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The Cultural Inquirer

This Week:

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Shakespeare in

the bush

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Myself in India

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The Chickens’

Disaster

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Readers Bloq

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Three Student Teksts

about Cultural

Encounters

Cartoon of the Week

Sponsor:

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Editorial

The world is changing and it‘s getting more open and connected for each status update that we post.

Social platforms enables us to connect with people from the other side of the world. However the viral

communication and people spending more time online makes the Internet a powerful tool for educati-

on, communication and cultures encountering. In this edition of The Cultural Enquirer culture is the

absolute centre of all our attention. Culture is a vast and highy complex phenomenon which is ever

mind-boggling, fascinating and for some people crucial.

Culture is a powerful human tool for survival but it‘s a fragile phenomenon. It‘s constantly changing

and easily lost because it exists only in our minds. Our written languages, goverments, buildings, and

other man-made things are merely the products of culture. They aren‘t culture in themselves. For this

reason, archeologist can‘t dig up culture directly in their excavations. The broken pots and other arti-

facts of ancient people that they uncover are only material remains that reflect cultural patterns - they

are things that were made and used through cultural knowledge and skills. English has inarguably

achieved some sort of global status. Whenever we turn on the news to find out what's happening in

East Asia, or the Balkans, or Africa, or South America, or practically anyplace, local people are being

interviewed and telling us about it in English. We will seek to enlarge and expand your horizon with

this month‘s edition by starting off with our focus on a short summary of a text about an Englishman

who travels to Africa and visits the Tiv‘s. Hoping for cultural acknowledgement and sharing. India the

world‘s 2nd largest population with a whopping 1.2 billion citizens are a world away from our We-

stern world in terms of structuring society and how the culture is in general. In an analysis about a

woman originally from England but living in India we follow how she experiences the very ugly face

of culutral fatigue despite of living amongst diversity. Perhaps the situation with New Zealand and the

Maoris is very symptomatic for two cultures clashing. That‘s why we‘ve decided to zoom in on a

wonderfull story about two different families having problems with their different ways of living and

understanding culture as a tool and a medium for commuication. We always have been very delighted

for all of you readers and that‘s exactly why we keep posting your letters and debates which off course

will be visable as usual in the back of this edition as well! We will end this paper with a special treat

and publish three assignments written by students from VIA University College Silkeborg in Den-

mark. They‘re all about their view on the English language not only as a tool but as a communication

tool. Watch out guys one of these young students could very well become editors themselves.

THE CULTURAL

INQUIRER

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IPHONE

Enjoy the music the right way

4

If you have any prices of standard

products or services, you can include

a listing of those here. You may want

to refer your readers to any other

forms of communication that you’ve

created for your organization.

You can also use this space to remind

readers to mark their calendars for a

regular event, such as a breakfast

meeting for vendors every third Tues-

day of the month, or a biannual chari-

ty auction.

If space is available, this is a good

place to insert a clip art image or

some other graphic.

This story can fit 175-225 words.

If your newsletter is folded and

mailed, this story will appear on the

back. So, it’s a good idea to make it

easy to read at a glance.

A question and answer session is a

good way to quickly capture the at-

tention of readers. You can either

compile questions that you’ve re-

ceived since the last edition or you

can summarize some generic ques-

tions that are frequently asked about

your organization.

A listing of names and titles of man-

agers in your organization is a good

way to give your newsletter a personal

touch. If your organization is small,

you may want to list the names of all

employees.

cooperative function system is highly lack-

ing. As the story comes to an end something

quite interesting happens – the folks

around the fire tells her that she ought to

tell the elders of her own country about how

incorrectly she’s been and furthermore that

she’s been spending time with people of

wisdom in Africa.

Laura Bohannan

American cultural an-

thropologist

2 books: ―Tiv Econo-

my‖, ―Return to

Laughter‖

Doctorate from Ox-

ford University

Husband Paul J. Bo-

hannan

THE CULTURAL

INQUIRER

Shakespeare in the Bush

Anthropologist Laura Bohannan is visiting

a West African tribe, the Tiv’s, who is living

far away from civilisation. Bohanan brings

along ‘Hamlet’ which is the central subject

to the story. She’s quite sure that the book

can only be interpreted in one way and one

way only but she soon comes to believe

otherwise.

The story is about the clash of two different

cultures who meet in the middle of simple

surroundings. Rocks, nature, wild life and

dust all adds up and become this big pile of

the unknown bringing people together.

