The ecology of empowerment as manifested by student critical language awareness
The ecology of empowerment as manifested by student critical language awareness

Summary/Abstract: Drawing on critical theories in linguistics (Fairclough, 1989, 1992), the concept of hegemony (Gramsci, 1971/1991) and mostly ecological linguistics, the authors aim to revisit the process of foreign language learning from the perspective of how learners position themselves in relation to the target language they learn/use (Firth & Wagner, 1997). Questioning the native speaker norms in second language acquisition, as indicated by theoretical considerations and empirical research (Cook, 1991, 1999; Kramsch, 2002b), and sociolinguistic reality of multi- or plurilingual communities (Kramsch, 2008; Maher, 2005, 2010; Otsuji & Pennycook, 2010; Pennycook, 2010), which exhibit translingual practices (Canagajarah, 2013), the authors of the present paper delve into critical language awareness of foreign language speakers. This, as they claim, may be indicative of power relations inscribed in language use and manifested by learner positioning either as a legitimate language user (empowered) or, alternatively, as an incompetent learner/user (disempowered and self-marginalized). The included research is a replica of the study carried out on foreign language teacher practitioners (see Lankiewicz, WąsikiewiczFirlej, & Szczepaniak-Kozak, 2016), which in its turn concentrates on learners. Consequently, it allows seeking for parallels and differences, and offers a more complete picture of ecology of empowerment in the context of foreign language learning.

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