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In addition, non-English medium national networks are also entering the world of satellite technology. Doordashan, the Indian state-television company, for example, is looking to provide satellite broadcasting to audiences from SouthEast Asia to Europe. In a similar vein, ‘Spanish television networks in Mexico are . . . establishing a global presence, producing programming for Europe as well as for Spanish speakers elsewhere in the Americas’ (ibid.: 60). Thus, such trends indicate that English will, as in other areas, come to share its satellite space with other languages. A ‘more crowded and linguistically plural audio-visual landscape in the twenty-first century’ (ibid.) is likely to result.

Finally, it seems that English dominance on the Internet may also decrease. Currently, it appears to be the dominant language on-line, largely because 90 per cent of Internet hosts are based in English-speaking countries. It is therefore unsurprising that the majority of web-sites, and of web-based communications, are in English. However, the Internet appears to have become an important support mechanism for ‘minority and diasporic affinity’ groups. There is therefore an increasing use of languages other than English on-line (and remember that the technology to support this is growing concomitantly) and, interestingly, to debate the perceived hegemony of the latter language (ibid.: 61).

Graddol (ibid.) believes that the quantity of Internet materials in languages other than English will expand significantly in the next decade or so and will be supported by the increasing use of local languages for informal social and family email communication. Again, this is not to say that English will be marginalized: instead, as in other media and domains, it will become one of many options, and will probably remain dominant in certain areas, such as ‘international forums, the dissemination of scientific and technical knowledge, [and] advertising’. Overall, the 80 per cent monopoly that English has had on computer-based communication is expected to fall to 40 per cent by about 2010.

6.5 Conclusion

The last section has outlined some of the predicted socio-political directions that English may follow in its global journey, but they are just that – predictions. They are, of course, reasoned and plausible, but we can no more make complete and accurate forecasts for the next few centuries and beyond than PIE speakers could a few thousand years ago about the divergences and developments of their own language. We simply cannot know if entities such as Space Crew English (see Chapter 2) will ever exist, or if English will become a mother-node on a linguistic family tree, or a dead branch. Similarly, we cannot predict exactly what linguistic changes English will experience as it moves into new domains of usage and is adopted by new communities of speakers: what sound changes will occur, what new meanings will emerge, what auxiliaries will grammaticalize; overall what will be adopted and rejected by myriad speech communities around the world remains a matter for conjecture.

This is not to say that our story of English has ended. What we can be sure of is that, as long as English continues to be a living language functioning in both

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native speaker communities and multi-lingual situations of contact, it will continue to undergo linguistic change of the nature described in Chapter 1, which in some cases will ultimately play a role in ‘bigger’ changes such as creolization (see Chapter 5, Section 5.5), or the emergence of contact varieties of the language (see Section 6.3) and perhaps eventually, in the distant future, new daughter languages. We can also be fairly certain that various patterns and features of English usage will continue to attract both complaint and approbation, and possibly even further attempts at standardization as it becomes used in new media. On a larger scale, it also seems likely that, as in past and current times, the abstract notion of the English language will be intertwined with ideas of individual and national identity, both embraced as a language which ensures and reflects socio-economic success, and reviled as a language of imperialism which spreads the influence of one culture at the linguistic expense of others. Overall, what we can be completely certain of is that its ultimate history, like that of every living language, is far from over; and our current moment as users of the language is simply another chapter in its story.

6.6Study Questions

1.Examine two cases of language obsolescence (in different territories) in which shift to English has played, or is playing, a major role. (Useful readings to start with are given in note 3.) Consider the following two questions:

a.Are language shift and language loss proceeding in exactly the same way in both cases? What similarities and differences obtain between the two?

b.Are revival attempts being made for the obsolescing languages in your case studies? If so, what form do they take? Assess how successful they currently are, and/or are likely to be. Useful additional reading: Dorian (1989), Fishman (1991), Gal (1979), Schmidt (1985).

