Personal Response
English as a Global Language
The article entitled ‘College for Chinese culture opens’ dated 12 March 2007 is an example of how different cultures, in this case the Chinese culture is trying to promote their language through the building of Confucius Institutes such as the one stated in the article, the recently built Confucius Institute in Lampeter University, the first of its kind in Wales. However, this is only one of the 100 similar institutes which China aims to establish throughout the world by 2010. Thus, we may ask why is there the need for them to promote their language? This article is an example to show how the spread of English as a lingua franca for business, entertainment and other activities globally is forcing other countries to promote their language aggressively too.
“In South-east Asia, the response to globalisation is to acquire language skills, not in many languages, but in one, the English language, which is seen as the key to success in the globalised age,” said Dr Rujaya Abhakorn, a lecturer in South-east Asian history at Chiang Mai University, Thailand. It is a fact that there is the emergence of English language as a global language in the world today, English is the dominant medium of communication around the world, the language of business, technology, science, the internet, popular entertainment and sports. In academia, almost 50 percent of all research is published in English; in some science fields, virtually all studies are published in English. There is no doubt that English is the dominant global language in the world, and this can be seen in the explosion in the general demand for English. For example, in China, there are 600 000 new enrolments in private conversation schools every four to six months.
China is not the only country which is trying to increase its use of English in the increasingly globlalized world, countries such as Mongolia are making significant attempts to increase the use of English in their countries. In Mongolia, English is seen not only as a way of communicating, but as a way of opening windows to the wider world and is viewed as the ticket to future economic progress, and as an expansion of international understanding. There is a nationwide drive to make English the primary foreign language learned in Mongolia. Furthermore, the government has embarked on a national program of teaching English in all elementary and high schools. The goal is to make Mongolia, a nation of 15 million people bilingual in English within a generation. Mongolia, being a country thousands of kilometers away from the nearest English-speaking nation thus reflects the steady march of English as a world language. Therefore, it is an undeniable fact that due to the growing dominance of U.S. culture and the financial realities of globalization, English is now taking hold in many parts of the world including Asia, just as it has done in many European countries.
However, how far are the countries in the world willing to go in their attempt to ensure that English is the language spoken by its citizens, especially in this era of globalization? What will be the impacts faced by the world? “English is all too often seen as a Tyrannosaurus Rex that voraciously gobbles up cultures and traditions” quoted from Prof Joseph Lo Bianco, director of The National Language and Literacy Institute of Australia. In a way, he has a point; as people in the world start speaking more in English, they tend to speak less of their local languages. Thus, various countries have made attempts to control this issue, such as through the building of the Confucius institutes mentioned earlier, which is an attempt made by the government in China to ensure that Chinese continues to be a language spoken in the world.
Thus, globalization has resulted in the increasing emergence of programmes and activities which aim to ensure that people keep in touch with their local languages. Besides China, such programmes and activities take place locally, in Singapore. For example, Singapore started the ‘Speak Mandarin Campaign’ and the ‘Bulan Bahasa’ to encourage its people, in this particular case, the Chinese and Malays to continue to speak their languages. Similar programmes exist in the world, such as France’s ‘Alliance Francais’ and Germany’s ‘Goethe institutes’, all of which have many centres spread throughout the world. Returning to the case of Confuscius institutes, these show that China is working very hard to promote its language overseas and trying to expand the use of its language on a global scale. Hundreds of teachers have been sent to Africa, and since 2004, China has also set up Confucius Institutes around the world, actively promoting Mandarin Chinese. China’s response to English’s global control, especially through the use of its language, is the first goal of Confucius Institutes. Therefore, all these show how countries and their governments are involved in promoting and preserving their local languages in response to the popularity of English.
In my opinion, it is important that there is a common medium of communication in the world, however one must stay true to one’s roots and should not neglect one’s local language. Furthermore, English can act as a neutral link for nations split along ethnic lines. In the case of Iraq, where Arabic and Kurdish are to be official languages, there is a growing movement to add English. The need to learn English will encourage people to be bilingual and thus expose themselves to foreign languages, widening their experiences. This is because, people who used to be able to make their way in the world as monolingual English speakers are now finding that they have got to compete with people who are genuinely multilingual.
Signing off,
Warda
Cultural Expert
Future Perfect; Cultural Expert
5:55 AM
