Contending with Globalization in World Englishes

Mukul Saxena, Tope Omoniyi, Mukul Saxena, Tope Omoniyi

• Publisher: Multilingual Matters
• Year: 2010
• ISBN:
  9781847693976
• Topic: Languages & Linguistics
• Subtopic: Sociolinguistics
• Index: Languages & Linguistics

This book engages with English in globalization, re-examining and re-interpreting the contemporary contexts of its acquisition and use. The chapters contained in this book weave together four inter-related themes that define the role of English in the global context: the 'centrality of structure', 'relationships of interdependence', 'social constructions of difference' and 'reproduction of inequality'. These themes enable the authors to draw attention to the dynamics of the contemporary realities of the 'English-speaking' and 'English-using' nations, especially as they compete for cultural, social, economic and symbolic capital in global networks. In engaging World Englishes with the sociolinguistics of globalization, the authors raise some fundamental questions about the status, structure, and functions of World Englishes.

Chapter 1

Introduction

TOPE OMONIYI AND MUKUL SAXENA

What is interesting about the emerging body of writing associated with world Englishes is that it makes available a semiotic space for the articulation of the global imaginary and its formation within the phenomenology of the local

(Wimal Dissanayake, 2006: 556)

Globalization is perhaps one of the most troubled and complex concepts in the social sciences with each discipline proffering a definition and perspective it considers not only capable of effectively supporting but also reflective of its own theoretical and methodological frameworks. Stiglitz (2007: 295), in noting that ‘few subjects have polarized people throughout the world as much as globalization’, also remarks that globalization has had different interpretations in different places. In situations where themes of interdisciplinary relevance and application are concerned, such as language, it gets even more complex. More than any other language, the English language and world Englishes have been the subject of extensive scholarship. This is especially so when we consider that the cultural and political dynamics involving the English language in its multiple locations are varied and yet interconnected. Under the umbrella of globalization research, numerous and sometimes variant and even conflicting perspectives on what it is have emerged in economic, cultural, religious, political and other disciplinary analyses (see Hülsemeyer’s (2003) edited volume from the perspective of international political economy).

For our purposes in this volume, we consider language not only to be crucial to the processes of globalization but to be its life force. Globalization is a social construct, a dense and universal network of exchange based on a structure of intensified relationships of interdependence (see Giddens, 1990; Robertson, 1992; Wallerstein, 1974 and 1979). Like all other social constructs globalization manifests as a patterned discourse, that is, it has specific communicative practices that characterise it. Globalization is not new but in its current manifestation or phase, it is powered by advancement in information and media technology.

Thus, irrespective of disciplinary specificities which enable us to recognise the different dimensions to globalization in, for example, the works of Amartya Sen (economics), Arjun Appadurai (sociocultural anthropology) and Anthony Giddens (cultural studies) among others, they are all anchored crucially in Information Age development. Participants in the globalization network are marked by difference and inequality and are therefore constantly (re)negotiating roles, relationships and interdependence.

In relation to world Englishes research then, we are concerned with the perspectives that globalization as a social process brings to bear on the forms, statuses and functions of the English language around the world. In exploring these, we are similarly probing the roles that the language plays in the process of globalization. The word ‘contending’ in the title is used cautiously and with an awareness of its connotation of negativity vis-à-vis globalization. The volume does not start from an assumption that globalization is problematic and therefore has to be contended with, but rather that it forces a re-examination of the traditional ways of explaining the place of English around the world. From the centrality of ‘structure’, ‘relationship of interdependence’, ‘difference’ and ‘inequality’ in our definition of globalization we are able to draw the connecting lines between ‘English-speaking’ and ‘English-using’ nations and peoples in a global network. We bring to the table the various contexts and debates from which we have drawn contributors to this volume but most importantly a critical look at the state of play in the field.¹

To return to the question of contending with globalization, Kumaravadivelu (2008) devotes an entire chapter to processes of globalization in his book Cultural Globalization and Language Education. The opening to that chapter points us in the direction of a probable answer to our question:

‘Hi, this is Sandy. How may I help you?’
When hundreds of thousands of North Americans and western Europeans dial a toll-free number to book airline tickets, check their bank account, solve a computer glitch, or seek investment advice, they may not be aware that they frequently are talking to customer representatives who are some six to eight thousand miles away, in India, working in the dead of night in quiet offices with clocks showing time in places like New York, Los Angeles, Frankfurt, and London. Nor are they likely to know that the helpful person who answers and identifies herself as ‘Sandy’ is in reality Lakshmi, a twenty-one-year-old who, after undergoing rigorous training to ‘neutralize’ her Indian accent, has taken on a new workplace persona, including a pretend Western name and a pretend American or British accent.

