Neoliberalism has become the hegemonic rationality of our time, framing nearly every aspect of our social world in terms of competition. This dissertation sheds light on neoliberal infiltration and naturalization within the field of language education through three distinct but interrelated papers. In Discourses of dual language bilingual education, I map out the discursive landscape of the field and, building on Ruiz (1984), I theorize a cross-epistemic model to demonstrate why the English-as-resource paradigm of the nationalist era has transformed into a multilingualism-as-resource paradigm within the current neoliberal era. In Rebranding bilingualism: The shifting discourses of language education policy in California’s 2016 election, I use critical discourse analysis to compare Proposition 227 (1998), which effectively banned bilingual education in California, with its legislative repeal, Proposition 58 (2016), specifically demonstrating the discursive shift to neoliberalism that occurred between 20th and 21st century language education policies. In Mechanisms of neoliberalization within California’s language education policy, I draw on the tools of critical discourse analysis as well as corpus linguistics to examine California language education policy texts spanning from 1967 to the present, laying bare three discursive mechanisms of neoliberalization within the field: 1) infiltration of market-based vocabulary; 2) terminological sloganization; and 3) commodification of multilingualism.

While the neoliberalization of language education has contributed to more widespread support of bilingual education—now rebranded as multilingualism—it has also altered the reasons behind this support—from promoting equity and social justice to a market-based rationale of expanding individual opportunity in an increasingly globalized world. My findings point to the ways in which those who have traditionally been served by bilingual education—that is, racially and linguistically minoritized students—are being crowded out by more privileged (i.e., white) students seeking a competitive edge in the global market era. Neoliberal policies–through color-blind, a-historic, and universalistic rhetoric–are deceptively designed to appear objective and democratic (“for all”). I argue, however, that neoliberalism undermines democracy by reproducing colonial relations of power that privilege Whiteness. This collected work contributes to a deeper understanding of the political work of language.

Language is increasingly understood as a commodified skill that allows learners, seen as language entrepreneurs, to compete in the global marketplace.  Language teaching has become increasingly privatized through the emergence of a global industry that presents language in pre-packaged, standardized forms in response to the needs of the free market. As language becomes both a target—as a technicized skill—and an instrument of neoliberalization, language education finds itself caught in the crossfire. Neoliberal ideology and policy affect decisions about which languages to teach and to learn, when, where, and to whom languages are taught, and how to teach them.

This special issue seeks to build on previous work related to globalization, language standardization, multilingual subjectivities, and linguistic imperialism, amongst other related topics. By situating these discussions within the frame of neoliberal ideologies and practices this issue seeks to critically explore the historically situated ways in which neoliberal discourse has influenced the field of language education in order to open up spaces for critical reflection and action.

This special issue, Critical perspectives on neoliberalism in second / foreign language education, has arisen from our collective, lived experiences as language teachers, as researchers, and as early career scholars. In particular, it comes from changes we have observed in: how languages are understood and taught; the ways that learners and teachers are constructed; the kinds of knowledge about language learning that is produced through research; and the perceived goals of language study within a larger framework of the increased privatization of education. As we noticed the extent to which neoliberal discourse—the discourse of the marketplace—has seeped into these various practices, we came to realize how much it has influenced our own constructions of ourselves, of our learners, and of knowledge itself. It occurred to us that a critical engagement with neoliberalism could help us to examine the changes we were living and to understand our concerns with these experiences.

In this introduction, we address the following central questions: What is neoliberalism? What does neoliberalism have to do with education, and specifically, with second/foreign language education? Why are we taking a critical perspective and what does this look like? We situate our responses to these questions within the field of applied linguistics and place them in dialogue with the articles in this issue. We begin by defining neoliberalism and articulating our goals for this special issue; next, we delve into how these manuscripts intersect with previous research. We conclude with an outline of the manuscripts that comprise the issue and an examination of the paradoxes and contradictions brought to light—and critical spaces opened up—by the special issue as a whole.