INTRODUCTION
Language contact is a national social phenomenon. Most languages at one time or the other have been influenced by contact. A group of speakers of a language may migrate from their immediate environment for various reasons, which may include war, famine, search for better economic fortune, and so forth. The result of this migration is language contact.
Language contact may result in different things, depending on the extent of the contact. Some of the likely results of language contact are:
(a) lexical borrowing, i.e.: one or the two languages borrowing lexical items
(b) evolution of a mixed language, combining the features of the two
languages
(c) language displacement, i.e.- one of the languages, which is more powerful, displacing the other.
The latter is sometimes referred to as linguistic imperialism. In the process of language contact, speakers assign different values to the languages involved. The language that is rated higher than the other, probably due to the advantage of having more educated people may soon dominate the one rated lower. The result may be the total relegation of the lower language to non-prominent domains of discourse or the total extinction of the language with time.
In this unit, we shall be discussing the concept of linguistic imperialism. First, we shall look at how languages disperse and how some languages come to acquire power and prestige over the others and how this hegemony leads to linguistic imperialism.
3.1 Linguistic Dispersal
Linguistic dispersal is the spread of a language as a result of the movement of its speakers to different parts of the world. A group of speakers of a particular language may move from their original place to another place for different reasons-war, famine or pestilence, search for better economic fortune, and so forth. The survival of their language in the new community will be determined by the strength of the language in terms of what it has to offer the people of the community. If the community has a dominant language, which has been established as a lingua franca, it may be difficult for the new language to gain prominence. The languages of the colonial masters gained prominence over the local languages in the colonies because they had already been codified and standardised, while the local languages were not.
Many of the languages in the world have dispersed far beyond their immediate community of original speakers. English language is one of the most dispersed languages in the world. It spread mainly through colonialism; but in the modern times, English is being further dispersed through technology. French also spread through colonialism. Arabic spread through the religion of Islam, but unlike English, its use in most of the places it spreads to is limited to the domains of religion. For instance, in Nigeria, Arabic is popularly used in the context of Islamic religion.
3.2 Linguistic Power
A language is said to have linguistic power when it is given legal status by reinforcing its role and status in the society. In any multilingual society, languages are naturally assigned roles by the speakers. A language may be assigned a higher role because speakers have a feeling that it has some things to offer which other languages do not. Usually, whatever the language has to offer must be a thing that will unite the speakers of the different languages and help to advance the society, for instance, education, religion, and so forth. English has linguistic power in virtually all the former British colonies in Africa and Asia, because apart from being the language of education, it is the language that unites the speakers of the different languages in the linguistically heterogeneous societies of the former colonies. It also connects the countries to the other parts of English-speaking world.
3.3 Linguistic Imperialism
Linguistic Imperialism is the dominance asserted and maintained by the establishment and continuous reconstruction of structural and cultural inequalities between a language and other languages. Phillipson (2003), applies this concept to English, which is no doubt an international language because it is not only established in most countries of the world, it continues to maintain its current dominance, even in the post- colonial contexts like Nigeria, India, Uganda, Zimbabwe, Sri Lanka, Singapore, Ghana, and so forth.
The origin of linguistic imperialism is colonialism. During the colonial period, between 1500 and 1900, the Europeans exercised economic and political control over some areas in North and South America, Africa and Asia. The major purposes of colonialism include economic exploitation of the colony's natural resources, creation of new markets for the coloniser, and extension of the coloniser's way of life beyond its national borders.
Colonial masters send settlers to populate the areas and take control of governments. The first colonies were established in the Western Hemisphere by the Spanish and Portuguese in the 15th–16th century. The Dutch colonised Indonesia in the 16th century, and Britain colonised North America and India in the 17th–18th century. Later British settlers colonised Australia and New Zealand.
The colonisation of Africa only began in earnest in the 1880s, but by 1900 virtually the entire continent was controlled by Europe. The colonial era ended gradually after World War II. Though we still have a few areas governed as colonies in contemporary times, they are mainly small islands in the Pacific.
Linguistic imperialism is the after effect of colonisation, since part of the policy of colonisation is to merge people of different culture and geographical areas together for easy administration. It then follows that after the end of colonialism, these nations had no choice than to pick the languages of their former colonial rulers, since none of the indigenous languages can perform the function of uniting the people.
