Despite popular debate about the perceived threat of language diversity to U.S society, there is near-universal agreement among language education scholars about the legitimacy of minoritized linguistic practices.1 For example, there is widespread consensus among language education scholars that African American English is not an example of “bad” English but, rather, a legitimate variety of English that has a system of linguistic patterns comparable to Standard English (Delpit, 2006; Smitherman, 1977). Similarly, there is a growing body of research that illustrates the value of bilingual education that builds on, rather than erases, the home languages of immigrant children (Cummins, 2000). These scholars have critiqued prescriptive ideologies, which dictate that there is one correct way of using languages and arbitrarily privilege particular linguistic practices while stigmatizing others. Such critiques include a long history of studies establishing “the logic of nonstandard English” (Labov, 1969), the importance of valuing different communities’ “ways with words” (Heath, 1983), and the “funds of knowledge” that multilingual children bring to the classroom (Moll, Amanti, Neff, & Gonzalez, 1992).150
Building on these critical views of linguistic prescriptivism, scholars have called into question assimilationist approaches to language diversity (Cummins, 2000; Valenzuela, 1999). Specifically, these analysts have critiqued subtractive approaches to language education in which language-minoritized students are expected to replace their home language varieties with the standardized national language. 150
In contrast to subtractive approaches, many language education researchers and practitioners have embraced additive approaches that promote the development of standardized language skills while encouraging students to maintain the minoritized linguistic practices they bring to the classroom. Additive approaches attempt to reframe the problem of language diversity by emphasizing respect for the home linguistic practices of minoritized students while acknowledging the importance of developing standardized language skills. 150
Offering an example of how to challenge the white listening subject, Gloria Anzaldúa (1987), a Chicana lesbian feminist, theorizes her life and the lives of others in the borderlands through a joint critique of language ideologies that reify and police linguistic borders, on the one hand, and racial ideologies that reify and police boundaries of race and ethnicity on the other. She develops a theory of the “borderlands” as a challenge to monoglossic and racially hegemonic Euro-American understandings of the world. Anzaldúa’s argument parallels a critical heteroglossic perspective in that it critiques idealized monolingualism, which she argues is designed to marginalize borderlands populations. She positions the dynamic nature of the borderlands within epistemological ideals that challenge the universalizing discourse of the white gaze and explicitly and consciously refuse to conform to the monoglossic language ideologies of the white speaking subject. Yet, Anzaldúa is also well aware of the fact that no matter how she uses language, she will always be racialized by the white listening subject. Therefore, she explicitly refuses to embrace an appropriateness-based model of language and consciously uses language in ways that transgress the white supremacist status quo. She is aware of how she will always be heard and embraces this knowledge as a form of resistance to her racial subordination. 168