Language Sciences, Vol. 20, No. 1, pp.

101-112, 1998
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G L O B A L I Z I N G E N G L I S H : A R E L I N G U I S T I C H U M A N R I G H T S AN
ALTERNATIVE TO LINGUISTIC IMPERIALISM?

ROBERT PHILLIPSON

Giobalizing English
Globalization has economic, technological, cultural and linguistic strands to it. The
globalization of English in diverse contexts, postcolonial, postcommunist and western
European, is one such interconnected strand in asymmetrical flows of products, ideas and
discourses. Thus we live in a world in which 80% of films shown in western Europe are of
Californian origin, whereas 2% of films shown in North America are of European origin
(Hamelink, 1994:114). The trend towards creation of the impression of a global culture through
production for global markets, so that products and information aim at creating 'global
customers that want global services by global suppliers' can be termed McDonaldization,
which means 'aggressive round-the-clock marketing, the controlled information flows that do
not confront people with the long-term effects of an ecologically detrimental lifestyle, the
competitive advantage against local cultural providers, the obstruction of local initiative, all
converge into a reduction of local cultural space' (Hamelink, 1994:112).
In the contemporary world the imagined community of the nation-state is being superseded
by global and regional alliances and organizations, governmental, non-governmental and
private. It is now the world that is being imagined and shaped, by media magnates,
transnational companies, drafters of human rights documents, and organizers of 'international'
conferences. At the heart of globalization is the 'tension between cultural homogenization and
cultural heterogenization' (Appadurai, 1990:295). As languages expand and contract, and as
English is so influential, it is important to identify the agents responsible for its spread and to
attempt to shed light on the interests that globalizing English serves.
The fact that a language can serve homogenizing purposes, as can items of clothing,
entertainment and food (jeans, CNN, burgers), does not mean that the language need only serve
such purposes: it can be appropriated locally, and potentially serve counter-hegemonic
purposes of resistance to the dominant order, in cultural life (e.g. Caribbean music, oppositional
novels), in critical scholarship (e.g. in applied linguistics, or in bilingual education, e.g.
Cummins, 1996) and in journalism (e.g. the People's Communication Charter, Hamelink,
1994).
English can serve benign or pernicious purposes. In a world of increasing globalization,
militarization, and vast gaps between haves and have-nots within countries in North and South,
and between rich and poor countries, it is vital to assess what purposes the increased use of

Correspondence relating to this paper should be addressed to: R. Phillipson, Department of Languages and Culture,
Roskilde University, 3.2.4., P.O. Box 260, 4000 Roskilde, Denmark.

lO1
102 ROBERTPHILLIPSON

English is serving. McDonald's does not offer an h la carte menu. Mass production is only for
certain masses, and the chances of the poor in most parts of the world ever having fast food and
consumerist culture of this kind are slim, even were it desirable, which of course it is not.
The global language can be seen to open doors, which fuels a 'demand' for English. This
demand reflects contemporary power balances and the hope that mastery of English will lead to
employment or the prosperity and glamorous hedonism that the privileged have access to and
that is projected in Hollywood films, MTV videos, and ads for transnational corporations.
English is a key medium for such messages, and it is logical that there should be a demand for
access to this medium. The homogenization that McDonaldization entails is however
incompatible with the maintenance and promotion of cultural diversity and the global ecology
which fundamental human rights aim to serve to maintain.
Linguistic human rights are a set of ideas and principles that are ascribed universal validity,
and interlinked with democracy, freedom, and popular representation in the political process.
Linguistic human rights are marketed globally, but need to be discoursed and consumed locally.
Their global message may be formulated predominantly in English, but they are meaningless if
they do not apply to all the world's languages.
The relevant empirical question for us to ask is whether the expansion of English and other
dominant languages, which is an intrinsic part of contemporary globalization, serves to
encourage and promote other languages and cultures or the reverse. Universal and regional
human rights covenants pay lip-service to linguistic diversity, but there is overwhelming
evidence of linguicide, with speakers of 'world languages' as active agents in the demise of
other languages.

