Global English, linguistic diversity,and social justice

Robert PhillipsonCopenhagen Business School, Denmark

Handelshøjskole i København

www.cbs.dk/staff/phillipson

Gandhi, 1942

I am afraid our universities are the blotting-sheets of the West. We have borrowed the superficial features of the Western universities, and flattered ourselves that we have founded living universities here. Do they reflect or respond to the needs of the masses?

MA Language Studies

• Bilingual• Some dissertations address linguistic diversity

and social justice issues• Context?

Postcolonial language education

African language policies are generally characterized by avoidance, vagueness,

arbitrariness, fluctuation and declaration without implementation.

Ayo BamgboseLanguage and the nation.

The language question in Sub-Saharan Africa,Edinburgh University Press, 1991

Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’oDecolonising the mind

• … there can be no democracy where a whole people have been denied the use of their languages, where they have been turned strangers in their own country.

• There can be no real economic growth and development where a whole people are denied access to the latest developments in science, technology, health, medicine, business, finance, and other skills of survival because all these are stored in foreign languages.

Other languages plus English

I have nothing against anyone becoming maximally competent in English. This is logical given the global linguistic mosaic. The question is how this should be achieved, and in what sort of a balance with competence in other languages. This issue needs to be addressed at all levels of national education, in companies, in the media, in international organizations, and in the home. All of us who function multilingually in our domestic and professional lives know that it can be achieved when certain conditions are met.

International Benchmark on Best Practices of Multilingualism in

Higher Education

Assumptions• Multilingualism enhances creativity, flexibility and problem-

solving• Awareness worldwide of the need for multilingual graduates• Explicit policies for the learning and use of specific languages are

needed• Avoid Either/Or thinking• a Language Policy Committee• All staff should ideally have experience of multilingualism in their

personal or professional lives and of successful language learning.

Mauritius could give the entire population a successful multilingual education.

Bi-/Multilingual Universities can be defined with reference to the following criteria, Michael Langner

1. 2+ languages as medium of instruction2. 25+% bilingual degrees at the institution3. There should be a choice of language for the dissertation4. Encouragement to write in L25. Ongoing quality evaluation6. An explicit language policy7. Self-instructional language learning centre8. Languages are integral to corporate identity9. Ongoing research into multilingualism10. Official documents must be in 2+ languages11. The majority of website texts in the relevant languages12. Everyday interaction of students and staff in 2+ languages.

Right to the bi-/multilingual university label requires 7+ criteria

Extracts from the Language Policy of Copenhagen Business School / Handelshøjskole I København

• As a Danish university CBS will continue to foster the Danishlanguage as a full-scale language of teaching and research.

• It is recognized that in a number of CBS’s research areas, Englishis the de facto lingua franca of the academic community. In other areas, Danish remains the central language. CBS also uses several other European and Asian languages for scholarly purposes.

• The latest revision of the University Act emphasises the obligation of universities to communicate its research to ‘society in general’, which in practice means a Danish audience and therefore requires Danish.

Myths and realities of ‘global’ English = empire English• Language dovetails with commerce, finance, media, military, &

political forces, as well as discourses of potentially more humane, anti-capitalist values and just societies.

• But it is a myth that English opens all doors, is culturally neutral, and serves all equally well.

• US global ambitions have existed for 2 centuries, supplanting the British empire, with ideological and structural underpinning:– myths of terra nullius– faith in a ‘divine mission’– the land of the ‘free’ … market, trade: a warfare state– agenda-setting by corporate economic and finance capital– legitimated by applied linguistics cheer-leaders– massive investment in the linguistic capital of English.

• Hubris: crises in finance & economies, wars, social life.

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’.

Monolingual manifest destiny

‘a belief in the manifest destiny of Anglo-Saxon culture to spread around the world’

1838 the Board of Foreign Missions of the USA, then 13 ‘colonies’

We have room for but one language here,and that is the English language.

President Theodore Roosevelt 1907

Global = AmericanThe 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

The USA and UK have coordinated efforts to establish English as a ‘world’ language, and

create the necessary professional infrastructure for achieving this since the 1930s

(Phillipson 1992, 2009)

Americanisation and ‘Global’ English are projectsnot realities: its processes and products are

promoted to serve particular interests.

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

To give millions a knowledge of English is to enslave us, Gandhi 1908

‘the cause of freedom across the world’

The Margaret Thatcher Center For Freedom at the Heritage Foundation in Washington DChas as its main goal

to ensure that the US and UKcan ‘lead and change the world’

www.thatchercenter.org

British global English from 1941

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’ generated by a ‘training centre for post-graduate studies and research’, and 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’.

