DOI: 10.1111/josl.

12360

ARTICLE

English as a medium of instruction and the

discursive construction of elite identity

Iffat Jahan*  | M. Obaidul Hamid†

University of Queensland, Australia

Correspondence
M. Obaidul Hamid, School of Education,
Social Sciences Building 24, The
University of Queensland, Brisbane 4072,
Australia.
Email: m.hamid@uq.edu.au
Abstract
Debates over medium of instruction, as ideological skir-
mishes, showcase discursive identity construction, re-
production, and contestation by different social groups.
Drawing on such debates in letters to the editor and internet‐
based newsgroup posts written by Bangladeshi English‐me-
dium (EM) and Bangla‐medium (BM) educated writers, this
article examines the construction of elite identity by the EM
educated group. It illustrates how this group drew on chang-
ing discourses of elitism, language ideologies, and other
identity resources to construct self‐identity that emphasized
the achievement of qualifications and attributes rather than
unearned social privilege, and how the territorially bound
elite identity was transformed into deterritorialized cosmo-
politan identity in the process. The article contributes to our
understanding of the relationship between language, iden-
tity, and society by illustrating struggles for identity and
status maintenance in education that is increasingly being
dominated by English and English as a medium of instruc-
tion under the influence of neoliberal globalization. It also

*Iffat Jahan, PhD, is a casual academic at the University of Queensland, Australia. She worked at several universities in
Bangladesh, including the University of Dhaka and East West University. She is interested in language and identity
discourses in news and social media. She has published her works in Current Issues in Language Planning and Comparative
Education Review. ORCiD: 0000‐0001‐5615‐7013.
†
M. Obaidul Hamid, PhD, is Senior Lecturer in TESOL Education at the University of Queensland, Australia. Previously he
worked at the University of Dhaka, Bangladesh. His research focuses on the policy and practice of TESOL education in
developing societies. He is co‐editor of Language Planning for Medium of Instruction in Asia (Routledge, 2014). ORCiD:
0000‐0003‐3205‐6124.

|
386    ©
2019 John Wiley & Sons Ltd wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/josl Journal of Sociolinguistics. 2019;23:386–408.
JAHAN and HAMID   
   387
|
suggests how English and national languages may relate to
(post)colonialism, nationalism, national identity, and social
class in a globalized world.

শিক্ষার ভাষা-মাধ্যম বিতর্ক মতাদর্শগত সংঘর্ষের প্রতিফলন। সে

কারণে এ বিতর্কে বিভিন্ন সামাজিক গোষ্ঠীর মধ্যে ভাষ্যিক স্বকীয়তা
নির্মাণ ও পুনরুৎপাদন প্রতিযোগিতা পরিলক্ষিত হয়। এরূপ বিতর্ক
বর্তমান প্রবন্ধের আলোচ্য বিষয় যা পত্রিকা সম্পাদক বরাবর
চিঠিপত্রে এবং ইন্টারনেট ভিত্তিক সংবাদ ফোরামে বাংলাদেশী
ইংরেজি এবং বাংলা মাধ্যম শিক্ষায় শিক্ষিত লেখকবৃন্দ রচনা করেছেন।
এই আঙ্গিকে বর্তমান প্রবন্ধে মূলত বাংলাদেশী ইংরেজি মাধ্যম
শিক্ষায় অধ্যয়িত শিক্ষাগোষ্ঠীর অভিজাত শ্রেণী-স্বকীয়তা বিনির্মাণ
প্রক্রিয়ার অবলোকন করা হয়েছে। প্রবন্ধের বিশ্লেষণে দেখানো হয়
যে, ইংরেজি মাধ্যমে শিক্ষিত গোষ্ঠী আভিজাত্যের পরিবর্তনশীল
ডিসকোর্স, ভাষা-মতাদর্শ ও স্বকীয়তা নিদর্শক অন্যান্য উপকরণের
মাধ্যমে নিজেদের জন্য স্বতন্ত্র আত্ম-পরিচিতি তুলে ধরার প্রয়াস
পায়। এই গোষ্ঠীগত আত্ম-পরিচিতি সংজ্ঞার প্রয়াসে অনার্জিত
সামাজিক সুযোগের পরিবর্তে যোগ্যতা আর গুণাবলি অর্জনের
উপর জোর দেয়া হয়। এই প্রক্রিয়ার ফলে স্থানিক অভিজাত শ্রেণী-
স্বকীয়তা অস্থানিক বিশ্বজনীন স্বকীয়তায় রূপান্তরিত হয়। নিবন্ধটি
ভাষা, স্বকীয়তা ও সমাজের পারস্পরিকতা অনুধাবনে অবদান রাখবে । এই
অবদান নব্যউদারতাবাদের প্রেক্ষাপটে ক্রমবর্ধমান ইংরেজি ও ইংরেজি
শিক্ষা মাধ্যম প্রভাবিত শিক্ষাঙ্গনে উদ্ভূত স্বকীয়তা ও স্থিতি
রক্ষণাবেক্ষণের সংগ্রাম চিত্র তুলে ধরার মধ্যে নিহিত। প্রবন্ধটি
বিশ্বায়নের যুগে ইংরেজি ও জাতীয় ভাষার সাথে (উত্তর)উপনিবেশবাদ,
জাতীয়তাবাদ, জাতীয় পরিচিতি ও সামাজিক শ্রেণীর সম্পৃক্ততারও
ইঙ্গিতবাহক ।. 

KEYWORDS
Bangladesh, critical discourse analysis, elitism, English as a medium
of instruction, globalization, identity, international schools, language
ideology

1  |   IN T RO D U C T ION
As a critical means for social reproduction or transformation, education is a meeting point for competing
class interests, ideologies, and struggles. This classed character of education and its potential outcomes are
reflected in, among other educational strategies, the use of language as a medium of instruction (MOI).
Hence, which language is used as MOI is not simply a linguistic or educational question; it is also an ideo-
logical question, signifying class matters. By the same token, debates about MOI are class debates that seek
to assert class interests and identities drawing on resources including ideologies of languages and education.
The link between English as a medium of instruction (EMI) and social class was forged during
British colonial rule in Asia and Africa. Colonial education policies in these regions aimed to produce
 |
388       JAHAN and HAMID

a distinct social class “whose identity was partly constructed by the English language and whose
access to the language was mediated by education” (LaDousa, 2014: 18). Despite nationalist expec-
tations otherwise, the end of British rule did not necessarily end such education policies. In many
postcolonial societies, EMI was sustained largely as a mechanism for “elite closure” (Myers‐Scotton,
1990), although opportunities for other elites to be educated in local/national languages were also
available. The English‐elite nexus of the colonial period did not escape postcolonial critiques, but EMI
in general remained an effective pathway for elite maintenance in postcolonial societies.
However, the fallout of globalization on the one hand and the enduring nationalist consciousness
on the other have problematized EMI as an elitist educational/linguistic pasture in a globalized world.
For example, the popularization of English (and EMI), the commodification of language and identity,
and the growing critique of inherited (elite) privilege seem to have disrupted this traditional route
to elite maintenance. Instead of remaining an exclusive pathway for the privileged few, EMI has
become part of class aspirations for all (LaDousa, 2014). On the other hand, although globalization
and the new economic order have paved the way for post‐nationalism (Heller, 2011; Wright, 2012),
the persistent ideology of national language continues to view other languages including English with
nationalist suspicion (see Tsui & Tollefson, 2007). Consequently, in postcolonial societies in partic-
ular, those affiliated with national/local language education may “cast English‐medium as a moral
opponent” (LaDousa, 2006: 42). So, how do the elite sustain classed privilege and identity in the EMI
site in a changing world? What ideological/discursive resources do they mobilize to “set themselves
apart from others” (Chidsey, 2018: 43)? How does their inherited privilege relate to their discursive
struggles for identity and distinction? This article examines the (re)construction of elite identity by
English‐medium students and graduates in postcolonial Bangladesh. In particular, we are interested in
understanding the dynamics of elite formation in language‐medium debates between groups of people
following different MOI systems (English‐medium and Bangla‐medium/EM and BM), and the re‐
imagination of elite identity in this space in a globalizing world. Based on our critical analysis of the
debates, we attest to the changing discourses of elitism that emphasize qualifications and achievement
over inherited privilege (see Gaztambide‐Fernandez, 2009; Howard & Kenway, 2015; Khan, 2011),
and to the desire for global/cosmopolitan belonging over local/national rootedness. At the same time,
we seek to elucidate why identity battles are staged on debates over language‐medium, who partici-
pates and advances them and how, and what they can tell us about language and society in this postco-
lonial nation. Language ideologies underlying these “episodes of entextualization” (Blommaert, 1999:
8) reveal the workings of language, (post)colonialism, nationalism, and social class, as they unfold
and interact in this empirical context. We hope that the article will contribute to our understanding of
the role of languages in contemporary societies by illustrating ideological/class struggles for identity
in the education space that is increasingly being dominated by the use of EMI in a neoliberal world
(Hamid, 2016b; Piller & Cho, 2013; Ricento, 2015).
Although research on EMI and identity is limited at present, some researchers have illustrated how
class identities and dispositions are maintained by EM schooling in South, East and Southeast Asia
(David & Tien, 2009; Hamid & Jahan, 2015; LaDousa, 2014; LaDousa & Davis, 2018; Malik, 2012;
Park, 2013; Ramanathan, 2005; Sandhu, 2016; Song, 2013; Sultana, 2014; Tanu, 2014). Ethnographic
work in school settings has documented how language‐medium ideologies have unfolded in practices
of schooling and social life with different consequences for different social classes (Chidsey, 2018;
Davis, 2018; LaDousa, 2014; Majumdar & Mukhopadhyay, 2018; Ramanathan, 2005; Sandhu, 2016).
The present article seeks to extend this sociolinguistic work by illustrating discursive processes in elite
identity construction in the changing material and political conditions in postcolonial societies such as
Bangladesh. Specifically, we illustrate how the ideologies of linguistic and academic achievement are
foregrounded in discursive struggles for elite identity, leaving the question of social privilege in the
JAHAN and HAMID   
|
   389