Clashing horizons and learning points will

be revealed while reading this one.

One day the Englishman is appointed as

the storyteller and he wants to tell the nati-

ves about a story from his part of the

world. The wise elders are very critical and

ethnocentrist towards Hamlet. They cri-

tisize some of the supernatural events in

the story and they only rely on their own

knowledge about the world and what is na-

tural for them. They dont have the dual

aspect of material and immaterial. They

are forced to translate the story using their

own cultural background and question

what they dont understand about Euro-

pean customs. The binary cooperative

function system is highly lacking. As the

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Myself in India

When speaking of cultural encounters the essay Myself in India by Ruth

Prawer Jhabvala is indeed a describing and interesting meeting. She criti-

cizes India and their way of living as well as their holy cows. Even though

her husband is Indian she is getting more and more distanced to India. This

is an analysis of two horizons meeting each other in a vast land of grand di-

versity.

India as an animal

Throughout the essay Jhabvala refers to India as an animal. We think that

maybe she is trying to underline the fact that India is way back in terms of

evolving their society compared to the Western world. She has a hard time

wrapping her head fully around the Indian way of etiquettes and behaviour,

which is why she feels so awkward when she leaves her over-protected and

air-conditioned room.

Profile on Jhabvala

Ruth Prawer Jhabvala is a

british short story writer. She

was born in Cologne in Ger-

many but fled from the Nazis

to Britain in 1939. In 1951

she got married to an Indian

architect and short after they

moved to India. In 1975 she

moved to New York where

she used her almost 25 years

of experience in a foreign

country to write dozens of

writings. Her main theme for

her writings is what happens

when people from west and

east meet.

Myself in India Cultural encounters

Analysis by Levent, Jens and Kristian

THE CULTURAL

INQUIRER

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An animal is far away from human be-

ings. They are completely controlled by

their instincts and they have no free will

whatsoever as we do. She describes her-

self as being on the back of this great

moving animal of poverty and backward-

ness (India). But at the same time she ig-

nores the animal and concentrates her

thoughts on the westernized and cultivat-

ed Indians. Perhaps she does that because

it‘s much more convenient for her, rather

than going in to a fight with the animal in

her deepest mind layer?

We think of a weak animal when reading

Jhabvala‘s essay. She looks at India with

some pity because they have all this pov-

erty and she describes the country as be-

ing raw and naked. Kind of like the whole

truth being fanned up in your face with

160 Miles per hour. It is as if the Indians

are content with what they have in their

country. She describes the whole reincar-

nation process quite interesting; If a poor

fellow looks at a rich guy eating his food

he will most likely think to himself that

he himself will one day or in another life

be the next one who will experience that

very same meal. They have this way of

thinking that makes them perfectly fit to

survive these major difficulties that their

society challenge them with e.g. Poverty,

raw nature, the heat, the holy cow (she do

NOT) understand why she should or how

she should be able to look upon the cow

which is so thin that you can see its

bones, she does not grasp that notion.

The best way for Europe-

ans to adjust to India

‗I feel lonely, shut in, shut off. It is

my own fault. I should go out more

and meet people and learn what is

going on.‘

She has a hard time adapting to the

society and to the way that they

communicate and spend time to-

gether. She describes one particular

incident where she talks about how

Indians can be together for a whole

day and almost NOT talking with

each other. Whereas we would feel

pretty awkward and somewhat stu-

pid if we didn‘t talk and shared our

thoughts like all the time when we

are together with family and

friends. But she has so little in

common with these Indians that it

makes a lot of sense that she tries

to stay indoor behind her curtains

and under the cool breeze of her air

-conditioner because she seems to

have an insufficient level of need

or desire to her surroundings Indian

fellow creatures.

Jhabvala copes with India because

she needs to. Her family and her

husband are bound to India, which

is her only real reason for staying.

‖ My husband is Indian and so are

my children. I am not, and less so

every year‖ This statement under-

lines the fact she is not succeeding

in coping with India.

“My husband is Indian and so are my children.

I am not, and less so every year ”

THE CULTURAL

INQUIRER

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Human skulls and over

population

After reading her text one might feel

bad. India is being described in a

very illustrative picture language

that brings out the worst feelings in

my stomach. Especially when she

talks about the exaggerated images

with the cold mountains and the

necklace of human skulls. One feels

sick to his stomach.

