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English in Globalisation, a Lingua Franca or a
Lingua Frankensteinia?
ROBERT PHILLIPSON
Copenhagen Business School
Copenhagen, Denmark
䡲 TESOL declares that it is a global organization. The expansion of foreign
and second language learning worldwide from the 1950s spawned different associations, as Fishman (this issue) documents at a time when U.S.
ambitions were global. Troike wrote in 1977 of “large amounts of government and private foundation funds in the period 1950–1970, perhaps the
most ever spent in history in support of the propagation of a language”
(p. 2); Alatis and Straehle (1997) confirmed that “by the 1960s, TESOL
had truly become a worldwide endeavour” (p. 11). The United States and
United Kingdom were partners and rivals in promoting English and
approaches to its learning worldwide (Phillipson, 1992, chapter 6). Alatis
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and Straehle absolve the TESOL world of linguistic imperialism, denouncing my book on the topic but casually admitting that they have not read it.
TESOL’s expansionist ambitions dovetail with U.S. corporate and government global aims. This trend leads me to conclude that even if U.S.
TESOL were to more actively embrace the other languages of its emerging bilinguals, the languages of a more multilingual TESOL would still be
hierarchically ordered. “Globalizing” English is incompatible with balanced multilingualism—though this is not (yet?) the case where English
is relatively successfully learned as a foreign language in Europe, and
where U.S. TESOL is virtually unknown.
However, the use of English is increasing throughout Europe: as the
dominant corporate language; 70%+ of films on TV and in cinemas in
Europe are Hollywood products; youth is consumerist, Coca-colonised,
and more familiar with U.S. products and norms than others; English is
the most widely learned foreign language and other foreign languages
are mostly in retreat; research is increasingly published in English, which
is seen as more prestigious than a national language. These developments
all impact on other languages, with English as a foreign language in continental Europe transforming into a kind of second language. As in former colonies, English largely serves elite formation purposes. European
Union policy statements have repeatedly advocated “mother tongue plus
two” languages in general education, but this remains wishful thinking.
The languages of immigrants tend to be seen as problems rather than as
resources, much like in TESOL.
The United States has seen itself as a model for the world for more
than two centuries. George Washington foresaw American colonies ultimately becoming an empire. A belief in the manifest destiny of AngloSaxon culture to spread around the world was articulated in 1838 by the
Board of Foreign Missions of the USA, then 13 “colonies” (Spring, 1996,
p. 145). Successive American presidents parrot this: “We have room for
but one language here, and that is the English language” (Theodore
Roosevelt, 1919, p. 2); “The whole world should adopt the American system. The American system can survive in America only if it becomes a
world system.” (Harry Truman, 1947 in Pieterse, 2004, p. 137); “Our
nation is chosen by God and commissioned by history to be a model to
the world” (George W. Bush, 2000, quoted in Niebuhr, 2000).3
The British also rationalised their empire similarly: Cecil Rhodes saw
the Anglo-Saxon race as the highest to be evolved in a divine plan, and
funded the Rhodes scholarships in pursuance of this goal (Katzen, 1970,
p. 274). The “special relationship” explains the asymmetrical pairing of
3
336
While former President Bush was the Republican nominee for president, he made this
comment in a speech to a B’nai B’rith convention in Washington in reference to his support for Israel and in praise of work conducted by faith-based social programs.
TESOL QUARTERLY
Roosevelt and Churchill, Reagan and Thatcher, Bush and Blair. Think
tanks are promoting closer links between English-speaking countries
(Bennett, 2004). A central message is that “Multiculturalism and bilingualism should be abandoned, and assimilation and learning of English
should become national policies” (Bennett, 2007, p. 85).
Scholars tend to lend credence to this ideology: The English language
happened to be “in the right place at the right time” (Crystal, 1997,
p. 110); “The ascendancy of English is merely the outcome of the coincidence of accidental forces” (Kaplan, 2001, p. 19); Spolsky (2004) asks
whether the spread of English “happened or was caused” (p. 90), a false
way of conceptualising the issue (see Phillipson, 2007).
