Abstract
In this part of the analysis I turn the focus on the aspect of language as an element of identity. Being bilingual within a dominant multilingual host country and learning/using a heritage language often raises issues of bilingual/bicultural identity that might inform or be related to other self-‐positions. The issue of language becomes even more complicated given that the Greek community in London is mainly of Greek-‐Cypriot origin, thus employs a bi-‐dialectical approach on the issue of heritage language: Standard Modern Greek and Greek Cypriot dialect.
This theme of bilingualism/bidialectism first emerged in theory (Chapter 2 §4.d) and therefore it was explored in the pilot study. Analysis of the pilot study data stressed further attention to aspects of linguistic identity that were then addressed in the main study. As Pavlenko and Blackledge (2004:1) maintain, in bilingual contexts ‘different ideologies of language and identity come into conflict with each other with regard to what languages or varieties of languages should be spoken by particular kinds of people and in what context’. Symbolic power relations permeate every context and accordingly affect the linguistic choices of the speakers. These choices mutually inform and are informed by the different self-‐positions that one has or employs from its repertoire. As Bourdieu (1997:648) argues, ‘language is not only an instrument of communication or even of knowledge, but also an instrument of power’. This power might emerge from and/or manifest ethnic, gender, economical, social and political diversity. Embarking from that notion of language, I explore the community’s reported perceptions and practices regarding heritage language and identity.
1. From Theory to the Pilot Study
As Lytra and Martin (2010: xi) stress, community schools ‘are set up for a range of functions, particularly the maintenance of community languages and cultures’. The theoretical background indicated that heritage language learning, development and/or maintenance is often the core and/or main aim of community education. Furthermore, language is often employed as a symbolic medium of cultural capital that might foster minority community member’s cultural and/or ethnic identity. It is through the ‘social nature of language’ (Bourdieu, 1991: 34) that power relations and self-‐positions are defined implicitly and explicitly.
During the pilot study I followed the process of axial and selective coding and by using constant comparisons, I identified a number of sub-‐categories under the core category of language. Strauss and Corbin (1990: 96) suggest, ‘This is done by utilising a coding paradigm involving conditions, context, action/interactional strategies and consequences’ (Chapter 4 §8). More explicitly, the core category of language also involves: language in reference to the role of the community school; and language related to dialect issues.
Community Education and Language
According to the participants’ reported perceptions one of the distinctive roles of community education is to develop and maintain the Greek language. During the interviews the head teacher and Mrs. Elena, agreed that ‘one of the main reasons that children come to the Greek school is to learn and maintain the Greek language’ (head teacher). The political representative during his speech on the occasion of the school’s national celebration made analogous comments: ‘we are proud and we support your effort to teach our language to the younger generation’ (source of Data: DVD). Nicole, one of the students who participated in the study, also commented: ‘I come to the Greek school to learn how to speak Greek’. Lastly, in the school’s official website27 and facebook page it is reported that the school
27 It is my intention not to cite the reference so as not to jeopardise the school’s and the participants’ anonymity.
aims to ‘offer its children the opportunity to learn their mother tongue and preserve their Greek national traditions and inheritance’.
In view of the above comments, language development maintains a high position within the school’s role and it is often related to ethnic and cultural identity. These voices cannot be separated from the aims and provisions for the Greek diasporic education as analysed in the Law 2413/1996 (Chapter 1 §1). In the first chapter it was illustrated that the focus of the aims is on ‘Language Development and Maintenance’. This indicates a homology between the political and State ideologies -‐as expressed through the political representative’s speech and the State Law-‐ and the field of production, which is the community school. However, one could wonder whether this homology within the fields is objective or euphemistic? Given that the students’ and parents’ home language is English28 and that the community resorts to English language use -‐even when present in the community school-‐ I argue that either the school fails to deliver the main aim of language development or that there is a reported incoherence between the participants’ reported perceptions and the respective practices.
The following student interview extract is indicative of the status of Greek at home:
I-What language do you usually speak at home with your parents? N- English.
I- With your brothers and sisters? N- English
I-What about your parents, what language do they usually use? N- Mainly English and some Greek. ……
I-When you have Greek friends visiting you, what language do you speak? N- English and sometimes Greek. (Nicole, student, pilot study)
In a study conducted by Papapavlou & Pavlou (2001) on the linguistic identity of UK Greek-‐Cypriots, they report that ‘the dominant language of 67.7% of the
participants is English’. A similar phenomenon, of English home language is reported in the study of Francis et al. (2010) where it is argued that the increasing third generation of children of Chinese heritage are less likely to speak Chinese at home (their parents may have limited Chinese language abilities themselves). What seems to be in common with other similar studies (Creese et al., 2007; Martin et al., 2006; Brinton et al., 2008) is that the community schools are often regarded as language schools. Heritage language maintenance seems to be the main aim of this kind of community education. However, there seems to be a reported inconsistency between the community’s and State’s aims (learning and maintaining heritage language) and the reported family practices (English home language). This inconsistency will be explored further during the main study but it may also be attributed to the interview effect or the effect of symbolic power of language.