R.V. Routh, The diffusion of British culture outside England. A problem of post-war reconstruction,

Cambridge University Press, 1941,

Consequences

• The hierarchy of languages from the colonial period is maintained.

• The myth of English being culturally neutral and universally relevant is consolidated.

• UK/US expertise on language learning is orchestrated and seen as relevant.

• Global marketing of textbooks, reference works, know-how, is facilitated, with negative effects on local publishing

• Alternatives are unexplored.

Linguistic apartheid in Europe– and Mauritius?

• the widespread exclusion of minority mother tongues from schools, public services and recognition;

• the de facto hierarchy of languages in the EU system, in internal and external communication, with English (earlier French) at the summit;

• inequality between native speakers, particularly of English, and other Europeans, in international communication, and especially in EU institutions.

Academic ’legitimation’of global English by language policy ’experts’

Robert B. Kaplan 2001: The ascendancy of English is merely the outcome of the coincidence of accidental forces.

Bernard Spolsky 2004: The spread of English… Did it happen or was it caused? …

David Crystal, Abram de Swaan, Brutt-Griffler, …

Richard Wilkinson and Kate Picket, The spirit level. Why equality is better for everyone (2009).

The crises of our dysfunctional contemporary Western societies are analysed by two British epidemiologists, They collate vast quantities of data on happiness, on mental health and drug use, physical health and life expectancy, obesity, educational performance, teenage births, violence, imprisonment, and social mobility, and correlate these with studies of income inequality in 22 rich countries and each state in the USA. Inequality is the decisive causal factor for all the symptoms of a dysfunctional society. The more inequality in a society, the greater the social problems. This is the society that Americanisation creates.

UN Human Development Index 2011Sustainability and equity: A better future for all

• A long and healthy life• Access to knowledge• A decent standard of living

UNDI ranks 169 countries(using different variables each year)

Australia 2 ; USA 4Sweden 10 ; Denmark 14

UK 28 ; Malaysia 61Mauritius 77

South Africa 123

Human development

“Human development, as an approach, is concerned with what I take to be the basic development idea: namely, advancing the

richness of human life, rather than the richness of the economy in which human beings live,

which is only a part of it.”

Amartya SenProfessor of Economics, Harvard University

Nobel Laureate in Economics, 1998

Mahbub ul HaqFounder of the Human Development Report

"The basic purpose of development is to enlarge people's choices. In principle, these choices can be infinite and can change over time. People often value achievements that do not show up at all, or not immediately, in income or growth figures: greateraccess to knowledge, better nutrition and health services, more secure livelihoods, security against crime and physical violence, satisfying leisure hours, political and cultural freedoms and sense of participation in community activities. The objective of development is to create an enabling environment for people to enjoy long, healthy and creative lives."

Contrast the richness of ‘world literature’with the crude instrumentalism of ‘global English’

World Literature GoetheTexts in all languages enrich humanity and the individual

People who know no foreign languagesknow nothing of their own.

Global EnglishWhoever knows English

has no need of other languages.

English a ’lingua franca’ ?

• lingua economica? corporate neoliberalism = americanisation

• lingua emotiva? Hollywood, music• lingua cultura? a subject in general education• lingua bellica? Afghanistan, Iraq, arms trade,

globalisation of NATO• lingua academica? publications, conferences,

medium for content learning• lingua tyrannosaura? subtractive in specific

domains

lingua franca :pernicious, misleading, false

• A pernicious, invidious term if the language in question is a first language for some people but for others a foreign language.

• A misleading term if the language is supposed to be neutral and disconnected from culture.

• A false term for a language that is taught as a subject in general education.Historical continuity: term for the language of1) the Crusaders, Franks (from Arabic)2) the crusade of global corporatisation, marketed as freedom, democracy (& human rights?).

Empirical questions

- Which types of linguistic capital are being invested in by national governments in an age of corporate-driven, imperial globalisation?

- Medium of instruction (schools, higher education)- Minority language policies (as L1 or L2)- Foreign languages (Chinese, Portuguese, French, …)

- Is linguistic capital accumulation additive rather than subtractive? Is a dispossession of linguistic capital in some languages taking place (‘domain loss’)?

- Which agents are determining such processes and structures?

- How are globalisation and regional integration affecting- language use in business contexts- ‘international’ language promotion – ‘supply’ and ‘demand’- suprational links in specific languages (EU, AU, ASEAN)?

