Sociolinguistics and Language Education.pdf

Language and Culture 479
involves the organization of social categories into collections, MCA offers
an empirical approach to study cultural and other identities as relational
constructs (Benwell & Stokoe, 2006). Lastly, an incipient literature reveals
M/CA’s potential for the critical study of intercultural discourse. M/CA’s
apparatus makes visible how ideologies and inequitable power relations
are interactionally produced, reaffi rmed and contested in concrete situated
engagements. While such analytical outcomes are compatible with
several infl uential poststructuralist theories, M/CA offers a methodology
to ground macrosociological propositions in the observable realities of the
participants.
Culture in the Classroom
As classrooms around the world are increasingly inhabited by diverse
student populations, teachers’ charge to offer high quality education for
all students poses a signifi cant professional challenge. An extensive educational
literature makes recommendations for policies and practices of
multicultural education (e.g. Banks & McGee Banks, 2007) and culturally
responsive teaching (e.g. Gay, 2000). Culturally responsive pedagogies
include practices intended to validate students’ cultural identity, encourage
active participation and ultimately enhance academic achievement.
However, ethnographic and discourse-analytical studies conducted in
different North American school settings indicate that teaching to students’
assumed cultural identities is a risky undertaking. Pedagogical
efforts to foster students’ appreciation of cultural diversity are often limited
to a ‘superfi cial focus on heroes, holidays, customs and food; a conception
of culture as a static corpus of values and beliefs, and a confl ation
of country, culture, language, nationality and identity’ (Talmy, 2004: 157).
In keeping with this version of culture is the common practice to position
students from immigrant backgrounds as representatives of their culture
of origin (Duff, 2002; Harklau, 2000; Talmy, 2004). In the extract from a
High School English as a second language (ESL) class in Hawai’i below,
the teacher gives instructions about a holiday project.
‘Can I do Christmas?’ (Talmy, 2004: 158, modifi ed)
1 Ms Ariel: The assignment for – the assignment for everyone
2 in the class is to pick a holiday from their own
3 country or culture (..) and to research it or if
4 you already know about it, fi ne =
5 Raven: =Yeah, Christmas.
6 China: [New Year!
(lines omitted, Ms Ariel giving further instructions about the assignment)
15 Raven: (talking to China)I’m gonna draw Santa Claus
16 [(inaudible)