Applied Linguistics and Language

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 Applied Linguistics and
Language Teaching in the
Neo-Nationalist Era
Edited by
Kyle McIntosh
Applied Linguistics and Language Teaching
in the Neo-Nationalist Era
 Kyle McIntosh
Editor

Applied Linguistics
and Language
Teaching in the
Neo-Nationalist Era
Editor
Kyle McIntosh
Department of English and Writing
University of Tampa
Tampa, FL, USA

ISBN 978-3-030-56549-7 ISBN 978-3-030-56550-3 (eBook)

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-56550-3

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature
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 This book is dedicated to the memory of Jean Babb (1922–2006), a
public-school teacher and literacy specialist who spent part of every summer
driving her grandson around the United States in an AMC hatchback so
that he could learn more about the history of this nation. She never shied
away from talking to him about the terrible atrocities that had been
committed in its name, while also pointing out the many great things it had
accomplished. I still miss you, Grandma.
 Preface

This edited volume explores how resurgent nationalism across the globe
demands a re-examination of many of the theories and practices in
applied linguistics and language teaching as political forces seek to limit
the movement of people, goods, and services across national borders
and, in some cases, enact violence upon those with linguistic and/or
ethnic backgrounds that differ from that of the dominant culture. Some
questions that this book addresses are: How does rising dissatisfaction
with globalization affect public perceptions of second or foreign language
learning and learners? How are nationalist ideologies reflected in teaching
practices, textbooks, educational policies, and public debates? Could neo-
nationalism in some countries be seen as a corrective to the hegemony of
the English language and Anglo-American power? How might the fields
of applied linguistics and language teaching reaffirm a commitment to
multilingualism and multiculturalism in the face of rising nationalism
without sounding like apologists for neoliberal globalization? To address
these questions and others, the authors in this volume have provided
their careful analysis of nationalist discourses and actions in disparate
contexts: from Africa to East Asia, Europe to the Middle East, and in

vii
viii Preface

North and South America. These authors offer unique historical and
cultural perspectives, as well as practical responses, to the fraught political
situations with which many language educators and policymakers must
now contend.
Following an introduction by Kyle McIntosh in Chapter 1, which
provides background on the rise of neo-nationalism and the dilemmas
that this political shift poses for the related fields of applied linguistics
and language teaching, the remainder of the volume is divided into two
parts: “Policies” and “Practices.” Of course, these two facets of our profes-
sional lives can never be totally separated, as policy always informs prac-
tice, and vice versa. Nevertheless, the chapters included in each section
tend to lean more in one direction than the other.
Part I focuses mainly on the ways in which neo-nationalist ideolo-
gies influence language-in-education policies in both the political and
public realms. As Bryan Meadows notes in Chapter 2, “From the begin-
ning, language has played a central role in the ideology of nationalism”
(p. 19). To see how this ideology is evolving in the United States today,
Meadows examines arguments in support of the so-called “English-Only”
movement. Through critical discourse analysis, he exposes monolingual
models of education as a form of border maintenance that attempts
to control who belongs in the country and who does not. While the
push to make English the U.S.’s official language has been stymied at
the federal level, it has been more successful on state and local levels.
Meadows finds evidence to suggest that the anti-immigration policies of
the Trump administration are reinvigorating those who view bilingual
education as a threat to their vision of a linguistically, culturally, and
ethnically homogenous nation.
While English is the dominant language in the United States, regard-
less of its official status, and commands a great deal of attention—and
criticism—worldwide as a lingua franca, it can also be marginalized,
especially when saddled with the complex legacies of colonialism, as
Bernard Ndzi Ngala reveals in Chapter 3. His fascinating account of the
“Anglophone crisis” in Cameroon, where the dominance of the French-
speaking majority in legal and educational domains has sparked protests
and violence among the English-speaking minority, clearly illustrates
how difficult it can be to maintain equality in a multilingual society.
 Preface ix

Meanwhile, in Chapter 4, Fatima Esseili looks at preemptive measures

taken by the government of the United Arab Emirates to prevent social
unrest and to promote unity in a country where the expatriate majority
has been excluded from many aspects of social and political life. She
then contrasts these moves toward a more inclusive, civic nationalism
with efforts by the ruling Emirati minority to protect their language and
culture from threats posed by globalization and the spread of English.
From these chapters, we begin to see just how fraught and fragile the
“imagined political community” (Anderson, 1983, p. 6) of the nation
can be in the face of perceived danger.
In many instances, neo-nationalism stands in opposition to the unfet-
tered movement of people, goods, and services promoted by neoliber-
alism, but it may also be used to disguise it, as Marlon Valencia and
Isabel Tejada Sánchez point out in Chapter 5 with their conversation
about the politics of language in Colombia. They note how, despite the
failure of a national program to promote Spanish–English bilingualism
and the unfulfilled promise of prosperity for all, the current right-wing
government, brought to power in part as a response to the crisis in neigh-
boring Venezuela, continues to promote self-motivated entrepreneurship
as a means of strengthening the country. In Chapter 6, Dat Bao and
Le-Ha Phan analyze the discussions of Vietnamese nationals and expa-
triates on social media to better understand how those who take pride in
their country’s resistance of western domination may still embrace poli-
cies that allow for increased globalization. What they find is a multi-
tude of voices, not always in harmony, coalescing around the idea of
belonging to a language and culture that represent the nation, as well
as its surrounding region.
While policies continue to be discussed in Part II, just as practices
were in Part I, the focus shifts to how neo-nationalism impacts the
learning, teaching, and use of foreign and second languages. As in the
previous chapter, Ramona Kreis studies social media in Chapter 7, but
she emphasizes how the technology is being used to promote right-wing,
anti-immigrant views in Germany, as well as voices of opposition, with
comments often posted in English to reach a global audience. For Kreis,
the speed and ease with which these discourses circulate online make
it imperative to continue studying and teaching digital literacy in order
x Preface

to avoid falling prey to disinformation and the demonization of others.

In Chapter 8, Aleksandra Kasztalska and Aleksandra Swatek investigate
the effect that such right-wing discourses are having on foreign language
teaching in Poland, where traditional nationalism coupled with growing
Euroscepticism is keeping teachers from promoting multiculturalism in
their classrooms for fear of offending the patriotic or religious sensibilities
of students, parents, and school administrators. Similarly, in Chapter 9,
Paul McPherron and Kyle McIntosh revisit a university in China where
they previously taught to examine how recent nationalist policies enacted
by the central government in Beijing have altered the teaching practices
of their former colleagues and the attitudes of students toward the study
of English and other foreign languages. In these two cases, both coun-
tries seem to be turning away from greater engagement with the outside
world, but top-down edicts from strong central governments could tilt
the balance either way.
Expressions of nationalism are not always overt. In Chapter 10, Trevor
Gulliver examines Canadian ESL textbooks and citizenship guides to
uncover how nationalism is often couched in everyday objects and
expressions, from a picture of the flag to who—or what—is mentioned
as “belonging” to the country (e.g., Wayne Gretzky, hockey). As Gulliver
explains, these instances of “banal nationalism” (Billig, 1995) also work
to hide the nation’s past injustices and to marginalize its newcomers.
In Chapter 11, Joel Windle and Brian Morgan explore how neo-
nationalists in different countries effectively employ remix and other
“culture jamming” techniques suited to the digital age to sow fear and
confusion in real and virtual spaces. They then provide sample lessons
from their own classrooms in Brazil and Canada that were designed to
foster critical awareness among their students. Lastly, Suhanthie Motha
provides an afterword in Chapter 12 that reflects upon the complex issues
covered in the previous chapters and draws clear connections between
them. She presents a bold vision for moving the field toward a more
“nation-conscious applied linguistic practice” (p. 296) that recognizes
the vital importance of protecting national identity and language rights
while actively combating racism, xenophobia, and other manifestations
of hatred and fear.
 Preface xi

While the scope of this volume is expansive, it is far from exhaus-

tive. There are many facets of nationalism, both neo- and otherwise, in
applied linguistics and language teaching that need to be explored. There-
fore, we encourage those who read these chapters to initiate or continue
their own research into the myriad ways in which such ideologies are
informing language-in-education policies and classroom practices in their
own countries, communities, and institutions. We all need to offer up
theoretical possibilities and practical suggestions to help educators and
researchers deal with the threats posed—and possibilities presented—by
a worldwide turn toward nationalism at the start of the third decade of
the twenty-first century.

