U214 A / BOOK 2ENGLISH IN THE WORLD

CHAPTER FOUR

A Global Language

INTRODUCTION

The Decency of World EnglishIn early 1780, John Adams, one of the founding fathers of the USA, said that English is thought to be, in the next and succeeding centuries, thelanguage of the world than Latin was in the last age, or French is in the present age. Adams Prediction became true in the second half of the Twentieth century.

A language achieve a global status when it develops special role that is recognized in every country:

1-When a large number of people in a countryspeak English as a first language, e.g. USA, Canada, UK, Australia, Ireland, New ZealandSouth Africa.2-When it is made the official language of a country or is given joint-official or a specialregional status.3-When it becomes the primary medium of communication, in such domain as government, theLaw courts, broadcasting, the press & education.

• English now has a special administrative statusIn 7 countries; India, Ghana, Nigeria, Zimbabwe, Singapore, Vanuatu.• English has a special role when a country adopt it in the educational system BUT has not official status. Then, it is still a foreign language thatchildren encounter in school, and the one thatmost available to adults in further education. • The term Global English started in the firstdecade of the twenty-first century

• The concept of Lingua Franca started in 1950s,in the era of the post-war where different nationsneeded to communicate. • The United Nation (UN) had only 51 member states, by the end of the century it increased to192. Then there was a need for Working Languageas an alternative for ‘multi way translation’. • Then English as the mutually accessible languagethan any other would be used. So, ‘simultaneous translation’ took place into

various Languages.

Explanations for the Emergence of World English• There are several explanations as to why English became pre-eminent international language in the world today:1-Implausable (debatable) explanation; there areproperties in the language ‘intrinsic (inherent)Linguistic factors’ which makes English easy orattractive to learn.2-extrensic (external) reason; related to factorsother than the properties of language, i.e. power of people who speak a language that has varieties of applications in:

1-Political (military) which is seen inColonialism in the 61th century that brought English around the world.2-Technological power is seen in Industrial Revolution of the 17th & 18th centuries.3-Economic power of the USA, rapidly overtaking Britain as its population grew, adding a great number of World English Speakers.4-Cultural power manifested itself in every walk of life through the domain of Americaninfluence.

• There are several domains within which English has become pre-eminent in this way:1-Politics:• The growth of the British Empire in the C20th. • The League of the Nations placed English in its Proceedings(affair); English was one of the two official Languages, beside French, and all document areprinted in both.2-Economics: Britain became the worlds’ leading industrial andtrading nation, with a gross national products rising every year.

• By 1800, England became the chief growth areain textiles and mining. It produced a range of manufacturing goods for export which lead Britain to be called the ‘workshop of the world’.• More than half of the leading scientists andtechnologists during the Industrial Revolution worked in English, and people who travel to England to learn about new technologies had todo so through the medium of English.• The C19th saw a rapid growth of ‘banking system’, especially in Germany, Britain, USA. London and, New York became the investment capitals of the world, resulting in ‘Economic Imperialism’.

3-The Press:The English language has been an important medium of the press for nearly 400 years. TheC19th was the period of greatest progress.• Independent press fostered in the USA where there were 400 daily newspapers by 1850, and nearly 200 by the turn of the century.• Today, about a third of the world’s newspapers are published in countries where English has special status. • The mid-nineteenth century, saw a growth of newsagencies, e.g. the invention of the telegraph.

• By the emergence of the New York Association Press in 1856, the majority of the information being transmitted along the telegraph wires of the world was in English.4-Advertising:• Towards the end of the C19th,a combination of social and economic factors led to the dramaticIncrease in the use of advertisements inpublication, especially in the more industrial Countries.• Two third of the modern newspapers, especially in the USA, may be devoted to advertising

• During the C19th, the advertising slogan, became a feature of the medium, e.g. posters, billboards, electric displays, shop signs.• As international markets grew, the media began to travel the world.• American English ruled by 1972. So, only three of the world’s top thirty advertising agencies were not USA-owned. 5-Broadcasting:• In 1895, Marconi’s system carried telegraph code signals over one mile. Six years later, his signal has crossed the Atlantic Ocean. By 1918, they had reached Australia.

• English was the first language to be transmitted by radio.• Within 25 years, of Marconi’s first transmission, public broadcasting became reality.• The first commercial radio station broadcast was inPittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Its first programme was in November 1920. within 2 years, there were 500 broadcasting stations in the USA.• Similar dramatic expansion affected publictelevision twenty years later.This development of media has influence the growth of World English.

• There were over a thousand hour of a week of broadcasting by the BBC World Service, twice as much by the Voice of America.Most other countries showed sharp increase in external broadcasting during the post-war years, and many launched English-language radioprogrammes, e.g. Soviet Union, Italy, Japan, Luxembourg, The Netherlands, Sweden, Germany.

6-Motion Pictures:• The new technology that followed the discoveryof the electrical power has many roots in Europe and America during the C19th, with England and France initiated the artistic and commercial development of the cinema. During the First World War, there were a growth of the European film industry, then dominance passedto America. From 1915 there is emergence of the feature film, the star system, etc. which all based in Hollywood, California.

