Linguistic imperialism

1. R.V. Routh, 1941. The diffusion of English culture outside England. A problem of post-war reconstruction. Cambridge University Press. A new career service is needed, for gentlemen teachers of English with equivalent status to ‘the Civil Service, Army, Bar, or Church’, an ‘army of linguistic missionaries’ a ‘central office in London, from which teachers radiate all over the world’. The new service must ‘lay the foundations of a world-language and culture based on our own’. mea culpa

3. Linguisticimperialism • interlocks withimperialismin culture, education, media, communication, economy, politics, military, … • exploitation, injustice, inequality, and hierarchy • structural: materialresources, infrastructure, … • ideological: beliefs, attitudes, imagery • hegemonic: internalised as normal and ’natural’ • unequalrightsfor speakers of differentlanguages • subtractive, consolidatingsomelanguages at the expense of others • a form of linguicism (cf. sexism, racism) • contested and resisted.

4. Examples • Suppressingregional languages(Welsh, Kurdish, …) • Colonialeducationpromoting European languages and neglectinglocallanguages • World Bank, British Council, Francophoniepoliciesfunding European languagesonly in ’Third World’, post-colonialcountries • Western models of educationbeingseen as universally relevant, as culturally ’neutral’ • English as a ’linguafranca’beingfraudulentlymarketed as ensuringequality in communication • Monolingualnative speakers of English posing as expertsonlanguagelearning.

5. Professional fallacies in British ’English Language Teaching’, ESL • the monolingual fallacy • the native speaker fallacy • the early start fallacy • the maximum exposure fallacy • the subtractive fallacy. Central to the global US-UK ELT and TESOL business, World Bank activities, etc. Phillipson, Linguisticimperialism, chapter 7, (Oxford UP, 1992, Shanghai, and Delhi)

6. EducationalTesting ServicesPrinceton, NJ • As ETS'swholly-ownedsubsidiary, ETS Global BV is structured to bring ETS'sexpertise and experiencewith tests, assessments, and related services to educational and business communitiesaround the world. ETS Global BV now has subsidiaries in Europe and Canada, and it willbeexpandingintoothercountries and regions as well. • Oursubsidiaries offer a full range of ETS products, services and learning solutions, including English languagelearningproducts and services Training and technical assistance Design, development and delivery of large-scaleassessments Test design and delivery. • Ourglobal mission goes far beyondtesting. Ourproducts and services enableopportunityworldwide by measuringknowledge and skills, promotinglearning and performance, and supportingeducation and professional development for all peopleworldwide.

7. Examples of ongoingprocesses of linguisticimperialism: the global English project • Elite formation in corporate globalisation • Marketing policies in post-communist world • ‘English-medium’ higher education • University commodification: universities in ‘English-speaking’ countries establish subsidiaries in Asia, Middle East; and at home become dependent on income from ‘foreign’ students • European Union advocacy of increased multilingualism is contradicted by many of their own practices and by the Bologna process

8. More examples of ongoingprocessesthatconsolidate the productEnglish • Academic productivity increasingly measured by bibliometricquantification that is supplanting quality, and restricting academic freedom. • The dominance of publishing in English is restrictingpublishing in otherlanguages. • In European schools and universities, French, German, the Slavic languages, etcarestudiedless as foreignlanguages. • UK-USA language policy scholars argue that the expansion of English, the English language product serves all equally well.

9. From linguistic imperialism to linguistic neoimperialism • economic, financial and educational McDonaldization • military force: English for ‘peace-keeping’ • a neoimperial world order largely constituted through English builds on English linguistic capital accumulation and the dispossession of other types of linguistic capital • contested and resisted • English serving anti-imperial purposes • EU language policy recommendations • Nordic governments advocate ‘parallel competence’ • Minority language rights & linguistic human rights • Critical scholarship: English as project/processes/product • China • International schools?

10. Whetherlinguisticimperialism is occurring in any given contextcanbeinvestigatedempirically See on the handout • section A, page 3, True or False Four statements thatexemplify the global English project • section D, page 4 the ninequestionsonconstituent elements of linguisticimperialism for exploration. Exemplification and a historicalperspectivefollow

12. Monolingualism in the British Isles(Geraint Jenkins, A concise history of Wales) The 1536 Act of Union with Wales entailed subordination to the ‘rights, laws, customs and speech of England... Since the English – whether government officials, religious reformers or moralists – presumed superior wisdom in matters associated with “civility” and “politeness”, it was thought prudent to ensure that a monoglot Welsh people living in “rude” and “dark” corners of the land should become familiar with the language and mores of the “civilising” English world’. The Welsh language survived because a 1563 Act decided that the Bible should be translated into Welsh. This played a decisive role in Christianising Wales and spreading literacy. Over 2,600 books were published in Welsh in the eighteenth century, whereas in Ireland and Scotland, Protestantism was propagated in English and the imposition of English was more thorough: ‘only 70 titles were published in the Scottish Gaelic language before 1800’.