Tampa, USA Kyle McIntosh

References
Anderson, B. (1983). Imagined communities: Reflections on the origin and rise of
nationalism. London: Verso.
Billig, M. (1995). Banal nationalism. London: Sage.
 Acknowledgments

First, I would like to thank Cathy Scott, Alice Green, Prabhu Elan-
gali, Abarna Antonyraj, Sham Anand, and everyone else at Palgrave
Macmillan for all of their hard work in ushering this edited volume along
from a kernel of an idea to the published book that you now hold in your
hands or see on your screen. I would also like to express my sincere appre-
ciation to all of the amazing scholars who contributed to this volume;
without your unique perspectives and dedicated research, this book never
would have taken shape. Furthermore, we all owe a debt of gratitude
to our anonymous reviewers, whose insightful comments helped us to
strengthen and polish these chapters.
On a personal note, I would like to recognize my outstanding
colleagues in the Department of English and Writing at the University of
Tampa, who have provided me with a stable, nurturing academic home
for the last six years. I want to give a special shout-out to Professors Sarah
Fryett, Caroline Hovanec, Joseph Letter, David Reamer, Yuly Restrepo,
Aimee Whiteside, and Daniel Wollenberg for always being there to lend
an ear, no matter how I may have been feeling at the time.

xiii
xiv Acknowledgments

Finally, I would like to thank my wife, Carol Chun Zheng, who

inspires me daily with her brilliance and resolve; our son, Kieran, whose
creativity and kindness give me hope for the future; and my parents,
Beverly and Gary McIntosh, for their lifelong support. I love you all!
 Contents

1 Introduction: Re-thinking Applied Linguistics

and Language Teaching in the Face
of Neo-Nationalism 1
Kyle McIntosh

Part I Policies

2 Neo-Nationalism and Language Policy in the United

States: A Critical Discourse Analysis of Public
Discourse Advocating Monolingual English Use 17
Bryan Meadows

3 The Impact of the Resurgent Anglophone Crisis

in Cameroon on Language Education and Policy 51
Bernard Ndzi Ngala

xv
xvi Contents

4 Civic Nationalism and Language-in-Education

Policies in the United Arab Emirates 77
Fatima Esseili

5 Colombia’s Language Politics: Neoliberalism Under

the Guise of Messianic Nationalism 105
Marlon Valencia and Isabel Tejada Sánchez

6 The Voices of Vietnamese Nationalism and Informal

Discourse in Language Policy 133
Dat Bao and Le-Ha Phan

Part II Practices

7 The Role of Language in Social Media During

the European Migrant Crisis 163
Ramona Kreis

8 Ideologies of Pluriculturalism and Neo-Nationalism

in EFL Classrooms in Poland: An Exploratory Study
of Teachers’ Self-Reports 189
Aleksandra Kasztalska and Aleksandra Swatek

9 From “Sick Man” to Strong Man: The Changing Role

of English Language Teaching in China in an Era
of Rising Nationalism and Global Ambitions 217
Paul McPherron and Kyle McIntosh

10 Nationalism, Redemptive and Banal, in Canadian

ESL Textbooks and Citizenship Study Guides 241
Trevor Gulliver
 Contents xvii

11 Remix Nationalism and Critical Language Education 267

Joel Windle and Brian Morgan

12 Afterword: Towards a Nation-Conscious Applied

Linguistics Practice 295
Suhanthie Motha

Index 311
 Notes on Contributors

Dat Bao is a Senior Lecturer at Monash University in Australia. His

areas of expertise include curriculum design, intercultural communica-
tion, materials development, literacy development, creative pedagogy,
and visual pedagogy in language education.
Fatima Esseili is an Associate Professor of English at the University
of Dayton and at Zayed University. Her research interests include
teaching methods, second language writing, sociolinguistics, and world
Englishes.
Trevor Gulliver is a Professor in the School of Education at Bishop’s
University, where he prepares teachers of English as a second language for
Quebec public schools. His research explores issues of power and identity
in language learning and teaching.
Aleksandra Kasztalska is a Lecturer in ESL Writing at Boston Univer-
sity. Her research interests include World Englishes, English instruction
and assessment in Poland, and Legitimation Code Theory.

xix
xx Notes on Contributors

Ramona Kreis is a lecturer in English Linguistics at the University

of Bremen. Her research focuses on digital discourse, critical discourse
studies, L2 pragmatics, and multilingual practices.
Kyle McIntosh is an Assistant Professor of English and Writing at the
University of Tampa. His research interests include second language
writing, intercultural rhetoric, and the politics of English language
teaching.
Paul McPherron is a Professor of English at Hunter College of the
City University of New York (CUNY), where he also is Director of the
Academic Center for Excellence in Research and Teaching (ACERT). His
research involves questions about English language learning in relation to
identity, globalization, and teaching policies, particularly in China and
the United States.
Bryan Meadows is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Educa-
tional Studies at Seton Hall University, where he also serves as program
director for the TESOL graduate certificate program. His research exam-
ines the interplay of nationalism and language education.
Brian Morgan is an Associate Professor of English at Glendon College,
York University, Canada, where he teaches courses in content-based EAP,
language teacher education, and applied linguistics. His primary research
area is in critical theories, literacies, and pedagogies.
Suhanthie Motha is a teacher educator and Associate Professor at the
University of Washington. Her practice is located on Coast Salish
homelands and examines race and empire within applied linguistics.
Bernard Ndzi Ngala is a teacher-trainer at the Higher Teacher-Training
College (HTTC) in Maroua, Cameroon, where he is an Assistant
Lecturer in French Language and Literature Didactics in the Depart-
ment of Educational Sciences. His research interests include bilin-
gual/immersion education policy and classroom practices, learning and
teaching of French as a Foreign/Second Language, French for Specific
Purposes, and contrastive linguistics.
 Notes on Contributors xxi

Le-Ha Phan is a Senior Professor in the Sultan Hassanal Bolkiah Insti-

tute of Education, Universiti Brunei Darussalam, and is also affiliated
with the Department of Educational Foundations, College of Education,
University of Hawaii at Manoa.
Isabel Tejada Sánchez is an Assistant Professor of Education and
Language Studies at Universidad de los Andes in Bogotá, Colombia.
Her research interests include second language acquisition, language
policy, action research in teacher education, interculturality, and critical
discourse analysis.
Aleksandra Swatek is an Assistant Research Professor in the Scholarly
Communication Research Group at Adam Mickiewicz University in
Poznań, Poland. She obtained her Ph.D. in English/Second Language
Studies at Purdue University, where she specialized in writing research.
Her projects encompass the areas of second language writing, corpus
linguistics, and English for Academic Purposes.
Marlon Valencia is an Assistant Professor in the Department of English
at Glendon College, York University. His research interests include multi-
literacies, language politics, and the use of technology in the language
classroom.
Joel Windle is an Assistant Professor of English at the Fluminense
Federal University, Brazil. His research focuses on educational inequal-
ities, literacy, and linguistic diversity.
 List of Figures

Fig. 3.1 An empty French language classroom at Buea Regional

Linguistic Center (February, 2020) 67
Fig. 3.2 Enrollment in language courses at extracurricular
settings 69
Fig. 3.3 Enrollment in international language proficiency
examinations 70
Fig. 3.4 An abandoned school site due to armed conflict
(February, 2020) 71
Fig. 5.1 Political campaign for legislative elections in Bogotá,
Colombia (October, 2019) 119
Fig. 5.2 Diverse learners in Colombia 124
Fig. 5.3 Privileged learners in Colombia 125
Fig. 9.1 Cultural Revolution Museum mural and pagoda
(June, 2007) 226
Fig. 11.1 A replica of the Statue of Liberty in front of the Havan
department store, Brazil 274
Fig. 11.2 Bagel World 287

xxiii
 List of Tables

Table 2.1 State justification statements 32

Table 2.2 State-level bills pertaining to language-in-education for
EL students, 2019 40
Table 2.3 Analysis summary 43
Table 4.1 Population of GCC countries in 2019 79
Table 5.1 Our academic paths 109
Table 5.2 Colombian in-service teachers’ answers to questionnaire
(unedited excerpts) 122
Table 6.1 Break-down of nationalist content in Quora Digest data 143
Table 8.1 Participant profiles 197

xxv
 1
Introduction: Re-thinking Applied
Linguistics and Language Teaching
in the Face of Neo-Nationalism
Kyle McIntosh