We all feel that we wouldn‘t live in

a place like India. There are a lot of

peoples and they have big issues

with over population and child la-

bor. Their culture is so different

from ours that it‘s hard for us to re-

late to them but they do have a lot of

interesting aspects of their ways of

living and the religious views. We

are used to live in the safe and clean

society here in DK that it would be

too overwhelming for us to try to

even think about living there but I

guess for some people big changes

is compelling and awesome.

See God in a Cow

She really tries to feel the good vi-

brations that the Indian have to-

ward the cow. But she can‘t cope

with that notion. She sees the cow

as a cow and nothing else for that

matter. In other words she can‘t see

any religious connection to an ani-

mal whatsoever and she has a hard

time moving her perspective from

herself. So she comes off as being

somewhat egocentric.

She states that India is a perfect

place for religion to prosper.

Indians accept their

poverty

Two kinds of Indians

- A rich man would stuff him-

self in ―pilao‖, and think that

he has earned it due to his

previous lives.

- A poor man who‘s standing

in line for his/her next life –

which hopefully would be

better. If you don‘t accept the

belief in reincarnation this

path is not open for you

though, so according to Jhab-

vala, Indians don‘t face their

problems in a proper way –

just false acceptance.

For Europeans there are

three stages

1: Quote: ―tremendous en-

thusiasm – everything about

India is marvelous‖ this type

of person develops into next

sort.

2: Quote: ―everything Indian

not so marvelous‖ develops

towards sort three.

3: Quote: ―everything about

India is abominable‖

The Indians accept their fate be-

cause of their beliefs in reincarna-

tion. If things are not to your liking,

the only thing you can do is to ac-

cept them and hope for a better life

next time.

This is one of the issues Jhabvala

sees as very problematic.

THE CULTURAL

INQUIRER

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We don‘t feel that she should even try to be an Indian. You shouldn‘t

attempt to be something that you aren‘t. We see this all the time around

us. Young people trying to be like the celebs but almost every time fail.

In terms of cultural changes is it of highly importance that you at least

try to adapt to the environment in which you live in in order to be a hu-

man being in balance with you fellow creatures and the culture itself.

She seems so negative and sour towards the Indian society and their

way of being that it seems to us as her being or trying to be Indian is

mission impossible. The sad thing is that she locks herself up in her lit-

tle closed room and it‘s almost as if even sun light can‘t come in when

she draw the curtains.

We think that she is culture fatigue. Even minor annoyances is blown

up in her mind and she freaks out even more as you read through the

text so the notion of her being assimilated is perhaps wrong but we do

feel positive that she can at least try to adapt further than what she has

achieved until now.

Don’t pretend just be!

THE CULTURAL

INQUIRER

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―Culture Fatigue‖: A fairly short-term response to

―stimulus overload.‖ This occurs when you begin to re-

spond to the behavior of the ―new‖ culture and are

stressed by trying to deal with lots of new cultural infor-

mation all at once. Stress and irritation intensify as you

attempt to study or work in a foreign environment.

There is a cumulatively greater impact due to the ―need

to operate‖ in unfamiliar and difficult contexts.

So she has had enough, like nothing can be said or done

to ensure her or even to make her feel better. She has

some issues I‘d say some huge issues with not only In-

dia as a country but also as a culture and as a place. It‘s

easy to imagine that even the

bloody smell of India makes her

stomach go crazy.

Stages of Culture Shock

“Culture shock is neither caused by a single act

nor easily traceable to a particular event. It is

cumulative, attributable to many small things

that happen over time, and it has the potential to

be more deeply felt and take longer to alleviate.”

This passage describes the core of her issues pretty

well. She has outlasted herself on this one. All these

negative emotions and the bad vibrations are stem-

ming from her dislikes in India. In particular she has

had enough with all the different changes that are

happening in front of her eyes and there is nothing

she can do about it e.g. the poor people. Reading how

she talks about the poor people one can almost feel

the disgust in her mind.

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The Chickens Disaster

Is it possible to live together?

