Angelica Sanchez 1

Angelica Sanchez June 9, 2013 CMN5/LIN5 Vaidehi Ramanathan/Patrick Farrell

What comes to mind at the mention of the English language? Initially the general flow of thoughts that form simply relate to the boundaries within the United States. However through many readings and lectures, English reveals several layers of meaning and understanding by taking a worldwide perspective. Different themes arise that surround the topic of English. For instance, whether the native and nonnative standards of speaking still hold, whether English will eventually disappear or stay constant, whether we understand English in both global and local ways and the overall influence of English around the world. All these themes brought up many realizations and insights into the multiple factors of the English language. Three significant themes served to expose the English language as one of much influence as well as concerns throughout the world. For instance, I will focus on whether English should be globalized or not and if its globalizations is already in progress, whether people hold certain discriminatory language attitudes and whether English is one language or many languages. Specifically, the question arises if the worlds nations have already begun driving English into the globalization process. I selected this theme because it made me realize the major influence that English already has on other countries around the world. For one, English is definitely in a globalization process in which many countries adopted English as a predominant foreign language in various domains of society such as, politics, economics, the press, advertising, broadcasting, motion pictures, popular music, international travel and safety,

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education and communications (Crystal 426). Indeed, Crystal points out that, so many countries have found it useful to adopt English as a medium of communication, either for internal or external purposes (Crystal 427). English has become such an integral part of some cultures where English is not their native language. In fact, from the term research paper I discovered that the Korean cultures education system integrates English for a major part of the curriculum all the way up to high school. Some Korean companies even hold all their interviews using only English. This language phenomenon leaves few doubt of whether English has begun to globalize or not. With the English language diving into a point where it almost becomes a requirement for successful careers how can skeptics reject the notion of English globalization? Many skeptics do point out that English has much less speakers than does Chinese Mandarin or Spanish. However, they fail to consider that more and more people are striving to learn English for various purposes. Jennifer Jenkins even suggests that, English has spread well beyond its use as a second or additional language in the countries s of the Outer Circle, to be adopted as an international lingua franca by many countries in the Expanding Circle for whom it performs no official internal functions (Jenkins 38-39). Also, education serves a major reason for people to learn English. People are either learning English from the beginning of their education or later decide to study English. For instance, the PAL partners I conversed with shared that they had in fact begun learning English in their elementary school years and even decided to continue improving by coming to America to study the language. This is something I had not considered before in the way that English influences spread all throughout the world. This theme is significant because it made me realize that the spread of English into other culture forces both positive and negative consequences onto those people.

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Furthermore, many people wonder if English should take on the role as the global standard language through which everyone should communicate. This possibility although presents many benefits, it also creates great concerns because of the affect it will have on those whose native language is not English. Because language carries a sense of culture and even reflects it, this is almost a form of imposing ones own culture to other cultures whose native language is not English. However, many argue that officially making English the global language would reap many benefits in terms of communication. For instance, they suggest that communication between people would be much more fluent; this is significant in many areas of life such as education, economics and politics, as well as other special situations. In situations of emergency where fluent communication is crucial, having this set standard language would definitely prevent hazardous situations. For example in situations of aviation environment, the differences in language and language proficiency prove to be unsafe and dangerous. Atushi Tajima discusses this in an article about the fatal communication that may occur in aviation, Since ATC is a communicative space that involves numerous people having different Englishes, in terms of both different degrees of proficiency and different local influences, how to establish a mistake-free standard English is always a crucial consideration (Tajima 467). Tajima agrees that establishing a standard of English would create a safer environment in terms of proper and efficient communication. Further, the education environment also requires suitable communication as a crucial factor of the learning experience for students. For instance, American universities and colleges are highly making use of the Teaching Assistant to either aid students in their understanding of the coursework or to instruct a class. However, the problem that many students face with this system is the fact that many of the teaching assistants are

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international graduate students. The students have difficulties understanding many of the ITAs variety of English, These non-native speaking (NNS) TAs may lack a clear understanding of their role within the American educational system. Thus both linguistic and cultural differences contribute to the difficulties faced by foreign TAs. Consequently, the interaction between non-native speaking teaching assistants and their students is complicated and sometimes problematic. The communication difficulties engendered by this situation are collectively labeled the foreign TA problem (Bailey 3). By globalizing English as the standard global language, the American education system would eliminate this issue of communication between the ITA and the students; thus, eliminating the foreign TA problem. Therefore, establishing English around the world serves many positive benefits that resolve some important issues; however, there are still major concerns about the people whose native language is not English. The process of making English the official global language would require much discriminatory action against these cultures. For instance, in the case of the PAL partners I conversed with, both partners suggested a survivalist type of approach to the world of academia and work because it was necessary in order to develop a successful career. They were almost forced to learn English because without having fluent skill of communicating in English, they would suffer greatly as in the job hunt. This situation only reveals a glimpse of the unjust situations that many NNS of English would find themselves in if English were to be established as the standard global language. Subsequently, this brings up another theme and major issue of language attitudes; many people hold certain attitudes to some other languages or different World English varieties. I