Confession: This is a chapter that I never imagined I would write in

a volume that I never thought would need to be published. Until a
few years ago, the idea of neo-nationalism emerging as a formidable
global force seemed to me the stuff of dystopian fiction. Granted, I have
lived and worked in the United States, South Korea, and the People’s
Republic of China where, over the past two decades, I have witnessed
firsthand—and through the news media—nationalist sentiments rising
up at different times in different places (e.g., post-9/11 saber-rattling in
the U.S., protests in Korea and China over the whitewashing of wartime
atrocities in Japanese history books). My general sense, however, was that
most countries were trending toward a more interconnected, interde-
pendent future in which multilingualism and multiculturalism would
be viewed as norms rather than exceptions. I drew this conclusion not

K. McIntosh (B)
Department of English and Writing,
University of Tampa, Tampa, FL, USA
e-mail: [email protected]

© The Author(s) 2020 1

K. McIntosh (ed.), Applied Linguistics and Language
Teaching in the Neo-Nationalist Era,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-56550-3_1
2 K. McIntosh

only from my personal experiences but also from reading and conducting
research in applied linguistics and language teaching.
So, when I went to bed on June 23, 2016 at an Airbnb in Ann Arbor,
Michigan, following the first day of the International Writing Across the
Curriculum (IWAC) Conference, I fully expected to wake up the next
morning in a world largely unchanged from the one in which I had fallen
asleep. Instead, when I opened my eyes, grabbed my iPhone, and looked
at my newsfeed, I saw this headline from The New York Times: “British
Stun the World with Decision to Leave the E.U.” I was, in fact, stunned.
Although it was known that the vote would be close, few polls had
predicted this outcome. Apparently, rising Euroscepticism triggered by
frustration with the fiscal policies coming out of Brussels, along with low
turnout among younger voters, had been enough to push through the
referendum. Suddenly, I had a sinking feeling in my stomach that, come
November, Donald Trump would be riding a similar wave of economic
dissatisfaction and burgeoning neo-nationalism into the White House.
Never before in my life had I so wished to be wrong.
The trade-protectionist and anti-immigrant stances associated with
neo-nationalism, which Eger and Valdez (2015) posited as something of
a hybrid between the far left’s “anti-establishment populism” and the far
right’s “desire for a return to traditional values and an emphasis on law
and order” (p. 127), did not begin with Brexit or the election of Donald
Trump. For years prior to 2016, neo-nationalist movements had been
gaining ground across Europe, propelling figures like Hungarian Prime
Minister Viktor Orbán and Polish President Andrzej Duda into power.
Similar movements were springing up around leaders in other parts of the
world: Narendra Modi’s Hindu nationalism in India, Recep Erdoğan’s
Ottoman revival in Turkey, and Xi Jinping’s “Chinese Dream,” to name a
few. Nevertheless, the shift toward neo-nationalism by what had hitherto
been the two strongest proponents of neoliberal globalization sent a clear
signal that the world was, in fact, starting to bend in a new direction.
If the United Kingdom and the United States—the very countries that
advanced English as an international language to serve their own political
and economic interests—were withdrawing from trade deals, tightening
their borders, and inciting violence against immigrants, then how long
before other nations began to rethink educational policies and practices
 1 Introduction: Re-thinking Applied Linguistics … 3

that, for decades, had touted learning English as a key to entering the
global marketplace? Would the rise of neo-nationalism across the world,
fueled in part by xenophobia, lead to a backlash against the teaching of
foreign languages in general?

Nationalism, Language, and Education

For many, the word “nationalism” conjures up dramatic images, like
Adolf Hitler screaming maniacally into a microphone before legions of
saluting Nazis shouting “Sieg Heil” in return or perhaps, more recently,
the bombed-out cities of the Yugoslav Wars (1991–2001). While such
extreme forms have led to interethnic conflict and genocide, nation-
alism has also been mobilized to drive out colonizers or resist other
outside aggressors, as was the case with Vietnam’s defeat of France and
the United States, respectively, in the First and Second Indochina Wars
(see Bao & Phan, Chapter 6 in this volume). Most everyday manifesta-
tions of nationalism, however, fall under what Billig (1995) categorized
as “banal” and are therefore easier to overlook: the face of a country’s
founder placed on its currency or the national anthem being played
before a sporting event. Nationalism is even embedded in the words that
we use to talk about ourselves and others: native, foreigner, compatriot,
expatriate, immigrant, alien.
The very idea of the nation, which Anderson (1983) called “an imag-
ined political community” (p. 6), depends heavily on the establishment
of a common language—or languages—to create a sense of shared iden-
tity among people who are unlikely to meet face-to-face and who may
experience very different linguistic realities on a day-to-day basis. China,
with its hundreds of often mutually unintelligible regional and local
“dialects,” provides a striking example of how an officially-mandated
“common speech” (putonghua, or standard Mandarin) and a relatively
uniform writing system work to construct the idea of a single national
language: Chinese. Other countries, like Singapore and Switzerland,
recognize multiple national languages to reflect their linguistic diversity,
but striking a balance between these languages remains challenging. In
Cameroon and the United Arab Emirates, for instance, official status
4 K. McIntosh

may not be enough to protect languages spoken by a minority of

the population, and the fear of this loss can spur ethnolinguistic
nationalism and conflict (see Ngala, Chapter 3 in this volume; Esseili,
Chapter 4 in this volume).
Of course, not all forms of nationalism are the same. In the current
political climate, we can hear differences in the voices of those promoting
a particular imagined community, whether it be a far-right ethno-
religious state or a more left-leaning civically-minded nation, but we may
also detect similar interests in maintaining borders or opposing global
markets, although likely for different reasons and through different
means (Svitych, 2018). As Blommaert (1996) noted:

The way in which language is symbolised may cohere with the general
set-up of the particular nationalism; its ideological construction may
be guided by similar underlying assumptions, viewpoints and visions
of the desired ‘ideal society’ which nationalists are trying to build.
Closer attention to language-ideological issues may thus contribute to
a better understanding of the conceptual, ‘deep’ structure of various
nationalisms [...]. (p. 236)

We find these idealized visions of the nation regularly reproduced in

political speeches and media coverage of events, in documentaries and
other historical accounts, and in language textbooks and citizenship
guides (see Gulliver, Chapter 10 in this volume). Studying the ways that
people in different places and with different political orientations speak
and write about the idea of the nation can help us to understand why
nationalism is on the rise again and how it may be contributing to the
formation of new alliances and oppositions across old ideological lines.
Just as nationalism has long been tied to language, so too is it tied to
language education, in policy if not in practice. Decisions as to which
languages can be spoken, written, taught and tested in schools are often
enshrined in law (Wright, 2016). Governments are involved in how
students from other countries with different immigration or residency
statuses are classified within education systems. Sometimes, countries
even establish public organizations, like the British Council or Confu-
cius Institute, to affect how national languages—official or de facto—are
taught in other countries. To Phillipson (1992), the entire enterprise of
 1 Introduction: Re-thinking Applied Linguistics … 5

English language teaching (ELT) was a form of “linguistic imperialism,”

through which Anglo-American power could continue to be exerted in a
post-colonial world by perpetuating the specious argument that English
is “a vehicle of the entire developing human tradition, well adapted
for change and development, not ethnic or ideological, the world’s first
truly global language, of universal interest” (p. 276). Today, we see
this same argument put forward not only by Anglophone nations but
also by multinational corporations that promote English, and perhaps a
handful of other lingua francas (e.g., Arabic, French, Mandarin), as vital
components of individual success in a globalized world.

