Regimes of linguistic entrepreneurship: Neoliberalism, the entanglement of language ideologies and affective regime in language education policy

Abstract

This article explores how the ideologies of neoliberal linguistic entrepreneurship have created ethical tensions and contentious affects among Indigenous communities in promoting multilingualism and multilingual education. Taking the case of Nepal, our goal is to show how imperatives and characteristics that are articulated as key parts of neoliberalism are systematically perpetuated and appropriated in language education policies and discourses. We draw our data from interviews, ethnographic observation and instructional practices in the classroom. The article makes two major claims regarding how the neoliberal ideology of linguistic entrepreneurship has shaped the perceptions and practices of Indigenous peoples in a rapidly transforming society. First, it shows that the promotion of the English language in education should be understood as a key element of neoliberal educational entrepreneurship that considers education as a profit-making entity. And, second, the ideology of linguistic entrepreneurship is an embodiment of a broader neoliberal atmosphere to create an affective regime by which the feelings of collective identity and Indigenous language activism are trivialized and the affects that are perceived to empower a neoliberal subject are promoted. The new affective regime eventually contributes to translating the global dominance of English into a medium of instruction policy at the local level and supports English medium education as a market commodity.