eJournals Fremdsprachen Lehren und Lernen 35/1

Fremdsprachen Lehren und Lernen
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0932-6936
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Narr Verlag Tübingen
Es handelt sich um einen Open-Access-Artikel, der unter den Bedingungen der Lizenz CC by 4.0 veröffentlicht wurde.http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/121
2006
351 Gnutzmann Küster Schramm

Language and Globalisation: Myths and Realities

121
2006
Janina Brutt-Griffler
This article examines the cultural and linguistic foundations of evolving ecologies of communication in which intercultural learning and teaching will play out in the twenty-first century. A number of forces in modern society have combined to thrust the importance of culture, intercultural understanding, and the learning of modern foreign languages onto center stage. In particular, the economic and geopolitical imperatives of globalisation (GNUTZMANN/INTEMANN 2005) have created a renewed interest in the fate of cultures and languages and in the necessity of promoting advanced levels of proficiency in modern languages (cf. KRAMSCH 2005).
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Janina BRUTT-GRJFFLER * Language and Globalisation: Myths and Realities Abstract. This article examines the cultural and linguistic foundations of evolving ecologies of communication in which intercultural learning and teaching will play out in the twenty-first century. A number of forces in modern society have combined to thrust the importance of culture, intercultural understanding, and the leaming of modern foreign languages onto center stage. In particular, the economic and geopolitical imperatives of globalisation (GNUTZMANN/ INTEMANN 2005) have created a renewed interest in the fate of cultures and languages and in the necessity of promoting advanced levels of proficiency in modern languages (cf. ! <RAMSCH 2005). Mindful ofBRUMFIT'S (2003) charge that applied linguists are responsive to real-world problems and applied researchers "engage with, clarify, if necessary reconceptualise, and provide relevant empirical evidence on issues that are perceived by outsiders tobe significant" (quoted in KRAMSCH 2005: 545), the present work adduces data that illurninate the complex terrain of language policy that forms the backdrop for the modern language classroom. lt exarnines the changing nature of societal bilingualism that derives from patterns of international migration, its effects on linguistic diversity, the response it has prompted from educational authorities internationally, and explores its implications for language teaching. Based on an examination ofthe available statistical data, it argues that the growing focus on what is often viewed as a unidirectional loss of cultural and linguistic diversity is actually serving to draw needed attention away from historically unprecedented concentrations of dozens and even hundreds of languages in confined urban geographies where language use and learning take place. 1. The world English paradox "The world is about tobe hit by a tidal wave of English", writes the Independent, describing GRADDOL'S (2004) startling projection in a study for the British Council that half ofthe world's population will either speak or be in the process oflearning English by 2015 (BURLEIGH 2004). Some would find such a description evoking disaster particularly apt. In their book Vanishing Voices, NETTLE and ROMAINE sound a dire warning about the linguistic effects of globalisation, including the spread of English, which Korrespondenzadresse: Dr. Janina BRUTT-GRIFFLER, Associate Professor, Tue State University ofNew York at Buffalo, 505 Christopher Baldy Hall, BUFFAL0, New York 14260. E-mail: bruttg@buffalo.edu Arbeitsbereiche: Sociolinguistics, Second language acquisition, English as a global language, Language policy, Discourse analysis. lFLuL 35 (2006) Language and Globalisation: Myths and Realities 167 portends nothing less than a "biolinguistic diversity crisis": "the extinction oflanguages ... as part ofthe larger picture ofworldwide near total ecosystem collapse" (2000: 17). Scholars of what has come to be called language endangerment predict that anywhere from fifty to ninety percent ofthe world's more than 6,000 languages will disappear in the twenty-first century (NETTLEIROMAINE 2000; CRYSTAL 2000). Nettle and Romaine write, "Many smaller languages are dying out due to the spread of a few world languages such as English, French, Chinese, and so on" (18). Noting that the rise ofEnglish as a global language and the decline of a large proportion ofthe world's languages have largely coincided, they make the link causal: "Some have used the terms 'language murder' and 'language suicide', suggesting that languages do not die natural deaths. They are instead murdered. English, as GLANVILLEL PRICE puts it, is a 'killer language"' (5). To bolster this point, they cite the case of Africa, in which English spread, they assert, "is leading to the top-down displacement of numerous other tongues" (NETTLEIROMAINE 2000: 144). Similarly, PHILLIPSON (2003) writes about the threat posited by English, including in southem Africa, "to other languages and cultures" (6), even portending, perhaps, language attrition and "a loss of cultural vitality" (176). lmplicating the learning ofEnglish in "postethnicity," he contrasts to it the use of African languages, which, he implies, carry the "wellsprings of