Page 176 - Beyond Methods

164 Fostering language awareness
guage plays in shaping and reshaping human lives. In addition, as van Lier (1996) rightly points out, they also dissipated their energy by indulging in endless arguments about the importance of phon- ics (as American educators did), or the imposition of “standard English” (as their British counterparts did).
I am not suggesting that the work on general language awareness has been useless or unnecessary, only that it has been insufficient. In other words, in spite of their lofty ideals about creating aware- ness of language and its potential to liberate the human mind, sup- porters of general language awareness shied away from sociopo- litical aspects of language, especially aspects of the relationship between language and power. A widespread dissatisfaction with the limitations of the general language awareness movements led to the emergence of another school of thought that emphasizes what is called critical language awareness.
Critical Language Awareness
The principles and practices of Critical Language Awareness (CLA) can be traced to the contributions made by, among others, Norman Fairclough (1992, 1995) and his colleagues in Britain, and later by Allan Luke (1996, 1997) and his colleagues in Australia. Without dis- missing the basic linguistic and sociolinguistic aspects of general language awareness, advocates of CLA seek to consider the sociopo- litical nature of language use as well. They particularly wish to ac- knowledge and act upon the fact that language, any language, is im- plicitly linked to the exercise of power. Therefore, given that “power relations work increasingly at an implicit level through language, and given that language practices are increasingly targets for interven- tion and control, a critical awareness of language is a prerequisite for effective citizenship, and democratic entitlement” (Fairclough, 1995, p. 222).
Like critical pedagogists (see Chapter 1), CLA advocates, too, as- sert that a critical awareness of the word is essential to develop a critical awareness of the world. They also see language education as a prime source for sensitizing learners to social inequalities that confront them and for developing necessary capabilities for address- ing those inequalities. CLA, therefore, should be fully integrated not only with the development of language practices across the curricu-