Bilingualism Policy: Discursive Reconfiguration of the Concept of Bilingual Nation and Citizen

Abstract

The article presents preliminary results in the discursive reconfiguration of the concepts of nation and citizen within the framework of a research study that explores social representations and identities based on the circulating discourses of the educational policy of bilingualism in Colombia. The postulates of the Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) allow to undertake a conceptual and methodological approach from a corpus which incorporates sections from some editions of the Altablero newspaper and from documents related to the subject of bilingualism policy that have been published online by the Colombian Ministry of Education (MEN). The paper especially analyses textual fragments that promote a socio-cultural assimilation that is discursively represented in the conception of the bilingual nation as a legitimate aspiration and a cultural asset that requires bilingual citizens as a fundamental condition of belonging and acceptance both in the projected nation and in the global community.