Zoya Proshina The abc and Controversies of World Englishes ббк 81
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Triumph vs ScepticismКлючевые слова: распространение английского языка, язык и культура, глобальный английский язык, власть; колониальная история; информация; господствующий язык; гегемония; лингвистический империализм; лингвицизм; фрагментация; денационализация языка; культурное обогащение; межкультурная коммуникация; гибридность, реалии, заимствование, суперстрат, субстрат, этимология In the early 1960s, the world community, all of a sudden, realized that the worldwide spread of English, in its various functions, has become unprecedented. Now English is heard and read on all the seven continents. It is spoken approximately by 1.5 billion people (Crystal 1997: 5) and in the next 10-15 years is expected to be used by around 2 billion (Graddol 2006: 14). It is one of the official languages of the United Nations Organization, UNESCO, World Health Organization (WHO), Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN), European Council, NATO, Organization of Petroleum-Exporting Countries (OPEC), European Free Trade Association (EFTA), and many other international bodies. By the end of the 20th century, 85% of the international organizations in the world made official use of English (Crystal 1997: 79). English is the language of sea navigation and air control. In order to conduct transnational deals and negotiations, businesses use English as a global language. “Globalization means that more and more activities which used to be carried on at a national or local level (business, academic publishing, politics, military cooperation, and many others) are now carried on at an international level and require the use of link languages” (Melchers & Shaw 2003: 194). English is also preferred in commerce and advertising. In the most fashionable street of Stockholm, for example, well over 80 % of the shops have English names (Melchers & Shaw 2003: 6). English has become a language of science and information. Over 2/3 of scholars present their findings in English. In Germany, 98 % of scientists write their works in English (Lockwood 1998: 16). As the global academic language English facilitates the international mobility of researchers. “Higher education is becoming globalized alongside the economy, and English is proving to be a key ingredient – partly because universities in the English-speaking world dominate the global league tables, and partly because English is proving popular as a means of internationalizating both the student community and teaching staff” (Graddol 2006: 73) In 2003-04, 1500 Master’s programs were offered in English in countries where English is not the first language (e.g., Germany, Rumania). There are joint programs (like Russian-American Department at Far Eastern National University) in a number of universities providing their courses in English. E-Learning is becoming more and more popular facilitating the growth of transnational English-language students. More than 80 % of the web information can be found in English1 (Crystal 2001: 217) though the dominance of the language on the internet is now declining and in 2005 the percentage of English on the Internet was only 32% (Graddol 2006: 44). According to the UNESCO, 28 % of the world books are published in English (Lockwood 1998: 17-18). 60 % of translations that come out of press in Europe are of works originally written in British or American English (Hale 1998: 190) and if we add to this the so called “contact literature,” i.e. literature written in English in other countries (Singapore, South Africa, India, a.o.), to say nothing of Australian, New Zealand, and Canadian Englishes, the percentage will increase considerably. Mass media has a great role in diffusing English all over the world. English language news providers such as Associated Press (AP), Reuters, the BBC, and CNN can be reached in any part of the world. Al Jazeera has established its regional headquarters in London, Washington, and Kuala Lumpur to become one of the major Arab English-broadcasting news agencies. In 2005 Russia launched 24-hour English-language TV channel funded by the government. Germany’s Deutsche Welle broadcasts both in German and English and France also launched a new global bilingual channel following the model of Germany. (Graddol 2006: 47) ¾ of the international correspondence is carried on in English (Alatis & Straehle 1997: 3). An astounding number of English users can be found in Asia. Just one very impressive fact: English-speaking people in China overwhelmingly outnumber English speakers in the U.S.A. Today, much more people speak English for various purposes in Asia than the combined population of the United States, Britain, Canada, and Australia where English is a native tongue for many citizens (Honna 2005: 107). In Asia and the Pacific, about 90 % of international bodies carry on their proceedings entirely in English (Crystal 1997: 80). No wonder that in 1996 at a conference held in the Philippines, English was proclaimed as an Asian language (English Is an Asian Language 1997), i.e. not only the language that is used in Asia, but the language of Asia (Kachru B. 1997a: 1).