He sometimes gets furious. It‘s not fun to watch or be near

him but I love him. At least we have each other in these hard

times. We all want a peacefully life and a happy family liv-

ing together in peace and harmony but sometimes life brings

us challenges. It's important that we are united and stand to-

gether as one family whenever the going gets rough. Jack

has always been bad tempered but that‘s what I love about

him. His passion. We all have good and bad sides. I believe

that we have a whole set of different identities that we use

under different situations in our everyday life. If I meet the

Maori family at the pavement I am one person and if the

Gladstones are coming over for supper an evening I will be

another person. This doesn't mean that I have issues or iden-

tity problems it's perfectly normal. It's human nature and so

we all have to master the use of these different identities in

the different settings that life brings us. We have had a lot of

situations with the family that lives next to us and it really

has nothing to do with them being Maori people but it's the

difference in how we as people approach and live together.

Some cultures are so different that it's hard to see how the

two cultures can ever fit to become compatible with each

others.

Take a trip to New

Zealand only

100 £!

Go to www.travel.com

for more info.

THE CULTURAL

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However it's always important to remain calm and be positive about things. Because things

aren't always as simple as they occur. The Maoris are kind people but sometimes some things

are incompatible. You can‘t take an ice cube and put it in a sauna because it‘ll melt and disap-

pear. If we are to live side by side with these people some radical changes must come and

clear things between us. We all know that these people feel somewhat used by us due to the

fact that their society didn‘t follow the speed of which our society has evolved during the

course of time. I always wondered what

the big difference was. Being black or

white - I mean what‘s the difference

here? We are all human beings living to-

gether but somehow we just can‘t do it

can we! I‘m really getting sick and tired

of all these confrontations and fights be-

tween races. And we have these people

up close, they‘re our neighbours but we

can‘t say something that‘d be highly in-

appropriate. One of my friends asked

my the other day how I ‗d feel if my

daughter married a Maori guy. At first I

was really shocked by what I said but

then again - I was just being honest and

that‘s what I‘ve been taught all my life.

But somehow being honest in the racial

matter just not feels right. All I want is

my children and everyone to be happy

and live a good life.

THE CULTURAL

INQUIRER

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Fun facts about Islam: In a century’s time Islam had converted one-third of the world

In your previous magazine, you gave a

summary of the movie East is East, which

I was very fond of. You generally stated

that this movie was a controversial come-

dy between Muslim families living in Eng-

land and how the different views on family

roles can have great impact on father-son

relationships.

I was especially fond of the humorous an-

gle you used to define this very problemat-

ic issue – Of thinking that Muslim religion

thinks that they can just fit in anywhere? I

think no. That is exactly what this movie

tries to emphasize. It’s what it’s all about.

After having read your summary, it have

especially come to my attention, that if we

are to do anything about this Muslim-

problem, we have to act now.

If Muslims aren’t properly integrated or

assimilated, they have to get out of Eng-

land. We don’t want their kind here.

Peter R. Acist

DEAR EDITOR

“”East is East” is a very refreshing in-

ventive family story” Imdb.

THE CULTURAL

INQUIRER

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I’m astounded by your letter. The summary, you talk about,

was in no way meant to harm Muslim culture, nor do I

think the movie is. It’s just questioning the cultural barri-

ers, when two different cultures are put up against each

other. The Muslim culture which is based on Collectivism,

has a patriarch in its’ center of the family. It is he who

makes all the important decisions. If a Muslim father says

“This is how it’s going to be”, then that’s the ways it’s going

to be, end of story. In European culture, we’re more fo-

cused on individualism, where each member of the family

is a part of larger democratic decision. This is what we

thought we’ve made clear when we wrote the summary of

East is East.

Not a statement of Muslim culture being wrong, but that

our culture should be more open to foreign cultures.

An extract from the summary, “Muslim sons are tired of

predetermined marriages by their fathers. The funny fact is,

that the movie deals with a father who is married with his

English wife – yet he tries to sustain Muslim traditions, and

get his sons married into traditional Muslim families, in

spite of his own failure with his previous Muslim wife.”

We try to outline that this view on marriage is not coher-

ent with European cultures’ view on marriage. Not that it’s

wrong - Just that our culture can have a different way of

doing things.

So Peter, we are not to debate whether Muslims are accept-

ed in England, but how we can help other Muslims to gain

a better life in England.

We’re very interested if other readers have misinterpreted

our summary of East is East… Please let us know.

