singapore. It is pragmatically useful, and if mutual comprehension of local varieties is assured, it reduces translation costs. A paradigm shift has taken place in English pedagogy and assessment. It is acknowledged that the English language is much more than the mastery of linguistic skills. If sensitively associated with culture, it can help to construct identities that are multiple and dynamic; that give agency and voice; that deconstruct cultural biases by developing critical skills. The new de-colonial perspective has a transformative power that contributes to social justice, and militates against racism, sexism and linguicism itself.
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Why is it important?
The chapter delineates how the taken-for-granted essentialist conceptions of what counts as legitimate knowledge (including language practices) have always been entrenched in complex dynamics of asymmetrical relations of power and structural inequalities. In this sense, coloniality has outlived colonialism. Coloniality is the imposition of hegemonic Eurocentric ways of being, speaking, and knowing as the universal and natural order by invisibilising, pathologising, and delegitimising alternative pluriversal forms of knowledge production.
Perspectives
As English has acquired a heterogenous and pluricentric status (i.e., multilingual speakers of English no longer consider NS norms as their ideal target), the need for a paradigm shift in assessment and pedagogy has become a necessary prerequisite for a healthy (re)conceptualisation of the relationship between English varieties. This ‘pluralistic’ view of English has profound implications for linguistic/cultural norm-setting and language proficiency assessment in that assessment procedures should be more performance/process-oriented, practice-based, and reflective of effective transcultural and multimodal interactive communication competence.
Dr Ahmed Sahlane
University of Jeddah
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Redefining EIL Through Embracing Transcultural Ways of Knowing: Challenges, Opportunities, and Future Directions, January 2023, Springer Science + Business Media,
DOI: 10.1007/978-3-031-34702-3_26.
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