WHY A GLOBAL

LANGUAGE?
“English is the global language” (Globe and Mail, Toronto, 12
July 1997)
Of course! Why are such headlines still newsworthy?
The headline isn’t stating the obvious. What does it mean
exactly?
 IS IT SAYING THAT?

• everyone in the world speaks English?

• Every country in the world recognizes English as an official language?

Why is English the language which is usually cited in this connection?

How did the situation arise?
Could it change?
IF ENGLISH IS YOUR MOTHER TONGUE

• You may have mixed feelings about the way English is spreading
around the world
• Pride; concern
• Uneasy, resentful
 IF ENGLISH IS NOT YOUR MOTHER
TONGUE
• You may still have mixed feelings about it
• Strongly motivated to learn it
• Aware of the great amount of effort necessary to master the language
• Proud of your enhanced communicative power
• Aware of the fact that mother tongue speakers have an unfair advantage over
you
• Resentful of the threat that the success of English might cause to your own
language
 WHAT IS A GLOBAL LANGUAGE?

• A language achieves global status when it develops a special role that

is recognized in every country.
• Mother-tongue use by itself cannot give a language global status
• 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.
 HOW CAN A LANGUAGE BECOME
GLOBAL?
• 1) IT IS MADE THE OFFICIAL LANGUAGE OF A COUNTRY TO
BE USED AS A MEDIUM OF COMMUNICATION IN SUCH
DOMAINS AS GOVERNMENT, THE LAW COURTS, THE MEDIA
AND THE EDUCATION SYSTEM
• 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
• English has special status in over 70 countries (e.g. Ghana, Nigeria, India,
Singapore and Vanuatu)
 HOW CAN A LANGUAGE BECOME
GLOBAL?
• 2) IT CAN BE MADE A PRIORITY IN A COUNTRY’S FOREIGN-
LANGUAGE TEACHING, EVEN THOUGH IT HAS NO OFFICIAL
STATUS
• Other languages that rival English in this respect are Russian, Mandarin
Chinese, but English is taught in over 100 countries, some of them very large:
China, Russia, Brazil.
 SOME PITFALLS

• Distinctions between ‘first’, ‘second’ and ‘foreign’ language status are

useful, but we must be careful not to give them a simplistic
interpretation.
• Distinction between second and foreign language use must not be
equated to a difference in fluency or ability.
• Speakers from the Scandinavian countries and the Netherlands show a high
level of proficiency in spite of living in countries where English has no official
status
• BECAUSE OF THE THREE-PRONGED DEVELOPMENT (FIRST-
LANGUAGE, SECOND-LANGUAGE, FOREIGN-LANGUAGE) IT
IS INEVITABLE THAT A GLOBAL LANGUAGE WILL COME TO
BE USED BY MORE PEOPLE THAN ANY OTHER LANGUAGE
• ENGLISH HAS REACHED THIS STAGE: it is spoken by about a
quarter of the world population, i.e. around 1.5 billion people (Chinese
by 1.1 billion people)
 WHAT MAKES A GLOBAL LANGUAGE?

• Language has no independent existence from the people who speak it.
“Language exists only in the brains and mouths and ears and hands
and eyes of its users. When they succeed,on the international stage,
their language succeeds. When they fail, their language fails.” (Crystal
2003, p.7)
 SOME MISLEADING BELIEFS

• A language becomes internationally successful on account of its

aesthetic qualities, clarity of expression, literary power or religious
standing.
• Hebrew, Greek, Latin, Arabic, French as well as English have been
lauded in such terms.
• There must be something inherently beautiful or logical about the
structure of English, which explains why it is now so widely used.
 WRONGLY QUOTED EXAMPLES

• English has less grammar than other languages

• It has less morphology, but it is syntactically complex (Comprehensive
grammar of the English language by Quirk, Greenbaum, Leech and Svartvik
is 1,800 pages long and offers grammatical explanation of 3,500 points)
• Grammatical complexity of analytical languages did not stop Greek, Arabic,
Spanish, French and Russian to become international languages
Some features which make English appealing

