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The dark side of language dominance | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion | ( Topic Closed) |  |
| PeterMollenburg Senior Member AustraliaRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5475 days ago 821 posts - 1273 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: FrenchB1 | Message 65 of 176 30 May 2014 at 2:16am | IP Logged | |||||
From wikipedia: English is the most commonly spoken foreign language in 19 out of 25 European Union countries (excluding the UK and Ireland)[3] In the EU25, working knowledge of English as a foreign language is clearly leading at 38%, followed by German and French (at 14% each), Russian and Spanish (at 6% each), and Italian (3%) From "Language conflicts in the European Union" (2006) by Ulrich Ammon, International Journal of Applied Linguistics (which supports my claims that capitalism (profits) is driving English expansion and that the EU is not necessarily a good thing for culture and language preservation: "EU linguistic diversity has also been seen as a hindrance to economic progress or political integration and real democracy. To overcome it, recognized think-tanks have supported the idea of a single institutional working language, but also a single lingua franca outside the institutions to enhance the growth of regional mobility and of common public sphere, escpecially through the media. Jurgen Habermas, among others, has supported this viewpoint, in order to denationalize the EU and spearhead the emerging epoch of "postnationalism" that he envisions and he proposed English as the necessary unifying language for this. Andreas Beierwaltes (1998) however has favoured continued subsiduary use of several languages and Vivian Manz (2002) even claimed, with reference to Switzerland, that real democracy can unfold through parallel discourse in different languages" edit: (Not directed at tastyonions) It has been mentioned that this thread is akin to 'English language hate' or less strong words. It's not, it's language imperialism that is disliked. Yes I've already mentioned it could have been any other language, it just happens to be English. If Japanese happened to be spreading the way English is today instead of English this discussion would be dominated by a dislike of Japanese language imperialism. And finally, yes other languages could also be labelled as imperialistic in certain areas of the world. Edited by PeterMollenburg on 30 May 2014 at 2:22am 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| 1e4e6 Octoglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4289 days ago 1013 posts - 1588 votes Speaks: English*, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Norwegian, Dutch, Swedish, Italian Studies: German, Danish, Russian, Catalan | Message 66 of 176 30 May 2014 at 2:18am | IP Logged | |||||
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Those are some rather odd figures, but still it does not explain why Latin America are
dominated by leftist, usually Socialist leaders that win the elections and who are vehemently against Anglophone imperialism, mostly American, but definitely British in the case of Argentina, and strengthen ties with Russia and PRC. Just asking a Chilean about Pinochet (actually I would not recommend that out of respect), or asking an Argentinian about Videla and La Guerra Sucia and the Falklands, an Uruguayan about Bordaberry, etc. would give an idea of the Latin American sentiment towards Anglophone influence, especially about being the patio trasero for Tío Sam. Edited by 1e4e6 on 30 May 2014 at 2:19am 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Bao Diglot Senior Member Germany tinyurl.com/pe4kqe5 Joined 5765 days ago 2256 posts - 4046 votes Speaks: German*, English Studies: French, Spanish, Japanese, Mandarin | Message 67 of 176 30 May 2014 at 2:21am | IP Logged | |||||
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PM, multilingual speakers are neither perfect monolinguals with a tiny babelfish in their brain, nor are they several perfect monolinguals combined in one person. Some people probably manage to maintain several languages at very high proficiency levels while keeping the interference and the feeling that one of the languages is 'strange' at a minimum, but I haven't met any of them yet. I have met many people who say they sometimes feel one of their languages is off (even when it sounded perfectly fine to everyone else), and also some who didn't even notice that their language was off, and vehemently denied it when it was mentioned to them.