ethnic identification" (PHILLIPSON 1999: 104). In common with the mainstream of the language rights and language endangerment literature, he assumes that English currently represents the greatest threat to 'indigenous' languages in Africa. And yet the British Council' s report actually calls attention to a threat of a very different kind. Its waming is, paradoxically, that the spread of English poses a risk to Great Britain's citizens and economy if steps are not taken to promote the study of foreign languages. The British Council report puts it this way: "Increasingly, as English spreads across the globe, more people will become bilingual, even multilingual and such skills are highly prized in business." lt then comments, "But Britain has not got the best reputation for leaming other languages" (BURLEIGH 2004). That is no small matter as other languages, including Spanish, Chinese, and Arabic, also assume increasingly prominent roles as global or regional languages ofbusiness. PHILLIPSON (2003), in direct contradiction to the title ofhis recent book English-Only in Europe? (which conjures up the specter ofthe jingoistic English Only movement in the U.S.), admits in its pages that we are heading not toward a world of monolingual English speaker dominance but one in which bilingual competence will be a necessity. He, too, worries that the people who will be hurt the most by that advent are the monolingual English and Irish populations, lulled into a false sense of security by the apparent dominance of their language. He writes of the potential as a result ofthe growth ofworld English for "the vast majority ofBritish and Irish [to] end up as under-qualified in a global economy in which bilingual competence is a minimum requirement for influential positions" (PILLIPSON 2003: 177). The detrimental effects ofEnglish as a world language on its monolingual speakers highlight what can be called the world English paradox, which illustrates the complex effects of globalisation on language. JFLuL 35 (2006) 168 Janina Brutt-Grijjler 2. Globalisation: Myths and Realities That the British Council and perhaps its most prominent and vocal critic should find themselves in essential agreement on so crucial a question of linguistic globalisation might appear surprising at first glance. But closer examination reveals that it should appear so only because of the absence of critical reflection on the politically charged debate over English spread and because of the myths that have accompanied the linguistic dimension of the larger phenomenon we have come to know as globalisation. Few words in current political discourse evoke stronger reactions than globalisation, whether because of the association some have tried to create with the promise of a better world or because it inspires others with fears that it is part of a process of global disintegration via integration. Globalisation is itself caught up in much mythology beginning with the notion 1: hat it is something historically new. On the contrary, recent scholarship tends to emphasize continuities with millennium old processes rather than discontinuities with the past (STEGER 2003). Scholars find the root of globalisation in the intensified contact between people in different parts of the worldby processes of migration, urbanization, commerce, technological innovation, and cultural interactionall ofwhich are as old as recorded history, but which have become intensified in the last few decades (leading to ever greater awareness ofthe contact between different parts ofthe world). As a group of interrelated social processes, globalisation is intimately bound up with questions oflanguage (cf. GNUTZMANN 2005). In fact, language is implicitly central to perhaps one ofthe best definitions of globalisation, that ofFredric Jameson, who writes, "The concept of globalization reflects the sense of an immense enlargement of world communication, as well as of the horizon of a world market, both of which seem far more tangible and immediate than in earlier stages of modemity" (quoted in STEGER 2003: 37). 3. Globalisation Myth Number 1: Globalisation Threatens Linguistic Diversity Just as globalisation is often equated with a process of promotion of cultural uniformity (and Americanization) so too is it often suggested that globalisation promotes homogenization in the linguistic realm. 3.1 Globalisation's complex linguistic results The epoch of 'globalisation' is characterized by the intensified albeit not historically new transnational migrations of people, the products they make, and the languages they speak. In hurling nations into competition on the world market and people into collision on the job market, it throws languages into contact. The consequences of that language contact are as complex and multidimensional as they are profound and dramatic. On the one hand, they have made language into a hot button political issue to an extent perhaps not seen before. For language contact results in language change from the different FLuL 35 (2006) Language and Globalisation: Myths and Realities 169 patterns oflanguage use ofthe individual speakers who constitute the point of contact of two (or more) languages (cf. WEINREICH 1953); to the more general patterns oflanguage use of many, perhaps most, of the speakers of diverse languages; to the distribution of the number of speakers of each language and the shifting proportions between them. Though the linguistic consequences of globalisation