13. UK - internal colonisationMatthew ArnoldHis Majesty’s Inspector of Schools, 1853 Whatever encouragement individuals may think it desirable to give to the preservation of the Welsh language on grounds of philological or antiquarian interest, it must be the desire of a government to render its dominions, as far as possible, homogeneous, and to break down barriers to the freest intercourse between the different parts of them. Sooner or later, the difference of language between Wales and England will probably be effaced, as has happened with the difference of language between Cornwall and the rest of England.

14. Antoine de Rivarol 1783Discours sur l'universalité de la langue française • le français, ayantreçu des impressions de tous les peuples de l'Europe, a placé le goûtdans les opinions modérées, et seslivrescomposent la bibliothèque du genre humain. • Cequin’est pas clairn’est pas français. Ce qui n'est pas clairest encore anglais, italien, grecoulatin. French, by absorbing input from all of Europe’s peoples, privileges taste through temperate opinions, and its books comprise the library of humanity. Whatever is unclear is not French; whatever is unclear is just English, Italian, Greek or Latin.

15. Rivarol’slegacy: Yves Marek, counsellor to Jacques Toubon, 1996, cited in Phillipson 2003, English-only Europe?... • Cequin’est pas clairn’est pas français. Ce qui n'est pas clairest encore anglais, italien, grecoulatin. • That which is not clear is not French; that which is not clear is just English, Italian, Greek or Latin. There is nodemand in France for the linguisticrights of so-calledminorities. Sincewe have nominoritiesweavoid the veryidea of discriminationbetweenso-calledminorities. […] Ourprinciplesareconfirmed at the level of the European Union.

16. Contrast Johann Wolfgang von Goethe’sWeltliteratur= texts in all languages enrich humanity and the individual withthe Anglo-American World English project, Global English,= global linguistic (neo)imperialism WerfremdeSprachennichtkennt, weißnichts von seiner eigenen... WerEnglischkennt, brauchtnichts von anderenSprachen. Those who know no foreign languages know nothing of their own. Thosewhoknow English needn’tbotherwithotherlanguages.

17. The USA: an empire,articulated since 1786 From the time of the USA declaring its independence, it has seen itself as a model for the world, with a divine mission to impose its values. George Washington saw the United States as a a ‘rising empire’, and ‘in 1786 wrote that, “However unimportant America may be considered at present … there will assuredly come a day when this country will have some weight in the scale of empires”. The address was read out in its entirety in Congress every February until the mid-1970s’.

18. Global = American manifest destiny of Anglo-Saxon culture to spread around the world 1830 President Woodrow Wilson stated during the First World War, ‘When the war is over, we can force them [the British] to our way of thinking, because by that time they will … be financially in our hands’. Global English is a project not a reality.

19. Winston Churchill • the British Empire and the United States who, fortunately for the progress of mankind, happen to speak the same language and very largely think the same thoughts. House of Commons, 24 August 1941 • The power to control language offers far better prizes than taking away people’s provinces or lands or grinding them down in exploitation. The empires of the future are the empires of the mind. Harvard University, 6 September 1943

20. Imperial USA The whole world should adopt the American system. The American system can survive in America only if it becomes a world system. President Harry Truman, 1947 We have 50 per cent of the world’s wealth, but only 6.3 per cent of its population. In this situation, our real job in the coming period is to devise a pattern of relationships which permit us to maintain this position of disparity. To do so, we have to dispense with all sentimentality … we should cease thinking about human rights, the raising of living standards, and democratisation. George Kennan, 1948

21. D. Armstrong in Harper’s Magazine 305, 2002 THE NEW AMERICAN CENTURY The plan is for the United States to rule the world. The overt theme is unilateralism, but it is ultimately a story of domination. It calls for the United States to maintain its military superiority and prevent new rivals from rising up to challenge it on the world stage. It calls for dominion over friends and enemies alike. It says not that the United States must be more powerful, or most powerful, but that it must be absolutely powerful.

22. David Hare, Stuff happens They [US leaders] know we [the British government] have voluntarily surrendered our wish for an independent voice in foreign affairs. Worse, we have surrendered it to a country which is actively seeking to undermine international organisations and international law. Lacking the gun, we are to be only the mouth. The deal is this: America provides the firepower. We provide the bullshit. David Hare 2005

23. Billedets websted eg Macaulay 1835Graddol 2010

24. Macaulay’s goal: ‘to create a class of persons, Indian in blood and colour, but English in taste, in opinions, in morals, and in intellect’ • denigrate and stigmatize the local ‘a single shelf of a good European library was worth the whole native literature of India and Arabia.’ • glorify one’s own culture and language English provides ‘ready access to all the vast intellectual wealth which all the wisest nations of the earth have created and hoarded in the course of ninety generations’ • Rationalize the asymmetrical relationship ‘India cannot have a free government. But she may have the next best thing – a firm and impartial despotism.’

