How a view of language underpins approaches to supporting higher education students that facilitate neo-liberalism, and how to resist this

Abstract

In this article, the authors argue that a particular view of language underpins approaches to supporting students in higher education, and that this view facilitates neo-liberalism. Universities worldwide have glossaries of terms such as ‘describe’ or ‘discuss’, and centralized units to help students understand what an ‘essay’ or ‘report’ is, and to ‘critically evaluate’. This approach to support is underpinned by seeing language as a concrete abstract objectivist entity, separable from any context for analysis and teaching. Such a view is ideal for facilitating neo-liberalism and giving it persuasive power, as it underpins arguments to create support that is low-cost, applicable to all subjects and students, deliverable by almost anyone and replicable. Here, drawing on theory and data, the authors challenge this view of language and present and discuss examples to show how language is instead an individual subjectivist entity, unique to context and subject. They further show how support for students is undertaken by lecturers through dialogue in the subject context. The authors argue that current approaches to support should be changed to reflect this individual subjectivist nature of language. They therefore resist neo-liberalism by questioning the validity of the arguments used to give it persuasive power in its approach to support.