Linguistic imperialism
Increasingly scholars from North and South are addressing issues of linguistic power and
justice. Terms such as linguistic imperialism, centre and periphery, and linguistic hegemony
need to be carefully defined and elaborated in order to avoid over-simplifying or essentializing
what invariably is complex and often obscure. The concepts must prove their worth in the
clarification of the workings of linguistic dominance and linguistic empowerment, through
uncovering hidden agendas and power structures, and linking scientific and political discourse.
There is no doubt that British and American leaders regard the spread of English as being in
their interest. One of the first policy statements by Malcolm Rifkind, when he became British
Foreign Secretary, was to the effect that Britain is a 'global power with worldwide interests
thanks to the Commonwealth, the Atlantic relationship and the growing use of the English
language' (reported in The Observer, 24 September 1995). The English language is promoted
by Britain, according to British Council publicity, in order 'to exploit the position of English to
further British interests' as one aspect of maintaining and expanding the 'role of English as the
world language into the next century ... Speaking English makes people open to Britain's
cultural achievements, social values and business aims' (from the press pack at the launching of
'English 2000', March 1995).
The expansion of English in the postcommunist world is now less a strategic interest than a
commercial opportunity. In the postcolonial world, the expansion of English was not left to
chance. It was a strategic concern of the US and UK governments, without whose blessing and
funding the English as a Second Language (ESL) profession would not have come into
existence in the trail-blazing form it took in the 1950s and 60s (Phillipson, 1992:chapter 6).
Language promotion invariably interlocks with economic and political interests.
 GLOBALIZINGENGLISH 103

Probably the key British planning document for ESL is a book written by an adviser to the
British Council in 1941, a blueprint for English as a 'world language', subtly wrapped in a
learned mantle of humanism and Darwinist cultural evolution. It recommended the
establishment of an academic infrastructure that could generate a global English Language
Teaching service that was to 'to lay the foundations of a world-language and culture based on
our own' (Routh, 1941). In this text the British mission involves promoting the master language
in very similar ways to the Herrenfolk that Britain was then at war with:
England will be the dominating force in international politics, the professed and confessed arbiter of liberty
(ibid., 31), the 'world's leading nation' (50). Britain has a new responsibilitywhich means that 'we not only
have a spiritual heritage of our own--a national soul--but that somehowthis possessionis incompleteunless
shared with other nations' (134). A new career service is needed, for gentlemen teachers of English with
equivalent status to 'the Civil Service, Army, Bar, or Church' (60), an 'army of linguistic missionaries'
generatedby a 'trainingcentre for post-graduatestudies and research'(12), and a 'central officein London, from
which teachers radiate all over the world' (13).
This bombastic vision naively failed to anticipate that British foreign policy since 1945 would
play second fiddle to the United States (Curtis, 1995), both in crises (the Gulf war, ex-
Yugoslavia, Palestine) and in structuring North-South relations, the global division of labour,
including intellectual labour and language policy, and the aid business (which is dominated by
the World Bank, not least in education and ESL, e.g. Flavell, 1995, see also Seabrook, 1996).
The pioneer spirit is still ardent: a recent book summarizing English language aid work round
the world, appropriately called 'Spreading English: ELT projects in international development',
proclaims in the introduction 'Perhaps we are all missionaries in EFL, in the sense that we
enable access to education through the medium of English' (Pincas, 1995:xi), which, as the
author admits, may reflect imperialist arrogance. (There is no reason here to distinguish
rigorously between ESL/TESOL, EF (Foreign) L, and ELT, each of which is shorthand for what
are in reality very diverse contexts of language use and learning, see Phillipson, 1992:242 ff.).
Language is a precondition for international relations of all sorts, but specialists in language,
even when functioning as global cultural diplomats, have excluded foreign affairs from their
professionalism, whether in applied linguistics or curriculum development (Phillipson,
1992:chapter 8). This implies acceptance of the dominant political and economic order.
Professionals in several other areas also influence language policy, as the following example
from the field of education shows. At the Third Oxford Conference on Education and
Development, held at New College, Oxford, 21-25 September 1995, the President of the
British Association for International and Comparative Education, Sir Christopher Ball, gave an
address on 'Towards a global core curriculum' that envisages a globalized education system,
complete with 'a global qualifications system and global arrangements for quality assurance in
education and training' (quoted from Bali's synopsis). For Ball, an influential British
educationalist, the globalization of education must 'focus on seven key domains of learning: (i)
learning how to learn; (ii) the world-language; (iii) the mother-tongue (if different from ii); (iv)
numeracy; (v) cultural literacy; (vi) social skills; and (vii) religion, ethics and values' (ibid.).
His global core curriculum thus involves producing two types of educated people, mono-
lingual English-speakers, and bilinguals who learn English as a second language. In responding
to questions after his paper, Ball indicated that he could identify no intellectual or educational
arguments for English-speakers to learn any foreign langues. His global core curriculum has
little to do with equity, cultural diversity or additive language learning. It is a recipe for global
diglossia, an exercise in antediluvian myth-making, and ultimately a return to pre-Babel
monolingualism ('And the whole earth was of one language, and of one speech', Genesis XI),
the difference being that in the new dispensation the whole earth will speak English.
104 ROBERT PHILLIPSON

