English as the Global Language - Essay Example

What sorts of challenges do we face at the beginning of the 21st century with the adoption of English as a global lingua franca? It is possible to trace the development of English as the potential global language to the era of colonization, when the British Empire transcended the seas and the established itself as the leader in global empire building. While, it would be correct to assume that English might be the most spoken language in the world, it would by no means be correct to state that the language is set to become the ‘lingua franca’ or the single common language of the whole world (Crystal 2003). In the creation of a body of work that would seek to understand the problems that English encounters in its zest to become the global language, one would encounter issues such as the love that people tend to have for their cultures and their singular identity which in many cases is identified in keeping with the language that they adopt as their own; the problem with official and unofficial language adoption and the long standing problem of hatred of colonization, which in many instances English tends to represent (Crystal, 2003). Where the development of the concept of English as the lingua franca is concerned, the idea has its roots in the fact that around the world, most of the speakers of English, that carry on exchanges and transactions in the language tend to be far removed from the native speakers of the language itself. It is this reach, over and above any other language in the world, that one could cite as the reason explaining the ambition of English and English speakers of making the language a global bond (Saraceni 2008: 20). Reaserchers like Barotchi have quoted the UNESCO Conference on Vernacular Languages in 1953, in coming up with a definition of the elements that would constitute a lingua franca. He defines the term as a ‘a language which is used habitually by people whose mother tongues are different in order to facilitate communication between them’. This therefore means that the terms is in fact applicable also to languages that are in essence to be understood as auxiliary, which is inclusive of pidgins. The idea therefore is that this should be applicable to planned languages such as Esperanto. What is interesting to note, in this context that the value of the term in the context of an international language till the decade of the 1970s would refer solely to the planned languages, instead of the current trend favoring dominant national languages. Examples of the ‘natural’ lingua franca, researchers like Barotchi again go back to citing Greek and Latin in the context of the ancient Greek and Roman empires, along with the growth of Latin thereafter. His coverage avoids addressing the issue of lingua franca often being used to refer to dominant international languages, as in ‘English as the lingua franca of international scientific contact’, or to other languages that are used in a number of countries, such as Swahili or Arabic, which also function as mother tongues (Phillipson, 2008: 261). Traditionally, it must be understood that international negotiation, by way of alliances and trade has worked on the back of interactions based on translations. More often than not also, in communities that begin to trade with one another, they will tend to communicate through the adoption of a simplified language which is as known as a pidgin, understood simply to be the combination of elements from different languages. One of the primary problems with the adoption of a lingua franca is the fact that the geographical extent to which it could be used is governed, almost entirely by political factors. While there are known instances on the one hand, wherein lingua franca extend over small domains-between few ethic groups in one part of a single country, or even linking populations of just a few countries, there is the contrast of Latin in the middle ages wherein, at least at the level of government was the lingua franca in the whole of the Roman Empire (Crystal, 2003: 11). The short-term aims of a given country looking at ensuring its development as a local power would also tend to reduce the investment in English. A perfect example is the Spanish-speaking countries of Latin America who tend to throw their weight behind the Spanish language or for that matter the Gulf nations, who are among some of the richest countries in the world, and tend to support the use of Arabic over English. One of the primary problems associated with the issue of the presence of English as THE global language, is the perception of English as the representative of the hegemon at the cost of local, individual and community language and culture. Though about hegemony provokes one into considering structure constraining agency as well as agency countering structure. One can find, a manifestation of this very perception in the works of one of the most well known scholars of English literature-in ‘The Tempest’ by William Shakespeare, Caliban is the slave and Prospero is the master. The master asserts his mastery by trying to teach Caliban English, Caliban asserts his independence by twisting and manipulating English to express his displeasure at being the slave (Sonntag, 2003: 7). It is inevitable that, in a post colonial era, there should be a strong reaction against continuing to use language of the former colonial power, and in favor of the promotion pf the indigenous languages. As the then president of Kenya, Jomo Kenyatta, said in 1974, “The basis of any independent government is a national language, and we can no longer continue aping our former colonizers” (Crystal 2003: 124). Gandhi writing in 1908 places the thought across more emotively, when he stated that: “To give millions knowledge of English sis to enslave them…it is not a painful thing that, if I want to go to a court of justice, I must employ the English language as a medium; that, when I became a Barrister, I may not speak my mother-tongue, and that someone else should have to translate to me from my own language? Is this not absolutely absurd? Is it not a sign of slavery?” (Gandhi 1958: 5). Another major impediment that could be identified to the adoption of English as the global language is the fact that in most of the underdeveloped countries of the world, even till date there is a problem of poverty and the absence of standardization of living conditions. So while there is a mass adoption of English as the language of daily use among the urban, upwardly mobile middle class groups, in much of the third world, there is still a large section of the society in this part of the world that is characterized by hunger and absence of access to education. What transpires naturally then is the fact that most of the people who do not have access to education are still far removed from the adoption of English language skills as a part of their innate structure, making English’s prospects of becoming the global language in the presence of Mandarin, which has many more native speakers a difficult prospect. One of the biggest hurdles to English becoming the global language is the problem of politicization of the issue in the context of globalization. The state, in the sense of the officials, processes and institutions at the national level where authoritative and allocative decisions are made, remains a critical actor, along with it being the site of action in the relationship between globalisation and the local politics that characteristics the issue of global English (Sonntag, 2003: 116). The idea in essence is that while economic forces like those of industrialization and print capitalism were critical in the spread and the standardization of vernaculars it was the State that was responsible for the organization of boundaries and status of that spread. It was the State that authorized the transformation of a particular vernacular into a national and official