A. Baratta

Accent and Linguistic Prejudice within British Teacher Training

ABSTRACT Based on the responses of 32 British teachers, I report on a sample of three teachers who were told to modify their accents to varieties deemed more “professional.” The teachers perceive such directives to stem from linguistic prejudice and not merely a need to be understood, and such directives are based on someone else’s standards for “linguistic professionalism.” Ultimately, I wish to engage with policymakers in order to establish what the linguistic reality is for British teachers in terms of accent, and their linguistic rights in the process. This is an issue that goes beyond the British context and can apply to both L1 and L2 teachers, whenever and wherever they are led to believe that their accent, though they are otherwise fully qualified to teach, is a hindrance. Thus, I report on the British context to address what is potentially a much more widespread issue.

I speak how I speak: A discussion of accent and identity within teachers of ELT

This discussion approaches the subject of English language teaching (ELT) from a linguistic point of view, asking the question ‘what kind of accent(s) is privileged within the field of ELT?’ Arguably, British and American accents have historically been the ‘norm,’ and represented mostly by Received Pronunciation and General American within the field of ELT. Where do native speakers of English fit, however, if normally speaking with less common accents (from the ELT perspective), such as those deriving from New York City or Glasgow? The need to be fully understood by one’s students is not being ignored, and it is conceded that some accents can be harder to understand than others (even amongst native speakers of English). Nonetheless, the linguistic reality for English language learners is that there are a multitude of accents to contend with amongst native speakers of English, and very often they do not conform to the suggested ‘one size fits all’ approach that is sometimes displayed within English language teachers’ accents, based on the relevant literature, personal anecdotes and the experiences of an English as a second language (ESL) teacher with an accent deemed ‘inappropriate’ for her profession. While we would hope for more inclusivity amongst modern English language teachers in terms of race, sex and ‘NEST’ vs. ‘NNEST’, what might the linguistic reality be for ELT in terms of teachers’ accents?

The confrontation of identities: how university students manage academic and religious selves in higher education

ABSTRACT The purpose of this study is to investigate the ways in which religious students manage the dual identities of student and member of faith. If an “identity clash” occurs, how is it managed? A total of 17 students from a British university were interviewed to investigate the nature of this identity management. The results show that many of them experienced conflict in some way, ranging from dissonance between religious beliefs and assessment, to issues regarding “safe spaces” on campus. These results, in relation to current controversies in identity politics, suggest that more work needs to be conducted on the experience of religious students in higher education, for the purposes of understanding the student experience and for policy making.

The use of English in Korean TV drama to signal a modern identity

While code-switching is quite a common phenomenon, this paper seeks to investigate a common but underreported use of code-switching. In this paper, I focus on the use of code-switching from Korean to English in South Korean TV dramas. The paper first briefly discusses the literature on the connotations of English language in the Korean media and then proceeds to focus on code-switching using data sampled from three Korean TV dramas. The previous literature (e.g. Lee, 2006; Park, 2006, 2009) which discusses the use of the English language in the Korean media, argues that English carries connotations of modernity and power and this subsequently helps to construct a modern identity for Koreans. However, while Korean music, advertisements and comedies have been discussed with regard to their switches to English, there is little, if any research that focuses on switching to English in Korean TV dramas. The argument put forth in this paper is that switching to English in this context is often a means to reflect an identity of power for the characters and this subsequently might be a reflection of the power and dominance that the English language has in Korean society. In turn, this contributes to conclusions that a modern Korean identity of power derives from being proficient in English.