This kind of thinking emanates from a country with an education system which, according to
its own inspectors, fails to offer satisfactory education to half the population (Guardian Weekly,
11 February 1996). The globalizing mission is facilitated by the global position of English, and
fits into the classic mould of linguistic imperialism. This is seen by the Ghanaian sociolinguist,
Gilbert Ansre (1979:12-13) as:

The phenomenonin which the minds and lives of the speakersof a languageare dominatedby anotherlanguage
to the point where they believethat they can and should use that foreignlanguagewhen it comesto transactions
dealing with the more advancedaspects of life such as education, philosophy,literature, governments(sic), the
administration of justice, etc.... Linguistic imperialismhas a subtle way of warping the minds, attitudes and
aspirations of even the most noble in a societyand of preventing him from appreciatingand realizing the full
potentialities of the indigenous languages.

Linguistic imperialism is a major legacy of the colonial epoch and the global spread of
European languages. The same phenomena have been observed in Japan by Yukio Tsuda
(1994). Peter Mfihlh~iusler, who has recently produced a detailed and erudite study of linguistic
ecology and linguistic imperialism in the Pacific region (1996), sees linguistic imperialism as
the expansion of a small number of languages at the cost of a large number of others; it is a
promoter of one-way learning, the flow of knowledge and information from the powerful to the
powerless.
In my own work I see English linguistic imperialism as a form of linguicism, which is
defined by Tove Skutnabb-Kangas (1988:13) as 'ideologies, structures and practices which are
used to legitimate, effectuate and reproduce an unequal division of power and resources
(material and immaterial) between groups which are defined on the basis of language'.
Imperialism can be conceptualized as a structural relationship whereby one society or
collectivity dominates another. The key mechanisms are exploitation, penetration, fragmenta-
tion and marginalization. Linguistic imperialism is a sub-type of cultural imperialism, along
with media, educational and scientific imperialism (Phillipson, 1992), involving the establish-
ment and continuous reconstitution of structural and cultural inequalities between English and
other languages. Structural refers broadly to material properties (for example institutions,
financial allocations), cultural to immaterial or ideological properties (for instance, attitudes,
pedagogic principles). Asymmetrical exploitation involves language learning and language use
being subtractive rather than additive, for instance when competence in a dominant language
entails the marginalization and loss of others. It involves agents in both centre and periphery, in
a relationship that has been internalized as natural and normal, although the linguistic
hierarchies involved are underpinned by hegemonic value judgements, material and symbolic
investments and ideologies that in fact represent particular interests and choice.
I regard it as vital that those of us whose professional identities are linked to English as the
triumphal world language scrutinize the role played by language professionals, and assess in
what ways the English language industry (so termed in the EL Gazette) operates. In my view,
the promotion of English in postcolonial 'aid' has ignored the scientific evidence on the role of
L1 in L2 learning. It has also been very functional in making the 'world' dependent on native
seeker norms, expertise, textbooks and methodologies, even though these are unlikely to be
culturally, linguistically or pedagogically appropriate, and formed a pillarstone of global
linguistic hegemony, conforming to the classic pattern of such practices and ideologies being
largely covert, so that their nature and function and the injustice they entail are often unnoticed
and uncontested.
Educational language policy is of paramount importance in social reproduction and linguistic
hierarchization. As study of the origins of the nation-state in Europe shows, the consolidation of
 GLOBALIZING ENGLISH 105

