|
Why English? The cultural legacy
in use by 1951; by 1990 the figure was approaching 200 million.
There was a proportional growth in Britain, which had issued over
300,000 TV licences by 1950. Other countries were much slower
to enter the television age, and none has ever achieved the levels
of outreach found in the USA, where a 2002 survey reported
almost one receiver per person,
10
and where each person spent
almost 1,000 hours watching TV during the year.
We can only speculate about how these media developments
must have influenced the growth of world English. A casual pass
through the wavelengths of a radio receiver shows that no one
language rules the airwaves, and there are no statistics on the
proportion of time devoted to English-language programmes the
world over, or on how much time is spent listening to such pro-
grammes. Only a few indirect indications exist: for example, in
1994 about 45per cent of the world’s radio receivers were in
those countries where the English language has a special status;
but what such figures say in real terms about exposure to English
is anyone’s guess.
A more specific indication is broadcasting aimed specifically
at audiences in other countries. Such programmes were intro-
duced in the 1920s, but Britain did not develop its services until
the next decade. The international standing of BBC programmes,
especially its news broadcasts, achieved a high point during the
Second World War, when they helped to raise morale in German-
occupied territories. The World Service of the BBC, launched
(as the Empire Service) in 1932, though much cut back in
recent years, in 2001 was still broadcasting over 1,000 hours
per week to a worldwide audience of 153 million and reaching
120 capital cities, with a listening audience in English estimated
at 42 million.
11
BBC English Radio produces over 100 hours
of bilingual and all-English programmes weekly. London Radio
Services, a publicly funded radio syndicator, offers a daily inter-
national news service to over 10,000 radio stations worldwide,
chiefly in English.
Although later to develop, the USA rapidly overtook Britain,
becoming the leading provider of English-language services
10
Encyclopaedia Britannica
(2002: 850ff.).
11
Byford (2001).
97
ENGLISH AS A GLOBAL LANGUAGE
abroad. The Voice of America, the external broadcasting service
of the US Information Agency, was not founded until 1942, but
it came into its own during the Cold War years. By the 1980s, it
was broadcasting from the USA worldwide in English and forty-
five other languages. Along with the foreign-based Radio Liberty
and Radio Free Europe, the US output amounted to nearly 2,000
hours a week – not far short of the Soviet Union’s total. Other
sources include the American Forces Radio and Television Ser-
vice, which broadcasts through a network of local stations all over
the world. The International Broadcast Station offers a shortwave
service to Latin America in English and certain other languages.
Radio New York World Wide provides an English-language ser-
vice to Europe, Africa and the Caribbean. And channels with a
religious orientation also often broadcast widely in English: for
example, World International Broadcasters transmits to Europe,
the Middle East, and North Africa.
Most other countries showed sharp increases in external broad-
casting during the post-War years, and several launched English-
language radio programmes, such as the Soviet Union, Italy,
Japan, Luxembourg, The Netherlands, Germany and Sweden. No
comparative data are available about how many people listen to
each of the languages provided by these services. However, if we
list the languages in which these countries broadcast, it is notice-
able that only one of these languages has a place on each of the
lists: English.
r
Cinema
The new technologies which followed the discovery of electrical
power fundamentally altered the nature of home and public en-
tertainment, and provided fresh directions for the development
of the English language. Broadcasting was obviously one of these,
but that medium was never – according to the influential views of
Lord Reith – to be identified solely with the provision of enter-
tainment. This observation did not apply in the case of the motion
picture industry.
The technology of this industry has many roots in Europe
and America during the nineteenth century, with Britain and
98
Do'stlaringiz bilan baham: |
