Document Type

Article

Publication Date

2024

Abstract

Perceptions of multilingualism have an impact on the educational choices of urban Indians and larger policy decisions around language in education in the Indian state of Maharashtra. By surveying 150 speakers of Marathi, the official language of the state and mother tongue, or first language of survey respondents, perceptions of multilingualism reveal conceptual assumptions and biases that can be uncovered through cognitive-linguistic analysis. Unprompted, survey respondents drew connections between multilingualism and education, underscoring language ideologies, or beliefs about languages which motivate urban Maharashtrians' educational decisions. Education is the stage upon which multilingual speakers in India express their aspirations and anxieties about connections between language, identity, and community. Through an analysis of the conceptual metaphors about language, we explore the conceptual frameworks associated with and assigned to language that shape positive or negative attitudes towards urban multilingualism. Overall, we see how conceptual metaphors of utility, inevitability and success describe multilingualism as the basis of the increasing demand to learn English, whereas Marathi as a mother tongue language is associated with a person, purity, and moral superiority. By connecting respondents' conceptual metaphors to their thoughts on multilingualism, we can identify the frameworks shaping their ideologies and actions

Publication Title

Journal of Education, Language, and Ideology

Volume

2

Issue

1

First Page

104

Last Page

132

Digital Object Identifier (DOI)

https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.13931953

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