national languages, emergent and well-established ones, built crucially on these languages
being fixed in standardization discourses and used as the medium of not merely primary but
also secondary education (Hobsbawm, 1990; Crowley, 1996). Educational language policy in
postcolonial Africa, much of Asia, the Americas and the South Pacific has, by contrast, relied
heavily on European languages, and these remain securely entrenched (Phillipson, 1996a, b).
There are symptoms of crisis in education, in postcolonial, postcommunist and western
societies and plenty of voices in the periphery for us in the centre to learn from.
• There is a crisis in the identity of 'English' as a higher education subject in such countries as
India (Joshi, 1994).
• Several scholars have recommended that marginalized forms of English should be
legitimated, e.g. pidgins in West Africa or the Caribbean, and local variants of English in Sri
Lanka (Parakrama, 1995).
• The diversity of English in indigenized forms worldwide is now well documented (e.g.
Kachru, 1986), though much still needs to be done in exploring its complex interaction with
other languages.
• In India and Africa the malaise of English serving the interests of the few rather than the
many is manifest (Dasgupta, 1993; Ngugi, 1993).
• In South Africa a massive effort is going into language policy formation with the goal of pro-
moting all the 11 official languages (Barkhuizen and Gough, 1996; McLean and McCormick,
1996; The Language Plan Task Group, 1996), and of 'reducing English to equality' (to adapt
Neville Alexander's memorable phrase, used first about Afrikaans, see Bhanot, 1994).
All these anti-imperialist voices raise challenging questions: who is in the business of
English, whose standards are we operating, whose interests are we serving? What rights are
speakers of non-dominant languages entitled to? We shall leave these questions in the air, as
they are essentially open and unresolved, and move to Europe.

Language policy in Europe

The European Union (EU) has evolved over a period of 40 years as a partnership of member
states aiming to merge their economies, and more recently many aspects of their political life.
The 1992 Maastricht Treaty commits member states to respecting the cultural and linguistic
diversity of the 15 states. Whether such a pious declaration is compatible with continent-wide
globalization and homogenization processes, among them the spread of English, is debatable.
In the institutions of the EU, certain language rights are guaranteed under the terms of the
treaties of accession. Speakers of the 11 official languages, meaning effectively the dominant
languages of the 15 member states (in each of which there is a complex array of indigenous and
immigrant languages, a topic that I have to ignore in this paper), have the right to use these 11
languages in the European Parliament and in the Commission, the administrative headquarters
of the EU. It is vital for the democratic process in each country that official documents, which
the EU now churns out in vast quantities, are available in all these languages.
However in practice a pecking order of languages is in force, with English and French with
the sharpest beaks and as the languages most documents are drafted in and the languages used
in most negotiations. The practical constraints on the provision of interpretation into each of the
languages (110 possible combinations, 11 × 10) are forbidding, even with the largest translation
106 ROBERTPHILLIPSON

