A Critical Perspective – Language Hegemony, Linguistic Inequality, and Cultural

Disempowerment in Educational Setting

ByKomang Satya Permadi

A Critical Perspective – Language Hegemony, Linguistic Inequality, and Cultural Disempowerment in Educational

SettingIntroduction

Bilingual Education

Academic Achieveme

nt in English

Learners’ Native

Language

English

Shift

English

InstructionLanguage that will be counted in classroom

Bilingual

Learner

Substitute English for the native language and subtract the native tongue from their

linguistic repositories

(Faltis & Hudelson, 1998)

A Critical Perspective – Language Hegemony, Linguistic Inequality, and Cultural Disempowerment in Educational

SettingIntroduction

A Critical PerspectiveLanguage Hegemony

(Shanon, 1995 in Faltis & Hudelson, 1998)

English

Dominates other

languages in the world

Language Hegemon

y

Hegemony is unequal status of language face each other. One language is believed to be superior, desirable and necessary, while the other

language(s) is/ are considered inferior, undesirable, and unnecessary

Linguistic Inequality

Gilany (2007)

Linguistic Inequality

Linguistic Items

Linguistic inequality is defined as the inequal language that the person use in their social life.

Experience

Vocabulary

AgricultureExpert

Fisherman

Different Language Terminology

A Critical Perspective

Cultural Disempowerment

Krashen (2000) in Yu & Carol

(2009)

Cultural Disempowerm

ent

In addition, the learner’s desire also affects the loss of native language

Immigrant

Language &

Culture

Fade Away

Children Refuse to Learn the

First Language

Fillmore (2000) in Yu & Carol

(2009)

Internal and External

Factors that Lead to the Loss of the

Native Language

Acceptance of Society Around the

Children

Sociopolitical Situation in

Dominant Group

A Critical Perspective

English Language is

the Dominant

Language in Bilingual School

Teacher’s Duty to

Preserve the Native or Home

Language

• Bilingual classroom consists of English Speaking Bilingual students, Spanish Speaking Bilingual students, and Bilingual students and they are organized into heterogeneous group

• Emphasize the value of both language (English and Spanish)

• Elicits comments from the children in Spanish as well as in English in discussion, encourage Spanish-speaking children to write in their native language as well as English, encourage English speakers to experiment with writing in Spanish, then the children share their writing with the class

• The children assisting each other, and challenge children to learn each other’s languageLaliberty, & Orbansky (1993) in Faltis &

Hudelson (1998)

Resisting English HegemonyA Critical Perspective

English Hegemon

y

Linguistic Inequality

Culture Disempower

ment

Bilingual School

Students and

Teachers Mostly Use

English When

Communicate

Learns and Uses English

Language Everyday

A Critical Perspective – Language Hegemony, Linguistic Inequality, and Cultural Disempowerment in Educational

Setting

Conclusion & Suggestion

• Based on the facts that can be seen in Bilingual school that language hegemony usually happens in bilingual school and later on it makes linguistic inequality as well as culture disempowerment. These facts are bad if it happens continuously.

• Then the bilingual school teacher should have some ways to preserve home language.

• One example to preserve home language is to give the students freedom to choose whether they use English language or home language but teacher also should recommend to use home language more than English language.

Thank You!

Thank You!