Neoliberalism and Applied Linguistics

In 1990, when Alastair Pennycook proposed adopting a more critical
approach to applied linguistics, the Berlin Wall had just fallen and the
Soviet Union was a year away from collapsing, but he was prescient
in calling for new ways of thinking about the roles that language and
education play in perpetuating inequalities in a world where few alterna-
tives to American-led free-market capitalism (i.e., neoliberalism) would
soon remain. Taking his cue from post-structuralist philosophers like
Michel Foucault, Pennycook (1990) reminded us that knowledge is never
neutral and that, as a field, we must repeatedly examine the ideolog-
ical basis/biases of our work by interrogating foundational concepts and
accepted research methods to uncover who or what is being excluded
from the conversation. Only then, he argued, can we truly understand
the power that language has to limit, as well as expand, the ways in which
we view our world and one another.
Around the same time, the number of so-called “non-native” speakers
of English began to outpace the number of “native” speakers, prompting
scholars to wonder if such a division still had meaning, if it ever did
(e.g., Davies, 1991; Phillipson, 1992). Yet, despite bodies of research
on the unique characteristics of World Englishes (see Kachru, 1997)
and the cognitive benefits of bilingualism (see Bialystock, 2011), mono-
lingual models of education have persisted and even spread, especially
in places where speaking a dominant or prestige language continues
6 K. McIntosh

to be viewed as a means of improving one’s socioeconomic status (see

Meadows, Chapter 2 in this volume).
The social turn in applied linguistics, which emphasized the effects
of context and interpersonal relations on language learning and use, has
helped us to challenge such monolingual ideologies and to reposition
multilingualism as the global norm. Likewise, the dynamic turn in ELT
has sought to connect classroom practices to students’ experiences with
language in the world. While these goals are laudable, they also happen
to align with what Flores (2013) called the “commodification of language
in service of transnational corporations” (p. 515). In other words, compa-
nies are happy to promote linguistic and cultural diversity, as long as the
languages and cultures possess some degree of capital, in the Bourdieuan
sense. Thus, learning a new language becomes a form of “job training,”
and workers are transformed into lifelong learners who must continually
adapt to changing conditions as they move from one “gig” to the next.
We reinforce such sentiments when, even with the best of inten-
tions, we tell our students that learning another language will increase
their employment prospects after graduation. Flores (2013) encouraged
teachers to push back against such “universalizing” narratives by guiding
students to see how different languages can be used to experiment
with identities and positionalities that challenge the tacit assumptions
of both neoliberalism and neo-nationalism. While I find this sugges-
tion promising, recent scholarship in applied linguistics has done a far
better job of critiquing the former, while giving less attention to the
latter in the first two decades of the twenty-first century. This oversight
was likely because, until fairly recently, the nation-state appeared to be
in decline, with free-trade agreements, high-speed communication, and
affordable travel making borders seem more permeable and barriers more
surmountable than ever before.
Understandably then, much of the research in applied linguistics and
language teaching in the early 2000s has focused on how to go beyond
simply paying lip service to multilingualism and multiculturalism in a
globalized world to actually finding viable means to ensure that students
and workers, regardless of language background, social status, ethnicity,
religion or gender, receive the educational support and equitable treat-
ment they deserve. One possible outcome might be the realization of a
more transnational, cosmopolitan existence for everyone, and not just
 1 Introduction: Re-thinking Applied Linguistics … 7

the global elite (see Canagarajah, 2013). Again, while much of the world
appeared to be moving in that direction prior to 2016, our view was
likely skewed by the places we live, work, and travel to, and by the people
who we meet, work with, and teach. Kubota (2016) questioned if, by
putting so much emphasis on cosmopolitanism and linguistic hybridity,
applied linguists had overlooked the ways in which even the most well-
intentioned theories and practices could be used to further marginalize
and oppress the poor and undereducated. In other words, how does the
notion of translingual fluency, or the ability to move between languages
depending on audience, impact the hundreds of millions of people in
the world who do not have access to the educational resources needed to
learn how to read and write in any language? How might an emphasis on
multiculturalism and mobility provoke hostility from those who cannot
afford to leave their villages or small towns? What will it mean for
foreign and second language teaching, which has undoubtedly benefited
from globalization, if more and more countries decide to retreat behind
borders and walls?

The End of Neoliberalism and the Rise

of Neo-Nationalism?
Even with Brexit and the election of Donald Trump, it is prema-
ture to sound the death knell for neoliberalism. Multinational corpo-
rations continue to exert undue influence on politics, and stock
markets keep hitting record highs. Yet, tensions are also high, both
between and within nations. Lee (2017), for example, found that
increasing nationalist sentiment in higher education settings in South
Africa, as well as in South Korea (Lee, Jon, & Byun, 2016), led
to unfair treatment and open hostility against foreign students, espe-
cially those from neighboring countries who are seen as competing
for jobs and resources. Meanwhile, Ngala (Chapter 3 in this volume)
has chronicled the ongoing crisis in Cameroon, where speakers
of French and English are locked in a violent conflict over the
status of the languages of their former colonizers. To make matters
worse, the global outbreak of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-
19) has shut down borders, disrupted supply chains, and sparked
8 K. McIntosh

further instances of ethnic violence, from attacks on Asians in New York

City (Chapman, 2020) to discrimination against Africans in Guangzhou
(Nyabiage, 2020). The long-term impact of this pandemic on interna-
tional relations remains to be seen, but it will certainly alter the way we
think about our connections to the rest of the world.
Higher education was already experiencing a downturn even before
schools were shuttered in the spring of 2020. Three years prior, interna-
tional enrollments at U.S. universities had decreased by 6.9%, due in
part to the hostile political environment, as well as issues with visas,
a strong dollar, and competition from regional education hubs like
Germany, South Africa, and the United Arab Emirates (Baer, 2017).
Meanwhile, countries like South Korea and Iran have raised the age
at which students begin studying English in school to protect their
own languages and cultures, while China has reduced the importance
the English language requirement on its college entrance exam (see
McPherron & McIntosh, Chapter 9 in this volume). These developments
raise several questions: Should we take declining enthusiasm for learning
English as a sign that its status as the international language is coming
to an end? Or is this part of a larger turn against multilingualism and
multiculturalism in general? Can we support the unfettered movement of
people, goods, and ideas without also propping up an economic system
on the verge of collapse?
In a 2017 opinion piece in The New York Times, Bhaskar Sunkara,
former vice chair of the Democratic Socialists of America, presented the
metaphor of a runaway train heading toward three possible destinations
to represent the directions that countries might take in a post-neoliberal
world. He claimed that right-wing populists (i.e., neo-nationalists) long
to arrive at “Budapest Station,” which is modeled on Orbán’s anti-
immigration and anti-globalization reforms in Hungary, but first they
need to throw the “undesirables” off the train. Meanwhile, most corpo-
ratists (i.e., neoliberals) are trying to hit the brakes so that they can get
off at “Singapore Station,” an authoritarian technocracy that embraces
officially-sanctioned multilingualism and prides itself on a cosmopolitan
worldview. Given those two choices, the latter would seem like the better
option for those working in fields related to the teaching and learning
of languages. As DeCosta and Jou (2016) pointed out, however, an
 1 Introduction: Re-thinking Applied Linguistics … 9

uncritical acceptance of cosmopolitanism can mask serious problems like

racism, sexism, and income inequality in what outwardly appears to be
a “harmonious” multicultural society.
The third stop, which Sunkara (2017) dubbed “Finland Station,”
marks a return to pre-Soviet socialist ideals, offering a form of radical
democracy where quality education, housing, and healthcare would be
guaranteed for all and where linguistic and cultural differences could
be negotiated via a more “dialogical” form of cosmopolitanism, similar
to what Canagarajah (2013) envisioned. We have seen versions of this
appear in Europe and Latin America with varying degrees of longevity
and success. We have even seen glimpses of it in the United States
with the rise of left-leaning populist politicians like Bernie Sanders and
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who invoke a more civic form of nationalism
when appealing to working class voters upset about manufacturing jobs
being outsourced to China, Mexico, and elsewhere.
At this moment in history, it is difficult to predict at which of these
three stations the metaphorical train will stop, even in a country like
the United States where many people still regard “socialism” as a dirty
word. Each country has a unique history and set of present circumstances
that will affect the way it deals with the decline of neoliberalism (see
Valencia & Tejada Sánchez, Chapter 5 in this volume, for the example
of Colombia). Complicating matters further is a growing distrust of any
form of government among the working classes who reap few benefits
from technology booms or stock market rallies, but who feel dispropor-
tionately harmed by economic downturns. This real, if often misdirected,
sense of injustice makes them susceptible to radicalization by religious or
racist extremists and to disinformation campaigns promoted by foreign
governments.
Conspiracy theories are hardly new, but the speed at which rumors,
half-truths, and outright lies spread across the Internet is unprecedented
(see Kreis, Chapter 7 in this volume, for an account of right-wing
discourses on Twitter in the immediate aftermath of the 2016 Berlin
terrorist attack). In many ways, these attempts to challenge credible
evidence for everything from the dangers of climate change to the safety
of vaccines recall earlier postmodern takedowns of the scientific method
and the very nature of facts, which led Bruno Latour (2004) to famously
10 K. McIntosh

