Abstract

This study demonstrates how stakeholders’ treatment of English language as the sole marketable/saleable commodity in educational setting can have implications for multilingualism and existing linguistic diversity in Pakistan. Language commodification refers to the valuation of languages as marketable/saleable commodities and their relative exchange value. The findings are based on semi-structured interviews with students, teachers, and administrators/principals conducted in schools and a university during three different PhD studies. This article specifically focusses on how stakeholders view English-medium education and indigenous languages. Given stakeholders’ diversity-as-a-problem orientations and rationalization of English-medium education, we propose an epistemic reorientation in which the social-market value of languages and social-welfare considerations may become the basis of language-in-education policy and planning. Social-market value refers to the role languages play as social, educational, cultural, and pedagogical resources for the larger social development, peace, and integration of society. The social-market perspective upholds multilingualism as a resource rather than as a problem. The article concludes that academic researchers could use intellectual activism as change agents to foster critical multilingual awareness and expose stakeholders to alternative competing epistemologies. This awareness is expected to help redress the conceptual myths and fallacies most stakeholders hold about the social potential of languages and multilingualism.

摘要

本研究表明，利益相关者将英语语言视为教育环境中唯一可销售/可销售的商品如何对巴基斯坦的多语言和现有语言多样性产生影响。语言商品化是指语言作为可销售/可销售商品的价值及其相对交换价值。调查结果基于在三项不同的博士研究期间在学校和大学对学生、教师和管理人员/校长进行的半结构化访谈。本文特别关注利益相关者如何看待英语教育和土著语言。考虑到利益相关者的多元化问题导向和英语教育的合理化，我们提出了一种认知重新定位，其中语言的社会市场价值和社会福利考虑可能成为语言教育政策和规划的基础。社会市场价值是指语言作为社会、教育、文化和教学资源为更大的社会发展、和平和社会融合所发挥的作用。社会市场观点认为多语言是一种资源，而不是一个问题。文章得出结论，学术研究人员可以将知识激进主义用作变革推动者，以培养批判性的多语言意识，并让利益相关者接触替代的竞争认识论。这种意识有望帮助纠正大多数利益相关者对语言和多语言的社会潜力持有的概念神话和谬误。