1 / 41

The Language of the Internet: English Dominance or Heteroglossia?

The Language of the Internet: English Dominance or Heteroglossia?. Susan C. Herring Indiana University, Bloomington Keynote presentation, Cultural Attitudes towards Technology and Communication Conference (CATaC), Université de Montréal, July 13, 2002. The Internet.

rwinters
Télécharger la présentation

The Language of the Internet: English Dominance or Heteroglossia?

An Image/Link below is provided (as is) to download presentation Download Policy: Content on the Website is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use and may not be sold / licensed / shared on other websites without getting consent from its author. Content is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use only. Download presentation by click this link. While downloading, if for some reason you are not able to download a presentation, the publisher may have deleted the file from their server. During download, if you can't get a presentation, the file might be deleted by the publisher.

E N D

Presentation Transcript

  1. The Language of the Internet:English Dominance or Heteroglossia? Susan C. Herring Indiana University, Bloomington Keynote presentation, Cultural Attitudes towards Technology and Communication Conference (CATaC), Université de Montréal, July 13, 2002

  2. The Internet • Popular communication medium • Developed in the United States • ARPANET 1969-1990 • Internet 1983- • Graphical Web browsers 1993- • Rapid global spread since the mid-1990s • global Internet population predicted to reach one billion by 2005(Foley, 2000)

  3. Language • ~6,000 distinct languages spoken in the world today • 96% of the world’s population speaks 40% of the languages (Nettle & Romaine, 2000) • Carrier of culture: history, knowledge, ritual, values, verbal art, world view, etc. • Subject to macro-social forces within the global linguistic ecology. Languages can beborn, maintained, revived and die (Mülhäusler, 1996).

  4. The Internet and Language Change • Medium effects • Acceleration of change • Convergence/homogenization (Baron, 1984; Herring, 1998; Rowe, fc)

  5. Question: • What will be the effects of the Internet on the global linguistic ecology?

  6. The Internet will increase (accelerate) the global dominance of English. Dominance; convergence Other languages will eventually (soon) catch up to or surpass English on the Internet. Heteroglossia Two Views:

  7. Trends pre-dating the Internet • Global spread of English • Loss of minority languages dominance

  8. 1. Global Spread of English • Stable population of first-language English speakers (around 350 million) • English as a second and foreign language has grown dramatically since 1950 (750 million; Strevens, 1992) • Crystal (1985) estimated 1-2 billion people have some ability in English (world pop = 4 billion) • English is the global lingua franca of aviation, business, diplomacy, higher education, mathematics, science, technology, etc.

  9. Global Spread of English (cont.) • “In the extent and diversity of its uses, English is matched by no other present or past language of our species.” - Manfred Görlach, More Englishes, 1995 • “There is no retreat from English as the world language; no retreat from an English-speaking world.” - Sridath Ramphal, Co-chairman, Commission on Global Governance, 1995 Report

  10. Advantages of a global language • Economical and efficient • Saves translation costs • Facilitates trade, knowledge exchange, international cooperation (e.g., aviation standards) • Facilitates cross-cultural communication • Reduces misunderstandings • Reduces global conflict (cf. Eco, 1995)

  11. Problems with a global language • Has never truly been achieved • Artificial languages resisted because lack social identification • Real languages resisted because of fear of dominance by native speakers • Gives social, economic, political and cultural advantage to (native) speakers of global language • If widely adopted, could reduce importance of other languages • Risk of monoculture, loss of cultural diversity

  12. 2. Loss of Minority Languages • Half the known languages in the world have vanished in the last 500 years (Nettle & Romaine, 2000) • By 2100, 3,000 of the remaining 6,000 languages will perish; 2,400 will become near-extinct (Hale, 1998) • Mostly small, indigenous languages (vs. national or international languages) are being lost

  13. Importance of Minority Languages • Linguistic human rights • Speak mother tongue • Be educated in mother tongue • Use functions of government in mother tongue • Language as repository of culture/cultural diversity • Ecological balance/Biolinguistic diversity • Smallest languages are most complicated, hence interesting for study (e.g., Hale, 1998; Mülhäusler, 1996; Nettle & Romaine, 2000; Skatnab-Kanggas, 1995)

  14. Prima facie Internet evidence • Historical primacy of English on the Internet dominance • Rapid global spread of the Internet heteroglossia

  15. 1. Historical primacy of English and U.S. culture • Technological • Fonts, code, browsers, search engines, etc. (Yates, 1996) • Communicative practices • Flaming (Meyers-Hagen, 1996), mixed-sex chat (Wheeler, 2001), etc. • Cultural values • Individualism, free market capitalism, etc. (Mattelart, 1996)

  16. Browser language settings English 72% Spanish 11% German 5% French 3% Japanese 1% Other 8% (Source: Lake, 2001)

  17. Historical primacy: Assumptions • The design of a technology reflects the biases of its designers (McDonough, 1999) • First practices established within a domain set the norms for the domain (The Founder Principle, Mufwene, 1996) BUT: • Users can adapt technologies to their own purposes • Norms evolve over time

