Globalization and language

By Annalisa Fazzini, Leonardo Lupi, Greta Spineti

Research Introduction
The word ​Globalization generally evokes a series of considerations in some fields like
economics, finance and politics. But what we would like to highlight is a presumed
homologation of the global dimension, especially focused on the cultural and information
industry. If we agree on the idea that we are living a cultural globalization, some scholars
predict the rise of a common language that will link us all. In this moment English seems to
be playing this role. The existence of a global language is not enough to erase the cultural
differences between the five continents communities because distinct cultures can take
advantage of a unique language, and this is especially true for specific dimensions such as
economics and politics.
English is breaking the language barriers and flowing in our everyday life communication,
even in the Italian dimension where the education system does not emphasize the learning
process of English as a communication tool; in contrast to other European countries, see
for example the Scandinavian region. But thanks to Globalization and the diffusion of the
information and communication technologies, many Anglicisms are affecting our
vocabulary in particular areas of expertise. What we often forget to mention is that specific
words such as ​spread​, ​bail-in/out​, ​default​, ​welfare​, ​jobs act and so on, are not so
immediate for our common understanding because very often they come from completely
different semantic fields. What this difficulty entails is the possibility to assimilate these
words in a wrong way and this can lead to a consequent misuse and then to a
miscommunication.
To move forward in our analysis it seems appropriate to pose some questions to narrow
down our research: are people passive or active receivers? to what degree do people
understand those words? and then, ​to what extent do they use them? and going deeper,
are they able to contextualize them​? and finally, ​are they actually aware of their
etymology​?
The answers to all these questions should help us to actively investigate how those words
are changing our everyday life communication.
The first step of our project is to go through an exploratory research to get a general
picture of the topic, that is to search books, papers, essays, journals and similar that deal
with the way in which English is spreading.
The second step is the analysis of the major media lexicon and jargon, in particular we are
going to focus on radio podcasts, online newspapers and television news dealing with
economic and political matters. Such analysis will lead us through a comparison between
different media channels to detect the most common words used in economics and
politics.
The final and most important step to strengthen our conclusion is to initiate a series of
interviews and questionnaires to understand:
·​ ​The kind of people interviewed and their background
·​ ​If they know such specific English words
·​ ​If they use them
·​ ​If they are aware of their meaning
·​ ​If they are able to use them properly
·​ ​If they know where those words come from

Language Analysis
English words such as default, spread, welfare, jobs act, bail-in and bail-out- related to the
economic, social and political environment- are populating media products; resulting into
an almost unstoppable flow of Anglicisms in other languages’ vocabulary. As a
consequence of this trend, native words like the Italian “​benessere​” and “​riforma del
lavoro” are almost disappearing in the media sphere because have been replaced by
fashion terms such as ​welfare​ and ​jobs act​.

This event may be explained by the apparent rise of English as global language.
According to David Crystal - one of the most important authorities on language- a language
achieves a global status when it develops a special role that is recognized in every country.
To achieve such goal, a language has to be taken up by other countries around the world
that may decide to use it as a medium of communication in domains like government, law
courts, the media and the educational system. To get on in these societies, it is essential to
master the official language as early in life as possible. Such a language is often described
as a “second language” because it is seen as a complement to a person’s mother tongue or
first language. The role of an official language is today best illustrated by English which has
1
some kind of special status in several countries even though this doesn’t seem the case of

1
“​English as a Global language”,​ David Crystal, Cambridge University Press, 2003 (pp. 3-4)
Italy.

Scandinavian countries, for instance, have long promoted the use of English at home to
enable it to be part of the globalized economy. English has been compulsory at school for
decades, and for several years universities have been able to teach classes in English so
2
they can attract international students and staff.

Even though also in Italy, English teaching is compulsory till some school degree, the choice
of learning an appropriate English to communicate at an international level is up to each
individual person. The best solutions in Italy to master a foreign language- given the
inadequacy of public schools to provide an appropriate level of fluency- is still to apply to a
private language school, contact a private mother-tongue tutor or spend a period abroad.

What it seems appropriate to highlight is that the massive use of such terminology may
represent a threat for our society. The Italian language is under assault from a growing tide
of English words- abandoning verb tenses and shrinking vocabulary – such that their
implementation in the media seems to follow the latest trends.
According to the President of the Accademia della Crusca -the guardian of the Italian
language- “there’s been a big increase in the number of foreign words and expressions and
the trend will continue, above all with English words”, so that “we are heading towards a
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more meagre Italian.”
What we should wonder is the real reason behind the impressive use of such foreign
vocabulary. Italians master the language of Dante, Galilei and other important historical
features of the past on a global scale, so why choosing an English word instead of an Italian
one?

