Jean-Jacques Weber

Multilingualism, education and change

Contents: Sociolinguistics - Multilingualism - Language-in-education - Luxembourg - Portuguese - Language ideologies - Code-Switching - Literacy bridge.

Twentieth-century fiction : from text to context

By applying recent trends in literary and language theory to a range of 20th Century fiction, the contributors to this text make new theoretical insights available to student readers. The analytical and interpretive strategies examined in this book are not intended to be prescriptive, rather they are presented in such a way as to facilitate critical reading and evaluation. The essays, which are arranged into three groups and which focus on the textual level, narrative and context, look at a wide range of Twentieth Century authors including Fowles, Foster, Lessing and Woolf. In addition, this student-friendly text includes a detailed subject index, a full glossary and helpful suggestions for further reading. Aimed at beginning students of English Language and Literature and Applied Linguistics, and advanced students of English as a Foreign or Second Language, 20th Century Fiction provides an essential introduction to the subject which is both sensitive and enabling.

Safetalk Revisited, or: Language and Ideology in Luxembourgish Educational Policy

In this paper, I first review previous research on the topic of safetalk. I then apply some of the insights derived from this discussion to a case study of the Luxembourgish primary school system. The study uses both ethnographic and discourse analysis, and focuses in particular on the role of French language varieties in a system that forces large numbers of romanophone students to go through a German-language literacy programme. The picture that emerges reveals what changes would be needed to break through restrictive safetalk practices and enable more effective and more equitable learning. However, it is argued that the difficulties of implementing such changes are compounded by a number of language ideologies that underpin both preschool and primary school education in Luxembourg.

The trilingual Luxembourgish school system in historical perspective: progress or regress?

In line with recent calls for a historicising of discourse analysis, this paper provides an account of language-in-education policies in Luxembourg since the creation of the Luxembourgish state in the early nineteenth century. We briefly expound the Luxembourgish language situation and educational system, and critically discuss the contemporary discourse of impossibility of change, which is associated with it. We argue that the Luxembourgish/German/French trilingualism of Luxembourgish education and society needs to be clearly differentiated from the specific trilingual language regime currently applied within the educational system – indeed, the latter has changed and has been adapted over time, as we will show. Hence, there is no reason why it should not change again in an ongoing effort to meet the linguistic needs of a constantly shifting school population in the best possible way. We conclude that the multilingual nature of an educational system does not guarantee the absence of linguistic exclusion, and that only systems with a high degree of flexibility can adequately meet the needs of todays increasingly heterogeneous school populations.

Flexible Multilingual Education: Putting Children's Needs First

Acknowledgements 1. Introduction Part I 2. Using Non-standard Varieties in Education 3. The Issue of Access 4. What Makes and Breaks a Good Language-in-education Policy? A Social Perspective Part II 5. The United States of America 6. Hong Kong and China 7. Singapore 8. South Africa 9. Luxembourg 10. Three Autonomous Communities of Spain: Catalonia, the Basque Country and Galicia 11. Conclusion References Index

The critical practices of Henry Widdowson

Language and Literature has already published a number of contributions about the pros and cons of critical discourse analysis, doubtless because this is a movement that has been highly influential within stylistics (see Fairclough, 1996; Toolan, 1997; Widdowson, 1995, 1996). The debate seems to be ongoing, with the latest contribution by Henry Widdowson appearing side by side with articles by critical discourse analysts such as Norman Fairclough (2000) and Ruth Wodak (2000), in a prestigious volume entitled Discourse and Social Lifedited by Sarangi and Coulthard (2000). Widdowson’s ‘Critical Practices: On Representation and the Interpretation of Text’ (2000) is an attack on critical discourse analysis from the perspective of literary criticism, but a literary criticism that seems outdated, untouched by the developments in literary theory of the last few decades. His main point is that critical discourse analysts isolate texts from their contexts, but since this claim is merely based on two short extracts taken from Fairclough (1989) and Lee (1992), it seems a rather weak argument, as Widdowson himself (2000: 168) at least partly acknowledges in a footnote. It is further undermined if we remember how Fairclough’s model right from the beginning emphasized the importance of the social conditions of production and interpretation (Fairclough, 1989: Ch. 2) and included an intertextual dimension (Fairclough, 1992: Ch. 4), and if we consider the more recent publications in critical discourse analysis such as Fairclough and Wodak (1997) or Chouliaraki and Fairclough (1999). Thus Fairclough and Wodak insist that ‘discourse is historical’:

