English as an international language

NEGATIVE EFFECTS OF THE SPREAD OF ENGLISH

• The threat to existing languages
• The influence on cultural identity
• The association of the language with and economic elite

CONCERNS:

• The dominance of E:
• many individuals learn E because they want access to such things as scientific and technological information global economic trade, and higher education.
• Many concerns are raised in relation to the negative economic repercussions of the spread of English. One of the primry concerns in this regard is the strong relationship btw economic wealth and proficiency in the language, and the role that language education policy and practices play in promoting this.

Tollefson (1991)…

• …notes that, because E is typically acquired in school context, this situation can lead to significant social inequalities. As he puts it,
• Those people who cannot afford schooling, who do not have time to attend school, who attend substandard programmes, or who otherwise do not have access to effective formal education may be unable to learn E well enough to obtain jobs and to participate in decision-making systems that use E.
• Because education is a major concern of the state, this fundamental shift in the manner of acquisition means that state policies play a decisive role in determining who has acess to the institutions of the modern market and therefore to political power. This shif to school-based language learning is a worldwide phenomenon, and so language policy plays an important role in the structure of power and inequality in countries through the world.

Kachru…

• …“Knowing English is like possessing the fabled Aladdin’s lamp, which permits one to open, as it were, the linguistic gates to international business, technology, science and travel. In short, E provides lingustic power.”

Check your understanding

• What is necessary for a language to be an international language?
• Who does an international language belong to?
• When does a language achieve a global status and how is it achieved?
• The categorisation of the countries where E is spoken is…(Kachru)?
• What is the role of E in those countires?
• What are the features of an international language?
• What is the educational goal of learning it?
• What is EIL in a local and global sense?
• What is a language spread by migration?
• What is a microacquisition?
• What is a language shift?
• What is urban migration?
• What are historical and current reasons for the spread of English?
• What are the negative effects?
• What are the concerns raised in relation to the negative economic repercussions of the spread of English (Tollefson) – explain!?