What are you evaluating?: the social representations embedded in the evaluation of english as a second language

Abstract

The present research critically analyzes the evaluation of the performance of English as a Second Language from the view point of Linguistic Anthropology. The goal of this study is to describe and distinguish attitudes, ideologies and social representations different social actors have regarding the evaluations of performance of English of Michelle Bachelet in one of her interviews in this language, in order to understand the political and social backgrounds behind English teaching and assessing in Chile. This implies that the cultural models that serve as base for the evaluations are not based on pure linguistics but rather on the politics of identity and how we identify ourselves regarding others. For this purpose, 6 Chilean citizens with varying degrees of English expertise were interviewed in order to characterize the salient social representations and language ideologies. The results suggest that in the evaluation of performance Nativespeakerism, Linguistic Imperialism and The Standard Language Ideologies are very present in the „formal aspect‟ that search for the „correct‟ (standard) use of the language, in considering having an accent as an disadvantage and relating a „good‟ performance of the language to socio-political features of the speaker.