Deleuze and Guattari: Language as a “Problem” EDUCLANG, 2018

1. Deleuze and Guattari: Language as a “Problem” EDUCLANG, 2018 Douglas Fleming PhD Faculty of Education

2. “Linguistics has done a lot of harm” (Deleuze, 1997, audio). • “The art of constructing a problem is very important: you invent a problem, a problem-position, before finding a solution” (Deleuze, 1997, audio). • There is no “inert system of self-identical norms. Instead, we find ourselves witnessing the ceaseless generation of language norms” (Voloshinov, 1986, 66).

3. Later today (1:30pm): Special symposium for the Chinese EFL teachers involved in the West China Project: professional development, decolonization and peace; • This talk: Using Deleuze and Guattari, how have principles in mainstream linguistics been countered in the work we do; • Background: the nature of language • Plato, Foucault, Frege, early/late Wittgenstein, Russell, Austin, Grice, Searle, Heidegger, Derrida, Grice, Habermas, Vygotsky.

4. The very discipline of linguistics got its start with Saussure’s (1906) notions of langue and parole, a distinction between the ways in which we concretely use language and its formal/abstract nature; There has been a subsequent privileging of langue (Lecercle, 2005) in an attempt to create the “science” of linguistics; Results in the fetishization (Marx) of standardised “grammarian” approaches to SLE; Into these debates steps Deleuze, who thought of language as a “problem” (Lecercle, 2002) to be explored.

5. Deleuze and Guattari’s (1993) criticised mainstream linguistics as assuming that the study of language: • is best done in ways that downplay any consideration of non-linguistic phenomenon: a scientifically-based discipline; • is concerned with a series of hierarchical functions based on representation and the unfettered and transparent exchange of information: power relations, ideology/politics are irrelevant; • conceives of language as an abstract and idealised system governed by sets of fixed rules that constitute a standard: the native speaker and universal grammar; • conceives of language change as advancing in a series of stable states: languages evolve and are self-contained.

6. D & G argued instead, that language is a series of materially-based heterogeneous mots d’ordre: “a collective assemblage of enunciation” (Deleuze & Guattari, 1993, 79); • NOT are a hierarchically organised and standardised set of biologically-derived rules that constitute statements of fact; • indelibly connected to other phenomena; • always meaning more than what the speaker intends; • has material force; • sets of sub-systems in constant flux and contention • historical (becoming); • partially organised and partially chaotic.

7. Echoes Halliday (1925-2018) systemic functional grammar; • As Lecercle (2002, 2005) summarises it, language is a “sedimentation of rules, maxims, and meanings, in which the history of a culture is inscribed” (p. 53); • This is at odds with many aspects of the current dominant model of language: Chomsky’s structural/ generative/ transformational linguistics; • Especially in terms of the notion of the “native speaker”.

8. As Stern (1983) once observed, while TESOL has greatly benefited from input from the disciplines of linguistics, psychology and sociology, the potential contributions from what he termed General Education Theory have not been embraced; • More recently, Davies (2007) has called this continued neglect of the concrete aspects of teaching evidence of “the dead hand of linguistics” (p.65). • In other words, “the abstract theories related to the first of these three disciplines has been strongly emphasized over the concrete concerns that by necessity make up the focus of the fourth” (Fleming, 2014, 1).

9. In countries like China, English instruction has been dominated by a grammar form-focused pedagogy and the memorization of structures provided by the language teacher (Zhang & Li, 2014). • However, a new educational reform is taking place where there has been a shift from a model of pedagogy based on traditional teaching approaches and transmission of content to a focus on student-centred approaches based on language learning and teaching through project work and tasks to be solved (Daguo & Edwards, 2013).

10. In order to implement the new curricular innovations and to improve the standards of teaching and learning English, the China Scholarship Council sends teachers abroad for three months to take professional development projects to English speaking countries, such as Australia, the USA, UK, New Zealand, and Canada. • Teachers reported benefits: • awareness of the existence of new teaching methods, sharing with colleagues; • dissemination; • implementation of activities that are more communicative in nature. (Daguo & Edwards, 2013)

11. They also reported challenges at the moment of implementing curricular innovations once back home: • anxiety and uncertainty; • lack of institutional support in rural areas; • effects on curriculum of standardised testing; • parental resistance; • overcrowded classes and limited resources (esp. IT); • centralized curricula using Beijing-based texts; • Low student motivation; • Low S-ES

12. The Project at uOttawa: • post-colonial approaches, critical lecture content and decentralized delivery; • curriculum developed in concert with the Chinese Scholarship Council, Beijing Language and Culture University and the Embassy of China in Ottawa; • delivered with the active participation of ILOB, the Catholic School Board and the Kitegan Zibi First Nation; • interview (individual and focus group) data; course assignments; survey data; blogs; WeChat; • we argue that it is important to operationalize theoretical constructs, such as the communicative approach to second language teaching, in relationship to local contexts.

13. the notion of the “native speaker”. • Leonard Bloomfield (1933), Chomsky(1965). • Recall: Deleuze and Guattari, argue that language is NOT are a hierarchically organised and standardised set of biologically-derived rules that supports the concept of universal standards associated with • sets up an impossible and monolingual ideal that represented most speakers of English as deficient (Cook,1997; Firth & Wagner,1997)

14. Reves and Medgyes (1994), have argued that “native” and “non-native” teachers both have their places in SLE • However, Nuzhat Amin (2000) clearly documented that non-native teachers of English (such as herself) are usually viewed as inferior to those considered native. • Phillipson (1992) went even further by attacking the very notion as a “fallacy" and has led to a hierarchy within the profession and linked to the discourse that English is owned by those born and raised within the linguistic mainstream of Anglo-American circle (Norton, 1997; Widdowson, 1994).

15. To counter the notion of the “native speaker”, we: • drew upon multilingual faculty; • adapted curricula to the unique professional and linguistic needs/goals of the Chinese teachers; • through lecture content, encouraged the participants to consider political and ideological implications; • through small group workshops and school visits, encouraged the participants to adapt modeled classroom practice to their own teaching contexts; • Emphasised practical, concrete and functional learning goals; • Deemphasized standard grammar and the goal of fluency.

16. What makes Deleuze and Guattari’s orientation valuable in this context? recall: Languages are sets of sub-systems in constant flux and contention (politics: minor and major); In other words, minoritalized languages and literatures are in opposition to major (standardised) forms in ways that are clearly political and ideological; In my opinion, augments/extends Lakoff, Halliday, Friere; Language is a “problem” to be explored.