Robert Phillipson

English-only Europe? : challenging language policy

English-Only Europe? explores the role of languages in the process of European integration. Languages are central to the development of an integrated Europe. The way in which the European Union deals with multilingualism has serious implications for both individual member countries and international relations. In this book, Robert Phillipson considers whether the contemporary expansion of English represents a serious threat to other European languages. After exploring the implications of current policies, Phillipson argues the case for more active language policies to safeguard a multilingual Europe. Drawing on examples of countries with explicit language policies such as Canada and South Africa, the book sets out Phillipsons vision of an inclusive language policy for Europe, and describes how it can be attained.

Linguistic Human Rights: Overcoming Linguistic Discrimination.

Only a few hundred of the worlds 6,000-7,000 languages have any kind of official status, and it is only speakers of official languages (speakers of dominant majority languages) who enjoy all linguistic human rights. As many of the collected papers in this book document, most linguistic minorities are deprived of these rights. This book describes what linguistic human rights are, who has and who does not have them and why, and suggests which linguistic rights should be regarded as basic human rights. Linguistic Human Rights introduces a new area, combining sociolinguistics, educational, and minority concerns with human rights. Discrimination against language minorities is widespread, despite national and international law prohibiting this. The book analyzes language rights in many countries worldwide, including North and Latin America, several European states, the former USSR, India, Kurdistan, Australia and New Zealand.

Linguistic Imperialism Continued

This volume brings together key writings since the 1992 publication of Linguistic Imperialism - Robert Phillipsons controversial benchmark volume, which triggered a major re-thinking of the English teaching profession by connecting the field to wider political and economic forces. Analyzing how the global dominance of English in all domains of power is maintained, legitimized and persists in the twenty-first century, Linguistic Imperialism Continued reflects and contributes in important ways to understanding these developments. This book is not for sale in India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Nepal, and Bhutan.

English Only Worldwide or Language Ecology

The multilingualisms of the United Nations, the European Union, and postcommunist Europe are very different phenomena. English plays a key role in each and is being actively promoted. The language map of Europe and linguistic hierarchies are evolving and are in need of scrutiny so that research and policy in Europe can benefit from insights that come from theoretically informed study of language planning, policy, and legislation. Overall there seem to be two language policy options, a diffusion-of-English paradigm and an ecology-of-language paradigm. The first is characterized by triumphant capitalism, its science and technology, and a monolingual view of modernization and internationalization. The ecology-of-language paradigm involves building on linguistic diversity worldwide, promoting multilingualism and foreign language learning, and granting linguistic human rights to speakers of all languages. This article explores the assumptions of both paradigms and urges English language teaching professionals to support the latter.

THE LINGUISTIC IMPERIALISM OF NEOLIBERAL EMPIRE 1

The article explores the transition from the linguistic imperialism of the colonial and postcolonial ages to the increasingly dominant role of English as a neoimperial language. It analyzes ‘global’ English as a key dimension of the U.S. empire. U.S. expansionism is a fundamental principle of the foreign policy of the United States that can be traced back over two centuries. Linguistic imperialism and neoimperialism are exemplified at the micro and macro levels, and some key defining traits explored, as are cultural and institutional links between the United Kingdom and the United States, and the role of foundations in promoting ‘world’ English. Whereas many parts of the world have experienced a longstanding engagement with English, the use of English in continental Europe has expanded markedly in recent years, as a result of many strands of globalization and European integration. Some ongoing tensions in language policy in Europe, and symptoms of complicity in accepting linguistic hegemony, are explored. Valid analysis of the role of language in corporate-driven globalization requires theory-building that situates discourses and cultural politics in the material realities of neoimperial market pressures. A plea is made for more active language policy formation to strengthen ongoing efforts to maintain linguistic diversity worldwide. 1The article builds on a keynote lecture at the conference ‘Dialogue under occupation. The Discourse of Enactment, Transaction, Reaction, and Resolution,’ November 7–10, 2006, convened at Northeastern Illinois University, Chicago, by Dr. Larry Berlin. I am very grateful to Peter Ives, John Richardson, Tove Skutnabb-Kangas, and Sohail Karmani for insightful comments on a draft, and to Richard C. Smith for invaluable historical research.

English for Globalisation or for the World's People?.

The article explores the role of English in ongoing processes of globalisation, the reasons for its dominance, and the need for conceptual clarification in analysing English worldwide. Examples from the post-colonial and post-communist worlds and the European Union reveal increasing corporate involvement in education, and World Bank policies that favour European languages. Studies of global English range from those that uncritically endorse global English to those which see it as reflecting a post-imperial but essentially capitalist agenda. Many of the contem-porary trends are captured in two competing language policy paradigms that situate English in broader economic, political and cultural facets of globalisation, the Diffusion of English paradigm, and the Ecology of Languages paradigm. A number of studies of various dimensions of linguistic and professional imperialism in the teaching of English to Asians reveal the persistence of western agendas in education. There is also increasing documentation of resistance to this, both at the level of awareness of the need to anchor English more firmly in local cultural systems, and at classroom level. Language pedagogy needs to ensure that English is not learned subtractively. Only in this way can globalisation be made more accountable and locally relevant.

