Locus of enunciation: insights for intercultural language teaching

Abstract

Recent articles on the problems of ‘locus of enunciation’ have focused on research and publication as well as on theoretical development of the concept. It is an issue in teaching and learning too, and this is the focus of this article which argues that to reject teaching approaches in ‘the South’ because they come from ‘the North’ is, first, counter to the principles of academic freedom upheld as much in the South as the North, second, prevents learners from having access to important knowledge and third, ignores the ways in which learners in ‘the South’ can ‘re-enunciate’ what they have learned from ‘the North’. Our argument has its origins in our own experience of censorship in the name of ‘locus of enunciation’. As language teachers, we demonstrate that internationalist and pluralist ways of thinking can and should lead to cultural, intellectual humility and that this is a better basis for making judgements than a preference for ‘our’ locus of enunciation over ‘theirs’. We illustrate our argument with the pedagogic project that gave rise to the use of ‘locus of enunciation’ as the basis for rejection of our teaching, to show how the project can be read ‘otherwise’.