Introduction
In some Asia-Pacific countries, English is neither an ethnic heritage nor a colonial legacy. The dominant position of English can also be a result of it being the common language for worldwide communication. The superiority of the English language in such countries manifests itself in language policy and national curricula which leads to a frantic pursuit of English. An educational trend in China, Japan, Taiwan, and Vietnam is to start English instruction early to give children an edge in second language acquisition. A rationale used for this is the positive relationship between a nation's international competiveness and the English language competence of its citizens (Baldauf & Nguyen, Reference Baldauf, Nguyen and Spolsky2013; Hu, Reference Hu2009; Park, Reference Park2009). One example of a nationwide English learning movement is ‘the-earlier-the-better’ in Taiwan. To win elections, electoral candidates used to propose English instruction to be available at Grade 1 (age of 6) although the Ministry of Education ruled for Grade 5 (age of 10) to be the year for English to be introduced (Chang, Reference Chang2009). Another example of early English learning is overseas study in South Korea. Young children are sent to North America to receive long-term education so that they can learn to speak English without a Korean accent (Song, Reference Song2010).
It is problematic to take the view that the choices made by governments and individuals can alone disseminate English. Cultural, economic, and sociopolitical factors co-contribute to this linguistic phenomenon (Pennycook, Reference Pennycook2001). Phillipson's Linguistic Imperialism (Reference Phillipson1992) explains how English was exported by Great Britain and the United States to achieve their commercial and diplomatic interests. Piller and Takahashi (Reference Piller, Takahashi and Pavlenko2006) suggest that the interest in learning English among many Japanese women in their twenties is constructed through a media discourse that romanticizes English learning. Japanese women enjoy English because this learning process is similar to developing a romantic relationship with a gentle, white, and native speaker of English (Piller & Takahashi, Reference Piller, Takahashi and Pavlenko2006). The ubiquity of English connotes more than a lingua franca. English is accepted because of a belief in its potential benefits and in the higher status attributed to its speakers (Ferguson, Reference Ferguson and Spolsky2013; Tsui & Tollefson, Reference Tsui and Tollefson2007). In these contexts, English carries connotations of power.
Levinson et al. (Reference Levinson, Sutton and Winstead2009) note that the choice of what language to learn by whom and why should be conceptualized as a ‘practice of power’. Language learning is a social act. While acquiring a linguistic system, language learners adopt behaviors, values, and relations associated with the language. In this sense, research on English as an international language should trace how its power operates within layers of human networks. One way to examine this process is through using ethnographic methods, such as interview studies. Interview studies provide a situated and in-depth account of what people do and why they do it (Levinson et al., Reference Levinson, Sutton and Winstead2009; McCarty, Reference McCarty and McCarty2011). In the current paper, I am presenting results of my study in which I used interview data to analyze the power of English. More specifically, I explore what English learning means to college students in Taiwan.
Theoretical framework
This study applies the concept of Foucaultian power to theorize the dominance of English and its effects on individuals. Foucault's notion of power has two features. The first one is pervasiveness. Power is neither centralized nor unidirectional. It is ‘employed and exercised through a net-like organization’ (Foucault, Reference Foucault1980: 89) and is a ‘capillary form of existence’ (Foucault, Reference Foucault1980: 39). Rather than operating in a singular, top-down direction, power prevails at many levels of the social. The second characteristic of power is productivity. According to Foucault (Reference Foucault1980: 119), ‘what makes power hold good, what makes it accepted, is simply the fact that it does not only weigh on us as a force that says no, but that it traverses and produces things, it induces pleasure, forms knowledge’. The importance of this view is what power does beyond suppression. Power seduces people with advantages, so that they comply with its imposition.
The concept of Foucaultian power offers several insights into the spread of English. First, Foucault's concept of power allows this study to shift attention away from one unitary force to myriad local ones. To illustrate, Ferguson (Reference Ferguson and Spolsky2013) notes that the political force of Great Britain and the United States should not be perceived as the only cause to spread English. He argues that the diffusion of English is a collective action that is not limited to governments, families, and educational institutions. An analysis must be located in the regional spaces in which English is normalized and reaches individuals. Additionally, productivity makes the power of English concrete. It is embodied in various forms, such as compulsory curriculum, medium of instruction, or hiring criterion, and it functions as a gatekeeper to distinguish people who have English competence from those who lack it.