Sincerely the

Editor

DEAR PETER

Fun Facts about Religion: “Jedi” is an official religion, with over 70.000 followers in Australia

THE CULTURAL

INQUIRER

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English as a Tool

- Levent Kalayci,

Student at VIA University College

―English became the main determinant of a child´s progress up the ladder of formal education.‖ The lan-

guage of African Literature, Ngugi wa Thiong´o, 1986. 1952 in Kenya. Thiong´o describes the conditions

under which he was forced to live with in his childhood. English has a huge status mainly as a language in

the world because of the imperialism period of the British and the USA´s domination economic wise and off

course not to forget their military force which they have showed over and over again throughout history in

all parts of the world. English has acquired a high status among the young generations due to the massive

cultural exports and imports e.g. MTV, American sitcoms and Hollywood blockbusters. A huge amount of

young Danish children consume these medieas on a daily basis. Words such as: nice, cool, what´s up and

LOL have all more or less been implemented into the Danish vocabulary. In Denmark it‘s clear that a lot of

the English words are taking their toll on the production and on the development of the Danish language.

In 2009 the Danish government-owned television network DR1 held its annual award show. They chose the

word nice as the coolest word. Recognition of a language at this magnitude acts like a catalysts for the ac-

ceptance of English in the Danish language. I‘ll provide you with an example; if you want to be cool in Den-

mark, you‘d more likely speak English rather than German, Chinese or Swahili. This is mainly because of

the cultural similarities we share with the English world.

English in small countries

There are some advantages for small countries to be under American influence. The Benelux countries have

all been under American influence since they were liberated from the Nazi Germans. After the WW2 it was

rather normal for all the deliberated nations to adapt to the American culture. The advantages have been vast

like democracy, free markets, equality, and human rights. Globalization has become a huge factor in every-

body´s lives e.g. stock markets, the huge economical dependency in between the world´s countries. A con-

flict on the other side of the world has an impact on our lives e.g. our economy can suffer from different cri-

sis (the 1973 oil crisis) and some events might even unite us as when Chilean miners were rescued after 69

days underground in 2010.

THE CULTURAL

INQUIRER

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Lingua franca

However, one of the challenges we have to face is which language we choose to use as the uniting language, the so-

called lingua franca. “The positioning of English (...) as Europe´s primary lingua franca is so recent (...)‖ The chang-

ing role of English in Europe, Jennifer Jenkins 2003.

It´s very important that the spoken English which the non-native speakers use will retrieve it´s spinal meaning from

the Standard English. In this way it won´t differ too much from the natives´ language. If we succeed in staying true to

the standard and seek to convert it to our own way of speaking it would benefit the language. People all over the

world would be able to communicate and succeed in a higher level of understanding one another. Understanding each

other is important especially when we participate in a global world. Cultures meet all the time. It‘s said that the short-

est distance between two persons is a smile. Imagine what impact it would have on people if they were able to express

and converse with people who came from another part of the world. This brings me to the Facebook effect. This

online viral communication tool has a whopping 600 million users worldwide and is still growing at neck breaking

speed. The utility has no content of its own whatsoever but it provides the users with a set of network tools that ena-

bles the users to stay connected and to share a vast majority of their everyday life, past and future. Facebook has more

than anybody else shown that communicating and staying connected with the people they surround themselves with is

what everybody wants to do. In terms of which impact Facebook has had and still has on English as a language it‘s

fair to say that a lot of worldwide users stay connected via an English language due to the fact that the language setup

stays in English. So again we see that English is being beamed throughout the world and people use that very utility

each and everyday. Recent Facebook data stream shows that more than 37% of users from countries who don‘t have

English as a native language actually have English as the default option.

English as an international language

Chinua Achebe states in The African Writer and the English Language

“(...) the English language will be able to carry the weight of my African experience. But it will have to be a new

English, still in full communion with its ancestral home but altered to suit its new African surroundings.” English is

now considered as an international language. In Europe some would call it lingua franca, but it has now the status as

an international communication medium.

According to Achebe it´s important that the users of the language put an effort in to developing and honoring the lan-

guage as its ancestors wanted it to be. A decent language acquirement can very well be the surviving point of the

Standard English. In non-native speaking countries people will have a hard time being able to speak English at the

same level as native speakers. Achebe believes that the goal is to bend and use English in such way so that it can be

used be everybody, not just native speakers, not just Europeans or Westerners, but Africans and Asians as well. Being

an international language, English is bound to progress and keep changing if it fails to do so it might decline in value

and usage.

