Hostname: page-component-848d4c4894-hfldf Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-05-11T03:22:03.510Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Language choice, social institutions, and symbolic domination

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  19 February 2009

Monica Heller
Monica Heller
Affiliation:
Centre de recherches en éducation franco-ontarienne, Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, 252 Bloor Street West, Toronto, Ontario M5S 1V6, Canada
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

The study of language choice and code-switching can illuminate the ways in which, through language, social institutions with ethnolinguistically diverse staff and clients exercise symbolic domination. Using the example of French-language minority education in Ontario (Canada), this article examines the ways in which ethnic and institutional relations of power overlap or crosscut, forming constraints which have paradoxical effects. In an analysis of two classrooms, it is shown how an ideology of institutional monolingualism is supported or undermined by program structure, curriculum content, and the social organization of turn-taking, and how individuals use language choices and code-switching to collaborate with or resist these arrangements. The effect of these processes is to contain paradoxes and to produce new relations of power within the school. (Symbolic domination, choice of language, code-switching, French/English language contact, social institutions, Canada)

Type
Research Article
Information
Language in Society , Volume 24 , Issue 3 , June 1995 , pp. 373 - 405
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1995

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Auer, Peter (1995). Bilingualism in/as social action: A sequential approach to code-switching. In Milroy, Lesley & Muysken, Pieter (eds.), One speaker, two languages: Cross-disciplinary perspectives on code-switching. Cambridge & New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Bourdieu, Pierre (1977). L'áconomie des áchanges linguistiques. Langue française 34: 17–34.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bourdieu, Pierre (1982). Ce que parler veut dire. Paris: Fayard.Google Scholar
Bourdieu, Pierre, & Passeron, Jean-Claude (1977). Reproduction in education, society and culture. London: Sage.Google Scholar
Cazden, Courtney (1988). Classroom discourse: The language of teaching and learning. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.Google Scholar
Choquette, Robert (1977). Langue et religion: Histoire des conflits anglais-français en Ontario. Ottawa: Les àditions de I'Universitá d’Ottawa.Google Scholar
Churchill, Stacy; Frenette, Normand; & Quazi, Saeed (1985). àducation et besoins des Franco-Ontariens. Toronto: Ministry of Education of Ontario.Google Scholar
Cicourel, Aaron (1978). Language and society: Cognitive, cultural and linguistic aspects of language use. Sozialwissenschaftliche Annalen 2: B 25–58. Vienna: Physica-Verlag.Google Scholar
Cicourel, Aaron (1980). Three models of discourse analysis: The role of social structure. Discourse Processes 3: 101–32.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cicourel, Aaron et al. (1974). Language use and school performance. New York: Academic.Google Scholar
Collins, James (1988). Language and class in minority education. Anthropology and Education Quarterly 19: 299–326.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dannequin, Claudine (1976). Les enfants baillonnés. Paris: CEDIL.Google Scholar
Davis, Kathy (1988). Power under the microscope. Amsterdam: Foris.Google Scholar
Erickson, Frederick, & Shultz, Jeffrey (1981). When is a context? Some issues and methods in the analysis of social competence. In Green, Judith & Wallat, Cynthia (eds.), Ethnography and language in educational settings. 147–60. Norwood, NJ: Ablex.Google Scholar
Fisher, Susan (1986). In the patient's best interests: The politics of women's health care. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press.Google Scholar
Fisher, Susan & Alexandra, Todd (1983), eds. The social organization of doctor-patient communication. Washington, DC: Center for Applied Linguistics.Google Scholar
Frenette, Normand, & Gauthier, Lise (1990). Luttes idéologiques et cultures institutionnelles en éducation minoritaire: Le cas de I'Ontario français. Revue d&áducation canadienne et internationale 19: 16–31.Google Scholar
Grillo, Ralph (1989). Dominant languages. Cambridge & New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Heath, Shirley Brice (1983). Ways with words. Cambridge & New York: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Heller, Monica (1985). Ethnic relations and language use in Montreal. In Wolfson, Nessa & Manes, Joan (eds.), Language of inequality, 75–90. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Heller, Monica (1992). The politics of code-switching and language choice. Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development 13: 123–42.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Heller, Monica (1994). Crosswords: Language, education and ethnicity in French Ontario. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Heller, Monica; Dalley, Phyllis; Ibrahim, Awad; & Campbell, Mark (1994). L'espace francophone enmilieu minoritaire et les inégalités internes. Paper presented at the annual conference of the Association canadienne-française pour l'avancement des sciences, Montreal.Google Scholar
Heller, Monica ' Freeman, Sarah (1987), eds. Discourse as organizational process. Discourse Processes 10: 287–440.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jacob, Evelyn, ' Jordan, Cathie (1987), eds. Explaining the school performance of minority children. Anthropology and Education Quarterly 18: 259–392.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mehan, Hugh (1979). Learning lessons. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mehan, Hugh (1987). Language and power in organizational settings. Discourse Processes 10: 291–302.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mehan, Hugh; Hertweck, Alma; & Meihls, J. L. (1986). Handicapping the handicapped. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Michaels, Sarah (1981). “Sharing time”: Children's narrative styles and differential access to literacy. Language in Society 10: 423–42.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mougeon, Raymond, & Heller, Monica (1986). The social and historical context of French-language minority education in Ontario. Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development 7: 199–227.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Philips, Susan (1972). Participant structure and communicative competence: Warm Springs children in community and classroom. In Cazden, Courtney; John, Vera; & Hymes, Dell (eds.), Functions of language in the classroom, 370–94. New York: Teachers College Press.Google Scholar
Poplack, Shana (1988). Contrasting patterns of code-switching in two communities. In Heller, Monica (ed.), Code-switching: Anthropological and sociolinguistic perspectives, 215–44. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Todd, Alexandra (1989). Intimate adversaries: Cultural conflict between doctors and women patients. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Welch, David (1988). The social construction of Franco-Ontarian interests towards French-language schooling. Ph.D. dissertation, Graduate Department of Education, University of Toronto.Google Scholar
Willis, Paul (1981). Learning to labor: How working class kids get working class jobs. New York: Teachers College Press.Google Scholar