According to the Academy, Italians were more prone to adopting foreign words and
expressions, possibly because the country was only founded in 1861 and the sense of
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nationhood and national pride is less than that of France or Spain , whose languages are
less susceptible to Anglo-Saxon influence than many other European languages; often
resorting to calques or literal translations like “perrito caliente” for hotdogs or
“ordinateur” for computer.

But it’s also important to stress that modernization, globalization and mass tourism may
incur social changes resulting in positive attitudes to Anglophone values and consequently,
languages respond to the changing needs of communication, following changes in the
2
“First languages fear second place​”, ​Gwladys Fouché​, The Guardian, 2008
https://www.theguardian.com/education/2008/may/23/tefl.gwladysfouche

3
“​Italian is under assault from rising number of Anglicisms, sloppy use of verbs and shrinking vocabulary, guardians of
the language warn”​ by Nick Squires, The Telegraph, 2017
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/01/17/italian-assault-rising-number-anglicisms-sloppy-use-verbs-shrinking/

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​ibidem.
world and ways of living. The growing influence of English on the languages of Europe can
be traced back to political, economic and technological developments, which have been
taking place at a growing pace in the past few decades.
The preoccupation with anglicisms always involves the consideration of English in a global
context, which, at least indirectly, influences the borrowing of English words or word
elements into other languages. Nevertheless, English dominates only in certain subject
areas, in fact there is a clear distinction between three main functional dimensions: English
as a lingua franca, as a learner language, and as a technical language.
The use of English as a lingua franca and as a learner language leads to a growing
familiarity with the English language, which has a positive effect on the spread and the
integration of English words into the receiver language. A large majority of the loans often
seem to have a distribution restricted to particular topics or subject areas. The English
technical terms can be attributed to the written medium. They are only used occasionally
and do not belong to the common word stock of a language. In addition, English
colloquialisms tend to occur in advertising, in journalism and in youth language, carrying a
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certain prestige in these discourse types.
So, we may hypothesize that the use – sometimes even wrong or illogical- of these
Anglicisms creates an engaging and tempting sphere around the associated concepts, in a
way that people start to see them under a favorable light.

What it’s concerning is whether those words are misinterpreted. We are constantly
exposed to media coverage and -willing or not- we are exposed to such terminology as
well. The upsetting issue is that media itself doesn’t seems particularly bothered to explain
the proper meaning of such terms. Are these words leading us to communication
problems?

This issue is particularly threatening when we deal with popular words like ​welfare , but
especially with etymological ambiguous terms such as: ​bail-in​, ​bail- out​ or even ​spread​.

According to our exploratory research -whose methodological details would be analysed

afterwards- many phrases or words searched on the Internet reflect national events, new
topics and other phenomena that rise to prominence throughout the year. At the
beginning of 2016, ​Brexit was definitely one of the most popular one on a global scale; as
well as ​Jobs Act​ as concern the Italian scenario between 2014 and 2015.
Even though such terminology may be influenced by the latest trends, words like the
already mentioned ​welfare​, ​bail-in/out and ​spread are constantly mentioned without an

5
​“Anglicisms in Europe: linguistic diversity in a global context”​ by Roswitha Fischer and Hanna Pułaczewska,
Cambridge Scholar Publishing, 2008.
http://www.cambridgescholars.com/download/sample/57812
appropriate explanation.

General definition
Welfare
Set of public policies implemented by a State to intervene in a market economy, in order to
guarantee assistance and wellbeing of citizens, modifying intentionally income distribution
from the market. The welfare state therefore includes the set of public policies aim at
improving the living conditions of citizens[1]. After the end of the golden age of the
Welfare State system in the 80s, the term extended to the business field. Nowadays we
usually hear about ​corporate welfare​, we seldom deal with Welfare State.

