The dominance of English as a lingua franca
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| The dominance of English as a lingua franca: salvation or damnation?
Dr. Pericles Tangas Abstract English remains the primary language of communication in international transactions. The influence of Hollywood, the rapid expansion of the Internet, and the historically proven necessity for a global language suggest that it will most probably continue to qualify for that role. Nonetheless, the respect of the local element acquires an increasingly significant dimension in the new world order of globalization as we have already started to experience it; in that sense, the dominance of English is reasonably viewed as a menace for the less spoken languages. While, however, the overall policy of organizations such as the European Union favors plurilingualism and pluriculturalism, the need for “meaningful discourse” – to quote from Plato’s Symposium – in a variety of contexts (commercial, economic, cultural or political) seems to promote “monolingualism” as a means to overcoming the loss of information or the cultural gap often caused by a failure of the interpretation process-as-cultural-mediation. The paper examines the ways international communication is influenced as a result of the prevalence of English as a Lingua Franca, and the relationships developed between interlocutors in international communication settings. It is a positive element that education has the potential to mitigate the disparities emanating from the diverse uses (and users) of the language. English language teaching ought to take into consideration the need to incorporate and integrate the cultural and linguistic background of the different speakers of the language, in order to provide a viable framework for its usage in international contexts. This is a point often neglected, yet it has the potential to turn English as a global language into an instrument that unites -- instead of separating -- peoples, cultures and civilizations. Author: Dr. Pericles Tangas, Assistant Professor of English Language and Translation, Head of Department of Applied Foreign Languages in Management and Commerce, Epirus Institute of Technology, 1 Irinis & Filias, Igoumenitsa 46100, Greece. E-mail: ptangas@teiep.gr , http://flmc.teiep.gr |