Esperantic Studies

Number 12, Winter 1999

Index to this issue

• Conference Report: Language in the 21st Century
• News Notes: Dictionary, Series, Classes
• Towards an Interlingual Internet
• Interlingual Research Grants

Language in the Twenty-First Century: Two Conferences

by Timothy Reagan
University of Connecticut

Two conferences, both sponsored by the Center for Research and Documentation of World Language Problems and the second jointly with the Whitney Humanities Center at Yale University, were held in 1998 and 1999. The general theme of both conferences was "Language in the Twenty-First Century." Both conferences included anthropologists, historians, economists, linguists, applied linguistics, psychologists, literary scholars, educators, and individuals from a number of other related disciplines, representing global and broadly international perspectives.

As summarized by Mark Fettes, the 1998 meeting, held at the University of Hartford, addressed four broad issues: (1) Language and Globalization (including economic integration, political integration, migration, and culture, communication, and technology), (2) Language and Democracy/Equity (including language rights, language and the law, language development, language autonomy, and language in socioeconomic perspective), (3) Language and Technological Innovation, and (4) Language and Education (including language attitudes, language learning motivation, issues of access, policy issues, and pedagogical issues). Several themes repeatedly emerged in both the presentations and the discussions:

• The role of English in the global community, the role of monolingualism in Anglophone societies, and the implications of this for foreign language study.
  
• The dominance of English and its significance for other languages (and especially for minority language groups). Included here were discussions about the challenge of stable bilingualism (as opposed to bilingualism as a weigh-station on the way to monolingualism), the importance and role of discourse and discourse patterns (e.g., the idea that the "universality" of scientific discourse is in fact highly questionable and that advanced science may require linguistic diversity, and the broad issue of the economics of language, including the observation that, as with the case of literacy, English may become a necessary but not sufficient condition for economic success in some societies).
  
• The role of language in identity construction and in the politics of identity (and the possibility, in Humphrey Tonkin’s words, for "co-existing ethnolinguistic identities" as well as the recognition that cultural and linguistic identity may become increasingly elective in the 21st century).
  
• The need for an "applied linguistics ecology" if we are seriously to attempt to understand and respond to language issues.
  
• The nature, meaning, and role of "multilingualism" and "interlingualism" was extensively discussed and debated, both with respect to language policy and language planning and in terms of social and educational policy
  

Although presentations at the 1999 conference in some ways paralleled the topics raised at the 1998 conference, there was a significant difference. A strong, underlying theme of this conference –often explicitly articulated and discussed, but present in some form in virtually every presentation and discussion– was the role of English. Conference presentations addressed the issue of what some called "the inexorable trend toward English" in societies around the world from a number of different perspectives. Among the insights offered were:

• English has become the default supranational language, both in terms of its widespread use (both as a first and second language) and in its increasingly significant role as a "mediator" language. It is now something of a "super-LWC."
  
• The drive for inter-translatability between languages (especially state languages) is leading to such languages becoming increasingly similar (for example in terms of lexical meanings), with English at the heart of the push toward intertranslabatility.
  
• The dominance of English is in fact tied to global capitalism, cultural and linguistic hegemony, and political and military hegemony. There is, in fact, a sort of "logic of linguicism" at work.
  
• The combination of English triumphalism coupled with the marginalization of indigenous languages in some parts of the world is leading not only to linguicide but also to intellectual and linguistic dependency.
  
• The dominance of English, and the growing threat to smaller languages, parallels that of the threat to ecological diversity.
  
• At the same time that we see the growing dominance of English and of moves toward globalization, there is also an increase in diversity to some extent in local and regional settings. In fact both the upgrading and downgrading of particular languages in different settings is co-occurring.
  
• Furthermore, we need to be somewhat careful about assuming the dominance of English in both the intermediate and long terms. There are a number of common "myths" about English dominance that need to be discussed, including: (1) The world will speak English. (2) Technology will ensure the continued dominance of English. (3) Media globalization will subject the world to English. (4) Native Anglophone countries will benefit most from the spread of global English. (5) Anglophones don’t need to learn other languages. (6) Native speaking English language teachers will continue to be regarded as the "real thing."
  
