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By examining the question of language in Haiti, this article aims at broadening the debate and dialogue among language policymakers and language rights advocates, scholars, researchers and educators about the effects of “linguistic imperialism” (Phillipson 1992) on the development of Haitian Creole and its impact on Haitian children's educational experience. Drawing from theoretical approaches in history (James 1989 [1963]; Fouron 2010; Dubois 2012), linguistics (Calvet 1974; DeGraff 2001; Dejan 2006), language planning and language policy research (Blommaert 2006; Spolksy 2004), and education (Madhere 2010; Plaisir 2010; Shor 1992) has helped shape the scope of this analysis, while also garnering various critical insights from the field of oral literature. In sum, this work reflects an interdisciplinary effort that highlights the impact of linguistic and cultural agents and historical events as it also sheds light on the lived experiences of Haitians within the larger Haitian democratic project begun in 1791 (James 1989; Dupuy 1997; Dubois 2004).

Zygmunt Bauman, Alexander Laban Hilton and Paul Havemann, amongst others, have argued that genocide is intimately linked to modernity. Modern discourses on development, modernization and western science as well as key meta-narratives of modernity (advancing the teleological myth of progress and civilization), “gardener's visions” and the very categorization and standardization of national languages (crucial to the biopolitical formation of global populations under the system of modern nation-states) have all legitimated and effected policies and practices that have been genocidal in their nature and scope. This article examines and details the extent to which all these identified aspects of modernity can be observed in the case of Turkey. The findings indicate that linguistic/cultural and physical genocide of Kurds in Turkey has taken place (over the past eight and a half decades) as a direct consequence of the Kemalist/Ataturkist modernity project. Language policy – which has advocated linguistic imperialism alongside linguistic genocide – has been a critical tool for the creation of the modern Turkish nation-state.

How do non-native English-speaking teachers (NNESTs) establish their legitimacy as credible, qualified instructors in the contexts where they teach vis-a-vis the native speaker (NS) myth (Phillipson, Linguistic imperialism, Oxford University Press, 1992)? Using Vygotskian Sociocultural Theory (Vygotsky and Cole, Mind in society: the development of higher psychological processes, Harvard University Press, 1978; Wertsch, Vygotsky and the social formation of mind, Harvard University Press, 1985), this paper traces the development of an ESL writing teacher's professional identity and explores how his beliefs and attitudes in regards to the NS myth are connected with his professional identity and instructional practices. Based primarily on classroom observations, interviews, and a dialogic journal between the researcher and the teacher, I argue that the process of challenging the NS myth and negotiating a professional identity as a legitimate, qualified, and confident ESL teacher, though complex, is largely understudied. In order to address this gap in the literature, this study shows how the participant, the teacher of a graduate-level writing course, went from being a “blind believer” in the native speaker myth to challenging it, to attempting to empower his own students as expert speakers and users of the language. Nonetheless, his beliefs and attitudes toward the NS myth remained ambivalent and contradictory. Based on the analysis presented, I offer some implications for second language teacher education.

English has emerged as a world language after the Second World War. This role of English as a de facto international lingua franca has been criticized as ‘linguistic imperialism’ or ‘linguicism’, threatening the vitality and development of many local languages in former Anglo-American colonies, especially in Africa and Asia. To counter the hegemony of the phenomenal spread of English worldwide, some scholars advocate and promote the use of Esperanto, an artificial language, as an international auxiliary language. Created by Lazaro Ludoviko Zamenhof in 1887, Esperanto is largely based on the lexicons of several dominant European languages, an alphabetical language characterized by a learner-friendly phonology and relatively simple syntax and morphology. To adherents of Esperanto, its sociolinguistic appeal lies mainly in the fact that, unlike English, it is no one’s first language, and so no user of Esperanto would feel disadvantaged when communicating with other fellow Esperantists. After over 110 years of continual development, the Esperanto movement has attracted thousands of followers worldwide, but toward the goal of replacing English as a world language, Esperanto faces many obstacles. This paper discusses two main problems confronted by Esperanto as a serious contender of English for that role: relatively limited communicative functions, and the ‘medium-as-message’ paradox. These problems explain why individual language learners find Esperanto unattractive compared to other natural languages of wider communication, and why governments tend to lack the incentive to add Esperanto to the local school curriculum. The claim that the spread of English is responsible for the world’s social evils is overstated. Globalization is more satisfactorily accounted for by the global triumph of the ‘Utilitarian Discourse System.’