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ENGLISH AS A GLOBAL LANGUAGE
1. WHY A GLOBAL LANGUAGE?
English is becoming a GLOBAL LANGUAGE This means that everyone who has learnt it now owns it and has the right to use it in the way they want. Language is always in the news and the nearer a language moves to becoming a global language, the more newsworthy it is. 1.1 WHAT IS A GLOBAL LANGUAGE? A language which achieves a GLOBAL STATUS develops a special role that is recognized in every country. To achieve such a status a language has to be taken up by other countries around the world. There are two main ways in which this can be done:
- English as THE OFFICIAL LANGUAGE OF A COUNTRY used as a medium of communication (government, the law courts, the media, and the educational system). Such a language is often described as a “second language” because it is seen as a complement to s person’s mother tongue (“first language”). English has some kind of special status in over seventy countries such as Ghana, Nigeria, India.
- English as a priority in a country’s FOREIGN LANGUAGE TEACHING, even though this language has no official status. English is now the language most widely taught as a foreign language (in over 100 countries such as Germany, Spain, Egypt and in most of these countries it is emerging as the chief foreign language encountered in schools, often displacing another language in the process. Because of the development of first language, second language and foreign language speakers , it is inevitable that a global language will eventually come to be used by more people than any other language. English has already reached this stage. 1.2 WHAT MAKES A GLOBAL LANGUAGE? A language has traditionally become an international language for one main reason THE POWER OF ITS PEOPLE especially the military and political one. Its international dominance became a critical factor in the 19 th^ and 20th^ century, with economic developments beginning to operate in a global scale, supported by the new communication technologies. By
the beginning of the 19 th^ century Britain had become the world leading industrial and trading country. Afterwards, British imperialism sent English around the globe. This world presence was maintained and promoted during the 20 th^ century through the economic supremacy of the new American superpower. Economics replaced politics as the chief driving force. The language behind the US dollar was English. Any language at the center of such explosion of international activity would suddenly have found itself with a global status. 1.3 WHY DO WE NEED A GLOBAL LANGUAGE The problem has traditionally been solved by finding a language to act as a LINGUA FRANCA ( common language ). Sometimes, when communities begin to trade with each other, they communicate by adopting a simplified language , known as a pidgin , which combines elements of their different languages. The prospect that a lingua franca might be needed for the whole word is something which emerged strongly only in the 20th^ century, since the 1950s in particular, when UN^1 and other international bodies came into being. The pressure to adopt a lingua franca to facilitate communications in such contexts is considerable. Moreover, there is now a widespread view that it makes sense to try to reduce the numbers of languages involved in world bodies , if only to cut down on the vast amount of interpretation/translation work required. But it's never easy for a country to see its language being given a reduced international standing. In the 20th century the availability of technology of modern communication and technology of any transportation, more than anything else, provided the circumstances needed for a global language to grow. The development has affected every country in the world and there has never been a time when so many nations were needing to talk to each other so much. 1.4 WHAT ARE THE DANGERS OF A GLOBAL LANGUAGE?
- LINGUISTIC POWER Those who speak a global language as a mother tongue will be automatically in a position of power compared with those who have to learn it as an official or foreign language. But we must consider that if a global language is taught early enough to children, the kind of linguistic competence will result in bilingualism. "The earlier the better". When a language is learnt seriously, the elitism arguments disappear. 2.LINGUISTIC COMPLACENCY There seems to be a lack of motivation to learn other languages , often this is explained by the lack of money and (^1) The UN official languages are English,French, Spanish, Russian and Chinese.
1.6 A CRITICAL ERA
It is IMPOSSIBLE to make confident prediction about the emergence of a global language. Within a little more than a generation, we have moved from a situation where a world language was a theoretical possibility, to one where it is an EVIDENT REALITY. 2_._ WHY ENGLISH IS THE GLOBAL LANGUAGE AND NOT SOME ANOTHER? THE HISTORICAL CONTEXT There are two reasons :
1. A GEOGRAPHIC-HISTORIC one Which shows how English reached a POSITION OF PRE-EMINENCE. The historical account traces the movement of English around the world, beginning with pioneering voyages to the Americas, and the Antipodes. It was an expansion which continued with the 19 th^ century colonial developments in Africa and the South Pacific and which took a significant further step when it was adopted in the mid 20th^ century as an official or semi- official language by many independent states. It is this spread of representation which makes the application of the label “ global language” a reality. English is now represented in EVERY CONTINENT, and in islands of the three major Oceans, Atlantic (St. Helena); Indian (Seychelles); and Pacific (in many islands, such **as Fiji and Hawaii).