Last but not least, Foucault connects power with the role of an individual. Power matters as individuals are situated within its circulation and production. Power ‘inserts itself into [individuals'] attitudes, their discourses, learning processes, and everyday lives’ (Foucault, Reference Foucault1980: 39). That is, to examine power is to study individuals who are ‘an effect of power’ (p. 98) through which it articulates. In this context, in my research I explore beliefs and attitudes underlying the choice of English learning, made by those who are ‘an effect of power’, i.e. the college students.
Research methods
The fieldwork for the study was conducted at Southern College (SC) in Taiwan . This institute, which has a nationwide reputation for its English-medium language education provides day and evening education, with evening classes held from 18:30 to 22:00. One reason for students to choose evening education is that it offers an opportunity for professional development for those who work during the day. In the daytime system, students in all majors must pass the College Student Proficiency English Test at a level equivalent to the B1 threshold of the Common European Framework of References for Languages. However, this policy is not mandatory for the evening education students. College diplomas are not granted to students who fail to achieve the benchmark. Alternatives to meeting the graduation requirements are taking remedial English courses and other commercial English testing.
I chose to collect data from this setting because I was an instructor at SC and it was convenient for me to conduct research there. Additionally, SC was a setting in which one's competence of English was valued via, for instance, establishing the English benchmark and English-medium instruction. As I wanted to find out the college students’ general views on and reasons for learning English, I carried out semi-structured interviews: ‘Interviewing is a powerful way to gain insight into educational issues through understanding the experience of the individuals whose lives constitute education’ (Seidman, Reference Seidman1998: 7). Kvale and Brinkmann (Reference Kvale and Brinkmann2009) note that the qualitative interview aligns with postmodernism, which views knowledge as socially constructed. What one says and experiences is mediated by ‘some background or context of other meanings, beliefs, values, practices’ (Schwandt, 2000, cited by Kvale & Brinkmann, Reference Kvale and Brinkmann2009: 51).
I interviewed twelve students: three males and nine females. This sample size is recommended by Onwuegbuzie and Collins (Reference Onwuegbuzie and Collins2007) for qualitative interview research. However, Seidman (1998) disagrees with the idea of establishing a specific number of participants for qualitative interviews. He asserts that ‘a relatively few participants’ can ‘give enormous power to stories’ when they have common experiences (Seidman, 1998: 48). He maintains that when the interviewer finds information to be repeated across interviews, the number of participants is sufficient. Three of the twelve participants were freshmen, majoring in English in the evening program. The other participants were juniors in the day education division. At the time of the interview, none of these students had passed the graduation requirements. Note that in this paper, the names and places of participants are anonymised. Each interview lasted for approximately 60–120 minutes.
Semi-structured interviews conducted in 2013 in Mandarin Chinese were audiotaped and fully transcribed. The interviews were translated into English by the researcher. Interview questions focused on the participants' experiences of English learning, including their reasons for learning it, their perceptions regarding the role of English, and the ways in which English mediated their lives, both in and out of school. The interviews were iteratively reviewed and synthesized. Then, they were coded as segments, such as the English learning experience or familial influences to explain the importance and relevance of each code to the conceptual framework (Miles & Humberman, Reference Miles and Huberman1994).
King and Horrocks (Reference King and Horrocks2012) argue that discussing the theoretical foundation of the research and acknowledging the role of the researcher allows transparency in the interview data collection and analysis. To this end, I provide a brief overview of my own positioning within the study. I taught these interviewees for a year, and I had many opportunities to talk about their English learning. While these students actively participated in class and fulfilled the course requirements, I observed tensions regarding their English ability to meet the threshold of SC.
Results
The discussion of results is organized into three subsections, each representing a different aspect of the interview findings. The first subsection presents the students' comments on why they learned English. The next section discusses the manner in which the pervasive power of English was present. It examines how English learning was porous, operating in both the personal and public spheres. The third subsection addresses the productive power of English, particularly with respect to the ways in which English created interest and the marginalization that affected the students' choices to invest in learning English.