Linguistic imperialism now interlocks with the neoliberal economy,
finance, the military, culture, and education. Thus, Educational Testing
Services, of Princeton, New Jersey, has a wholly owned subsidiary, ETS
Global BV, which proclaims on its Web site: “Our global mission goes far
beyond testing. Our products and services enable opportunity worldwide
by measuring knowledge and skills, promoting learning and performance, and supporting education and professional development for all
people worldwide.” In 2009, their outreach is still global, but less bombastic: “As an advisor to governments, corporations and educators throughout the world, ETS and ETS Global subsidiaries help create and manage
all aspects of custom assessment solutions that reflect local cultural and
linguistic practices” (Educational Testing Service, 2009).
In like fashion, Gordon Brown announced on his first trip as Prime
Minister to China and India in January 2008 that he was launching a project to make English “the world’s common language of choice.”4 One of
his goals is to strengthen the British TESOL business, which “could add a
staggering £50 billion a year to the UK economy by 2010,” according to
The Sun (Murdoch-owned) newspaper (Pascoe-Watson, 2009).
Choice as to whether people should learn English is a luxury that the
world’s have-nots do not enjoy, unlike postcolonial elites. This situation
led one distinguished African scholar to conclude that in the global village there are
a few chiefs—very powerful economically and militarily—and a lot of powerless villagers. [. . .] The market has indeed replaced imperial armies, but
one wonders whether the effect is any different. [. . .] It is therefore not
the case that more English will lead to African global integration; the
reverse is more likely. [. . .] Giving false hopes that everybody can have
access to “World English” is unethical.
(Rubagumya 2004, pp. 136–139)
4
Pascoe-Watson (2009) cites this 2008 statement by Brown, originally cited in The Sun on
January 18, 2008, in a follow-up article in The Sun on March 9, 2009.
SYMPOSIUM: IMAGINING MULTILINGUAL TESOL
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Advocates of World English and English language spread tend to
assume its advance is unproblematic and detached from the agendas of
the powerful. There is a tendency for scholars to refer to English as a lingua franca, falsely assuming that the language is neutral, free of cultural
ties, and serves all equally well. I would suggest that in whatever specific
contexts we meet the term lingua franca, we ask whether it might not be
more appropriately labelled as a
lingua economica (the corporate globalisation imperative)
lingua cultura (the specific values and norms of a society, country,
group, or class, needing exploration in foreign language teaching)
lingua academica (an instrument for international collaboration in
higher education)
lingua emotiva (the pull of Hollywood, global advertising, pop culture,
and how such grassroots identification with English ties in with topdown promotion of the language)
lingua bellica (the language of military aggression)
lingua frankensteinia (Phillipson, 2008, whenever English is learned or
used subtractively).
There is currently a widespread concern that European languages are
experiencing “domain loss,” in research publication, in higher education,
business, and international relations. This is a real risk, but the term itself
is inappropriate because it conceals agency. When English supplants
another language, what happens is that users of English (whether as a first
or second language) accumulate linguistic capital and others are dispossessed of their languages, their territory, and their functions.
Analysis of such processes, which I see TESOL as viscerally involved in,
can be strengthened by distinguishing between the project, processes, and
products. The promotion of “global” English is a project (making English
the default language internationally and increasingly intranationally),
for which the processes tend to be normalized and legitimated by political,
scholarly, and educational cheerleaders (inappropriate advocacy and pedagogy), which serve to consolidate products (Anglo-U.S. linguistic norms,
with local variation). Linguistic capital dispossession, which subtractive language learning or use promotes, means that English takes over space that
earlier was occupied by the national language or the mother tongue.
What is therefore needed as a more ethical alternative is international
English projects that strike a sustainable balance between English and
other languages, through processes that lead to multilingual competence.
Additive English for specific purposes is desirable, provided English
learning and use are situated in local multilingual ecologies. There is an
urgent need for professional rethinking and for the political will to
address such language policy issues.
338
TESOL QUARTERLY
THE AUTHOR
Robert Phillipson is Professor Emeritus at Copenhagen Business School, Denmark.
His areas of research include the role of English in the modern world, reasons for its
spread, and consequences for other languages; language policies in European Union
(EU) institutions and interactions between EU member-states; and language
pedagogy.
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