Language ideologies in ELL urban contexts: A case study of classroom discourse

The concept of ideologies and language ideologies that drives this study is one rooted in the social practice of people. Ideologies are not only ideas, constructs, notions, or representations, they are practices through which those notions are enacted. When human beings use language they are simultaneously displaying their beliefs about language. This qualitative study seeks to develop an understanding of how language ideologies mediate the instructional practices of teachers and students in an urban ELL context. This theoretical perspective, grounded in sociocultural theories of language and literacy, suggests a qualitative approach in order to capture the complexity of how teachers' beliefs about language are instantiated in classroom practices. In examining the fundamental questions of this study, two significant categories emerge with respect to language ideological inquiry in ELL contexts. First, how is language used to index multiple ideologies? Second, how is language used to mark beliefs about language, culture, nationhood, personhood, and identity?;There are many salient themes that emerge from this case-study of three ESL classrooms at an urban high school. First, there are explicit instantiations of language ideologies (e.g. teacher invokes English only rules or other explicit beliefs about language). Second, language ideologies are manifested vis a vis the social organization of learning, the classroom discourse patterns, literacy activities, assessment of student work, and the contexts of language choice by teachers and students. Third, this study examines the language practices teachers and students use to construct and contest multiple ideologies. Most notably, teachers and students regularly engage in the practices of repair and mock voice to mediate ideological stances. Bakhtin's notion of voice, the parody of voices, and Gal and Irvine's notion of fractal recursivity are useful constructs for understanding the role of language ideologies in ELL contexts. There are significant implications for ELLs (especially Latino students) both in terms of representation and achievement in higher-education contexts. Given that success in higher education highly depends on the ability to participate in academic discourse, structuralist and reductive literacy practices, mediated by structuralist language ideologies, put ELL students at a distinct disadvantage to be full participants in academic discourse practices.