declare that critique had “run out of steam.” In a post-truth world, all
matters of fact are partial and political. Latour’s recommendation, later
endorsed in part by Pennycook (2018), is to begin privileging matters of
concern instead. In other words, we need to stop falling back on what
Latour (2004) called the “fact vs. fairy” positions, which turn everyone
into either victims of powerful forces beyond their control or naïve
believers who project their desires onto powerless objects. Instead, we
need to seek a fair position that cultivates “a stubbornly realist attitude”
(p. 231) and renewed commitment to empiricism, not necessarily to find
answers, but to add more depth to our descriptions of the world.
The main purpose in assembling this volume was to begin thinking
about what a fairer applied linguistics and language teaching might
look like in a world where neo-nationalist rhetoric continues to propel
political candidates into positions of power, in turn emboldening more
candidates to employ such rhetoric in their campaigns. As Windle
and Morgan (Chapter 11 in this volume) suggest, we can begin by
helping our students to observe and critique the ways in which neo-
nationalist groups have successfully co-opted postmodern techniques like
parody and pastiche to promote jingoism and fear. In countries currently
controlled by authoritarian regimes, foreign language teachers may have
to adopt other creative classroom practices to resist xenophobic poli-
cies and attitudes (see, for example, Kasztalska & Swatek, Chapter 8
in this volume; McPherron & McIntosh, Chapter 9 in this volume).
Fortunately, the leaders of most countries are still democratically elected,
which means that they can be voted out of office, but there needs to be
a clear alternative vision for the future of the nation that speaks to all
its citizens, and not only the privileged few, or else these countries risk
losing the ability to correct course through democratic means.
As scholars and teachers, we need to think carefully about what consti-
tute matters of concern for applied linguistics and language teaching,
and how to better connect with people in other fields, other places, and
other walks of life who share these concerns, even—and perhaps espe-
cially—when our ways of knowing and speaking differ. As those who
study how language is used in various contexts, we are in a unique
position to understand and help bridge these gaps. Motha (Chapter 12
 1 Introduction: Re-thinking Applied Linguistics … 11

in this volume) advocates developing practices that further explore the

links between race and empire as a means of revealing the ways in
which nationalism continues to reside, often hidden, in our teaching,
learning, and use of language. Whenever possible, we need to stand
up to injustices, past and present, that have been committed in the
name of the nation while remaining mindful of the pitfalls presented
by internationalization when driven by competition rather than cooper-
ation.
On a local level, we can work to change our institutional cultures.
Over the last few decades, we have seen school districts and universi-
ties transformed into global pseudo-corporations, with business leaders
and politicians put in charge of budgetary, personnel, and even curric-
ular decisions. I hope that we will not be so complacent if and when
those same leaders make alliances with right-wing populists as a bulwark
against their shared fear of democratic socialism creeping in from the
left. When it comes to our teaching and service responsibilities, we can
follow Kubota’s (2016) advice to practice what we preach by applying
our knowledge of class and identity issues more visibly, not just in our
research but in all of our work. We can use appointments to admissions
and hiring committees to increase diversity in our schools and depart-
ments, while working in other professional capacities to ensure that this
commitment is honored in every aspect of academic life. We can use
our roles as editors and reviewers to guide more marginalized voices into
print or public forums. Last but not least, we can use our positions as
teachers and mentors to help students recognize the subtle and not-so-
subtle ways that language is used to promote—or obscure—hatred and
division, as well as its potential for creating a more inclusive, unified
nation.
I end this chapter by echoing Pennycook’s (1990) entreaty to “be
more humble in the world, listening to the many alternative views of
language and learning, rather than preaching our views as the newest
and best” (p. 26). As applied linguists and language teachers, we may
have a limited impact on the direction of politics beyond our classrooms
and local communities, but we have an impact nonetheless. If we wish
to improve education and reduce inequality on a local and global scale,
then we can begin by forging stronger alliances across boundaries based
12 K. McIntosh

on shared matters of concern rather than strict adherence to ideological

positions.

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Flores, N. (2013). The unexamined relationship between neoliberalism and
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Kubota, R. (2016). The multi/plural turn, postcolonial theory, and neolib-

eral multiculturalism: Complicities and implications for applied linguistics.
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Nyabiage, J. (2020, April 18). Is the China-Africa ‘all-weather’ relationship
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Part I
Policies
 2
Neo-Nationalism and Language Policy
in the United States: A Critical Discourse
Analysis of Public Discourse Advocating
Monolingual English Use
Bryan Meadows

The anti-immigrant stances expressed by neo-nationalist actors in the

United States have taken on increased political significance following the
2016 election of Donald Trump. From the president’s office, Trump has
been able to amplify messages voiced by neo-nationalist groups. In addi-
tion, policymakers within the administration are identified either directly
or indirectly with neo-nationalist positions. Sympathetic news organi-
zations help to mainstream these positions. Other media sources have
brought attention to the close relationship shared between the Trump
administration and neo-nationalist groups (Blow, 2019) and the coin-
cidental—or not—rise in extremist-related murders (Sonmez & Parker,
2019). The Centre for Analysis of the Radical Right (2019) editorial-
ized Trump-style politics not just as a trend, but “part of an emerging

B. Meadows (B)
Department of Educational Studies, Seton Hall
University, South Orange, NJ, USA
e-mail: [email protected]

© The Author(s) 2020 17

K. McIntosh (ed.), Applied Linguistics and Language
Teaching in the Neo-Nationalist Era,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-56550-3_2
18 B. Meadows

ideology that can and should be described as late fascism—a fascism for
our current era” (para. 15).
Nothing in neo-nationalism contradicts the ideological principles at
the base of more conventional forms of nationalism (e.g., the basic
unit of social organization shall be the nation-state, per Gellner, 1983).
What justifies the term is the hyper-attention to border maintenance and
internal homogeneity within spaces of established nationalized bound-
aries (Eger & Valdez, 2015; Halikiopoulou & Vlandas, 2019). That
is, those who follow neo-nationalist ideologies involve themselves in
defining national insiders from outsiders and maintaining clear bound-
aries to separate the two (Svitych, 2018, p. 9). An illustrative example
of neo-nationalism can be found in the following platform statement
presented online by the American Freedom Party:

Freedom from the immigration invasion. Americans never wanted their

country to be overwhelmed and fundamentally altered by allowing tens
of millions of legal and illegal immigrants to enter and drain endless
billions of taxpayer dollars in services. A free country defends its borders
by securing them, and the American Freedom Party will construct a
well-armed security fence along the entire southern border when it takes
power. (American Freedom Party, 2020, emphasis in orginal)

The American Freedom Party is a political organization with candidates

in state and federal elections in the United States. In the above excerpt,
they express their objective to physically separate nationalized outsiders
(i.e., immigrants) from nationalized insiders (i.e., Americans). While the
academic literature on neo-nationalism starts with Western Europe, case
studies are being applied in other locations (Donley, 2018; Lee, Jon, &
Byun, 2017), thus demonstrating that neo-nationalism is increasingly a
global phenomenon (Svitych, 2018, p. 9).
Neo-nationalists occasionally associate themselves with “holistic
nationalism.” For example, Augustus Invictus, a presidential candidate in
the United States, included the following among his political objectives:

Make Americans Great Again: We will raise up the poor and working class
by eschewing obsolete notions of capitalism and socialism, returning to a
holistic nationalism. (Invictus, 2019, emphasis added)
 2 Neo-Nationalism and Language Policy in the United States … 19

The gerund phrase “returning to a holistic nationalism” conveys dissatis-

faction with the current status quo. But what is holistic nationalism? The
term emerges from the tension between the people of a nation and the
political state at the center of the ideology. While both the national and
the state components are always present in nationalist movements, one
component can be emphasized over the other (Svitych, 2018). The result
is a spectrum ranging between ethnic nationalism (nation-focused) and
civic nationalism (state-focused).
Holistic nationalism is the neo-nationalist term for what has been
called “ethnic nationalism” (Berezin, 2006, p. 278), in that it identifies
the nation in ethnic terms. As the nationalized subject is the primary
focus, holistic nationalism is “exclusive and organic, defined by common
descent, native culture and other ascriptive and immutable criteria of
national belonging” (Halikiopoulou & Vlandas, 2019, p. 412). Holistic
nationalism lends itself to acts of social exclusion and the “subordina-
tion of individual civil and political liberty to the nationalized collective”
(Carter, 2018, p. 172).
Thus, the phrase “returning to a holistic nationalism” communicates
a rejection of civic nationalism. The excerpt argues instead for the exclu-
sionary strand of nationalism that rigidly fixes individuals on one side or
the other of national legitimacy: as either insider or outsider by birth or
heritage. It goes without saying that xenophobia is a common thread in
neo-nationalist writings and actions (Berezin, 2006, p. 278).

