Ignored Lingualism: Another Resource for Overcoming the Monolingual Mind-set in Language Education Policy

Abstract

Mainstream academic conversations in sociolinguistics and language education policy have for a long time questioned the deep-seated habit of assuming monolingualism as the norm for all individuals and societies - what has been termed the monolingual mindset. However, most research has done so using modernist linguistic ideologies that perpetuate myths about the nature of language. Consequently, there still remain strong pockets of influential conservative and hegemonic forces that resist - in both subtle and overt ways - attempts at valuing and validating not only multilingualism as a normal state of being for the majority of people around the world but also the diversity of language practices and conceptualizations, what I call ignored lingualism. This article uses the concept of ignored lingualism to offer new theoretical insights that have the potential to overcome the monolingual mindset in language education policy. It adds to emerging scholarly theorizations of language that promote and value translanguaging, codemeshing, translingual practices, language as local practice, languages as creative linguistic practices, languages as plurilingual multimodal communication resources and languages as communicative resources. The article is pushing forward a more applied agenda to establish clear language education policies based on these contemporary understandings of language.