service in the world. They will reach even more unmanageable proportions as the EU expands
to take in new member-states. Language rights will inevitably have to be limited further, but
already in effect European politicians and bureaucrats often opt to function in a foreign
language, or are pressured into doing so, rather than insisting on their language rights. McRae
reports (1996:12) that a 13-line press statement by the Commission on 1 September 1993
declared that documents for internal Commission use would be prepared 'in the working
languages of the Commission: German, English and French', which appears to confirm parity
between these three languages, in a category above the other languages, despite these in theory
having an equal right to serve as working languages.
The Europeanization process involves vastly greater contact between people from each
country, in national and local government, business, tourism and countless interest groups. EU
funds have promoted student and staff mobility in schools and higher education, and in industry
and research, and attempted to stimulate the regional minority languages and the diversification
of foreign language learning. The declared aim of such pump-priming is to foster a European
identity and cross-national understanding. Funding has also gone into linguistic engineering,
software development for automatic translation, and terminology: in major projects in the
1980s, funding was granted to each of the official languages, the goal being to ensure that
language technology skills develop in parallel in each language, rather than lctting the
languages behind which there is greater financial clout race ahead of the small ones. This is one
area where supranational language policy can contribute to the more egalitarian development of
each language, and may have done so, though it is difficult to assess the impact of such
measures. Under present arrangements, funding is allocated according to each state's
proportion of EU population, so that Danish is entitled to 2% rather than an equal share
with English (Maegaard, 1996), even though the EU is aware that market forces militate against
linguistic parity (see Commission papers on 'The multilingual information society', November
1995).
The French government has been pressing for all EU schoolchildren to learn two foreign
languages, as recommended for many years by the Council of Europe, and as is already the case
in the smaller countries. The EU has also proposed this principle in a White Paper on Education
and Training 'Teaching and learning, towards the learning society', (COM(95) 590, 29
November 1995). EU member states in fact spend a vast amount on language learning in
schools, with mixed success: foreign language education is a 'catastrophe of planetary
proportions' in the view of the French government (Haut Conseil de la Francophonie, 1994).
This may apply to foreign language learning in the larger EU countries, but not to smaller
countries such as the Netherlands and Denmark, which have a long tradition of learning and
operating in foreign languages, in commerce, texts in higher education, and the media (foreign
films are shown, sub-titled, with the original sound track rather than being dubbed). Experience
of multilingualism, within education systems and in society at large, is therefore
correspondingly varied, and influences the degree of return on investment in this area.
The interpretation and translation services of European Union institutions are also costly,
but, contrary to what one might expect, language policy issues do not have a high profile. There
has apparently never been a survey of the efficacy of the translation and interpretation services
(nor has there at the UN, Piron, 1994). Language tends to be regarded as a political hot potato.
The British attitude is that there are infinite supplies of their particular root, and that the sooner
others cultivate it the better, preferably to the exclusion of other plants. It is no surprise that the
first book-length monographs on European language policy are by scholars who come from
countries where there is concern about their language being marginalized, French Canada,
 GLOBALIZINGENGLISH 107

