ESSENTIALISM & ENGLISH LANGUAGE TEACHINGSOMETHING TO CONSIDER?

OUTLINE What is essentialism?
 How is it transmitted?
 Why is it relevant to language teaching?
 Thoughts

ESSENTIALISMPROBABLY NOT LIKE THIS….

ColourOr this…

Hairy

Not hairyBUT PROBABLY LIKE THIS…
FRUITSROCKSBIG CATSESSENTIALISM• Certain items form natural groups based on essential traits• “The essentialist is committed to the view that humans can cometo know the essence of things………. Knowledge of essence is theconformity of the mind to the natures of things.” (Oderberg,2005:19)• Essentialism of natural groups can be beneficial (Rhodes et al.,2012)

SOCIAL ESSENTIALISM

 “the belief that certain social

categories mark fundamentally
distinct kinds of people” (Rhodeset al., 2012: 13526)

SOCIAL ESSENTIALISM
 1. Attributing specific characteristics to all members within a particular group orcategory (“All Japanese are polite”)

 2. Attributing these specific characteristics to the category (“He is polite because heis Japanese”)

 3. The creation of a collective which is presumed to be an homogeneous block (“WeJapanese …. / You Japanese….”)

 4. The “policing” of the category in a way that non-adherence undermines

membership. (“He is not really Japanese because he is not polite”)(Philips, 2010)

SOCIAL
ESSENTIALISM
 Essentialism can lead tostereotyping, racism andother forms ofdiscrimination(Kumaravladivelu, 2008;
Jackson, 2014)
 Social essentialism, likeessentialism, appears to beuniversal, but contextuallyspecific (Rhodes et al.,2012)

WHAT CREATES THE DIFFERENCE?

TRANSMISSION?

Generic Language

vsNon-generic Language

Girls have long hair

That girl has long hairJews celebrate Passover

Some Jews celebrate Passover

Italians love pasta

Many Italians love pasta

ZARPIES(Rhodes et al., 2012)

ZARPIES: LANGUAGE DIRECTS SOCIAL ESSENTIALISM

When Generic Language Used….
 1. More likely to assume all Zarpies share the same traits (essentialist belief)
 2. More likely to use generic language themselves when talking about Zarpies
 3. More likely to result in negative evaluations of Zarpies

The opposite of these points was true for non-generic language

RELEVANCE TO LANGUAGE TEACHING?
Careful Consideration of Language “TESOL has always had as its goal the facilitation of communication among people who do not share the samelanguage and national culture.” (Kramsch, 2001:201)

 We are preparing our students for interactions with the Other.

 Possible that second language learning / use has little impact on a persons beliefs (1st language most important).

But the language they use impacts others – transmits essentialism, damages interaction with their intercultural
partnerFLUENCY?

Speaking Freely

 “Policing” language gets in the way of fluency development?

 Students coming might have beliefs reified rather than broken down by such language / discussion?

THOUGHTS?
 Do you think that breaking down essentialized views is a goal of the language teacher?

 Does a focus on developing increased language awareness (generic vs non-generic) slow fluency

development?
 Might unchecked fluency development result in reinforcing or creating stereotypes rather thanbreaking them down?
 What might be some good activities that promote fluency while also developing language skills

that avoid language that could transmit essentialism?

REFERENCES

 Kumaravadivelu, B. (2008). Cultural globalization and language education. New Haven: University of YalePress.
 Phillips, A. (2010). What’s wrong with essentialism? Distinktion: Scandinavian journal of social theory, 11 (1), 47-60.
 Rhodes, M., Leslie, S., Tworek, C.M. (2012) Cultural transmission of social essentialism. PNAS (Proceedings of theNational Academy of Sciences) 109(34). pp 13526-13531.

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