• Its vocabulary sounds familiar to many international speakers

• Over the centuries English has borrowed thousands of new words from the
languages is has been in contact with.
• 60% Its lexicon is made up of words having classical Romance origin
• It has a cosmopolitan character
• Its ‘welcoming’ policy towards foreign vocabulary places it in contrast to
other rival international languages (e.g. French) whose lexical policy is much
more conservative.
Some features which make English appealing

• It appears to be more democratic as its grammar does not codify social

class differences
• A language does not become a global language because of its intrinsic
structural properties, the size of its vocabulary or because it has been a
vehicle of a great literature in the past, or because it was once
associated with a great culture or religion.
• These factors can motivate someone to learn a language but cannot
guarantee survival as a living language, as it is clear from the case of
Latin
• Correspondingly, inconvenient structural properties (rich morphology,
awkward spelling) do not stop a language achieving international
status either.
 MAIN REASONS WHY A LANGUAGE
GAINS INTERNATIONAL STATUS
• POLITICAL AND MILITARY POWER OF ITS PEOPLE
• ECONOMIC POWER
• TECHNOLOGICAL POWER
 WHY DO WE NEED A GLOBAL
LANGUAGE?
• Translation has played a central role in human interaction for
thousands of years.
• However, the more a community is linguistically mixed, the less it can
rely on bi or trilingualism as a possible solution to its communication
problems.
• The problem has traditionally been solved by finding a language to act
as a common language (lingua franca)
SOME EXAMPLES OF LINGUA FRANCA

• PIDGIN a simplified language combining elements of different

languages (usually a western language such as Portuguese, French or
English and an African or Asian language) that get in contact mainly
for trade reasons
• West African Pidgin English is used extensively between several ethnic
groups along the West African coast
• INDIGENOUS LANGUAGE (e.g. Mandarin Chinese in China and
East Asia)
• The prospect that a lingua franca might be needed for the whole world
only emerged in the 20th century (since the 1950s) when large
international bodies were established (United Nations 1945; World
Bank (1945), UNESCO and UNICEF (1946) World Health
Organization (1948)
• The pressure to adopt a single language to facilitate communication is
such contexts is considerable. The alternative is the implementation of
expensive multi–way translation facilities
• Since the 1950s people have increasingly become more mobile, both
physically and electronically and the creation of the so-called ‘global
village’ has generated an urgent need for a global language which
allows successful communication.
 THE DANGERS OF A GLOBAL
LANGUAGE
• A global language will cultivate an elite monolingual class, which has
an unfair advantage over non-native speakers:
• A global language will make people lazy about learning other
languages or reduce their opportunity to do so;
• A global language will hasten the disappearance of minority languages
or make ALL other languages unnecessary.
 A NAÏVE VIEW

• [Quite a lot] of mother-tongue English speakers think that there is

nothing wrong with the vision that a world with just one language in it
would be a very good thing. Such a word would be one of unity and
peace, with all misunderstanding washed away. […] For others such a
world would be a desirable return to the ‘innocence’ that must have
been present among human beings in the days before the Tower of
Babel.”( Crystal, 2001 p. 15)
• History has proved repeatedly that the use of a single language by a
community is no guarantee of social harmony or mutual understanding
(e.g. the American civil war; contemporary Northern Ireland; former
Yugoslavia)
• Conversely, the presence of more than one language within a
community does not necessarily lead to civil strife (e.g. Switzerland,
Singapore, Finland)
 THE ELITISM ARGUMENT

• Will those who speak a global language as a mother tongue will

automatically be in a position of power compared with those who have
to learn it as an official or foreign language?
• E.g. non-native English speaking scientists will take longer to
assimilate reports in English and will consequently have less time to
carry out their creative work
• Researchers who write papers in a language different from English
will have their work ignored by the international community.
 THE ELITISM ARGUMENT

• Managers who do not have English as a mother tongue will find

themselves at a disadvantage compared with their mother-tongue
colleagues, especially when meetings involve the use of informal
speech.
• POSSIBLE SOLUTION: start teaching the global language as early as
possible and maintain it continuously in order to achieve a level of
bilingualism (as it happens in Denmark, Sweden and the Netherlands)
 LINGUISTIC COMPLACENCY

