Introduction
Research into ideology in English language teaching (ELT) has focused on issues such as native-speakerism (Holliday, Reference Holliday2006), legitimate varieties and standards of English (Higgins, Reference Higgins2003), and the exporting of Western educational technology around the world (Widin, Reference Widin2010). However, ideologies are often camouflaged within so-called ‘common sense’ beliefs and discourses, and this can make them difficult for researchers to recognize, especially when the researchers themselves may be immersed in such discourses. This poster presentation described an approach, drawing on the concept of ‘frame analysis’ (Goffman, Reference Goffman1974), to help researchers explore ideologies within ELT research settings by making them more clearly visible.Footnote 1
Critical conceptions of ideology
Although Eagleton (Reference Eagleton2007) claims that no definition of ideology is suitably descriptive of all systems of thought that we might consider ideological, Thompson (Reference Thompson1984) has suggested that ideology can be broadly divided into two forms – neutral and critical. Neutral conceptions of ideology describe any cohesive sets of beliefs and ideas, while critical notions of ideology hold that ideologies are created and serve to maintain the interests of some kind of ruling class, and it is in the latter sense that I use the term here. Critical conceptions hold that ideology is omnipresent, but is hidden in the margins of social life. As Bouchard (Reference Bouchard2017) notes, ideologies can be dangerous precisely because they inhabit worldviews in which they ‘have become naturalized and relatively invisible’ (p. 72). This can make the recognition and study of ideology challenging for researchers, and thus it is necessary to produce tools for doing so.
Approaches to researching ideology in ELT
There are a number of different approaches that researchers take in investigating ideology in ELT and applied linguistics. These generally fall under the rubric of Critical Discourse Analysis (see Pennycook, Reference Pennycook2001 for an overview). However, of most interest for this proposal is Critical Ethnography, which Stanley (Reference Stanley2013) describes as an approach to ethnography which not only describes and explains but also attempts to ‘problematize the (inevitable/inherent) power relations’ and discourses that influence what is happening in a given research setting (p. 40). Ethnography provides rich and personal data that can be used to examine frames, while frames offer a way to view ideology, and thus the two complement one another.
Frames
‘Frames’ are a metaphor employed by the sociologist Erving Goffman in his 1974 book Frame analysis to describe the ways in which people interpret and build up understandings of interactions with others. Goffman employed the metaphor of frames to show how the context of interaction can affect the ways in which said interaction is interpreted by social actors; indeed, he refers to frames as ‘schemata of interpretation’ (p. 21). Frames can, then, be thought of as perceptual filters which guide how social actors interpret given situations. Goffman's metaphor has been developed subsequently by theorists in a number of different fields, including communication studies and social movement research, and it is in the latter that they have been most clearly connected to ideology, and the relationship between the two explored.
Frames and ideologies
While the terms ‘frame’ and ‘ideology’ have often been used interchangeably, attempts have been made to clarify their differences and the associations between them. Oliver and Johnston (Reference Oliver and Johnston2000) argue that ‘framing points to process, while ideology points to content’ (p. 37); in other words, people draw on ideologies in constructing their understandings of particular situations. This claim has been countered by Snow and Benford (Reference Snow and Benford2000), who see a more complex relationship in which ideology and frames are mutually reinforcing. A key point made by Snow and Benford (Reference Snow and Benford2000) is that unlike ideology, frames are empirically observable. Drawing on these two conceptions, I have elsewhere described framing as ‘a process whereby people draw on discourses to mobilise their ideological resources in meaning making’, with a dominant frame being a ‘perceptual filter (…) which a group of people in a particular local context use to organize and understand everyday experience’ (Lowe, Reference Loweforthcoming).
Frame analysis and ideology in ELT
On the basis of the foregoing discussion, I believe that frames can be of great use for exploring ideology. Frames are based on ideological presuppositions, but unlike ideologies, frames are empirically observable. As such, through analyzing frames we can work backwards to identify their ideological foundations. In this section I will outline the steps a researcher may take in conducting a frame analysis to explore ideology in ELT. I will also provide an example taken from a study focusing on native-speakerism in ELT (Lowe, Reference Loweforthcoming) so that readers can see how these steps may look in practice.
