Lingua inglese A

ESL

-expanding circle, includes almost every country in the world where English is learned as a foreign language

and people don’t use it in their day to day life = EFL (English as a Foreign Language)

English in the era of globalization

The Canadian writer Marshall McLuhan predicted that electronically connected media would transform the

world into a huge global village and English has become the working tongue of that village; this demand of

English comes from the grass roots (and not from elite or because the language was imposed).

Non-native speakers hugely outnumber native speakers (a unique situation in language history).

English has a special status because has unrivalled position as a means of international communication – it

is the most commonly taught foreign language all over the world.

The reason why there is such big demand for English is that people need this language to function in the

world at large. People are attracted by things they can do with English (music, films, web); for scientists and

scholar is a necessity (international conferences, publishing results); for tourists, is the most useful tool to

communicate.

As the British Empire collapsed, since World War II, the political, economic and military power of the USA

has been the major force behind the spread of English throughout the globe.

Over the last three decades, the processes of globalization have further entrenched the primacy of the

English language in the world, accelerating a process of expansion of its functions in key societal domains in

the Expanding Circle.

English is the language of a ‘global’ pop culture of entertainment and is embedded in the spread of a youth

consumerist culture whose fountainheads (fonti, sorgenti) are located in the USA, the heart of the global

corporate (multinazionale) capitalist system.

English is also firmly established as the international language of modern technology, and it is the working

language of a transnational class of diplomats and businessmen.

Competence in English has become a specially valued skill in the labour market of the globalized national

economies of the Expanding Circle -> nowadays, English functions as a global lingua franca.

Svartvik and Leech note that “English has become the first ‘global language’, and it is worth emphasizing

that this is not in any way due to the merits of the language itself, or to the merits of its speakers.”

It was observed that the global spread of English resulted from two main historical processes:

-The British imperial expansion

-The power and influence of the USA

The USA took a leading part in the technological revolution of the twentieth century and the more recent

electronic revolution; the USA also played a key role in the process of globalization.

Svartvik and Leech provide a broad, simple definition of globalization: “The world is beginning to behave

like a single society in terms of political, economic, environmental, communicative, and other spheres of

activity. These processes have piggy-backed (uno ha tirato l’altro) on one another so that, for example, the

electronic revolution has given birth to the Internet, and thereby generated e mail, e-commerce, e-business

and numerous other ‘e-activities’, which further (ha spinto in avanti) globalization.”

A working definition of globalization: Globalization is the standard term used to refer to the contemporary

phase of corporate-driven capitalism (capitalism guidato dale multinazionali); it captures a whole set of

interrelated political and economic processes, and socio-cultural phenomena that have reshaped the world

in the post-Cold War era.

The linguist David Crystal claims that English has turned out to be the most likely candidate for a single

world language because English has been lucky enough to be “in the right place at the right time”: it has

happened to be associated with power, and through power, with large populations (this view represents

the global spread of English as a neutral phenomenon, it just happened).

On the contrary, the linguist Robert Phillipson emphasizes that English has not become what it is now by

happy accident. In his works, he demonstrates that behind the global spread of English there are powerful

political and economic interests.

In fact, English is the language of a ‘global’ pop culture of entertainment. ‘Trendy’ youth culture, in

particular, recognizes the consumer appeal of English, which is copiously used in brand names, in

advertising, in street signs and in popular media the world over.

English has an enormous and growing impact on international youth today through music, movies, TV

series and computer games; online TV streaming services have made available original language movies

and shows to an international audience of non-native English speakers.

English is also the founding language of internet (representing nearly 52.1 percent of websites).

Most importantly, economic globalization increases reliance (si affida) on an international language, with

English as the leading contender. English is nowadays firmly established as the international language of

modern technology and it is a primary language for the transnational corporations and many transnational

institutions; for this reason, it has become the indispensable working language of a transnational class of

diplomats and businessmen.

Competence in English has become a specially valued skill in the labor market of the globalized national

economies, as it is often projected as being key to securing employment and advance one’s prospects of

upward social mobility (salire la scala sociale).

