Language of Instruction as a Social Marker of Difference

The use of a foreign language, especially English, as the language of instruction in primary and secondary schools, has become a social marker of difference. But it is not only the use of a foreign language that can serve as a social marker. In Asia and Africa, the regional languages carry more prestige than the smaller community languages. Sometimes they are also used as languages of instruction. Children who are not fluent in these languages are doubly handicapped. The social markers of difference includes the constitution of differences as a starting point for the understanding of social inequalities. Through examples from so-called “Anglophone” countries in Africa, from Norway, from India, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka, the author shows how the use of English as the language of instruction has become a social marker. The article is made livelier through the author’s reference to her own experiences in Tanzania, where she has worked for several years. She also uses her own recent research to show that when a regional language is used as a language of instruction in settings where the local community speaks a local language, fluency in the regional language also functions as a marker of social difference. The author shows how western theories of multilingualism bar understanding of the multilingual habitus such as the one in African everyday life.