Neo-Nationalism and Language

From the beginning, language has played a central role in the ideology
of nationalism. Hartman (2003) claimed that “the role of language in
the formation of the imagined communities now known as nations
must not be underestimated” (p. 189). Billig (1995) and Anderson
(2006) figured language at the center of early nationalist movements.
Anderson reminded us that the printing press was a key tool in promul-
gating nationalism and the ability of individuals to imagine nationalized
landscapes beyond their immediate environs. Echoing Anderson’s anal-
ysis of nations as “imagined communities,” Billig (1995) explained that
20 B. Meadows

“national languages also have to be imagined, and this lies at the root
of today’s commonsense belief that discrete languages ‘naturally’ exist”
(p. 10). Risager (2018) expanded on this point, arguing that when one
sees the world “as equipped with a number of languages that are sepa-
rate from each other, it is a small step to take to seeing it as being
perfectly natural for people who speak the same language wishing to have
a common national state” (p. 62).
In their influential eighteenth century writings, Herder, Fichte, and
Humboldt conceptualized a national language as fundamental to any
nationalist project (Kedourie, 1993). For Herder, the national language
was the most faithful expression of a nation’s true essence (Woolard,
1998, p. 16). Like Herder, Humboldt posited a national language as
a primary link to the unique individual character of a nation, stating:
“from every language we can infer backwards to the national character”
(Humboldt, 1988, as cited in May, 2013, p. 61). In contemporary times,
a national language remains a primary fixture upon which nationalist
movements seek political legitimacy (Blommaert & Verschueren, 1992;
Rezakhanlou, 2018).
The maintenance of the nation-state is on ongoing sociopolitical
struggle between various political stakeholders (Billig, 1995; May, 2013).
From the standpoint of neo-nationalism, asserting the power to define
the nation (i.e., nationalized people and culture) is fundamental to
maintaining the nation-state. Neo-nationalist movements recognize that
language is a symbolic fixture of a nationalized culture and therefore
must be claimed. Once established, a national language can be a useful
tool for promoting the belief in a homogeneous national culture (May,
2013, p. 59). It can also be used like a shibboleth to discern insider
from outsider, or those with a legitimate presence in the nation from
those without. In the case of the United States, neo-nationalist-affiliated
political actors have asserted English to be central to how they imagine
the nation and have lobbied for legitimacy of their nationalized imag-
ining in the political institutions of the state (e.g., official English laws,
executive orders, language-in-education policy). In this way, language
policies at the federal and state levels become central sites of struggle
over how to define legitimate language use in the nationalized space.
The consequences of the power struggle between dominant and minority
 2 Neo-Nationalism and Language Policy in the United States … 21

groups within nationalized spaces are clear. May (2013) reminded us

that, “by their pre-eminence, the dominant group’s culture and language
comes to be represented as the core or ‘national’ culture and language.
Minority groups, and their languages and cultures, consequently tend to
be excluded from ‘national recognition’” (p. 85).
What can be observed about groups that embrace neo-nationalism is
that they do not necessarily oppose foreign language use. For example,
the National Socialist Movement website features a translation function
that will change their writings into a number of European languages, and
The New York Times recently reported that Swedish alt-right groups show
influence of non-Swedish language sites (Becker, 2019). On the surface,
this might appear to be counterintuitive, but such a stance is completely
in line with the conventional ideology of nationalism. As Billig (1995)
observed, no nation is intended to exist in isolation. All nationalized
groups envision a landscape beyond their borders populated by national-
ized counterparts, each with its own unique language, identity and polit-
ical state, among other features. Conventional nationalism projects an
interconnected global network of nation-states. Neo-nationalist groups
follow this ideological blueprint. Thus, neo-nationalist groups look to
counterpart groups across nationalized borders as allies, as long as all
parties mutually acknowledge and maintain rigid boundaries of nation
and state.

The Study
Purpose

Having provided an introduction to neo-nationalism and established

the underlying ideological interest in language, this chapter now exam-
ines neo-nationalist influence on public discourse surrounding language
policy in the United States. Specifically, the chapter explores six interre-
lated sets of texts that advocate for narrowing language use within the
United States to monolingual English. In analyzing these sets of texts,
the chapter will reveal intertextual linkages across them and the neo-
nationalist underpinnings informing the arguments they convey. The
22 B. Meadows

following two-part focus question guides the chapter: In what ways does
public discourse on language policy in the United States rely on neo-
nationalist priorities, and in what arguments are such neo-nationalist
priorities conveyed?

Method

The methodological orientation selected for this study is Critical

Discourse Analysis (Wodak & Meyer, 2001). Having adopted a crit-
ical stance, the basic presumption I had entering into the study was
that people realize social ideologies in the texts they author. A second
presumption is that texts are created and consumed by individual actors
from varying positions of social power. A final presumption is that,
depending on the context, a text can function to reinforce and/or chal-
lenge a given commonsense worldview made possible by a particular
ideology.
For this study, I am examining how neo-nationalist ideology is realized
in the arguments that political actors produce in support of monolingual
English language practices in nationalized spaces. I look at how these
arguments make repeat appearances across data sets to form intertextual
chains (Fairclough, 1992). The theoretical position here is that the inter-
textual chains function as tangible, discursive means by which ideologies
are reproduced and normalized in banal social activities.
The six sets of textual data are: (1) Candidate statements on language
use in the United States (2010s); (2) text of the federal-level English
Language Unity Act (2019); (3) advocacy statements in support of the
English Language Unity Act (2019); (4) official English justification
statements: Individual states (1986–2007); (5) neo-nationalism versus
bilingual education (2018–2019); and (6) language-in-education legis-
lation in state-level committee hearings (2019). Each data set varies
in volume of text to be analyzed. However, with each set, the basic
methodological technique is the same. Each text is analyzed primarily
for the justification arguments they provide for isolating English as the
single legitimate language for use in institutional work of the political
 2 Neo-Nationalism and Language Policy in the United States … 23

state (e.g., official English legislation and English immersion language-

in-education policy).

Analysis

Candidate Statements on Language Use

in the United States (2010s)

In the following analysis, an ideological link will be illustrated between

neo-nationalism, as an ideology of national homogeneity and border
vigilance, and contemporary English-only lobbying efforts in the United
States. Education scholars have demonstrated the intertwining history
of English-only movements in the United States and anti-immigrant
sentiment (Bonilla Moreno, 2012; Hartman, 2003). Gándara (2012),
in particular, noted that English-only legislation “tends to be pushed
through during period of high immigration when Americans feel they
are under siege by other languages” (n.p.). At a conceptual level, anti-
immigrant and English-only stances are just a half-step from one another.
The English-only stance is a logical extension of the anti-immigration
stance because border maintenance within nationalism is simultaneously
a physical and ideological task. Like related social ideologies, nationalism
works when individuals replicate nation-based distinctions in multiple
dimensions of everyday life (i.e., recursiveness). Such distinctions can
“provide actors with the discursive or cultural resources to claim and
thus attempt to create shifting ‘communities,’ identities, and selves,
at different levels of contrast within a cultural field” (Gal & Irvine,
1995, p. 974). That is, individuals come to see nationalized borders no
matter where they turn: in housing, in commercial media, in airports,
in schooling, etc. The term “nationalist border practices” (Meadows,
2014b) is apt for describing the efforts of neo-nationalist actors to render
nationalized borders in linguistic spaces through English-only policies.
Below are some examples of candidate public statements online that
reflect neo-nationalist ideology and the focused attention to English-only
24 B. Meadows

stances. While these candidates may or may not self-identify with neo-
nationalism, the political actions they advocate for are consistent with
neo-nationalist priorities. In their arguments, the candidates addition-
ally link anti-immigrant with English-only stances. As Art Jones, a 2016
Republican candidate for Illinois’s 3rd Congressional District, wrote on
his website:

Make English the Official Language: America was found by English

speaking people. For most of our history as a nation, if you wanted
to be able to advance yourself, as a new legal immigrant, you had to
learn how to speak and write in English. Since 1965, with the repeal
of the McCarran-Walter Act […] the requirement for citizenship to be
able to speak and write English was swept aside and now any two-legged
vagabond from any third-world, non-white, non-Christian country is
given preference whether they arrived legally or illegally. (Jones, 2018)