Historical background and current use

The term Welfare can be traced back to 1300s and comes from the Old English ​wel faran
(well + fare from the old English ​faran as “get along”) which literally means ​“condition of
being or doing well”. ​Around 1904 the term started to indicate a “social concern for the
well-being of children, the unemployed etc.” and only from 1918 its meaning switched to
“organized effort to provide for maintenance of members of a group”. In 1941, we witness
for the first time, the rise of the expression ​Welfare state whose literal translation in Italian
would be ​Stato del benessere​.[2]
In fact, this terminology acquired a worldwide recognition after World World II, when the
British Liberal politician William Beveridge identified five issues to be tackled on the road
of reconstruction:
· Poverty
· Disease
· Ignorance
· Squalor
· Idleness
The result of such plan was the so-called Welfare State with the associated Social Security,
National Health Service, free education, Council Housing and full employment. In the years
after the war, the Labour government tried to make this vision come true.[3]
Today we often translate this term as ​“Stato assistenziale” – that generally has negative
connotations- or Stato sociale.
The term Welfare- still today- indicates the set of rules according to which the state tries to
eliminate social and economic inequalities between citizen; giving also a special attention
to the most vulnerable groups like disabled, employees and retirees (former Social
Security). In fact, quite often this term is associated to the idea of receiving financial
support or other assistance from the government and this is the reason why in Italy,
Welfare indicates ​Stato assistenziale – that generally has negative connotations- or ​Stato
sociale[4]​.
[1] Definition of Welfare, Enciclopedia Treccani
http://www.treccani.it/enciclopedia/welfare-state/
[2] Definition of Welfare: Online Etymology Dictionary
http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?allowed_in_frame=0&search=welfare

[3]​ ​http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/gcsebitesize/history/mwh/britain/welfarestaterev_print.shtml

[4] Definition of Welfare, Enciclopedia Treccani

http://www.treccani.it/enciclopedia/welfare-state/

General definitions
Bail-out
Bailout is a general term for extending financial support to a company or a country facing a
potential bankruptcy threat. It can take the form of loans, cash, bonds, or stock purchases.
A bailout may or may not require reimbursement and is often accompanied by greater
government oversee and regulations. The reason for bailout is to support an industry that
may be affecting millions of people internationally and could be on the verge of
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bankruptcy due to prolonged financial crises.

If referred to stock trading, an investor may bail out of a stock if he quickly sells all or most
of his holdings despite a bad price, for instance because the share price is falling sharply
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and he does not want to sustain further losses.

Bail-in
On the other hand, the term bail-in involves the borrower's creditors to bear some of the
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burden by having part of the debt they are owed written off. To be more specific, ​it is the
opposite of a bail-out, which involves a scheme of rescuing a bank or financial institution
by the government using taxpayer money. A bail-in rescues a financial institution by
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making its creditors and depositors take a loss on their holdings.

6
Definition of bail-out: “The Economic Times”
http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/definition/bailout

7
Definition of bail-out: “Financial Times Lexicon”
http://lexicon.ft.com/Term?term=bail_out

8
Definition of bail-in: “The Economist”
http://www.economist.com/blogs/economist-explains/2013/04/economist-explains-2

9
Definition of bail-in. “The Economic Times”
http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/markets/bonds/et-in-the-classroom-what-are-bail-in-bonds/articleshow
/53292582.cms
Historical background and current use
Since the European Union entered a new world of bank “bail-ins” at the start of 2016, we
constantly hear these words on TV news, radio podcasts or we read them on newspapers
and this is particularly true for Italy and its government when the rescue of ​four small
regional banks​ saw thousands of pensioners lose their savings. According to these new
regulations, the Bank Recovery and Resolution Directive empowers regulators to intervene
quickly when a bank is weak, avoiding the panic that could arise from a messy and
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prolonged insolvency procedure ; therefore, the state cannot directly intervene anymore
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on bank bankruptcy.

These events deeply affected European countries (Belgian ​Dexia​, Austrian ​HypoAlpeAdria​,
British ​RBS​, Dutch ING and so on) and profoundly impacted our country as well;
consequently, these words – passively or actively- inevitably entered in our everyday life.
Even though we are constantly exposed to them or we may even use them to explain our
country’s political and economic developments, the majority of people still ignore their
true meaning or the curiosity to understand their origin never crossed their minds.

The etymology of “bail-in” and “bail-out” is very peculiar because these words emerged
from completely different semantic fields related to navigation or even aviation.

