Volume 2, Issue 2

Over three decades ago, Gloria Anzaldúa identified ideologies of linguistic standardization as an oppressive force in the Rio Grande Valley of south Texas as well as the local university. Such ideologies were used to delegitimize Chicanos via “linguistic terrorism,” or, routine forms of psychological and physical punishment meant to enforce idealized white, middle-class, monolingual social norms. However, times have changed. To account for more recent conditions, I qualify contemporary manifestations as soft linguistic terrorism , which relies more so on incentivization (reward as opposed to punishment) and ideological recruitment (enforcement based on the appearance of consent), yet continue to reproduce the near identical racializing ideologies Anzaldúa identified decades ago. Using a linguistic anthropological approach to discourse analysis, this article focuses on ethnographic interviews with students and faculty to illustrate how forms of linguistic terrorism have been rearticulated via raciolinguistic ideologies in the same region and at the same university that inspired Anzaldúa’s formulation of linguistic terrorism in the 1980s.

Black youth as ‘struggling students’ is a persistent narrative in the contemporary U.S. psyche, both preceded by and markedly displayed through the 1983 report, A Nation at Risk , which reflected coded language encouraging a return to the pre-Civil Rights United States. This framing positioned Black students as culprits for the ills of U.S. schooling – a continuation of a history of educational policy that discursively enforces the need to defend society against ‘subhuman’ populations. Placing the 1983 policy report in conversation with Zwiers’ Building Academic Language: Meeting Common Core Standards Across Disciplines (2013) via raciolinguistic genealogy, I problematize the ways in which texts like these reinforce discourses of Black cultures and languages as subhuman, deviant threats to U.S. society.

In this conceptual article, the author introduces decolonization as an alternative to social justice frameworks. As stakeholders in second language (L2) teaching, the author stresses decolonization as a means for L2 researchers to work against colonial practices in educational research, which negatively impact historically disenfranchised communities. Specifically, Patel’s (Patel, Leigh. 2016. Decolonizing educational research: From ownership to answerability . New York: Routledge) answerability framework is introduced as a practical method to support decolonization in L2 research. The article is made up of four main sections. The first section explains the concept of settler colonialism and highlights how it is ingrained in educational research. In the second section, the author defines decolonization and distinguishes it from the more popular social justice movement. In the third section, the author summarizes four computer-assisted language learning (CALL) papers which were featured in a recent special issue on the topic of social justice. The author then provides a critical analysis of the reviewed studies from a decolonial perspective in the fourth and final section, while also suggesting ways in which researchers and educators can re-orient their work towards decolonization.

In Alaska, as elsewhere in the United States, standardized American English is privileged over both local varieties of English and Indigenous languages. This privileged position is maintained, in part, through a deficit model of language acquisition and a model of school success which locates the source of underachievement among K-12 students within the child rather than within the broader sociopolitical context of school and schooling. Using a critical participatory action research approach, this article examines a single graduate course for K-12 teachers intended to address ideologies of linguistic deficit and demonstrate that the varieties of English spoken by adults and children in Southwest Alaska are systematic and rule-governed. Data are analyzed in terms of trajectories of learning, focusing on three distinct points within this trajectory: Pre-course questionnaire, Mid-point questionnaire and post-course artifacts (e.g., final projects for the master’s degree). Through the lens of discourse analysis (Gee, James Paul. 2010.  An introduction to discourse analysis: Theory and method , 3rd edn. New York, NY: Routledge), we illustrate and discuss the tensions inherent in shifting discourse models as the teachers contend with course content that challenges broadly accepted explanations for school underachievement.

The study was to investigate the academic adjustment of international students studying in South Korea under the Global Korea Scholarship Program. Previous research has shown that academic adjustment is linked to the achievement and satisfaction of international students at higher education institutions. Two research questions shaped the current study: (1) examining the correlations between the variables included in the study and (2) identifying the significant variables that contributed to international students’ academic adjustment. The Multicultural Personality Survey and Academic Adjustment Survey were utilized as the primary instruments and were administered online over one and a half months. A total of 100 participants from diverse demographic backgrounds were involved in the data collection. Correlational analysis and regression analysis were employed to answer the two research questions. The results of the correlational analysis revealed that there were higher correlations observed between multicultural personality and GPA, preferred language and multicultural personality, as well as multicultural personality and the Academic Adjustment Survey. Additionally, the regression analysis indicated that Korean language proficiency and preferred language proficiency emerged as significant variables that impacted international students’ academic adjustment. The results provided further insights into the factors contributing to academic adjustment among international students in South Korea.