Email this article 
Teacher as a peace leader: A new peace linguistic approach to “Freedom Writers”
Abstract
The role of a language teacher as a character educator and peace-builder is sometimes undermined by the pervasive thinking that language teaching solely entails transference of knowledge about language. However, it is a fallacy that language teaching is not facilitative of character development. Since language has the power of creating peace and even war, this study seeks to interrogate how a language teacher as a leader in a classroom can be a model of peacebuilding through language use. Using New Peace Linguistics (henceforth NPL)—a newly emerging framework in linguistics and peace studies—this study analyzed the pragmatics, specifically the speech acts, as found in Erin Gruwell’s utterances in “Freedom Writers”, a movie about teacher who has to deal with a group of rebellious students. The study found that Erin Gruwell mostly used mediating, expressing empathic concern, complimenting, disciplining, apologizing, giving instruction, and encouraging for creating peace, healing traumatic experiences, and changing the students’ behavior.
Keywords
Full Text:
PDFReferences
Alqarni, S. (2020). A Sociolinguistic Investigation of Compliments and Compliment Responses among Young Saudis. Arab World English Journal, 11(1), .231-252. https://doi.org/10.24093/awej/vol11no1.18
Archer, A., Alfano, M., & Dennis, M. (2022). On the Uses and Abuses of Celebrity Epistemic Power. Social Epistemology, 00(00), 1–15. https://doi.org/10.1080/02691728.2022.2153351
Archer, A., Cawston, A., Matheson, B., & Geuskens, M. (2020). Celebrity, Democracy, and Epistemic Power. Perspectives on Politics, 18(1), 27–42. https://doi.org/10.1017/S1537592719002615
Ariza, E. F., Forero, J., & Cardona, M. S. (2022). Peace education in a Columbian Master of Arts program. In B. Birch (Ed.), Creating Classrooms of Peace in English Language Teaching (pp. 36–52). New York: Routledge.
Baker-Bell, A. (2020). Dismantling anti-black linguistic racism in English language arts classrooms: Toward an anti-racist black language pedagogy. Theory into Practice, 59(1), 8–21. https://doi.org/10.1080/00405841.2019.1665415
Birch, B. (2022). Species identity and creating classrooms of peace. In B. Birch (Ed.), Creating Classrooms of Peace in English Language Teaching (pp. 1–19). New York: Routledge.
Birhan, W., Shiferaw, G., Amsalu, A., Tamiru, M., & Tiruye, H. (2021). Exploring the context of teaching character education to children in preprimary and primary schools. Social Sciences & Humanities Open, 4(1), 100171. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ssaho.2021.100171
Bollen, C. (2023). Towards a Clear and Fair Conceptualization of Empathy. Social Epistemology, 00(00), 1–19. https://doi.org/10.1080/02691728.2023.2227963
Braatz, T. (2018). Teaching Peace, Not War, to U.S. History Students. Peace Review, 30(3), 339–347. https://doi.org/10.1080/10402659.2018.1495864
Calle-Díaz, L. (2019). Possibilities of building peace through classroom discourse: A positive discourse analysis. Linguistics and Education, 54, 1–10. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.linged.2019.100762
Chu, R. X., & Huang, C. T. (2021). The day after the apology: A critical discourse analysis of President Tsai’s national apology to Taiwan’s indigenous peoples. Discourse Studies, 23(1), 84–101. https://doi.org/10.1177/1461445620942875
Clarke-Habibi, S. (2018). Teachers’ perspectives on educating for peace in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Journal of Peace Education, 15(2), 144–168. https://doi.org/10.1080/17400201.2018.1463209
Corbett, J. (2021). Revisiting mediation: implications for intercultural language education. Language and Intercultural Communication, 21(1), 8–23. https://doi.org/10.1080/14708477.2020.1833897
Curtis, A. (2022). A new peace linguistics approach to empathy, language and leadership. In B. M. Birch (Ed.), Creating Classrooms of Peace in English Language Teaching (pp. 59–72). New York: Routledge.
Dickerson, C., White, E., Levy, R., & Mackintosh, J. (2021). Teacher leaders as teacher educators: recognising the ‘educator’ dimension of some teacher leaders’ practice. Journal of Education for Teaching, 47(3), 395–410. https://doi.org/10.1080/02607476.2021.1880250
Driessen, S. (2022). Campaign Problems: How Fans React to Taylor Swift’s Controversial Political Awakening. American Behavioral Scientist, 66(8), 1060–1074. https://doi.org/10.1177/00027642211042295
Fu, J. (2021). Exploring Peacebuilding Strategies to Develop Teacher-Student Interpersonal Relationships in English as a Foreign Language/English as a Second Language Classrooms. Frontiers in Psychology, 12(August), 10–13. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.736315
Gasparatou, R. (2018). How to do things with words: Speech acts in education. Educational Philosophy and Theory, 50(5), 510–518. https://doi.org/10.1080/00131857.2017.1382353
Gomes de Matos, F. (2002). Second Language Learners’ Rights. In V. Cook (Ed.), Portraits of the L2 User (pp. 303–324). Multilingual Matters. Retrieved from https://www.ptonline.com/articles/how-to-get-better-mfi-results
Haristiani, N., Septiana, A., Nor, N. F. M., & Ryota, N. (2023). The politeness of criticism speech acts in Japanese and Minangkabau films. Indonesian Journal of Applied Linguistics, 13(1), 134–151. https://doi.org/10.17509/ijal.v13i1.58272
Heisterkamp, B. L. (2022). Storytelling, culture, and identity in mediation. In D. Busch (Ed.), The Routledge Handbook of Intercultural Mediation. Routledge.
