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The Language of the Internet: English Dominance or Heteroglossia?

The Language of the Internet: English Dominance or Heteroglossia?. Susan C. Herring Indiana University, Bloomington Keynote presentation, Cultural Attitudes towards Technology and Communication Conference (CATaC), Université de Montréal, July 13, 2002. The Internet.

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The Language of the Internet: English Dominance or Heteroglossia?

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  1. The Language of the Internet:English Dominance or Heteroglossia? Susan C. Herring Indiana University, Bloomington Keynote presentation, Cultural Attitudes towards Technology and Communication Conference (CATaC), Université de Montréal, July 13, 2002

  2. The Internet • Popular communication medium • Developed in the United States • ARPANET 1969-1990 • Internet 1983- • Graphical Web browsers 1993- • Rapid global spread since the mid-1990s • global Internet population predicted to reach one billion by 2005(Foley, 2000)

  3. Language • ~6,000 distinct languages spoken in the world today • 96% of the world’s population speaks 40% of the languages (Nettle & Romaine, 2000) • Carrier of culture: history, knowledge, ritual, values, verbal art, world view, etc. • Subject to macro-social forces within the global linguistic ecology. Languages can beborn, maintained, revived and die (Mülhäusler, 1996).

  4. The Internet and Language Change • Medium effects • Acceleration of change • Convergence/homogenization (Baron, 1984; Herring, 1998; Rowe, fc)

  5. Question: • What will be the effects of the Internet on the global linguistic ecology?

  6. The Internet will increase (accelerate) the global dominance of English. Dominance; convergence Other languages will eventually (soon) catch up to or surpass English on the Internet. Heteroglossia Two Views:

  7. Trends pre-dating the Internet • Global spread of English • Loss of minority languages dominance

  8. 1. Global Spread of English • Stable population of first-language English speakers (around 350 million) • English as a second and foreign language has grown dramatically since 1950 (750 million; Strevens, 1992) • Crystal (1985) estimated 1-2 billion people have some ability in English (world pop = 4 billion) • English is the global lingua franca of aviation, business, diplomacy, higher education, mathematics, science, technology, etc.

  9. Global Spread of English (cont.) • “In the extent and diversity of its uses, English is matched by no other present or past language of our species.” - Manfred Görlach, More Englishes, 1995 • “There is no retreat from English as the world language; no retreat from an English-speaking world.” - Sridath Ramphal, Co-chairman, Commission on Global Governance, 1995 Report

  10. Advantages of a global language • Economical and efficient • Saves translation costs • Facilitates trade, knowledge exchange, international cooperation (e.g., aviation standards) • Facilitates cross-cultural communication • Reduces misunderstandings • Reduces global conflict (cf. Eco, 1995)

  11. Problems with a global language • Has never truly been achieved • Artificial languages resisted because lack social identification • Real languages resisted because of fear of dominance by native speakers • Gives social, economic, political and cultural advantage to (native) speakers of global language • If widely adopted, could reduce importance of other languages • Risk of monoculture, loss of cultural diversity

  12. 2. Loss of Minority Languages • Half the known languages in the world have vanished in the last 500 years (Nettle & Romaine, 2000) • By 2100, 3,000 of the remaining 6,000 languages will perish; 2,400 will become near-extinct (Hale, 1998) • Mostly small, indigenous languages (vs. national or international languages) are being lost

  13. Importance of Minority Languages • Linguistic human rights • Speak mother tongue • Be educated in mother tongue • Use functions of government in mother tongue • Language as repository of culture/cultural diversity • Ecological balance/Biolinguistic diversity • Smallest languages are most complicated, hence interesting for study (e.g., Hale, 1998; Mülhäusler, 1996; Nettle & Romaine, 2000; Skatnab-Kanggas, 1995)

  14. Prima facie Internet evidence • Historical primacy of English on the Internet dominance • Rapid global spread of the Internet heteroglossia

  15. 1. Historical primacy of English and U.S. culture • Technological • Fonts, code, browsers, search engines, etc. (Yates, 1996) • Communicative practices • Flaming (Meyers-Hagen, 1996), mixed-sex chat (Wheeler, 2001), etc. • Cultural values • Individualism, free market capitalism, etc. (Mattelart, 1996)

  16. Browser language settings English 72% Spanish 11% German 5% French 3% Japanese 1% Other 8% (Source: Lake, 2001)

  17. Historical primacy: Assumptions • The design of a technology reflects the biases of its designers (McDonough, 1999) • First practices established within a domain set the norms for the domain (The Founder Principle, Mufwene, 1996) BUT: • Users can adapt technologies to their own purposes • Norms evolve over time

  18. 2. Global spread of the Internet • “Chinese to Become #1 Web Language by 2007.” (Accenture Consulting advertisement) • As of January 2000, 13.4% of Web pages were in languages other than English, speakers of which comprise 50.1% of Internet population (Global Reach, 2000). Number of sites predicted to rise by 60% in 2006; number of non-English speaking users by 150% (Jones, 2001)