In a blog post dated December 11, 2013, Merlin Miller, a 2012 Candi-
date for President of the United States under the American Third
Position Party (later, American Freedom Party), listed 19 things he would
consider immediately if elected president. Among them, number 11 was:
“Make English the official language in the United States and require non-
English speakers to gain proficiency before being granted citizenship”
(Miller, 2013).
The public arguments presented here represent neo-nationalist atten-
tion to language in the way that they equate the nation with English
language use. Both positioned English usage as a primary criterion of
one’s legitimacy within the nationalized space (i.e., shibboleth argument ).
Jones (2018) developed a more extended rationale linking English to the
nation’s origins (i.e., heritage argument ) and a past era when national-
ized borders were more vigilantly protected (i.e., mythical past argument ).
Something else these statements reveal is candidate self-positioning as
authors of the nationalized people and culture. Neo-nationalist argu-
ments only really work when expressed from a position of national
proprietor, self-proclaimed or not.
 2 Neo-Nationalism and Language Policy in the United States … 25

Text of the Federal-Level English Language Unity Act (2019)

With the election of Donald Trump, neo-nationalist arguments have

increasingly informed immigration policy at the national level. However,
neo-nationalism has had less tangible impact on language policy, despite
the importance of language to the neo-nationalist agenda. At the level of
federal legislation, political organizations have promoted legislation codi-
fying English as the official language of the political state. In the House
of Representatives, a bill has been introduced as the English Language
Unity Act (H.R. 997); the Senate companion bill is known as S. 678.
Despite multiple introductions since 2005, neither bill has gone beyond
initial consideration in committee. Nevertheless, political organizations
like ProEnglish and U.S. English actively lobby for these bills each year.
As the analysis will show, justification arguments in favor of official
English are logical extensions of the anti-immigrant arguments central
to neo-nationalism.
To begin with, the title of the act communicates the intended func-
tion of English, which is to unite the national people. This is premised
on the Herderian principle (Woolard, 1998) calling for one language for
one nation. The logic follows that a shared language provides a direct
pathway to a shared identity under nationhood. The following section
examines selected excerpts from the 2019 H.R. 997 bill. Section 2
articulates the findings or the justification for the bill. Lines 4–20 read:

The Congress finds and declares the following:

(1) The United States is composed of individuals from diverse ethnic,
cultural, and linguistic backgrounds, and continues to benefit from this
rich diversity.
(2) Throughout the history of the United States, the common thread
binding individuals of differing backgrounds has been the English
language. (Congress.gov, 2019)

These statements provide a rationale for the bill that is articulated in

a commonality argument. For example, the English language is repre-
sented as a “common thread” that has been “binding” diverse individuals
together within a nationalized space. Section 3 of the bill proposes
26 B. Meadows

amendments to Title 4 of the U.S. Code. Among the amendments are

three guiding proclamations:

§ 162. Preserving and enhancing the role of the official language

§ 163. Official functions of Government to be conducted in English
§ 164 Uniform English language rule for naturalization

Proclamation § 162 details requirements of federal institutions to

promote English language use and English learning by those who require
it. This reflects an intended function of official English to perpet-
uate the American national people, as the authors interpret it (i.e., the
continuation argument). Proclamation § 163 codifies requirements for
all federal operations to be conducted in English. Also included in this
part are exceptions when non-English languages may be used, such as
(1) the teaching of languages and (2) requirements under the Individuals
with Disabilities Education Act. Finally, Proclamation § 164 establishes
English reading comprehension as a criterion for naturalization. This is
the shibboleth argument identified in the previous section.
As written, the text justifies the actions of the bill based on the
commonality argument. However, the bill must be interpreted as
imposing a common language rather than simply acknowledging one.
This is because if English were at present a common language nation-
wide, then it would not be necessary to clarify where it will be used
within a nationalized space. While it is not stated in the text of the
code, the underlying impact of the bill would be to marginalize millions
of people within the United States who may not use English as their
preferred language. Like immigration policies that physically remove
individuals from nationalized spaces, official English policies carry a
similar potential but in terms of legitimate participation in nationalized
spaces.
The bill includes exceptions, thus clarifying the legitimate spaces in
which non-English languages may be used in institutional settings (e.g.,
education, international relations, public health/safety, criminal justice,
and “terms of art or phrases from languages other than English”). These
exceptions portray institutional contexts in which the primacy of English
is not infringed upon. Echoing the neo-nationalist websites that allow
 2 Neo-Nationalism and Language Policy in the United States … 27

non-English translations, these exceptions show that it is not monolin-

gual space per se that is the ultimate objective but rather the hierarchy
of legitimate language use with English at the top privileged position.

Advocacy Statements in Support of the English

Language Unity Act (2019)

Two political organizations championing H.R. 997/S. 678, the English

Language Unity Act, are U.S. English and ProEnglish. These groups
do not self-identify as neo-nationalist, but their strong advocacy on
H.R. 997/S. 687 is occasionally framed in arguments consistent with
neo-nationalist priorities. Hartman (2003, p. 196) located English-only
organizations within the U.S. mainstream and not necessarily on the
societal margins. The following analysis examines blog postings during
2019 that one advocacy group, ProEnglish, associates with H.R. 997.
There are 22 postings in total. The method of analysis was to search
online for the H.R. 997 category and analyze the blog posts for content
and for arguments. The entire data set is accessible at https://proenglish.
org/category/h-r-997/.
In January 2019, the group articulated their lobbying agenda for the
year and then repeated these priorities in two subsequent postings during
the year. The agenda items are:

(a) passing HR997/S678,

(b) passing the RAISE Act,
(c) facilitating an executive order to rescind Executive Order 13166, and
(d) increase the number of official English laws at the state level.

In their blog postings, the group provided justification arguments to

advance their support of H.R. 997/S. 678. For example, the following
statement was posted on February 7th and then repeated in seven subse-
quent blogs during the year: “The passage of official English legislation
in H.R. 997 and S. 678 will save Americans billions of dollars in
current, government-mandated translation and interpretation costs and
will encourage cultural and linguistic assimilation by new arrivals to our
Another random document with
no related content on Scribd:
The Project Gutenberg eBook of The coat without
a seam, and other poems
 This ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United
States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with
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eBook.

Title: The coat without a seam, and other poems

Author: Helen Gray Cone

Release date: August 28, 2023 [eBook #71508]

Language: English

Original publication: New York: E. P. Dutton & Company, 1919

Credits: The Online Distributed Proofreading Team at

https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from
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Archive)

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE COAT

WITHOUT A SEAM, AND OTHER POEMS ***
 THE
COAT WITHOUT A SEAM And
Other Poems
 BY THE
SAME
AUTHOR

A CHANT OF LOVE FOR

ENGLAND AND OTHER POEMS

A volume of miscellaneous
poems containing as its title poem
a reply to the German “Hymn of
Hate.”
“Firmly and finely fashioned,
and unaffectedly sincere.”—The
New York Times.
“Miss Cone’s verse shows a
delicacy of imagination which is
deserving of high praise.”—The
Outlook.
$1.50 net

NEW YORK
E. P.
DUTTON &
COMPANY
681 Fifth
Avenue
 THE
COAT WITHOUT A SEAM
And Other Poems

BY
HELEN GRAY CONE
Author of “A Chant of Love for England,
and Other Poems”

NEW YORK
E. P. DUTTON & COMPANY
681 Fifth Avenue
 Copyright 1919, by
E. P. DUTTON & COMPANY

All Rights Reserved

Printed in the United States of America

Grateful acknowledgment is made, for permission to reprint some

of the poems in this book, to Scribner’s Magazine, The Outlook, The
Sonnet, The New York Evening Post, The New York Times, The
Boston Evening Transcript, and The Association Monthly.
 CONTENTS
PAGE
The Coat Without a Seam 1
Sonnets of the Great Peace 9
Moods of War:
The Sword 21
Aligned 23
Earth-brown Armies 26
The Imperative 27
War-Sacrifice 29
The Youth and War 31
Mothers of Soldiers 33
A Reprisal 35
On the Death of an Untried Soldier 39
The Airman 41
To Francis Ledwidge 42
The Way of the White Souls 44
Respite 47
Happy Country 49
To France 51
To Belgium 53
The Creed of an American 55
The Ultimate Victory 58
Roosevelt, 1919 60
The Quiet Days:
Old Burying Hill 65
Heartbreak Road 66
Romance 67
Faith 69
Intimations 70
On the Singing of “Gaudeamus Igitur” 72
The Countersign 74
Failure Triumphant 75
The Spark 77
Foxgloves 79
The Christmas Bagpipes 80
When Roses Go Down to the Sea 82
Ritual for Summer Dead 85
Red October 87
The Singer Chooses the Songs of the 89
Wind
The Gleam Travels 91
The Gray Victory 93
Flags and the Sky 96
THE COAT WITHOUT A
SEAM

THE COAT WITHOUT A SEAM

There was a web, ere Time began,

Woven on the loom of God,
Woven for the need of Man.
Through the web two colors ran,
Blue that is the sky of God,
Red that is the blood of Man.
The web was woven, the web was one:
The stars sang when the work was done.

