Linguistic Imperialism: English

In today's class, we saw that linguistic imperialism can be seen rampantly throughout the Anglophone world. Some examples of places it appears are Migration (where the host country is English speaking); the Economy (where business depends on English); Education; Media and Globalization. These areas are very interesting, and the way our Anglophone linguistic imperialism is exerted can be seen concretely - based on who succeeds and who doesn't. It is a literal effect, where English becomes the most commonly spoken language, impacting individuals and communities who don't speak it by excluding them from the majority of society.

 

Another interesting area where English has affected us, however, is more abstract and appeals to all the areas we mentioned earlier. It is the ideological place of English as the language of modernity and progress. With this idea in place, other languages - especially indigenous or obscure ones - are seen as "primitive" or "uncivilized".

 

This ideology has some very damaging effect on individuals and communities. As English becomes more common, people who don't speak it are seen as more backward by comparison. We associate progress with English, which affects non-English speaking people intent on making progress in the world, because their native tongues aren't viewed as 'good enough' for their pursuit. Even outside of academia, learning English is seen as a skill that cultured and educated people have (like French was in Europe decades ago), not just because one had widened their communication scope, but because English is associated with power and success. When it takes the place of the powerful and dominant language in our minds, other languages become secondary and perhaps even irrelevant. This may lead to language extinction.

 

With English's connotations of power in mind its easy to forget that there is a lot of wisdom embedded in indigenous cultures that we don't recognize, for example the botanic names for two similar plants, distinguished by the language of people who interact with it, and revealing to us two different species we did not previously recognize. All this information is being 'degraded' and placed in the backseat to English, which is seen as being more 'refined' and 'smart'. English teacher Patricia Ryan summed it up best when she said, "when a language dies, you don't know what you lose." If the language we associate with modernity is English, we have no concept of the wisdom that other tongues hold - and do not even realize the knowledge that we are losing when they die.

 

Personally I believe that this, the ideological place of English as the language of progress, is one of the greatest ways linguistic imperialism affects us. It relates back to education, the economy, and even the media. We all want to follow the progress and make ourselves better, no matter how conscious we are of losing our tongues. Not speaking English is now seen as 'old-fashioned', and 'backward' - something your great grandparents (not even grandparents) would have done. If we don't keep the cycle of English's power going, we'll get left behind. And who wants to get left behind?