In 1610, the verb bail was used for the first time to indicate the act of “dip water out of
sth.”; stemming from the mid-14​th century noun ​bail, ​literally a “small wooden bucket”,
from Old French baille​: “bucket, pail”. Of course, the Latin influence here is obvious: the
word ​baille in fact comes from the Medieval Latin ​baiula (aquae) which means “porter of
water”, from Latin ​baiulare​: “to bear a burden”.
From 1930, the use of ​bail-out indicates the act of “leave suddenly sth”, usually referred to
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airplane pilots.

Although these terms moved to completely different semantic fields strongly related to
economics and politics, the core meaning of them is still strictly related to the idea of
rescue or saving someone/something from an inconvenient situation. In fact, the
appropriate translation for bail- in is “salvataggio interno”, whether for bail-out

“Bank turmoil: are Europe’s new bail-in rules to blame?”​ by ​Jim Brunsden​ and ​Alex Barker​ , The Financial
10

Times, February 11, 2016

https://www.ft.com/content/8ad2ed98-d0a0-11e5-986a-62c79fcbcead

​“Banche, parte oggi il bail-in: ecco che cosa cambia per i risparmiatori”​ Il Sole 24 ore, 1 gennaio 2016
11

http://www.ilsole24ore.com/art/notizie/2016-01-01/banche-parte-oggi-bail-in-ecco-che-cosa-cambia-i-risparmi
atori-161247.shtml?uuid=ACGJ3i2B

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Online etymology dictionary
http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=bail&allowed_in_frame=0
“salvataggio esterno”.

General definition
Spread

Spread refers to the difference between one item and another. A much-used term
in ​financial markets. Examples are the differences between: the bid (what a dealer will pay)
and ask or offer (what a dealer will sell for) price of a share or other security; the price an
underwriter pays for an issue of bonds from a company and the price the underwriter
13
charges the public; the yield on two different bonds.

Historical background and current use

If we should literally translate the word “spread” in Italian, this would be ​“ampiezza,
estensione” ​which mean ​“extent, expansion”​, but also ​“divario, scarto,” so ​“variance,
deviation”​. English speakers know this word since 1200 which indicated “to stretch out, to
lay out; diffuse, disseminate” but also “to advance over a wide area”; whose etymology
can be traced back to the Old English ​sprædan​ "to spread, stretch forth, extend". Around
1600s, this term strengthened its meaning related to “extend or expanse of something”
but only around 1929 assumed the notion of ​“degree of variation” (even though around
1800s this word also indicated “food for spreading” like butter or jam and also “bed
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cover”).
Even in this case, we can see how this term has been promoted by media as a new trend to
be implemented every time uncertain economic and financial situations emerge;
neglecting to clearly explain the proper meaning of such terminology.
If we should stick with the literal meaning of spread, we would not be able to understand
how this word is used in its current usage as “differenziale”. Nowadays spread indicates
the degree of variation, a specific meaning that Italy started to embrace at the beginning of
1980s to face some particular historical weaknesses of its economic structure like high
public spending and debt or moderate economic growth.

Methodology
The starting point in realizing the survey was to decide properly which words was better to
investigate in a view of importance and relevance. To do that three different media were
analysed: radio, newspaper and television; in particular Il Sole 24 ore website- the Italian
national daily business newspaper owned by the Italian employers' federation

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Definition of Spread: “The Economist”
http://www.economist.com/economics-a-to-z/s#node-21529353

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Online etymology dictionary
http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=spread
Confindustria​- and radio podcast of different programs from its associated all-news radio
station Radio24, in order to establish which were the most frequently repeated words
during the last year. The same methodology was applied for different broadcasters’ news
programs. As regards the newspaper segment, the online databases of different sheets
were analysed with the same objective in the last four years. The most recurring terms
were the followings:​ bail in​/​bail out​, ​spread​ and ​welfare​.

To investigate our topic it seemed that a brief, easy-to-understand questionnaire could be

the best solution; it was sent through the web, via e-mail and other online communication
channels, because this medium was the one which would have allowed to reach as many
people as possible in a short time period. People involved were from different
backgrounds, as data later have shown, as before analysing our core aim we cared about
inspecting what kind of people we were dealing with. The survey was guaranteed to be
completely anonymous so the interviewee could feel comfortable to answer freely without
worrying about being judged by someone else, making the research less biased as possible.
It was also pledge that the results would only be analysed from the researchers involved in
this work and no one else.