God had willed it to be worn—

Fit garment for the heavenly feast—
By Man, that was to be His son.
Only God could dream that dream!
When Time began, and Man was born,
He clothed himself in the skin of the beast,
And under it beat the heart of the beast.
Not till Man be born God’s son
Shall he wear the Coat without a Seam!

(Ah, the dream, the wondrous dream

Of a World without a Seam,
Man being one, as God is one,
Brother’s brother and Father’s son,
All earth, all Heaven, without a seam!)
The Roman strode through field and flood,
Blind as Fate with battle-blood;
Victory glittered in his hand;
And when he laid him down at night
Under the stars of some strange land,
Weary of the march or fight,
He wrapped his heart in the vast dream
Of a World without a Seam;
Yet the dream was not divine;
The fierce heart beat like marching feet:
“The World is one—the World is mine!”
That was the dream of states foregone,
Of Babylon, of Macedon;
Sleeked by whatsoever art,
It is the dream of the beast’s heart.
Massive-treading Rome paced on
(As Macedon, as Babylon,)
Into the dusk of states foregone:
She left her mantle still astream
Along the wind, her purple dream—
Not the Coat without a Seam!
The eyes of emperors see it float,
They hail it for the sacred Coat:
Men follow on through field and flood,
Blind as Fate with battle-blood.
See the sworded sceptred train,
Out of the dusk they all advance:
Iron-crownéd Charlemagne,
Barbarossa flaming past,
Sombre majesties of Spain,
Pomps of old monarchic France—
Supreme Napoleon last,
Sweeping his ermine-bordered robe
And gripping fast the globe.
(Nay, who is this that follows him,
A vision helmeted and grim,
A countenance pallid and aghast?)
—Into the dusk they all are gone,
As Babylon, as Macedon.
Not till Man shall dream God’s dream
Shall he wear the Coat without a Seam!

(Ah, the dream, the wondrous dream

Of a World without a Seam!
Man being one, as God is one,
Brother’s brother and Father’s son,
All earth, all Heaven without a seam!)

“What shall we do, we simple folk

Who walk as cattle in the yoke?
Surely the vision of this Coat—
Fit garment for the heavenly feast—
Is for prophet and for priest,
Not for men of little note!
Surely the quest to find this Coat—
Woven of empyrean thread
Heaven-blue and heart-red—
This is for Kings and Chancellors,
Parliaments and Emperors,
Not for men of little note!”
—Nay, this do ye every one:
All your days to dream God’s dream,
That Man, who is to be His son,
Shall wear the Coat without a Seam!
SONNETS OF THE GREAT PEACE

“Incertainties now crown themselves assured

And peace proclaims olives of endless age.”

—Shakespeare’s Sonnet CVII.

What boon is this, this fresh and crystal thing,

Perfect as snow, dropped from the deep of the sky—
This healing, shed as from the soft swift wing
Of some great mystical bird low-sweeping by?
This music suddenly thrilling through the mind
Angelic unimagined ecstasy,
As when warm fingers of the Spring unbind
Young brooks that laugh and leap, at last being free?
By what white magic, what unfathomed art,
Was this best gift secretly perfected,
This amulet, that laid against the heart
Melts all the icy weight that held it dead?
This is that Peace we had and did not know;
This is that Peace we lost—how long ago!

II

Shall we not now work wonders with this charm,

To the vext heart of the world benignly laid,
Fending all future golden lads from harm,
 And all gray mothers, and every starry maid?
Yea, all kind beasts that ask with patient eyes
Our wisdom to forestall bewildering pain:
Yea, all kind fields, trees rippling to the skies,
Brown earth sweet-breathing under natural rain.
Shall we not now, being freed, being healed of Peace,
Retrieve all days to be from blot and blight,
Give to the chained goodwill of Man release,
And a new deed of manumission write
On a new page, made by this marvellous boon
Pure as unfooted snow under the moon?

III

How did we cast away our careless days

In that old time before we knew their worth,
Wandering with chance, even as a child that strays,
Spilling their unprized splendors on the earth!
But now we have eaten War as daily bread,
Borne it upon our souls a weary weight,
Made it the pillow to a restless head,
Breathed it as air, sick with the reek of hate:
And Peace is come a stranger, and grave-eyed,
Like a young maid turned woman; on our knees
We do her reverence as a spirit enskyed;
How should we spend such shining days as these?
They have cost great pain: needs must we hold them dear,
Counting our jewels with a heavenly fear.

IV

Ghosts of great flags that billowed in the sun

With glorious colors above the crowded street,
 Lifting our hearts to know the rent world one,
Teaching the march of Man to hurrying feet,
Shall ye not haunt those skyward spaces still
With memory of your sun-illumined streaming,
Bright brother-angels heralding goodwill,
Beckoners of sordid spirits to noble dreaming?
Or shall your many beauteous blazonries
Fade out from the dulled sense and be forgot,
And intimations so august as these
Lapse into silence even as they were not,
Comrades turn rivals, and heart-fast allies
Weavers of schemes, peering with insect eyes?

What shame were this to those who lie asleep

Under the scarlet poppies, having bought
A clean new world with blood! Shall we not keep
Faith with our dead, and give them what they sought?
Is not a world the measure of our debt
To those whose young lives sadly we inherit,
Living them out, making them fruitful yet?
What lesser meed fits their transcendent merit?
The future was their sacrificial gift,
And joy unborn, and beauty uncreate,
And little children that should racing lift
Their torch of life, laughing at death and fate:
Shall we not make, mindful of all they gave,
A star of this old earth which is their grave?
MOODS OF WAR
 THE SWORD

One of the seventy had a sword

The day that Christ was crucified:
He followed where they led his Lord,
The man that could not stand aside.

When that first hammer-stroke rang loud,

And left and right the rabble swayed,
He flashed from out the staring crowd,
He died upon the Roman blade.

His fruitless deed, his noteless name,

By careless Rome were never told.
Now shall we give him praise or blame?
Account him base, acclaim him bold?

Was he the traitor to his Lord,

Deeper than Peter that denied,
The loving soul that took the sword,
The man that would not stand aside?

Or did the glorious company

Of Michael’s sworded seraphim
With chivalrous high courtesy
Rise up to make a place for him?
 ALIGNED

Why do you leap in the wind so wild,

O Star-Flag, O Sky-Flag?
And why do you ripple as if you smiled,
Flag of my heart’s delight?
“I laugh because I am loosed at last,
Free of the cords that bound me fast
Mute as a mummy, furled on the mast,
Far from the beckoning fight!

“I joy because I am aligned—

The Star-Flag, the Sky-Flag—
With these the noblest of my kind,
Flags of the soul’s desire!
And where the blended Crosses blaze,
And where the Tricolor lifts and sways
To the marching pulse of the Marseillaise,
I may be tried in the fire!”

Yea, not for gold and not for ease,

My Star-Flag, my Sky-Flag,
The Fathers launched you on the breeze,
Flag of man’s best emprise!
Yea, not for power and not for greed,
But to fly forever, follow or lead,
For the world’s hope and the world’s need,
Flower of all seas and all skies!
And better you were a riddled rag,
My Star-Flag, my Sky-Flag,
The faded ghost of a fighting-flag,
Shredded, and scorched with flame,
Than that you should now be satisfied
Over splendid cities and waters wide
To flutter and float in an idle pride,
To flaunt in a silken shame!

Then well may you leap in the wind so wild,

O Star-Flag, O Sky-Flag!
And well may you ripple as if you smiled,
Flag of our hearts’ delight!
We joy because you are aligned
With these the noblest of your kind:
We are yours and theirs with a single mind—
Let us on to the beckoning fight!