Abstract

Most U.S. educational reforms have narrowly focused on how to improve the ways in which students use language, and most specifically English. But in the last two decades, it is something called “academic language” that has permeated all education discourse. Here we discuss the development of the construct of academic language and the pernicious effects it has had on Latinx minoritized bilingual students. We focus on how academic language is being used to enregister Latinx students as “non-academic,” ignoring bilingual Latinx epistemologies and ways of languaging. We interrogate the rigidity of the linguistic borders that have been drawn around the concept of academic language, linking it to the epistemological and ideological orientations about language as an autonomous entity produced by colonialism. We show how standards and other educational products are being used to police linguistic borders that are increasingly responsible for the failure of Latinx bilingual students.

摘要

大多数美国教育改革都狭隘地关注如何改善学生使用语言的方式，尤其是英语。但在过去的二十年里，一种叫做“学术语言”的东西已经渗透到了所有的教育话语中。在这里，我们讨论学术语言结构的发展及其对拉丁裔少数民族双语学生的有害影响。我们专注于如何使用学术语言来将拉丁学生注册为“非学术”，而忽略了双语拉丁语认识论和语言方式。我们质疑围绕学术语言概念划定的语言边界的僵化，将其与关于语言作为殖民主义产生的自主实体的认识论和意识形态取向联系起来。