Dominance of English as language of instruction

Dr. Lakshman K. Wedikkarage

In a survey designed to study the use of English in 20 countries, which included some of the former British colonies in Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa as well as some countries in the EU, Josua Fishman, the distinguished Professor of Sociology of Language at the City University of New York and the founder and editor of the Influential International Journal of the Sociology of Language concluded that 'the world of large scale commerce, industry, technology and banking, like the world of certain human sciences and professions, is an international world and it is linguistically dominated by English almost everywhere, regardless of how well-protected local cultures, languages and identities may otherwise be'.

Despite the fact that half of the countries included in the survey use their native languages as media of instruction in elementary and secondary education, Fishman points out that the urban elite send their children to private English-medium schools.

According to David Crystal, the celebrated linguist and the editor of the Encyclopaedia of English Language, the present day world status of English is primarily the result of two factors. They are the expansion of the British colonial power which peaked towards the end of the 19th Century covering a third of the earth and the flowering of the United States as a powerful economic might in the 20th Century. It takes military power to establish a language across regions. However, the military power alone is not adequate to maintain such a language as a global language.

Economic power

It also takes an economic power to maintain such a language. There is a strong relationship between linguistic dominance and economic power. The economic superiority of a country leads to technological advancement and these taken together can give such a country the power to dominate the world even linguistically.

Thus the English language which British imperialism sent across the globe with its military might 'was maintained and promoted almost single-handed through the economic supremacy of the new American superpower' says Crystal. It is the industrial revolution of the 18th and the 19th Centuries that led to the success of English which the British spread as a colonial power during the 17th and the 18th Centuries. The technological, economic and cultural dominance of the US has finally sealed it as a global language today.

English has become the most dominant language in international relations, media, entertainment such as cinema and the song industry which have a worldwide impact, a widely used language of multinational and multilateral organisations, a medium for learning science and technology and the most preferred language of academic debate.

Globalisation processes

English is seen as an integral part of the ongoing globalisation processes in commerce, finance, politics and military affairs. Moreover, English has been adopted as the key language for Corporate, Constitutional affairs including that of the European Union (EU).

It is also the most widely used language of Non Governmental Organizations (NGOs) and sub-cultural youth groups.

Moreover, the advancement of ICT has enabled actors in the above-mentioned businesses to interact transcending national boundaries with electromagnetic ease with the use of the Internet and e-mails.

Although in some developed countries such as in the EU and Scandinavia, it is believed that the use of English is required only for cross-national activity (since there is no necessity for those countries to use English otherwise), it has been noted that a particular stratum of population, whose members are now accustomed to interacting with one another in English, has emerged.

EU countries

Robert Phillipson an English research Professor at Copenhagen Business School, writing to Guardian Unlimited on April 18, 2001 states that English is no longer a foreign language in most EU member countries. While it is used as the corporate language of big business, it is being increasingly used as a medium of instruction in higher education in many countries in the EU.

The presence of this new 'enemy' of the EU was so dominant as the language of science and technology, computers, trade and commerce that the French were driven briskly to step up language management and language policy in France to keep the penetration of English at bay.

Higher education

Nevertheless, English has made inroads into academic teaching even in France and Germany, countries that have shown no sympathy for English in science and academia until recently. While English has spread to France and Germany gradually, the Dutch and Scandinavian scientists have whole-heartedly welcomed English instead of French or German for their academic purposes. Moves by higher education institutes in Norway which have started paying more money for researchers who publish in English provide a clear example of the extent to which English has come to dominate in higher education institutes in Norway.

Dutch and Scandinavian researchers have outnumbered their German and French counterparts in publishing scientific research in the English language even within their own countries.

After a survey of 14 European countries, which included Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, The Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Sweden and Switzerland and eight former Eastern European countries including Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Poland, Slovakia, Slovenia, to determine to what extent English has come to stay as a language of science and technology as well as an academic language in higher education Ulrich Ammon and Grant McConnell, two German socio-linguists conclude that English as a foreign language and major European lingua franca has now widely spread into most European countries as a language of university teaching, alongside the national official languages. This is true of countries with big international languages such as French and German as mentioned elsewhere in the article.

Additional medium

Today even these countries feel the need to introduce English as an additional medium of university teaching specially for science and maths related courses.

After the break up, countries in the former Soviet Union started learning English as their foreign language in place of Russian that enjoys a thoroughly developed terminology in all branches of science and technology.

The desire to use English by Baltic States and former socialist countries in Eastern Europe has been unprecedented according to Tatjana Kryuchkova, a well-known Russian linguist. However, this enthusiasm has not always been productive and sometimes has been embarrassing. It is clear that English is being used more and more in education and academia even in countries where English had relatively less or no use at all in such spheres. Although countries whole heartedly adopt English as language of instruction for education, it has not always been a facile solution for the students.

Learning ability

Alastair Pennycook, Professor of Language and Literacy at the University of Technology in Sydney, reveal in his book The Cultural Politics of English as an International Language that Chinese students in Hong Kong face enormous difficulties in learning not due to their inferiority in learning ability but due to lack of adequate competence in English. In 2001, when the educational authorities in Sri Lanka reintroduced English as a medium of instruction for G.C.E. A/L science subjects, it was meant for some selected schools that were willing teach such subjects in English medium. While many countries opt to use English, some countries may not fully benefit from it as we saw in the case of Russia. Does the use of English in science and technology actually bring out the true potential of those students and scientists who are not fluent in it?

Or is it being used because it has been legitimised as the language of science and technology through global discourses? These are some of the pertinent questions that critical researchers may want to investigate.

(The writer is a Senior Lecturer at Department of Social Science Education University of Colombo)