Language Ideologies in the Wild: Entrepreneurs

This post continues my language ideologies in the wild series, following some announcements!

First, I’m really excited to announce that I will be offering an online course, Organize Your Language Teacher Life, that combines two of the things I love the most, language teaching and planning/organizing!  If you’re a language teacher with big ideas, but feel like the everyday prep/grading makes it difficult to implement them, or struggle with remembering where exactly you saved/saw that cool video for class, this may be for you. We’ll also discuss the reality of structural challenges in our field. If you’re interested, please sign up here to be notified when it’s available.

Second, because there are a lot of language ideologies in the wild, starting this series means I may be blogging more often.  For this reason, I’m changing the subscribe option (at the bottom of this page) to a monthly newsletter that will include links to all of the blog posts for the previous month, rather than it’s current setup of auto-sending the post when it releases (after this post release).  If you want to subscribe, scroll to the bottom of this page and enter your email

Now, onto the post itself!

Last year, I wrote a post on Language Ideologies in the Wild: The Science of Learning, where I described some of the underlying ideologies that frustrated me in an otherwise interesting book.  Since this is a fairly common occurrence, and I read a lot of books, I’ve decided to make it into a series, where I analyze the language ideologies embedded in books on decidedly different topics.  As I’ve noted before on my posts on teaching, I think being aware of our language ideologies is essential.  We can choose different language ideologies and disagree–after all there is no non-ideological, neutral perspective! Yet what I observe all too often is simply a complete lack of awareness of these ideologies, and as a result the perpetuation of social inequities.

Today’s post takes on language ideologies in Entrepreneurial You, by Dorie Clark, a book focused on monetizing your expertise in various realms.  As far as I can tell, it provides useful advice on this endeavor so this post is not a critique of this particular book or its overall message.  However, the chapter on hiring employees, including virtual assistants, contains a number of unexamined language ideologies that I thought I’d discuss further here, as they are pervasive.

The first quote where this comes up is when Clark discusses her first experiences trying to hire VAs from India:

I longed for help, but a previous, brief foray into trying out virtual assistants (VAS) from India had only lasted a week; the company’s definition of “English speaking” was a little too generous, and I knew that if someone were to represent me, they had to be able to communicate well in a professional context.

The assumption contained in this quote is that because the VA didn’t communicate in the way Clark herself communicates in a particular context, they are unable to “communicate well” and in fact not “English speaking”.  Now, I do think Clark should have the choice to hire someone who communicates the way she would, but the way this is phrased equates Clark’s communication choices with “communicating well” and “English speaking”. It is likely (especially given the long history and prominence of English in India) that the way the VA communicated is entirely acceptable and considered “English speaking” in contexts Clark is unfamiliar with.  Defining “English speaking” and “communicating well” on the standard of a socially privileged US speaker relates to the nation-state ideology and the ideology of standardization, both of which help uphold social inequities, including a long tradition of racism against Asian English speakers.  I highly doubt this was Clark’s intention, but when we are unaware of language ideologies, this is what happens.  Given the rise in hate crimes against Asians and Asian Americans during the Coronavirus pandemic, and the role of being “English speaking” in othering these groups, this is particularly relevant today.  

These ideologies come up again shortly thereafter, when Clark is explaining the disadvantages of foreign VAs (despite their cheaper cost!):

But you’ll likely have to build in extra up-front training time and supervision, as you can’t count on the same implicit assumptions that you’d share with someone from your own culture. And while it’s certainly possible to find people who speak and write your language well, you may have to look carefully.

Here again, we see the entrepreneur hiring the VA (who is probably from a wealthier country like the US) as the standard for speaking the language “well”, and the assumption that if the VA speaks it differently (and also has different cultural assumptions) they are the problem.  What if we flipped this around and saw the entrepreneur and their customers as the problem, because they have limited contexts and cultural assumptions in which to understand their language? What if this was an opportunity for them to extend their own English skills?

Finally, there is Clark’s advice for hiring VAs:

Think about what skills you’d want in a VA, based on the tasks you need accomplished. If there’s a lot of writing involved, you’ll likely want a native English speaker. If you need technical help, such as podcast or video editing, you’ll need to look for VAs with special skills.

Again, there is nothing wrong with the advice to hire someone with the skills you are looking for.  However, we see language ideologies at work in Clark’s equation of writing skills with “native English speaker”. Leaving aside for now the problematic nature of the term “native speaker” (a concept that works for a limited, though very socially powerful percentage of the world’s population), this is simply false: there are many “non-native” speakers who can write like a socially privileged US entrepreneur (though I’ll grant they may not be working as VAs).  Similarly, there are many “native speakers” who won’t write this way because of their social backgrounds and lived experiences.  Once more, we’re back to the ideology of standardization which allows English writing to be perceived as an objective, measurable, decontextualized skill, where the language of the socially privileged is taken as the standard.  Intentional or not, upholding these language ideologies upholds these social inequities.  

While I’ve focused on a particular book in this post, this is hardly an unusual case, as these language ideologies are so dominant in our society (stay tuned for my upcoming language ideologies in the wild posts!). Even worse, in many of these cases, I think the authors’ explicit stance on racism and classism would oppose the positions they uphold through their lack of awareness of the connection between language ideologies and social inequities. Yet, if our efforts for social justice are built on a foundation designed to promote social inequities, can they really succeed? What do you think?