Reasons for learning English
With the exception of Leo, who was in his 50s, all the students had learned English as a compulsory subject in primary school. Their early access to English education was reflected in their perceptions of English language learning as habitual. They tended to falter when responding to questions about reasons for learning English and why it mattered.
Excerpt (1)
Researcher: Have you ever asked yourself why you have learned English?
Anna: Well, never. Everybody learns English. My classmates learn English, and so do I… I don't know why English learning has become very important… Is it because the United States is very powerful (laughing)?
Excerpt (2)
Dana: Everyone said that children should learn English. I think English is an international language, isn't it?
Excerpt (3)
Gina: I get used to viewing English as an international language. Learning Chinese is too difficult for foreigners… and English seems to become an international language.
English learning was part of the students' lives and became normal, so the students found it difficult to explain why they were learning English.
The pervasive power of English
This section discusses how the power of English learning permeated the personal and public spheres of the students.
Family
In the students' reflections on how they had started learning English, parents or legal guardians were reported to have played key roles in reinforcing English knowledge as a source of human capital. The students recalled that their parents had attributed their constrained social positions to their own lack of competence in English. These parents viewed English learning as necessary for ensuring their children’s social mobility. Becky provided an example. The mechanical company in which her father worked had recently been merged with an American company, with the goal of international expansion. Her father's lack of English skills had prevented him from being promoted to a managerial position and from having overseas opportunities. Nevertheless, he was the most senior member in his department.
Before she was transferred from a rural primary school to an urban one, Carina's aunt had sent her to an English learning institute. Her aunt's decision had been influenced by her own success in her job as a nurse, where she was considered highly efficient. Her solid knowledge of medical English allowed her to effectively communicate with doctors. Thus, she perceived that Carina would not be able to excel academically without similarly strong English knowledge. Ken's father recognized that his company would not be able to implement its business plans in Vietnam without using English as a means of communication. Ken stated that, as long as he maintained good grades in English, his father would not reprimand him for failing other subjects. Similarly, Ivy recounted her mother's firm belief in English learning, which was based on the perception that many of her mother's siblings had better lives in the United States than she herself had in Taiwan. Ivy's mother thus believed that proficiency in English would ensure her daughter had a more promising future. One common feature of the interviewees' stories was the beliefs of their parents, who had provided them with years of private and expensive English study.
Peers
Because of the SC policy of placing students into English courses of different levels, the levels at which students and their peers were studying was a topic of conversation. While some of the interviewees admitted that they felt slightly embarrassed by their placement in lower-level English courses, they always framed peer competition as a positive force that motivated them to make more effort to learn English. The students said that their friends practiced English in their daily lives (such as watching English films without subtitles, working at pubs where foreigners were frequent visitors, or writing diaries in English). One common perspective shared by the interviewees was a belief that these strategies would prepare them for a future that might require knowledge of English.
Daily life
The interviewees illustrated the role of English in their lives. James, who worked at McDonald's, sometimes took orders in English from foreign customers. Fiona noted that many textbooks in her department of Business Administration were in English. While the faculty lectured in Mandarin Chinese to help students comprehend the content, the students were required to complete exams written in English. Because one of the goals of the SC was to promote internationalization, quite a few international students and scholars were on campus. Students could apply for international buddies, with whom they engaged in language practice and participated in cross-cultural activities. For Carina, being an international buddy made her feel as though she were abroad communicating in English. Ivy took Thai and Korean courses that were taught by professors from Thailand and Korea. However, the medium of instruction was English. The Thai professor even said that English was more useful than knowing Thai for backpackers in Thailand:
Excerpt (4)
Ivy: My Thai teacher speaks English fluently. He doesn't know Chinese. He speaks English so fast. I can't even follow him. It is sometimes difficult to communicate with him. Once I wanted to ask if he could teach nursery rhymes in Thai, I stuttered… my broken English ‘Huh. Please… me’. I barely completed my request.