Germany and Norway (Labrie, 1993; Schlossmacher, 1996; Simonsen, 1996; see also Coulmas,
1990; Fishman, 1994; Phillipson and Skutnabb-Kangas, 1995, and the annual Sociolinguistica).
At neither the national nor the supranational level is there anything equivalent to the
Australian National Policy on Languages. There is no language rights dimension to the
National Action Programme on Foreign Languages of the Netherlands (the only member
country to have a document of this kind), nor in the many language policy documents produced
by French official bodies. Supranational language policy is occasionally on the agenda at the
national level, and language policy has frequently been discussed in the European Parliament,
but mostly in relation to subnational or minority language policy. In general the relationship
between the national interest and the national language on the one hand, and supranational or
international languages and interests on the other is very unclear--but that the issues touch
existential and economic nerves for each state is undisputed. French advocacy of
multilingualism in supranational fora like the EU is viscerally linked to the intemational
status of French, which is regarded as being in the French national interest. On the other hand
the French government, like many others, paradoxically invests heavily in the learning of
English, a language that it regards as threatening essential French cultural and linguistic values.
The hierarchy of European languages at the supranational level is of concem to many, for
instance German government and business are convinced that the privileged status of French
and English in the European Union represents a threat to German interests (Volz, 1994).
German politicians know from experience that whenever links with postcommunist Europe are
made through the medium of English (in such fields as health, the law and social policy), this
puts the Germans at a competitive disadvantage. A separate issue is that at the interpersonal
level it is highly likely that those operating in English as a foreign language are less convincing
than in their own languages. Even if such performance and its reception may be dysfunctional,
and show how the operation of this linguistic hierarchy infringes a language right (as
propounded in the founding texts of the EU), the rules underpinning the running of the system
have been agreed to, if only covertly, and departure from them is broadly accepted as a
requirement for functionality. It is 'natural' for everyone to have to adapt except the British,
French and Irish. Whether states should agree to a restriction of the language rights of speakers
of their languages when vital national interests are at stake is questionable, which suggests to
me that language policy agendas and options ought to be more explicit and public than they are.
As supranational language policy largely follows a covert agenda, market forces are in fact
increasing the dominance of English, quite probably in imperialist ways, as my next example
shows.
Latvia is a post-communist state that aspires to membership of the EU. In the October/
November 1995 number of TESOL Matters, the editor of the TESOL Quarterly, Sandra McKay,
reports that she functioned in May 1995 as an 'Academic Specialist in a United Nations
sponsored program in Latvia to develop the use of Latvian among Latvian residents in all
domains of society'. The efforts of the UN team were to be directed towards building up
Latvian learning among those with Russian as a mother tongue. McKay does not indicate
whether she herself speaks either of these languages. She endorses the idea of an increased use
of Latvian, though she is by no means convinced that this will materialize. She reports that the
language that provides a bridge between the local participants, who were 'composed of both
Russian and Latvian speaking members', was English. This is a curious outcome of a UN
project to support Latvian, granted that few people in Latvia speak good English, and granted
that everyone knows Russian--though for important cultural and political reasons the Latvian-
speaking group are keen to reduce the role of Russian and to extend correspondingly the use of
108 ROBERT PHILLIPSON

Latvian. There is also clear research evidence documenting that Russian-speakers in Latvia are
keen to learn Latvian (Ina Druviete, paper at the language policy symposium, World Congress
of Applied Linguistics, Jyv~iskyl/i, 1996). Nonetheless the American expert is convinced that
'English will provide a natural medium in which Latvians and Russians, as well as other
minority groups, can work to establish a new independent Latvia' (McKay, 1995:17). McKay
also quite blithely offers the information to her TESOL colleagues that English is 'opening
Latvia to trade and commerce from the West', naming McDonald's and TV films as showing
the way (ibid.). It is McKay rather than I making the link between TESOL and American
exports. TESOL itself is also an export item, a major industry, and not neutral in any sense. It is
reportedly worth over £5 billion per annum to Britain. English for business is business for
English, and a vital dimension of English linguistic imperialism.
I fear that this is not an isolated example of projects that are apparently well motivated present-
ing a threat to local languages and local commerce. It is likewise probable that EU schemes that
are ostensibly designed to promote such 'lesser used' languages as Dutch and Danish, through a
period of study in the relevant country, in fact mainly serve to assist the learning of English, as
this is the medium of education for 'international' programmes in these countries.
There is no denying that post-communist states, all of which are multi-ethnic, are urgently in
need of solutions to their problems, and Western know-how and investment may be of value,
but anecdotal evidence from a variety of eastern and central European contexts makes one
extremely sceptical about the value of much 'aid' to language education. In postcolonial
contexts aid appears to have served so-called donor countries better than the recipients. There
would seem therefore to be a manifest need to formulate explicit multilingual language policies
for postcolonial and postcommunist contexts, and that it would be important to convince the
UN, the World Bank, and the aid business of the need for change.
It seems prima facie implausible that the TESOL industry, based in the US and the UK,
countries that are notorious for failing to teach many of their young people foreign languages,
can be of much use in this task. The powerhouses of 'world English' are in abrasively
monolingually oriented countries, states which seldom accord linguistic human rights to their
own minority language users, immigrant and indigenous. Although there are success stories in
bilingual education in North America, these are not in the educational 'mainstream' and indeed
are under direct attack. Nor is bilingualism and an understanding of multi-ethnic states a central
concern of orthodox TESOL, which is fundamentally monolingual.
In western Europe, the routes along which English is progressing are multiple, making
monitoring tricky in the absence of much hard data (but see contributions to Fishman et al.,
1996, in particular Ulrich Ammon's article, and the thematic number of Worm Englishes 16/1,
1997). There are also extremely varying perceptions of what is at stake and of what should be
done to manage the linguistic ecology. French legislation aimed at securing the use and forms
of French and prescribing that a definite proportion of music on certain channels must be of
local origin is one way to resist McDonaldization. Measures to ensure that the Internet operates
through a local language as well as English is another. Incentives or obligations to ensure that
academics publish in the national language as well as English are a third (this is of concern to
the Conseil de la Langue Franqaise in Qurbec and to Danish scholars, Phillipson and Skutnabb-
Kangas, 1996; Andersen and Frederiksen, 1995). Providing consumer information and
protection on imported products in the local official language, such as EU regulations stipulate,
is a further. Requiring linguistic competence in a given language for employment is another.
Each of these examples can serve to stem linguistic imperialism, and to raise consciousness
about language policy.
 GLOBALIZINGENGLISH 109