- A** SOCIO-CULTURAL one Which explains why English remains so important. The convenience of having a lingua franca available to serve global human relations and needs has come to be appreciated by millions. Several domains have come to be totally dependent on it (the computer software industry being a prime example). A language’s future seems assured when so many organizations come to have a vested interest on it. The combination of these two factors has brought into existence a language which consists of many varieties, each distinctive in its use of sounds, grammar and vocabulary. 2.1 ORIGINS In a sense the language has always been on the move. As soon as it arrived in England from Northern Europe, in the 5th^ century, it began to spread around the British Isles. It entered parts of Wales, Cornwall, Cambria and Southern Scotland. After the Norman Invasion of 1066, many nobles from
England fled to north, to Scotland. Anglo Norman knights were sent across the Irish Sea, and Ireland gradually fell under English rule. But the first significant step in the progress of English towards its status as a global language did not take place for another 300 years, towards the end of the 16 th century. At that time, the number of mother tongue English speakers in the world is thought to have been between 5 and 7 millions, almost all of them living in the British Isles. Most of these people were, and continue to be, Americans, and it is in the 16th^ century North America, that we first find a fresh dimension being added to the history of the language. 2.1o A WORLD VIEW The present day WORLD STATUS OF ENGLISH is primary the result of 2 FACTORS:
1. THE EXPANSION OF BRITISH COLONIAL POWER, which peaked towards the end of the 19th^ century. 2. THE EMERGENCE OF THE UNITED STATES AS THE LEADING ECONOMIC POWER OF THE 20TH^ CENTURY This factor continues to explain the world position of the English language today. The USA has nearly 70% of all English mother-tongue speakers. Such dominance, with its political and economic underpinnings (fondamenta) currently gives America a controlling interest in the way the language is likely to develop. How then may we summarize this complex situation? We can think of the spread of English around the world as THREE CONCENTRIC CIRCLES^2 :
- THE INNER CIRCLE which refers to the traditional bases of English, where it is the primary language. It includes the USA, UK, Ireland, Canada, Australia and New Zealand.
- THE OUTER/ EXTENDED CIRCLE which involves the earlier phases of the spread of English in non- native settings, where the language has become part of a country’s chief institutions and plays an important second language role in a multilingual setting (ex. Singapore and India). (^2) Representing different ways in which the language has been acquired and is currently used.
When the poet and traveller Richard Flecknoe reflected on his 10-year journey through Europe, Asia, Africa and America he found that Spanish and Dutch were the really useful languages to know, with English being only occasionally helpful. POLITICAL DEVELOPMENT: In the 18 th^ century was self-evident that the civilizing influence of Britain was a desirable goal, and that the English language was an essential means to achieve this end. This is the vision which is repeatedly encountered as we trace the path of English around the British Empire: the language as a guarantor, as well as a symbol, of political unity. It is a vision, moreover, which continued to prove compelling (vincente) a century later, when the evidence of that Empire was rapidly vanishing from the atlas. [Many of the newly independent multilingual countries, especially in Africa, chose English as their official language to enable speakers of their indigenous communities to continue communicating with each other at a national level.] The concept of language as a political symbol still emerges every time people perceive the unity of their country to be threatened by minority movements. In the context of colonialism, the desire for national linguistic unity is the other side of the coin from the desire for international linguistic unity. The language of a colonial power introduces a new, unifying medium of communication within a colony, but at the same time it reflects the bonds between that colony and the home country. In the case of English, these bonds were of especial significance, because of the special nature of the historical period during which they were being formed. They brought immediate access to a culture which more than any other had been responsible for the Industrial Revolution. 3.2 ACCESS TO KNOWLEDGE By the beginning of the 19th century , Britain had become the world’s leading industrial and trading nation. Most of the innovations of the industrial revolution were of British origin. The new terminology of technological and scientific advance had an immediate impact on the language, adding tens of thousands of words to the English lexicon. But, more important, the fact that these innovations were pouring out of (si stavano diffondendo al di fuori) an English-speaking country meant that those from abroad who wished to learn about them would need to learn English if they wished to benefit. When the American research is added to the British, it is possible to suggest that about half of the influential scientific and technological output in the period between 1750 to 1900 would have been written in English. The nature of the Industrial Revolution would have been very different if it had not been supported by developments which made the new knowledge widely available. Indeed, some of the technology was
itself critical in helping the dissemination of ideas. Access to the new knowledge was also much helped by progress in transportation. During the first half of the 19th century , the growth of new transport systems, especially the steamship and the railway , began the process of bringing people closer together. During the second half, the growth of new communication systems, especially the telegraph and telephone , made contact between people virtually instantaneous. New methods of mass production demanded new means of mass transportation. In particular, as far as the language was concerned, the distribution of daily newspapers on a large scale would not have been possible without a railway system, and later, a road network capable of carrying increasingly heavy vehicles. 3.3 TAKEN FOR GRANTED The story of English throughout this period is one of rapid expansion and diversification , with innovation after innovation coming to use the language as a primary or sole means of expression. It is not possible to identify cause and effect. So many developments were taking place at the same time that we can only point to the emergence, by the end of the 19th century, of a climate of largely unspoken opinion which had made English the natural choice for progress. “Unspoken” is an important word. Insofar as it is possible to find out about the decision-making processes which were taking place at the time, there is hardly any conscious justification for the role of English. There was plenty of discussion about what kind of English should be used, of course. There was nothing novel about taking English for granted in this way. Given the colonial origins of English in the countries of the inner circle , the standing of the language could never have been in doubt. There was no competition from other languages. No special mention is made of English in any of the documents which are significant for the history of Britain and English has never been formally declared the official language of that country. Nor was English singled out for mention when the Constitution of the US was being written. Rulings are needed to regulate conflict. If there is no conflict, there is no need for rulings. In 1900 English had become the dominant language of global politics and economy and all the signs were that it would remain so.