background. As instances of discursive class struggles, our language‐medium debate data attest to the
changing discourses of elitism and elite maintenance in a changing world.

2  |  D IS C IP L INA RY P E R SP E C T IVES

The question of social class in relation to language and linguistic practices constitutes an essential focus
of sociolinguistics (Block, 2018; Mallinson, 2007; Rampton, 2010). As previously noted, the colonial
origin of EMI and its postcolonial unfolding addressed the elite class and its interests. However, class
is not simply a pre‐existing social category; it is also something that is discursively and relationally
constructed. This understanding of class aligns with critical discourse analysis (Fairclough, 2010; van
Dijk, 2015; Wodak & Meyer, 2009), which views language as a means not just to represent reality but
also to construct reality. From this view of language, the discursive construction of eliteness (cultural)
and eliteness as ontological reality (material) can be seen as mutually supportive of each other. The
EM identity as constructed by language may not be fully understood without considering who the EM
educated already are. The discursive process also contributes to the maintenance of eliteness in the
material sense by constructing its legitimacy (see the next section).
The relationship between language and social phenomena is often demonstrated through language
ideologies. Language ideologies are “ideas with which participants frame their understandings of lin-
guistic varieties and the differences among them, and map those understandings onto people, events,
and activities” (Gal & Irvine, 1995: 970). Schools, among other institutions, are the site for the pro-
duction of such ideologies, which are then internalized by students through academic socialization.
Language ideologies are often represented by explicit language‐focused talk called “overt metaprag-
matic discourse” (Silverstein, 1992). However, in discussing language ideologies, it is critical to note
that “ideas about language are not about language at all” (Rosa & Burdick, 2017: 103). Rather, as
we demonstrate in this article, language serves as “a proxy” (Suleiman, 2006) or “a mask” (Chidsey,
2018) for social and political issues.
Examination of elite identity formation also needs to be linked to elite education, which has re-
ceived substantial attention in recent years (Gaztambide‐Fernandez, 2009; Kenway & Koh, 2015;
Khan, 2011; McCarthy & Kenway, 2014). While elite schools are located in both public and private
sectors in many countries, elite education is also provided by “international schools” which serve
globally mobile student communities (Gunesch, 2004). However, many of these so‐called interna-
tional schools are local elite schools attended by children from the elite and emerging wealthier classes
(Sancho, 2016; Tanu, 2014). In postcolonial and other non‐dominant English using societies, these
schools are practically English‐medium schools (Tanu, 2014; Weenink, 2008), although they may also
operate in other dominant languages (Bagnall, 2015; Song, 2013).
The production and reproduction of eliteness is an inevitable focus of research on elite education.
If elite status refers to class‐consciousness and identity (see the next section), then, it may be “unimag-
inable to undertake research on elite schools without foregrounding class and class relations including
their stubborn persistence and the shrewd mutability of the dominant classes—so devastatingly demon-
strated in the various incarnations and manifestations of the neo‐liberal project” (Kenway & Koh, 2015:
6). Elite education informs the present study by suggesting how elite formation in education draws on
social privilege but, at the same time, how this privilege may be unacknowledged in the discursive pro-
cess. Our discursive focus, in return, contributes to the sociology‐oriented field of elite education (see
Weenink, 2008) by illustrating how language itself in EM schools serves as a marker as well as a means
for maintenance of privileged identity. This focus may suggest that elite formation in the EMI site is an
instance “not so much of class reproduction but of class making” (McCarthy & Kenway, 2014: 174).
 |
390       JAHAN and HAMID

3  |   CO NC EP T UA L IZ ING E L IT ENESS AND ITS

DI S C U R S IV E CO N ST RU C T IO N

Conceptualizing eliteness presents a challenge because “elites are notoriously difficult to determine
and the boundaries of elite status—as a label and as a material phenomenon—are seldom straightfor-
ward” (Thurlow & Jaworski, 2017: 243). The conceptual complexity of eliteness is further augmented
by its essential but unsettled relationship with the other, more contested, concept of social class. While
some scholars make no distinction between the elite and the upper‐class, others separate the elite by
creating a further layer within the latter (see Howard & Kenway, 2015). Regardless of the exact re-
lationship between the elite and upper‐class, elites can be seen as occupying the highest position on
the social pyramid given their balance of economic, social, and cultural resources and cultural expres-
sions in tastes and dispositions. More importantly, in talking about the elite–social class relationship,
we need to emphasize their relationality, rather than autonomy. That is, the elite exist in relation to
other social groups (Thurlow & Jaworski, 2017). In our data, this relationality is illustrated by the
othering of the BM educated by the EM educated for their in‐group identity and legitimacy.
The tensions between the material and the cultural, as flagged by Thurlow and Jaworski (2017),
present a key challenge in conceptualizing eliteness (as well as social class). Our view of language un-
derpinning critical discourse analysis (CDA) allows us to take into account both. As previously noted,
understanding the discursive construction of elite identity (cultural) of the EM educated needs to be
linked to their social privilege (material). This dual focus is accommodated by Thurlow and Jaworski's
(2017: 244) conception of eliteness, which refers to “the semiotic and communicative resources by
which people differentiate themselves and by which they access symbolic‐material resources for shor-
ing up status, privilege and power.” Such a conception guides us to consider both the discursive and
the material, through our analysis of how material privilege is rationalized, and therefore reproduced,
through discursive means.
Our materially informed discursive focus makes it possible to consider elite identity in terms of
multiplicity, adaptability, and contestation. Such a construction is illustrated by Reyes (2017), who
discusses the invention of elite identities, which include the categories of “Conyo” elites and “mid-
dle class” elites, suggesting the desirability of the latter and the undesirability of the former in the
Philippines. In line with our discursive focus, we also consider elite identity as performative—i.e.
instead of taking it as a given, we examine how elite identity is performed through language. This
discursive performance of elitism does not undermine materiality because, although the EM educated
foreground their achievement without referring to their unearned privilege, we point out that this priv-
ilege constitutes the material basis for their achievement.
Elite identity construction in the context of EM education has drawn on a number of identity di-
mensions. For instance, Tanu (2014) mentions Western education, fluency in English, international
mobility, global social networks, familiarity with global popular culture, and certain ways of carry-
ing oneself. Moreover, language ideologies are key identity resources, as beliefs about English and
other languages nurtured through schooling are integral to identity and status display (LaDousa, 2014;
LaDousa & Davis, 2018). Although there is variation in how these identity markers are utilized in dif-
ferent social contexts, cosmopolitanism defined as feeling “at home in the world” (Brennan, 1997; see
Gunesch, 2004, for details) appears to be a key marker of elitism. Cosmopolitanism is not an essential
feature of elite identity, but nonetheless the latter is manifested in the desire for global mobility, par-
ticularly in developing societies, where various pull and push factors are operative. English‐medium
elite education provides students with “cosmopolitan capital” (Tanu, 2014; Weenink, 2008) which
enables them to navigate globally (Bagnall, 2015; Khan, 2011). Cosmopolitan capital highlights
JAHAN and HAMID   
|
   391

convertability of capital across national markets. This capital turns students into what Vandrick (2011)
calls “SONGE” (“student of the new global elite”) because of their “belonging both everywhere and
nowhere” (p. 160). Thus, elite formation in EM education, as we examine in the Bangladeshi context,
can be understood as a process of transforming territorially bound class capital into deterritorialized
cosmopolitan capital. Our aim in this article is to examine the discursive process of this transforma-
tion—how the EM educated utilized various identity markers to construct global or cosmopolitan
identity. We also illustrate how this specific kind of elite identity is constructed by discursive oth-
ering—that is, by establishing a collective elite self as “global” in opposition to its non‐elite “local”
other. We argue that one important way in which the EM educated claim such oppositional identity is
by emphasizing their achievements, instead of their privilege.