We could contrast what is happening in capitalist western Europe with communist Cuba,
which promoted the learning of English for purposes of international communication and
science in the 1970s and 1980s. In a Cuban-American study, Corona and Garcia (1996) assess
that the increased competence in English occurred without there being linguistic imperialism
(unlike in an earlier historical period when Cuba was under American domination):
--there was no linguicist structural favouring of English;
--English was not an instrument of social stratification;
--there were no representatives of the core English-speaking countries;
--instruction was not monolingual;
--the Cuban economy was not integrated into the capitalist world order;
--English was a tool for fraternal cooperation with other countries.
By contrast in western Europe:
--there is structural favouring of English: it is generally the first foreign language in schools,
there is exposure to the language in many domains outside education, such as business,
scientific and technological discourse, all of which disadvantage competing languages;
--English is an instrument of social stratification: a hurdle in formal schooling, favouring
upwardly mobile children whose parents can assist in supportive ways, and essential as a
resource and qualification in higher education and employment;
--representatives of core English-speaking countries are ubiquitous in the media, their texts
and voices prominent in teaching materials, such that their norms represent the target for most
teaching;
--the national economies are locked into the capitalist world order;
--English may well serve linguafranca or lingua fraterna functions at many levels, personal,
social and professional, but structurally relations with the (Anglo-)American model world are
asymmetrical, in view of the strength and directionality of McDonaldization in commerce,
technology, the media, the academic world, etc.
The EU nominally endorses linguistic diversity and equality, but globalization and
McDonaldization processes strengthen triumphalist English. We have moved beyond the
sovereign monolingual nation state (always an imagined and partially imaginary community)
towards postnational structures that concentrate power in transnational mega-corporations and
talking-shops (UN, WTO, EU) and ultimately determine the fate of economies and ecologies,
global and local, but which themselves strengthen dominant languages and English in
particular. These developments are of major significance for language policy and for efforts to
manage our linguistic ecology along lines that respect human rights.

Language rights in resisting linguistic dominance

Harnessing human rights principles to the cause of reducing linguistic injustice assumes that
supranational legislation, i.e. binding international law such as UN covenants or regional
charters, can set norms and influence practice at the national and/or subnational level.
Supranational pressures of this kind potentially represent a counterweight to firstly, linguistic
110 ROBERT PHILLIPSON

dominance internally within states, and secondly, 'internationalisation', which is propelling