language and allocated the resources to back this transformation. The extrapolation from the age of nationalism to the age of globalisation would stay evidence to the assumption, that although the global economic integration is correlated with the local politics denying a global platform for English, it is the State that appears to be critical in the determination of the boundaries and the status of the spread of English as the global lingua franca. One has to understand the fact that just as the State used language to define national boundaries in the age of nationalism, so is the State negotiating global boundaries through language politics. Theory suggests that the new map will look radically different from the current one, given especially the fact that where boundaries and borders would become more stringent, the contours would be still be determined by the State. What transpires therefore is the fact that the perception of the State being a passive victim of linguistics globalisation is not correct-the State is in fact an active participant and in fact it’s most difficult to please critic. Globalisation over the past decade or two has been the product of the actions of the state and the use of its sovereign authority, not the cause of its demise. While this might no be an argument that would necessarily find favor with the globalisation theorists, who tend to characterize the process as an independent and external force impinging on the state and causing an undermining of sovereign authority, others tend to argue that the State is an active accomplice where the process of globalisation is concerned. If this were assumed to be true, what transpires then, in the case of language in general and the fate of English as global language could be easier to comprehend. When one assumes the State to be a regular accomplice in the process of globalisation, it immediately transcends that the State will decide the limits to which the process will be allowed to impinge on its authority. So while, earlier this year, there was a report by UNESCO that in the past decade there are many languages have become extinct at the cost of adoption of English, there is the case of the vibrant Indian democracy, where there in practice over 25 State-recognized official languages, all of which are used in the transaction of state business-a process which acts as a lifeline to these languages and the principle impediment to the stature of English as the global language. Also, in India, side-by-side of English is the stature of Hindi, which the country slated to be the most populated in the world by 2020 has adopted as its lingua franca, again at the cost of English. One generalization that is usually made bys scholars is that English is the defining characteristic of linguistic globalisation. Although this may seem obvious and has in fact been a basic assumption of the process itself, there are many who do not take this for granted (Sonntag, 2003). Scholars such as Wallraff identify two key variables to back up arguments of English being powerless in its capacity to become the global language of the twenty-first century. The two key focus points she identifies are those of demographics and technology. The idea emanates from the fact that by way of the number of people who speak English as their native language will never be the largest in the world-given the competition provided by the Mandarin speaking Chinese. Also, in the light of global invention and progress of modern support systems, there will be an increasing tendency to support multi-lingualism in the trade and transaction. One needs to understand the fact that the notion of fragmentation as a characteristic feature of linguistic globalization finds support in the erosion of the concept of English as the global language-the movement of the past decade seems to be stabilizing, one needs to be begin to wonder whether or not it is in fact correct that the movement of goods and services across borders and the increasing interaction of people, in fact, making them more aware of themselves as individuals of cultural identities. A common language forms a basic part of this process. So while in the third world, the ability to speak in English is still the mark of gentility, most school going kids learn three languages, and not the English language at the cost of their native languages or their mother tongues. What transpires therefore is that there has been a remarkable amount of focus on English and the form it would be used in as lingua franca and not enough on the function it would serve in that capacity (Saraceni 2008). Although there are issues for communities in the postmodern world to negotiate the place of English in their collective life, individuals find ways of accommodating their interests into English in interpersonal relationships and everyday performance. While some scholars insist that it is at the state level that communities can negotiate their interests against English effectively (Sonntag, 2003), others find that state policies are limited and prefer to factor in the role of individuals and everyday negotiations into language politics (Canagarajah, 2006). Therefore, it is important to consider how individuals modify, resist, and reconstruct dominant policy discourses and historical contingencies to achieve their local interests in different modalities of communication. Yet others propose that English as lingua franca would be a language which would be used solely for the purpose of use as a “language for communication” instead of using it as a “language for identification.” What this means therefore is that most speakers that are multilingual would make use of the English language for purpose of utilitarianism with an attitude marked by pragmatism. This means therefore that there would not be any cultural affinity developed towards the language and there would be a complete absence of an attempts on the part of these speakers to represent their identities through English. Despite this assumption there is a tendency among most, German and Japanese for example, to disregard English and view it as a threat. What needs to be understood here is that despite the factors of heterogeneity, most speakers across borders transcending nations would achieve effective communication. What helps them are sociolinguistic, pragmatic, and discourse strategies of negotiation. We have to consider, therefore, how effective communication may be based not on a uniform grammar or formal competence, but pragmatics and performance (Canagarajah, 2006). . In conclusion, therefore, one could reiterate the fact that the problems of the opposing pulls of intelligibility and the need for identity often tend to pull people and countries in opposing directions. While there have been well publicized instances of countries out rightly rejecting the use of the language, one must agree to the fact that there can be no country in the world that can function in the increasingly global world, with a complete boycott of the language, and while English as the global language might still have a long way to go, English as the lingua franca of the world has already made it. References: Canagarajah, Suresh. 2006. Negotiating the local in English as Lingua Franca. Annual Review of Applied Linguistics. 26. 197–218 Crystal, David. 2003. English as a global language. Cambridge University Press. 124-127 Fogarty, Phillipa. 2009. Anger simmers over Okinawa base burden. Accessed November 1, 2010, < http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-11406969> Phillipson, Robert. 2008. Lingua franca or lingua frankensteinia? English in European integration and globalisation. World Englishes. 27(2). 250–267, 2008. Saraceni, Mario. 2008. English as a lingua franca: between form and function. English Today. 24. 20-26 Sonntag, K, Selma. 2003. The local politics of global English: case studies in linguistic globalization. Lexington Books.   Read More