4  |  LA NG UAGE ‐ME D IU M D E BATES IN BANGLADESH

The (underexplored) sociolinguistic context of Bangladesh presents a rich ethnographic site for inves-
tigating language, class, and struggles for identity with reference to language‐medium debates. In this
section, we provide an outline of this context from a historical perspective.
Modern education in the Indian sub‐continent was introduced by British colonial rule (1757–1947).
During the first half of the 19th century, the Anglicist‐Orientalist debates over the content and me-
dium of education for the natives ended in favour of the former with the introduction of EM Western
education. As a strategic tool for colonial control, EM education aimed at producing an elite class who
were Indian in appearance but English in outlook. This was the beginning of elite formation through
English education, creating social divisions: English for the elite and vernaculars for the masses. At
the end of colonial rule, English was retained not only as a language of power but also as a medium
for social divides.
In postcolonial Pakistan (1947–1971), English gained more power, as it served as a link language
between Bangla‐speaking East Pakistan and multilingual West Pakistan. In the ensuing political strug-
gles over the formation of the national language for Pakistan (Urdu only or Urdu and Bangla), English
enjoyed silent dominance and maintained its elitist character (see Hamid, 2011, for details).
In 1971, Bangladesh's separation from Pakistan on linguistic as well as socio‐political grounds
brought significant sociolinguistic changes in the new nation. The fervour of linguistic nationalism
which had steered the nation through the difficult days of Pakistani rule and the subsequent war of
independence established the dominance of Bangla as a national/official language. English was al-
most exiled from national life, since Bangla was allowed to take over key domains, including higher
education. This policy promotion of Bangla set the stage for the emergence of a BM‐educated elite,
and this new kind of elite was more strongly associated with nationalism.
The demotion of English was perceived as disserving the interests of the English‐educated
elite. Sending their children to Bangla‐medium schools that followed the national curriculum
was not aligned with their class interests. On the other hand, the few English‐medium schools
that had survived the political transition were insufficient to meet their demand for EM educa-
tion. This was a propitious moment for establishing private schools targeting the postcolonial
elite and the emerging wealthier class who were unwilling to take the risk of English‐deprived
Bangla medium education for their children. In the 1980s, new English‐medium international
schools were set up mainly in the capital city. The next decade saw more schools being estab-
lished in the capital and other cities across the country. The continued growth of these schools in
the first two decades of the new century has also included low‐quality EM schools attended by
students from less affluent classes.
 |
392       JAHAN and HAMID

At present, there are three streams of secondary education in Bangladesh distinguished by, among
other characteristics, MOI: Bangla‐medium mainstream education, English‐medium Western educa-
tion, and Bangla‐and Arabic‐medium religious education. The streams cater for over 80%, less than
2%, and about 17% of the school student population in the country (see Hossain & Tollefson, 2007).
MOI indexes the quality of education and educational and sociocultural outcomes: high quality EM
schools are perceived to be producing Anglophile elites, while medium‐to‐low quality BM schooling
producing loyal Bangladeshi citizens. Such representations are ideological but medium of schooling
serves as a general mechanism for social sorting in a society that was built on the higher ideals of so-
cial justice and equality and respect for the national language as per the national constitution. The link
to social inequality can be understood from the question of who can access EM schooling, which is
expensive. While one of the best private Bangla‐medium schools in Dhaka charge year 11–12 students
an annual fee of approximately 50,000 Taka, the same level students in one of the best EM schools
have to pay $30,000 per year ($1 = 80 Taka).
As legacies of British colonial rule, elite EM schools may be seen as encroaching on the socio-
economic and sociocultural ambience of a poor Muslim‐majority society. Many EM schools have
adopted Western nomenclatures (e.g. Oxford International School).1  Moreover, the majority of these
private schools follow the curriculum for the International General Secondary Certificate of Education
(IGSCE). Thus, while these schools are located in Bangladesh and serve mainly members of a na-
tionally identified community (Bangladeshis), pedagogical engagement happens through a non‐local,
predominantly westernized curriculum and a global language. Not surprisingly, the existence of elite
EM schools has generated endless debates in the country, as these schools are believed to produce
the “wrong” kind of elites (Reyes, 2017), from the Bangla‐centric mainstream point of view. In this
view, the BM‐educated elites are seen as the “right kind” of elites due to their perceived orientation
to national identity.
Debates are “slowly unfolding process[es] of discursive exchange” (Blommaert, 1999: 11). They
are language ideologies in action, which produce “discourses and metadiscourses, and they result in a
battery of texts that can be borrowed, quoted, echoed, vulgarized, etc.” (p. 10). Debates are discursive
struggles for representations, in which different versions of social realities compete for authority and
legitimacy. Although language‐medium debates are evidenced in other parts of South and South East
Asia (LaDousa, 2014; Tan, 2005), these have been more intense in Bangladesh due mainly to the ide-
ology of linguistic nationalism, which was the main inspiration for Bangladeshis to break away from
Pakistan (Hamid, 2011). Furthermore, the socioeconomic divide underlying the language‐medium
divide may have created a situation of social injustice marked by social privilege (the haves) versus
denial (the have‐nots). The following excerpt from a letter to the editor attests to the prevalence and
intensity of such debates:

The people of Bangladesh just can't […] refrain […] from this topic. Over the years, this
debate about English medium schools vs. Bengali medium schools has turned out to be
one of the hottest topic in the various dailies. (EML37)2 

Bangla is a powerful symbol of national identity and loyalty (see Musa, 1996). There are widespread
beliefs that EM students’ limited knowledge of Bangla and Bangladesh on the one hand and their expo-
sure to Western culture and values on the other make them less Bangladeshi than their BM counterpart.
Thus, one key focus of the MOI debates is national identity, in which the EM educated are represented as
“undesirable” Bangladeshis by the “more desirable” BM educated group. To the EM educated, this is an
act of (unfair) identity imposition which they protest vigorously while constructing a positive self‐identity
and projecting their difference from the BM educated.
JAHAN and HAMID   
|
   393

F I G U R E 1   Samples of letters to the editor in the Daily Star

Newspapers are the main source of MOI debates in Bangladesh, with letters to the editor (LTEs)
being the common genre for their enactment. LTEs are unsolicited everyday genres accessible to
upper as well as middle classes. Minimal or no editorial gatekeeping of LTEs means that voices of
these social groups can enter the public domain in their original form and style. While LTEs may not
have lost their appeal as genres, revolution in information and communication technology has given
birth to new genres, such as online newsgroups (e.g. soc culture) and social media such as Facebook.
Within the scope of the article, we draw on both LTEs and Google newsgroups (soc.culture.ban-
galdesh) as examples of traditional and emerging everyday genres.
In Bangladesh, the Daily Star (TDS) has been the key source of LTEs on language‐medium de-
bates, with fewer than a dozen letters having been published in The Independent (see Jahan, 2016,
for details). This is probably because TDS is the dominant English daily in the country which is also
an influential patron of EM education. It is a privately owned newspaper of secular and progressive
orientation. It was launched in 1991, with the online edition being added in 2003. It valorizes liberal
values, including freedom of expression and individual liberty, which inform its framing and coverage
mainly for its upper and upper‐middle class readers who value English and English education.
In 2002, the MOI debates in TDS were triggered by the language of an entrance test in a reputed
college in Dhaka (see Hamid & Jahan, 2015). The test paper was written entirely in Bangla, although
the test was taken by both BM and EM students who had completed Grade 10 and “O” levels respec-
tively and were seeking admission to years 11–12. Since students in EM schools do not study Bangla
as rigorously as their BM counterpart who follow the national curriculum, the former was disad-
vantaged by the test because “[t]he questions were in Bengali, and so were the answers to be which
was the biggest problem for students who have passed from English Medium Schools” (EM‐LTE1).
This first LTE by an EM educated writer appeared to be a Pandora's box which triggered ideologi-
cal outbursts about questions of class, privilege, and belonging. It was followed by a series of LTEs
appearing in TDS over the next few years. The debate was so vigorous that the Editor was forced to
discontinue publishing letters on these debates from 18 September 2002. However, letters were pub-
lished, although significantly less frequently, afterwards. Our sample of LTEs (n=185) includes all
letters during the 2002–2012 period that we were able to access. We collected them by searching every
issue of the print version since the first publication of the LTE on the MOI debates. Our subscription
 |
394       JAHAN and HAMID

