The Coloniality of Linguistic Entrepreneurship

Abstract

Neoliberalism as a lens through which language learning—and by extension education in general—is viewed is insufficient in accounting for the transforming nature of education and language learning today. In other words, the neoliberalism of education and language learning—operationalized, for example, through the practices and ideologies of linguistic entrepreneurship— is imbricated in histori-cally-mediated sociopolitical relations. This can be exemplified by the case of the Philippines where entrepreneurial discourses and practices ‒ for example, language learning for employment opportunities, pursuit for profit and as a moral obliga-tion to society—are historically traceable to the Philippines’ enduring encounters and confrontations with 20 th century (neo)colonialism. Linguistic entrepreneurship fittingly describes the dispositions, practices and ideologies of the neoliberal language learner, but as soon as this language learner becomes the neoliberal Filipino speaker, it becomes politically imperative to historically unpack the ‘Filipino’ in language learning. In this sense education and language learning are characterized primarily by their coloniality, mediated by the logics of neoliberalism; linguistic entrepreneurship is mobilized in conditions of coloniality.