Strengthening local educational language policies Language in education policy must

• ensure that language development means learning mothertongues and English as linguistic human rights

• elaborate policies that strengthen awareness aboutlanguages, and confirm multilingual identities

• learn from the experience of countries that successfullylearn English in additive ways, and have policies for counteracting linguistic imperialism

• ensure that any expansion of the use of English representslinguistic capital accumulation and not dispossession

• at university level, implement language policies thatcombine furthering local and international goals

• promote learning several languages, for a range of purposes, and at different levels

Follow-up

personal websites, of my wife and frequent co-author: www.tove-skutnabb-kangas.org

and myselfwww.cbs.dk/staff/phillipson

from both of which articles etc. can be downloaded.

The remaining slides were not used in the talk at the University of Mauritius but may be of interest.

Resistance

If we are to avoid the emergence of global and local linguistic apartheid, active language policy measures to sustain diversity and increase social justice are needed.

Studies in the Nordic countries of whether English represents a threat to Danish, Finnish, Norwegian, etc. have led to a Declaration on a Nordic Language Policy, and to legislation in Sweden, and the elaboration of language policies by some universities.

Norwegian university policy 2006: three guiding criteria for all institutions except the Samisk Høgskole

A duty to see that the national language, Norwegian, is developed and used in all fields, hence the need to develop appropriate strategies.

Institutions should elaborate language strategies for ensuring parallel competence in Norwegian as the national language and English as the international scholarly language.

Institutions should develop a reflection process on democracy, communication, and language use.

University of Helsinki language policy… 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.

Policy accessible in three languages.The University quarterly is in a mix of

Finnish, Swedish, English, French and German.

Swedish 2008 White Paper, 265 pageslegislating on the status of Swedish; linguistic human rights of minority language users (five legally recognised minority languages, Swedish Sign language); maintenance of the languages and cultures of immigrants:

• declaring Swedish the principal (‘huvud’ = main, chief) language of the country, a formulation that deliberately avoids the terms official and national, Swedish being the language that unites all residents of the country, irrespective of mother tongue;

• creating obligations for the society, including its agents in all sectors, its legislators and administrators, to see that language rights are realized;

• in higher education and in dealings with EU institutions, ensuring that Swedish should be used whenever possible;

• institutions having a duty to work out how best the pre-eminence of Swedish can be maintained (e.g. ensuring terminology development) so that English is used additively.

Nordic Declaration of Language Policy, 2006

– to ensure that Nordic languages remain fully viable,– and function in parallel with English for certain

purposes,– that competence in other languages is promoted,– that policies are evolved for achieving these goals,– and that public awareness of language policy issues is

raised.

Published in Danish, English, Faeroese, Finnish, Greenlandic, Icelandic, Norwegian, Saami, and Swedish, and aims at strengthening all these languages.

Linguistic rights of Nordic residents

1. Spoken and written proficiency in ‘a language essential to society’.

2. Understanding and skills in a Scandinavian language and understanding of others.

3. Acquire a language of international importance.4. Preserve and develop their mother tongue and

their national minority language

Aims of the Declaration on a Nordic Language Policy

Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, Sweden• to strengthen Nordic cooperation in

Scandinavian languages• to promote linguistic rights• to pursue these goals through work on 4 issues

language comprehension and language skillsthe parallel use of languages

Nordic languages and Englishparallel use of Nordic languages

multilingualismthe Nordic countries as a linguistic pioneering region

Goal promotion and multilingualism

that all Nordic residents have …(3) A basic knowledge of linguistic rights in the Nordic countries(5) a general knowledge of what language is and how it works… tolerance for variety and diversity in language, both within and

between languages

… Almost 200 other languages are the mother tongue of Nordic residents. There should be professional circles in the Nordic countries with expertise that can draw on European expertise in most of these languages.

Greenlandic should be supported so that it can continue to serve as a language essential to society.

Constraints

• Poor infrastructure in universities and in civil service with competence in this area (cf. Finland > Norway > Sweden > Denmark)

• Lack of implementation at government and institutional levels

• No ministry, or university committee, responsible for going beyond mission statements and vision to charting the constraints and challenges, and building on diversity

• Unclear responsibility for implementation - by whom?• Absence of quality control of languages in use, e.g. when

L2 English is the teaching medium (cf. Copenhagen U.)• Too little awareness-raising at all levels.

Postcolonial language policy: the evidence

”Namibian educational language planning:English for liberation or neo-colonialism?”

Robert Phillipson, Tove Skutnabb-Kangas, and Hugh Africa-AILA conference 1983- two educational language policy conferences, UNIN- article in 1986- republished by the OAU Inter-African Bureau of Languages in 1985, in French and English

1. English as an official language in Namibia will beassisted if Namibian languages are maximally usedinside and outside the classroom.