SELF-ASSESSMENT EXERCISE
i. Write an argument for or against Linguistic Imperialism in Africa.
ii. Identify instances of Linguistic imperialism of a local language
over the other within Nigeria and other African countries.
3.4 English Linguistic Imperialism
When discussing linguistic imperialism, English is one of the languages usually in focus. This is not surprising if one looks at the way the language is spreading all over the world in contemporary times. Phillipson's (2003) theory of English linguistic Imperialism provides a powerful critique on the historical spread of English as an international language and how it continues to maintain its current dominance particularly in postcolonial contexts in places like Nigeria, Pakistan, Uganda, Zimbabwe, etc. English is also spreading even in "neo- colonial" contexts such as continental Europe.
One of the central themes of Phillipson's theory is the series of complex hegemonic processes which, he asserts, continue to sustain the pre- eminence of English in the world today. According to Wikipedia Free Encyclopedia, in his book, he analyses the British Council's use of rhetoric to promote English. He also discusses some of the key underlying tenets of English applied linguistics and English language teaching methodology, such as:
• English is best taught monolingually ("the monolingual fallacy")
• the ideal teacher is a native speaker ("the native speaker fallacy")
• the earlier English is taught, the better the results ("the early start fallacy")
• the more English is thought, the better the results ("the maximum exposure fallacy")
• if other languages are used much, standards of English will drop ("the subtractive fallacy")
According to Phillipson the organisations that promote English (like the British Council, the IMF and the World Bank) or single individuals, (those who operate English language schools, for instance) use three types of argument:
• English intrinsic arguments describe the language as God-given, rich, noble and interesting. These arguments usually assert what English is and other languages are not.
• English extrinsic arguments point out that English is well established: there are trained teachers and a multitude of teaching material. There are also abundant immaterial resources like knowledge of the language
• English functional arguments emphasise the usefulness of English as a gateway to the world.
Other arguments for English are:
• Its economic-reproductive function: it enables people to operate technology.
• Its ideological function: it stands for modernity.
• It is a symbol for material advance and efficiency.
Phillipson also identifies what he calls linguicism the processes by which endangered languages become extinct or lose their local eminence as a direct result of the rising and competing prominence of English in disparate global contexts.
The increasing economic and political power of the English-speaking nations is also aiding the spread of English across the globe. There is no doubt that for some time to come, English will remain a global language, which as some fear will increasingly lead to the diminishing power of other languages. There is particularly a great fear for indigenous languages in the former colonies, which are gradually becoming extinct as a result of the growing popularity of English as the dominant medium of expression.
4.0 CONCLUSION
Linguistic Imperialism is a concept that emerged from the concern of people about the way some languages, due to their overbearing influence are suppressing the others. Linguistic Imperialism started with colonialism and still continues till date. It is an expression of power by the speakers of a language that has economic and political influence over the speakers of other languages that lack these. English is always a language of reference in the discussion of Linguistic imperialism. This is due to its spread beyond its immediate domain in the colonial, post- colonial, and neo-colonial era.
5.0 SUMMARY
This unit focuses on the discussion of Linguistic Imperialism, a notion that expresses a concern about the way some languages are dominating others in the world due to their influence. The starting point of Linguistic Imperialism is linguistic dispersal, a situation in which a language leaves its immediate domain as a result of the migration of the original speakers. Such a language may end up overshadowing another language if its speakers have some economic and political power. The overall effect, if the other languages possess less power, is for the language of influence to become the exclusive language in most domains of usage.
6.0 TUTOR-MARKED ASSIGNMENT
1. Explain the term ‘linguistic imperialism’ .
2. Is English really dominating other languages in the world? Explain.
3. What is linguistic power? How do languages or their speakers acquire power over other languages?
4. Explain the process of language dispersal.
7.0 REFERENCES/FURTHER READING
Phillipson, R. (2003). English-Only Europe? Routledge.
Kachru, B. B., Kachru, Y, & Nelson, C. L. (2006). The Handbook of World Englishes. Blackwell Publishers.
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