The processes of globalization have also recast (ridefinire) the purposes of education, and the new

millennium has witnessed a global policy convergence in approaches to educational reforms.

In Europe, the EU Education and Training strategy made explicit that the European States’ education

systems need to produce globally minded, mobile and inter-culturally aware subjects capable to deal with

the demands of job market in a globalized world.

The last 25 years have also witnessed the internationalization of universities worldwide, and by virtue of

the established role of English as the ‘lingua franca’ of academic research and knowledge dissemination,

together with English language education, also education through English has greatly increased in

importance.

English has effectively become the lingua franca of science, and scientists who want their research to be

known and discussed in a wide international arena have to use English.

English itself has become a commercial commodity (bene commerciale): the teaching of English is now an

important global industry, and English is talked of as a product to be promoted and marketed.

What motivates people to learn and use English?

English has the role of a language of wider communication in today’s globalized society.

In the expanding circle, an increasing number of NNESs who operate in a variety of domains now use

English for purposes of international and intercultural communication in settings that very often do not

involve any native English speakers (NESs).

For the NNESs who operate in such contexts, the status of English is thus (cioè) undergoing a shift (si sta

spostando) from that of foreign language towards that of a second language that is used in lingua franca

communication.

“English as a lingua franca (ELF)” captures what is perhaps the single most important fact about English in

the era of globalization. The term ‘lingua franca’ has come to mean a language that is used for

communication between people who speak different languages (=a language of wider communication).

The Austrian linguist Barbara Seidlhofer defined ELF as “any use of English among speakers of different first

languages for whom English is the communicative medium of choice and often the only option” -> The

typical context of ELF communication is inherently (intrensicamente) multilingual, as it involves speakers of

different L1s.

The British linguist Jennifer Jenkins defined ELF as a “Multilingua Franca”, that is, “multilingual

communication in which English is available as a contact language of choice, but is not necessarily chosen” -

> ELF users are often involved in fleeting (non durevoli) encounters and do not represent a homogeneous

speech community who shares a stable linguistic repertoire.

the Finnish linguist Anna Mauranen highlighted the hybridity, complexity and instability of the linguistic

forms that characterize the use of English in lingua franca communication, on the one hand, and the often

short-lived, transient, impermanent character of the latter, on the other (today I use an expression, I forget

about it and when I met other speakers I learn new words from them and I start using them)

ELF is not a variety of English.

After all, the concept of variety (= a regional of social dialect) identifies a linguistic usage that develops

organically and reproduces autonomously within a bounded, stable, and localizable speech community.

In the specific, the sociolinguistic processes that lead to the emergence of an identifiable new variety of

English may only take place in contexts of prolonged contact and coexistence among speakers of different

linguistic backgrounds -> Only in such contexts is English used in repeated routines and sustained

interactions, and, most importantly, the newly emerged forms and structures are passed on from one

generation to another.

The use of English as a lingua franca, on the contrary, does not automatically develop into usages that

reproduce themselves organically within a stable community of speakers.

ELF rather identifies a function of English in certain of communicative contexts.

The linguistic forms that characterize the use of English in lingua franca communication are hybrid and

unstable.

This concept is a matter of perspective if you want to see the speakers as a learner or as a user.

The context of the English classroom positions the NNESs as learners = English learners are expected to

defer to the NES norms (the target of the English classroom is standard English).

In the contexts in which ELF communication takes place, the NNESs are users of English (=ELF users). As

such, they do not necessarily have to respect the NES norms: often, ELF users deviate from standard English

and do not aim at a NES target.

ELF norms are often negotiated and emerge in interactions; they do not (necessarily) become stabilized

(sono transitorie).

Lingua franca communication represents a typical situation of language contact; the users of ELF often

transfer the linguistic features of their L1 to English.

English-language teachers are used to recognizing the features that result from language transfer as errors;

in the perspective of a teacher of English who sets the NES norm as the learning target, ELF represents an

instance of interlanguage of foreign learners. The term ‘interlanguage’ describes the transitional system of

a learner of a foreign language