‘Say it like the Queen’: the standard language ideology and language policy making in English primary schools

Abstract

This article presents an analysis of the standard language ideology within a corpus of school-designed language policy documents from 264 primary schools in England. It examines the processes by which standard language ideological concepts (e.g. 'Standard English', 'correctness', 'hegemony') get textually manifested in school policies, and how these are intertextually and interdiscursively shaped by the broader educational policy context that teachers work in, notably the large-scale curriculum and assessment reforms of National Curriculum 2014. Using tools and methods from critical language policy, I reveal how new meanings emerge in the machinery of the policy-making process and at the contact points between policy levels. I trace how the standard language ideology within government policies gets reconstructed in school policies, with an emphasis on linguistic 'correctness' and the near-exclusive requirement for students and teachers to use standardised English in speech and writing. I discuss policies of surveillance, whereby teachers are discursively constructed and positioned as standard language 'role models': as powerful and authoritative figures who are granted a license to police, regulate and suppress their students' language, whilst also having their own language controlled and monitored. Finally, I argue for the place of critical language awareness within the policy-making process at school level.

Language, discipline and ‘teaching like a champion’

“…This article has shown how this type of language prejudice manifests at both structural and individual levels via a cluster of mechanisms, from government-produced policy documents through to school-level policies, textbooks and micro-level classroom interactions. Although this article is based on data generated from a single school, the global popularity of TLAC and the prevalence of 'standard English only' clauses in school behaviour policies (see Cushing, 2020b) would strongly suggest that the findings are generalisable across a much wider variety of settings.…”

The (white) ears of Ofsted: A raciolinguistic perspective on the listening practices of the schools inspectorate

“…For example, a 2013 report included how 'in the best lessons, teachers reference the need for standard English and students are provided with a list of 'banned' words, to remind them', whilst a 2021 report described how 'misconceptions' arise 'when pupils use non-standard forms of grammar in their speaking and writing in lessons'. In a London school serving a majority low-income community of students from racially minoritised backgrounds, the efficacy of a whole-school language policy was praised for 'almost eradicating' the word 'like', despite this simply being a feature of spontaneous speech (see also Snell 2013Snell , 2015Snell , 2018aCushing 2020;Cushing & Ahmed 2021 for an extended critique on whole-school language bans, including their classed and racialised nature).…”

“…For example, one teacher failed to correct a pupil, when he started a sentence, 'Me and James went…'. (2001) In a 2019 report, Ofsted instructed management that they 'must ensure that all staff have the knowledge, skills and understanding they need to model the correct use of standard English', placing pressure on senior leaders to introduce school-level policies underpinned by standard language ideologies as determined by the state (see Cushing 2021). Another report noted the audible absence of language policing, writing of how 'only rarely … do teachers correct pupils' oral use of standard English or model spoken English to emulate ' (2003), representing a deficit perspective in which teachers' nonstandardised language patterns were deemed to have a damaging effect on the development of students.…”

Using young adult fiction to interrogate raciolinguistic ideologies in schools

“…Au, 2009), and educational policies which work to eradicate entire languages or racialised features (e.g. Cushing, 2021b). These modes of discrimination are all intersectional, in how they are co‐enacted with other axes of social variation such as class, dis/ability, gender, age and economic status.…”

“…Sanjiv described how he had experienced teachers policing languages other than English, such as him and his close friends who “were made to feel that they aren't allowed to use our language in school”, and that “our language was kind of banned”. A number of UK schools who have implemented ‘English only’ or “Standard English at all times” policies also reproduce these ideologies, reproducing racially hegemonic modes of perception, the supremacy of whiteness and white ways of talking (see Cushing and Ahmed, 2021; Cushing, 2021b). In workshop 3 and as a way of situating our discussion of the book within the broader socio‐political processes which foster raciolinguistic ideologies, we examined and interrogated some of these prohibitive policies and the deficit assumptions they propagated about language.…”