to TDS made this search relatively easy for us. Since the paper went online in 2003, it has enabled con-
tent search on its website. After 2012, LTEs on MOI issues became infrequent. In Figure 1, we present
a snapshot of two letters by the EM educated (from the print version) that have “English medium vs
Bangla medium” in the title.
The second dataset of the study   (see Figure 2) consists of 47 posts from an internet‐based news-
group called “soc.culture.bangladesh” (SCB), written by both BM and EM educated writers. After
LTEs, SCB is the most important source of MOI debates in Bangladesh. Soc is a hierarchical on-
line Google newsgroup that discusses contemporary social questions (hence soc) and is “home to
hundreds and even thousands of individual newsgroups” (Ó Dochartaigh, 2012: 109). The subgroup
“soc.culture” includes newsgroups representing virtually every country and is composed of diasporic
communities. The nationality of a subgroup is indicated by adding the name of the country to the title
(e.g. soc.culture.bangladesh). Thus, SCB is one of the computer‐mediated diasporic public spheres
(Stubbs, 1999) and is a platform of communication for Bangladeshis living outside their homeland.
Their engagement with EM–BM debates in this virtual space suggests that language‐medium issues
follow Bangladeshis even outside the country. As of June 2015, SCB consisted of 618 Bangladeshi
members. The comments posted by members on different topics are arranged by means of threads,
which allow for tracking all responses. For the present article, we selected three SCB threads entitled:

• “English in BD [Bangladesh] schools” (with 3 posts by 3 authors);

• “Students of Scholastica” (with 34 posts by 20 authors); and
• “Bengali medium vs English medium” (with 10 posts by 9 authors).

F I G U R E 2   A snapshot of soc.culture.bangladesh posts [Colour figure can be viewed at wileyonlinelibrary.com]

JAHAN and HAMID   
|
   395

All these threads discuss MOI (Bangla or English or both) and identity issues. For the present analysis, we
focus on those aspects of EM self‐identity in the SCB and LTE data that can be related to elitism.
These two data sources in our analysis are indicated by the use of codes such as LTE or SCB fol-
lowed by a number and preceded by the MOI background (EM or BM) of the writer based on our
reading of the texts. The MOI background was either explicitly mentioned by each writer or could be
understood from the content (see Figure 1) with a very few exceptions (see Hamid & Jahan, 2015).
Nevertheless, we consider the labels more as indicators of which MOI system the writers supported
in the debate. Some writers of the LTEs were overseas while others were in Bangladesh at the time of
writing. However, those involved in the SCB threads were all living overseas. While the majority of the
writers of the two genres were former students of EM or BM schools, some were studying at the time
of writing. We use a common label “writer” to avoid the distinction between students and graduates.

5  |  A NA LY Z ING T H E LT E A N D SCB DATA

Given the dominant use of CDA for analyzing media texts (Busch & Pfisterer, 2011; van Dijk, 2015),
we have drawn on CDA (Fairclough, 2010; van Dijk, 1988, 2006, 2015) to “illuminate the way texts
represent social reality and discursive construction of identities” (Busch & Pfisterer, 2011: 432).
Consistent with language ideologies, CDA is underpinned by a view that language “does not simply
reflect pre‐existing identities—it actively participates in the construction, reproduction, and transfor-
mation of identity” (Rosa & Burdick, 2017: 109).
Our analytical framework is mainly based on van Dijk's (2006) macro strategies of positive self‐
representation and negative other‐representation (see Hamid & Jahan, 2015). All major instances of
these discursive identity categories (i.e. self and other) were located in the LTE and SCB datasets
for both MOI groups. These instances of identity construction were also examined to identify the
marker of identity that is utilized for identity construction. For instance, while the construction of
the self‐identity of the BM educated drew on proficiency in Bangla, in which the EM educated were
represented as deficient, the construction of the self‐identity of the EM educated drew on proficiency
in English, in which the BM educated were represented as inadequate. Ideologically, such language
talks drew a clear EM–BM divide in terms of identity, worldviews, and belonging. While the BM
educated criticized the EM educated mainly for their alleged disloyalty to Bangla and Bangladesh, the
EM educated defended themselves by constructing elite self‐identity which is not only patriotic but, at
the same time, global and non‐parochial (see Hamid & Jahan, 2015).
After identifying the major dimensions of elite identity, we link these dimensions to EM and BM.
Table 1 illustrates this process, which includes three sets of dimensions of identity presented in the
first column. These dimensions are translated into specific markers for the EM and BM educated in
the second and the third column, respectively. For example, the category of “communicative rep-
ertoire” is realized into two different profiles (English‐dominant versus Bangla‐dominant) for the
identity of the EM and the BM educated. Although variations in the construction of EM identity by
individual writers may not be overlooked, in our analysis we emphasize their collective voices—how
each member tends to speak for the whole group—in constructing in‐group identity.

6  |  CO N STRU C T IO N OF E L IT E IDENTIT Y

The EM educated constructed elite self‐identity by drawing on a set of identity markers summarized
in Table 1. We use these markers as sub‐headings of our data analysis. In examining the construction
 |
396       JAHAN and HAMID

T A B L E 1   Dimensions of EM identity and their relations with BM identity

Markers of identity English medium Bangla medium

1. Communicative Full command of the global language Full command of the local language
repertoire (English) (Bangla)
Standard British/American English Limited proficiency in English
Functional proficiency in Bangla Bangladeshi English
2. Quality of education Global education of the highest quality Poor quality local education
and educational out- Progressive values and worldviews Parochial and conservative views
comes, including val-
ues and worldviews
3. Mobility and place Operates globally and competes with indi- Operates only locally or nationally
in the world viduals from other nations

of identity in terms of these markers, we illustrate how the EM educated presented themselves as
having accumulated educational achievement and successfully inculcated cosmopolitan attitudes and
values, thereby contrasting themselves with the BM educated.

6.1  |  Communicative repertoire

The EM educated constructed elite self‐identity by claiming an exclusive communicative repertoire.
Imagination of this repertoire is underpinned by the ideology of linguistic instrumentality and effi-
ciency. This ideology suggests that communication in a globalized world may not require a full com-
mand of languages; what is needed is a linguistic repertoire containing both productive and receptive
proficiencies in a set of languages and varieties (Canagarajah, 2005; Centeh & Meier, 2014). The EM
educated constructed a distinct in‐group identity with reference to a robust linguistic repertoire which,
it is argued, made them fit for a globalized world:

EXAMPLE 1

Most of us have enough knowledge about our mother tongue to communicate with the
ordinary people of our country, but do most of the Bengali medium students have enough
knowledge in English to communicate with the rest of the world? (EM‐LTE19)

In this metapragmatic discourse, “ordinary people” may refer to lower class people, including chauf-
feurs, rickshaw drivers, and security guards in EM schools, who the EM educated may encounter in their
everyday lives, since it is implied “ordinary people” are people who do not speak English.
The ideological assertion that Bangla is needed to communicate with ordinary people may suggest
its lower communicative value compared to English. Thus, languages are placed on a social hierarchy
(Chidsey, 2018; Majumdar & Mukhopadhyay, 2018). Since the higher functions of language in the life
of the EM educated (for schooling, communication, entertainment, future study, and employment) are
performed using English, they probably do not need higher levels of competence in Bangla. Implicitly,
EM‐LTE19 is suggesting that “dominant English + minimal Bangla” has more utility than “dominant
Bangla + minimal English” in a globalized world. The former linguistic repertoire is typical of the EM
educated, while the latter is of the BM educated (see Hamid & Jahan, 2015; Jahan, 2016). The under-
lying language ideology can be related to the EM educated elite's “deep immersion” in English and
JAHAN and HAMID   
|
   397

“mere flotation” (i.e. depthless learning) in Bangla, while for the BM educated it is “mere flotation”
in English (Majumdar & Mukhopadhyay, 2018).
We consider Example 2 for an elaboration of the linguistic repertoire of the EM educated. This
excerpt is different from Example 1 in that its author is more emphatic in denying Bangla (note the
repetitions “MY JOB” and its synonym “MY DUTY”), although a monolingual identity involving
English only is not implied as a preference.

