Bringing Race Into Second Language Acquisition

RECENTLY, SEVERAL NEWS ARTICLES WERE published celebrating the bilingualism of Princess Charlotte, the young daughter of Prince William and Catherine Middleton. A headline from Independent noted, “Princess Charlotte is already bilingual at age two,” with the author insisting that this was “a skill most people cannot claim” and that she “can't help but feel inferior” (Ritschel, 2018). In a similar vein, a headline from Harper's Bazaar reported “Princess Charlotte may have just started nursery but can already speak two languages” (Fowler, 2018). As scholars who study the intersections of language, race, and social class we cannot help but be struck by the vast differences in the ways that the bilingualism of Princess Charlotte has been discussed versus the ways that it is typically discussed when associated with low-income students from racialized backgrounds. In our experience as U.S. educators, we have typically heard low-income bilingual students from racialized backgrounds framed as “English learners” (ELs) who pose a challenge for public schools. This also appears to be the case in the United Kingdom, with a Guardian article reporting that English-as-an-additional-language (EAL) children are typically placed in intensive English interventions classes focused on basic communication skills before being integrated with their classmates (Morrison, 2014). Based on this remedial framing, the increasing number of low-income bilingual students from racialized backgrounds is typically met with alarm rather than celebration. Far from being represented as bilingual children who give successful reporters an inferiority complex, as is the case with Princess Charlotte, these students are framed as a problem requiring a policy solution. This narrative has become so normalized in policy debates that it almost seems absurd to question its reality. Yet, there is nothing inevitable about this policy framing. Instead, it reflects a particular genre of difference—one that frames particular forms of linguistic diversity as an inherent and increasing problem that must be solved (Gutiérrez Weheliye, 2014; Wynter, 2003), and as a location for the enactment of counter-hegemonic forms of theory in the flesh, embodied knowledge, and modes of shapeshifting that challenge conventional assumptions about knowing and being on the other (Cox, 2015; Moraga also Agha, 2007; Silverstein, 2005), inspiring researchers to investigate event configurations linking imagined pasts, presents, and futures, as well as spatial heres, theres, and elsewheres (Bauman Dick, 2010; Lo & Kim, 2011). Importantly, a raciolinguistic perspective demonstrates how race can organize the imagination of particular language practices in relation to specific times and places. Flores et al. (2018) use a case study of a U.S. bilingual school serving a primarily low-income Latinx student population as a point of entry for theorizing agency from this perspective. the ways that a of that positions as of the past, present, and of the Latinx for the emergence of language practices in the school that In they also the ways that a of that imagined a where the students would experience raciolinguistic policing teachers to engage in their own policing of the language practices. Importantly, the of bilingualism the policing of language practices from the of Instead, they both products of a long history of political struggle and oppression that made the emergence of particular language practices that efforts to the language practices of racialized students must be situated within broader political struggles that can lead to new institutional listening positions for teachers to inhabit that will more for In this as Hall (2019, this issue) agency is not understood in of agents of will but as social that can be These insights the of agency can be to on approaches to the enactment of identity in experiences of language learning. This is in & (2019, this issue) of the ways “the speaker from one or social identity to (p. and that that are associated with particular people can be as that more than just but also associated with into of and (p. on the Bakhtinian notion of to how the English learners in their study more and when other than and make the point that these of language practices are not typically in of the of students as language thereby these However, we must key that is not a of some language use perceived as or complex, but rather a fundamental of all language we might how particular linguistic become as of and when all language use is inherently Specifically, the notion of raciolinguistic us to how race has played a key role in linguistic as associated with particular models of such that we a in a particular way to produce those or we to based on the of those (Rosa, 2018). These processes can have important for SLA Indeed, while we Ellis in suggesting that we must new perspectives on processes of language we are of the ways that approaches to and the of associated with study position language as a phenomenon that can be and analyzed in objective we into account the politics of or the ways in which to new insights while existing narratives it is important to interrogate how particular language practices are as of particular with particular institutional This to a question for SLA and the field of applied how the field has been and continues to be in the of raciolinguistic The Douglas Fir Group (2016) alludes to this point in its that many of the concepts in the field are by (p. and the that the in engaging with the existing without these In a similar vein, Ortega's of what she the that has contexts of elite multilingualism contexts of minoritized multilingualism provides evidence of the of the field in racialized We efforts by the Douglas Fir Group to challenge as well as Ortega's call for more research focused on contexts of minoritized We would the need for more research on African and other racialized students who are often positioned as monolingual and whose racialized position their language learning there is research to examining the of these populations 2016). Yet, a raciolinguistic perspective us to of and research focus to on the SLA listening subject. the Douglas Fir (2016) on discussions of and in their of particular language the number and diversity of contexts and within and social that L2 learners and are access to and are to the and more linguistically their will (p. The Group on this point suggesting that more complex, and the contexts of become and the more participation is in the more and their will (p. This the how is being is what is more or is being is what is These are important questions to in of the fact that since the early days of European colonialism the language practices of racialized communities considered and and have been framed as such through discourses including the supposed that suggests low-income children of color from that are & Indeed, even on theory must be as Ellis notes, this theory was integral to the of in While it certainly had on the primarily low-income students from racialized backgrounds and their who in was through associated with a of The notion of a of from the that the of social was in supposed and linguistic deficiencies of racialized communities of color rather than the structural these communities of oppression We are not suggesting that this an of but rather that this historical legacy must be and for in any contemporary efforts to the framework to promote equity. As scholars who focus our research on the intersections of language and race in we are by the Douglas Fir toward a perspective to of language learning. We that such a perspective the opportunity to into the field that have been at and at While we that insights from scholarship on race and racialization may not always well with conventional approaches to language we are that with the between these of view will lead to and new insights how to position SLA as a field to promote and challenge We are about the ways in which the work of the Douglas Fir Group can to broader political projects toward these structures of