have been remarkably complex, they are often reduced to language loss and English spread. As GRADDOL (2004) has argued, rapid shifts •in demography, together with a restructuring of linguistic space by modern telecommunications may produce profound effects on language use by the middle of the twenty-first century, perhaps redefining how we think of languages (as local, national, regional, or world). Already if we were to conceive the functions of an international language to include linking diasporas to mother countries, most of the world's larger languages could be said tobe international in an age ofincreasing transnational migrations. Technology may work to create worldwide communities of speakers ofmany languages, not just English. A recentNew York Times article, for example, called attention to how taxi drivers in the U.S. and other countries carry on international cell phone conversations in a wealth oflanguages (ELLIOTT 2003) languages that can thus no longer be said to be local or regional. And as international languages linking widespread diasporas attest, we may no longer be able to rest in the comfortable assumptions that language use will tend toward monolingual use of anational or ethnic language. And perhaps globalisation will also reshape notions of linguistic diversity as intact (largely monolingual) communities of practice inhabiting compact geographical spaces. 3.2 Competing measures of linguistic diversity The notion that "linguistic diversity" is decreasing due to globalisation (NETTLE/ Ro- MAINE 2000; BRADLEYIBRADLEY 2002; PHILLIPSON 2003; PRATT2003) oversimplifies the complexity of the linguistic processes underway. Such arguments rely on a very particular set of assumptions that language diversity consists of many more or less uniform language-using communities each speaking its own language hence, on the number of discrete languages that can be counted and recorded. What is not explained is why that conception alone describes linguistic diversity and why what NETTLE and ROMAINE (and others) call "biolinguistic diversity" only functions in these particular conditions. Two other, perhaps equally significant, measures of linguistic diversity are increasing: the numbers of multilingual speakers or the range oflinguistic proficiencies of individual speakers in many parts of the world and the number of languages represented in most ofthe large cities ofthe world. That point should be especially evident to language educators, who encounter such measures oflinguistic diversity everyday in the classroom. GNUTZMANN (2005) raises a number ofkey questions with respect to European multilingualism. In pointing out that "many people grow up bilingual with one European and another non-European language," his rightly asks: "What will the status of these multilinguals be? How can their linguistic knowledge and competence be integrated more effectively into school curricula? " (19). The significant geopolitical and economic restructuring worldwide that is a hallmark lFLuL 35 (2006) 170 Janina Brutt-Griffler of globalisation is inaugurating a new phase of societal bilingualism. Until the last few decades, the focus on bilingualism at the societal level in the Western world tended to emphasize nations split between two (or more) large mother tongue groups (e.g., French and English in Canada; French, German, Italian and Romansh in Switzerland) or language revitalization of displaced mother tongues (such as Welsh and Irish). Large-scale international migration, however, has redrawn linguistic maps in many parts of the world, with large numbers of bilingual speakers of dozens, and even hundreds, of languages concentrating in the world's urban centers and increasingly fanning out from there. In the U.S., for instance, the 2000 Census returned 215 million English speakers and 47 million speakers of other languages, meaning that nearly 20% of the population of the U.S. speaks a first language other than English. The census records 30 languages other than English with 100,000 speakers or more, including seven with more than a million speakers (MLA). lt also reveals that one in five children are growing up in "immigrant" households exposed to languages other than English on a daily basis (BEA VERS/ D' AMICO 2005: 1). The 2000 U.S. Census retumed 17.9% of Americans 5 years and over as using languages other than English at home, a figure that has been rapidly increasing over the last quarter century and had already increased to 18.7%, or almost 50 million persons, by the Census Bureau's 2004 American Community Survey (U.S. CENSUS BUREAU 2006). In three states, Texas, New Mexico, and California, these comprise one third of the total including more than 40% in California. In one fifth of American states, the non- English mother tongue population comprises more than a fifth of the population, including all of the nation's five most populous states (California, Texas, New York, Florida and Illinois) (U.S. CENSUS BUREAU 2006). In major urban centers in the U.S., the school-age population is approaching or has reached a preponderance of non-English mother tongue speakers. The proportion of 5 to 17 year-olds who use a language other than English at home is 48% in New York City, 55% in San Francisco, 66% in Los Angeles and 72% in Miami. Perhaps even more revealing is the picture from a Midwestern city like Minneapolis. Not only does 35% of the school-age population report using languages other than English