Where language is made: language planning at the intersections of national and international literacy and language work

Walls, Nicole M.

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https://hdl.handle.net/2142/16532 Copy

Description

Title

Where language is made: language planning at the intersections of national and international literacy and language work

Author(s)

Walls, Nicole M.

Issue Date

2010-06-29T00:59:55Z

Director of Research (if dissertation) or Advisor (if thesis)

Prendergast, Catherine J.

Doctoral Committee Chair(s)

Prendergast, Catherine J.

Committee Member(s)

• Baron, Dennis
• McCarthy, Cameron R.
• Mortensen, Peter L.

Department of Study

English

Discipline

English

Degree Granting Institution

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Degree Name

Ph.D.

Degree Level

Dissertation

Keyword(s)

• language rights
• multilingualism
• Education for All
• United Nations and Literacy
• UNESCO and Literacy

Abstract

This dissertation examines how in the U.S. domestic context, attacks against multilingualism are often framed as practical arguments for those literacy skills needed to participate fully in U.S. culture and economy. Accordingly, language planning projects (e.g. anti-bilingual education legislation and the English-Only Movement) aim to eradicate language differences and, with them, the need to develop resources and nurture attitudes that support linguistic plurality. The “practical framing” of these projects has kept hostility toward multilingualism somewhat implicit, fostering instead an ambivalence that contrasts with the work of the United States in the international context to privilege literacy development over language rights. This work, I argue, has contributed to the futility of language rights in the U.S. domestic context, and has impeded the abilities of language scholars to intervene in monolingual projects. Language scholars in Rhetoric and Composition have faced resistance from within the field despite a vocal rhetorical commitment to other categories of diversity, including race, class, and gender. Revising the current notion that domestic language issues alone dictate the terms of language planning in local contexts, “Where Language is Made” shows that hostility toward multilingualism is a global problem, shaped and reshaped at the intersections of local, domestic, and international language projects.

Graduation Semester

2010-5

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http://hdl.handle.net/2142/16532

Copyright and License Information

Copyright 2010 Nicole M. Walls

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