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The branch of sociolinguistics, called linguistic imperialism, focuses on the ways of and reasons for the dominance of certain languages at the international level and tries to substantiate this dominance theoretically. This branch clarifies such important issues as the role of language policy in empires and states of the imperial type, the implantation of the languages of the metropolises on other continents (as a rule, at the expense of local languages); the continuation of the use of European languages, brought by colonial policy to Africa and Asia, as a means of communication after getting rid of the direct colonial dependence; the role of the state exoglossia in ensuring national unity within the former colonies or hindering such unity; using exoglossia as a springboard for pursuing Western interests; marginalization of national citizens who do not speak the language of the metropolis; the continuation of the exploitation of the former colonies through their elites, subjected to acculturation etc.

PurposeDisaster studies has emerged as an international interdisciplinary body of knowledge; however, similar to other academic disciplines, its terminology is predominantly anglophone. This paper explores the implications of translating disaster studies terminology, most often theorised in English, into other languages and back.Design/methodology/approachThe authors chose six of the most commonly used (as well as debated and contested) terms that are prominent in academic, policy and public discourses: resilience, vulnerability, capacity, disaster, hazard and risk. These words were translated into 54 languages and the meanings were articulated descriptively in cases where the translation did not have exactly the same meaning as the word in English. The authors then analysed these meanings in order to understand implications of disaster scholars working between dominant and “peripheral” languages.FindingsFindings of the study demonstrate that many of the terms so casually used in disaster studies in English do not translate easily – or at all – opening the concepts that are encoded in these terms for further interpretation. Moreover, the terms used in disaster studies are not only conceptualised in English but are also tied to an anglophone approach to research. It is important to consider the intertwined implications that the use of the terminology carries, including the creation of a “separate” language, power vs communication and linguistic imperialism.Originality/valueUnderstanding of the meaning (and contestation of meaning) of these terms in English provides an insight into the power relationships between English and the other language. Given the need to translate key concepts from English into other languages, it is important to appreciate their cultural and ideological “baggage”.

Aims and objectives: In Dagestan, Russian is the language of education, urban way of life, and upward social mobility, and the means of communication between speakers of different languages. This is a result of a quick and drastic change. At the end of the 19th century, Russian was spoken by less than 1% of the population. The aim of this paper is to understand how such rapid spread of Russian as an L2 became possible. Approach: The study uses quantitative data on Dagestanians’ language repertoires. We relate the command of Russian to certain facts from people’s biographies, such as the level of education, migration, warfare and military service, and other professional experience, and run regression analysis. Data and analysis: The data were collected by the method of retrospective family interviews during numerous field trips to highland Dagestan. We use information on 3519 individuals collected in 27 villages. Findings/conclusions: We conclude that the compulsory school education introduced in Dagestan in the 1930s is the social mechanism that resulted in the spread of Russian and its later development into a lingua franca. Russian was imposed from above and supported by the ideology that associated it with future and progress. Originality: This is the first attempt to apply quantitative methods to a large collection of field data to reveal social mechanisms underlying the spread of a single L2 instead of local bilingualism. Significance/implications: The spread of one lingua franca across a large territory is attested in many areas. We suppose that lingua francas of different origin result from different constellations of social factors and show that in Dagestan lingua franca was imposed by the authorities via a systematic educational campaign. We also suggest it was the extreme linguistic diversity of Dagestan that brought Russian from a widely known L2 to a lingua franca.

This study problematizes the global spread of English and its status as the default language of the Academy. I ask if English has been appropriated, created anew and pressed into the service of the Global South, or if the demand for the language and burgeoning English Literatures of the world reinforce the divide between speakers of English and those of ‘other-ed’ languages, and even between ‘native’ and ‘non-native’ speakers of English. Simultaneously, I explore and accommodate the utility of English as a tool for challenging hegemonic narratives, but argue that English should not be allowed to become hegemonic itself by being the sole language of critical/ creative debate, proposing bi/ multilingual creative practice to undermine the centrality of English to the creation of counter colonial discourses. This, I call ‘decentring’ English to be achieved by a syncretic union of English and ‘othered’ languages in critical hindsight of my creative practice.

