ABSTRACT
The central role of language in education can never be emphasized enough since language is the means through which the different components of the school curriculum are imparted to learners. That is, access to explicit and implicit curriculum content is made possible through teacher and pupil interaction. Therefore, the way teachers and learners conceptualize the nature of language seems to be crucial in determining beliefs about how knowledge and meaning are generated in society, i.e., in defining who has access to discourse and, therefore, to power. As Foucault (1984, p. 110) says, “discourse is not simply that which translates struggles or systems of domination, but [it] is the thing for which and by which there is struggle, discourse is the power which is to be seized.” Because of the centrality of written language in the world of schools and because children go to school to be given the tools which will provide access to written language as a means of further access to different bodies of knowledge, the teaching of reading is paramount in defining these beliefs. That is, language teachers play a crucial role in developing learners’ views of the function of language in society.
