Discourse Patterns in First Language Use at Hcme and Second Language Learning at School: an Ethnographic Approach

Literature I 22

The Literature

2.1 Language in Education Policies

2.1.1 Colonialism and language

As pointed out in page 2, in this study "underdeveloped countries' means
'having been underdeveloped, crippled in their development'. This term is
preferred to 'developing' because it does not conceal two basic facts
about poor countries: a) that they have been drained of much of their
resources by the slave trade and colonial pillage, and b> that they are
kept in a state of dependence in the interest of the dominant world
economies: the gap between South and North is progressively widening.

The colonial situation is taken to be the crucial experience for the
t-

underdeveloped world, even if ^few cases exist of countries which have
never been colonized but share nonetheless the same problems of third
world poverty (Vatson,1982). Stressing the centrality of the colonial
experience for language and education Issues does not mean failing to
recognize the importance of multilingual contacts, traditional educational
practices and sch∞l systems developed by social groups long before
European conquest : rather, it allows the identification of the problems
of culture and cultural domination as the main constructs for analysis.

Colonialism imposed its control over the social production of wealth
through military, political and cultural domination, l.e. the control over

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