The global expansion of English is not at all unexpected as it might seem. There are certain reasons for that, which can be categorized as:
Historical reasons relate to the British Empire’s colonial past. The language of the metropolis was transferred to and accepted by its colonies. In the late 15th century (1496-1497) the English language was established in Newfoundland. In the mid-16th century (1541) Ireland was conquered. In the 16-17th centuries America started speaking English, followed in the 17-18th centuries by Canada, Australia, India, the Caribbean, Bahamas, Barbados. In the 17-19th centuries English went to Asia: India, Hong Kong, Singapore, Ceylon, Malay, Afghanistan. In the 18-19th centuries it settled down in New Zealand, and in the 19th century it expanded in Egypt, Sudan, South Africa, Rhodesia (Zambia and Zimbabwe), Lesotho, Botswana, Gambia, Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria, Malawi, Sierra-Leone, Swaziland, Tanzania, Libya, Uganda, Namibia, and Tanzania. The 20th century saw arrival of English in Iraq. As a result, in the 1920s, ¼ of the world map was English-speaking. Fig. 1. The spread of English as L1 and L2. T Today, as ever, policy and economy of powerful English-speaking countries have a significant impact on the spread of the language. “A language becomes an international language for one chief reason: the political power of its people – especially their military power. … By the beginning of the nineteenth century, Britain had become the world’s leading industrial and trading country. By the end of the century, the population of the USA (then approaching 100 million) was larger than that of any of the countries of western Europe, and its economy was the most productive and the fastest growing in the world. British political imperialism had sent English around the globe, during the nineteenth century, so that it was a language ‘on which the sun never sets’. During the twentieth century, this world presence was maintained and promoted, almost single-handedly, through the economic supremacy of the new American superpower. And the language behind the US dollar was English.” (Crystal 1997: 7-8) Economic support of the powerful countries is accompanied by the language promotion. Growth of transnational business results in establishing English as a language for international communication. The USA and Great Britain promote learning and teaching English through ELT materials, which proves to be a huge market industry in the contemporary world; through grants stimulating studies in their countries, through mass media, movies, computer games, and pop culture music. There are government agencies (e.g., United States Information Agency, or USIA, the Peace Corps, and the British Council), non-governmental organizations (NGOs), like TESOL and IATEFL, various private foundations (Fulbright , Kennan, Ford, Rockfeller, Carnegie, a.o) that by providing aid to other countries, their institutions, and citizens, diffuse the English language as it is the working language of these organizations. F  ig.2. Job advertisements.
In many countries, including Russia, knowing English is generally of great advantage for job applicants who can fill prestigious, well-paid vacancies. Sometimes the requirement for candidates to know English is ridiculous (as can be seen in the job ad in Fig. 2, for neither a manager responsible for selling diesel engines nor a head of department for training crane operators are likely to use English in their professional activities). However, to emphasize prestigeousness of the company, its directors include “excellent command” of English in a set of requirements. The onrush of scientific and technological revolution, with its computerization, development of the Internet global village, academic exchanges, and research publications, requires a single language that will be able to disseminate and exchange information over the globe and will be understood in every part of the world. It is the English language that has become the language of information management (Kaplan 1987) and the “communications revolution” (Graddol 2006: 42). English is the language of international air traffic and maritime control and is currently developing its role in international emergency services and policing. It is the leading language of international tourism (Crystal 1995: 106). From the very beginning, the spread of English implied the spread of Anglophone (metropolis) cultures. Colonizers imposed their culture on new territories changing people’s tastes and habits. Even now via commercials, movies, TV programs, and recordings, English has been transplanting Anglo-, mostly American values in various cultures facilitating “homogenization of world culture” (Pennycook 2003: 516). “The impact of the hegemony of English is not limited only to languages and communication, but its influence extends to cultural domains. As symbolized by expressions such as ‘Coca Colanization’ and ‘McDonaldization’, Americanization of global culture is happening today. There is no doubt that the United States is in a position to create, change, and control culture, information, and communication of the world to their own liking, because they are the exporter of American-made cultural commodities, such as Hollywood movies, rock and roll music, videos, McDonald’s hamburgers, Coca Cola, and so on and so forth, all of which are increasingly becoming the major components of contemporary everyday life, especially of young generation.” (Tsuda 1997: 23-24) These culture changes would have been impossible had the people from non-English-speaking countries not perceived them as innovative, modern, and prestigious. Today, for example, movies filmed in English get more recognition internationally than those in the original languages (Martin 2006: 586). Taking into consideration a fact that today’s youth can be characterized as a ‘video’ generation, we should not be surprised that they are attracted to a huge variety of music and video production bringing English in their rooms and having impact on their own pop-culture (see, for example, Stanlaw 2004: 101-126). But there is the other side of the coin. Today the spread of English is motivated by the desire of various ethnicities to expose their own culture to a language that will reach an international audience. Since a language of global use is English, it is chosen for promoting national cultures. In fact, without knowing Chinese or Korean, we are able to read about the Chinese and Korean cultures in English. A minority ethnicity of Tuwa hopes to make the unique Tuwa culture known in the world with the help of an English dictionary of Tuwa culture being compiled by a young Tuwa scholar Ulana Kuznetsova (2005). Linguistically, English is prepared to express other cultures by borrowing culture-loaded words. With a considerable Romance superstratum on Germanic substratum, English is etymologically predispositioned to borrowing from foreign languages – the feature called “hybridity and permeability” (Yano 2001: 120). “English has done substantial pick-pocketing from other languages…” (Kachru B. 1986: 91, 131). On having an option of a foreign language, many learners choose English believing that its morphology is much easier as it has few inflectional endings. The truth of the latter reason is doubtful, for any language compensates simplicity in one level by complexity in another level (in this regard, English has very intricate prepositional syntactical complexes, which present serious difficulties for English learners). The attitude to the spread of English is not simple. Global English is considered to be detrimental on the one hand and beneficial on the other. Scholars appear to be split into two opposing groups that might be labeled as “skeptics” and “triumphalists”. “Skeptics” argue that the increased dominance of English threatens other languages and cultures. Global English kills minority languages, which die out with the rate of one language per two weeks (Cunningham 2001: 4). Taking this into account, linguists suggest that about 80 % of the world’s 6,000 or so living languages will disappear within the next century (Crystal 1997: 17). Some critics claim that the hegemony of English leads to “inequality between the speakers of other languages, the use of World Englishes may generate the hierarchical structure among different varieties of English, probably with American or British variety at the top of that hierarchy” (Tsuda 1997: 25-26). The dominance of English is believed to lead to “communicative inequality in international communication,” “cultural domination,” and “the colonization of the mind” (Tsuda 1997: 23). Communicative inequality means “repressing the speakers other than English from articulating their voices. Whenever English is used as a common language in international communication, the non-English speakers become deaf and mute, unless they master English or interpreters translate for them” (Tsuda 1997: 23). Cultural domination is seen in Americanization of cultures, which brings about not only changes in everyday life, but also changes in people’s tastes and consciousness, gravitating toward the Western consumption-centered way of life. The colonization of the mind implicates a speaker’s identifying with English, dissociating from one’s own language, stigmatizing and devaluing one’s own culture (Tsuda 1997: 24-25). Anglophone cultures have promoted English throughout the world to protect their economic and political interests (Pennycook 1994: 22). Besides, English stimulates social inequality. It has become the language of the elite and power. Access to English education has become a means for distributing wealth and social benefits. English is compared with a doorman regulating the immigration flow to well-developed countries. Given all these considerations, Robert Phillipson (1992) accused English of “linguistic imperialism” and ‘linguicism”. “A working definition of English linguistic imperialism is that the dominance of English is asserted and maintained by the establishment and continuous reconstitution of structural and cultural inequalities between English and other languages. Here structural refers broadly to material properties (for example, attitudes, pedagogic principles). English linguistic imperialism is one example of linguicism, which is defined as ‘ideologies, structures, and practices which are used to legitimate, effectuate, and reproduce an unequal division of power and resources (both material and immaterial) between groups which are defined on the basis of language’… The structural and cultural inequalities ensure the continued allocation of more material resources to English than to other languages and benefit those who are proficient in English.” (Phillipson 1997: 47) Expansion can be dreadful to the English language itself. There is a prognostication that English will follow the fate of Latin – it will fragment into separate languages and thus will disappear (Graddol 1999). As we all know, predictions can be so unreliable and inaccurate. Only history gives a definite answer. Anyway, there are serious contradictions to this prognostic theory (Crystal 1997: 134-139), one of which is that there will certainly arise a new form of English, World Standard Spoken English, along with written standard English, that will be mutually intelligible. People will become multidialectal, or multilingual, using one variety of English within their own country, and standard English in international communication. (Crystal 1997: 137) The position of triumphalism is