Language and Symbolic Power
As argued in Chapter 4 (§5.2), power permeates the relation interviewer-‐ interviewee. Following that argument, the interviewees sometimes want to give the ‘correct’ answers to the interviewer, especially if they feel that the researcher holds a superior position in the hierarchy of capital. This means that the participants might regard me both as a community teacher-‐researcher and respond according to what feels as the ‘right’ answer. Their answers might be consistent with ‘the image that the interviewee wishes to give to others and to themselves’ (Bourdieu, 1996: 25). Therefore, what the participants report as the role of the community school, thus ‘language development and maintenance’, could be the representation of what they have in mind as the ‘right’ answer and/or it could be inconsistency between reported expectations and family practices.
Another possible interpretation is that the participants might reproduce the State’s ideologies about language maintenance as these are imposed through the curriculum and the political representatives that visit the school. The presence of state might be accentuated by the fact that my role as a community teacher is associated with the State as I am a civil servant. Therefore, the depicted
contradiction could partly be the result of the ‘imposition effect’ (Bourdieu, 1996: 20) of my presence as researcher and the power that underpins the relationship between interviewer-‐interviewee.
As Weiss (1994:148) argues, ‘while we as interviewers can anticipate that we will be told the truth, we cannot assume that we will be told the truth’. This does not necessarily mean that the participants are lying, but that their responses could be affected by a number of other factors. For instance, a number of studies have indicated that some factors such as age (Herzog & Rogers, 1988), social and educational status (Lenski & Leggett, 1960), or even gender have an effect on how the interviewees respond. Moreover, as Talja (1999: 464) argues ‘variation and inconsistency seen in the extracts is not an exception, nor is it a product of the interview situation’. People might hold different views on the same topic depending on the context where it is discussed. This could possibly mean that the participants might actually expect that the school will maintain the heritage language despite following different home family practices.
During research the difference in dynamic power positions is always present. As Van Maanen (2011: 4) stresses, ‘ethnographies are politically mediated, since the power of one group to represent another is always involved’. Despite a number of precautions and measures that are taken, such as rapport, anonymity and ethical considerations, the researcher may not always eliminate the effect of power. Thus, acknowledgment of power during the analysis maybe one of ethnography’s limitation, but at the same time it is also a way of securing ‘accurate’ interpretations, thus ‘done with care’ (Fusco’s, 2008:163) (Chapter 4 §4). In this view, by acknowledging the effect of power relations I aim at collecting and presenting the variety of ‘truths’ (Denzin, 1997) that operate within the social world of Greek diasporic community education.
As Foucault (1980: 133) argues,
‘it is not a matter of emancipating truth from every system of power (which would be a chimera, for truth is already power) but of detaching the power
of truth from the forms of hegemony, social, economic and cultural, within which it operates at the same time’.
While acknowledging the power relations another sign of power and symbolic language emerged during the interview with the head teacher. The head-‐teacher, who usually addresses me in a non-‐formal way using the singular you (εσύ-‐esi/ equivalent of tu in French), during the interview he employed the plural of politeness whenever he was addressing me (εσείς-‐ esis-‐ equivalent of vous in French).
As Bourdieu asserts ‘every speaker is a producer and a consumer’ (1991: 82) with a linguistic habitus affected by the forms of capital that s/he is endowed by her/his social class, gender, educational/life experiences, etc. This linguistic habitus can take different forms depending on the power relations that exist within a specific field or market. Legitimate competence may produce a profit of distinction and respectively lack of this competence may condemn the speaker to silence or exclusion. During every day school interactions the power relations favour the head-‐teacher in reference to my role as a schoolteacher. During the interview, my role as a researcher changed the existing power relations. Moreover, the use of the audio-‐recorder functioned as a symbol of my power; as Bourdieu puts it ‘I was the holder of the skeptron’ (1991:113) and as a symbol of power it exercised an effect because it was recognised as such. Evident of that is that after I switched-‐off the recorder, the head-‐teacher switched to non-‐formal speaking. As Bourdieu (1996: 25) stresses, ‘in a number of interviews the social relation between the respondent and the researcher produces a very powerful effect of censorship, accentuated by the tape-‐recorder’.
In view of the above, I would argue that the participants’ reported perceptions on language as the main aim of Greek community school might be related to: their aspirations/expectations; reproduction of curriculum’s/State’s ideologies; the effect of interview; and/or to the effect of symbolic power of language and power relations. In the main study and through the parental voices I will be in a position to explore further the relation between language and community school.
Language, Identity and Post-‐colonialism
Another element that the participants highlighted was the issue of language maintenance/loss in relation to issues of identity. Both, the head teacher and Mrs. Elena argue that language is a distinctive marker of Greek identity: ‘our language is who we are’ (Mrs. Elena); ‘our language is our roots; it defines where you come from’ (Head teacher). Interestingly, both participants use the possessive adjective ‘our’ to denote ownership and respectively membership to the greater Greek-‐speaking community. As McEntee and Pouloukas (2001: 23) argue, in Cyprus ‘the national codes (Greek and Greek-‐Cypriot) are dominant and are considered as markers of national identity and belonging’ (Chapter 2 §4.b). Given that both participants are first generation Greek-‐Cypriots born/raised in Cyprus, they might reproduce an ideology where language is regarded as marker of identity. The participants do not limit these perceptions to mainland communities but also expand it and apply it to the greater Greek community in London.
