Critical discourse analysis and the ethnography of language policy

This article explores the compatibility of ethnography and critical discourse analysis (CDA) for the study of language policy. A perennial challenge facing the field of language policy is how to make connections between the macro and micro, and between macro-level policy texts and discourses and micro-level language use. Hornberger and Johnson [(2007). Slicing the onion ethnographically: Layers and spaces in multilingual language education policy and practice. TESOL Quarterly, 41(3), 509–532] propose the ethnography of language policy as a method for examining the language policy processes within and across the multiple layers of policy creation, interpretation, and appropriation. This paper further explores how CDA can be integrated into ethnographic studies of language policy and proposes that the combination of CDA and ethnography is particularly useful for revealing the connections between the multiple layers of policy activity. Based on a 3-year ethnographic study of bilingual education policy and practice in the School District of Philadelphia, this paper examines the intertextual and interdiscursive links between policy texts and discourses to uncover how the recontextualization of macro-level language policy impacts bilingual education.