Informed by concepts of native speakers, racial nativism, and language socialization theory, this study documented the existence of the native speaker fallacy (Phillipson, 1992, Linguistic imperialism. Oxford: Oxford University Press) in a university‐level Japanese and Chinese program in the United States. Specifically, the researcher collected survey responses from language teachers and students, conducted interviews, and observed the teacher training process, one‐on‐one teaching sessions, and classroom teaching over the course of 2 academic years. A regression analysis showed how the perception of native and non‐native speakers was significantly influenced by students’ language level, native language, and race, and by the language program itself. The cases of a dialectal speaker and biracial Japanese teachers illustrated the effects of the bifurcated categorizations on teachers who do not fit in the dichotomy. Implications derived from this study call for critical analysis of the valorization of standard dialect and investigation into ways that will make more room for diversity in the language classroom. This study also underscores the importance of debriefing meetings that allow language professionals and students to reflect their teaching and learning experiences in relation to their identities and to examine unquestioned assumptions about language and racial identities and language standardization in increasingly globalized and diverse communities.

Positive attributes stick to higher education internationalisation, and it is a policy paradigm with performative effects. Internationalisation draws on imagined virtuous flows of knowledge production and exchange, and is presented as an assemblage of detraditionalisation, expansiveness and epistemic and cultural opportunity for individuals, organisations and nation states. Policies target bodies, minds and affect, yet are presented as an unquestionable good in an imagined genderneutral, borderless, meritocratic and benign global knowledge economy. This paper explores the affective economy of internationalisation drawing upon interview data gathered in fifteen private, five national and eight public universities in Japan with thirty-four migrant academics and thirteen international doctoral researchers. We aim to contribute to internationalisation theory by exploring the sticky micropolitics of internationalisation in relation to affective assemblages, and how the gendered, racialised, linguistic and epistemic inequalities constituting academic mobility are frequently disqualified from discourse. Our discussion includes consideration of the Japanese policy context, the concept of affective assemblages, navigating gender regimes, precarity and linguistic imperialism. We conclude that the immaterial or affective labour that is required to unstick, install and maintain an internationalised academic identity and navigate the translations and antagonisms from everyday encounters with difference is substantially under-estimated.

This article begins with examination of Wilhelm von Humboldt’s concept of language and human “national spirit”, and how one influences the other; it then suggests a concept of language inertia based on Humboldt’s research of the Indonesian Kawi language. At the heart of this concept is an idea that, when a major culture influences a minor culture, it imposes its own language(s) on said culture and its language(s); however, the outcome of this process is a birth of an entirely different, entity that is neither of the two original elements. Such is the dialectic of linguistic imperialism. This thesis is then briefly illustrated within the paradigm of a Semitic language (Arabic) influencing Indo-European languages, using the examples from Persian and Urdu linguistic and literary theory, mostly from the works of Shams-i Qays (Persian) and Muhammad Husain Azad (Urdu). Finally, the author proposes a concept of “Russian Urdu”, that is to say, a Russian-based language/register created with the influence of Islamic tradition and Arabic, Persian and Turkic languages, but a language that would be one of secular, syncretic, interreligious communication, as well as a significant linguistic and aesthetic phenomenon, existing parallel to other existing languages without replacing any of them, much like Urdu was/is in India. A brief sample of such language is presented and further possibilities for research are mentioned.

Authors of late eighteenth-century English dictionaries provided instruction in their front matter on how to use these reference works; how the language which they advocated for was superior to that in other dictionaries; and how users from regions outside of London could use dictionaries as self-help aids. The two authors discussed, James Buchanan and Thomas Sheridan, represent a group of lexicographers who attempted to impose structure on English to fix “problems” in pronunciation and writing. The authors of these dictionaries used their texts to assist readers in applying their methods to reduce unacceptable accents and improve understanding by others. These texts show that the English of England was prioritized by authors who were ministers, schoolmasters, and orators; that is, they were experts in their fields and were known specifically by their backgrounds and ideologies. That situation, however, is different from the anonymization and implicit politicization of online dictionaries today that neither name their writers nor obviously express editorial principles. Readers have become so accepting of what they read in online dictionaries that they do not question the validity of the information or from whence come senses and definitions, thus showing that there is an essential need for additional media literacy.

The present analysis interrogates the ways that American educators and bureaucrats at the turn of the twentieth century conceptualised the project of nationalism and modernity in the newly annexed nation of the Philippines through the trope of ‘linguistic unification’. These robust ideologies of language arose from the perception that national progress and democracy were centrally achievable through a shared linguistic code, arising from Enlightenment concepts of nationhood imported from Europe and subsequently figured in the uniquely American framework of exceptionalism, expansionism, and economic logics framed in the political and religious concept of ‘benevolent assimilation’. Focusing attention on a series of documents written by American teachers and administrators during the transitional time of the Insular Government from 1900 to 1916, the details of the ideological foundations of the role of English in the Philippines is explored.

