Language is the dress of thought.

Samuel

Johnson
language is the means of getting an idea

from my brain into yours without surgery. Mark Amidon

Learn a new language and get a new soul.

Cezch proverb.
Language forces us to perceive the world as

man present it to us. Julia Penelope

GLOBAL LANGUAGE AND THIRD WORLD LITERATURE

FATIMA BOUZENIRH

Outline
Introduction I. Global Language?

II. English in African Literature: reactions. III. Implications for teaching

Conclusion

Introduction:
Proverbs as an example of conveying culture and identity. The writer takes for granted the existence of a global

language. If then the use of global lge has benefits: how can that be applied to the teaching in Morocco? How can the Moroccan student benefit from global lge? Three aspects: 1) A definition of the global language; 2) The function of English in relation to Third World Literature; 3) The teaching of the foreign language for creative global purposes.

I- Global Language?
A language achieves a genuinely global status when it develops a special role that is recognized in every country [....] To achieve such a status, a language has to be taken up by other countries around the world. They must decide to give it a special place within their communities [...J ." (Crystal, 1997 : 2-3).

There are two ways to achieve transnational communication : (i) By making it the official language of a country where it is not the mother tongue. (ii) By making it a priority in a country's foreign language teaching, even though the language has no official status as is the case of English in China, Egypt...

Why accept a foreign language?

One of the reasons for favouring a foreign language is the desire for:
POLITICAL

Commercial

Contact

Cultural

Technological

What is the status of the mother tongue then?

The foreign lge is only complementary? My mother

tongue is defficient, weak? Cannot do the job? Lkhdar Ghazal (1997) : Multilinguilism within Arabisation! The condition is : Mother Tongue must be given the same power and prestige as the foreign language and must be accepted as having the same power of communication as the SL or FL.

Mother Tongue

FL & SL

FL & SL
Mother Tongue

II- English in African Literature :

Debate : in which language to write?

African writers created a contradictory situation.

Reactions

Radical

Moderate

Radical Reaction:
Ngugi (1986) voices the most radical reaction in

Decolonizing the Mind: The Politics of Language in African Literature./ Gikuyu The question: "Why should an African writer become so obsessed by taking his mother tongue to enrich other tongues? We never asked ourselves how can we enrich our language? Why not "prey" on the rich humanist democratic heritage in the struggle of other people in other times and other places to enrich our own?

Three assumptions:
The use of European languages perpetuation of the colonial control. Colonial alienation: "an active (or passive) distancing of oneself from the reality around, and an active (or passive) identification with that which is most external to one's environment. Foreign language: formal. Mother tongue: vulgar, daily interaction.
1.

2) There is a contradiction in the fact of expressing oneself

in a language carrying foreign values and culture to discuss the colonial and post-colonial unease. 3) Audience: masses of peasantry and the working class. the only adequate way of addressing this audience is through the use of African languages as the only legitimate vehicle of awareness leading to "revolutionary" unity against the neo-colonial danger.

Fanon (1952)
A man who has a language consequently

possesses the world expressed and implied by that language" (qtd. in Rusell, postcolonial Web).

Phillipson (1992)
The power which is expressed in the English language

and is then reinforced by English language teaching professionals around the world, can be more exactly and scientifically identified as linguistic imperialism.
He suggests that both power and ideology reside

(apparently, innately) in the language of English.

Crystal (1997)
Without a strong power-base, whether political, military or economic, no language can make progress as an international medium of communication. Language has no independent existence, living in some sort of mystical space apart from the people who speak it.

Nevertheless, though it is legitimate, Ngugi's project

raises other crucial issues : a. literacy in the African language b. the type of communication across the continent c. the aspect of how to ensure the widest circulation of materials d. Writing in African literature in Indigenous Languages leads to the isolation and the marginalization of the African writer.

Moderate Reaction
International language becomes no longer the language

of its ancestors. Achebe: - African writers should aim at fashioning out an English which is at once universal and able to carry his peculiar experience

Jones
Subscribing to the same view, Jones speaks about the

"looting" of the English language by Soyinka and stresses

the creative test to which the modem African writer is put.

This test is : "To be faithful to his own inspiration whatever language and whatever medium he happens to be using."
- The focal is not on What language but on Who it is used. - Who creative one can be in using FL ?

 Seen in this perspective, the creative use of the foreign

language means the incorporation of personal experiences -a method which can be decoded by local and external audience alike. FL can be colored, shaped by the writers Culture, world view, tradition .

 The end product of this creative use of the foreign

language, does not necessarily result in pidginization or 'couscoussization??? Yet, Using FL for creative global purpose implies full mastery of the language and of the limits to which it can be extended to accommodate new experiences and thought patterns .

 This aspect is described by Achebe as follows : "For the

African, writing in English is not without its serious set backs. He often finds himself describing situation and modes of thought which have no direct equivalent in the English way of life. Two ways : 1- To keep what he wants to say with the limit and the conventions of FL= produce fiat work 2- Push these limit further to accommodate your ideas= produce something new

III-Implication:
African writer can still be himself herself and retain

his/her identity while using the foreign language for creative global purposes. (e.g Achebe, Aidoo, and Armah)
This can translated by teaching students who to rebel

linguistically.
to achieve this,

teaching focus not just on the conventional aspect of the language but on stylistic possibilities present in both the mother tongue and the foreign language.

 The importance of socio-linguistics in making the students aware of the possibilities open to the African writer in such areas as the exploration of language variation, which leads to awareness of the creative possibilities of the local languages. (Bouzenirh, 1996: 236-237). Language awareness:
1) The learner must first be steeped in his own culture and language. 2) rewriting vs. structural exercises 3) Close analysis of literary texts for the way language conveys messages

Conclusion
All in all, the aim of using GL in Literature is to convey new messages and experiences to the general reader. It is a way to escape from the dreaded unified system of imposed values underlying globalization. Teaching creative global purposes would led to the acceptance of and dialogue with third world culture than to its marginalization or rejection. Moroccan students must be prepared to face the full weight of his culture.

References
Crystal, D. (1997). English as a Global Language (2nd Ed). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Davies, A, & Elder, C. (Eds.).(2004). The handbook of applied linguistics. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing. Fanon, F. (1952). White skin, black masks (C. L. Markmann, trans.).(1967). New York: Grove Press. Zaki,A., Belaraj,M., Najbi,M. & Zizi,K. (Eds.)(2001). Proceedings from ESP and the Challenges of Globalisation :The First Mediterranean ESP Conference. Tangier: MATE Association.