Investing cultural diversity and intercultural dialogue - Business and ...

12 . PART II – KEY VECTORS OF CULTURAL DIVERSITY
and often contradictory. In many instances, transfer away
from minority languages is not towards English but
towards other rival languages and regional dialects,
suggesting that the widespread use of English may be
limited to specific purposes, such as transactions and
functional communication. Globalization has also
encouraged more plural and hybrid approaches to
English, revealing the highly complex ways in which
language, identity and relationships interact and how
speakers adapt inherited forms of language to new
cultural contexts and for new purposes.
L Storyteller speaking to a
crowd in Jemaa el-Fna
Square in Marrakesh,
Morocco
I Epic storyteller,
Kyrgyzstan
Chapter 3: Languages
Languages mediate our experiences, our intellectual
and cultural environments, our modes of encounter
with human groups, our value systems, social codes and
sense of belonging, both collectively and personally.
From the perspective of cultural diversity, linguistic
diversity reflects the creative adaptation of human
groups to their changing physical and social
environments. In this sense, languages are not just a
means of communication but represent the very fabric
of cultural expressions, the carriers of identity, values
and worldviews.
Language dynamics today
Linguists believe that a large percentage of the
world’s languages is likely to disappear in the course
of this century. Half of the languages in existence
today – estimated at between 6,000 and 8,000 – are
spoken by less than 10,000 people, and one such
language is said to disappear every two weeks. While
the growth of vehicular languages (English in
particular) associated with globalization processes is
having major impacts on languages worldwide,
languages shift in response to myriad political, social,
economic and cultural conditions, and the effects of
globalization on linguistic diversity are far from simple
Through migration, colonial expansion, refugee
displacement or professional mobility, many language
communities are now dispersed across the world. As
connections between language and place become
increasingly multiple, communication patterns are
becoming highly variegated, characterized by codeswitching,
multilingualism, different receptive and
productive competencies in different languages or
dialects, and are marked by mixtures of full, partial and
specialized proficiencies. In this way, continuously
expanding networks – based on mobile phones,
broadband Internet and other information and
communication technologies (ICTs) – are creating new
forms of human association of unprecedented scale and
flexibility, spanning cities, nations and cultures. These are
in turn forging new linguistic forms and practices linked
to new cultural identities that are broadening, and
redefining, existing boundaries across public/private
domains and social, cultural and educational contexts.