First of all, we asked whether the respondents ever studied, worked or volunteered
abroad, how many times they travelled in the past year and their education, easy
questions to introduce them to the core purpose of the survey; these topics were treated
with the structured response format. Then it was asked them to state the meaning and a
synonymous of the four terms we opted to investigate: bail in, bail out, spread and
welfare; to make the respondents as free as possible to express their knowledge we put
unstructured response format. The questions were in the clearest, most explicit way
possible to make the survey easy handling.

Fifty-eight people compose the sample. The biggest part of the respondents falls between
20 and 30 years old. The most of the interviewees are graduated and at least a half of
them spent a period abroad in the last year. Only a small percentage studied or worked in
another country, 27.6 and 13.8 respectively. Just a paltry 5.2% volunteered abroad.
Forty-nine of the overall sample, i.e. the 84.5%, get information from the internet,
followed by television (34.5%), radio (13.8%), and newspapers, which account for the 8.6%.
The more dramatic words for the respondents resulted to be ‘bail in’ and ‘bail out’, in fact
only nine answers about their meaning or a synonymous can be considered appropriate.
The 77.6% clearly declared they never heard about those words. On the other side,
‘welfare’ is confirmed as the most popular word with a degree of knowledge of the 81
percent; in the most of the cases the subjects linked their awareness of the term to the
Welfare State concept, which is exactly the context or acceptation we were dealing with.
Although such a high percentage of awareness, only about the 50% of them was able to
state a synonymous and a brief, simply definition of the expression. Close to that, the word
spread was known by the 70.7% of the people involved, and even though it is a little bit
less popular than ‘welfare’, the interesting thing is that the degree of understanding of
those word (in terms of meaning, not only awareness) is approximately the same.

A fascinating result is that, compared to a 52.4% of the respondents who used at least one
of these expressions in an academic context, the 40.5% of them used bail in, bail out,
spread or welfare in casual, informal contexts, maybe chatting with their friends or
colleagues.

At one point, going deeper in this analysis, we tried to figure it out if there exists a
correlation between the extent to which a person is ‘globalized’ (whether it worked or
studied abroad or travels a lot) and the knowledge of the expressions we investigated. As a
result, no significant correlation was found between the two variables (globalization and
knowledge of such words).

Conclusions
This exploratory research led us to a better understanding of the present situation, that is
which is the current knowledge of such English words frequently used especially in the
field of politics, economics and finance. English as a ‘global language’ is more and more
present in everyday life communication of people who continuously hear English words on
the radio, on television and read these expressions on newspapers and magazines, in Italy
as well as in many other parts of the world. They use them at school, at work and in their
informal situation, arguing and chatting with their friends and family.

What emerged from this investigation is that people essentially heard and are aware of
specific English terms such as bail in/out, spread or welfare but only a minority of them
actually knows, understands and can explain what they mean, being probably capable of
using them in the proper way; an aspect that was not examined in this work but that we
recommend to investigate in further researches. From a communication and divulgation
point of view it is interesting, and we would say positive, that the surveys did not highlight
particular misuses or misunderstandings: on the one hand we can find the ones who don’t
know a term at all and on the other hand there are those who know what they are dealing
with, of course with several degrees of comprehension.

Since about the 72% of the subjects claimed they use those expressions in formal or
informal contexts, we can assume that we should not worry about the fact that people are
or might turn into mere passive receivers.

A disappointing datum is that there is neither a significant correlation between the degree
of globalization of people and their knowledge of these specific terms, nor with their
educational background.

Some conclusions can thus be drawn: the majority of people know specific English terms
used mostly in economics, politics and finance due to their repetition on different
mainstream media channels. They can be considered active receiver as they use those
expressions in their everyday talks. Only a half of people, according to the survey’s results,
can properly define what welfare means, and in the worst case, just a small 12% was able
to state what is a bail in or a bail out.

These endings unfortunately confirmed that we have reached deadlock, the world is
globalizing faster and faster and one of the driving forces is the English language. If people
cannot keep up with this aspect, they will soon step back in other facets as well. What is
recommended is a severe implementation of teaching methods at school, giving major
regard to a focus on the practice of languages which can promote an active and conscious
use of the language. The second step is a strong self-commitment in this way,
understanding that English is a tool, an investment for one’s own life. In this perspective it
is important not to lose or forget one’s own language and limit the use of English to
specific international fields or context as a facilitator for international cooperation and
understanding.

For questionnaire responses:

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1-OaEk6xjUxUxkIlbz1oHai3mKLtfCF8JQgg4iQMwodk/edit#res
ponses