Multilingual Classroom Discourse as a Window on Wider Social, Political and Ideological Processes

Abstract

The chapter begins with a brief genealogy of critical and ethnographic approaches to research on multilingual classroom discourse and interaction. It traces the epistemological origins of two complementary fields of study: (1.) Research which combines ethnography with close analysis of multilingual classroom discourse; (2.) The ethnography of language policy. The chapter reveals the roots of these two fields of study in linguistic anthropology and charts the ways in which each field took a critical turn. It then goes on to present examples of critical, ethnographic research carried out in different social, political and ideological contexts. These examples demonstrate how research of a critical, multi-layered and ethnographic nature enables us to provide explanatory accounts of the everyday multilingual discourse practices in classrooms, in particular language policy contexts. They also show how such practices index wider policy contexts and wider ideologies of language.

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