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7/28/2019 LIN5 Final

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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.

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