EXAMPLE 2

…ITS NOT MY JOB TO LEARN BANGLA, I DON”T NEED BANGLA FOR ANYTHING
THAT I'M DOING. IF I WANT TO MAKE A SPEECH I'LL HIRE SOMEONE TO
WRITE IT FOR ME. YES IT WOULD BE NICE BUT IT'S NOT MY JOB,…IT'S NOT
MY DUTY…I'D RATHER LEARN TO SPEAK ANOTHER LANGUAGE THAN GET
A LITLLE BETTER AT BANGLA OR ENGLISH. (EM‐SCB22, caps in original)

EM‐SCB22 probably refers to the higher order functions previously mentioned for which Bangla is
not needed. If he/she ever needed to give a speech in Bangla, he/she would hire someone (a BM educated
person) to write the speech. This seems to be an implicit reference to the economic power of the EM
educated in this communicative intention. More important are the underlying language ideologies. One
is viewing language and communication as a product/service for purchase, although this may not be com-
modification of language in its typical sense (Cameron, 2012; Heller, 2003) because there is no indication
of the economic value of Bangla. Another is the more implicit suggestion that language use—particularly
a language of lesser value— does not require whole body and mind engagement; one can just read it out.
Thus, “mere flotation” in Bangla, as noted earlier, is deemed sufficient. But such superficial engagement
may not apply to communication in English given the stakes involved.
Examples 1 and 2 mainly refer to Bangla and provide justification for the low levels of Bangla
proficiency that the EM educated have. However, it is their (high) level of English (more on this later)
which is represented as the main feature of their communicative repertoire. Although EM education
is represented as controversial by the BM educated on national identity grounds (see Hamid & Jahan,
2015), EM educated writers attributed excellence in English learning to themselves and poor English
learning to the BM educated to differentiate themselves from the latter. This can be understood from
Example 3:

EXA MPLE 3

That today even a masters passed student from University (from a Bengali medium back-
ground), cannot speak in decent English (with few exceptions of course). (EM‐LTE5)

The implied message is the EM educated excel in what the BM educated struggle to learn even after
years of study (“masters passed”). This state of fact may give the EM educated a sense of distinction
among Bangladeshis in learning English, which is generally marked by only modest success (Hamid,
2016a).
Based on this ideological construction of achievement and failure contrastive outcomes for the two
MOI systems, the EM educated represented their own system as offering a potential solution to the
problem of poor English among Bangladeshis. As EM‐LTE12 explained:
 |
398       JAHAN and HAMID

EXAMPLE 4

The solution to the controversy of English medium schools lies not in subverting them
but rather in making English the medium of instruction across the board in public schools
as well. We must if Bangladesh hopes to compete in the new world economic order…
(EM‐LTE12)

The language‐medium divides, as EM‐LTE12 points out, can be bridged by introducing EMI across
the country. The suggestion means that the BM educated should change their own linguistic repertoire
and adopt the linguistic repertoire of the EM educated. This linguistic order is needed, it is suggested, to
hone Bangladesh's ability to compete in a globalized world. However, this apparently benign suggestion
does not consider the practicality of introducing EMI across the board given the absence of qualified
teachers and the modest public investment in education. Moreover, the attribution of the success of the
EM educated in learning English to EMI only does not acknowledge their privileged access to expensive
schooling by means of their material privilege.
The linguistic repertoire constituting EM identity is also founded on the ideology of standard/non-
standard English. The EM educated constructed exclusive self‐identity by associating themselves with
Standard English in opposition to Bangladeshi English spoken by the BM educated. In Example 3
above, EM‐LTE5 pointed out that the BM educated could not speak “decent English,” which probably
refers to Standard English spoken by the EM educated, as illustrated in Example 5.

EXAMPLE 5

We, English medium students pronounce English words the way we have been taught by
our teachers or as specified in the pronunciation guides in the Oxford dictionary.
(EM‐LTE10)

A more concrete example of language/variety use by self and other is provided by EM‐LTE6 to illus-
trate differences between Bangladeshi English and Standard English that the BM educated and the EM
educated were represented as being affiliated with respectively:

EXAMPLE 6

While the Bengali Medium students will say that “The teacher took a test today”, the
English Medium students will say that, “The teacher gave a test today.” (EM‐LTE6)

The first sentence is a literal translation of the Bangla representation of a teacher giving a test to
students, which is thus an example of Bangladeshi English, while the second one is Standard English.
It may be implied that the second sentence is “correct” because this is how Standard English speakers
would express the idea. Thus, the variety of English is used as a marker of identity in which Bangladeshi
English is associated with local identity and Standard English with non‐local or global identity. This
talk about the form and manner of “saying” things in English may suggest how the EM educated elite's
association with Standard English can claim legitimacy for distinction (eliteness) and differentiation
with the BM educated.
JAHAN and HAMID   
   399
|
6.2  |  Excellence in educational outcomes and inculcation of
progressive values
The construction of elite identity also drew on the ideological representation of the quality of EM
education and its outcomes. This quality was represented by contrasting it with the quality of BM
education on the one hand and by emphasizing the EM educated elite's achievement of educational
excellence on the other. As indicated above, achieving higher levels of English proficiency was a key
feature of this educational excellence, which is highlighted by EM‐LTE12 by referring to the level of
(under)achievement in the BM system:

EXAMPLE 7

[…] Bangladesh's public education system churns out individuals who can [hardly]
write a paragraph in proper English. None other than the head of the Public Service
Commission lamented this fact two weeks ago. (EM‐LTE12)

“Proper English” can be linked to “decent English” in Example 3—both being euphemistic expres-
sions for Standard English. BM education's “failure” to inculcate good English is used as the basis for
arguing for the failure of the BM system as a whole. This representation of the BM educated group's
educational outcomes may have been emphasized to establish the outstanding achievement of the EM
educated by contrast.
The EM educated argued that it was the quality of schooling that attracted parents to EM schools.
Consistent quality may not be guaranteed in a sector characterized by diversity of EM schools, but
in the debates the EM educated may be referring to the best schools. Quality is often related to de-
veloping English language proficiency in particular, which may facilitate students’ entry into higher
education institutions in English‐speaking countries. As EM‐SCB17 explained:

EXA MPLE 8

Many parents send their children to english medium schools for a variety of other reasons. A
major one is that they want their kids to be good at English. Another is that these schools, in
spite of the often miserable quality of education they impart, are very successful in producing
students who gain admission into top US universities. Plus, there may be a “prestige factor”
for some people in sending their children to exclusive and expensive schools. (EM‐SCB17)

EM‐SCB17 seems to maintain an objective distance in relation to the debate, as indicated by the
choice of “they” rather than “we” in referring to the EM educated. His/her dispassionate assessment
of EM education—rare in the EM data—may have been motivated by a desire to justify parental
choice of EM education from a perspective that can be accepted by the BM educated. Nevertheless,
his/her description of EM schooling as “miserable quality,” which was a rare instance in the EM
data, is paradoxical because in the same sentence he/she also points out that the EM educated se-
cured places in top universities in the US. Miserable education may not produce such graduate out-
comes. Rather, these outcomes, which are facilitated by higher levels of English proficiency, serve
as indicators of quality education. Similar observations about the outcomes of EM education can be
found in Example 9:
 |
400       JAHAN and HAMID

EXAMPLE 9

This year alone EMS students from Bangladesh got admitted to Oxford, Cambridge,
Dartmouth, Harvard, Cornell, Amherst, Vassar and many other famous educational insti-
tutes of U.K., U.S.A., Australia etc.
(EM‐LTE22)

The final point made by EM‐SCB17 in Example 8 is a reference to social prestige associated with “exclu-
sive and expensive” EM schools. It is noted that parents also prefer these schools where their children “learn
about values and principles and also good education” (EM‐LTE17). This may point to the alignment between
class dispositions of the EM educated elite and the values and expectations of EM schools and their curric-
ulum (Hamid & Jahan, 2015), which is also indicated by EM‐LTE55 and EM‐LTE84. In Pakistan, Malik's
(2012) research on various streams of education, including elite English‐medium schools, emphasized a sim-
ilar alignment. For instance, one EM student reflected on his life at home and at school in the following way:

I do not see a big difference between the lifestyles at my home and those at my school…
nothing is new for me […] We speak English at home and school alike […] my friends
say that they have similar experiences.  (pp. 146–147)

The education provided by EM schools is considered “well‐rounded” (Example 11), which enabled their
graduates to pursue higher studies in Western universities and seek domicile in those countries. While social
privilege, including expensive living and schooling, may enable them to pursue this typical life trajectory
which is different from that of the masses, this destiny is not represented as a given; rather, it is emphasized
that this is achieved by the EM schools’ inculcation of such quality in EM students. As EM‐LTE38 said:

EXAMPLE 10

I am a product of the English medium education available in Dhaka. The education en-
abled me to compete on an equal footing with my peers around the world. This education
not only prepares us for higher studies, but it also prepares us in a way that we outshine
students of other countries in academia around the world.  (EM‐LTE38)

