The discursive (mis)representation of English language proficiency

International students in the Australian media

Bibliographic Data

ID21458349
AuthorsAgnes Bodis (0000-0003-4792-3315, Macquarie University, corresponding author)
Year2021
Volume44
Issue1
Pages37-64
Publication date2021-03-31
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueAustralian Review of Applied Linguistics (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0155-0640 • E-ISSN: 1833-7139
PublisherJohn Benjamins Publishing Company (PUBLISHER • NL)
DOI10.1075/aral.19039.bod
OpenAlexW3024649918
LanguageEN
Citations received7
References cited36

International education constitutes a key industry in Australia and international students represent a third of university students at Australian universities. This paper examines the media representation of international students in terms of their English language proficiency. The study applies Critical Discourse Analysis to the multimodal data of an episode of a current affairs TV program, Four Corners , and social media comments made to the episode. Using Social Actor Analysis, the study finds that the responsibility for declining standards at universities is assigned to international students through representations of their language use as problematic. This is supported by the visual representation of international students as different. By systematically mapping out the English-as-a-problem discourse, the paper finds that the media representation of language proficiency and language learning is simplistic and naïve and the social media discussion reinforces this. This further contributes to the discursive exclusion of international students

Critical discourse analysis · Discourse analysis · Language proficiency · Linguistics · Pedagogy · Political science · Sociology · Discourse Analysis in Language Studies · Law · Multilingual Education and Policy · Second Language Learning and Teaching

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