Both ‘Sandy’ and the ‘pretend’ accents that Kumaravadivelu refers to are social constructions (Gergen, 1999) necessitated by the transnational dialogues and relationships created by globalization. In other words, in order to provide services to non-local customers via non-face-to-face interactions, Call Centre workers of necessity are trained into a new set of codes, dialects or languages deemed appropriate for efficient communicative exchange in their role as transnational consultants. Since much of the outsourcing originates from English-speaking Western nations coupled with the fact that a greater percentage of international business is conducted in English, it stands to reason that the codes and dialects are to do with the language. While Kumaravadivelu refers to ‘pretend’ accents with the connotation that they do not represent reality, we prefer to tag them no differently from any other performances accommodated by the theory of performativity as espoused by Butler (1997) and other critical thinkers. Indeed, the accents represent a kind of constructed reality of the contemporary globalization era, just as do the notion of English (Pennycook, Chapter 10, in this volume) or language itself (Le Page & Tabouret-Keller, 1985). Some of the perspectives on such language and globalization issues that have been explored elsewhere and in some of the contributions to this volume are discussed below.

World Englishes from Colonisation to Globalization

A substantial portion of the traditional literature on world Englishes engages with the politics of colonisation to present descriptions and analyses of the linguistic ecology of former colonies. Whereas colonisation invokes a binary relationship between the colonisers and the colonised, globalization operates within a wider, more complex network of relationships of power and capital distribution, including linguistic and language power and capital. Thus, varieties of English or Englishes may be processed using either of these alternative paradigms. WE traditionally tracked the spread of English and its linguistic consequences in various locales (see Kachru, 1990; Melchers & Shaw, 2003). Constructing a historiography of language, however, does not engage sufficiently with the critical issues associated with language spread, particularly those that have to do with international and group relations. Braj Kachru’s early account of the spread of English may be perceived as falling within the remit of a ‘sociolinguistics of colonization’ (cf. Omoniyi, in press). It focused on analysis of the linguistic consequences of empire building thus offering a major ideological decentring perspective as an alternative to the mainstream centrist imperial narrative that is seemingly responsible for hierarchising global Englishes atop which sit native varieties of English. From an ideological standpoint, the world Englishes paradigm may be perceived as a rejection of and departure from the ‘non-native Englishes’ tag which has native English as reference point, and consequently acknowledging and legitimising English’s multiple homes; after all, demographic evidence suggests that there is a larger population of users in these other homes.

The sociolinguistics of globalization (Blommaert, 2003) has prompted scholars of world Englishes to extend the frontiers of investigation beyond intra-state communicative regimes to look at English in interstate and transnational relationships and communicative contexts. Kachru et al. (2006: 10) dedicate Part VII of The Handbook of World Englishes to globalization. It comprises three chapters that explore the presence of world Englishes in three cross-cultural and cross-linguistic domains of English language use: media, advertising and global commerce. Debates in English as an International Language (EIL) and English as a Lingua Franca (ELF) further exemplify that broadening of scope even if some regard both of these paradigms as one and the same thing.

Without prejudice to the four-diaspora delineation informed by the history of its spread in Kachru et al. (2006), we identify three broad diaspora Englishes that are relevant to our understanding of the interface between the sociolinguistics of colonisation and that of globalization. Diaspora Type 1 comprises speakers of neo-local diaspora Englishes who have relocated from an English-speaking homeland or nation. They include speakers of varieties of English identified with Canada, Australia and New Zealand. Here, English is the de facto language of establishment business whether or not this is expressly stated in any constitutional documents. It has displaced First Nation and/or Aboriginal languages, say, as in the case of Maori in New Zealand and Mohawk in northeastern United States and southern Canada.

The Englishes that have emerged out of colonial enterprise form Diaspora Type 2 and are found in the British Commonwealth, in other words, former British colonies like Nigeria, Kenya, Jamaica, India and Hong Kong among others, as well as in former colonies of the United States like the Philippines, Guam and Puerto Rico. English features in the language policy statement of these nations. In the case of the Philippines, for instance, English language was instituted as official language as part of the subjugation process in 1913.