Monolinguals also make mistakes when using their language, but they make mistakes that are consistent with the language and so most of the time, everyone just glosses over it. It's pretty funny when somebody mispronounces a word, and notices a couple of sentences late, corrects themself and their listener replies they hadn't even noticed the word was mispronounced, they just understood what the speaker meant. Edited by Bao on 30 May 2014 at 3:33am 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Gemuse Senior Member Germany Joined 4081 days ago 818 posts - 1189 votes Speaks: English Studies: German | Message 68 of 176 30 May 2014 at 2:33am | IP Logged | |||||
Having socialist leaders or having ties to the eastern block does not make a country anti-american (contrary to what the americans are lead to believe). India has had mostly socialist leaders, had strong ties with USSR (aside: I had many USSR origin science, math and story books which had been translated into English - these were subsidized by the USSR), but we were never really anti-america/anti-english Edited by Gemuse on 30 May 2014 at 2:33am 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| PeterMollenburg Senior Member AustraliaRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5475 days ago 821 posts - 1273 votes Speaks: English* Studies: FrenchB1 | Message 69 of 176 30 May 2014 at 2:50am | IP Logged | |||||
If this is true I doubt it will continue for long, and I'm basing my argument on current trends not a far off possible future... take this quote for example: "Academia has not been spared the spread of the English language monopoly either and French scholars have adapted the classic scholarly mandate to 'publish or perish' to these changes, now quipping 'publish in English or perish in French' "There is no reason to think that cultural production and intellectual activity in the non-Anglo world is any less lively, creative or relevant than what's going on in English" notes Naomi Buck "but every reason to believe it's reaching a smaller audience". Already in 1997, 95% of the articles indexed in the Science Citation Index's Web of Science were written in English, despite the fact that only half were written by authors in English-speaking countries. Others researchers have noted that publications written in languages other than English have a considerably lower 'impact' (measured by frequency of citation) than English language works, and command lower compensation than works published in English" From "The Rise of English: The language of Globalization in China and the European Union" by Anne Johnson - Macalester International vol 2 Like i have said, it's about profits and capitalism, but in saying that I'm not saying I wouldn't publish in English if I was an author, I'm just providing some sources of evidence to support my argument that English is dominating like no other language Edited by PeterMollenburg on 30 May 2014 at 2:52am 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| kanewai Triglot Senior Member United States justpaste.it/kanewai Joined 4888 days ago 1386 posts - 3054 votes Speaks: English*, French, Marshallese Studies: Italian, Spanish | Message 70 of 176 30 May 2014 at 3:06am | IP Logged | |||||
Could you at least make an attempt to link this to language learning? These are starting to sound like ideological posts rather than anything else. 5 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| PeterMollenburg Senior Member AustraliaRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5475 days ago 821 posts - 1273 votes Speaks: English* Studies: FrenchB1 | Message 71 of 176 30 May 2014 at 3:11am | IP Logged | |||||
Okay this is why it matters (and i'm going to shift the aim from Britain the the U.S. here) this is why i appear to be an English language hater (i'm not), an anti-American (which i'm not) and anti capitalist if you will (sort of am), but I might add that I am anti definitely anti-globalization, and anti Americanization because like perhaps the majority of ppl on this websited I LOVE cultural and linguistic diversity! and globalization I believe is a threat to that diversity. This excerpt sums it up: "Yet even Britain must at times fear the spread of the English language, for although it may lay claim to the language's history, it is not British culture that is promoted in English language communication. In that American media and advertising are among the chief carriers of English-language products to the greater world, many of the messages that English carries with it, are those of American culture, or at least dramatized versions of it. Globalization's homogenizing potential has been widely documented and discussed, but as a major carrier of the images of globalization, English threatens not only to make those who speak it more alike, but to mold them in the culturally-specific American image that it carries in its syntax. As Benjamin Barber writes in his 'Jihad vs McWorld' thesis, 'common markets demand a common language... and they produce common behaviours of the kind bred by cosmopolitan city life everywhere'. Yet as this brand of Americanized 'cosmopolitanism' drives ahead, it threatens not to celebrate diversity, but to destroy- or at least dilute- the cultures in its path" From "The Rise of English: The language of Globalization in China and the European Union" by Anne Johnson, Macalester International Vol 22 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
 newyorkeric Diglot Moderator Singapore Joined 6378 days ago 1598 posts - 2174 votes Speaks: English*, Italian Studies: Mandarin, Malay Personal Language Map | Message 72 of 176 30 May 2014 at 3:58am | IP Logged | |||||
I concur wholeheartedly. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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