The “product” metaphor is not to be understood in a negative or passive sense. It is implied that the
Bangladeshi nation should be “proud” (EM‐LTE24) of these products because they outshine students
from other nations in leading global universities by means of their educational excellence and academic
achievement. Malik's (2012) research, as previously mentioned, provides support for this construction
of EM identity. He interviewed an “elite parent” who expressed typical parental expectations of the EM
educated elite, emphasizing the achievement of goals:

We tell our children to win over things instead of getting them easily through our contacts…if
they become complacent, they will lose motivation to compete, which we do not want them to
do. It can spoil our objective to educating them in reputed private schools.  (pp. 195–196)

The use of plural pronouns in the two extracts (“us” and “we”) is to be noted, which can be seen
as marking in‐group boundary. In both national contexts, identity construction places emphasis on the
achievement of the EM educated, without referring to social privilege.
JAHAN and HAMID   
|
   401

The EM educated pointed out certain characteristics of EM education, which are contrasted with
BM education. This can be seen in Example 11:

EXA MPLE 11

The foci of a scholastica [an EM school] education with it's present faculty (better than any
bangla medium school that I know of) gives the student a well rounded education. The very core
of the O level examinations encourages independent thinking. An average scholastica student is
really VERY open minded. That's what's probably good about the O levels. (EM‐SCB22)

The branding of education provided by an EM school (“scholastica education”) is noteworthy, which is

represented as “better” than that provided by any BM school. The education that follows an international
curriculum, it is noted, nurtures critical thinking and open‐mindedness. Thus, the EM educated identify
with the discourses of Western academic norms to place them at a distance from local academic norms.
Along with academic norms, the EM educated represent themselves by referring to a set of values to
identify with the West and to maintain distance with the local context. They consider themselves as being
guided by liberal values, while the BM educated are represented as being guided by conservative and
parochial views. EM‐LTE17 asserted this value orientation in responding to the BM educated group's
comments on the EM educated elite's dresses and manners of speech including accent that represented the
EM educated as lacking decency, modesty, and local values:

EXA MPLE 12

They [BM educated] need to stop making stupid tales regarding us. Don't they have
anything better to do than to investigate what kind of clothes English medium girls wear
or what kind of accent they […] use? We have been brought up with a certain degree
of freedom and we revel in it. If there is any lack of propriety, it's from these so‐called
supporters of Bengali language. (EM‐LTE17)

Although EM‐LTE17 did not elaborate on the nature of the “freedom,” the reference is probably to
those against traditional values in a Muslim‐majority society with which the EM educated do not want
to identify. Thus, EM education can be seen as providing escape not only from a failing education in the
local language and curriculum but also from local values that are considered illiberal. Parents of the EM
educated “insist that their children study in English based schools where they will be safe [and] that their
children will be able to learn about values and principles and also good education” (EM‐LTE17). EM
schools are considered “safe” places in a politically volatile and conflict‐ridden society. EM‐LTE17 may
be referring to frequent strikes and fights between politically backed student groups taking place in public
institutions across the country. Private EM schools are quarantined from these incidents, which affected
the academic life and well‐being of BM students.

6.3  |  Mobility and place in the world

A prominent feature of the self‐presentation of the EM educated relates to mobility and the EM edu-
cated elite's “sense of where they belonged in the world” (Vandrick, 2011: 166). This aspect of elitism
is also constructed in opposition to BM identity: While the BM educated are represented as locally/
nationally bound, the EM educated represent themselves as global and globally mobile (Gunesch,
 |
402       JAHAN and HAMID

2004). As previously indicated, EM education is believed to equip the EM educated with educational
excellence, including English language skills on the one hand and global values and perspectives on
the other for this cosmopolitan belonging. Compared to the globe‐trotting life trajectory of the EM
educated, the BM educated are represented as being destined to stay local and operate within the
national boundary. This dominant feature of elitism as a construction is eloquently summed up in
Example 13, in which EM‐LTE10 delineates how the EM educated and the BM educated have come
to occupy different spaces, both material and immaterial, in a globalizing world.

EXAMPLE 13

[…] the only difference between us [EM and BM] is that we have a different perspective,
we have heard of Harvard and Princeton and dream about going to study in those schools
just like a student in a remote village in Madaripur [a district town] dreams of going to
Dhaka University. We all dream big, whether we are students of Green Herald [an EM
school in Dhaka] or a public school in a remote village. It is only the magnitude of our
dreams and aspirations, which are different. (EM‐LTE10)

Apparently, the opening sentence seeks to minimize the difference between the BM educated and the
EM educated by deploying rhetorical strategies: The use of only is purported to indicate that there were
not many differences between them because, as can be argued, they shared the same history, culture,
language, nationality, and territory. There was just one difference between them—it is a difference in per-
spectives—in envisioning. However, within the context of the struggles for representations (Blommaert,
1999), EM‐LTE10 seems to represent significant differences between the two groups in terms of attitudes,
values, and visions of life.
EM‐LTE10 states that both the BM educated and the EM educated are dreamers of bright fu-
tures—regardless of whether they attend BM schools in rural settings or EM “international” schools
in Dhaka. Although both groups envision their future, they do so, it can be read, within different sets
of parameters probably related to their social origins. While the EM educated come to hear about
and identify with Harvard and Princeton from school days, the BM educated group's future academic
dream may only be associated with the University of Dhaka, arguably the best university in the coun-
try, but its prestige being restricted to the local context because this Bangladeshi university is nowhere
in the list of top universities in the world.
Although EM‐LTE10 recognizes the envisioning power of the BM educated, the extract can be
read as associating the BM educated and the EM educated with two distinct sets of identities—
one global, the other local; one cosmopolitan, the other parochial; one English‐dominant, the other
Bangla‐dominant (see Chidsey, 2018; LaDousa, 2014). The two streams are probably never to con-
verge because they are nurtured differently in families and schools (Malik, 2012). A meeting point of
the two groups may not be visualized because while the dream of the BM educated has its end point
in Dhaka, this city is the starting point of the dream of the EM educated nurtured by EM schools
located in this metropolis. These schools “are little bits of ‘foreign land’ where people get ready to
leave Bangladesh” (BM‐LTE4). Implicitly, the EM educated are represented as distinct from the BM
educated. The distinction is maintained through engagement in the right kind of education and the
achievement of linguistic and educational excellence and liberal values and worldviews that help
transform the territorially based identity into a global identity.
There is no explicit reference to social privilege in the representation of self as global. The
unmentioned privilege can only be inferred from EM‐LTE10's construction of different life
JAHAN and HAMID   
|
   403

trajectories for the EM educated and the BM educated. One could extract an essentialist rela-
tionship between the world that can be dreamed in the future and the social or material space
that one occupies in the present. There might be a suggestion here that one's future imagination
must have a material basis—Harvard or Princeton cannot be dreamed of from a rural school
in Bangladesh; they can only be dreamed of from such international schools as Green Herald
or Scholastica or Oxford International. Nonetheless, there is no clear acknowledgement of the
material basis of such dreaming.
Social privilege remains unacknowledged even when the material motivation for the EM educated
elite's going global is acknowledged. The EM educated are represented as less patriotic by the BM
educated because the EM educated, in the views of the BM educated, have a tendency to migrate
overseas (see Hamid & Jahan, 2015). EM‐LTE37 acknowledged this tendency, but defended the EM
educated elite's position by referring to the push factors in society:

EXAMPLE 14

Actually, it [migrating] is true. And the reason behind this migrating mentality of most
of the English medium students is—the complete mess that the older generations of our
sonar [golden] Bangladesh has left us in […] Well, please stop blaming us, take good
care of our country while you can, and then maybe we will have second thoughts when
applying for colleges and universities abroad.  (EM‐LTE37)

EM‐LTE37, as many EM educated writers do, seems to speak for the whole group. In the process of
othering the BM educated, the EM educated elite's “migration mentality” is conceded, but the reason
for this is attributed to the BM educated who have turned the dreamed land of sonar Bangladesh into
a “complete mess.” EM‐LTE37 is referring to the fact that it is the BM educated who have been ruling
the country since independence (see Jahan, 2016) and therefore they were responsible for its current
situation to which the EM educated has no contribution. However, this construction of BM identity
is generalized as it does not maintain any distinctions between various groups of the BM educated
based on age, gender, social class, or location. The EM educated elite's escaping from the mess is not
acknowledged as a voluntary choice executed by their material power; rather, it is represented as being
due to an absence of choice, which forced them to consider EM education and educational excellence
as a route to cosmopolitan destiny. Their “migration mentality” may point to the distance that they
would like to maintain with the BM educated. The EM educated would prefer to go global, leaving the
job of fixing the country with the BM educated.