at home, but the variety of the languages is itself remarkable: about one third Spanish, another one third Hmong, with the remaining one third made up of unspecified African languages (15%), Vietnamese (3.6%), Laotian (2.5%), Arabic (2%) and 26 other languages and undifferentiated language groups (MODERN LANGUAGE ASSOCIATION 2006). In fact, more than 4 million children in the U.S. live in homes in which no one over 14 speaks English (BEAVERS/ D'AM1co 2005: 15). And this trend is only expected to intensify, as demographers project another 150 million international migrants to the U.S. by 2050, ensuring the continuing presence of languages other than English. Nor is the U.S. experience unique. The 2001 Canadian Census found that the mother tongues of 39.9% ofthe population ofToronto were languages other than English and French, with the corresponding number for Vancouver coming in at 37.6%. The census retumed more than 100 different mother tongues in use nationwide (STATISTICS CANADA 2001 CENSUS 2006). While the British census has not so far queried language use, a lFLuL 35 (2006) Language and Globalisation: Myths and Realities 171 recent study reports that 30% of London schoolchildren use a language other than English at home, with a total of more than 300 languages represented (BAKERIEVERSLEY 2000). 3.3 Migration, urbanization, and language use The picture of multilingualism is, if anything, even more complex in the global South that is often viewed as the locus of language endangerment and loss of linguistic diversity. The transnational migrations of people are often from a Western perspective seen to be a unidirectional flow of non-Western persons into Western nations. In truth, however, the largest component of that migration is not what we typically hear about people moving from the global South to the global North. Rather, most of the movement is from one country in the global South to another, often to a regional economic center. Sometimes the migrants from one country are themselves replaced by migrants from another. For example, South Africa is currently experiencing massive immigration from surrounding countries on a scale comparable to the U.S. or Europe, while the country that provides many of the migrants, Zimbabwe, itself receives many from Mozambique and Malawi. But the pattern is not that simple. South Africa in fact experiences immigration from all over sub-Saharan Africa a large number, for example, coming from distant Nigeria. A consideration of international migration alone vastly understates the scale of the process. For ifwe include all linguistically significant forms ofmigration, internal migration in multilingual nations, primarily urbanization, accounts for most of the movement and the total numbers of people involved is in the billions. The urban population of the global South grew from 304 million in 1950 to 2 billion in 2000 (MCFALLS 2003: 30). In fact, we just recently experienced a tipping pointthe majority of the world' s population now lives in urban areas for the first time (POPULATION RESOURCE CENTER 2005). Moreover, the rate ofurbanization is actually increasing in many places. In South Africa, for example, the percentage of the population living in urban areas has increased from 50% in 1991 to 58% in 2001 (WORLD BANK WORLD DEVELOPMENT INDICATORS DATA- BASE) and is projected to increase to 75% by 2020 (HUMAN RlGHTS WATCH WORLD REPORT 2003). For the continent as a whole, cities grow at an average rate of 4% per year the highest in the world (Asia is second at 2.6%) (POPULATION RESOURCE CENTER 2005). Like their counterparts throughout the world, African cities will attain enormous size - Lagos, Nigeria is projected to have a population of23.2 million by 2015. The linguistic effects are profound. Hidden within the statistics ofthe world's largest languages given above are the fastest growing languages, languages of local and recent origin that have arisen at least in part specifically to fill the function of a language of wider communication. They are often called urban vernaculars, because they have arisen in urban contexts as the spontaneous products of the mixtures within them of large numbers of speakers of various and often closely related and mutually intelligible languages (MCLAUGHLIN 2001; MAKONI et al forthcoming; SPUTNIK 1988). These languages, containing elements of local languages and sometimes international languages like English or French, include Lingala (Congo), Isicamtho (South Africa), chiHarare FLuL 35 (2006) 172 Janina Brutt-Griffler (Zimbabwe), Town Bemba (Zambia), and Wolof(Senegal). Closely connected, as MUF- WENE (2004) has pointed out, to the encroachment of urbanization on "the function of most indigenous languages as markers of ethnic identity," these languages may be used to deemphasize ethnic identity or to signal urban identity (207). Despite the latter connotation, or perhaps indeed because of it, such mixed languages appear to be spreading apace to rural areas as well. Because they are largely confined to non-elites, though probably the fastest growing languages in many places, most have so far received little, if any, official recognition and in many cases have only begun to be distinguished as languages in their own right. In the highly fluid circumstances in which they arise, they may, however, become transformed into the mother tongues of at least a portion oftheir speakers and may also be making their way into the classroom (CHILDS 1997; MAKONI [et al.] forthcoming). As a result, they are reshaping the "language ecologies" of the regions in which they appear in profound ways. MUFWENE (2004) writes, in former exploitation colonies "fewer indigenous languages" have been endangered "by the European languages but by the indigenous lingua francas" be they traditional (such as Swahili) or new (such as Lingala) (211). Ironically, because the language endangerment literature has accepted many ofthe key assumptions underlying the linguistic imperialism paradigm, in objecting to the encroachment of"dominant" languages on "indigenous," it tacitly sanctions much of the endangerment that is actually taking place (SKUTNABB-KANGAS 2000; MAFFI 2001). For example, PHILLIPSON, the foremost exponent of the notion of linguistic imperialism (PHILLIPSON 1992), has been an enthusiastic supporter of such "local" lingua francas, seemingly oblivious to their impact on what he calls "cultural vitality" (2003: 200). Even a cursory glance at the statistics reveals the significant ways in which linguistic diversity is actually increasing rather than decreasing, and precisely as a result of globalisation. The reasons are not difficult to ascertain. In the age of globalisation, languages like people or, rather, with people continually cross geographical and sociolinguistic borders designed, or at least thought, to hold them apart, their contact producing ever new and unexpected results. lt is a world that in constantly remaking itself also redraws its sociolinguistic maps. Demographers estimate that in the world as a whole, some 175 million people live in nations other than their country ofbirth (McF ALLS 2003: 17). That number increases, currently, by more than 10 million per year, and the number of annual migrants is itself growing (McF ALLS 2003: 17). Combined with rapid urbanization in the global South, the language diversity experienced in modern urban societies is immense and growing. 4. Globalisation Myth Number 2: English Only Worldwide There has been a tendency to falsely equate the "immense enlargement of world communication" with the global spread ofEnglish. That leads to linguistic globalisation myth number 2: as DAVID GRADDOL (2004) puts it, "Many believe English will become the FLulL 35 (2006) Language and Globalisation: Myths and Realities 173 world language to the exclusion of all others" (1330). On the contrary, English is not the only language spreading via second language acquisition and it is not spoken by most bilinguals in the world. In the Eutopean context, GNUTZMANN (2005) rightly argues that "many people grow up bilingual with one European and another non-European language" yet the question ofwhat will "'count' for a European multilingual[ism]" is still an open one (19). At the same time, settling down for a 'reduced' competence in English under the rubric of counterbalancing the 'dominance' ofEnglish seems problematic. 4.1 International languages in an era of transnationalism Though the rapid growth of English over the last century has taken attention away from other international languages, a large number continue to play a vital role in the modern world, as they have for at least the past few millennia and will continue to do for the foreseeable future. Traditionally, international languages (Table 1) have been most closely associated with the facilitating of international communication a function that, in past centuties, Latin, Persian, Greek, Sanskrit, Turkish, and French all played. In the modern world, however, their primary role seems tobe developing into the maintenance of supranational economic, cultutal, and, within certain limitations, ethnic zones (set off by the use of, for example, Arabic, Swahili, Chinese, Spanish, Portuguese or French). 1. English 300* 2. Mandarin Chinese 188 3. Indonesian 140 4. Hindi 120 5. Russian 110 6. Spanish 59 7. French 51 8. Tagalog 40 9. Urdu 40 10. Swahili 30 11. Gennan 28 Table 1: Numbers of second language speakers of 11 international languages, in millions (WORLD ALMANAC 1999: 700); (*CRYSTAL 1997: 54) In some cases, such as Arabic or German, these represent the lack of correspondence between ethnolinguistic identity and national boundaries, as Arabs are dispersed over more than twenty nations on two continents while German is given official or special status in eight European nations. In other cases, such as French, its existence as an international language reflects a colonial legacy, in which most ofthe thirty-four nations in which French has a special status are formet African or Caribbean colonies nations in which generally most people do not speak French as a mother tongue. A variation of this imperial case is illustrated by languages such as Spanish, which though introduced into the Americas as an imperial language, is now the mother tongue ofthe majority of lFLuL 35 (2006) 174 Janina Brutt-Grijjler people in more than twenty nations in the Americas, which dominate the Spanish-speaking world. And in yet other cases, such as Swahili, an international language may constitute the expression of emerging postcolonial nationalism that plays out in a supranational context in this case East Africa. Though Swahili is not the mother tongue of the vast majority of its speakers, it has at least begun to take on that function for increasing numbers. Another group of international languages, of which the largest is Chinese, are more nearly expressions of a diaspora. The categories