User:Sorenhogberg/Hornberger

Reflections on Hornberger, Nancy (2003) Bilingual Education

The nine different continua on biliteracy presented by Nancy H. Hornberger give us a rich understanding of the complexity involved when trying to figure out good ways to stimulate individuals to learn a first, second, third etc. language. But from the work presented we get to know that there aren’t hardly any definite answers to capture. Children, adolescences and adults learn languages successfully in such different circumstances that trying to find the best of ways becomes an inappropriate aim. Nevertheless by trying to understand the complexity with the help of the nine different continua, complemented by an additional three, Hornberger and Ellen Skilton-Sylvester in a convincing way presents a way of using them as analytical instruments to scrutinize educational research, policies as well as teaching activities from a critical perspective. The point of departure can be described as critical pedagogy, critical realism, critical literacy, critical discourse analysis, and related fields. By understanding each end of every continuum as being either traditionally less powerful or traditionally more powerful, the notion of power makes it possible to interpret when and to whom agency and voice are given in a bilingual context. Four aspects of biliteracy; context, development, content and media are described with the help of three continua for each one of them. Through the construction of four different three-dimensional figures we are able to evaluate four aspects of biliteracy, each in a complex indiscrete way. This way of approaching reality reminds us of intersectionality or at least a multi-perspective way of biliteracy.

The critical perspective gives analysis on biliteracy a mission to strengthen:

1. micro, oral and bilingual contexts when macro, literate and monolingual are dominating,

2. the development of reception, oral and first language when production, written and second language are dominating,

3. minority, vernacular and contextualized content when majority, literary and decontextualized content are dominating and

4. media of simultaneous exposure, dissimilar structures and divergent scripts when successive exposure, similar structures and convergent scripts are dominating in media.

The comprehensive work of creating an instrument for analyzing bilingual consequences in society is of great importance if we with a critical perspective as a point of departure want to strengthen the voices for those that due to their spoken language/s become marginalized. It’s a question of giving people possibility to participate in communities of practice, to strengthen agency. Agency and voice are central to empowerment!

The critical perspective gets its meaning from the knowledge created out of analysis of bilingualism. When for instance teachers in schools plan their daily activities it’s essential to understand that the notion of intelligence always is related to the possibilities of understanding the discourse, the possibilities of accepting the conditions of the discourse and the possibilities to change these conditions.