The state of English as a global language: Communicating culture

Textual Practice

Volumn 18, Issue 1, 2004, Pages 1-22

  Kayman, Martin A ^a  

^a CARDIFF UNIVERSITY   (United Kingdom)

Author keywords

Communication; Cultural Politics; English; Globalisation; Lingua Franca; Linguistic Imperialism

Indexed keywords

EID: 50549091357     PISSN: 0950236X     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1080/0950236032000140131     Document Type: Article

References (65)

1. RichardMorgan, 'The role of English language teaching: linguistic imperialism or linguistic empowerment?', online posting, TESL-L list for English Language Pedagogy (September to October, 2001), \http://www-writing.berkeley. edu/TESL-EJ/ej21/f1.html[, last accessed 11 April 2003.
2. David Crystal, English as a Global Language (Cambridge: CambridgeUniversity Press, 1997), p. 1.
3. See also the classic statement on 'The ownership of English' by H.G. Widdowson in TESOL Quarterly, 28.2 (1994), pp. 377-89.
4. Edmund Spenser, letter 'To my long approoued and singular good frende, Master G.H.' [1580], in Spenser's Prose Works, ed. Rudolf Gottfried (Baltimore, MD: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1949), p. 16.
5. 'English First', at \http://www.englishfirst.org/
6. ['US English', at \http://www.us-english.org/[; both sites last accessed 11 April 2003.
7. Crystal, English as a Global Language, p. ix.
8. Edmund Spenser, 'A view of the present state of Ireland' [1596], in Gottfried, Spenser's Prose Works, p. 119.
9. It is not incidental that the first test of the 1994 'Toubon' law (law no. 94-665, 4 August 1994), requiring all advertising in France to include at least a French translation, should have been against the Georgia Institute of Technology's French campus' website, in 1997. There are of course other problems, particularly when dealing with a language which, although not anglophone, is none the less an imperial language. See e.g. Brian Weinstein, 'Francophonie: purism at the international level', in The Politics of Language Purism, ed. Bjorn H. Jernudd andMichael J. Shapiro (Berlin and New York:Mouton de Gruyter, 1989), pp. 53-79.
10. Sir John Hanson, review of Alastair Pennycook, The Cultural Politics of English as an International Language, The Times Higher Educational Supplement (7 July 1995).
11. Revd E.A. Abbott, 'On teaching the English language', Lectures on Education. Delivered before the Members of the College of Preceptors in the Year 1871 (London, 1872), Vol. I, p. 3.
12. Deborah Cameron, Verbal Hygiene (London: Routledge, 1995), p. 8.
13. Sir Philip Sidney, An Apology for Poetry [1595], ed.Geoffrey Shepherd (London: Nelson, 1965), p. 140.
14. See Ian Michael, The Teaching of English: From the Sixteenth Century to 1870 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987).
15. [Anon.], The Gem Book of Poesie; to aid in the development of the Religious and Moral feelings and affections, by the author of 'The Ancient Poets and Poetry of England' (London, 1846), p. i.
16. Thomas Babington Macaulay, 'Minute on Indian education (2 Feb. 1835)', in Macaulay: Prose and Poetry, ed. G.M. Young (London: Rupert Hart-Davis, 1952), p. 729.
17. See also Gauri Viswanathan, Masks of Conquest: Literary Study and British Rule in India (New York: Columbia University Press, 1989).
18. Alastair Pennycook, The Cultural Politics of English as an International Language (Harlow, Essex: Longman, 1994), p. 103.
19. See Hans Aarsleff, The Study of Language in England 1780-1860 (Minneapolis and London: University of Minnesota Press and The Athlone Press, 1983).
20. Richard Chenevix Trench, 'On the study of words' [1851], On the Study of Words & English Past and Present, ed. George Sampson (London: J.M. Dent, n.d.), p. 9.
21. Trench, 'On the Study of Words', p. 11.
22. For Trench's role in the OED project, see JohnWillinsky, Empire of Words: The Reign of the OED (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1994), p. 16.
23. For Trench's theory of language, national identity and Empire, see Tony Crowley, The Politics of Discourse: The Standard Language Question in British Cultural Debates (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1989), pp. 51-90.
24. Trench, 'On the study of words', p. 23.
25. Cf. Joshua A. Fishman, AndrewW. Conrad and Alma Rubal-Lopez (eds), Post- Imperial English: Status Change in Former British and American Colonies, 1940-1990 (Berlin and New York: Mouton de Gruyter, 1996).
26. Sweet, 'Words, logic, and grammar' [1876], in Collected Papers of Henry Sweet, p. 2.
27. Sweet, 'The practical study of language', inCollected Papers ofHenry Sweet, p. 35.
28. The locus classicus for the discussion of this position underwriting a science of linguistics (in Saussure) is, of course, Jacques Derrida, Of Grammatology, trans. Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1997), pp. 27-44.
29. Sweet, 'Words, logic, and grammar', p. 3.
30. Sweet, 'The practical study of language', p. 40.
31. H.V. Routh, The Diffusion of English Culture outside England: A Problem of Post-War Reconstruction (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1941), pp. 31-32.
32. See A.P.R. Howatt, A History of English Language Teaching (New York: Oxford University Press, 1984), pp. 265-9.
33. See Robert Phillipson, Linguistic Imperialism (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992), pp. 173-222.