listed above need not be mutually exclusive. For instance, Portuguese is the official language in five African nations, though it is not for the most part the mother tongue ofthe majority ofthe peoples in those nations, and yet, like Spanish, it has become the mother tongue ofthe majority ofthe largest lusophone nation, Brazil. French itself, like German, is spoken in several European nations as well as by a diaspora population in Canada. Russian has spread to neighboring countries partly as an imperial language learned as a second language by peoples incorporated into the Russian empire and partly via a large Russian-speaking diaspora in those nations. In other cases, like Kurdish, the language can be called international, as it crosses national borders, but only because the Kurds have been denied nationhood by the three more powerful states in whose territory their would-be homeland lies. 4.2 Growth in numbers of second language users of languages other than English If we take a snapshot of second language use in the world as a whole, we find a rather unexpected or at least under-appreciated result, illustrated in Table 2: English does not constitute part ofthe competence ofthe vast majority ofbilinguals today. English 300 10 other languages 806 Table 2: Numbers of second language speakers ofEnglish and of 10 other languages, in millions English is not the only language spreading as a language of bilinguals. Table 2 shows estimates of the number of second language speakers of 11 languages with the actual numbers probably substantially higher. lFLuL 35 (2006) Language and Globalisation: Myths and Realities 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. Chinese Hindi Spanish English Bengali Arabic Portuguese Russian German French 874 366 358 341 207 202* 176 167 100 77 Table 3: Number ofmother tongue speakers often languages, in millions (WORLD ALMANAC 1999: 700); (*GRIMES 1996) 4.3 The fastest growing mother tongues 175 Closely related to that finding is another: despite its growth as a second language, English does not number among the world's fastest growing mother tongues. Table 3 shows the total number of mother tongue speakers of ten of the largest languages in the world. By 2050 that chart will look very different, but it will not be because ofthe tremendous rise in the number of English mother tongue speakers. English is not the only language gaining speakers due to processes of globalisation (which include vast international rnigrations and rapid urbanization), it is actually growing as a mother tongue at a slower rate than many other languages. Its growth as a mother tongue language (one that replaces mother tongues and thereby threatens them) is dwarfed by that of languages like Swahili, Hausa and Bahasa Indonesia. Swahili currently has some 5 million mother tongue speakers, and 30 million second language users; and Bahasa Indonesia has somewhere between 17 to 30 million native speakers as compared to 140 million nonmother tongue users. lt is languages like these rather than English that are rapidly gaining mother tongue speakers. Moreover, though much ofthe scholarship on language loss makes a facile equation between dominant and European languages (cf. MUFWENE 2004), an analysis of the world's largest languages show that locally dominant is very unlikely tobe a European language outside Europe. Table 4 shows the distribution ofthe world's largest languages those with 10 million or more speakers. 100 million or more 50-100 10-50 Total 10 12 43 65 4 3 8 15 6 9 35 50 Table 4: The distribution ofthe world's largest languages, in millions (Source: ETHNOLOGUE) JFLuL 35 (2006) 176 Janina Brutt-Grijjler In addition, of the nearly 200 languages with between 1 and 10 million speakers, somewhere around 85% are non-European, depending on how one classifies "European" and what counts as a language (versus a dialect) (ETHNOLOGUE). On the contrary, the global spread ofEnglish is not a step on the way to English Only worldwide but indexes the degree to which we are moving to a world in which bilingualism and bilinguals are becoming the norm (cf. BRUTT-GRIFFLER 2002; 2004). The most significant linguistic effect of globalisation has not been either world English or language endangerment, but the increasing prevalence ofbilingualism. So, as GRADDOL (2004) projects, "English will indeed play a crucial role in shapingthe new world linguistic order, but its major impact will be in creating new generations ofbilingual and multilingual speakers across the world" (1330). The portentous results are tobe seen most starkly, perhaps, in the readiness with which the corporate world, cited by some as an engine of English Only worldwide, has in fact embraced bilingualism as a practical economic necessity. A report ofthe self-described "pro-business" Washington-based Committee for Economic Development (CED 2006) stresses that "füll participation in [the] new global economy will require not just competency in reading, mathematics and science, but also proficiency in foreign languages" (vii). The reason for this advocacy is not difficult to discem. As the percentage of the world's commerce that crosses national borders constantly increases (in dollar figures from $57 billion in 1947 to over $6 trillion in the late 1990s) (STEGER 2003), not just familiarity with, but fluency in more than one language has increasingly become a prerequisite to effectiveness in more and more segments of global commercial life. The CED argues, lt is becoming increasingly important for U.S. companies of all sizes to succeed in overseas markets. Many small 0 and medium-sized businesses from New England to the Pacific Northwest are now finding it necessary to do business in the languages and cultural environments of the world's emerging markets. Some small businesses especially need employees with foreignlanguage skills, as managers must often communicate directly with foreign customers.... Without foreign-language skills and cultural knowledge, small businesses face greater difficulties exporting to overseas markets (6). This market pressure manifests itself in both expected and less obvious ways. For instance, a U.S.