Regional inequities in English pronunciation development in high schools in mainland China : an ethnographic case study

Abstract

Pronunciation development is a process infused with negotiation of power relations and social positions because of social meanings associated with pronunciation. This study critically examines the social and ideological constructions of English pronunciation in two high schools in Mainland China, focusing on the perceptions and practices of students and English teachers around English pronunciation development. Taking up a social constructionist epistemology, this research employed an ethnographic case study approach and was conducted in two state-run high schools situated in two socio-economically differentiated regions in China: Shenping High School in Shanghai and Chuncheng High School in Yichun City, Jiangxi Province. In each school, two-month fieldwork was conducted. To approach an insider’s perspective, data were collected through participant observation of English lessons, English teachers’ and students’ daily routines at school, school activities involving oral English use, and general school settings. Semi-structured interviews with selected English teachers and students were conducted, and relevant documents such as English curriculum materials were collected. Data were examined through discourse analysis illuminated by Bourdieu’s critical social theory of practice. Analysis showed that social inequities in English pronunciation development were reproduced and negotiated in complex, nuanced ways, as English teachers and students in the two school fields divergently addressed tensions among a test-oriented discourse, a quality education discourse, and native English hegemony that largely shaped the social and ideological constructions of English pronunciation. Students in Shenping High School were generally in a better position to develop identities of legitimate (future) English speakers, as most English teachers were enabled to navigate a quality education discourse and incorporate communicative-like activities in the largely test-oriented English language classrooms. However, students in Chuncheng High School were mostly denied access to meaningful spoken interactions, as students and teachers felt constrained by the prevalent test-oriented discourse deeply inscribed in their habitus and constructed English lessons into a space mainly for the transmission of objectified language knowledge. Furthermore, students and teachers in Chuncheng High School co-constructed significantly more explicit practices around word pronunciation development, mainly in the form of choral reading of words, since word pronunciation capability was recognized as an important form of cultural capital for high-stakes tests and many students were identified to have a lack of such cultural capital from a deficit perspective. Finally, provided with ample audio-visual resources featuring Inner Circle varieties of pronunciation, students in Shenping High School were in a more privileged position than their counterparts to develop these varieties of pronunciation, which were recognized as language of power in wider society due to the hegemony of “native English”. This study sheds light on the social and discursive nature of English pronunciation in an EFL context, illuminates that pronunciation development in English language education is a site for social reproduction in school fields, and emphasizes that social complexities in pronunciation development are better understood within broader social contexts where relevant practices are constructed. Finally, the study suggests implications for research on pronunciation development and for reflexive practices in English language education to disrupt the reproductive tendencies of habitus.