English is the most widely spoken language in the world, and many higher education institutes (HEIs) in the global South have prioritised English language education (ELE). In Colombia, the context of this study, English has become the de facto foreign language in Colombian higher education (HE) although little is known about its effects on the lives of HE students from low-income backgrounds. Addressing this knowledge gap is critical to ensure that ELE in Colombian HE is relevant and socially just. The current study used the capability approach (CA) to identify the substantive freedoms which English can enlarge or constrain in the lives of economically vulnerable graduates in Colombia, and to identify factors which are instrumental in this process. Since Sen and Nussbaum’s normative framework has given insufficient consideration to questions of power and inequality, this study also draws on Phillipson’s (1992) theory of linguistic imperialism. Qualitative interviews with 20 economically vulnerable graduates and four HE experts in the field of Colombian ELE were conducted to investigate this issue, and thematic analysis was used to analyse the data. The findings show that English in Colombia, although implicated in global injustices, can cultivate economic, sociocultural and epistemic capabilities. However, they also show how this capability expansion is also shaped by a range of conversion factors. This thesis builds on the small number of qualitative studies exploring the relationship between English and development in the global South and extends this literature by improving our understanding of this relationship in the Colombian context, including the ways in which the spread of English can perpetuate asymmetrical North-South power relations. It also makes a valuable contribution to the capability literature by highlighting the importance of viewing linguistic capabilities as dynamic and relational. The findings of this thesis are therefore of interest not only to language policy experts and other language education stakeholders in developing contexts, but also to capability scholars.

Phillipson, R. (2012, “Linguistic Imperialism Alive and Kicking.” The Guardian, March 13. https://www.theguardian.com/education/2012/mar/13/linguistic-imperialism-english-language-teaching) warned ...

This paper identifies the issues of internal orientalism that are reproduced at a micro level within Pakistan because of English linguistic imperialism. The unequal education system engenders attit...

The paper examines the parallel existence of the global paradigm ‘linguistic imperialism’ and the linguistic/cultural paradigm in the African language system, which in their own right can have positive or negative effects, too. The other question that the paper looks at is the role of the great African lingua francas (e.g., Swahili) in this system.

Although in many educational contexts textbooks serve as the backbone of teaching, providing practical guides for teachers as well as useful references for learning progress, they could also serve as a site of struggle for many competing discourses. ELT textbooks bear particular relevance here, as they place English at the center of prominence while serving as a medium for knowledge transmission. This paper reports on part of the findings of a case study examining the exercise of dominant discourses in two ELT textbooks for high school in Indonesia. The analysis revealed that there are imbalanced power relations—enacted through such discursive strategies as foregrounding,, backgrounding and framing in two areas: topics and visuals. These strategies were understood as part of the author’s attempt to preserve the hegemonic status of English and its associated dominant ideology in ways that reflect traces of linguistic imperialism. With regard to the pedagogical value of the textbooks, this paper offers some suggestions on how the textbooks could be more engaging and culturally sensitive towards learners’ socio cultural context. The discussion concludes with an appeal for more balanced representation between the discourse of the third world and that of Britain in ELT textbooks in Indonesia.

This article of reflection considers socio-political issues such as linguistic imperialism, native speakerism, English as an International language, and appropriate teaching methodologies, which are currently contentious issues in the ELT community. Framed within a critical approach of applied linguistics, these issues are addressed in three sections (global/local tensions, teacher professional identity, and a new EFL professional identity) in order to argue that a dynamic, shifting, and multifaceted perspective of a globally-minded EFL teacher professional identity is needed so that Colombian EFL professionals can define or redefine their own identities in taking an informed and critical political stance. Resumen Este artículo de reflexión considera elementos sociopolíticos como el imperialismo lingüístico, la ideología del hablante nativo, el inglés como lengua internacional y las metodologías de enseñanza apropiadas; aspectos que son controversiales en la comunidad ELT. Dentro del marco de la Lingüística Aplicada Crítica, estos elementos se discuten en tres secciones (tensiones globales/locales, identidad profesional del docente y una identidad profesional EFL nueva) para argumentar que se necesita una perspectiva dinámica, multifacética y cambiante de la identidad local y global del profesor de inglés, para que, de esta manera, los profesionales del inglés como lengua extranjera puedan definir o redefinir sus identidades tomando un posición política informada y crítica.