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selected this theme because it made me realize that these attitudes are connected to the essence of power and thus can actually harm those whose native language is stigmatized. For instance, most people tend to juxtapose the World Englishes with the Inner Circle English varieties and in fact relate some varieties of English with lower levels of intelligence or simply undesirable. Specifically, from the group presentation on pidgins and creoles, the video on Hawaiian English pidgin exposes a general negative attitude toward their language. The video displays an image of a 1987 newspaper that reads, Panel urges pidgin ban in schools. The negative attitude is so deeply rooted that those who are in power even take actions to prevent further people from learning this language in the education setting, thus deemed as improper. By preventing the education of the language there arises the implication that the panel which has power tries to impose their negative view of the Hawaiian pidgin language on the general population. Although in this specific case the Hawaiian pidgin language has such deeps roots in their culture that most of them continued to view their language as desirable, the influence of the powerful has even pushed their negative mentality of certain language varieties onto the speakers of those languages. For example, Jenkins mentions the L2 Hong Kong English speakers approach to their own form of speech, While its existence is often acknowledged, it is apparently not the variety to which many L2 Hong Kong English speakers aspire. Instead, they remain attached to British English norms of correctness, and, despite the fact that Hong Kong English is often categorized as an Outer Circle English some see it as belonging in the Expanding Circle (Jenkins 155). This type of attitude towards their own English variety reveals a deeper influence when it comes to those who are in power to the weaker nations. When it comes to learning English many people view their accents or their English variety very undesirable and even apologize for the way they speak English. Some of these ESL learners compare their English variety with the Englishes of

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the Inner Circle varieties and aspire to transform their speech to that of the Inner Circle Englishes because it reflects a intelligent and attractive persona. For example, in my research, while conversing with my PAL partners, they both apologized for their speech or instances where there was a lack of intelligibility; they even asked for help with proper pronunciation. Their behavior implied that they viewed the American variety of English as proper and their own as undesirable and incorrect. Finally, in relation to the idea of proper English and incorrect English, a major theme of the course questions whether English is one language or many languages. I picked this theme because I came to realize that there isnt one set standard of English that define the proper English but instead there are various varieties of English languages. Language is defined as the method through which humans communicate consisting of a structured and conventional way. Therefore, the different varieties of English found throughout the world constitute as their own language because they consist of a certain structure pertaining to each English variety. For instance, they have characteristics of being separate languages that Zoya G. Proshina suggests that Translation and interpretation from English as a Lingua Franca used by non-native communicators often requires specific knowledge of transference phenomena from the speaker/writers native language into English, as well as of contrastive typology of the two languages (Proshina 91). The different English varieties structure stems from characteristics of the native language. The influence of the native language onto the English variety imposes major divergence from the norms of the Inner Circle Englishes. However, some might argue that English represents only one language because the different varieties are equally intelligible. Yet there are many varieties of English that are quite difficult to grasp for instance, in a discussion section, we were presented with a movie clip which depicted a type of English variety that in fact

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required subtitles in order to be understood. In addition some might also argue that all the different varieties are based on the sole language of English and therefore all constitute a single language. However, the same situation occurs with the Latin languages. From the first lecture we can see that the variety of languages such as Spanish, Italian, French, Portuguese and others, all base their foundation on the characteristics and meanings of the Latin language, yet they all represent separate languages. Indeed, the course developed many themes surrounding the topic of language and English. Some of these themes include the instant rise of English worldwide, the idea of English as a global lingua franca, and the debate on whether English will continue to progress and eventually disappear into separate languages or if it will remain constant. These themes allowed for many realizations into the type of influence that English has throughout the world and the major ways that it can affect other cultures. English has started the process of globalization throughout the world and as a result the essence of power has helped create negative attitudes towards certain types of English. This implies that English, as the root foundation, represents not just one but many different languages. Perhaps, as the norms of the English we recognize continue to progress, the language will continue to bring forth other English languages and the notion of the proper English will disappear.