THE CULTURAL

INQUIRER

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English in a small country

“But language is of its nature unstable. It is essentially protean in nature,

adapting its shape to suit changing circumstances. It would otherwise lose its vitality and its communicative and

communal value.‖ Henry Widdowson, ―The ownership of English‖, Lecture delivered at the 1993 IATEFL Inter-

national Conference.

However, Widdowson proceeds: “Standard English promotes the cause of international communication so we

must maintain the central stability of the standard as the common linguistic frame of reference.‖ It is more likely

for English to hold on to its position as the most spoken international language if it uses Standard English as ref-

erence. However, it´s crucial that it provides the space needed for cultural and regional influence. This is exactly

what ‗s going on in many places and institutions in Denmark. People use English every day, they listen to music,

read news and write blogs. English holds a strong position in Denmark. In a way it it‘s all connected in one way

or the other. One thing is the English language in the Danish society in the presence and another thing is how it

should be in the future. As a teacher it´s important for me to be updated on all fields at all times. Children today

are so well educated and well informed due to the information flow on the Internet. The web provides these huge

gargantuan social platforms as Twitter, Facebook and MySpace. By using all these platforms the kids subcon-

sciously acquires an emotional and intellectual connection to English.

English will overcome and survive

I don´t think that English will be substituted by another language all of a sudden. Why should it and for what rea-

sons? I have a hard time to see that e.g. Chinese, Indian, Spanish or Russian can ever pose a threat to English here

in Denmark. The English language is originated form the same tribal language as Danish is which means a lot.

We use a whole line of the same words and we take some English words and make them Danish, such as nice and

cool. I think English will grow larger and larger especially in Denmark because of the short distance to England.

Not to forget the similarities between Danes and Americans/Brits and if you pay attention politically as well.

Denmark is committed in a lot of bilateral agreements with America and England. In many ways we are all con-

nected to each other, and if another language should develop and claim an international position and hereby pose

a threat it would take many generations to phase out the English language from Denmark. So I believe that the

English language will overcome and survive, and perhaps expand its status as it is right now. We must stand in

awe for the network platforms as www.facebook.com these gargantuan platforms will change the world as we all

know it. This is really just the beginning. The web has up until now been impersonal and unsocial. Facebook is

changing that. But it‘s also changing how often we use English. We get connected with people you meet travel-

ling on the other side of the world and you stay connected to them. Suddenly some percentages of your friend list

are foreigners and therefore you have to adapt your way of communicating so the first language that comes to

your mind will in this case be English. This is something that happened for almost all of my friends. The point

I‘m trying to make is that English is so strong and such a beautiful language that I really don‘t see any language

even getting near it.

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Wanna be like this

awesome dude?

Try :

LEVENTSIZING!

20

World English – World Englishes

- Jens Jakob Kristensen

Student at VIA University

Yesterday I saw a picture on the internet, of a man standing with a very provoking banner which stated ―Death to all

juice!‖. I didn‘t know if I was to take that serious or not? One thing was that it was a very racist comment, and I‘m

not a big fan of racism, but another thing was, that it was totally absurd how someone can misspell that incorrectly

and be serious about it. For an English-speaking person, this would be a very humorous incident about how im-

portant it is to understand the native spoken or written language, before throwing such a sentence out in the open. A

lot of times we see misinterpreted texts in different situations, which are often quite funny too. Sometimes incidents

happen, where these misinterpretations appear. If we‘re about to build an international society, where we can com-

municate and cooperate in a proper manner, we have to make these errors more central in our schools, if the interna-

tional welfare is to flourish. Not only should we practice English more in our schools, but also spread English, in

such a degree, that it one day might become the world language.

In 1887 a Polish Jew named Ludovich Zamenhof invented a new language called Esparanto. It was based on easy

learning grammar. Ludovich hoped this language was going to be the new world language. Afterwards a man called

Leo Tolstoy learned this language in not more than 5 hours, and thereby proved it to be an adequate world lan-

guage. Unfortunately, Hitler disapproved of this language. He feared that the language would someday take over

and dominate the Aryan people, which resulted in a vast amount of Esparanto-speakers were sent to concentration

camps in Germany. Although Esparanto didn‘t have its breakthrough, a lot of people still speak this language this

very day. A lot of them are old throwbacks from the cold war though, but you can still get a Ph.D in Esparanto, as

well as in English. (From a news magazine called Newsweek from August 11, 2003). Esparanto was a language try-

ing to make its breakthrough. We can ask ourselves, has English reached its‘ peak yet, or has it just begun climbing