  19. (Source: Global Reach, 2000)

  20. (Source: Global Reach, 2000)

  21. Global spread: Assumptions • Other language speakers will use their native languages online, rather than English • English is not dominant if other language speakers are more numerous than English language speakers BUT: • Many other language speakers currently use English online • English is over-represented in Internet demographic projections relative to number of native English speakers

  22. Compelling evidence that the Internet fosters the spread of English • Increased frequency of English use by non-native speakers who use the Internet • Spread of English to communicative contexts that normally favor the native language • Influence of English on native language (e.g., borrowing, calquing, language mixing) through Internet use • Enhanced prestige of English relative to native language among Internet users

  23. 1. Frequency of English use • Predominance of English-language Web sites (Carvin, 2001) • Non-native speakers create English-language Web sites (Russians - Travica & Olson, 1998)

  24. Native speakers per Web page

  25. 2. Language choice in communicative context Expected: • With English speakers (English) • With non-English speakers (English) • With speakers of their own language (native language) Observed: • Some diasporic communities communicate online mostly in English (Koreans - Kim, 1999; South Asians - Paolillo, 1996)

  26. 3. Influence of English on other languages • Borrowing of English computing terms such as ‘software’, ‘download’, ‘chat’, ‘Web’ into other languages (Slovak - Nemková, 1998; Catalan - Yzaguirre, 2000) • Use of English CMC conventions such as emoticons and acronyms in online chat and discussion forums in other languages (Catalan - Torres Vilatarsana, 2001; Swedish - Hård af Segerstad, 2000) • Mixing of English with other languages in email and chat (Greek - Georgakopoulou, fc; Hindi - Paolillo, 1996, fc)

  27. 4. Prestige of English • Korean youth learning English more because of Internet cachet, future employment opportunities (Yoon, 2001)

  28. Compelling evidence that the Internet fosters linguistic diversity • New languages form on the Internet (invented languages, pidgins & creoles, rapid language evolution) • Small languages get larger; dying languages revive • All existing languages are used online

  29. 1. New languages form on the Internet • “Netspeak” (Crystal, 2001) • Pidginization of English language as a result of use by non-native speakers (Raley, 1998; Travica & Olson, 1998). Cf. Simplified English (Mills & Caldwell, 1997); World English (Microsoft) • Rapid language evolution (private sibling lect - Rowe, fc)

  30. 2. Dying languages revive • Preservation and revitalization efforts by linguists (Buszard-Welcher, 1999; Algonquian - Whalen et al., 2000) • The Internet gives “voice” to minority languages, functions as a vehicle of political empowerment (e.g., Basque, Catalan)

  31. (Source: Carvin, 2000)

  32. 3. Existing languages come online CLAIMS: • Democratic access, low publication cost, seemingly limitless space: room for all, regardless of viability of language • Machine translation will insure mutual intelligibility BUT: • Minority languages will be last to come online due to cost, lack of literacy (Ethnologue, 2001) • Machine translation is difficult; only available for major languages

  33. Predictions • The Internet will promote and accelerate the spread of English • The Internet will reflect linguistic diversity, and be a potential source of empowerment for minority language groups • Linguistic diversity will decrease overall, consistent with pre-Internet trends

  34. Alternative Models • Global diglossia = English + local language (Yzaguirre, personal comm.) • Oligopoly of world languages, each with regional base (Graddol, 1997) • English + Spanish + Chinese + Arabic? Russian? Hindi?

  35. The world language hierarchy in 2050? (Graddol, 1997) The big languagesCHINESE, HINDI/URDU,ENGLISH, SPANISH, ARABIC_______________________________Regional languages(The languages of major trade blocs)ARABIC, ENGLISH, CHINESE, MALAY, RUSSIAN, SPANISH_____________________________________________National languagesAround 90 languages serve around 220 nation states___________________________________________________________Local languagesThe remainder of the world’s 1000 or fewer languages with varying degrees of official recognition_____________________________________________________________________________________________

  36. A caveat on language, culture and dominance • Language is a carrier of culture, but it is rarely the driving force behind cultural domination: that is rather political, economic, religious and/or social • Absent the dominating force, an imposed language becomes a potential resource for the advancement of its speakers, e.g., French in post-Norman England; English in post-colonial India • English will “dominate” – and be a vehicle for US cultural dominance – only as long as the Internet is associated with the US. This may already be changing, as the Internet is adopted by other cultures.

  37. Need for diachronic research on • Linguistic usage on the Internet • Languages of Web pages • CMC in languages other than English

  38. Need for diachronic research on • Technology/language interface • Languages available in search engines, Web browsers, etc. • Machine translation • Unicode and other standards

  39. Need for diachronic research on • Socio-historical mechanisms of language change • Contact, convergence, divergence • Political, economic, technical and cultural forces that drive language expansion and loss

  40. Need for diachronic research on • Social aspects of technology and culture • Technology adoption, diffusion and use • Expression of culture through technology • Impact of technology on individual cultures

  41. The End

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