-based Call Center trade journal notes that while demand for all employees is experiencing a decline in the U.S. partly as a result of the outsourcing of suchjobs ~ there is a net shortage ofbilinguals in the field, particularly Spanish-English bilinguals (REAJJ 2004). What might not be realized is how far up the economic ladder this preference extends. A survey of global recruiters for executive level positions in business found that though only 34% ofNorth American respondents considered bilingualism "critical to succeeding in today's business environment" (as compared to 90% of those questioned in Europe, Asia, and Latin America), a füll two-thirds believed it would be so within a decade (identifying Spanish, French, and Chinese as the languages of choice for ambitious North American business people) (KoRN/ FERRY INTERNATIONAL 2005). lFLuL 35 (2006) Language and Globalisation: Myths and Realities 177 This economic imperative toward bilingualism cuts two ways. The magazine Hispanic Business notes a connection between it and English Only initiatives in many states, remarking, "Fear ofbilingualism is fueled [in part] by the fact that many U.S. companies prefer bilingual employees" (MACERI 2001). On the other hand, market forces are not so easily held at bay. lt is telling that an article in a trade joumal for North American chief executives on outsourcing, in recommending potential nations to best fit particular goals, lists the Philippines as "a base for bilingual Spanish-English language skill" (F ANNIN 2004). Apparently, bilingualism is among the skills that can be outsourced. 5. Implications for intercultural language teaching and learning In the twenty-first century, communicative competence is going to mean increasingly that more and more people will want to acquire the advanced proficiency in two or more languages that will be increasingly necessary in a globalized world. Though a significant proportion ofthe world's population has always been bilingual (or multilingual), globalisation is taking bilingualism from the margins to the mainstream. lt is not surprising, therefore, that national self-interest has caused govemments across the world, as the British Council report highlights, to follow the lead of business in concluding that the ability of nations to produce bilinguals with advanced proficiency is a key to global competitiveness. The Commission of the European Communities has declared that "[t]he ability to understand and communicate in other languages is a basic skill for all European citizens" (2004: 3). lt hasset an ambitious target for every European having "communicative competence" in "at least two other languages in addition to his or her mother tongue" (4). Two nations not known for their success in foreign language teaching, the U.S. and UK, have both embarked on ambitious programs oftheirown. In the U.S., only one third of students in grades 7 to 12 and fewer than one in ten college students take courses in a foreign language (COMMITTEE FOR ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT 2006: 1). As a result, corporate executives in the U.S. self-report an average of 1.5 languages spoken, as against a figure of 3.9 for the Netherlands (COMMITTEE FOR ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT 2006: 7). In 2006, however, the U.S. federal govemment announced a plan to allocate $114 million for encouraging the leaming of "critical" languages like Chinese, Arabic, Hindi, Japanese, Korean, Persian/ Farsi, Russian, and Turkish in which it is deemed crucial to have a supply of highly proficient bilinguals (U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE 2006). The languages involved are not those major European languages that have traditionally dominated foreign language education in the West. While the most successful EU nations have achieved bilingualism rates as high as 99% (Luxemburg) and 91 % (Netherlands), the UK comes in at the second lowest (30%) (EUROPEAN COMMISSION 2005: 3). In December 2002, the Govemment issued the National Languages Strategy, Languages for All: Languages for Life -A Strategy for England, which sets out the Govemment's plans to transform England's capability in leaming languages. One of its key goals is to provide every pupil throughout Key Stage lFJLuL 35 (2006) 178 Janina Brutt-Grijjler 2 the opportunity to learn at least one foreign language by the end of the decade. lt also outlines plans to "broaden and enrich the opportunities for language learning at school and beyond" by capitalizing on the notion that "[l]anguages are a lifelong skill" (DE- P ARTMENT FOR EDUCATION AND SKJLLS 2002: 1). The clear vision to promote language learning is underscored by the Govemment's recognition that in "the knowledge society ofthe 21 st century, language