They argue that language is also a distinctive marker of the Greek community in London and as such it defines membership and belonging both to the diasporic and mainland community. More explicitly, the head-‐teacher stresses ‘I am confident that our language will be maintained despite the problems that emerge from succession of generations… in the 3rd and 4th generation the bond with their roots is weakening but language can support it’. Similarly, Mrs. Elena reports, ‘when the children learn and speak the language they feel more attached to the Hellenic nation...especially when they visit Cyprus and they are able to communicate effectively in Greek’. The head-‐teacher reports confidently on the issue of language maintenance. Moreover, both participants stress that language will foster the students’ sense of belonging to the Greek community (mainland and diasporic). Thus, language is reported as an inclusive factor that may affirm or reaffirm the community members’ identity. It is reported as a medium that functions both communicatively -‐communicate effectively-‐ and symbolically -‐ bond with their roots, more attached to the Hellenic nation.
In bilingual and bicultural contexts, heritage language maintenance or loss is often associated with the acculturation paths that the minority community follows (assimilation, integration, marginalization or separation-‐ Berry’s model, 1997). However, it should be acknowledged that this is a process permeated by power relations between the dominant and heritage language and thus a process related to hegemonic ideologies. Gibbons and Ramirez (2004: 4) define minority-‐ language maintenance as ‘an attempt to resist the cultural power of languages that are spoken by a majority of the population, and/or languages that are, for some reason, socially dominant’. In this view, the community school may be regarded as a field of resistance where the minority group struggles for recognition of its linguistic (and maybe ethnic) identity over the hegemonic dominant English environment. Given that Cyprus is a former British colony, the aspect of resistance becomes even more complicated and raises issues of postcolonial domination.
As Gilbert and Tompkins (1996: 164) argue,
‘language is one of the most basic markers of colonial authority… part of imperialism’s project has been to impose the English language on colonised subjects in an endeavour to control them more completely’.
A similar phenomenon of imposing the coloniser’s language is also reported in Cyprus. As Hatjioannou et al. (2011: 507) suggest, during 1878–1960 (when Cyprus was a British colony), ‘English has also been used in various realms of public life in the Republic of Cyprus, including the courts of law, various civic services and many fields of private enterprise’. As regards the contemporary linguistic practices, they add that
‘though English is still used residually in the public sector, the translation of the Cyprus Law in 1995, combined with a series of policy decisions which, at face value, sought to enforce constitutional provisions on language, led to Greek becoming the only language used in the courts and in the civil service’ (ibid).
Despite the fact that Cyprus has become an independent nation since 1960 the postcolonial effect of valuing the coloniser’s dominant and hegemonic language is still evident in the public sector. In Goutsos’ (2001: 216) study it is reported that ‘English was present in roughly one-‐fifth of the total interactions in the recorded conversations’. Moreover, ‘Ioannou (1991) and Karoulla-‐Vrikkis (1991) suggest that there is three-‐way code-‐switching by many Greek-‐Cypriot speakers between Standard Modern Greek, Cypriot Greek and English’ (in Goutsos, 2001: 199).
In this view, it is also possible that English home language as reported earlier by the student-‐participant, might be another dimension of imposing the English language to post-‐colonised communities. One of the practices that facilitate imposition is the monolingual aspect of British education (Chapter 1 §4) where minority community languages are not always acknowledged within mainstream education. Therefore, minority languages are legitimised and recognised only within the limited lieu of community education. In this view, community education functions as a ‘facilitating voice to the silent ones while remaining invisible’ (Kothari, 1998: 36).
Mrs. Elena raises this issue by stressing that ‘our language needs to become part of mainstream education because it will be maintained only through the English educational system’. On the same issue, Li Wei advocates a compromised structure that would include both mainstream and community schools. He (2006: 79) argues that,
‘ideally, the needs of the immigrant and ethnic minority children and their communities can be accommodated within the mainstream school system, and there would be no need for separate or additional schooling for these children’.
However, it is often unfeasible to acknowledge the majority of minority cultures and languages within a multilingual and multicultural environment such as London. As Stubbs (1994: 207) maintains, ‘schools had always been the most powerful mechanism in assimilating minority children into mainstream
cultures’. I argue that the compromised structure proposed by Li Wei could be idealistic for the minority communities but not necessarily compatible with the British monolingual hegemonic practices. Consequently, the family and the community school will bear the responsibility for a struggle over linguistic recognition.
Given that a struggle for recognition requires that the under-‐represented community recognises the unequal distribution of cultural and/or economic capital, it is only then that they will be able to fight against that misrepresentation. Alternatively, this will be a euphemistic struggle, restricted to superficial practices that serve and reproduce the dominant assimilation policies (e.g. attending community education without aspiring to speak/use the heritage language). This could also be an effect of post-‐colonialism where the former colonised still values and respects the former coloniser. All these aspects of power, colonialism and language hegemonies will be further addressed in the main study.
Language and Dialect
The other sub-‐category that emerged under the main category of language was