Register  Login  Active Topics  Maps  

The dark side of language dominance

 Language Learning Forum : General discussion (Topic Closed Topic Closed) Post Reply
176 messages over 22 pages: << Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 ... 9 ... 21 22 Next >>
PeterMollenburg
Senior Member
AustraliaRegistered users can see my Skype Name
Joined 5465 days ago

821 posts - 1273 votes 
Speaks: English*
Studies: FrenchB1

 
 Message 65 of 176
30 May 2014 at 2:16am | IP Logged 
tastyonions wrote:
Sometimes I feel like commending the countries that still show a
strong resistance to English, but at the same time it would feel a bit perverse for me
to do so, since that resistance may not be in their best economic interest. But it is
indeed kind of goofy that English should emerge as a universal "European" language when
it is spoken natively by just one country -- and not the most populated or economically
powerful one, at that.


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 4279 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 
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 5755 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 
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 4071 days ago

818 posts - 1189 votes 
Speaks: English
Studies: German

 
 Message 68 of 176
30 May 2014 at 2:33am | IP Logged 
1e4e6 wrote:
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.


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 5465 days ago

821 posts - 1273 votes 
Speaks: English*
Studies: FrenchB1

 
 Message 69 of 176
30 May 2014 at 2:50am | IP Logged 
beano wrote:

In Europe, more books are published in German than in any other language


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 4878 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 
1e4e6 wrote:
... politics politics politics ...


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 5465 days ago

821 posts - 1273 votes 
Speaks: English*
Studies: FrenchB1

 
 Message 71 of 176
30 May 2014 at 3:11am | IP Logged 
tarvos wrote:
1e4e6 wrote:
I do not know the specific situation of each colony, but
I know that my
grandparents,
when in primary and secondary school, i.e. 1910s, 1920s, 1930s, 1940s, were taught in
nothing else but English, knew the geography of the UK better than their own colony,
sang "God Save the King" every morning before lessons, spoke English at home and
nothing else, and had British passports (the old, blue ones with a hard cover). This is
undoubtedly due to the British Empire spanning every continent, covering one third of
the land mass of the Earth, and one-fourth if one includes oceans.

As much as I like the UK, I do not like this English language influence. My grandmother
used to travel every so often to Dutch Guiana (Suriname), the Dutch having installed in
various continents as well. But it would have been so much better if the Dutch offset
English influence with language. I am unsure why they did not. French Guiana still
exists, and France seem to not be as willing to incorporate English to that extent, so
perhaps the future lies in Spain, Portugal, Latin America, France, and the French
Empire countries. Francophone and Hispanophone countries could create a common union,
cultural and/or economic to offset English.


Why would it matter?


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 6368 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 
kanewai wrote:
1e4e6 wrote:
... politics politics politics ...


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.




I concur wholeheartedly.


1 person has voted this message useful



This discussion contains 176 messages over 22 pages: << Prev 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 810 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22  Next >>


Post ReplyPost New Topic Printable version Printable version

You cannot post new topics in this forum - You cannot reply to topics in this forum - You cannot delete your posts in this forum
You cannot edit your posts in this forum - You cannot create polls in this forum - You cannot vote in polls in this forum


This page was generated in 0.3750 seconds.


DHTML Menu By Milonic JavaScript
Copyright 2024 FX Micheloud - All rights reserved
No part of this website may be copied by any means without my written authorization.