Abstract
In recent years, the global shift toward English in early education has fundamentally reshaped educational systems in many contexts. Algeria is among the countries that introduced English in primary school starting in 2022. Rather than stemming from objective or educationally sound diagnoses, English education is heavily supported by prevailing media narratives and press releases using "crisis rhetoric"—manufacturing an artificial sense of urgency to evade public deliberation and justify top-down, radical language shifts. Drawing on Critical Language Policy (CLP), this research seeks to dismantle seemingly "neutral" terms, revealing the hidden ideologies (including neoliberalism, coloniality, and instrumentalism) embedded in this coverage. Following a qualitative, interpretive research design, the study uses a purposive sampling of pedagogical documents and media excerpts, including the Didactic Guide (the compass for primary school EFL teachers in Algeria) and the press releases and media coverage surrounding the introduction of English in Algerian primary schools. These documents are analyzed and contrasted with global organizations’ discourse, such as the Euromonitor International Reports (British Council, 2012). The presentation unpacks three core dimensions of this media coverage: first, a Taxonomy of Crisis—a list of discursive themes (e.g., emergency, obsolescence, competitiveness) with which the transition is promoted; second, a systematic identification of what or who is neglected in the press discourse; and third, a framework illustrating how language hierarchies are discursively strengthened through press rhetoric, legitimizing certain linguistic groups while marginalizing others. Ultimately, I argue that the crisis rhetoric characterizing media representations of English education in Algeria engineers a manufactured consent that neglects the local linguistic ecology, deploys discursive power to alter language hierarchies, and drives a severe discourse-practice gap by dismissing material classroom realities. This presentation invites a broader discussion on the instrumentalization of both pupils and the English language through sensationalist press rhetoric.
Speaker:
Ghoutia Soumia Attig holds a Master’s degree in Language Sciences from the University of Tlemcen, Algeria, where she is now a PhD candidate specializing in sociolinguistics and language policy. She is a visiting researcher at the Department of Linguistics and Scandinavian Studies (ILN), University of Oslo. Her ongoing project, "The English Panacea: Crisis Rhetoric in Language Policy," investigates how manufactured crisis rhetoric and hidden ideologies shape recent English-in-primary-school reform in Algeria. Her research interests center on language hierarchies, language ideologies, and the socioeconomic dimensions of educational language reforms.