19.yy’dan itibaren İngiliz sömürgeciliği ve ABD-Britanya kültürel yayılma politikaları gibi birbirleriyle alakalı birçok etmen sayesinde önemli bir uluslararası dil statüsü kazanan İngilizce, eğitimden turizme, sanattan edebiyata uzanan biçok farklı alanda muazzam bir kullanım sahası elde etmiştir. Günümüzde, küreselleşme, akademi, medya, müzik, TV ve spor gibi çok etkin yayılma mekanizmalarını kullanarak uluslararası geçerli dil konumunu devam ettirmektedir. Ancak, bu hakimiyet, ya da Robert Phillipson’un tabiriyle İngiliz dili emperyalizmi yerel dillerin unutulması hatta yok olması ve ulusal dillerin de ikinci dereceye düşürülmesi ve melezleşmesi anlamına gelmektedir. 20. yy. ortasından itibaren, Türkiye’nin ABD ile siyasal olarak yakınlaşması, Türk halkının hayatına ve diline geri dönüşü olmayan değişiklikler getirmiştir, ki bunun eleştirisi, bu çalışmanın iddia ettiği gibi, dil emperyalizmi kavramı çerçevesinde yapılabilir. Phillipson’un bu doğrultudaki teorik yaklaşımına dayanarak, bu çalışma, Türkiye’de İngilizce’nin kullanım şekillerini tartışmakta ve eleştirmektedir, böylece Türkçe’deki dil aşınmasına, dilsel alandaki kirliliğe, ve gençler arasındaki dil ayrımcılığına dikkat çekmeyi amaçlamaktadır., Starting to attain an important international language status in the world from the 19th century onwards thanks to many interrelated factors like British colonialism and later US-Britain cultural policies of expansion, English language has achieved an unprecedented prevalence in usage in different sectors ranging from education to tourism and art to literature and sports. Today, it keeps its reign as an international lingua franca, reinforcing its position by making use of very effective mechanisms of expansion such as globalization, academia, media, music, TV, and sports. This preponderance, or in Phillipson’s words, English linguistic imperialism, however connotes oblivion and even evanescence of vernacular and the inferiorization and hybridization of national languages. As mid-20th century onward, Turkey’s political convergence with the US has brought into the life and language of Turkish people irreversible changes whose critique, as this paper argues, can be made within the concept of linguistic imperialism. Drawing on theoretical approach by Phillipson, this paper thus discusses and critiques the ways English is used in Turkey, in an attempt to draw attention to the attrition in Turkish language, inquination in linguistic landscape, and language discrimination among the young.

Resistance to Western Culture can be seen through translator’s strategy of translating novels. This research aims to analyze the translation of culture-specific items in Indonesian translated versions of Of Mice and Men, originally written by John Steinbeck. The selected translated versions belong to the work of Pramoedya Ananta Toer (2003) and Ariyantri E. Tarman (2017). The translations of culture-specific items are analyzed under Transnational American Studies paradigm to find out the dominant translation principle applied in both translated versions and the results are discussed from the perspective of postcolonial translation studies. From the data, it is found out that the domestication principle is more dominant than foreignization strategy. Analyzed from postcolonial translation studies, the tendency to use the domestication principle in translated novels show the efforts of the target culture to fight against Western culture as the source culture. Although both Indonesian versions of Of Mice and Men mostly apply the domestication principle, the recent translated version (T2) shows an increase in the use of foreignization principle in which English loanwords are frequently used. From a postcolonial translation studies’ perspective, it can be concluded that target culture is against Western culture; however, the signs of cultural imperialism, especially linguistic imperialism, have grown in the recent years.

36 p. : il.-- Bibliogr.: p.33-36 English is unquestionably the universal lingua franca in every field. The justification that it is a consequence of the linguistic superiority of English is denied in this paper, which analyses the role of the UK and the US as perpetrators of the linguistic hegemony of English, and attempts to identify the sociopolitical factors that led to this state of affairs. While acknowledging the benefits of the existence of a global lingua franca, its effects on other societies and languages are critically analysed. Therefore, both sides of the debate whether English is a tool for international communication or a killer language are presented. Correct language planning, especially in education, is highlighted as a requirement for efficient cohabitation for English and other languages. Variation in English is presented as proof that even the global lingua franca is affected by language change. In addition, this paper makes an attempt to predict the linguistic and sociolinguistic future of global English, considering the role of human involvement as central, but adapted to a world where technology is highly present.