2. In light of the discussion in Section 6.2, consider the following questions:

a.Do any or all of Swift’s arguments for maintaining standard forms still have currency today (perhaps in more modern guises)?

b.Swift (1712) targeted certain groups as being responsible for language change and corruption. What groups are blamed for the alleged decline of the language today?

c.In the light of your answers to (a) and (b), do you agree with Cameron’s (1995) assertion that anxieties about language standards are in reality a metaphor for deeper socio-political anxieties? Justify your answer.

d.In Section 6.2, we saw that Swift believed that only the ‘learned and polite’ (typically those at the high upper end of the social ladder) could arbitrate successfully on matters of language use. Who are the modern setters of standards?

e.Is it possible to regulate a spoken standard? Give reasons for your answer.

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Useful readings: Cameron (1995: Chapter 3 for (a)–(c)), Watts (2002: Chapter 8 for (d)), Millar (2002: Chapter 9 for (e)), Milroy and Milroy (1999), Crowley (1996: Chapter 5).

3. Examine the establishment of English in a nineteenth-century colony, and compare its situation in that new environment with the account of Singaporean English in Section 6.3 (try to choose one that will offer a good contrast). What parallels (if any) obtain between the two?

Notes

1.English speakers are typically divided into three groups, and one of the best-known models is that of Kachru, which uses the categories of inner circle, outer circle and expanding circle. Each circle represents ‘the types of spread, patterns of acquisition, and the functional allocation of English in diverse cultural contexts’ (Kachru, 1992: 356). Colonial settlements of substantial numbers of L1 English speakers (as occurred in America, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Wales, Scotland and Ireland) established English as a distinctive, native language (ENL) in these countries. These comprise the inner circle. The second diaspora, which affected areas such as India, West and East Africa and the Philippines) established English as an elite second language (ESL) and created the outer circle. The expanding circle comprises EFL areas, such as China, Indonesia and Saudi Arabia. The English spoken in the inner circle is classified as ‘normproviding’, that of the outer circle as ‘norm-developing’ and that of the expanding circle as ‘normdependent’. Although the model is still widely used, it has also been criticized (see for example, Jenkins, 2003: 17–18, and Kandiah, 1998: Chapter 1, for an incisive discussion). One of its main criticisms is that it places ENL areas at the heart of the spread of English globally. As Graddol (1997) and Jenkins (2003) point out, however, this is no longer a straightforward issue, and ESL and EFL areas appear to be becoming increasingly influential in this question.

2.See Graddol (1997: 12–14) for a more detailed discussion of this point.

3.See, for example, Jones (1998) on Welsh, Dorian (1981) on Scots Gaelic, Hindley (1990) on Irish Gaelic, Schiffman (1996) on language policy in America.

4.Watts (2002: 162) states that ‘the eighteenth century ideal of politeness was composed of the following values: decorum, grace, beauty, symmetry and order’.

5.This was a fairly common complaint in the early eighteenth century. Oldmixon, for example, writing in 1712 quotes Edmund Waller’s lines: ‘Poets that lasting Marble seek/Must Write in Latin or in Greek;/We write in Sand’ (in Crowley, 1996: 65).

6.Swift wrote of the Greeks that ‘from Homer to Plutarch are above a Thousand years; so long at least the purity of the Greek Tongue may be allow’d to last, and we know not how far before’, and that the Chinese ‘have Books in their Language above Two Thousand Years old, neither have the frequent Conquests of the Tartars been able to alter it’ (1712: 15–16).

7.See here Watts (2002: 155–72) for a full and interesting discussion of ideals of polite language in eighteenth-century England.

8.See Baugh and Cable (2002: 274–6) for an overview of other influential publications.

9.See Bao (1995) for a detailed analysis of this use and its proposed derivation from Hokkien.

10.English is one of the four official languages of Singapore. The others are Malay (the national language), Mandarin and Tamil.

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11.From the Speak Good English Movement website at http://www.goodenglish.org.sg/SGEM, which also offers excerpts of Goh Chok Tong’s speech.

12.The lessons were developed jointly by the Speak Good English Campaign and the British Council in 2001–02.

13.For an in-depth discussion of the trends outlined here, see Graddol (1997), and the Global English Newsletter available online at http://www.engcool.com/GEN.

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