• The lack of interest (as well as motivation and opportunity) to learn

other languages is in part due to the increasing presence of English as
a global language.
• More often than not it is a lack of ability to learn a foreign language
that it is cited as an explanation for not trying. However, it is a matter
of state of mind and attitude rather than a question of ability.
 LINGUISTIC COMPLACENCY

• English-speaking communities are showing clear signs of growing

awareness of the need to break away from the traditional monolingual
bias.
• Success in boosting exports and attracting foreign investment can
depend on sensitivity to the language spoken by a country’s potential
foreign partners
• As a result Japanese is now taught in Australia as the first foreign
language and Spanish is studied both in the USA and UK
 LINGUISTIC DEATH

• Will the emergence of a global language hasten the disappearance of

minority languages and cause widespread language death?
• The processes of language dominion and loss have been known
throughout linguistic history and exist independently of the
emergence of a global language.
• In more recent times, the emergence of English as a truly global
language has had the reverse effect, i.e. it has stimulated a stronger
response in support of local languages.
 LINGUISTIC DEATH

• The birth of movements in support of linguistic minorities illustrates an

important truth about the nature of language in general:
• Mutual intelligibility and the expression of cultural identity are not mutually
exclusive but two complementary aspects which respond to different needs
• It is perfectly possible to develop a situation in which intelligibility and
identity co-exist: bilingualism
• The global language provides access to the world community, the other
language (a well-resourced regional language, provides access to a local
community)
 THE EFFECTS OF A GLOBAL LANGUAGE ON
THE STRUCTURE OF OTHER LANGUAGES
• There is no denying that a global language becomes the source of loan
words.
• Such influence can be welcomed and seen as enriching or opposed
and perceived as a killer (e.g. French)
• To be noted: the word computer (whose adoption has been banned in French)
incidentally derives from Latin, the mother-language of French.
 RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN GLOBAL
LANGUAGE AND LOCAL LANGUAGES
• Pennycoock and Phillipson describe it in terms of cultural imperialism
(a dominant language – English – is responsible for the death of the
local languages in colonised countries)
• Crystal argues that this view is anachronistic and inadequate. Other
factors as the recognition of global interdependence, the desire to have
a voice in world affairs and the value of multilingualism in attracting
trade partners play a much more important role.
 CRYSTAL’S FUNCTIONALIST ACCOUNT
OF ENGLISH
• According to Crystal, a global language is to be explained as a valuable
instrument enabling people to achieve particular goals (mainly related to
intercultural communication).
• The adoption of a global language does not necessarily entail the loss of a
person’s local language, whose function is mainly that of expressing cultural
identity
• “A historical conception of power relations has to be seen alongside an emerging
set of empowering relationships in which English has a new functional role, no
longer associated with the political authority it once held.” (Crystal, 2003 p. 25)
 WHAT COULD STOP A GLOBAL
LANGUAGE?
• 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 global language.
• Potential rivals of English are Chinese and Arabic
• The current spread of English in the world has somehow reduced its
threatening qualities as it is no longer thought as the language owned by a
single nation
 WHAT COULD STOP A GLOBAL
LANGUAGE?
• A rather more plausible scenario is that an alternative method of
communication could emerge which would eliminate the need for a
global language
• The main candidate is automatic translation (machine translation)
• Within a generation or two it is likely that people will communicate
with each other directly using their first languages with a computer
taking the strain between them.
 WHAT COULD STOP A GLOBAL
LANGUAGE?
• The need for post-editing is still considerable (translation software is
very limited in its ability to handle idiomatic, stylistic and several
other linguistic features, e.g. humour)
• Costs of automatic translation are still very high and its widespread
accessibility limited (The ‘Babel fish’ inserted into the ear thus making
all spoken languages in the galaxy intelligible, is still no more than an
intriguing concept)
• It will be very interesting to see what happens during the next century:
will the presence of a global language eliminate the demand for
translation services or will automatic translation become so
widespread and accurate that the need to learn a global language will
disappear?