ملخص: اللّغة قيمة تنمو وتتطوَّر بشكل يوازي تغير الزّمن، وتتجدَّد بفعل عوامل عادة ما تكون طبيعية حتَّى تدفع عنها سمة التّخلُّف والاِندثار، لكن قد تتعرض لعوامل غير طبيعية من مثل الاِستعمار، والّتي يمكن أن تؤدي إلى تغير إيكولوجيّة اللّغة. عايشت الجزائر هذا التغيُّر في بيئتها اللُّغوية مع الاستعمار الفرنسيّ الَّذي قام بإتّباع سياسة وتخطيط لُغويَّين بُغية تحقيق أهداف سياسته الاستعماريّة، والّذي أَثَّر بشكل قصديّ على سير السِّياسة اللُّغوية ما بعد الاستقلال وعلى تَبَلْور بيئة لُغويَّة (مصطنعة) غير سليمة. هل يمكن لسياسة لُغويَّة إمبرياليَّة أن تحقق عمليَّة تشّكيل أو اِصطناع بيئة لُغويَّة للمجتمعات المستعمرة والتحكم في مستقبلها اللُّغويّ؟ Language is a value, growing and developing parallel to time changes. It is revitalized due to factors that are usually natural in order to not be characterized by backwardness and extinction features. However, it may be exposed to abnormal factors such as colonialism that may lead to a change in the language ecology. During French colonialism, Algeria was experiencing this change in its linguistic environment. They were adoptinga language policy and planning in order to achieve the colonial policyobjectives, and which intentionally affected the course of post-independence language policy and the crystallisation of an (artificial) linguistic environment. So, does an imperialist linguistic policy have the ability to form and create a linguistic environment for Colonial societies? And does it have the ability to control its linguistic future? El lenguaje tiene un valor que se desarrolla y crece en paralelo al cambio temporal, y se renueva debido a factores, generalmente naturales, para no caracterizarse por rasgos de subdesarrollo y extinción. Sin embargo, puede estar expuesto a factores no naturales, como la colonización, que pueden conducir a un cambio en la ecología del lenguaje. Argelia vivió aquel cambio en su entorno lingüístico (idiomático) durante la colonización francesa, que siguió una política y un esquema lingüísticos con el objetivo de conseguir sus fines político-coloniales: influir de una marera intencionada para la manipulación de la política lingüística después de la independencia, y la cristalización de un entorno lingüístico (artificial) no sano. ¿Puede una política lingüística imperialista crear un entorno lingüístico para las sociedades coloniales y controlar su futuro lingüístico?

In the assault on Uyghur identity and the project of homogenization of the ethnic makeup of the region, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has employed a myriad of tried-and-true policies and methods to impose linguistic imperialism and all forms of biopolitics to render the region ideal for purposes of state-building. As policies and international focus on the region have ramped up in the last two decades, reports grow on the affected Uyghur voices within and abroad. This chapter discusses the historical influences of China’s policies on Uyghur identity expression as well as common coping strategies that are used in response to the varying forms of surveillance, “re-education camps”, and modes of governmentality that the CCP enacts in the region. The importance of artistic expression, friendship, storytelling, and oblique references to religion are discussed as avenues for subtle forms of resistance and identity preservation.

Globalization and the key role of the English language redefine the contact situations of intercultural communication where such phenomena as “linguistic imperialism”, “linguicism”, “ethnocentrism” and suchlike are no longer a news for the participants. That is especially vibrant within present-day mass-media discourse as a specific case of intercultural communication. All this can’t but affect a foreign language classroom making us revisit the main goal of FLT – building intercultural communicative competence. The authors found that it is crucial to consider the problem of verbal manipulation in the system of teaching a language within intercultural approach and question what instruments of verbal manipulation are used to influence the listener within intercultural communication. The paper examines manipulative strategy and tactics, as well as their role in the context of intercultural foreign-language education. As a response to the problem, the article presents the authors’ definition of conventional communicative competence as the way to restore the broken intercultural communication within verbal manipulation to the shared meaning-making.

An analogy can be drawn between linguistic imperialism and political imperialism, like dominant nations, dominant languages also try to conquer weaker ones. Linguistic imperialism, by altering the production and quality of literary artifacts, which have an important cultural value, makes the political imperialism long-lasting. The linguistic dimension of imperialism becomes prominent with the adoption of English as official or semiofficial language in the newly independent colonies. English is now the dominant or official language in over 60 countries and largely used in every continent. In this age of neo-imperialism, the English linguistic imperialism has proved instrumental in establishing the political and economic hegemony of English speaking nations and populations over non-English speaking populations and nations, particularly those former colonies of European power.