Namibian conclusions (continued)

2. Resistance to the use of the mother tongue is an expression of a colonized consciousness, whichserves the interests of global capitalism and South Africa, and the bourgeoisie and pettybourgeoisie who are most dependent on capitalistinterests.

3. Namibia should follow the example of thosemultilingual states which have alternative language programmes leading to bilingualism.

4. Educational aid from ”donors” should be long-term and explicitly accept Namibian multilingualgoals.

Denver Kisting, in The Guardian WeeklyLearning English Supplement, 13 January 2012

“Language policy ‘poisoning’ children” • English has been the medium of instruction in

most of Namibia’s classrooms for nearly 20 years; with teachers shown to be failing in competency tests, calls for change are mounting.

• Poor exam results. 50% of 16-year-olds fail.• 63% of teachers have a poor grasp of English.

Such results tally with experience elsewhere.Who is responsible for the policy?

Neocolonial monolingual pedagogy

The five tenets elaborated in Linguistic imperialism(Phillipson 1992, Oxford, Shanghai & New Delhi)

• English is best taught monolingually,• the ideal teacher of English is a native speaker,• the earlier English is taught, the better the results,• the more English is taught, the better the results,• if other languages are used much, standards of

English will drop.

Professional fallaciesin the British English Language Teaching

paradigm• the monolingual fallacy• the native speaker fallacy• the early start fallacy• the maximum exposure fallacy• the subtractive fallacy.

Phillipson, Linguistic imperialism, chapter 7

All are central to the US-UK‘English Language Teaching’ business,and World Bank educational activities.

Rubagumya of Tanzania:World English is unethical

In the global village there are‘a few chiefs – very powerful economically and militarily – and a lot of powerless villagers. […] The market has indeed replaced imperial armies, but one wonders whether the effect is any different. […] It is therefore not the case that more English will lead to African global integration; the reverse is more likely.[…] Giving false hopes that everybody can have access to “World English” is unethical’.

Ongoing processesof linguistic neoimperialism

• Much of the marketing of ‘global’ English is unethical• So are some types of the export of TESOL expertise.• Discourse that claims that English is needed universally or

assumes that English serves all equally well evinces a shift from terra nullius to a lingua nullius.

• Academic productivity is increasingly measured by bibliometric quantification that is supplanting quality, and restricting academic freedom. It is inequitable.

• The unequal investment in linguistic capital is buttressed by largely unquestioned ideologies, processes and structures that serve to sustain and consolidate linguistic neoimperialism and are harmful for the global linguistic ecology.

LINGUICISM

ideologies, structures and practices which are used to legitimate, effectuate, regulate and reproduce an unequal division of power and resources (both material and immaterial) between groups which are defined on the basis of languageSkutnabb-Kangas 1988: 13Most education systems worldwide reflect linguicismSkutnabb-Kangas 2000.

Linguistic imperialism1. interlocks with imperialism in culture, education,

media, communication, economy, politics, military, …2. exploitation, injustice, inequality, and hierarchy3. structural: material resources, infrastructure, …4. ideological: beliefs, attitudes, imagery5. hegemonic: internalised as normal and ’natural’6. unequal rights for speakers of different languages7. subtractive, consolidating some languages at the

expense of others8. a form of linguicism (cf. sexism, racism)9. supply + demand; push + pull.10. contested and resisted.

Linguistic capital accumulation or dispossession?

An empirical questionAnswering it requires analysis of all the

characteristics of linguistic imperialism and of relevant data for clarifying it

Conceptual clarification is needed, e.g avoiding vague, plurisemic concepts like domain loss and lingua franca

Resistance requires the formulation and implementation of language policies for countries, ethnolinguistic groups, institutions, families, the media, etc.

A taxonomy of variables impacting on multilingual higher education and research

• Status dimensions (status and prestige planning)– Macro level: international, national, and institutional

multilingual context and constraints; hierarchies in global and the local language ecologies; economics and processes of linguistic capital accumulation or dispossession; extent of language maintenance in central domains; degree of respect for linguistic human rights.

– Micro level: language use in core university activities, spoken and written, and on websites; awareness of language rights, language duties and linguistic diversity.