The ubiquity of English was embodied in students' accounts of how they started learning English and where they used it.
The productive power of English
This section reports on how the power of English constructed the students' understandings of English learning.
Repression
Learning English brought about negative consequences. For example, some of the interviewees had been denied opportunities, e.g., internships, solely because their English scores were below the graduating threshold. They reported feeling anxiety about not achieving the college requirement by the time they graduated. Given SC's reputation for producing college graduates who were competent English users, the students reported that they could not bear the acclaimed title of being SC students. The conflict that existed between the students' actual levels of English knowledge and the image of SC led to uncertainty and pressure. Anna, Becky, Carina, Emily, Fiona, Gina, Hilary, and James expressed reluctance and awkwardness when people asked them where they were studying. They were annoyed by the compliment that usually followed: ‘You are an SC student. Your English must be so good’.
Some of the students felt stressed and demotivated because studying English required extraordinary effort. However, their proficiency in English did not reflect their extensive years of learning. They acquiesced that their hardworking attitudes toward learning English had gradually eroded as their English courses had become increasingly difficult with large quantities of vocabulary, esoteric grammatical rules, or inadequate teachers. Emily even became emotional when talking about the feelings of being trapped in English learning.
Excerpt (5)
Emily: I had private English lessons to learn grammar. There were too many of these. All vocabulary looked alike…I was getting more and more confused, so I quit… (weeping). I was desperate. But I was unable to quit, I had to pass my college entrance exam. I felt so… extremely miserable… (weeping) painful. I hate English.
Leo detailed how the shrinking domestic market in Taiwan had served to expand the scope of English language practice in the workplace, in addition to influencing both policy and differential benefits coverage. His company had expanded its global plans to include the UAE and South Asia. The contract for newly hired employees specified the requirement to submit their TOEIC scores within three months of the hiring date. If they did not, the employer would not be obligated to pay their full salary, and the employees would retain the status of contract workers. English test scores were included as part of the performance review, which determined whether an employee's ability reflected the demands of the position.
Pleasure and benefit
Even though English learning demanded an extraordinary amount of time and energy, the high status of English generated a sense of accomplishment in those who could speak it. For some, such feelings of success were purely psychological, while for others, they were accompanied by tangible rewards. Many students genuinely enjoyed describing situations where they had spoken English with international travelers and residents. Their ability to use English had elevated their status. For instance, James illustrated that taking orders in McDonald's was usually dull. Only when he used English to fulfill the customer's request did it give him a sense of pride and made him the center of attention.
Fiona's accountancy professor encouraged her to pass the English requirement in her senior year because the graduating threshold of English scores represented one's minor in English. Ken went backpacking in the summer of 2011 and he traveled to the west coast of the United States. Ken described his experience in the following way: ‘It was fun. I booked hotels and planned the trips in English. I did everything by myself’. Additionally, Hilary's father made her dream vacation come true when she was accepted into her ideal high school. She went to Seattle for two months. Dana's parents would pay for her study in the United States if her TOEFL score met the English proficiency admission requirement. Leo emphasized that a TOEIC score of at least 500 would offer a fast track to managerial promotion, which was applicable even for those applicants with a mediocre job performance.
Discussion
The concept of Foucaultian power demonstrates the power of English that is exercised within institutions. The students' perceptions of learning English as habitual and normal should be elucidated, with the analysis going beyond the role of English in compulsory curriculums. The importance of English permeates within every site of social life, ranging from the private space of the family and circle of friends to the public sphere of education. The participants of this study have been socialized into the symbolic meaning of English competence whereby it dictates educational opportunity and employment mobility. For instance, achieving the English benchmark was high-staking, which determined whether or not one could graduate from college. Palpable rewards that English can bring are relevant to another feature of Foucault's power, i.e. productivity. The students stated that one's English skill gave access to traveling or cross-cultural communication. English is widespread since people consent to attaining English as a worthwhile endeavor. Above all, the students' assumptions about a fluent speaker of English who has a higher-paying career and an aura of internationality are not imaginary. In a statistical study on language skills and status attainment in Taiwan, Tsai (Reference Tsai2010) concludes that English proficiency can contribute more to advancement in socioeconomic status than Mandarin proficiency. Moreover, the status of English is parallel to Bourdieu's notion of linguistic capital, in which English is deemed as equating to global literacy (Hu, Reference Hu2009; Tsui & Tollefson, Reference Tsui and Tollefson2007). English viewed as currency should be accumulated for one's access to a globalized market.
