Speaking from the Stomach? Ventriloquised Ethnocentrisms about Finnish Education

Abstract

In recent years the words 'Finnish education' are accompanied by utterances of 'an education miracle', 'the best education system', 'a success' and a number of other adjectives and superlatives to 'describe' education in Finland. While Finland's PISA ranking has declined media interest and discourses on 'Finnish education' have not relented. Seemingly, Finland's educational system is as popular as it has ever been. Finland's education system is viewed with 'international admiration' yet behind these discourses are a number of discursive contradictions. Using the discursive concept of ventriloquism (Tannen, 2010;Cooren, 2014) we show how 'Finnish education' has become ventriloquised -when 'Finnish education' is uttered a number of automatically generated responses are uttered by speakers. In this sense, discourses on 'the success of the Finnish education system' act as prevailing meta-discourses. We argue that, behind these constructs, can too easily lie ventriloquised discourses reinforcing and (re)producing Finnish ethnocentrisms, intercultural ignorance and a lack of regard for the other. Through analysing the discourses of specific educators and academics on 'Finnish education' we show that behind the 'hype' and meta-discourses on the Finnish education system lie possible sentiments of (hidden) ethnocentrisms, (hidden) xenophobia, and (hidden) racism.

Business English students’ multifaceted and contradictory perceptions of intercultural communication education (ICE) at a Chinese University

“…ICE research and teaching must go beyond mere 'ventriloquism' (i.e. appropriating others' words for one's use and purpose) in terms of how interculturality is described and constructed (Simpson and Dervin 2017). The failure to continually problematize discourses and their relations about ICE can be problematic as interactions and conversations can act as a de facto lip service for how interculturality is or how it ought to be (which can be manipulated ideologically).…”