Raciolinguistic chronotopes in bilingual teacher candidates’ language portraits: A call for centering race in bilingual teacher education

ABSTRACT

This study explored 17 bilingual teacher candidates’ (bilingual TCs) representations of their lived experience of language via linguistic portraits. Specifically, attention was paid to the semiotic elements (space, place, time, and the body) these bilingual TCs employed and the ways this assemblage of elements formed raciolinguistic chronotopes. Analysis demonstrates that raciolinguistic chronotopes enabled bilingual TCs to portray their experiences of racialization as Spanish-English bilinguals in the United States. Analysis also shows the ways these TCs often vacillate between adhering to and challenging raciolinguistic ideologies. Findings have implications for how language portraits are utilized as a teacher learning tool in teacher education programs serving bilingual TCs of Latina/o descent. Keywords: language portraits, raciolinguistic chronotopes, racialization, teacher candidates, teacher education.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

The work was supported by the The International Research Foundation (TIRF) for English Language Education via a doctoral dissertation grant .

Notes on contributors

Christian Fallas-Escobar

Christian Fallas-Escobar self-identifies as a Latino, bilingual, language-in-education scholar who works at the intersection of critical applied linguistics and anthropology of education. His research centers on bilingual Latinas/os’s negotiation of identity at the nexus of language, race, and space/place, within multilingual/multicultural settings. His work examines language-related tensions within educational institutions, as well as how institutionalized language ideologies become reinscribed and contested in home/community spaces. He approaches this line of inquiry using critical ethnography and critical discourse analysis. He is an associate professor of applied linguistics at Universidad Nacional de Costa Rica, where he is involved in the preparation of English teachers.

Ryan W. Pontier

Ryan W. Pontier is an assistant professor of bilingual education and TESOL at Florida International University. His research interests include teachers’ instructional practices in support of multilingual students, teachers’ language ideologies, and the intersection of the two. He currently serves as Principal Investigator for a 5-year $2.5 M National Professional Development Grant from the Office of English Language Acquisition in the U.S. Department of Education.