In this week’s post I would like to share some of my thoughts on language ideology and its importance related to the job that we’re doing as supervisors.

As I’ve written in my previous post, I am currently part of a sub-team of three, and our task is to review and edit the contents of Jalea, an e-learning platform aimed at empowering students and providing them with an environment with no barriers of any kind (to learn more about Jalea, please read the post written by the coordinator of this project, Federica Tocci). While doing so we must keep in mind numerous implications, starting from the fact that our work has a direct impact on the learning process of students who will make use of Jalea to improve their knowledge of the Japanese language. The linguistic and stylistic choices that we make every time we either write or review a grammatical item will then contribute to making the contents more or less accessible to a wide audience, and we must constantly bear that in mind.

But that’s not just it: as my colleague Tommaso has recently pointed out in his very interesting post, our language must not be simply clear and understandable, it must also be inclusive. The language that we consciously choose to use in our everyday life not only defines the way we act and interact with the world, but it also has a great impact on the way we think and perceive the world. Therefore, using a more inclusive language whilst doing our job will certainly influence students’ perception of the world, and most definitely, their perception of Japanese language itself.

The concept of language perception brings me to that of language ideology and its importance. According to professor Heinrich, “the study of language ideology is […] an investigation into origin and effect of beliefs about language structure and use, as well as the way in which these beliefs are promoted and spread beyond the social groups they serve”. I think that while doing our job we should keep this in mind and focus on the way beliefs about language are reproduced in the teaching materials that we create and review. He also argues that “ideological notions surface rather overtly in foreign language textbooks” and therefore, we could say the same about foreign language e-learning platforms, such as ours.

“Textbooks comprise what Byram refers to as the “hidden curriculum” of foreign language training, i.e., instruction about nation, culture, tradition, customs, history, ethics, citizens, minorities, foreigners, cities, countryside, family, etc. and their interrelation with language. Due to the necessary selection of certain issues over others, foreign language textbooks are inevitably ideological”.

Teaching materials represent a point of contact between the student and the target language and culture, and therefore by portraying certain activities/cultural representations over others, we favor an image of what Japan and Japanese language “are” or “are supposed to be”.

Each and every teaching material is inevitably based on choices, and these choices end up reinforcing determined views of Japan and Japanese language. We must pay attention to the way we portray Japan, Japanese individuals and Japanese language in every single grammatical item, since it will end up playing a role in creating stereotypes or reinforcing essentialized views in the minds of our readers. The final result of all of this might wound up to be the strengthening of unequal power relations, which is definitely not the outcome we’re aiming for.

As I previously wrote, when we write, review or edit a simple grammatical item we must bear in mind numerous implications. The clarity of it, the inclusivity of it, and most importantly, the ideological implications of it. It is certainly a hard task, but it is one that I intend to face with an open mind and by constantly questioning my own choices and preconceived views.

Thank you for reading!

Reference:
Heinrich Patrick, “Language ideology in JFL textbooks”, International Journal of the Sociology of Language, 175-176, 2005, pp. 213-232.