English-as-an-international-language

Comparative Sociology Volume 5 issue 4 also available onlinecopy 2006 Koninklijke Brill NV Leiden see wwwbrillnl

English as an InternationalLanguage in Non-Native

Settings in an Era of Globalization

Masamichi Sasaki Tatsuzo Suzuki and Masato Yoneda

Abstract

Language is an unquestionable prerequisite for human com-munication As such the study of language is intrinsic to socio-logy This paper explores briefly the importance of languagestudy to sociology The apparent dominance of English as theinternational language is discussed in some detail The paperrsquosprincipal focus is to examine cross-national attitudes aboutEnglish as the international language of non-English languagespeaking peoples and of peoples who speak English only as aforeign language Extensive empirical findings about these atti-tudes are examined in an effort to predict the future directionof the spread of English as international language Thoughmany of the findings suggest extraordinary levels of ambivalenceabout English as international language the results suggestmany opportunities for further study

Key words English language linguistic attitudes cross-nationalanalysis empirical study

Introduction

Language is an unquestionable prerequisite for human communicationLanguage is an ldquoindispensable and universal component of the culturalsystem of all societiesrdquo (Barber 19823) As such language is an intrinsicelement of sociology (cf Hertzler 1965 Mesthrie et al 2000) indeed anexcellent exemplar of Durkheimrsquos ldquosocial representationsrdquo (Durkheim 1938)

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382 bull Masamichi Sasaki Tatsuzo Suzuki and Masato Yoneda

This paper will explore briefly the importance of language study to soci-ology In the course of this discussion we will also explore the claimsof some who believe the dominance of English as an international lan-guage is only transitory We will then turn to this paperrsquos principal focuswhich is to examine English as an international language (or perhapsthe international language) We will focus especially on the attitudes aboutEnglish as an international language of non-English language speakingpeoples and of peoples who speak English only as a second (or even thirdand so on) language Extensive empirical findings will be examined inan effort to predict the future direction of the spread of English as inter-national language

There is extensive literature on language and this literature has myriadfoci ranging from social to political to economic even to military andbeyond And it is easy to see that a major consideration in much of thediscussion of language concerns language dominance What makes onelanguage become dominant over others What drives language dominanceCertainly political and economic circumstances play a major role as onelanguage emerges over others throughout history (see eg Bailey 1985Barber 1982 Crystal 1997 Firth 1970 Hertzler 1965 Kachru 1986)At the same time this paper is considering the question of internationallanguage dominance in the context of globalization a phenomenon whichhas changed things very distinctly from the time of the Roman Empirefor instance or even the era of British colonialism In terms of directcommunication for example the telephone and the internet (email inparticular) have made daily communication throughout the world a sim-ple straightforward even incidental means of human communicationSuch communications require language and most often they require acommon language for convenience if for no other reason

English as International Language

English is undeniably the dominant ldquointernational languagerdquo at least atpresent Indeed Kachru (1986) pointed out that there are more non-native than native users of English in the world According to Power(2005) non-native English speakers now outnumber native ones 3 to 1(also see Strevens 1982 Smith 1983 and Quirk and Widdowson 1985)We will discuss later the potential for English to remain dominant Howdid English get where it is today Brumfit (19821 also cf Lieberson1982 Noss 1983 Bryson 1990 Pennycook 1994 and Crystal 2004) sum-marizes well the source of Englishrsquos present dominance in the following

English is an international language in that it is the most widespread mediumof international communication both because of the number and geographical

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English as an International Language bull 383

spread of its speakers and because of the large number of non-native speak-ers who use it for part at least of their international contact The predom-inance of English is mainly the result of two periods of world dominationby English speaking nations British imperialism in the nineteenth centuryand the economic influence of the United States in the twentieth centuryThe combination of political influence and technological superiority acquiredthrough these two successive movements has given English an advantageover other major imperial languages such as French or Spanish while therelative geographical restrictions of Russian Chinese in its many forms orArabic have made these languages less influential internationally

There is a difference between English as international language and pre-vious languages that had dominant characteristics (such as Latin (seeWright 2004)) and of course that difference arises because we are nowdealing with the context of globalization The extraordinarily widespreaduse of daily international communication in this context means that thedominant language at present is used on a much more universal andwidespread scale than ever before

The worldness of English in both its global and local senses implies rela-tionships to the larger world and to the local context different from thoseof other languages Given the dominant position of English in the world andits connections both to inequitable economic systems and to the dominanceof certain forms of culture and knowledge there are inevitable questions tobe asked here concerning language and inequality (Pennycook 199434ndash35)