The third category, Diaspora Type 3, comprises those that have evolved either as the consequence of or in response to global market-cum-political forces. This includes Japan, South Korea and China among others. In this context those who engage with the English-speaking world for commerce and popular culture purposes also engage culturally and represent a subculture in which English plays a significant role. The point to be stressed here is that in the era of globalization the notion of diaspora destabilises the Outer Circle category. Outer Circle is a sociolinguistic construct that was specific to territory. In its conceptualisation, however, the magic of globalization could not have envisaged the ramifications of open borders, human migration and transcultural flows facilitated by new media. These new developments have fashioned a new reality in which hybridisation, assimilation, integration and other forms of socialisation have seen Outer and Expanding Circle spaces as well as Outer and Expanding Circle speakers of English impacted in unanticipated ways. In the diaspora, we find reconstituted Outer Circle and Expanding Circle spaces on the fringes of Inner Circle spaces with interaction of varying intensities taking place between the cohorts. Little India, Little Jamaica, Little Lagos and other such constructs all of which together translate into the Multiculturalism Project in a place like the United Kingdom exemplify that phenomenon.

Of the three types presented above, Diaspora Type 3 leans most towards the so-called English homeland varieties of the United States and Britain in terms of attitudes and preferences. To cite an example, in China, the Department of Education in Shanghai implements a policy in Foreign Language teacher recruitment that requires prospective employees to have a native-speaker accent of English (Shanghai Mail, April 2007). Implicit in this is a reinforcement of the ideology that British and American accents of English belong to a higher ledge on a hierarchy of varieties of English. Kirkpatrick (2007: 6) describes this as prejudice and remarks that ‘the idea that varieties of British English are somehow purer than later varieties is very difficult to support, however.’ Arguably, the higher status accorded to British and American accents does not stem from the hegemony of colonisation but from their association with the new centres of the global economy. Jenkins (personal communication) suggests to the contrary that ‘it’s primarily because of a deep-seated belief that British/American accents are better….This is the main reason that these accents/Englishes in general have become associated with the new centres of global economy.’ Ironically, the rising appreciation of Diaspora Type 3 varieties seems to be directly proportional to the rising dominance of the economies in which they are based. In the example cited earlier (from Kumaravadivelu, 2008), the Call Centre accents may have emerged in the old colonial and post-colonial loci, but their reconstruction is produced for late 20th and 21st century globalization needs.

International labour mobility and migration are arguably features of globalization, thus by default language policy and employment policy are linked to globalization. A Reuters report (Beijing, 19 June 2007) headlined ‘China demands its pilots speak better English’ (www.reuters.com/article/oddlyEnoughNews/idUSKUA95049720070619) notes that less than a tenth of China’s pilots meet industry standards of English proficiency. China’s aviation authority insisting that its pilots must learn English to International Civil Aviation standards is a consequence of global interdependence. The motivation or propulsion in this case is inter-nationalisation of the Chinese local space as well as a desire to register Chinese presence in the international airline community of practice which is run in English. This entails attitudes, preferences and hierarchies that are all anchored to globalization. We must add that liberalisation has led to some acknowledgement of diversity. Aviation regulations now have features that do not come from native British or American English. For example, the word ‘three’ must be pronounced ‘tree’. The latest regulations have still more of this kind of thing and stipulate that British and American pilots also need to have accent training of this international variety.

Ironically, globalization has another kind of local tenor when the same attitude and preference issues play out among Inner Circle membership as we find in 20–year old British singer Joss Stone’s reaction to the negative response to what the British press described as her ‘fake American accent’ at the 2008 Brit Awards:

‘At the end of the day, I don’t give a f**k if people have a problem with my accent. That’s all I can say about it. The words I say do not change.

‘If the way that it sounds is skew-whiff and you don’t like it, don’t listen. I’m not being a cruel person by sounding a different way.

‘I made my album with a bunch of Americans. When people go to Australia for two weeks they come back sounding Australian – but the whole world doesn’t turn round and say, “Well, f**k you.” Which is basically what England had done.

‘Obviously not everybody in England. But the big press people. They were just like, “You know what? We’ve decided we don’t like you anymore.”’

What comes across in this claim is the effect that collaboration and the diversity of daily communicative contexts that people experience may trigger convergence or shift to varying degrees. In Joss Stone’s case, she had been working with Americans and therefore in her view her American accent was understandable. What is even more interesting here is the manner in which global networks and globalization privilege the American form; a probable reason for the treatment of globalization as a synonym for Americanisation (cf. Djelic, 2003). However, language use practices in global networks such as the fraud emails in transnational flights between continents (see Blommaert & Omoniyi, 2006) and the various crossings they entail call attention to the impossibility of holding up pre-articulated standards for literacy, English language use, or fluency over the acquisition of genres.

With reference to the Chinese examples above, so-called English language-medium international tests, especially professional ones such as IELTS, TOEFL, GRE, GMAT, and International Baccalaureate constitute a site of engagement with globalization. These tests are hinged to and framed by the usage culture of some native varieties and therefore run against the principal tenet of equality of nations and the experience of international mobility especially in the intellectual sector. This ironically perpetuates rather than negatively affects those involved in ...