Gibson Ferguson Language Planning and Education Edinburgh ...

144 Language Planning and Education
that assign a more diffuse agency to this process, and highlight bottom-up factors,
in particular the demand for English arising from individual perceptions that its
acquisition would be economically and educationally advantageous. Such explanations
accept rather than deny the active agency of individuals in the ‘periphery’,
and they also give proper recognition to the self-reinforcing nature of language
spread, which springs from the operation of ‘external network effects’; the tendency,
that is, for language to gain in utility as new users join the communicative network.
The idea that English directly endangers other languages, and that as a vehicle
of globalisation it plays a role in Western-dominated cultural homogenisation was
also rejected as an unduly simple conceptualisation of complex processes. Small
indigenous languages are being lost, but the shift is mostly to powerful regional
languages rather than to English. Some homogenisation of taste does appear to be
a concomitant of globalisation, but there is little evidence that globalisation is
eradicating identities and local cultural practices. If anything, it makes possible new
identities, adding an additional layer to what is already available.
Another focus of criticism has been the link between English and two main forms
of inequality: inequality in communication between native and non-native speakers
of English, and socio-economic inequalities arising from differential access to
English. The first of these receives comment particularly with regard to Englishdominated
scientific communication, where native speakers are said to be unduly
advantaged because of their greater proficiency in the language. An associated
observation is that while the benefits of English as an international lingua franca
accrue to all users, especially native speakers, the costs are disproportionately borne
by non-native speakers who expend effort and money in learning the language
formally, unlike English native speakers.
The second form of inequality is viewed as most prevalent in developing countries
where English is a gatekeeper to educational opportunity and high-status employment,
but where elite groups tend to be better positioned to acquire English, whether
formally at school or informally. In such a situation English can become a barrier, an
instrument even for the social and economic exclusion of the poorer sectors of the
population.
As suggested earlier, these criticisms do seem to have more substance than many
of the claims outlined above. But it is not very clear where they lead in terms of
language policy. For example, it is difficult to deny the unearned advantages English
native speakers have in a world dominated by English, and that in this sense
inequality prevails. It is much more problematic, however, to see these advantages
as arising from linguistic practices per se rather than from unequal economic and
political power relations, which, because they are not fundamentally linguistically
founded, are less amenable to language policy solutions.
This does not mean, however, that around the margins nothing can be done.
Ammon (2000) and de Swaan (2001b) argue, for example, that some politically
endorsed future codification of international lingua franca norms, distinct from
present native-speaker-based standards, would contribute to the ‘deanglicisation’ of
English and allow ELF (English as a lingua franca) users to assume an identity as