English as a global language- chapter1

INTRODUCTION: A lot of people in the world say that English is the ‘global language’: you hear it on

television spoken by politicians, when you travel you can see signs and advertisement in this language even

in hotels, restaurants of foreign countries.

WHAT IS A GLOBAL LANGUAGE?: It is a language that achieves a global status developing a special role that

is recognized in every county. This prominent status can be more evident in countries where large number of

people speak the language as a mother tongue (ex: English is the mother tongue in USA, Britain, New

Zealand, Australia, South Africa and in some of the Caribbean territories) but for the other countries, there

are 2 ways in which they decide to give a language a special status:

1) A language can be made the official language of a country, to be used as a medium of communication in

domains like government, law courts, educational system. The language became the ‘’second language’’

because it is a complement of the first one. (ex: English is the second language in Ghana, Nigeria, India…)

2) A language can be made a priority in a country’s foreign-language teaching, even thought this language

has no official status. (like Russian in the ex- Soviet Union or English today in European countries). There are

a lot of reasons for choosing a language as favoured: historical tradition, political expediency, commercial,

cultural and technological contacts. In a well-supported environment, a country will help people to access to

the language through media, books, schools.

WHAT MAKES A GLOBAL LANGUAGE?: Without a strong power-base, no language can became an

international medium of communication. Language has no independent existence, it lives is the mouth of its

users, so if they succeed the language succeed too. In fact, the power of a language is related to the power

of its users, some examples are the use of Latin because it was the language of the Roman Empire and the

Roman Catholicism, but were also important Greek, Arabic, Spanish and French too. A language does not

become a global language thanks to its intrinsic structures like grammar of vocabulary, but for one chief

reason: the political, military and economic power. By the beginning of nineteenth century, Britain had

become the world’s leading industrial and trading country and the British imperialism has spread English

around the world. The USA also had an important role: the population was larger that any countries of the

eastern Europe and it gained economic supremacy during the last years.

WHY DO WE NEED A GLOBAL LANGUAGE?: Translation has played a central role in human interaction for

thousand years, but the more a community is linguistically mixed, the less it can rely on individuals to ensure

communication between different groups. This problem has been solved using a ‘’lingua franca’’ or

‘’common language’’ and also a ‘’pidgin’’ that is a simplified language to communicate. Usually, the lingua

franca of a country is the language of the most powerful ethnic group in the area (ex: Mandarin Chinese).

But the prospect that a lingua franca might be needed for the whole world is something which has emerged

only in the twentieth century. These years were characterized by the growth of international organizations

like: the United Nations (1945), the World Bank (1945), UNESCO and UNICEF (1946), the World Health

organization (1948) and the International Atomic Energy Agency (1957) and a lot of different countries with

different languages joined these organizations (UN began life with 51 members, there were 190 countries in

2002, after the collapse of USSR). The use of a lingua franca was necessary, the alternative were the

expensive multi-way translation facilities. So, UN decided to adopt 5 official languages: English, French,

Spanish, Russian and Chinese.

The need for a global language is important also for academic and business communities but also in daily-life

because during the last decades people becoming more mobile, both electronically and physically.

WHAT ARE THE DANGERS OF A GLOBAL LANGUAGE?: A global language will cultivate an elite monolingual

linguistic class, more complacent and dismissive in their attitudes towards other languages, so minority

languages could die: a lot of languages died during the centuries because some ethnic groups have been

assimilated within a more dominant society (Linguistic death), especially in North America, Brazil, Africa,

Indonesia where a lot of languages are not written and it is a big cultural loss. Movements for language rights

have played an important role for several cultures like Maori in New Zealand, the Indian languages in

Canada, Celtic languages.

We have to remember that the language and in general the culture, is a major means of showing where we

belong (ex: after 1990 there were the division of Bosnian, Serbian and Croatian because they felt to have

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English as a global language- chapter

INTRODUCTION: A lot of people in the world say that English is the ‘global language’: you hear it on television spoken by politicians, when you travel you can see signs and advertisement in this language even in hotels, restaurants of foreign countries. WHAT IS A GLOBAL LANGUAGE?: It is a language that achieves a global status developing a special role that is recognized in every county. This prominent status can be more evident in countries where large number of people speak the language as a mother tongue (ex: English is the mother tongue in USA, Britain, New Zealand, Australia, South Africa and in some of the Caribbean territories) but for the other countries, there are 2 ways in which they decide to give a language a special status:

