English Language Schools in the Kingdom of Hawaii: A Critical Discourse Analysis

Rubén Fernández Asensio, Second Language Studies

Compulsory public education was established in Hawaii in 1840. In 1854, the Hawaiian Legislature passed the English School Act, which provided English schools for Hawaiians wherever parents would pay half the teacher’s salary. This paper argues against traditional interpretations that the shift to English was willingly supported by Hawaiian commoners seeking educational and economic opportunities, and also against the view that ideological superstructures only reproduce pre-existing political/economical inequalities. Although Gramsci’s principle of hegemony stemming from the fabrication of ideological consensus is endorsed, the framework engaged in is Foucauldian poststructuralism. In its light, White settlers’ power, while still lacking an ultimate base on economic infrastructures, by 1850 was already arising through the discursive co-construction of reality and Hawaiians’ misrecognition of foreigners’ interests as their own.

    Giving a close reading to a speech delivered in 1852 by the Hawaiian Minister of Education, this study develops Fairclough’s Critical Discourse Analysis by using historical data to examine the social processes of text production and reception. It also argues that language policies in sovereign Hawai’i are an anomaly against the backdrop of 19th century colonial rule and rather similar to the current international spread of English, including recent Japanese and Korean debates on the officialization of English, which makes it a relevant case for contemporary sociolinguistics. The analysis of linguistic means reveals the birth of a common-sense discourse still practiced. Thus, typical 19th century racism gives way to language commodification and an interplay of capitalistic and educational discourses that is now very familiar to us.