7  |  D IS C U S SION A N D CO NC LUSIONS

The EM educated group's construction of elite self‐identity and its clear distinction from BM identity
indicates how language as a medium of schooling constitutes an ideological space for class struggle
and status maintenance. Passing down elite privilege to the next generation may not be taken for
granted in a changing world where the economy depends on knowledge and skills and where un-
earned privilege may not escape social critique. EM schooling in Bangladesh provides a pathway to
transform elite privilege into qualifications and inheritance into achievement. Such outcomes of EM
schooling, as the voices of the EM educated unveiled, provided the basis for elite identity and, by
extension, legitimacy of social privilege.
 |
404       JAHAN and HAMID

As we have pointed out in our analysis, there were few explicit references to “elite,” “elitism,” or
“privilege” in the data. Instead, the construction of elite global identity was based on the EM educated
group's representation of the achievement of educational excellence and a set of skills and values
required for navigating the globalized world. Thus, linguistic and academic achievement and excel-
lence, together with cosmopolitan values and belonging, served as correlates of the elite status. These
correlates are ideological outcomes of the EM–BM struggles for representation in language‐medium
debates. The BM educated represented the EM educated as being less proficient in Bangla (e.g.
not understanding test questions written in Bangla and not speaking Bangla without mixing it with
English) and therefore less Bangladeshi (e.g. not studying Bangla, leaving Bangladesh, and migrating
to the West) (see Hamid & Jahan, 2015, for details). Countering this representation by the BM edu-
cated, the EM educated constructed a cosmopolitan self‐identity, which highlighted their exceptional
achievement, without referring to class privilege and setting themselves apart from the BM educated.
Such insights into discursive identity construction in the Bangladeshi context have their resonance
in the process of elite identity representation in a globalized world. We may refer specifically to the
changing discourses of elite and inherited privilege in a globalized world where there has been a “shift
from the logic of the old elite—who you are—to that of the new elite—what you have done. Privilege
is not something you are born with; it is something you learn to develop and cultivate” (Khan, 2011:
15). These discourses, which tend to underestimate the role of material wealth that allows specific
groups to access elite schools, underpinned the construction of self‐identity by the EM educated.
Instead of asserting their privilege, they underscored what they learned, developed, and achieved to be
able to self‐identify as elite with a cosmopolitan outlook. It can be argued that the socially privileged
EM educated wanted to be known by what they deserved because of their achievement, rather than by
their social inheritance. In this construction of identity, class privilege is obscured, and the power of
the elite is rationalized, in response to nationalist critique. It is through discursive practices, as we have
examined in this article, that unearned privilege is transformed into achieved distinction.
The discursive route illustrates another transformation of elite identity related to territoriality. As
our analysis suggests, the construction of identity by the EM educated involved simultaneous struggles
of association and dissociation—identifying with the SONGE (Vandrick, 2011) in the transnational
space and distancing from the BM educated in the local context. Thus, elite identity construction
involved tensions between territoriality and deterritoriality and between situated capital and deterrito-
rialized “cosmopolitan” capital. Although the EM educated do not want to give up their Bangladeshi
identity (see Hamid & Jahan, 2015), we can note shifting of significance from local ingredients to
global currencies—from BM to EM, from Bangla dominance to English dominance, from local culture
and values to cosmopolitan culture and values, and from territorialized to deteorritorialized identity.
Our analysis of the language‐medium debates illustrates how language relates to social divides and
struggles for identity in postcolonial Bangladesh. In keeping with the new discourses of elitism, the
EM educated elite's inherited privilege was not drawn on in their ideological battle with the BM edu-
cated; the battle was fought in the discursive plane, without acknowledging the social and economic
ammunition. However, the privilege can be read between the discursive lines, as already pointed out
by scholars researching language‐medium divides in South Asia (LaDousa, 2014; LaDousa & Davis,
2018; Ramanathan, 2005). On this basis, it can be argued that as enactments of language ideolo-
gies, EM–BM debates are not a battle of languages—Bangla or English, or Bangladeshi English or
Standard English (see Chidsey, 2018). It is a proxy war (Suleiman, 2006) in which language represents
unmentioned class positions. Without undermining the role of languages in a globalizing world, it can
be argued that the discursive space serves as the makeshift site for class battles. The class warfare over
privilege and inequality takes a discursive form; language speaks for who you already are and what
you have and as such the discursive is part of the fight for class maintenance in a globalized world.
JAHAN and HAMID   
|
   405

These complex class dynamics underlying the local language‐medium debates have much to say
about English, (post)colonialism and nationalism, and their interactions with social class. The glo-
balization or popularization of English may not make it a passport to mobility for all because ac-
quiring the linguistic capital of English may depend on, among other factors, where you are located
in the social hierarchy and which schooling you are entitled to. Despite its dominant discourses (see
Alhamdan, Honan, & Hamid, 2017; Ricento, 2015), English may not be a class equalizer in a society
where the distribution of linguistic capital falls along class lines. The EM educated elite's identifica-
tion with the global elite may not be attributed solely to English; this is also accomplished by their
class capital. Abrahamian (2015) rightly argues that cosmopolitanism is for those who can afford
it. Thus, the continuing dominance of English in postcolonial societies such as Bangladesh may not
indicate the demise of colonial structures. However, more critical is the internal colonialism that has
reformulated relations of English with class, class divisions, and subjectivities to safeguard certain
class interests. The Bangladeshi empirical context also illustrates how the ideology of nationalism
and national identity is valued differently by different social groups—if the BM educated seem to
maintain nationalist enthusiasm, the EM educated are probably only reluctant nationalists—and how
they project different relationships between national identity and national language in a post‐national,
globalizing world dominated by English as a global language.

ORCID
M. Obaidul Hamid  https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3205-6124

ENDNOTES
1
Brief profiles of some of these schools together with some Bangla medium schools can be found on the following Daily Star
site: http://archi​ve.theda​ilyst​ar.net/suppl​iment​s/2010/04/schoo​ls/8.html. As of 2016, the number of EM schools listed in the
government education database is 115 with a student population of 50,000 (BANBEIS, 2014). However, the actual numbers
of the schools and students are much higher, with 2,000 schools having been estimated in 2005 (Hamid & Jahan, 2015).
2
Quoted from one of the letters included in the article for analysis. All excerpts are cited in their original form, without
editing.

R E F E R E NC E S
Abrahamian, A. A. (2015). The cosmopolites: The coming of the global citizen. New York, NY: Columbia University
Press.
Alhamdan, B., Honan, E., & Hamid, M. O. (2017). The construction of the universality of English within Saudi Arabian
education contexts. Discourse, 38(5), 627641.
Bagnall, N. (2015). Global identity in multicultural and international education contexts: Student identity formation in
international schools. London, UK; New York, NY: Routledge.
BANBEIS. (2014). Bangladesh education statistics 2014. Dhaka, Bangladesh: BANBEIS. http://banbe​is.gov.bd/data/
index.php.
Block, D. (2018). Political economy and sociolinguistics: Neoliberalism, inequality and social class. London, UK:
Bloomsbury.
Blommaert, J. (1999). The debate is open. In J. Blommaert (Ed.), Language ideological debates (pp. 1–38). Berlin,
Germany; New York, NY: Mouton de Gruyter.
Brennan, T. (1997). At home in the world: Cosmopolitanism now. Cambridge, MA; London, UK: Harvard University Press.
Busch, B., & Pfisterer, P. (2011). Interaction and the media. In R. Wodak, B. Johnstone, & P. Kerswill (Eds.), The Sage
handbook of sociolinguistics (pp. 428–442). London, UK: Sage.
 |
406       JAHAN and HAMID