34. Not least of these initiatives was the creation, inspired by the Council, of the School of Applied Linguistics at Edinburgh University in 1957. See Phillipson, Linguistic Imperialism, p. 174.
35. and Pennycook, The Cultural Politics of English as an International Language, pp. 146-58.
36. Robert Phillipson and Tove Skutnabb-Kangas, 'Englishisation: one dimension of globalisation', AILA Review, 13 (1999), ed. David Graddol and Ulrike Meinhoff, p. 20.
37. Nigel Newton, foreword to the Encarta World English Dictionary (London: Bloomsbury, 1999), n.p.
38. Richard Bready, Encarta World English Dictionary, Microsoft Corporation at \http://dictionary.msn.com/find/editor.asp[, last accessed 8 May 2002.
39. Newton, Encarta World English Dictionary, n.p.
40. 'Intospace launched Encarta to orbit the Earth', Intospace Gmbh website, Marketing and Sales, at \http://www.intospace.de/encarta.html[, last accessed 11 April 2003.
41. Anthony Giddens, Runaway World: How Globalisation is Reshaping our Lives (London: Profile Books, 1999), p. 10.
42. Dell H. Hymes, 'On communicative competence', in Sociolinguistics: Selected Readings, ed. J.B. Pride and J. Holmes (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1972), pp. 269-93.
43. D.A. Wilkins, 'Grammatical, situational and notional syllabuses' [1972], in The Communicative Approach to Language Teaching, ed. C.J. Brumfit and K. Johnson (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1979), pp. 82-94, which also includes an edited version of Hymes' essay.
44. Brumfit and Johnson (eds), The Communicative Approach to Language Teaching.
45. Jan Van Ek, The Threshold Level in a European Unit/Credit System for Modern Language Teaching by Adults (Strasbourg: Council of Europe, 1975).
46. See Howatt, A History of English Language Teaching, p. 281.
47. J. Van Ek and J.L.M. Trim, Threshold 1990 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), p. 1.
48. See e.g. Catherine Belsey, Critical Practice (London: Methuen, 1980; 2nd edn, London: Routledge, 2002).
49. Jacques Derrida, 'Signature Event Context' [1972], in Limited Inc., ed. Gerald Graff (Evanston, II: Northwestern University Press, 1988), p. 1.
50. See, e.g. C. J Brumfit (ed.), Teaching Literature Overseas: Language-Based Approaches, ELTDocuments 115 (Oxford: Pergamon with The British Council, 1983),
51. C.J. Brumfit and R.A. Carter (eds), Literature and Language Teaching (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1986)
52. and Ronald Carter, Richard Walker and Christopher Brumfit (eds), Literature and the Learner: Methodological Approaches, ELT Documents 130 (London: Modern English Publications with The British Council, 1989).
53. Van Ek and Trim, Threshold 1990, p. 1.
54. Deborah Cameron, Good To Talk? Living and Working in a Communication Culture (London: Sage, 2000).
55. Deborah Cameron, 'Globalization and the teaching of "communication skills" ', inGlobalization and LanguageTeaching, ed.David Block andDeborah Cameron (London: Routledge, 2002), p. 69.
56. In this merger, AOL's holdings, which included Compuserve and Netscape, and its over 27 million subscription base, were brought together with one of the world's largest publishers of magazines, comics, books and recordings and owner of major movie studies and television and cable channels, and film libraries. The new chairman, Steve Case, announced: 'This is a historic moment for consumers everywhere, and a tremendous step toward our goal of becoming the world's most respected and valued company. AOL Time Warner will lead the convergence of the media, entertainment, communications and Internet industries, and provide wide-ranging, innovative benefits for consumers. Our brands, services and technologies already touch hundreds of millions of people and, by closely integrating our assets, we will embed the AOL Time Warner experience more deeply into their everyday lives.' Steve Case, Chairman of AOL Time Warner, 11January 2001 (emphasis added); \http://www.timewarner.-com/mergerrelease. html[, last accessed on 22January 2001.
57. Cf. P.J. Taylor, 'On the nation-state, the global, and social science', Environment and Planning A, 28 (1996), p. 1919.
58. 'World Standard Spoken English' is something Crystal hints at in English as a Global Language, pp. 136-8.
59. B. Kachru writes of 'World English'
60. for example, 'Standards, codification and sociolinguistic realism: the English language in the Outer Circle', in English in the World: Teaching and Learning the Language and Literature, ed. Randolph Quirk and H.G. Widdowson (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press for the British Council, 1985), pp. 1-30.
61. Marko Modiano is developing a model of 'International English'
62. - see e.g. 'Euro-English: educational standards in a cross-cultural context', The European English Messenger, 9.1 (Spring 2000), pp. 33-5.
63. For English as a lingua franca, see Barbara Seidlhofer, 'Brave New English?', The European English Messenger 10.1 (Spring 2001), pp. 42-7.
64. For a thoughtful reflection on the issues raised by the lingua franca model, see Karlfried Knapp and Christiane Meierkord (eds), Lingua Franca Communication (Frankfurt: Peter Lang, 2002).
65. John Locke, Two Treaties of Government [1698], ed. Peter Laslett (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988), II. 49, p. 301.