Riassunto esame Inglese monografico 1, Prof. Rossi Enrica, libro consigliato Word for Word - The social, economic and political impact of English, English - Speaking Union

The social, economic and political impact of English

The book was published by the English-speaking Union, which works with young people through its wide range of educational and cultural programmes in the UK and internationally. According to ESU, the use of English as a global language has had two major results: English being affected and implications in language teaching (e.g., governments need to help young people to learn sooner, better, and faster).

Word for Word: An Analysis

Word for Word examines the state of language learning in schools, students' mobility in Europe and elsewhere, the role of English in business, the shifts and changes in English, and what skills are needed to be competitive in a globalized economy → language competence, persuasive spoken English. This book recognizes the power, spread, attractiveness, and usefulness of English and Spanish, which - after Chinese - rank second and third by the number of speakers.

Structure of the Book

• Part One deals with the intercultural dimensions of communication in and between Spanish and English and considers some of the consequences of the global dominance of English and its mutation across boundaries and cultures.
• Part Two discusses different aspects of Spanish and English in the education system.
• Part Three explores the linguistic diversity of the UE as well as the influence the UE brings to bear (sostenere) on language policy and practice.
• Part Four examines language in the Americas with a focus on the USA and Brazil.
• Part Five broadens out (allarga) the discussion of language into the domain of social and economic development.

In its five parts, the book discusses the state of English in the 21st century (who speaks it, who is learning it, and what they are doing with it), the way in which English is evolving, and the historical, social, and economic evidence explaining why English is a global language and why people are so willing to learn it. This book was commissioned by the British Council.

Global English: Its Role and Influence

English has become a ‘global’ language; it is the language of diplomacy, sport, science, conflict negotiation, and online communication. All across the world, the English language is the medium through which people are able to make themselves understood and come together when their own first languages sometimes divide them. This development interacts and affects English itself and the languages with which it interacts. Governments across the world need to help their young people learn languages quickly and effectively, which has significant implications for the way in which they are taught.

English in Business and Intercultural Exchange

This book talks about how the spread of English has been important in the international scenario and how much English teaching has been affected by the world use of English. In fact, learning English has changed a lot. It also discusses student mobility. It talks about the important role of English in business and the intercultural dimension: it is important to become an intercultural person who can exchange information in a way that takes into account the differences in culture.

Skills and Competences

The skills that are useful to be competitive are not just about speaking a language but being competent. This competence is about being able to speak the language while having intercultural competences, the ability to interact positively with someone whose culture is different. Knowing a language is a process of speaking but also of communicating because the more you know a language, the more you are a global citizen. To do that, we must use persuasive spoken English.

The Appeal of English

This book is about how attractive and useful English is and how important it is to get into this language, its power, and its spread. This collection of papers is about many things: it is about the state of the English language, who is speaking it, who is learning it, and what they are doing with it. It also deals with the way the language is evolving and the ways in which different communities make language(s) their own.

It shows the impact that English has on the economy and in political choices. It talks about the reasons that make English a global language and why people continue to study it. We can see strong economic arguments for learning English, particularly linked to future employment opportunities.

The English-Speaking Union's Role

The ESU works principally with young people, providing opportunities to build skills and gain experiences to help our beneficiaries realize their full potential. We run a wide range of educational and cultural programmes, from scholarships for school leavers, teachers, and professionals to groundbreaking persuasive speech training and competitions involving hundreds of schools in the UK and internationally. We are also a vibrant membership organisation, with over 5,000 members in England and Wales.

Our members are organised into 35 branches, each of which maintains its own programme of events and supports schools in its local area in initiatives aligned with the ESU's objectives. Internationally, there are over 60 ESUs. These operate autonomously, supported by the ESU centrally from Dartmouth House. Our international network helps us to deliver, amongst other programmes, our International Public Speaking Competition, which involves over 40,000 young people in 50 countries each year.

Intercultural Competence in Language Education

Intercultural competence and intercultural communicative competence: a challenge for language education - Michael Byram → Studying and learning foreign languages and cultures → Communication: how to be proficient. → What is the cultural competence of an intercultural speaker? → “De-centre": to see the other people's perspective.

In the study of foreign languages, there is a kind of conflict/tension between two different points of view, learning a language for communication purposes and the study of languages and cultures, which can be considered a unique word or not. On one hand, it is thought that education should prepare for the real world, which means being able to communicate with people of other languages and cultures. On the other hand, it is thought that education is a world itself and so languages should be studied as a human phenomenon.

The first thought has the majority on the other because, in this way, people can have the competences to work in a huge range of fields. This is so from the 1970s when it was recognized the importance of the concept of communication, communicative competences. But linguists have made some mistakes. They said that it was important not only to have grammatical competences but to strive after the competences of native speakers, assuming that native speakers were only monolingual.

In reality, in the world, there are a lot more multilingual (people speak two or more languages) than monolingual people. In the process of teaching, the concept of "socio-cultural competence" was added. From the 1950s, there is cross-cultural training, and behavioural training started to be made for people who wanted to be competitive in international business. In this kind of training, there was no place for anthropology, as it did not focus on language teaching and it took long times, while people wanted to have fast training.

