ABSTRACT
This chapter critically examines the language ideologies found within The Newbolt Report and considers to what extent they remain in current education policy in England. Language ideologies are sets of beliefs about languages or a particular language, such as the deficit view that there are ‘better’ and ‘worse’ ways of speaking. Critical discussions of Newbolt have shown how the deficit view is pervasive in its discourses and recommendations—such as the notion that children acquire ‘evil’ speech from their parents and homes, and that school is a place where children must be socialised and trained into using ‘proper’ English. Using methods and tools from corpus linguistics and critical language policy, this chapter compares the language ideologies found within Newbolt and post-2010 education policy in England. It argues that although some of the more overt textual traces of language stigma and discrimination as found in Newbolt have disappeared, the same kind of ideologies about language in schools exist, albeit through covert and hidden means.