Jakupčević, E., & Ćavar Portolan, M. (2021). An analysis of pragmatic content in EFL textbooks for young learners in Croatia. Language Teaching Research. https://doi.org/10.1177/1362168820986936
Jun, H. (2020). “I think the comfort women are us”: National identity and affective historical empathy in students’ understanding of “comfort women” in South Korea. Journal of Social Studies Research, 44(1), 7–19. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jssr.2019.09.005
Kuppens, L., & Langer, A. (2020). Reconciling before educating? Narratives of conflict and peace among teachers in Côte d’Ivoire. International Journal of Intercultural Relations, 76(March 2019), 37–51. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijintrel.2020.02.006
Kurian, N., & Kester, K. (2019). Southern voices in peace education: interrogating race, marginalisation and cultural violence in the field. Journal of Peace Education, 16(1), 21–48. https://doi.org/10.1080/17400201.2018.1546677
LaGravanese, R. (2007). Freedom Writer. Jersey Film.
Liang, Y., Dai, K., & Matthews, K. E. (2020). Students as partners: A new ethos for the transformation of teacher and student identities in Chinese higher education. International Journal of Chinese Education, 9(2), 131–150. https://doi.org/10.1163/22125868-12340124
Lie, A., Tamah, S. M., & Gozali, I. (2022). The Impact of a Teacher Professional Education Program on English Language Use. Tesl-Ej, 25(4), 1–17. https://doi.org/10.55593/ej.25100a6
Maíz-Arévalo, C., & García-Gómez, A. (2013). “You look terrific!” Social evaluation and relationships in online compliments. Discourse Studies, 15(6), 735–760. https://doi.org/10.1177/1461445613490011
Malbois, E. (2023). What is Sympathy? Understanding the Structure of Other-Oriented Emotions. Emotion Review, 15(1), 85–95. https://doi.org/10.1177/17540739221140404
Mendenhall, M., Cha, J., Falk, D., Bergin, C., & Bowden, L. (2021). Teachers as agents of change: positive discipline for inclusive classrooms in Kakuma refugee camp. International Journal of Inclusive Education, 25(2), 147–165. https://doi.org/10.1080/13603116.2019.1707300
Millican, J., Kasumagić-Kafedžić, L., Masabo, F., & Almanza, M. (2021). Pedagogies for peacebuilding in higher education: How and why should higher education institutions get involved in teaching for peace? International Review of Education, 67(5), 569–590. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11159-021-09907-9
Ogilvie, G., & Fuller, D. (2017). Restorative justice pedagogy in the ESL classroom: Creating a caring environment to support refugee students. TESL Canada Journal, 33(10), 86–96. https://doi.org/10.18806/tesl.v33i0.1247
Ortega, Y. (2023). Symbolic annihilation: processes influencing English language policy and teaching practice. Critical Inquiry in Language Studies, 00(00), 1–23. https://doi.org/10.1080/15427587.2023.2215361
Oxford, R. (2020). The language of peace approach. Lang. Teach, 44, 13–14.
Pfattheicher, S., Nielsen, Y. A., & Thielmann, I. (2022). Prosocial behavior and altruism: A review of concepts and definitions. Current Opinion in Psychology, 44, 124–129. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.copsyc.2021.08.021
Pounds, G., Hunt, D., & Koteyko, N. (2018). Expression of empathy in a Facebook-based diabetes support group. Discourse, Context and Media, 25, 34–43. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.dcm.2018.01.008
Rizki, S., & Golubović, J. (2020). An Analysis of Speech Act of Omar Mukhtar’S Utterances in Lion of the Desert Movie. Englisia: Journal of Language, Education, and Humanities, 7(2), 210. https://doi.org/10.22373/ej.v7i2.6358
Shukla, S., & Shukla, R. (2020). The pragmatics of Indian political apologies: Sorry, but not sorry. Discourse and Society, 31(6), 648–669. https://doi.org/10.1177/0957926520939688
Sullivan, D. (2007). Nonviolence Begins With Speech: An Interview with Emily Gaarder on the Practice of Nonviolent Communication. Contemporary Justice Review, 10(1), 131–142. https://doi.org/10.1080/10282580601158032
Tum, D. O., & Kunt, N. (2021). Language learning under the shadow of conflict: Teachers’ beliefs about teaching the language of the “other.” Teaching and Teacher Education, 107, 103485. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tate.2021.103485
Winn, M. T. (2013). Toward a restorative English education. Research in the Teaching of English, 48(1), 126–136.
York-Barr, J., & Duke, K. (2004). What do we know about teacher leadership? Findings from two decades of scholarship. Review of Educational Research, 74(3), 255–316. https://doi.org/10.3102/00346543074003255
DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.22373/ej.v11i1.19737
Refbacks
- There are currently no refbacks.