From ‘bad’ to ‘worse’: pragmatic scales and the (de)construction of cultural models

This article uses a cognitive-pragmatic approach to discourse which is informed by two basic concepts: cultural models and pragmatic scales. The data consist of an essay by a literary writer, Jamaica Kincaid’s A Small Place, as well as editorials and letters to the editor published in a Luxembourgish newspaper. The analysis reveals how the authors of the editorials and letters to the editor both rely upon and construct a particular cultural model about education in Luxembourg, and how the literary writer deconstructs her readers’ (at least potentially stereotypical) model of tourism. Rather than attempt to distinguish between different text genres on such a basis, the article focuses on cognitive aspects that are common to all discourse processing; in particular, it highlights the key role played by pragmatic scales in linking and structuring cultural models. The scales are invoked primarily by evaluative adjective forms such as bad, worse, etc., and they make possible a high degree of linguistic implicitness in the writers’ rhetorical and argumentative strategies. The article concludes that the consequent processes of moving information across evaluative scales and filling in missing values are characteristic of the way human beings think, and that they work together with other processes of reasoning (such as conceptual blending) to produce the full complexity, but also the potentially stereotyped nature, of human thinking.

Small languages, education and citizenship: the paradoxical case of Luxembourgish

Abstract Luxembourg is designated as a trilingual country, officially recognizing three languages in its language law of 1984: Luxembourgish as the national language, and French and/or German as legal, judicial and administrative languages. While Luxembourgish is mostly used for spoken communication, written functions are carried out primarily in standard French and German, which as a result also dominate within the educational system. Luxembourgish thus presents the somewhat paradoxical case of being a small and mostly spoken language that is officially recognized as the national language of the Grand-Duchy of Luxembourg. At the same time, in relation to fluctuating demographics, a discourse of endangerment has developed around the Luxembourgish language. The focus has been on the limited role of Luxembourgish within the educational system, as well as its potential role as the “language of integration”. A major contradiction is reflected in these current debates and developments: though the emphasis in language-in-education policy continues to revolve mostly around the teaching of standard German and French and though Luxembourgish is not widely used for functions linked to standardized written languages, the 2008 citizenship law has introduced formalized language testing in Luxembourgish. It thus signals and enacts a shift away from the “trilingual ideal” towards the national language as the sole icon of “Luxembourgishness”.

Cognitive poetics and literary criticism: types of resolution in the Condition-of-England novel

A strong impetus has been given to cognitive poetics by recent advances in conceptual integration or blending theory. This theory provides insights into the nature of text processing, and accounts for human thinking and reasoning in terms of complex cross-domain projection of information. In particular, it distinguishes between four main types of integration networks, existing on a continuum from simplex via mirror and single-scope to double-scope networks. The present article suggests that these insights into the way our minds work also help us understand how nineteenth- and twentieth-century novelists thought about issues of social class. It shows that the four types of conceptual integration networks correspond to the four types of endings found in condition-of-England novels. The focus is therefore on the endings of these novels, and it is argued that simplex and mirror resolutions are rather uncommon (one example is given of each). Single-scope resolutions are more common in the nineteenth-century condition-of-England novel, and double-scope resolutions in the twentieth-century novel.

Language and Racism

In this chapter, race is defined as a historically contingent social construction, but with real consequences for subordinate groups. Weber provides examples of the language of racism, with a particular focus on racist metaphors. He analyses the link between racism and superiority, and differentiates between four steps of racist behaviour. Finally, the chapter explores the new cultural racism of today’s Far Right political parties (such as the Front National of Marine Le Pen in France) in an attempt to understand why they have emerged at this particular time, why they have become so popular with voters and how they can be counteracted.