to the top and thereby influencing the entire world? We need to make a clear statement: If English is to be spoken

by everybody in the future we should have even more focused English-education, maybe teaching English in after

schools. This might be a way to improve everybody‘s English skills even more. Bill Bryson, a well-known English

writer, states in his book Mother tongue (1990), that English is progressing to be the world language and that it‘s

due to the worldwide commerce. The usage of English has become such a broad phenomenon, because of its special

rhythm in words and phonetics. Bill Bryson writes in the above-mentioned book that “Products are deemed to be

more exciting if they carry English messages even when the message doesn‘t make a lot of sense”. He follows up

with an example about a Japanese eraser that will ―self-destruct in Mother-Earth‖, written in English although the

product is made entirely for Japanese consumers.

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Therefore English is a language that enforces consumer‘s desire to buy, due to

the influence that it has on a global scale ensuring that the English

language is here to stay. Another writer named Jennifer Jenkins, a Sociolinguist and expert in English phonology and

phonetics, wrote a book called World Englishes, and makes it clear in one of her main chapters called ―The changing

role of English in Europe” in which she states “Those who speak English will have the best access to material suc-

cess”, claiming that English is going to expand way beyond the English borders!

These two examples mentioned above, I emphasized because there is truth in them. The most of our world is nowadays

built on material success. It‘s a matter of how well we advance in our social and working careers that defines how good

our lives are. In coherence to these two experts, this all depends on our level of education, on how well we have been

taught in skills of communicating and socializing. This is where the teacher‘s role comes in. The teacher‘s most im-

portant role is to develop their students in such a way, that they‘re able to go out of the school entrance and say to

themselves, ―Now, where is my place in this big world? Where‘s my place in this society‖. This is our goal and it‘s on-

ly once this is achieved teachers can go home to their fancy houses, with a smile on their faces, and wait for next year‘s

load of students. It is not accounted for, how many English speakers there are – This would be impossible. Approxi-

mately 570 Million to 1.5 Billion speak the English language, according to The Cambridge Encylopedia of English

Language from 1995. That‘s around a fourth of the whole world‘s population. With that amount of English speakers,

we should look more carefully into school systems – Are we really able to give children the absolute best opportunity

to learn English language?

School reforms, especially here in Scandinavia, are reducing the age that students have English lessons and are experi-

menting with the connection between age and learning capabilities of the children. How young do children need to be

before they can learn? This could be a good progression, but how should teachers introduce English to their students

nowadays? Is it a worldwide language or just another language for they should learn in school? An interesting text

about learning a new language is the well known story of Robinson Crusoe, the first novel ever written by Daniel De-

foe in 1719, has been rewritten into a comical play by Adrian Mitchell, an English poet, novelist and play writer. An

interesting excerpt of Adrian Mitchell‘s rewritten version of ―Robinson Crusoe‖ is the part where Crusoe is teaching

Friday, his native friend, proper English. Friday doesn‘t want to learn Crusoe‘s English which is not as beautiful as,

according to Friday, his own native language. Yet he is forced to do so. This is a clear reference to their two cultural

language barriers, as the European colonists sailed to Africa and founded colonies all over the continent and forced

English down native people‘s throats. The English language is still developing and has been through many events to

become what it is today. It has come to my attention that no other language/languages are doing as well as English is,

because of the commercial advantage of being labeled everywhere. English is also progressing a lot in the educational

sector as well. Thereby being the language of the future, for the next generation and for our children and their children

etc.

My promise, as a teacher, is to do whatever it takes, to increase the chance of English reaching the 1st prize as the

World Language, thereby assuring its future. Not just end up as the Esparanto language did – Which I seriously doubt!

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World English — World Englishes

- Kristian Hoffmann

Student at VIA University

English language in Danish schools.

English is part of our everyday life. It‘s all around us. We get influenced through the media and indeed the

youth is even more influenced by English than adults. In Denmark the young generation has already taken the

English language in their grasp. Through television, radio and Internet the youth learned a lot more about the

English language than they would have ever learned 40 years ago. This development is very interesting be-

cause children in Denmark start having English lessons in third grade which means they are only 9 years old.

The consequence of this early teaching might have a great impact on the children‘s English and their future

life in a globalized world with English as the main communication language when speaking beyond bounda-

ries of countries.