Importantly, Foucault reminds us that power is paradoxical. Learning English involves pleasure together with frustration. The participants of this study discussed dilemmas due to enormous investment in fostering English and the prestige in using it. This emotional clash is examined by Motha and Lin (Reference Motha and Lin2014) who theorize desire as being the core of English learning. Desire is an act of pursuing an object. What is worthy of attaining is characterized with values and specific world views. Therefore, desire ‘can never been fulfilled’ (Motha & Lin, Reference Motha and Lin2014: 337). The object that English language learners yearn to acquire is English competence. Nevertheless, its legitimacy ‘is always a socially situated matter […] and evaluated within specific relations of power’ (Park, Reference Park2011: 444). Piller and Takahashi (Reference Piller, Takahashi and Pavlenko2006) found that oppression still persists when Japanese women fulfill their desire to study in Australia. A new desire - interaction and friendship with locals - is yet to be satisfied due to their insufficient English skills. Park (Reference Park2011) reports that South Koreans' English is never good enough. Corporates prefer conducting interviews in English to screen candidates who obtain high TOEIC scores but cannot speak English, since a written-based exam has been criticized for failing to index one's communicative ability. In this research on the power of English, the students were oppressed by the fact that criteria to evaluate their English proficiency were constantly shifting and contextual. While one's competence when used for traveling or a server's job can be validated, the students are forced to conform to standards for English competence as determined by institutions, such as the English threshold, and live up to the reputation of SC students. Chasing English relentlessly generates conflict and struggle.
Conclusion
This study examines the power of English by exploring why individuals learn English. Foucault (Reference Foucault1980) has illuminated tracing power through the lens of the individual since power exists within the human body and affects one's behavior and cognition. English learning is never a neutral act. The power of English diffuses across the personal and public domains in which individuals transfer its effects. For example, this study demonstrates that the parents of the interviewees experienced how English competence affected their job prospects, and this experience led to their emphasis on their children's English education. This attitude of favoritism toward English had influenced their children to accept the importance of English.
Additionally, the power of English is ambivalent. English learning can be attractive because profits may be yielded for those who master English. Meanwhile, people are oppressed while attaining legitimate English competence. Without achieving the English threshold for the college entrance exam, graduation, or job requirements, one's existing competence in English seems to have limited value. Nevertheless, the limitation of this study is that only students were interviewed. Future research can recruit participants with different positions, e.g., administrators, parents, and employers.
English language educators and practitioners may not be aware that their everyday teaching exerts linguistic hegemony on students. Power circulates and teachers are part of it and ‘in the position of simultaneously undergoing and exercising this power’ (Foucault, 1989: 98). Institutions define what counts as good English competence, with which pedagogical objectives are aligned. Motha and Lin (Reference Motha and Lin2014) suggest a critical consciousness is needed to interrogate the power of English. We should help students explore their pursuit of English that is socially constituted. While English learning, particularly the resulting outcomes, would affect the students' lives to varying degrees, the English competence that they seek to develop should be examined. Teachers can discuss how to set goals and what alternatives are available to minimize the negative impacts of English learning. To tackle the power of English is to make explicit the relationship between individual choices and the sociopolitical conditions in which these choices occur.
Acknowledgements
I really appreciate for the generosity and willingness of all the student participants to tell me their stories. I also thank Eva Li for transcribing every interview of this project and Suhantie Motha for her reference on desire.
I-CHEN HUANG is an Assistant Professor in the Department of English at the Wenzao Ursuline University of Languages, Taiwan. She received her doctoral degree from the College of Education, University of Washington, Seattle, USA. Her research interests and publications are related to identity, sociocultural theory, and English language education. Email: 98032@mail.wzu.edu.tw
