The Erosion of Language and Culture - Essay Example

Running head: THE EROSION OF LANGUAGE AND CULTURE 1 The Erosion of Language and Culture: The High Price of Globalization THE EROSION OF LANGUAGE AND CULTURE 2 Abstract Today, the effects of globalization have transcended the financial and commercial fields, and they threaten the survival of the cultures and languages that help give nations a distinctive identity in the world community. The homogenization of culture has, among other things, made a new lingua franca of the English language and contributed materially to the contraction of the world’s languages, the number of which is expected to be cut in half by the year 2100 (Haviland, Prins, Walrath, & McBride, 2009). A language represents human experience and knowledge, and, as such, must be preserved. Technology, specifically the Internet and electronic communications, offers an unprecedented opportunity to reinvigorate language and culture among a whole new community, one that exists in cyber space. Keywords: Globalization, cultures, languages, homogenization, lingua franca, English, Internet. THE EROSION OF LANGUAGE AND CULTURE 3 The Erosion of Language and Culture: The High Price of Globalization The most important cultural issue facing the world is globalization and its overwhelming impact on so much that is culturally unique and worthy of preservation. The great downside of the technological revolution that has super-connected the most distant reaches of the planet is the homogenization of disparate cultures. While the developmental and economic benefits of electronic communication technologies cannot be denied, particularly in economically disadvantaged countries, the means by which “improvement” is accomplished is also the means by which traditions are marginalized and, most significantly, by which languages are threatened. Language is the expression of a culture’s soul, and the repository of its history and artistic achievement. Yet globalization and the concomitant spread of the English language have contributed to the extinction of many languages and threaten countless others. It is as if technology and finance have succeeded in accomplishing, in a relatively short span of time, what centuries of imperialism, subjugation, and criminalization of native languages could not. Language extinction is not simply a matter of natural selection, a Darwinian weeding-out of moribund tongues. “Languages change as they pass from the lips of one generation to the next, but there is nothing about this process of transmission which makes for decay or extinction” (Ostler, 2006). When English overwhelms an ancient language it is, to be sure, a matter of “survival of the fittest.” It is also an erosion of human knowledge, a marginalization of the expressing and sharing of human experience (Haviland, Prins, McBride & Walrath, 2009, p. 170-71). As the medium for transmitting and growing culture, language is the source of the most desperate cultural struggle against the assimilating effects of globalization. THE EROSION OF LANGUAGE AND CULTURE 4 In Haviland, there are two sections that address this issue, expanding on globalization as something much more than a mindless technological phenomenon that sprang into being so that countries could do business rapidly and efficiently. In “Language and Communication” and “Global Changes and the Role of Anthropology,” language is examined as an exploitable and vulnerable precious resource (Haviland, Prins, et al, 2009, pp. 162, 316). This being so, the rise of globalization has inspired a consequent reaction in many countries. Where once languages were taken for granted, many countries now regard their native tongues as priceless assets to be protected against foreign incursion. In France, a growing concern over the purity of the French language has led the government to launch a dubious campaign to expunge English terms, such as le hamburger and e-mail (Haviland, Prins, et al, 2009, p. 170). In the United States, the “English only” campaign amounts to a somewhat less noble, though no less fervent, reaction to globalization. In the U.S., linguistic purity is only a part of the picture. Many citizens “seek to shape or transform not only their towns but also…the entire country by electing politicians committed to forging a national culture based on what they see as American patriotism, English-only legislation, and traditional Christian values” (Haviland, Prins, et al, 2009, p. 334). In other countries, language may be the most important way to maintain a sense of national identity. In either event, Haviland’s examination of language in terms of sociolinguistics, which studies the relationship between language and society, and ethnolinguistics, which studies the link between language and culture, provides the means of understanding language within the context of the individual countries and cultures that seek its preservation (Haviland, Prins, et al, 2009, pp. 170-71). THE EROSION OF LANGUAGE AND CULTURE 5 One of the most violent chapters in the history of the British Empire was the colonization of New Zealand, specifically, the subjugation of the country’s native Maori population during the 19th century. The linguistic consequence of imperialism in New Zealand has been severe: only four percent of New Zealand’s 4 million people are able to speak Maori, and only 23 percent of the Maori themselves can speak their own native language (Ka’ai & Moorfield, 2011). Globalization and the technology that enables it have made of English a kind of Web-based lingua franca; however, in an interesting historical twist New Zealanders have utilized the World Wide Web to preserve and reinvigorate their ancient language. In 2011, Tania Ka’ai and John Moorfield published a paper about a technologically based initiative designed to teach Maori using a full array of computer-based and communications devices. Smart phones, Skype, iPods, iPad Touches, Smart Boards, and video conferencing technology are utilized to facilitate accessibility to a post-graduate Maori language program; textbooks and study guides; an online digital platform for Maori language classes; a prototypical digital language learning system; and streaming video of fluent speakers (Ka’ai & Moorfield, 2011). It must be admitted that not all those with an interest in learning Maori (whether a tribesman or not) will be computer literate. However, the existence and persistence of so many technological avenues for learning will certainly, over time, expose more and more people to convenient methods for studying not only Maori but also other endangered languages. Ironically, the very technologies that have helped level cultures all over the