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On (Not) Speaking English: Colonial Legacies in Language Requirements for British Citizenship

This article examines the colonial legacies shaping current language requirements for immigrants applying for settlement or citizenship in Britain. The article argues that common sense understandings of ‘national language’ and monolingualism/multilingualism were developed in the context of imperial...

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Published in:	Sociology (Oxford) 2018-12, Vol.52 (6), p.1254-1269
Main Author:	Fortier, Anne-Marie
Format:	Article
Language:	English
Subjects:	Applicants Audibility Bilingualism Citizenship Cohesion Colonialism Common sense English language Immigrants Language Monolingualism Multilingualism National languages Provinces Social cohesion Teaching World Englishes
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description	This article examines the colonial legacies shaping current language requirements for immigrants applying for settlement or citizenship in Britain. The article argues that common sense understandings of ‘national language’ and monolingualism/multilingualism were developed in the context of imperial expansion, the legacies of which resonate today in a disdain for multilingualism and other Englishes conceived as hampering cohesion. Put simply, other languages and other English are spoken here because English was there. Drawing on interviews with applicants and English teaching professionals, the article discusses how participants variously experience English language requirements. The analysis shows how the colonial legacies supporting the rise of English as a ‘world language’ cast it as the locus of a regime of audibility that establishes a hierarchy between ‘the English’ and the ‘anglicised’. In today’s Britain, the multilingualism of the other is not external and prior to Britain, but rather speaks volumes to and about contemporary Britain.
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source	International Bibliography of the Social Sciences (IBSS); JSTOR Archival Journals and Primary Sources Collection; Linguistics and Language Behavior Abstracts (LLBA); Sage Journals Online; Sociological Abstracts
subjects	Applicants Audibility Bilingualism Citizenship Cohesion Colonialism Common sense English language Immigrants Language Monolingualism Multilingualism National languages Provinces Social cohesion Teaching World Englishes
title	On (Not) Speaking English: Colonial Legacies in Language Requirements for British Citizenship
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