Neoliberal discourses in Spanish for business: An ethnographic classroom study

Abstract Beginning in the 1970s, education has responded to the rise of neoliberalism across macro-, meso-, and micro-level contexts through shifts in practice and structure. Meanwhile, language learning is often promoted as an instrument in job attainment and transnational business communication. For example, in language education, courses in language for specific purposes, whose ubiquity continues to increase, often reflect the market rationality embedded in contemporary education and support an instrumental orientation to language learning. This ethnographic study investigates the neoliberal discourses taken up by students and the instructor in a university-level Spanish for Business classroom. Drawing on triangulated data from classroom observations, field notes, informal interviews with students and the instructor, and a semi-formal interview with a focal student participant, the findings suggest that competition, compliance, and individualism were among the ideological discourses of the classroom. However, while societal and institutional discourses of neoliberalism were often interpellated, they were also resisted. Implications for praxis are also discussed.