• Policy decisions (discourse planning) on– explicit and implicit, overt and covert, language policies for

• an institution, including internal and external communications

• a department, and for all degrees at BA, MA and PhD levels– medium/media of instruction in learning and examining

contexts– institutional and personal multilingual identity, perceptions of

multilingualism– criteria for assessing quality of teaching, of research, and for

promotion– languages of publication; language policy in bibliometric

quantification– certification of language competence of staff and/or students– responsibility for implementing and monitoring language policy

decisions

• Processes for creating and maintaining communities of practice(acquisition planning)– Functional goals for academic language competence

development, staff & students– Learning processes relative to proficiency development for

differentiated activities: in reception (listening, reading) and in production (speaking, writing); IT integration; role of translation and contrastive language study

– Teacher and student roles in knowledge assimilation and creation at all levels

– Development of metalinguistic, metacommunicative and intercultural awareness

– Knowledge sharing within an institution and externally:• International scholarly articles and books• Local mass media popularization, textbooks and reference

works

• Form in Language 1/Language 2/Language 3/…(corpus and usage planning) as determined in– Codification in authoritative reference works and

materials– Conventional linguistic form in genres and discourses

for academic purposes– Terminology and usage creation when needed

• Technology (technology planning)– Language learning centre– Internet-based teaching and learning support, online

materials, etc– Development of language technology software.

Provisional conclusions?

Need for a paradigm shift away from• all forms of monolingual education in an ex-

colonial language• all forms of bilingual education that involve an

ex-colonial language if this language has higher prestige, higher status, and any subtractive educational traits.

Are Anglophonie, Francophonie and Lusophonie efforts working for this in African countries?

The use of English is increasing in continental Europe

• English as the corporate language of many continental European companies

• 70%+ of films on TV and in cinemas in Europe are Hollywood products (cf 1% non-US in US)

• English is the most widely learned ’foreign’ language, other foreign languages are mostly in retreat

• Research is increasingly published in English, affecting career prospects for the individual and the role of the national language

• Youth is consumerist, Coca-colonised, more familiar with US products and norms than others

EU Commission Promoting language learningand 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.

EU CommissionFramework Strategy for Multilingualism 2005

• Mother tongue plus two• National plans to give coherence and direction to

actions to promote multilingualism(including the teaching of migrant languages)

• Teacher training, early language learning, CLIL• Multilingualism in higher education• Academic competence in multilingualism• European Indicator of Language Competence• Information Society technologies• The multilingual economy

The Bologna process, the internationalisation of higher education

46 member states, Australia and the USA as observers, EU Commission as participant and funder

• Bologna 1999 … objectives - within the framework of our institutional competences and taking full respect of the diversity of cultures, languages, national education systems and of University autonomy - to consolidate a European Higher Education Area at the latest by 2010

• Bergen 2005, London 2007: structural uniformity, quality, mobility, recognition, joint degrees, attractiveness, competitiveness, accreditation

nothing on bilingual degrees or multilingualisminternationalisation = English-medium education?

Bologna goes global - Commissioner Figel puts higher education reform in a global context, 10 May 2007

Bologna reforms are important but Europe should now go beyond them, as universities should also modernise the content of their curricula, create virtual campuses and reform their governance. They should also professionalize their management, diversify their funding and open up to new types of learners, businesses and society at large, in Europe and beyond. […]The Commission supports the global strategy in concrete terms through its policies and programmes.

Universities should follow a neoliberal EU agenda:be run like businesses, in partnership with industry,

privatise, introduce feesbuzzwords – accountability, employability, degree

certification

The Bologna processtowards 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• aims to expand worldwide.

Lisbon treaty: a single European research area by 2014

The communiqués from the bi-annual meetings of Ministers of Higher Education and Research never refer to languagepolicy. Implicitly this means that ’internationalisation’ is seenas ’English-medium higher education’.

Continental European complicity in linguistic imperialism

German higher education reform

Entgegen dem Wortlaut des Bologna-Erklärung dient also die Studienreform den Ziel, die dort beschworene sprachliche und kulturelle Vielfalt Europas durch ein englisches Sprachmonopol zu ersetzen.

Hans Joachim Meyer, 2011: 61

Contrary to the wording of the Bologna Declaration, the reform of higher education serves the purpose of replacing the linguistic and cultural diversity of Europe enshrined there by a monopoly of English.

EU Erasmus Mundus programme

• 866 African students since 2004• 51 staff • programme (2009 – 2013): increased

possibilities for cooperation between higher education institutions in Europe and Africa.

• Louis Michel, Commissioner for Development: facing crises together, climate change and the financial crisis… !

• http://ec.europa.eu/education/external-relation-programmes/doc72_en.htm

A lingua frankensteinia?

Domain loss: English as the language of research publication, teaching in higher education, business, international relations,…

= Linguistic capital dispossession

e.g. Is the ‘parallel competence’ in English and Danish/Norwegian/Swedish that education is supposed to deliver a viable alternative?