world have become the channels through which endangered languages may be preserved. The same revolution that has globalized corporate interests has made it possible to save the cultural treasures that they threaten. THE EROSION OF LANGUAGE AND CULTURE 6 In 2003, Canadian author and journalist Mark Abley published a book entitled Spoken Here: Travels Among Threatened Languages, in which he chronicled the status of endangered languages in various parts of the globe and the relative success of attempts to preserve them. Abley visited Wales (Welsh), North America (Mohawk), France (Provencal) and the South Pacific (Boro) among others, studying indigenous languages pushed to the brink of extinction by globalization and the worldwide expansion of English. In each case, he writes about projects, many of which have the weight of government sanction, aimed at encouraging natives to resume speaking their indigenous tongues in the interest of cultural and linguistic preservation. Abley’s perspective is predominantly negative. He contends that it is simple day-to-day expediency that determines which language will predominate within a given society, and that the inexorability of globalization has made English a “default” language now so deeply entrenched that encouraging people to revert to an older form of communication amounts to a form of naïve romanticism. The influence of international commerce and mass culture in blurring traditional geographical borders is not to be underestimated. Many observers believe that when young people in places like Bora Bora began dressing like Michael Jackson, it was a sign that the end was near for native culture and, by extension, of indigenous languages. And yet, there is a “yin” to this “yang,” according to Abley, who states that globalization is stoking the flames of nationalism and cultural sanctity in many places (Abley, 2003, p. 270). National feeling, Abley argues (2003), “is hard to erase. Globalization may even be heightening it. No one has yet figured out how to be a citizen of the world and only the world” (p. 270). In that sense, THE EROSION OF LANGUAGE AND CULTURE 7 individuality and the resiliency of culture may yet prove to be more practical than cultural theorists have assumed. Colette Harris also writes about the resiliency of culture in the face of a monolithic challenge. In Muslim Youth: Tensions and Transitions in Tajikistan, Harris notes that Tajikistan has maintained much of its individuality despite its harsh geographic reality and the predations of aggressive neighbors. “Despite the fiercely atheistic Soviet rule, traditional Tajik culture maintained a typically Muslim segregation of post-puberty boys and girls” (Harris, 2006). The country’s resiliency (and that of other countries that have maintained their language and cultural identity) is a product of its ability to absorb other influences, which is important because Tajikistan is wedged between Afghanistan, Uzbekistan, and China (p. ix). In Abley, many of his subjects talk about the superfluity of physical borders in the modern world; in Tajikistan, the permeability of lines on a map failed to throttle an ancient culture. If this is true, then this model can be said to contrast with the idea that globalization has a destructive effect on the existence of indigenous languages and cultures. If a people can survive centuries of change and still maintain a strong sense of identity, then it seems reasonable to assume that a culture can survive globalization. As Abley points out, globalization has spurred many cultures to take drastic action to preserve their language and way of life. In Wales, Gwynfor Evans, leader of the pro-Welsh-language party Plaid Cymru, staged a hunger strike to force the British government to uphold its promise to permit a Welsh-language television station (Abley, 2003, p. 249). The other side of the coin is the passive acceptance of change and the extinction of one’s language. In such a case, an ethnolinguistic study of a particular culture THE EROSION OF LANGUAGE AND CULTURE 8 would likely reveal clues as to its ability to absorb external influences and grow stronger from the experience (Haviland, Prins, et al, 2009, p. 172). Given the high stakes of language extinction and the coincident loss of knowledge and experience, a proactive approach to language preservation should be pursued. The most promising “best practice” currently available appears to be offered by the explosion in electronic communications technology and the timeliness of information exchange. The Maori “experiment” in New Zealand is an example of this approach. Distance learning programs transcend time zones and borders, and are much used by people who wish to learn a second language. Descendants of Scottish highlanders forced from their homeland taking lessons in their ancestral Scottish Gaelic language, which today hovers on the verge of extinction, live far from Scotland. Yet globalization has also impacted the meaning of preservation – one needn’t live in Inverness to preserve the ancient language of the highlands and islands. If, however, preservation means restoring a threatened language to primacy (in other words, restoration rather than preservation) then it is quite likely that it cannot succeed. By this definition, a language must be used on a daily basis, must be spoken at the grocery, at the post office, and over the neighbor’s fence if it is to be considered relevant. In many places where English has gained the upper hand, this is an unrealistic expectation. Yet language exchange can, and does, take place over the Internet, in the exchange of stories and poetry, folk traditions and simple conversation. Web-based communities may be pseudo-communities but then globalization has, in a cultural sense, created pseudo-countries. There exists tremendous potential for utilizing current technologies in the preservation of language and culture. If THE EROSION OF LANGUAGE AND CULTURE 9 languages evolve, then it is logical to assume that the ways in which they are transmitted and shared should evolve as well. References Abley, M. (2003). Spoken Here: Travels Among Threatened Languages. New York: Houghton- Mifflin Co. Harris, C. (2006). Muslim Youth: Tensions and Transitions in Tajikistan. Boulder, CO: Westview Press. Haviland, W.A., Prins, H.E.L., Walrath, D. & McBride, B. (2009). The Essence of Anthropology. Belmont, CA: Cengage Learning. Ka’ai, T. & Moorfield, J.C. “Transforming Communities: Technologies for Teaching and Learning Endangered Languages.” Ethnos Blog. 2011. Retrieved from http://www.ethnosproject.org. Ostler, N. (2006). Empires of the Word: A Language History of the World. New York: Harper Collins. Read More