A Critical Perspective Language Hegemony, Linguistic Inequality, and Cultural Disempowerment in Educational SettingBy

Komang Satya Permadi

1. IntroductionIt is not surprising that bilingual education affects to learners academic achievement in English. But the most important thing we should consider is learners native language. This thing usually happened when non-English speaking children choose not to use native language and shift to more or exclusive of English. On the other hand, the native language may be used for the instruction, but on the other hand the children also understand that English the language that will be counted in classroom. So rather than adding on English for to what they already use, many bilingual learner substitute English for the native language and subtract the native tongue from their linguistic repositories (Faltis & Hudelson, 1998). For example, a bilingual student in Indonesia, whose native language is bahasa Indonesia, in translating mawar merah, the student tend to use rose red rather than red rose since the student directly translate it word by word.

2. Content

English Hegemony

English language has been used and is accepted by people around the world. English language also dominates other languages in the world (Shanon, 1995 in Faltis & Hudelson, 1998). Hegemony is unequal status of language face each other. One language is believed to be superior, desirable and necessary, while the other language(s) is/ are considered inferior, undesirable, and unnecessary. This fact is seen in United States, where English is the dominant language. However, the other languages are only used among the member of groups. For example: Chinese that live in United States will Chinese to speak among Chinese and they will use English to speak with the Indonesian (for example) that also live in United States.

Linguistic Inequality

According Gilany (2007), Linguistic inequality is defined as the inequal language the students use in their social life. Linguistic Inequality relates to the linguistic items that a person knows. The linguistic items one knows show the experience of the person. Vocabulary is the field where this experience can be most obvious where some individual has a rich set of technical terminology for a particular field. When someone is expert in agriculture field, when he meets a fisherman in dock he will use different language terminology to communicate than when he meets his friend who is an expert in agriculture field. This can be called as Linguistic Inequal. It can be said that people will use different terminology in different social situation.

In relation with bilingual education, according to Edelsky & Hudelson (1980) in Faltis & Hudelson (1998), non-English speaking learners will tend to use English language in bilingual school since the learners have to communicate with their English speaking friends. Cultural Disempowerment

Cultural disempowerment or cultural impairment can be clearly seen in immigrant. These immigrants usually bring certain language as well as culture from their hometown. As time goes by, the native language that they use will fade away in third generation. It is because of when the second generations study in bilingual school and also socialize with society around they live, their native language and culture fade away. In addition, the childrens desire also affects the loss of native language. According to Krashen (2000) in Yu & Carol (2009), children refuse to learn the first language. Furthermore, according to Fillmore (2000) in Yu & Carol (2009), there are internal and external factors that lead to the loss of the native language. The internal factor is the acceptance of society around the children. The society will accept the children if the children are able to speak and act in societys language and culture. The children have to be suitable with the dominant group or society where they live. It forces the children to use more dominant groups language rather than their native language. The external factor comes from sociopolitical situation in dominant group which cannot accept different language and culture. Resisting English Hegemony

Seeing the fact that, English language is the dominant language in bilingual school, therefore it is teachers duty to preserve the native or home language. Many teachers are concerned to promote learners native or home language, the example are as follows:

According to Reyes, Laliberty, & Orbansky (1993) in Faltis & Hudelson (1998), who had conducted a research in bilingual classroom, where the classroom consists of English Speaking Bilingual students, Spanish Speaking Bilingual students, and Bilingual students and they are organized into heterogeneous group. The lesson conducted in English. Ms. Andrade as a teacher wants to emphasize the value of both language (English and Spanish). Then, in whole group discussion, Ms. Adrade elicits comments from the children in Spanish as well as in English. The Spanish-speaking children receive encouragement to write in their native language as well as English, and also the English speakers receive encouragement to experiment with writing in Spanish. When the children share their writing with the class, the teacher asks the English speakers, with the help of bilingual students, to try to translate or paraphrase from English in Spanish. The bilingual students frequently use both of languages to make sure that everyone in the group understands to the task to be accomplished. With this process, the children will assisting each other, and challenge children to learn each others language.

In the other example, Shanon (1995) in in Faltis & Hudelson (1998) he conducted a research in observing bilingual school teacher. Ms. D as a teacher monitors own language use and consciously uses both of language for instruction, and providing opportunities for the children to interact both in their native and second languages. She also allows the children in her classroom to choose whether they will work in English or Spanish but she recommends to use in Spanish.3. Discussion

As what explained above, English hegemony, which happens in bilingual school, will impact to students linguistic inequality and cultural disempowerment. Example; an Indonesian student, who studies in bilingual school, will force himself to learn English for many reasons. The first reason, when he firstly meets his friends and teachers he is confused of the language that he should use. His friends and teachers mostly use English when communicate in school. In fact, he cannot speak English well. This case can be called as the linguistic inequality, where the ability of English speaking among the student, his friends, and his teachers is inequal. Everyday, he always learns and uses English language in his school. It automatically makes him force himself to assimilate English culture. Therefore, his own language and own culture will be decreased. This can be called as cultural disempowerment.4. Conclusion

Based on the facts that can be seen in Bilingual school that language hegemony usually happens in bilingual school and later on it makes linguistic inequality as well as culture disempowerment. These facts are bad if it happens continuously. Then the bilingual school teacher should have some ways to preserve home language. One example to preserve home language is to give the students freedom to choose whether they use English language or home language but teacher also should recommend to use home language more than English language.

REFERENCES

Faltis, C.J., & Hudelson, S.J. (1998). Bilingual education in elementary and secondary school communities: Towards understanding and caring. Needham Heights, MA: Allyn & Bacon.Gilany, W.A. (2007) Linguistic and Social Inequality. Retrieved December 28, 2013, from, http://s3.amazonaws.com/ppt-download/linguistic-and-social-inequality-1225482217820744-9.doc?response-content-disposition=attachment&Signature=1CJ%2FQQP%2BCggRhEiG%2Bsw5VY36Pw0%3D&Expires=1388649141&AWSAccessKeyId=AKIAIW74DRRRQSO4NIKAYu, L.A.I & Carol T. (2009) Language maintenance and language loss in first language. Retrieved December 30, 2013, from, http://jakestone.net/wikipics/pdfs/chineselanguageretention2.pdf