Linguistic human rights, past and present

1 335. Skutnabb-Kangas, Tove & Phillipson, Robert (2017). Linguistic human rights, past and present. Language Rights, Volume I, 28-67. London & New York: Routledge. Reprinted from 129. Skutnabb-Kangas, Tove & Phillipson, Robert (1994). Linguistic human rights, past and present. In Skutnabb-Kangas, Tove & Phillipson, Robert (Eds.), in collaboration with Mart Rannut. Linguistic Human Rights. Overcoming Linguistic Discrimination. Contributions to the Sociology of Language 67. Berlin & New York: Mouton de Gruyter, 71-110. Also reprinted as 308, in Sociolinguistics: Critical Concepts, eds Nikolas Coupland and Adam Jaworski. 2008. London: Routledge. http://www.tove-skutnabb-kangas.org/dl/335-Skutnabb-Kangas-T-Phillipson-R2017-Linguistic-human-rights-past-and-present-Language-Rights-Vol-1Routledge.pdf

English, a cuckoo in the European higher education nest of languages?

This article addresses the issue as to whether the advance of English in higher education in continental Europe represents a threat to other languages. In the context of moves by the European Union to create a single European ‘education and research area’, in which the integration of higher education through the Bologna process plays a key role, international commodification pressures challenge the status of education as a public good. The study looks at a variety of key aspects of this situation, including the role of university evaluation and planning for internationalisation. It analyses both discourses promoting English, and language policy statements from several countries aiming at a balance between English and other languages. It also deals with the issue of diglossic domain loss as a result of the forces propelling English forward and dispossessing other languages. It concludes that fluidity in European language policies and the many obstacles to coordinated Europe-wide policy formation confirm the need for language policies to be formulated explicitly rather than being left to market pressures, national and international.

REALITIES AND MYTHS OF LINGUISTIC IMPERIALISM

This is a response to Alan Davies’ s review article ‘ Ironising the Myth of Linguicism’ (1996). It summarises principles for the analysis of linguistic imperialism and demonstrates that the phenomenon is far from mythical. The theoretical anchoring is followed by a response to some of the specific points raised by Davies so as to show that his fairly sweeping generalisations are not justified. In conclusion, issues of educational aid, its myths and realities, are raised and some pointers for future action indicated . o scarcely any attention has been paid to what I believe is the privileged role of culture in the modern imperial experience, and little notice taken of the fact that the extraordinary reach of classical nineteenth- and early twentieth-century European imperialism still casts a considerable shadow over our own times o direct colonialism has largely ended; imperialism, as we shall see, lingers where it has always been, in a kind of general cultural sphere as well as in specific political, ideological, economic, and social practices. (Said, 1993: 3‐ 8) Linguistic Imperialism Part of the cultural sphere that Edward Said alludes to is the linguistic legacy that imperialism has bequeathed to us, and the ways in which this inheritance is being enjoyed down to the present. Linguistic imperialism is not a simple matter, which is why it needs book-length treatment (Heath, 1972; Mu hlha usler, 1996; Pennycook, 1994; Phillipson, 1992a), so that claims and analyses can be stringently and validly grounded, publicised and assessed. My book is controversial, as it asks awkward questions, and challenges the established order to which I belong by background and experience. I am fully aware of the need for more refined analytical tools for coming to grips with linguistic imperialism, and many more aspects of the problem need to be explored. The reception of my book (reprinted twice in four years; plans for translating it into Chinese, French, Japanese and Korean; over 30 reviews, many of them enthusiastic) suggests that the issues are of increasing interest and that in the judgement of many people I seem to be on the right track. In my usage, linguistic imperialism is a theoretical construct, devised to account for linguistic hierarchisation, to address issues of why some languages come to be used more and others less, what structures and ideologies facilitate such processes, and the role of language professionals. My book primarily concentrates on English, and specifically on applied linguistics and educational aid. Far from wishing to ‘ escape’ history, as AD suggests, it attempts to bring into sharper

Linguistic Human Rights and English in Europe.

This paper looks at policies of linguistic expansion worldwide, in particular at English in the colonial and postcolonial periods. It addresses the issue of whether the expansion of English in continental Europe represents a threat or a blessing. It considers some of the ambiguities in English being promoted, particularly in connection with ESL expertise, as a language serving ‘international’ purposes and simultaneously British and American interests. It considers the attitude of continental European scientists to needing to publish in English and implications for the ecology of languages in Europe.