A language can be made the official language of a country, to be used as a medium of communication in domains like government, law courts, educational system. The language became the ‘’second language’’ because it is a complement of the first one. (ex: English is the second language in Ghana, Nigeria, India…)
A language can be made a priority in a country’s foreign-language teaching, even thought this language has no official status. (like Russian in the ex- Soviet Union or English today in European countries). There are a lot of reasons for choosing a language as favoured: historical tradition, political expediency, commercial, cultural and technological contacts. In a well-supported environment, a country will help people to access to the language through media, books, schools. WHAT MAKES A GLOBAL LANGUAGE?: Without a strong power-base, no language can became an international medium of communication. Language has no independent existence, it lives is the mouth of its users, so if they succeed the language succeed too. In fact, the power of a language is related to the power of its users, some examples are the use of Latin because it was the language of the Roman Empire and the Roman Catholicism, but were also important Greek, Arabic, Spanish and French too. A language does not become a global language thanks to its intrinsic structures like grammar of vocabulary, but for one chief reason: the political, military and economic power. By the beginning of nineteenth century, Britain had become the world’s leading industrial and trading country and the British imperialism has spread English around the world. The USA also had an important role: the population was larger that any countries of the eastern Europe and it gained economic supremacy during the last years. WHY DO WE NEED A GLOBAL LANGUAGE?: Translation has played a central role in human interaction for thousand years, but the more a community is linguistically mixed, the less it can rely on individuals to ensure communication between different groups. This problem has been solved using a ‘’lingua franca’’ or ‘’common language’’ and also a ‘’pidgin’’ that is a simplified language to communicate. Usually, the lingua franca of a country is the language of the most powerful ethnic group in the area (ex: Mandarin Chinese). But the prospect that a lingua franca might be needed for the whole world is something which has emerged only in the twentieth century. These years were characterized by the growth of international organizations like: the United Nations (1945), the World Bank (1945), UNESCO and UNICEF (1946), the World Health organization (1948) and the International Atomic Energy Agency (1957) and a lot of different countries with different languages joined these organizations (UN began life with 51 members, there were 190 countries in 2002, after the collapse of USSR). The use of a lingua franca was necessary, the alternative were the expensive multi-way translation facilities. So, UN decided to adopt 5 official languages: English, French, Spanish, Russian and Chinese. The need for a global language is important also for academic and business communities but also in daily-life because during the last decades people becoming more mobile, both electronically and physically. WHAT ARE THE DANGERS OF A GLOBAL LANGUAGE?: A global language will cultivate an elite monolingual linguistic class, more complacent and dismissive in their attitudes towards other languages, so minority languages could die: a lot of languages died during the centuries because some ethnic groups have been assimilated within a more dominant society (Linguistic death), especially in North America, Brazil, Africa, Indonesia where a lot of languages are not written and it is a big cultural loss. Movements for language rights have played an important role for several cultures like Maori in New Zealand, the Indian languages in Canada, Celtic languages. We have to remember that the language and in general the culture, is a major means of showing where we belong (ex: after 1990 there were the division of Bosnian, Serbian and Croatian because they felt to have

different features)and today, a lot of cultures try to protect their-selves to ‘’English as a global language’’ (In official contexts it is illegal to use an English word if the French one exists). The ‘’mother-tongue’’ of that language is more able to think and work with it due to the ‘’Linguistic Power’’ so they have an advantage over people who learn English during their life. The only solution is to permit children to grow in a bilingual environment. The global language will make the other languages unnecessary and people became lazy about learning them. Especially English mother-tongue thinks that is unnecessary to learn other languages (Linguistic Complacency) but there are a lot of UK or US businesses that are in difficult to communicate with countries where English has no an important role, like South America or East Asia. Sir Sridath, the secretary-general of Commonwealth, told that it’s very important to learn different languages. The sentence ‘’I am no good at languages’’ is only an excuse The use of a single language by a community no guarantee the social harmony or mutual understandings. COULD ANYTHING STOP A GLOBAL LANGUAGE?: Yes, if language dominance is a matter of political and especially economic influence, then a revolution in the balance of global power could have consequences for the choice of the language (maybe after a cataclysmic scenario?). In addition, there could be the possibility of the use of a different method of communication like the automatic translator based on a high-tec system that permits people talk using their own languages and be understandable to anyone. This can already be seen but to a limited extend (basic translation services for messages from LA to LB). CRITICAL ERA: Today we cannot predict the emergence of a global language. Language of identity need to be maintained and also the access of an emerging global language. We must remember that English is used only by 1/3 of population and there are countries where this language is not very important.

Why English? The cultural legacy- Chapter 4

INTRODUCTION: The first step of political consolidation of English were taken after the first World War when a lot of former German colonies in Africa, Middle East, Asia and the Pacific started to be controlled by the victors. So, the use of English grew immensely in these areas that were controlled directly by Britain but also by other speaking-English nations like Australia for Papua New Guinea, New Zealand in Samoa and South Africa in Namibia. INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS : The League of Nation was created as part of the Treaty of Versailles in 1920 and gave to English an important role. In fact, it was one of the two official languages next to French. There are a lot of international organizations in the world (12,500 in 1995,96), some of them use more official languages (like the European Union or the Commonwealth), others use only English (like the Organization of petroleum and the European free Trade Association). In the organizations that use English like an official language, a third of them use ONLY English (many scientific or sporting organizations). Then, there are organizations like the Afro-Asian Rural Reconstruction Organization that has 3 official languages but works only with English, also like the ‘’Europage’’. The European Union is the most complex example in which over a hundred pairs of languages need translation and interpreting services. In these cases, English is used like vehicular language or intermediary language (Ex: If there is no Finnish-Greek translator available, Finnish is translated into English and English into Greek). THE MEDIA: They are the centre of everyone’s lives- press, radio advertising and especially television.  The press: It has been an important medium of the press for nearly 400 years. In Britain, even with the censorship, the first newspapers began to appear during the 1600: The Weekly news, London gazette. In America the first newspapers were: News-Letter, The New York gazette, The Daily Advertiser. Then, during the eighteen century other newspapers grew. (like ‘’The times’’). The nineteen century’s was the period of progress for the press thanks to new printing technologies and methods of mass production. Censorship continued in Continental Europe during the early decades. During the mid-nineteen century there was the growth of the major news agencies, like the Reuter, or the New York Associated Press.

The Rise of English as a Global Language: Historical Context and Impact, Appunti di Lingua Inglese

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