• Among the identifiable trends with respect to language education which support, in various ways, the concern about the "myths" of English dominance are the following: (1) moves toward closer collaboration between English and foreign language teachers to created integrated language curricula. (2) Moves to stress issues of language awareness in first and second language teaching, (3) increases in the range of foreign languages being studied, (4) increases in the range of languages studied as mother tongues, (5) shift toward teaching several, rather than a single, foreign language, (6) trends toward the development of curricula and training programs on language for special purposes.
  
• Technological developments appear to have both positive and negative impacts with respect to language. Although much technological development clearly favors and supports globalization and trends toward the dominance of English, technology also provides important educational, social, and political opportunities for many smaller languages.
  
• It is very important for us to come to a clearer understanding of the ecology of language, including such factors as the evolving nature of relations between the small languages and the larger languages, competition among the LWCs (and the emergence of an essentially two-tiered kind of language development, the need for the development of national languages to parallel other social developments, and the relationship between group identity and language.
  
• The definition and role of language rights is an area in need of considerable clarification and work. It is important to include not only the rights of minority language communities, including educational rights, but also the rights of non-native language speakers using national languages and, especially, English.
  

Follow-up activities for the conferences will include the publication of selected presentations from them as well as an edited volume devoted to the challenge of language and language diversity in the twenty-first century.

Participating in the 1998 (*) and 1999 (‡) conferences were: Christine Brown (Glastonbury Public Schools, USA)‡, Ulrich Ammon (U. of Vienna, Austria)‡, Peter Brooks (Yale U., USA)‡, Françoise Cestac (United Nations (ret.))*‡, John Edwards (St. Francis Xavier University, Nova Scotia, Canada)*‡, Joseph Errington (Yale U., USA)‡, Mark Fettes (U. of Toronto, Canada)*‡, Maria E. Frank (U of Hartford, USA)*, Nina Garrett (Yale U., USA)‡, David Graddol (Open University, UK)‡, Francois Grin (U. of Geneva, Switzerland)*, Rainer Enrique Hamel (Universidad Autonoma Metropolitana, Mexico)*‡, Margarita Hidalgo (San Diego State U, USA)*‡, Michael Holquist (Yale U., USA)‡, Yvonne Jehenson (U of Hartford, USA)*, Bjorn Jernudd (Hong Kong Baptist U.)‡, David Jordan (UCSD, USA)*‡, Pere Julia (Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas, Spain)‡, E. James Lieberman (George Washington U, USA)*‡, William F. Mackey (U. Laval, Quebec, Canada)‡, Luisa Maffi (Northwestern U., USA)‡, Jacques Maubert (Lyceum Kennedy, New York, USA)*, Jacques Maurais (Conseil de la Langue Française, Quebec, Canada)*, David Maxwell (National Council on Foreign Languages, Washington, USA)*, Alam M. Mazrui (Ohio State U., USA)‡, Kurt Müller (Hamilton, NJ, USA)*‡, Nancy S. Nicholson (U of Delaware, USA)*, Nicholas Ostler (Foundation for Endangered Languages, UK)‡, Teresa Pica (U. of Pennsylvania, USA)‡, Jonathan Pool (Esperantic Studies Foundation, Seattle, USA)*, Timothy Reagan (U of Connecticut, USA)*‡, Noëlla Roland-DePol (United Nations, New York), Gérard Roubichou (New York, USA)*, Jon Strolle (Monterey Institute of International Studies, USA)‡, Humphrey Tonkin (U of Hartford, USA)*‡, Lilia Vasquez (United Nations, New York)‡.

News Notes

Dictionary.

Series.

Classes.

Towards an Interlingual Internet

Researchers

Esperanto Studies and Interlinguistics.

Esperantic Studies Foundation.