• In the 1920s English dominated the movie world. Despite the growth of film industry inother countries, English-language movies stilldominant , 80 per cent of all feature films are inEnglish.7-Popular Music:The English language was used when Thomas A. Edison in 1877 devised a phonograph.• All major recording companies in popular music had English language origins.

• By the turn of the century, Tin Pan Alley was soon known as worldwide as the chief source of US popular music, as well as Jazz which were all in English. Examples of Pop groups; Bill Haley, ElvisPresley in the USA, the Beatles and the Rolling Stones in the UK, and more which are the majorspread of English language among the youth.8-International Travel and Safety:• People who travel for holidays, business meeting, academic conference, etc. English language as an auxiliary language is used. E.g. safety instructions on international flights and sailings, hotels’ safety Information, directions to major location, etc.

• English has become the international language of the sea, in the form of Essential English for International Maritime Use (Seaspeak).• Airspeak is the language of international aircraft control, emerged after the Second World War, when the International Civil Aviation Organization was created,and it was agreed that English shouldbe the international: language for aviation when pilots and controllers speak different languages.

9-Education:• English is the medium of a great deal of the world’s knowledge, especially in areas wherescience and technology and access to knowledge is the business of education.• One reason that many nations have chosenEnglish as their chief foreign language in schools Is always education. • Since the 1960s, English has become the medium of instruction in higher education for manyCountries, e.g. Advance courses in The Netherlands are taught in English, all African countries use it in higher education.

• The English Language Teaching (ELT) business has become one of the major growth industries around the world in the past half century.10-Communications:Since English language is used in the postal and telephone systems, and the electronic networks,it took the task of communication.• Three quarter of the world’s mail is in English. The internet began as ASPANET, the AdvancedResearch Projects Agency network, in the late 1960s in USA. Its language then was English.

• The internet service was opened in1980s toprivate and commercial organizations. At the turnof the century, some 70% of usage –at least in the World Wide Web-was in English. However, morelanguages and non-English sites come online. (See table 4.2, p. 164)• English still holds the leading position, but Chinese is rapidly catching up. However, there are more highly-quality content on the internet in English than in other languages, e.g. Socialnetworking sites such as twitter.

English and Globalization

The relationship between language andglobalization is a two-way street:1-the increased mobility in society.2-many aspects (e.g. business organizations) of modern life which operate on a global rather thanlocal scale needs a common means ofcommunication. (activity 4.2, p. 164)

The Nature of English as a World Language• Political, social, and sociolinguistic issues accompany the diversity in the language.• What power and prestige are associated withthe new varieties of English? • The local usage of a language now is more prestigious than before, e.g. in New Zealand English of Maori words. The local words, now, are used at the prestigiouslevel of the society; by politicians, religiousleaders, pop musicians and others.

• Using the local words is then no longer is seen as ignorant within a country, it is respectable, it may be even cool.• Moving from the national to international levels, these people, whether politicians or pop stars, start travelling abroad, in an international gathering (political, educational, economic, artistic, etc.). They use words or phrases fromtheir own country which would not be found in the traditional standard British or American English.• Then, these days, regional national varieties of English are increasingly being used with prestige on the

international scene.

• These new Englishes are becoming standardized,as members of regional identity.• In such multilingual settings as Malaysia and Singapore, we encounter varieties which bring elements of different languages together, e.g. (code-mixing) and make use of informal features that would not be used in standard British or American English. • Conversation of this type, between well-educated people, is found in communities all over the English-speaking world, e.g. Singaporeans use of Singlish (a hybrid of English, Chinese and Malay) P. 169

An English Family of Languages?The intelligibility criterion traditionally provided little support for an English language family. However, sociolinguistics in recent decades find this explanation inadequate as it leaves out of consideration linguistic attitudes, and in particular, the criterion of identity. Because of this, it is argued that people from Sweden, Norway andDenmark speak different languages, notwithstanding the considerable amount of Intelligibility which exist between them.

• There are few examples of English generating varieties which are given totally different names.-There are some cases among the English-derivedpidgins and creoles (e.g. Tok Pisin, Gullah).-Example of some varieties; Ebonics a blend of Ebony and phonics, a variety of English spoken by African-Americans which was known as ‘Black Vernacular English’ or African-American Vernacular English (AAVE) (see p. 173-174)

• In all cases of emerging linguistic status such as Ebonics, the number of speakers involved has been the minority within a much larger sociopolitical entity. Compare this with countrieswhere the New English speakers are in a majorityand hold political power, or in occasion where new political relationships are being formed (e.g. EU). For instance, although several languages are co-official in the European Union, English is being the most widely used language. But To deal with mother tongueinterference between it’s members (Germans, French,Greeks, etc.) a novel variety of Euro-English emerged.

• A term which has been used for over a decade with reference to the distinctive vocabulary of the Union (with its ‘Eurofighters, Eurodollars, etc.) but which is now extend to include the various hybridaccents, grammatical constructions, and discourse patterns encountered there.• Jenkins (2007) argues that common patterns of non-native usage will emerge around the English-speaking world, resulting in a new version of English as a Lingua Franca (ELF)GO TO THE READING (P.178-186)