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    Rights statement: The final, definitive version of this article has been published in the Journal, Sociology,52(6), 2018, © SAGE Publications Ltd, 2018 by SAGE Publications Ltd at the Sociology page: http://http://journals.sagepub.com/home/SOC on SAGE Journals Online: http://journals.sagepub.com/

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On (not) speaking English: colonial legacies in language requirements for British citizenship

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Published
<mark>Journal publication date</mark>1/12/2018
<mark>Journal</mark>Sociology
Issue number6
Volume52
Number of pages16
Pages (from-to)1254-1269
Publication StatusPublished
Early online date12/12/17
<mark>Original language</mark>English

Abstract

This article examines the colonial legacies shaping current language requirements for immigrants applying for settlement or citizenship in Britain. The article argues that common sense understandings of ‘national language’ and monolingualism/multilingualism were developed in the context of imperial expansion, the legacies of which resonate today in a disdain for multilingualism and other Englishes conceived as hampering cohesion. Put simply, other languages and other English are spoken here because English was there. Drawing on interviews with applicants and English teaching professionals, the article discusses how participants variously experience English language requirements. The analysis shows how the colonial legacies supporting the rise of English as a ‘world language’ cast it as the locus of a regime of audibility that establishes a hierarchy between ‘the English’ and the ‘anglicised’. In today’s Britain, the multilingualism of the other is not external and prior to Britain, but rather speaks volumes to and about contemporary Britain.

Bibliographic note

The final, definitive version of this article has been published in the Journal, Sociology,52(6), 2018, © SAGE Publications Ltd, 2018 by SAGE Publications Ltd at the Sociology page: http://http://journals.sagepub.com/home/SOC on SAGE Journals Online: http://journals.sagepub.com/