The training was helped by social psychology, which helped the trainees not to have the "culture shock". But all this brought people to create stereotypes, which were considered to always be true. Another time, specialists did not give importance to language competences.

Challenges in Language Education

These are the challenges of foreign languages teachers: Learners, and their parents, give always more importance to the learning of skills, while the study of language and culture is not considered to be important. The recognition by education specialists about cultural competences.

• Learners think they must imitate native speakers, who are supposed to be more efficient speakers.

This last point is losing consideration; now intercultural communication has gained importance. To imitate native speakers is thought to be negative for self-concepts and social identity, and learners could lose their sense of identification with their own language group. Moreover, it is better to work together without imposing one's supremacy on others. An intercultural speaker must be able to see other's perspectives also in respect of their own perspective and he must be able to mediate differences and to gain from similarities. All this brought to the concept of "intercultural communicative speakers" learners should learn both culture and have communicative competences.

Moreover, people who have studied other languages can understand other people's language problems. Because of this, English native speakers should learn another language so that they can understand the importance of intercultural communication. But we can't forget that only intercultural competences can't be sufficient without communicative competences. → skills of decentering, reflecting on their own perspectives, and finding a mediated mode of being together.

The Consequences of Global English

The arrival of loan words into other languages has been one of the most notable trends in the past century. Some people welcome the loan words, seeing them as a source of lexical enrichment, but other people condemn them, seeing them as an attack on traditional language values (purists condemn them, as it happens in France).

But in reality, history shows us that a pure language has never existed and the only way to stop this process is to cut contacts with other languages and cultures, but this would mean to socially and economically isolate. This borrowing process does change the language, but it isn’t something disastrous.

English has changed a lot through centuries, it is a mixture of different languages. Also, relevant figures such as Shakespeare used other languages’ words, but this brought only to enrichment. In languages that accept loan words, we can find higher expressivity, due to the different nuances of words which express the same concept. Moreover, loan words are adapted so that today we can speak about Japlish or Spanglish. This is an example of how languages can't be controlled and, the more a language becomes global, the less it is in the ownership of its originators.

Mainly, the criticism is addressed to those imported words for concepts already expressed by a local word. People fear that the new will substitute the old, but in reality, when these words are integrated, they become the ownership of the other language. Today, only the internet language (which is something never expressed before) seems to be speeding up in the process of integration. If some words are substituted by loans, there is nothing we can do. It is a natural process, with so many speakers involved.

It would be better for us, as citizens of the world, not to spend fighting against this phenomenon, but trying to catch the best from this, fostering their integration. Speaking about English, when we speak about “global English”, we commonly refer to standard English, but in reality, it has different regional features so that today we can speak about “Englishes”.

What changes the most is the lexicon, which is what best expresses the cultural identity of speakers. Every English in the world accumulates a local wordstock that is unknown outside the country and its environs. When people switch their speaking into English, they keep incorporating aspects of their local environment, and other people can’t understand them without an explanation.

When talking about Spanish English, we refer to the kind of English people should know and use in Spanish-speaking countries, but the problem is that sometimes, Spanish people take for granted concepts that are unknown to others. In some cases, it does not create issues, but sometimes it would be a complication. Some authors, in their works, give explanations of some words used, but they are not complete from a cultural point of view. Every region should create a sort of glossary, in which people can describe the terms they use with a significance that is related to their own culture.

In English, we have many ‘doublets’ and ‘triplets’, which come from the borrowing history of the language, three words for the same basic concept. Loan words always add semantic value to a language, providing people with the opportunity to express their thoughts in a more nuanced way. This is exactly what is happening with English in other languages at the moment.

This is the repeated history of English, as it has spread around the world, evolving ‘new Englishes’. English words may change their pronunciation when they are re-pronounced in other languages and are now open to the influence of all who choose to use them, which is why it is changing so much, as it moves around the globe. People are aware of new words and new meanings of words, but not all borrowings attract the same amount of attention; loan words tend to be of two types: words for concepts which the language never expressed before (as in much Internet vocabulary) and words for concepts which were already expressed by a perfectly satisfactory local word. It is this second category that attracts the criticism because there is a fear that the new word will replace the old one, but it will be a supplement. When people talk about ‘global English’ they are usually referring to the common features.

This is the process of English that evolved around the world in new Englishes. English is now open to anyone who chooses to use it, and this is why it is changing so much. Four-fifths of English vocabulary is not Germanic at all, but Romance, Latin, or Greek. English is actually a Romance language from a lexical point of view. The more a language becomes a national, then an international, then a global language, the more it ceases to be in the ownership of its originators.

The new words adopted are two types → words for concepts which the language never expressed before and words for concepts which were already expressed by a perfectly satisfactory local word. But thinking about the second group, there is the fear that the new words will make local words disappear → new words will replace the old ones. Actually, new words do not replace the old ones.