Two Latina bilingual teacher candidates’ perceptions of language proficiency and language choice options: Ideological encounters with listening and speaking others

In this interview-based study, we examine two Latina bilingual teacher candidates’ accounts of their experiences as Spanish-dominant, Mexican-national bilingual speakers in social and institutional spaces. We analyze their accounts of grappling with circulating language ideologies from a raciolinguistic perspective, using tenets of critical discourse analysis. Our analysis illuminates the ways these Latina bilingual teacher candidates’ encounters with an array of interlocutors—listening and speaking others—have shaped their experiences as racialized bilinguals. Findings suggest that these ideologically laden encounters, characterized by power imbalances, play a hefty and often unexamined role in shaping bilingual teacher candidates’ perceptions of their language proficiency and institutionally sanctioned language choice options.