shared by many linguists who support the idea of pluricentricity of Englishes (Kachru B. 1981, 1986, 2006; Smith L. 1983, 2007; Crystal 1997; Kirkpatrick 1998/2006; McArthur 2002; Bolton 2003; Jenkins 2003; Melchers & Shaw 2003; Honna 2005; Kachru Y. & Nelson C. 2006; McKay 2002). These linguists believe that the spread of English is “natural, neutral, and beneficial” (Pennycook 1994). It is natural since the increased international communication is easier when one and the same language is used by speakers from various countries. “When the amount of information needing to be processed came to exceed human capabilities, the computer appeared on the scene, transforming the process of planning and calculation. When the need for global communication came to exceed the limits set by language barriers, the spread of English accelerated, transforming existing patterns of international communication.” (Ferguson 1982: xv-xvi) Due to a number of reasons, English happens to be this very language of international communication. Its spread “is inevitable in the age of cross-cultural contact” (Kirkpatrick 1998/2006: 344). It is a neutral language in the context of multi-ethnic hostility. It is able to make relative peace in a multilingual country with struggling national languages, as it happened, for example, in India. “Thus, one important aspect of English in South Asia is its capacity to provide neutralization. Choosing a given code in a multilingual context asserts one or more identities, for example, of religion, caste, and educational attainment, in addition to signaling the message. Since English is outside the traditional array of codes, it is released from these responsibilities.” (Kachru Y. & Nelson C. 2006: 156) In 1956 in Sri Lanka, English was replaced by Sinhalese and Tamil as official languages. After the years of civil war, the Sri Lankan government concluded that the loss of English as a neutral language common to both Sinhalese and Tamils, contributed to worsening relations between them. Therefore, the government reintroduced English as an official language. (Alatis, Straehle 1997: 5-6) Sometimes, when speaking about the neutrality of English, scholars suggest that it can keep away from its native culture and become a neutral, “deculturized” means of communication. The Japanese linguist Suzuki suggested a new name for this type of linguistic formation – Englic – not relating to the culture and language of native speakers (Kubota 1998: 300). Based on the principle of ethnic neutrality, English is considered to be denationalized, void of ethnical culture specifics (Грейдина 2001: 127). However, this thesis is questionable. Language is a vehicle for culture. They are inextricable. Transplanted to other cultures, English has broadened its cultural framework – today it can express not only its primary (British) culture but also practically any culture of the world. It has become a transcultural language, or a language of intercultural communication (Кабакчи 1993, 1998) that disseminates various cultures all over the world. The spread of English is beneficial for all peoples because it is based on a mutually equal and cooperative principle. English is less and less regarded as a Western language, and “its development is less and less determined by the usage of its native speakers” (Ferguson 1982: xvi). By spreading various cultures, English enriches people who get to know more and more about other communities and countries. At the same time, knowing and understanding other cultures results in greater tolerance among ethnicities. Global English facilitates people’s mobility, provides for international business and tourism. As S.G.Ter-Minasova points out, lack of a global language impedes the humanity integration to solve problems common to all mankind (Тер-Минасова 2007: 242). In this respect, English is seen a deliverance from the Babylonian curse.
1. Find English equivalents to the Russian key words stated before the text of the chapter. Discuss the meaning of the terms. 2. What is the role of English in your city? In what spheres can we find it? 3. Comment on the factors that influenced the spread of English. Which of the factors seems most prominent to you? Why? 4. Do you agree with the linguist Max Weintreich’s words that “a language is a dialect with an army and a navy”? Give your grounds. 5. What are the “benefits” and “costs” (Graddol 2006: 109) of the spread of English? 6. What is the reason to say that English hastens death of minority languages? What minority languages in your region do you know? What is their situation now? 7. Do you believe that English as a worldwide language can help to preserve ethnic cultures? Give your reasons. 8. Suggest arguments to substantiate two controversial opinions: a) English is denationalized. b) English is culturally enriched. 9. Discuss the following table of the estimated ranking of languages (Graddol 2006: 62). What forecast can be made based on the data presented in the table?
10. Looking at the map (Fig.1 ) what can you say about the areas and countries English is spread as L1 and L2? |
he colonial English was not the Queen’s English, since those who were mainly responsible for the English language spread were mostly people who did not use Standard English. They were not well educated sailors, traders, people of working-class origins, Scottish schoolteachers in colonies, missionaries from continental Europe, craftsmen looking for a better life overseas, soldiers, even convicts (Mesthrie 2006: 278-286). Given the influence of local languages that were in contact with English and the specificity of English that was brought to former colonies, features of the varieties of English that were raised outside Great Britain are different from the characteristics of British English.