Cameron, D. (2012). The commodification of language: English as a global commodity. In T. Nevalainen & E. C.
Traugott (Eds.), The Oxford handbook of the history of English (pp. 1–7). Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.
Canagarajah, S. (2005). Reconstructing local knowledge, reconfiguring language studies. In S. Canagarajah (Ed.),
Reclaiming the local in language policy and practice (pp. 3–24). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
Centeh, J., & Meier, G. (Eds.). (2014). The multilingual turn in languages education: Opportunities and challenges.
Bristol, UK; Buffalo, NY; Toronto, ON: Multilingual Matters.
Chidsey, M. (2018). The language medium “divide”: Ideologies of Hindi‐English use at four all‐girls’ “public schools”
in North India. International Journal of the Sociology of Language, 253, 27–53.
David, M. K., & Tien, W. Y. M. (2009). Conceptualisation of nationalism through language—an analysis of Malaysian
situation. Language in India, 9(1), 303–316.
Davis, C. (2018). Muslims in Sri Lankan language politics: A study of Tami‐ and English‐medium education.
International Journal of the Sociology of Language, 253, 125–147.
Fairclough, N. (2010). Critical discourse analysis: The critical study of language (2nd ed.). Harlow, UK: Longman.
Gal, S., & Irvine, J. (1995). The boundaries of languages and disciplines: How ideologies construct differences. Social
Research, 62(4), 967–1001.
Gaztambide‐Fernandez, R. (2009). The best of the best: Becoming elite at an American boarding school. Cambridge,
MA: Harvard University Press.
Gunesch, K. (2004). Education for cosmopolitanism: Cosmopolitanism as a personal cultural identity model for and
within international education. Journal of Research in International Education, 3(3), 251–275.
Hamid, M. O. (2011). Planning for failure: English and language policy and planning in Bangladesh. In J. A. Fishman &
O. Garcia (Eds.), Handbook of language and ethnic identity: The success‐failure continuum in language and ethnic
identity efforts (pp. 192–203). New York, NY: Oxford University Press.
Hamid, M. O. (2016a). The linguistic market for English in Bangladesh. Current Issues in Language Planning, 17(1),
36–55.
Hamid, M. O. (2016b). The politics of language in education in a global polity. In K. Mundy, A. Green, B. Lingard, &
A. Verger (Eds.), The handbook of global education policy (pp. 259–274). London, UK: Wiley Blackwell.
Hamid, M. O., & Jahan, I. (2015). Language, identity and social divides: Medium of instruction debates in Bangladeshi
print media. Comparative Education Review, 59(1), 75–101.
Heller, M. (2003). Globalization, the new economy, and the commodification of language and identity. Journal of
Sociolinguistics, 7(4), 473–492.
Heller, M. (2011). Paths to post‐nationalism: A critical ethnography of language and identity. New York, NY: Oxford
University Press.
Hossain, T., & Tollefson, J. (2007). Language policy in education in Bangladesh. In A. B. M. Tsui & J. W. Tollefson
(Eds.), Language policy, culture, and identity in Asian contexts (pp. 241–257). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
Howard, A., & Kenway, J. (2015). Canvassing conversations: Obstinate issues in studies of elites and elite education.
International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education, 28(9), 1005–1032.
Jahan, I. (2016). Medium of instruction and the discourses of “Self” and “Other” in print and social media in Bangladesh.
Unpublished PhD dissertation, The University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia.
Kenway, J., & Koh, A. (2015). Sociological silhouettes of elite schooling. British Journal of Sociology of Education,
36(1), 1–10.
Khan, S. R. (2011). Privilege: The making of an adolescent elite at St Paul’s School. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University
Press.
LaDousa, C. (2006). The discursive malleability of an identity: A dialogic approach to language “medium” schooling in
North India. Journal of Linguistic Anthropology, 16(1), 36–57.
LaDousa, C. (2014). Hindi is our ground, English is our sky: Education, language, and social class in contemporary
India. New York, NY: Berghahn.
LaDousa, C., & Davis, C. P. (2018). Introduction: Language and schooling in India and Sri Lanka: Language medium
matters. International Journal of the Sociology of Language, 253, 1–26.
Majumdar, M., & Mukhopadhyay, R. (2018). English immersion and Bangla flotation? Rendering a collective choice
private. International Journal of the Sociology of Language, 253, 79–102.
Malik, A. H. (2012). A comparative study of elite‐English‐medium schools, public schools, and Islamic madaris in con-
temporary Pakistan: The use of Pierre Bourdieu’s theory to understand “inequalities in educational and occupational
opportunities.” Unpublished Doctor of Education dissertation, University of Toronto, ON, Canada.
JAHAN and HAMID   
|
   407

Mallinson, C. (2007). Social class, social status and stratification: Revisiting familiar concepts in sociolinguistics.
University of Pennsylvania Working Papers in Linguistics, 13(2), 149–163.
McCarthy, C., & Kenway, J. (2014). Introduction: Understanding the re‐articulations of privilege over time and space.
Globalisation, Societies and Education, 12(2), 165–176.
Musa, M. (1996). Politics of language planning in Pakistan and the birth of a new state. International Journal of the
Sociology of Language, 118, 63–80.
Myers‐Scotton, C. (1990). Elite closure as boundary maintenance: The evidence from Africa. In B. Weinstein (Ed.),
Language policy and political development (pp. 25–41). Norwood, NJ: Ablex.
Ó Dochartaigh, N. (2012). Internet research skills (3rd ed.). London, UK: Sage.
Park, J. S.‐Y. (2013). English, class, and neoliberalism in South Korea. In L. Wee, R. B. H. Goh, & L. Lim (Eds.), The
politics of English: South Asia, Southeast Asia and the Asia Pacific (pp. 287–302). Amsterdam, the Netherlands:
John Benjamins.
Piller, I., & Cho, J. (2013). Neoliberalism as language policy. Language in Society, 42, 23–44.
Ramanathan, V. (2005). The English‐vernacular divide: Postcolonial language politics and practice. Clevedon, UK:
Multilingual Matters.
Rampton, B. (2010). Social class and sociolinguistics. Applied Linguistics Review, 1, 1–22.
Reyes, A. (2017). Inventing postcolonial elites: Race, language, mix, excess. Journal of Linguistic Anthropology, 27(2),
210–231.
Ricento, T. (Ed.). (2015). Language policy and political economy: English in a global context. Oxford, UK: Oxford
University Press.
Rosa, J., & Burdick, C. (2017). Language ideologies. In O. Garcia, N. Flores, & M. Spotti (Eds.), The Oxford handbook
of language and society (pp. 103–124). Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.
Sancho, D. (2016). “Keeping up with the time”: Rebranding education and class formation in globalising India.
Globalisation, Societies and Education, 14(4), 477–491.
Sandhu, P. (2016). Professional identity constructions of Indian women. Amsterdam, the Netherlands; Philadelphia, PA:
John Benjamins.
Silverstein, M. (1992). Metapragmatic discourse and metapragmatic function. In J. A. Lucy (Ed.), Reflexive language:
Reported speech and metapragmatics (pp. 33–58). Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
Song, J. J. (2013). For whom the bell tolls: Globalisation, social class and South Korea’s international schools.
Globalisation, Societies and Education, 11(1), 136–159.
Stubbs, P. (1999). “Virtual diaspora?”: Imagining Croatia on‐line. Sociological Research Online, 4(2), http://www.socre​
sonli​ne.org.uk/4/2/stubbs.html.
Suleiman, Y. (2006). Constructing languages, constructing national identities. In T. Ommniyi & G. White (Eds.),
Sociolinguistics of identity (pp. 50–74). London, UK: Continuum.
Sultana, S. (2014). Heteroglossia and identities of young adults in Bangladesh. Linguistics and Education, 26, 40–56.
Tan, P. K. W. (2005). The medium‐of‐instruction debate in Malaysia: English as a Malaysian language. Language
Problems and Language Planning, 29(1), 47–66.
Tanu, D. (2014). Becoming “international”: The cultural reproduction of the local elite at an international school in
Indonesia. South East Asia Research, 22(4), 579–596.
Thurlow, C., & Jaworski, A. (2017). Introducing elite discourse: The rhetorics of status, privilege, and power. Social
Semiotics, 27(3), 243–254.
Tsui, A. B. M., & Tollefson, J. (Eds.). (2007). Language policy, culture and identity in Asian contexts. Mahwah, NJ:
Lawrence Erlbaum.
van Dijk, T. A. (1988). News analysis: Case studies of international and national news in the press. Mahwah, NJ:
Lawrence Erlbaum.
van Dijk, T. A. (2006). Politics, ideology, and discourse. In K. Brown (Ed.), Encyclopedia of language and linguistics
(pp. 728–740). Amsterdam, the Netherlands; Boston, MA: Elsevier.
van Dijk, T. A. (2015). Critical discourse analysis. In D. Tannen, H. E. Hamilton, & D. Schiffrin (Eds.), The handbook
of discourse analysis (pp. 466–485). Malden, MA: John Wiley.
Vandrick, S. (2011). Students of the new global elite. TESOL Quarterly, 45(1), 160–169.
Weenink, D. (2008). Cosmopolitanism as a form of capital: Parents preparing their children for a globalizing world.
Sociology, 42(6), 1089–1106.
 |
408       JAHAN and HAMID

Wodak, R., & Meyer, M. (Eds.). (2009). Methods of critical discourse analysis (2nd ed.). London, UK: Sage.
Wright, S. (2012). Language policy, the nation and nationalism. In B. Spolsky (Ed.), The Cambridge handbook of lan-
guage policy (pp. 59–78). Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

How to cite this article: Jahan I, Hamid MO. English as a medium of instruction and the
discursive construction of elite identity. J Sociolinguistics. 2019;23:386–408. https​://doi.
org/10.1111/josl.12360​