competence and intercultural understanding are not optional extras, they are an essential part ofbeing a citizen" (5). Its Executive Summary states that "[f]or too long we have lagged behind as a nation in our capability to contribute fully as multi-lingual and culturally aware citizens. Likewise in the global economy too few employees have the necessary language skills to be able to engage fully in international business" (5). lt states that "the Govemment is determined to develop and implement a strategy which will achieve a steep change in language competence and change the country's attitude to teaching and learning foreign languages" (12). lt is instructive to observe that the attempt to assure its global position in a multilingual world has caused UK educational authorities to appreciate a hitherto often downplayed asset. The UK's National Centre for Languages (CILT) notes, for instance, Considerable concem has been expressed in the press about the long-terrn future of languages in UK schools and universities and about the implications for business. Yet, the UK has a major linguistic asset not currently sufficiently recognized in language policy and planning: children from multilingual communities across the UK who are growing up with a knowledge oflanguages, such as Punjabi, Polish, Somali, or Yoruba, in addition to English .... The linguistic skills and achievements ofthis group of children are often ignored in discussions ofthe UK's competence in languages other than English. There is a need to recognize the particular benefits which competence in community languages represents for the children themselves, for their communities and for wider British society, and to identify ways in which their potential can best be realized (NA- TIONAL CENTRE FOR LANGUAGES 2006). The CiLT reports, "Mainstream and complementary providers all agree that it is important for students to learn to understand, speak, read and write their community languages well" (NATIONAL CENTRE FOR LANGUAGES 2006). In England, too, then, the pressures of globalisation have convinced govemment authorities to look past the traditionally recognized "modern languages" clear evidence ofthe profound ways in which linguistic diversity is not uniformly disappearing, but being transformed together with global demographics. The practical implications for language teaching and learning are enormous. Even those nations that have long experience in developing a high level ofbilingual proficiencies may not be prepared for the influxes of non-mother tongue speakers they are currently experiencing. The UK's National Centre for Languages notes, A key dilemma for both mainstream and complementary providers is the fact that the range of languages in use in British schools appears to be increasing, but the numbers of students who speak any one language may be small. Moreover, cöncentrations of students shift from year to year. Several schools had the experience ofrecruiting teachers and organizing provision, only to find that numbers of students in that language fell in subsequent years, while the numbers for other languages, not available, rose (2006: 3). lFLuL 35 (2006) Language and Globalisation: Myths and Realities 179 Similarly, there are an estimated 5 million K-12 students in the U.S. with limited English proficiency, who, according to Catherine Snow, "arrive with high home-language literacy skills and no English, or with a history of failed and interrupted schooling and no English" (quoted in GUENSBURG 2006: 36). The results pose serious challenges to educators. Many teachers find themselves unable to converse directly with all the students they are teaching because they may not necessarily share a common language with all their students. In such a context language teaching is mediated by other students. For example, the teacher may be proficient in Tswana and English, while there are students from Tswana, Zulu, Sotho, and Afrikaans backgrounds. The teacher's instruction is initially targeted at students who understand Tswana and another African language. The student who understands Tswana and Sotho might then mediate between the Sotho and Zulu students and the Sotho/ Zulu students may then mediate between them and Sotho and Afrikaans students, and then chained instruction continues until everyone is included through a strategy of mediated instruction. The following classroom interaction taken from a Zimbabwe classroom illustrates the miscommunications and impediments to leaming that often result. 1 Teacher: Our lesson today; is on lightning. What is our lesson on? 2 Students (in unison): Lightning. 3 Student 1: Lightning zvinoreveyi? 4 (Lightening what does it mean? ) 5 Student 2: Magetsi 6 (Lights) 7 Teacher: Lightning can kill. 8 Student 2: Magetsi anogonakuuraya 9 (Lights can kill.) Here, one student, in translating the English for another who does not understand it, mistranslates the object ofthe lesson, leading to the second student's conclusion that the teacher is telling them that "lights can kill." 6. Conclusion Interkulturelles Lernen or intercultural leaming that gained momentum in the late 1980s in Europe recognized that leaming foreign languages "was more thanjust leaming to get one's message across, clearly, accurately, and appropriately." Rather it underscored the necessity of understanding others in "their national, historical specificity" (KRAMSCH 2005: 551 ). 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