  18. 2. Global spread of the Internet • “Chinese to Become #1 Web Language by 2007.” (Accenture Consulting advertisement) • As of January 2000, 13.4% of Web pages were in languages other than English, speakers of which comprise 50.1% of Internet population (Global Reach, 2000). Number of sites predicted to rise by 60% in 2006; number of non-English speaking users by 150% (Jones, 2001)

  19. (Source: Global Reach, 2000)

  20. (Source: Global Reach, 2000)

  21. Global spread: Assumptions • Other language speakers will use their native languages online, rather than English • English is not dominant if other language speakers are more numerous than English language speakers BUT: • Many other language speakers currently use English online • English is over-represented in Internet demographic projections relative to number of native English speakers

  22. Compelling evidence that the Internet fosters the spread of English • Increased frequency of English use by non-native speakers who use the Internet • Spread of English to communicative contexts that normally favor the native language • Influence of English on native language (e.g., borrowing, calquing, language mixing) through Internet use • Enhanced prestige of English relative to native language among Internet users

  23. 1. Frequency of English use • Predominance of English-language Web sites (Carvin, 2001) • Non-native speakers create English-language Web sites (Russians - Travica & Olson, 1998)

  24. Native speakers per Web page

  25. 2. Language choice in communicative context Expected: • With English speakers (English) • With non-English speakers (English) • With speakers of their own language (native language) Observed: • Some diasporic communities communicate online mostly in English (Koreans - Kim, 1999; South Asians - Paolillo, 1996)

  26. 3. Influence of English on other languages • Borrowing of English computing terms such as ‘software’, ‘download’, ‘chat’, ‘Web’ into other languages (Slovak - Nemková, 1998; Catalan - Yzaguirre, 2000) • Use of English CMC conventions such as emoticons and acronyms in online chat and discussion forums in other languages (Catalan - Torres Vilatarsana, 2001; Swedish - Hård af Segerstad, 2000) • Mixing of English with other languages in email and chat (Greek - Georgakopoulou, fc; Hindi - Paolillo, 1996, fc)

  27. 4. Prestige of English • Korean youth learning English more because of Internet cachet, future employment opportunities (Yoon, 2001)

  28. Compelling evidence that the Internet fosters linguistic diversity • New languages form on the Internet (invented languages, pidgins & creoles, rapid language evolution) • Small languages get larger; dying languages revive • All existing languages are used online

  29. 1. New languages form on the Internet • “Netspeak” (Crystal, 2001) • Pidginization of English language as a result of use by non-native speakers (Raley, 1998; Travica & Olson, 1998). Cf. Simplified English (Mills & Caldwell, 1997); World English (Microsoft) • Rapid language evolution (private sibling lect - Rowe, fc)

  30. 2. Dying languages revive • Preservation and revitalization efforts by linguists (Buszard-Welcher, 1999; Algonquian - Whalen et al., 2000) • The Internet gives “voice” to minority languages, functions as a vehicle of political empowerment (e.g., Basque, Catalan)

  31. (Source: Carvin, 2000)

  32. 3. Existing languages come online CLAIMS: • Democratic access, low publication cost, seemingly limitless space: room for all, regardless of viability of language • Machine translation will insure mutual intelligibility BUT: • Minority languages will be last to come online due to cost, lack of literacy (Ethnologue, 2001) • Machine translation is difficult; only available for major languages

  33. Predictions • The Internet will promote and accelerate the spread of English • The Internet will reflect linguistic diversity, and be a potential source of empowerment for minority language groups • Linguistic diversity will decrease overall, consistent with pre-Internet trends

  34. Alternative Models • Global diglossia = English + local language (Yzaguirre, personal comm.) • Oligopoly of world languages, each with regional base (Graddol, 1997) • English + Spanish + Chinese + Arabic? Russian? Hindi?

  35. The world language hierarchy in 2050? (Graddol, 1997) The big languagesCHINESE, HINDI/URDU,ENGLISH, SPANISH, ARABIC_______________________________Regional languages(The languages of major trade blocs)ARABIC, ENGLISH, CHINESE, MALAY, RUSSIAN, SPANISH_____________________________________________National languagesAround 90 languages serve around 220 nation states___________________________________________________________Local languagesThe remainder of the world’s 1000 or fewer languages with varying degrees of official recognition_____________________________________________________________________________________________

  36. A caveat on language, culture and dominance • Language is a carrier of culture, but it is rarely the driving force behind cultural domination: that is rather political, economic, religious and/or social • Absent the dominating force, an imposed language becomes a potential resource for the advancement of its speakers, e.g., French in post-Norman England; English in post-colonial India • English will “dominate” – and be a vehicle for US cultural dominance – only as long as the Internet is associated with the US. This may already be changing, as the Internet is adopted by other cultures.

  37. Need for diachronic research on • Linguistic usage on the Internet • Languages of Web pages • CMC in languages other than English

  38. Need for diachronic research on • Technology/language interface • Languages available in search engines, Web browsers, etc. • Machine translation • Unicode and other standards

  39. Need for diachronic research on • Socio-historical mechanisms of language change • Contact, convergence, divergence • Political, economic, technical and cultural forces that drive language expansion and loss

  40. Need for diachronic research on • Social aspects of technology and culture • Technology adoption, diffusion and use • Expression of culture through technology • Impact of technology on individual cultures

  41. The End

More Related