BÀI GIẢNG DẠNG VĂN BẢN (SCRIPT)

Môn học: BÁO CÁO CHUYÊN ĐỀ NGÔN NGỮ ANH

Bài 4: The future of world Englishes

Slide Nội dung

1 Hello students, we work together again in Unit 4.
In this Unit we’ll examine issues surrounding the emergence of global
culture, where new opportunities to use English have emerged. They are
changes in communication technologies, as well as the explosion of
globalization, localization, and glocalization issue, which have created a
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geographically fragmented but globally interconnected community that has
brought into question linguistic boundaries defined by national borders. The
use of English in education is also discussed to analyse how English will be
used in the future.
What happens when people’s social network is no longer bound by the
geography that defines language variation? A global culture of online
communities, of shared YouTube videos, a global network of Facebook
friends, and instant access to global media will surely have an impact on
English language use.
3 Indeed, changes in communication technologies have spawned /spɔːn/ new
uses of language in new mediums, such as instant messaging, texting,
emailing…in which language is being transmitted in a much more
accessible, immediate, and unedited fashion. This, together with
globalization, has meant a realignment of communities from the physical to
the virtual, allowing speakers to engage in a wide range of communities of
 practice without having to leave their homes.
As technology has grown, the world has seen an explosion in spontaneous
written communication, blurring the lines between written and spoken
language, and even challenging previous definitions of language itself. For
example, the use of smileys and emoticons in electronic communication
which is only expressed via facial expressions or gestures when speaking.
As technology continues, we are likely to see new innovations with how
language is used online.
Galloway (2014) assumed that current and future trends indicate that
popular media is fragmenting global audiences, and businesses are returning
to localization strategies (adjusting products to meet local needs). She
indicated that television today is having less of an impact on global culture
and language due to this fragmentation of audiences. They can watch their
favourite programmes on different channels with their local languages.
Entertainment programmes are also producing more local content, news
channels are branching out into local languages, and movies are often made
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available in dubbed languages at the press of a button (When a movie is
dubbed in a language (Vietnamese), it means that the original dialogue and
sound from the movie, which may be in a different language, have been
replaced with Vietnamese dialogue and sound. This is done to make the
movie accessible to Vietnamese-speaking audiences who may not
understand the original language. Dubbing involves re-recording the
dialogue and integrating it into the movie so that it appears as if the
characters are speaking Vietnamese.).
Block (2012) defined that “glocalization is used to capture the idea that the
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global does not merely overwhelm or swallow the local; rather, syntheses
emerge from contacts between the global and the local”. Therefore, similar
demands for popular media and consumer products exist across the world,
even though the demands are localized. Transcultural flows, termed by
Pennycook (2007), describe the movement and adaptation of cultural forms
to create new identities in a globalized world. Moreover, these transcultural
flows are not moving from America to the world, as some pundits /ˈpəndəts/
once feared when coining the term ‘Americanization’. YouTube in this case,
reports that as of 2013, the site was localized in 61 languages, and that over
80 per cent of user traffic came from outside the USA.
Furthermore, creative usages of language catch on quickly in the globalized
segments (such as the word selfie or youth vocabulary worldwide to
represent an identity of music, fashion, or sport). Popular media delivered
over the internet provides opportunities to use English in briefly emerging
and disappearing virtual cultures (e.g. language used in delivering
discussions or comments), which was impossible with previous
technologies. Music (such as pop and hip hop) also reflects global and local
mixing in the combination of English and other language in the lyrics. In
Hong Kong, for example, Cantonese pop music has seen the integration of
Cantonese, Mandarin, and English over the years. These new cultures
emphasize the hybridity, fluidity, and the emergent nature of Global
Englishes communication as speakers construct new communicative
possibilities that are not tied to a specific culture or language, nor is it
viewed as deficient in any way.
Finally, Galloway (2014) concludes that future users of ELF will likely need
to negotiate language use as they shuttle between local, global, monolingual,
multilingual, physical, and virtual communities of practice.
 This trend is also explained by Crystal (2003) under the view of identity,
economy and power. If the global power structure shifts as the world moves
away from the postcolonial influence of the UK and the economic influence
of the USA, many believe so too will attachment to English.
First of all, the arguments are all to do with identity, and with language as
the most immediate and universal symbol of that identity. People have a
natural wish to use their own mother-tongue, to see it survive and grow, and
they do not take kindly when the language of another culture is imposed on
them. On the whole, the former colonies of the British Empire have stayed
with English, but there are some famous instances of distancing or rejection.
For example, in Tanzania, English was jointly official with Swahili until
1967 (thereafter, Swahili became the sole national language); in Malaysia,
the National Language Act of 1967 disestablished English as a joint official
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language, giving sole status to Malay. On the other hand, English has begun
to increase its prestige in several countries which were formerly part of
other empires, and where it has no unpalatable colonial associations. In
1996, for example, Algeria (a former French colony) opted to make English
its chief foreign language in schools, replacing French. Secondly, there are
also economic arguments which might persuade a country to reduce its
investment in the English language. A country might see its economic future
as operating more on a regional than a global level, and thus fostering a
local lingua franca will outweigh the longer term investment on English.
Thirdly, there is the closest of links between language and power. If
anything were to disestablish the military or economic power of the USA,
there would be inevitable consequences for the global status of the language.
The millions of people learning English in order to have access to this
 power would begin to look elsewhere, and they would quickly acquire new
language loyalties.
The spread of English around the world has increased the importance of
English language education throughout the world. Many institutions in ENL
nations view international students as consumers and the universities
provide the product (education). As a result of these financial gains, a
number of ENL nations are in competition to attract international student
numbers. In Australia, for example, international education is considered the
nation’s third most important export industry and in the UK, international
students account for 13 per cent of the student body, but one-third of the
income from tuition fees.
Western models of internationalization are also spreading to the Expanding
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Circle nations. For example, the Chinese government opened up the
education market in recent years and allowed Western universities to offer
programmes in China. The same situation is found in Japan during Japanese
economic boom in the 1980s.
Europe institutions have a more global perspective of internationalization,
seen as a means to develop a more international knowledge economy. This
leads a 1,000 per cent increase in the past ten years of English programmes
catering for international mobility in Europe. Netherlands, Germany and
Scandinavian countries have several English-taught Masters programmes in
Europe.
A similar trend is occurring in Asia, where domestic universities are
integrating English language into domestic programmes not only for the
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purpose of allowing international student mobility but also to meet domestic
demand for an ‘internationalization at home’ experience. For example,
 many of the leading universities in Japan, China, South Korea, and ASEAN
nations have seen increases in English taught undergraduate and
postgraduate courses in recent years.
English is the primary medium of scientific publication because it owns a
wide readership. However, non-native English-speaking academics are at a
disadvantage in publishing because of the highly standardized conventions
in academic writing. Nevertheless, in the recent years with the increasing
numbers of non-native English-speaking researchers from China and India
“a loosening of native-speaker norms in academic writing” will be
considered.
In the long term, the future of English is harder to predict; certainly the
immovable position of English as the world’s first true lingua franca is
dependent on unforeseeable forces of a political, economic, social, and
technological nature, and any world-changing occurrence in any one of
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these fields could dislodge English from its current position. However, if the
world continues to develop as expected, the dislodgement of English as a
world language seems improbable.
Thank you for your attention during the lesson. Goodbye!