In this paper our ldquoquestionsrdquo about language and inequality will bederived from the empirical work to be discussed shortly This work con-cerns peoplersquos attitudes toward English as international language and itsdominance These directly target the issues of the apparently inherentinequalities suggested by Pennycook

This dominance though was not inevitable Historical circumstanceswere such that English coincidentally arose as international language asdominant (cf Melchers and Shaw 2003) Smith (19832) considers Englishan ldquointernational auxiliary languagerdquo This begins to suggest a set ofscholars who view English dominance in a different light Another hintof this suggestion is given by Pennycook (19949) who states that Englishldquois seen as neutral because it is assumed that once English has in somesense become detached from its original cultural contexts (particularlyEngland and America) it is now a neutral and transparent medium ofcommunicationrdquo Bickley (198287) goes so far as to say that ldquoEnglishdoes not lsquobelongrsquo to any one group of people The use of English isalways culture-bound but the English language is not bound to anyspecific culture or political systemrdquo

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384 bull Masamichi Sasaki Tatsuzo Suzuki and Masato Yoneda

So at least some scholars consider that the social and cultural accou-trements of English have lost much of their association with the domi-nant international language As Kachru (1986vii) puts it ldquoWhetherthese are real or imagined is not important what is vital is the pub-lic attitude toward English the love-hate relationship with the languagerdquo[emphasis added]

Other scholars have focused on English dominance as ldquolinguistic cap-italrdquo Linguistic capital is not unlike social capital cultural capital oreconomic capital (cf Bourdieu 1976 1977 Bourdieu and Passeron 1990)As such English ldquocontinues to provide unprecedented power for mobil-ity and advancement to those native and non-native users who possessit as a linguistic toolrdquo (Kachru 198614)

Nonetheless as the world globalizes so too does communication hencea single language becomes nearly imperative That this language hadimperialist origins becomes less and less an issue in its universal deploy-ment Not everyone agrees with this sentiment however (cf Quirk 1987)Deneire (1993172) for example states that ldquoResistance to Western dom-ination in general and to American imperialism in particular has led toa revival of ethnonationalisms and to a rejection of English in favor ofnational languagesrdquo Thus English as international language becomesembroiled in the debate over Westernization a subject principally beyondour present scope

Some scholars including Fishman (199827) argue that English dom-inance will ldquoeventually wane in influencerdquo (also cf Al-Dabbagh 2005)In a long-term historical perspective this is undoubtedly true based uponpast history Many of these scholars focus on the notion of regionaliza-tion and see English dominance waning in the face of a potential riseof regional emphases However at present no substitute languages appearon the horizon

Ironically it could be globalizationrsquos technology sector that ultimatelycontributes to the wane of English dominance Machine or automaticlanguage translation technology has had an amazingly rocky historyMany thought the world would have access to universal translators inthe 1970s or 1980s They have yet to come to fruition however as withmany technologies it is only a matter of time If universal and accurateautomatic translation were available then reliance on a single dominantlanguage would certainly wane perhaps along with it English dominance

Attitudes toward English as International Language

What do non-English speaking or non-native English speaking peoplefeel about English as the international means of communication the

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English as an International Language bull 385

dominant language Do these people want to learn English Do thesepeople feel ldquoenvious resentful or angryrdquo (Crystal 19972) Crystal (19972)goes on to state

These feelings are natural and would arise whichever language emerged asa global language They are feelings which give rise to fears and fearslead to conflict Political differences over language economics educationlaws and rights are a daily encounter for millions Language is always inthe news and the nearer a language moves to becoming a global languagethe more newsworthy it is

Clearly the sources of feelings about language are extremely broad inscope including for instance economics politics the law policy mak-ing and so on Effectively this broad-based derivation is treated by thescience of sociolinguistics (see eg Kachru 1986 1991 Baker 1992Berns 1992 Ammon 1994 Pulcini 1997) Kachru (1991) called attitudes(toward language) unplanned or invisible forces which can in effectbecome invisible policies From a somewhat different perspective Cooperand Fishman (19778) have pointed out that ldquoLanguage attitude is some-times studied in its own right and sometimes in connection with its rela-tionship to language behaviorrdquo These types of study of language attitudesare at least characteristically if not fundamentally different from theempirical studies being reported here As Cooper and Fishman (19778)also point out ldquoMost research on the relationship between language atti-tude and second-language achievement has concentrated on the moti-vational aspects of language attitude or on the attitudes toward nativespeakers of the target languagerdquo Language proficiency is often cited andstudied in this regard however the present work does not speak to issuesof motivation achievement proficiency or competency

