Discursive relationships between dominant U.S. language policy ideologies and the Congressional Record in relation to Title III of the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001

The purpose of this thesis was to look at the discursive relationships that exist between dominant U.S. language policy ideologies and the Congressional record in relation to Title III of the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001(NCLB). The ideologies that were analyzed are English monolingualism, U.S. nationalism, and bilingualism as a problem. A critical discourse analytic methodology was used to analyze the data of the Congressional records and its relationship to Title III of NCLB. The overall findings suggest that although there were several utterances made by congressmen that would suggest a resistance to dominant language ideologies, the pervasive nature of Title III of NCLB indicates that this resistance was not discursively linked to the final document of NCLB, which consistently promotes the dominance of English for English Language Learners (ELLs). However, the resistance to dominant ideologies by some members of Congress broadened the legislative discourse about the importance of bilingual and dual language programs.