Linguistic Citizenship in the EFL Classroom: Granting the Local a Voice Through English

Abstract

This article examines the constitutive role of English as a foreign language (EFL) as a cultural discourse of action and empowerment through which teachers in marginalized, specifically conflict‐ridden, educational contexts act as agents of social and educational change. Although current approaches to teaching English accentuate its transformative role, EFL pedagogies still often reproduce hegemonic and exclusionary ideologies. Drawing on an ethnographic EFL classroom case study, the author conducts a critical discourse analysis of dialogue journals within the theoretical frameworks of foreign language education, critical pedagogies, and linguistic citizenship. The article examines the dynamics surrounding the way two preservice Palestinian Arab teachers in Israel respond to imposed linguistic and educational subjectivities, and their political agency in contesting unequal EFL policies. Contesting exclusionary ideologies in EFL textbooks, fostering dialogicity in EFL classrooms, and increasing students’ agency and reflexivity in EFL programs could strategically promote the discursive role of English as an instrumental tool for implementing local–global understanding and social justice. English, in this sense, offers an important discursive terrain for teachers and learners to negotiate conflicts and engage in justice‐oriented dialogue.

Language as Hope

“…The second limit has to do with focus: "If we only privilege the analysis of practices of social control, ideological domination, discursive hegemony, sociolinguistic orders or dominant ideologies, we block our perception, and even our own imagination, to those voices that act for change" (p. 75). Bonnin's conclusion resonates with similar ones in studies on agency, resistance, and hope (e.g., Awayed-Bishara, 2021;Charalambous, Charalambous, Zembylas, & Theodorou, 2020;Milani, 2022;Mahmood, 2001Mahmood, , 2005Moita Lopes, 2020;, as well as our own perception of the agentive, non-melancholic, and proactive stance of faveladas/os when faced with the dynamics of social domination. In this regard, Mattingly's (2010) words about the frictional interplay of structure and agency are as critical as they are blunt: "Reality needs to be exposed as a space of possibility and not only of imprisonment or structural reproduction.…”

Localising linguistic citizenship in England

“…1For example, Awayed-Bishara (2021), Gspandl et al (2023), Lim et al (2018), and Williams et al (2022). …”

Tracing the Footprint of World Englishes on Machine Translation Tools

“…Following the introduction of the notion of linguistic imperialism (Philipson, 1992), inequalities between English and other languages fiercely started to be a matter of critique in the field of applied linguistics. (Awayed-Bishara, 2021). Despite all the criticism, still much focus is on Inner Circle varieties of English in educational settings, particularly British English (BrE) and American English (AmE) (Modiano, 2009).…”