Undoing Competence

Coloniality, Homogeneity, and the Overrepresentation of Whiteness in Applied Linguistics

Bibliographic Data

ID3168472
AuthorsNelson Flores (0000-0003-3864-7806, University of Pennsylvania, corresponding author), J Rosa (0000-0003-4794-0537, Stanford University)
Year2023
Volume73
IssueS2
Pages268-295
Publication date2023-12-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueLanguage Learning (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0023-8333 • E-ISSN: 1467-9922
PublisherWiley (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1111/lang.12528
OpenAlexW4307715296
LanguageEN
Citations received78
References cited81

Conceptualizations of competence that permeate applied linguistics systematically fail to account for the role of racialization in language learning and assessments thereof. To interrogate the racialization of linguistic competence, we first examine its discursive emergence in conjunction with the ideological construction of linguistic homogeneity as central to the naturalization of race within the context of European colonialism. We then track how ideas about linguistic competence took shape jointly with a genre of the human that is overrepresented as white, as well as how this particular genre of the human informed foundational conceptualizations of communicative competence. After analyzing relevant examples of how communicative competence has been taken up in ways that reify this racializing ideology, we end with an alternative conceptualization of the goals of language learning that focuses on the worldviews and lifeways of racialized communities to move beyond universalizing conceptions of competence as the desired outcome

Communicative competence · Competence (human resources) · Conceptualization · Epistemology · Ideology · Linguistics · Political science · Race (biology) · Racialization · Sociology · EFL/ESL Teaching and Learning · Gender Studies · Multilingual Education and Policy · Philosophy · Psychology · Second Language Learning and Teaching · Social Psychology

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