ETHICS IN APPLIED LINGUISTICS
A CAL view: ethics again?
Language-program evaluation in South India
A CAL analysis of this project might begin with questions related to the extent of the involvement of all stakeholders in the evaluation, noting, for example, that students were not involved and that in all cases the final arbiters were two external judges, both of whom had all the credentials of neo-colonial attitudes. Next, the four college activities would be considered, and it would be pointed out that the compulsory link to a British funding body, reinforced by the involvement of British institutions (including the British Council and British, or British-controlled, publishers) removed all aspects of choice from local players. And finally the need for English language, which these projects were supposedly satisfying, would itself be shown to be questionable, in that it was a constructed need, or could so be interpreted; that there were other options (e.g. English not tied to a British–English model and to UK resources, Tamil, Hindi) that the acceptance of the funding structure did not permit.
Perhaps the severest criticism would be reserved for the two evaluators. In addition to the doubts mentioned above about their allegiances, it would also be noted that they took no responsibility for querying the guidelines of their evaluation brief and as such themselves contributed to the continuation of the power structure within which these Indian colleges, their students and staff, were locked into a client role. In short the CAL position would be that since the fundamental neo-colonial relationship was ethically wrong, no tinkering with the surface features would produce any results of interest or value.