English as a global language

You might see the younger generation are using the English language like a kind of slang when practising

their English with their fellow comrades. I‘ve heard many conversations of children using the English lan-

guage in e.g. games on the Internet and I find it pretty impressive when overhearing a conversation between

youngsters like my brother (Age: 12) talking with his friends from Holland, Russia, England and Mexico us-

ing a communication program called Ventrilo. Even though he is restricted in the use of the English language

he still talks English which is reasonable in its form of correctness.

I know games on the Internet effect children‘s use of language and therefore also English. Children don‘t

speak Oxford English but they try to sound like their idols from music or movies which is in my opinion both

good and bad. Good because they get to know the language better and have a better basic wisdom about the

language than without these inspirations. However you might find their sentences sounding like chunks of

English and not one of their own making.

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English as lingua franca

Seeing the English development in a futuristic point of view I agree upon Jennifer Jenkins, a well-known profes-

sor of modern languages and World English/Englishes, from the University of Southampton, and her view on

English as being labelled as Europe‘s primary lingua franca. Jennifer Jenkins discusses the changing role of

English in Europe in the book ―World Englishes‖ Routledge 2003. In 40-50 years I still think we‘ll see the same

pattern as now. We still have a lot of Englishes around the world and even though we tend to imitate the ―real

English‖ aka Oxford English we won‘t find genuine English in the future. We still have our own differences and

hopefully we won‘t look down upon other kinds of Englishes. A globalized world should be open towards dif-

ferences also when talking about languages.

Speaking on behalf of the English teachers in Denmark, I think that the Internet will be for English pupils as

pocket calculator is for the Math pupils. We all talk about pupils have to learn how to behave in a global society

but this is only possible if we as teachers take our teaching into consideration. We have to think more creative

and be ―fetchy‖ to earn the pupils attention. So why not meet the pupils on their own field of knowledge and be

open for anything that could be a possible motivator for our pupils. Everyone knows that pupils are much more

motivated and energetic when talking/working with something they know of and we know that they will do it

great if it‘s something more interesting than the usual way of teaching. I hope to involve the Internet and it‘s po-

tentials as much as possible. Hopefully my optimistic view will be discussed and debated in the teacher commu-

nity.

A new, better and much easier language?

You might even see a new and better world-wide communica-

tion language such as what the innovative Gianne Brownell

described in her article ―Speaking up for Esperanto‖ in

Newsweek, August 11, 2003 which is an article about a Polish

Jew invented language from 1887. This language is even five

times easier than learning English and even ten times simpler

than Russian. The language is built upon Romance, Slavic,

Greek and German tongues. One of the reasons why the Eng-

lish language is in such a big global scale is because of the im-

perialism and we have seen examples of dictators like Hitler,

Saddam Hussein and Stalin trying to extinguish Esperanto be-

cause of its threatening factor towards their own language.

Nevertheless the English language stands as winner and as a lingua franca in the European Union.

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The English language needs to adapt to its present

With a lot of different types of English I think we need to adopt some of the simplicity from the Esperanto lan-

guage. We need to broaden the grammar and make it simpler. In the poem ―Listen Mr Oxford Don” the writer

John Agard makes a fool of the English language and its strict grammar. ―Me not no Oxford don, me a simple

immigrant, from Clapham Common, I didn’t graduate, I immigrate‖

I find it very interesting talking about motivation in the classroom and I think we have more to discover when

talking about motivation games and tasks. It could be interesting to examine what makes people doing repetitive

tasks in games like World of Warcraft. If it is possible to find the essence of this and transfer this to the teaching

it would be possible to learn even the most boring grammar to a ten year old.

Consequences for the teaching of English in Denmark

I think we might see a huge improvement of teaching of English in Denmark because of all the new methods be-

ing taught in the college of education. New approaches are displayed so you can read about them on the Internet

in blogs from all around the globe. These new methods work in different ways and are very inspiring for any

fresh educated teacher. I think this is just the first hesitant beginning of the blog mentality and though I hope to

see this kind of communication being used in a much larger scale than now, I think there is a whole new era of

teaching on the run. Unfortunately it is hard to change

the way of teaching world-wide because of the lack of

funds and if it would work it is going to be a long

struggle to adjust this way of thinking.

We need to educate our pupils so they are able to

work and adapt themselves to an evolving world go-

ing even faster when talking about technology and

possibilities. For that reason we have a very important

profession indeed. We are the guiding element when

talking about progress and innovation of the future.

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