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The global spread of English 123 5.1.3.3 Assessing de Swaan’s explanatory framework In its emphasis on language spread as the aggregate product of many individual decisions guided by perceptions of what is personally advantageous, the explanatory framework outlined above is quite different from that of linguistic imperialism. This emphasises bottom-up processes; linguistic imperialism top-down processes of orchestration and promotion. As de Swaan (2001a: 186) puts it: The world language system was not designed for efficiency. It was never designed at all. It just happened, as the mostly unintended consequence of a myriad of individual decisions (and non-decisions, resignation and compliance) which completely ignored the aggregate consequences for the larger language constellation. (De Swaan 2001a: 186) There is much to commend in this point of view and the framework underlying it. It shows how agency is present at the micro-level of individual decisions (or non-decisions), and how it becomes diluted, thus attenuated, over aggregations of individuals, often producing aggregate outcomes that are unforeseen, perhaps even undesirable to those same individuals. Also, in showing how agency is diffused and is often insensitive to aggregate outcomes (e.g. language decline) rather than concentrated in particular institutions, it serves to highlight the limited ability of language planning (LP) at state or even supranational level to contain the spread of English when this runs counter to popular perceptions of what enhances individuals’ linguistic capital. This is illustrated by the situation in the European Union, where, despite EU funding of programmes (e.g. Lingua, Erasmus) aimed at promoting a diversification in the foreign languages offered in the curriculum (see Wright 2004: 128), and despite a rhetorical climate supportive of linguistic diversification, there has been a continuing rise in the proportion of pupils studying English as their first (or only) foreign language. European Commission statistics (Eurydice 2002), for example, show that in 1999/2000 an average of 40 per cent of primary pupils across the EU learnt English, up from around 33 per cent in 1996/97 (Eurydice 2000), and that 87 per cent of general secondary school pupils studied English compared to 83 per cent in 1991/92. A reasonable inference from these trends and from the limited uptake of other languages is that parents (and pupils) are reluctant to bear the considerable costs attaching to the acquisition of a second language unless they discern some tangible and likely benefits, and that English – given its position in the global hierarchy and its role as the lubricant of globalisation – fits the bill. Such perceptions of the economic value of English do not, moreover, seem to be obviously misplaced, for as Grin (2001: 73) shows, in the Swiss labour market English language skills are, independently of the effects of education, associated with significantly higher earnings; and it is possible that this is the case elsewhere in Europe. The example above is supportive of de Swaan’s (2001a) overall analysis of the bottom-up, demand-led, self-reinforcing nature of the spread of English, a spread
124 Language Planning and Education that in democratic, non-autarkic societies LP is relatively powerless to reverse. That said, his framework, as remarked earlier, is incomplete, and it may be useful therefore to conclude this section with a brief discussion of some of its limitations. Limitations of de Swaan’s framework The first of these limitations is that, if Phillipson’s account is excessively top-down, de Swaan’s is perhaps unduly bottom-up. That individual preferences between second languages are influenced by perceptions of their relative communicative value, and that spread, once initiated, has a self-accelerating propensity, are both convincing. But we should not overlook initial conditions or, to use a theological metaphor, a first cause. Thus, while not designed, the global language hierarchy did not ‘just happen’ either: it emerged from, and continues to reflect, the past imposition of British colonial rule on large areas of Africa and Asia and the present economic, military and political dominance of the United States. Second, de Swaan’s framework concentrates on, and explains, the demand for languages in general and English in particular, a demand intensified by globalisation. It has less to say, however, about supply; that is, decisions to expand or curtail school provision for the teaching of English. Clearly, this is highly responsive to demand, but such decisions are nevertheless at least partly autonomous and are taken by, or channelled through, institutions and powerful individuals within them, typically ministries of education. One thinks here of the Malaysian decision to curtail the role of English by switching to Bahasa Malaysia medium at secondary school, a decision partially retracted since, or the Tanzanian decision to continue with English as a medium of instruction at secondary school rather than switch to Swahili, and so forth. The wider point here is that the linguistic market is not perfectly competitive, or untrammelled, but hedged by the powers that nation states still have, despite globalisation’s attenuation of their freedom of action, to protect the market for their national languages through reserving certain public domains for their use. Thus, an analysis of spread with individual preferences as a key unit of that analysis is certainly illuminating, but one needs also to incorporate higher level units of decisionmaking, that is, national institutions and not just aggregates of individuals. A similar point can be made in relation to globalisation, whose effects on the demand for English are analysable at the level of individual acquisition decisions. A broader analysis, however, might also encompass transnational corporations and their executives, who have played an agentive role in the diffusion of English. For example, when the Nissan-Renault partnership was established in 1999, the chief executive, Carlos Ghosn, decided to make English the working language of its mainly Japanese and French workforce, thus increasing the likelihood of other corporations doing likewise. The spread of lingua francas, then, is not only mediated by individual acquisition decisions but by the actions and decisions of higher level institutions such as transnational corporations and national governments. A final limitation of de Swaan’s framework is that it gives much more emphasis to language as an instrument of communication than to language as a marker of
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Language Planning and Education GIB
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vi Contents 5 The global spread of
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Acknowledgements Identifying and th
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