forward certain technologies, products, practices, and types of communication and discourse--
and languages, particularly English.
Action to promote the enjoyment of language rights presupposes a democratically evolved
consensus, nationally and supranationally, on the forms that linguistic hierarchization takes in
any given context, and what measures, political and educational, need to be taken to achieve
desired societal goals, such as the achievement of equality between languages, the fight to use a
particular language in specific contexts, or the right to an education that validates one's
linguistic and cultural heritage and equips one for contemporary political, technological and
cultural landscapes (Skutnabb-Kangas and Phillipson, 1994).
Expertise of various kinds, linguistic, pedagogical, and sociolinguistic, is an active con-
stituent of such discourses, but probably without great impact, unless it can engage with major
political agendas, such as redefinitions of national identity, either in a situation of crisis
(Canada, Slovakia) or of a more gradual type (Australia, Catalonia, the European Union), or
postcommunist free marketization. A greater awareness of minority rights or of linguistic
imperialism can be productive, and arguments drawing on scientific evidence or a principle of
equity can serve as a common platform on which to build new alliances. There seems to me to
be an urgent need for language policy as a multidisciplinary scientific activity to engage much
more dynamically with human rights discourses supranationally and the dominant political
discourse in each state. Although language policy is salient in many contexts worldwide, it is
unfortunately taken far less seriously by policy-makers than by academics (and it is not even
taken seriously by many of these). Thus anyone can be expected to have views on the
importance of English, but it is difficult to identify political leaders anywhere with specific
competence in understanding or administering language policy comparable to what is expected
in other areas of political concern, such as agriculture, the environment, or economics.
Being explicit about language policy matters is demanding, as an abundance of scientific and
political discourse shows, confirming the need for conceptual clarification and increased rigour
in our theoretical frameworks and applications. There is substantial evidence of 'experts', even
in the education and language fields, failing to address the realities of multilingualism, or to
recognize the rights of marginal languages or dialects, or to consider alternative approaches
(e.g. planned languages or polyglot communication), or even to acknowledge that linguistic
hierarchies and hegemonies serve particular interests.
Adherents of Esperanto are fight in claiming that planned languages suffer from not being
taken seriously either by language specialists or by those responsible for the running of multi-
lingual organizations, even if it has occasionally been discussed in the European Parliament and
at UNESCO. Esperanto tends to be rejected a priori, without study of the vitality, current use in
creative writing and scientific conferences, or easy learnability of the language (Phillipson,
1997). The political option of a language which would permit non-hierarchial interaction is not
one that tends to appeal to speakers of dominant languages, both those who have such a
language as their birthright, or at least infancy-right, and those who have succeeded in learning
one as a second language. It seems to me to be a challenge to language policy makers to explore
this phenomenon, just as we should also investigate polyglot communication in its many grass-
roots forms, for instance the ways in which it is evolving in various European contexts, and draw
conclusions that would strengthen multilingualism in education (Skutnabb-Kangas, 1995).
When considering whether English is being spread in an imperialist way, it is important to
recall that triumphal English is enshrouded in myths, including for the British the comforting
myth that they did not impose their language anywhere. A succession of scholarly works
 GLOBALIZINGENGLISH 111

(Tollefson, 1991; Phillipson, 1992; Pennycook, 1994; Medgyes, 1995) has not merely exploded
this myth but also subjected the global relevance o f TESOL professionalism to serious scrutiny.
I hope I am wrong in fearing that for every critical voice, there are probably a hundred
triumphalists. My view is that the evidence is that we as agents o f world English are to some
degree facilitating McDonaldization, and that what is promising for Anglo--American business
is threatening to everyone else.
For the principles underlying the abstract global rhetoric of formulations o f linguistic human
rights to be experienced locally presupposes vigorous and democratic commitment to the local
ecology o f language. Being integrated into local agendas, political, social, technological and
cultural, does not imply exclusion from global involvement, which would be a pipe-dream.
Active local involvement entails a much greater promise o f democratic values influencing local
and global agendas. Successful local struggles for linguistic human rights can and must inform
global language policies, When this happens, English may no longer be an imperialist
language. But as my examples from Britain, Latvia and the EU show, we still have a long way
to go in giving prominence to language rights on political and professional agendas, and in
implementing them to the benefit of speakers of non-dominant languages.
What we are moving towards is unpredictable. Even if the plot has thickened, and there are
plenty o f elusive villains around, it seems that the contours are taking firmer shape. What is
needed now is to build on the successful examples o f the management of multilingualism and
language rights at the national level. We also need to exploit to the full the potential of
linguistic human rights in many declarations at the supranational level.

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