Indeed very little empirical work has ever before focused on the issueof Englishness on the rise of English to the status of international lan-guage as the principal conduit for international communications Whatthese and many other implied speculations have heretofore lacked isempirical evidence in general and evidence about attitudes toward Englishas international language in particular (For further information on atti-tudes toward English among different nations see eg Berns 1988 Prideand Liu 1988 Pennington and Yue 1994 Shim 1994 Iwasaki 1994Yong and Campbell 1995 van Essen 1997 Pulcini 1997 and Spolskyand Shhamy 1999)

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386 bull Masamichi Sasaki Tatsuzo Suzuki and Masato Yoneda

Empirical Study and Analysis

Between 1996 and 1998 Tokyorsquos National Language Research Instituteconducted nationwide cross-national personal interview surveys among28 nations aimed at among other things determining the nationsrsquo degreesof tolerance for English both intra- and internationally Sampling meth-ods for most of these nations were probability sampling and quota sam-pling techniques (for details on the samplings for each surveyed nationsee Suzuki Yanagihara and Yoneda 2003) The original questionnaire(see National Language Research Institute 1999) included 58 questionscovering a number of themes and topics which included onersquos languageenvironment onersquos mother tongue language in general and onersquos atti-tudes toward foreign languages toward English and toward Japanese

For purposes of the results we present here 25 nations (except theUnites States Australia and the United Kingdom where the mothertongue is English the so-called ldquoinner circlerdquo see Kachru 1985) wereincluded in the analysis (see Figure 1) India the Philippines Nigeriaand Singapore are considered the so-called ldquoouter circlerdquo (see Kachru l985)This so-called ldquoouter circlerdquo refers to a group of nations with compar-atively low level prevalence of English usage Brazil Argentina MongoliaTaiwan China Korea Japan Thailand Indonesia Vietnam Egypt IsraelTurkey Italy Spain Portugal France Germany Holland Hungary andRussia are considered to be in the so-called ldquoexpanding circlerdquo (seeKachru 1985) where the prevalence of English usage is higher andincreasing Note that these nations ldquodo not have a history of coloniza-tion by members of the inner circlerdquo (Crystal 199754)

Crosstabulations and correspondence analyses were conducted Theseven questions involved in this particular study are listed in Table 1Table 1 shows that the analyses described here involve Questions 7 810 11 12 18 and 19 These numbers will be used throughout the fol-lowing discussion to denote the questions as their results are discussedThe percentage distributions for each of the 7 questions for each of the25 nations are shown in Tables 2 through 8

Table 2 shows the crosstabulation for Question 7 by nation The bul-lets on the left indicate nations whose respondents said ldquoNordquo to the ques-tion about preference for their mother tongue when talking with foreignersin their own nation much more often than ldquoYesrdquo In other words inSingapore the Philippines Nigeria and Egypt respondents were muchless likely to prefer using their mother tongue to communicate with for-eigners while in their own nations Respondents in nearly all other nationsanswered ldquoYesrdquo 60 or more percent of the time (with the exception ofIndia at 53 percent) Indeed many of the other respondents answeredldquoYesrdquo 80 to 90 percent of the time These findings are consistent with

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English as an International Language bull 387

Figure 1

Kachrursquos (1985) ldquoConcentric Circles of Englishrdquo

the fact that Singapore the Philippines and Nigeria are outer circlenations Egypt is an exception as is India to some extent

Table 3 shows the crosstabulations for Question 8 by nation Here thebullets are used to denote those nations that most frequently (35 percentor more) answered ldquoForeign Languagesrdquo to Question 8 These wereSingapore Holland India the Philippines Israel Turkey and EgyptOf course the responses to this question as can be seen in the tableare somewhat dictated by the percentages of respondents in these nationswho cannot speak any other language andor those who have no oppor-tunities to speak with foreigners In Nigeria for instance three-quartersof all respondents said they could not speak any foreign languages

Table 4 depicts the crosstabulations for Question 10 by nation Responseswere grouped into three categories mother tongue English and ldquoothermajor languagesrdquo This table presents the results for those who selectedEnglish and those who did not In terms of the indispensability of Englishfor international communication in the future virtually all respondents

