“Null-subjectivities”, language and learning: We need to disturb meaningfulness

Abstract

In this study we explore the harmful impacts of understandings of languages as pure categories, especially for marginalized groups (BAUMAN; BRIGGS 2003; MAKONI; PENNYCOOK, 2007; MOITA LOPES, 2013). In dialogue with narratives produced by Filhos, a student of a pre-university course for young people and adults from popular classes, we reflect on the performative effects of modernist views of language, especially the English language. Our data was generated in an interview with Filhos, in which she reconstructs her academic trajectory of socialization (WORTHAM, 2015). Our analytical interest focuses on such a reconstruction, which we approach according to the orders of indexicality (BLOMMAERT, 2005; 2009; 2010) at play. The results point out that the modernist linguistic ideology revitalized by Filhos during the micro-situated event she participated in contributes to position her as a subjectivity that is void of legitimate knowledges and incapable of acting in the English-speaking world. We conclude by discussing the possible gains for historically excluded and stigmatized groups of what we term “pedagogy of mixtures.”