Critical language awareness, heritage learners, and (non)dynamic language ideologies in a Spanish in the US course

Abstract

Given exposure to hegemonic language ideologies from multiple sources and actors in larger society, a key component of critical language awareness (CLA) pedagogy is to raise students’ critical consciousness about them. Therefore, the present study examines how seven Spanish heritage language speakers’ language ideologies influence their linguistic self-conceptualization before and after taking a CLA-informed course on Spanish in the US. The results provide evidence that most participants either questioned dominant language ideologies (e.g., monoglossic and standard language) when it came to conceptualizing their own Spanish or directly challenged them in their daily lives after completing the course. However, some participant reflections expressed hegemonic language ideologies at the end of the semester, which mirrors findings from previous research that measure critical awareness post-instruction.