Hør dog hvad de siger - Note-to-Self: Trials & Errors

‘International languages’ – English as the yardstick
When asked to express their attitude to the statement: “The people of the world who do not
have English as their mother tongue should learn English as a foreign language”, the 49 in-
formants gave an average score of 4.44 on a 5-point scale, slightly lower among the middle
class informants than among the working class informants. The very high score is telling us
something about the status of English, but it does not exhibit certain important objections po-
sed by the informants. For example, many informants express their positivity towards an in-
ternational language, avoiding tackling the presupposition that this language be English.
If we want to have a hope of all people speaking together, we need to have a language
to do it in [Inf29, 27.25].
It would be easier if we all speak the same language so we can speak together [Inf36,
25.40].
The following excerpt shows the significance of the ‘linguistic problems’, which the same
informant also calls ‘the Babylonian confusion’, by putting it on a par with accepted ‘world
problems’. The point I want to make is how the informant presupposes poly-linguism as a se-
rious problem. It may not be the most immediate problem of the world, but it is a candidate to
that position.
There are many problems we need to address in our world. There is water shortage,
there are environmental problems, there are linguistic problems. I can’t look upon language
in isolation, that would make it seem like the ultimate problem to solve, which it
isn’t [Inf32, 33.17].
Note that all three informants register as positive to an international language without saying
anything about English being the international language.
Other informants deal rhetorically with the presupposition of English as the foreign
language, e.g. in stating that:
We could also decide as of today that the international language shall be Chinese, and
then we all must learn Chinese. That is really not a problem for coming generations
[Inf19, 16.00].
However, such utopian, though theoretically possible, solutions are immediately written off
with solid pragmatic reasons such as…
…if you don’t take into account the mass of literature already available in English. If you
have to translate that into Chinese, it would almost be easier just to teach them English.
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