Language ideologies in practice: Repair and classroom discourse

This article seeks to explore the practice of repair in classroom discourse from an ideological perspective of language and literacy. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork conducted in an urban high school with a predominant English Language Learner (ELL) population, this paper outlines the theoretical foundations of repair from a conversation analysis (CA) perspective and through the analysis and discussion of the findings argues for the necessity of language ideological and ideological frameworks of language and literacy especially as they relate to pedagogical practices in language instructional settings. After providing a global view and structural typology of repair, this paper examines the complex contextual features that frame repair practices and explores how language ideologies, linguistic and cultural authority, communicative competence and ideology, and student agency are contested and negotiated in the moment to moment interactions of teachers and students engaged in learning English.