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388 bull Masamichi Sasaki Tatsuzo Suzuki and Masato Yoneda

Table 1Survey questions used for the analysis

Question 7 Would you likeprefer to use your mother tongue when talking with for-eigners in your country 1 = yes 2 = no

Question 8 Which language your mother tongue or any foreign language do youtend to use when talking with foreigners in your country Please chooseone from this card The card showed the following options

1 My mother tongue because I cannot speak any foreign languages2 My mother tongue although I can speak foreign languages3 Foreign languages4 No opportunity to talk with foreigners

Question 10 Including your mother tongue what languages do you think will be essen-tial or indispensable for international communication in the futureRespondents simply listed language(s) in answer to this question (multiplechoices)

Question 11 Including your mother tongue what languages do you think will be essen-tial or indispensable for communication within your country in the future Respondents simply listed language(s) in answer to this question (multiplechoices)

Question 12 Including your mother tongue what languages would you like your chil-dren to learn If you do not have children what languages would youchoose if you did have childrenRespondents simply listed language(s) in answer to this question (multiplechoices)

Question 18 English is said to be the worldrsquos dominant or most influential languagetodayDo you agree or disagree agree = 1 disagree = 2

Question 19 What do you think about English being the worldrsquos dominant or mostinfluential language today The possible responses were

1 I think it is good that English is dominant2 I do not think it is good that English is dominant but I see no alternative3 I do not think it is good that English is dominant and I think more

should be done to use other languages

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English as an International Language bull 389

Table 2Crosstabulations of Question 7 by nation

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390 bull Masamichi Sasaki Tatsuzo Suzuki and Masato Yoneda

Table 3Crosstabulations of Question 8 by nation

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English as an International Language bull 391

Table 4Crosstabulations of Question 10 by nation

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392 bull Masamichi Sasaki Tatsuzo Suzuki and Masato Yoneda

from all nations referenced English an average of 91 percent of the time Only Brazil answered English less than 80 percent of the time (at72 percent)

Question 11 (see Table 5) asked respondents what languages theythought would be indispensable for international communication in thefuture within their own nation Here again responses were grouped intothree categories mother tongue English and ldquoother major languagesrdquoThis table presents the results for those who selected English and thosewho did not Bullets in Table 5 denote those nations where respondentsanswered English less often than average (the average for English was60 percent) These nations include Argentina Spain Portugal RussiaIndonesia Taiwan China and Japan with responses for ldquoEnglishrdquo rang-ing from 16 to 49 percent Clearly this result is far from unanimousregarding respondentsrsquo feelings about English usage in the future Thereis certainly little question but that regional languages remain strong counterparts to English Such languages include Spanish PortugueseIndonesian Russian Chinese Japanese Hindi and Arabic (cf Fishman1982 Al-Dabbagh 2005)

Table 6 shows the crosstabulations for Question 12 by nation Question 12simply asked respondents what language they would like their childrento learn Here too responses were grouped into three categories mothertongue English and ldquoother major languagesrdquo This table presents theresults for those who selected English and those who did not It is notablethat nearly 88 percent of all respondents from all 25 nations selectedEnglish Outliers are not marked on Table 6 but a close inspectionreveals that Brazil Portugal Indonesia and Taiwan all had respondentsselecting a language other than English more than 20 percent of thetime (with Taiwan at a striking 34 percent)

Question 18 (Table 7) simply asked whether respondents agreed ordisagreed with the statement that ldquoEnglish is said to be the worldrsquos dom-inant or more influential language todayrdquo Respondents from the 25different nations agreed about 89 percent of the time As in the previ-ous table outliers are not marked however if we select 19 percent asthe cutoff point for those disagreeing we identify the following nationsHungary Portugal Russia India and China These nations disagreedwith the statement about English quite a bit more often than did theremaining 20 nations

The last table Table 8 depicts the results of crosstabulations forQuestion 19 by nation Respondents were asked how they felt aboutEnglish being the worldrsquos dominant or most influential language todayThey could answer that (a) they think it is good that English is domi-nant (b) they do not think it is good that English is dominant but they

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English as an International Language bull 393

Table 5Crosstabulations of Question 11 by nation

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394 bull Masamichi Sasaki Tatsuzo Suzuki and Masato Yoneda

Table 6Crosstabulations of Question 12 by nation

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English as an International Language bull 395

Table 7Crosstabulations of Question 18 by nation

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