Step 1: Collect data
As mentioned previously, a frame analysis can perhaps best be used as a tool for conducting Critical Ethnography. Ethnographers work with rich data sets which include interviews, observations, field notes, and documents. In order to explore the frame a person (or group) is using to interpret a given situation, it is necessary for researchers to gather a rich set of data which they can analyse to identify frames.
For example: The following extract is taken from an interview with a ‘native speaker’ teacher in Japan (Lowe, forthcoming): [Japanese students struggle in communicative classes because] ‘they're being thrust into a situation where they need to give their opinion, and they're raised in a culture which has traditionally taught them to sit there and shut up and don't get in the way (…) [in this course we are] asking them to behave in a manner which is contrary to their entire cultural experience (…) our job is to get them to talk.’
Step 2: Identify the frame
Once the data has been collected, it is necessary to identify the frame. This does not necessarily mean naming or reconstructing the frame (although this can come later), but rather answering the question of how people are interpreting a given situation.
For example: In the quotation above, the participant is interpreting the situation in which he is working in an interesting way. He is saying that students in Japan struggle with communicative classes because of their previous schooling, and positions this as a problem which must be overcome by their Western (or Western-trained) teachers.Footnote 2
Step 3: Break the frame down into discourses
Once the frame has been identified, the researcher can begin the task of breaking the frame down into discourses. There will, in most situations, be a number of different discourses informing the interpretation of the situation on the part of the participant(s). The researcher can break the frame down into as many discourses as they are able to identify.
For example: The participant above can be seen to draw on the following discourses in interpreting his situation:
• Japanese students are passive and struggle with communicative methods.
• Japanese English education is a problematic ‘Other’.
• Western education (represented by the instructor and the course) is needed to ‘solve’ this ‘problem’.
Step 4: Trace the discourses back
Once the discourses have been separated out, the researcher can trace these discourses back to their ideological roots. To do so, the researcher must look at the discourses and try to identify some kind of ideological basis, most likely in the form of previous theory or literature. One key way of doing this is to look for salience among the discourses. One discourse pointing in a particular ideological direction may be suggestive, but if several of the identified discourses point in the same direction, it increases the likelihood that a particular ideology is informing the frame. It may be that the discourses do not all point in one particular direction, and it is the interaction of discourses which produces the particular framing in play.
For example: The three discourses identified above all seem to point in the same direction – labelling non-Western students and education systems as deficient, and introducing Western educational technology as the solution.
Step 5: Identify the ideology
The researcher should now be in a position to identify the ideology in operation in this research setting. By breaking the frame down into discourses, looking for salience among the discourses, and looking at where these discourses resonate with existing literature or theory, the researcher should be able to identify the foundational ideology which is in operation, and on which the framing is based.
For example: The discourses identified above would seem to point towards a hidden ideology of native-speakerism (Holliday, Reference Holliday2006), in which non-Western students and educational technology are contrasted negatively with Western methods and students, and Western methods are thus seen as necessary to ‘correct’ the ‘problems’ in other parts of the world.
Conclusion
In this presentation I proposed frame analysis as a tool for research into ideology in ELT. Through the analysis of ethnographic data, researchers can identify the empirically observable frame that participants are employing in their interpretation of situations and events. After breaking the frame down into its component discourses, researchers can look for salience between the discourses, and resonances with existing theory and research. Through this process, an approach to critical research which begins with the tangible interpretive frames of participants can help researchers to identify the intangible ideological foundations on which such frames are built. I hope that this brief sketch will encourage researchers to explore the possibilities frame analysis presents for those conducting critical research.
Supplementary material
The supplementary material for this article can be found at https://doi.org/10.1017/S0261444820000166
Robert Lowe is a lecturer in the Department of English Communication, Tokyo Kasei University. His research focuses on critical issues in English language teaching, particularly native-speakerism and related topics. He is co-author of the book Teaching English as a lingua franca: The journey from EFL to ELF with Marek Kiczkowiak (DELTA Publishing), and is a co-host of The TEFLology Podcast.