25. The imperial context • Implement a technocratic mission • Ignore wider economic rationales and goals • Fail to address the context of military occupation. This was the foundation for education throughout the British colonial empire. How far are the underlying attitudes in force in ‘international’ educatiion?

26. Macaulay 1835 Graddol 2010 We have to educate a people who cannot at present be educated by means of their mother tongue. … the literaturenowextant … is of far greatervaluethan all the literaturewhich 300 yearsagowasextant in all the languages of the worldtogether. English is nowseen as a ’basicskill’ which all childrenrequireiftheyarefully to participate in 21st century civil society…. It cannowbeused to communicate to people from almostany country in the world … Weare fast movinginto a world in which not to have English is to bemarginalised and excluded.

27. The British Council goal (Annual Report 2009-10):to ensurethat English is used in everyhome in India • denigrate and stigmatize the local Education in India is inadequate • glorify one’s own culture and language English ‘a basic skill’, necessary for all • Rationalize the asymmetrical relationship You need British expertise to sort out Indian educational language learning problems David Graddol, English next India, British Council 2010

28. Current myths that Graddol draws on • English as a ‘global’ language • English ‘the language of business across Europe’ • Continental European universities are shifting from local languages to English • There is a global consensus on how English should be learned • The early start fallacy

29. Gandhi To give millions a knowledge of English is to enslave us.

31. EU, European integration:a Franco-German agenda, or …? The process of European integration might never have come about had it not been imposed on Europe by the Americans. Erik Holm, 2001. The European anarchy. Europe’s hard road into high politics. Copenhagen: Copenhagen Business School Press PascalineWinand, 1993. Eisenhower, Kennedy, and the United States of Europe. New York: St Martin’s Press. 2007 EU-US summit endorsed the Transatlantic Economic Integration Plan and the coordination of foreign policy globally

32. Diversity in whatunity? The Union shallrespectcultural, religiousand linguisticdiversity. Artícle22, The Charter of Fondamental Rights of the European Union

33. Emotional! Explosive! Es gibt in der EU keinemotionaleresThema als Sprachen. Wilhelm Schönfelder, Head of Mission for Germany at the EU, cited in SüddeutscheZeitung, 1 April 2005 Un sujet quipeutêtrequalifiéd’explosif en Europe. Pierre Lequiller, Président, réunionouverte à l’ensemble des membresfrançais du ParlementEuropéen, le 11 juin 2003.

34. Linguisticunification of Europe? The most serious problem for the European Union is that it has so many languages, this preventing real integration and development of the Union. USA ambassador to Denmark, Mr Elton, 1997 English should be the sole official language of the European Union. Director, British Council, Germany, 26 February 2002, in Frankfurter AllgemeineZeitung

35. EU CommissionPromoting language learning and linguistic diversity: An Action Plan 2004-2006, 24 July 2003 • learning one lingua franca alone is not enough • English alone is not enough • In non-anglophone countries recent trends to provide teaching in English may have unforeseen consequences on the vitality of the national language.

36. Fluidity in language policy in Europe • unresolved tension betweenlinguisticnationalism (monolingualism), EU institutionalmultilingualism, and English becoming dominant in the EU • competing agendas at the European, state (national), and sub-statallevels • increasinggrassroots and elite bi- and multilingualism, except in the UK and among the older generation in demographically large EU countries, • largelyuncritical adoption of englishisation, linguaeconomica/americana • rhetoric of languagerights, some national and supranational implementation, and advocacy of linguisticdiversity.

37. The Bologna process towards a single European higher education and research area by 2010 • implements structural synchronisation, • endorses neoliberalism, • advocates privatisation of university funding, • wants accountability to the corporate world. The communiqués from the bi-annual meetings of Ministers of Higher Education and Research never refer to language policy. Implicitly this means that ’internationalisation’ is seen as ’English-medium higher education’.

38. Nordic government policy:the parallel use of English and Nordic languages • that it be possible to use both the languages of the Nordic countries essential to society and English as languages of science • that the presentation of scientific results in the languages of the Nordic countries essential to society be rewarded • that instruction in scientific technical language, especially in written form, be given in both English and the languages of the Nordic countries essential to society • that universities, colleges, and other scientific institutions can develop long-range strategies for the choice of language, the parallel use of languages, language instruction, and translation grants within their fields …

39. Universityof Helsinki language policy The language policy is in Finnish, Swedish, and English. … University Language Policy is based on the following strategic precepts: Languages are a resource within the academic community. • The University’s bilingual and multilingual environment and internationalisation are sources of enrichment for all and are a necessity for the international comparability of its research performance. • Language skills are a means to understanding foreign cultures and for making Finnish culture known to others. The university promotes the language proficiency of its students and staff as well as supports their knowledge of different cultures. Multilingual and multicultural communities promote creative thinking.

41. Plan • Confession – and let’s not be defensive • Linguistic imperialism, approach, with examples of continuities in imperialist discourse over time • A historical perspective • The transition from colonial linguistic imperialism to contemporary linguistic neoimperialism • European Union language policy • Implications for ‘international’ schools