Linguistic Imperialism

The study of linguistic imperialism focuses on how and why certain languages dominate internationally, and on attempts to account for such dominance in an explicit, theoretically founded way. Language is one of the most durable legacies of European colonial and imperial expansion. English, Spanish, and Portuguese are the dominant languages of the Americas. In Africa, the languages of some of the colonizing powers, England, France, and Portugal are more firmly entrenched than ever, as English is in several Asian countries. The study of linguistic imperialism can help to clarify whether the winning of political independence led to a linguistic liberation of Third World countries, and if not, why not. Are the former colonial languages a useful bond with the international community and necessary for state formation and national unity internally? Or are they a bridgehead for Western interests, permitting the continuation of a global system of marginalization and exploitation? What is the relationship between linguistic dependence (continued use of a European language in a former nonEuropean colony) and economic dependence (the export of raw materials and import of technology and know-how)? In a globalizing world, has English shifted from serving Anglo-American interests into functioning as an instrument for more diverse constituencies? Or does U.S. dominance in the neoliberal economy constitute a new form of empire that consolidates a single imperial language? Imperialism has traditionally been primarily concerned with economic and political aspects of dominance (Hobson, 1902). Later theorists have been concerned with analyzing military, social, communication, and cultural activities, and the underlying structures and ideologies that link powerful countries, the ‘Center,’ with powerless countries, the ‘Periphery,’ and the structure of exploitation from which rich countries benefit and poor countries suffer (Galtung, 1980). Resources are distributed unequally internally within each country, which has its own Center and Periphery, which in Marxist analysis is seen in terms of class (Holborrow, 1999). Linguistic imperialism was manifestly a feature of the way nation-states privileged one language, and often sought actively to eradicate others, forcing their speakers to shift to the dominant language. It was also a feature of colonial empires, involving a deeper degree of linguistic penetration in settler countries (e.g., Canada, New Zealand) than in exploitation and extraction colonies (e.g., Malaya, Nigeria). Linguistic imperialism presupposes an overarching structure of asymmetrical, unequal exchange, where language dominance dovetails with economic, political, and other types of dominance. It entails unequal resource allocation and communicative rights between people defined in terms of their competence in specific languages, with unequal benefits as a result, in a system that legitimates and naturalizes such exploitation (Phillipson, 1992). Linguistic imperialism can be regarded as a subcategory of cultural imperialism, along with media imperialism (e.g., news agencies, the world information order), educational imperialism (the export of Western institutional norms, teacher training, textbooks, etc., and World Bank policies privileging Center languages in education systems; Mazrui, 2004), and scientific imperialism (e.g., dissemination of paradigms and methodologies from the Center, which controls knowledge about the Periphery). Linguistic imperialism may dovetail with any of these, as for instance when English as the dominant language of science marginalizes other languages, English as ‘Lingua Tyrannosaura’ (Swales, 1997; Ammon, 2001; Phillipson, 2002). The mechanisms of linguistic imperialism are documented in works that link linguistics with colonialism (Calvet, 1974 refers to linguistic racism, confirming the interlocking of 19th century philology with European racist thought), relate the promotion of English in educational ‘aid’ to the economic and political agendas of Center countries (Phillipson, 1992), and discuss the effect of literacy on the local language ecology, including the role of missionaries (Mühlhäusler, 1996). Linguistic dominance has invariably been buttressed by ideologies that glorify the dominant language: as the language of God (Arabic, Dutch, Sanskrit), the language of reason, logic, and human rights (French over several centuries), the language of the superior ethnonational group as advocated by (imperialist racism, German in Nazi ideology), the language of modernity, technological progress, and national unity (English in much postcolonial discourse). A Ghanaian sociolinguist describes linguistic imperialism as