The Globalization of the English Language

 Summarization of Global English

I watched two videos on how English is becoming a "global language", both linked in the "references" section of this post. The first one goes over how English expanded in China and the second goes over how English expanded in the EU.

Image created by KangZeLiu

My main takeaways from the first video:

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1. English used to be interpreted as a "tool of imperialism" in China before the 1970s. Since then, Chinese people became more open to it as a way of gaining wealth/becoming successful, and being able to communicate with the "outside world".
2. Multi-national companies helped spread English by standardizing it.
3. School children are the primary population that learns English in China.
4. The American economy is the most influential in the "Western world".
5. The new Chinese dictionary contains hundreds of words derived from English.
6. Modernization requires one to know English.
7. English threatens the "Chinese identity".

My main takeaways from the second video:

1. English is becoming more used in the EU but not in an "official" sense.
2. French used to be the most used language in the EU parliament.
3. EU parliament attempts to promote all 23 official languages by providing equal levels of translation for all of them.
4. Learning English is seen as functionally necessary, but learning French or some other European language is treated as "leisurely".
5. A Frenchman in the EU parliament stated that he believes that English promoted liberalism in Europe.

Problematic Aspects of a Globalized Language

While it is, on one hand, useful for everyone to use a similar language for certain purposes, it harms other social aspects. Globalizing/standardizing a language (like English) makes it easier to conduct business or social interactions on a global scale (Bodapati, 2016). However, I believe that there is a caveat to this. That being the consequence of language/culture loss. For the example of English in China, the "Chinese identity" is threatened by English and is an example of the consequence of language loss I mentioned earlier.

With English gradually becoming more widely used in places like Europe and China, diversified experiences and cultural differences become less apparent/more homogenized. Like I mentioned in my video presentation from last week with Istro-Romanian, we lose the experiences and histories of the people whose language is being overtaken by another (in this case, English overtaking Chinese).

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Another problematic aspect I wanted to highlight is how English is basically a necessity in order to be apart of the global market (Neeley, 2014). In both cases I reviewed regarding China and the EU, English started to spread in both nations/continents through business as it was seen as a language of economic opportunity/growth. America (and the West in general) is considered to be the "most influential" of the western world according to the video on the expansion of English in China. This means that American English and the business practices of America might become standardized to other parts of the world, further homogenizing the world to one language/culture.

References

• The Expansion of English in China
  
• English in the European Union
• Neeley, Tsedal. “Global Business Speaks English.” Harvard Business Review, August 1, 2014. https://hbr.org/2012/05/global-business-speaks-english.
• Bodapati, Prakash Babu. “Globalization and English Language: Study of Impact and Progress.” Ashvamegh Indian Journal of English Literature, December 14, 2016. https://ashvamegh.net/impact-of-globalization-and-english-language/.