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Bridging Canadian Adult Second Language Education and Essential Skills Policies

Approach With Caution

University of British Columbia, taragibb{at}interchange.ubc.ca

Employing critical discourse analysis (CDA), this paper examines the attempt to bridge a Canadian adult second language policy with an employment skills policy. The result is a third policy intended to improve language education and employment skills training for immigrants. The analysis reveals that the knowledge economy and human capital theory are the predominant discourses embedded in the policy documents. The paper argues that predominant discourses perpetuate power imbalances and essentialize worker and migrant subjectivities. Engaging in postcolonial theories of second language learning, the paper proposes another way of conceiving adult second language learning and its potential for policy development.

Key Words: adult education policy • postcolonial theory • critical discourse analysis • second language and workplace learning • human capital theory • knowledge economy

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