Week 2: Language Ideologies: Standard English, Globalization and World Englishes

Week 2: Language Ideologies: Standard English, Globalization and World Englishes.

       Kingsley Bolton’s “Creativity and World Englishes” and James Paul Gee’s chapter on ideology from Social Linguistics and Literacies both speak to the power of fears that conflicting ideologies perpetuate. Gee emphasizes that “people often (but not always) see the world the way they need or want it in order to sustain their desires, power, status, or influence” (5), and postcolonial narratives are among the many threats to ideologies that value elevating the mainstream or the dominant rather than building an awareness of the global. If ideas are shaped by environments, how does an environment become global and inclusive to realize the relevance of bilingual creativity? The literary approach to bilingual creativity that Bolton cites Kachru describing “exemplifies the need to reconceptualise linguistic views of bilingual creativity and the bilingual/multilingual grammar, defined rather by patterns of code-mixing, switching, and discourse than by norms of morphology and syntax” (459). Furthermore, Pico Iyer claims that the work of postcolonial writers captures English literature while transforming the language by moving across borders and through cross cultural mixing (460). According to Iver, the common place of these authors is dislocation; therefore, if the environment that forms ideologies is indefinable, ideas formed in this space are increasingly inclusive and theoretical.

       It is not unlike Gee’s example of the perception of African American Vernacular English (AAVE) as less adequate than the standard. He corrects this notion and states that “since non-standard dialects are freer to change on the basis of the human child’s linguistic and cognitive systems, non-standard dialects are, in a sense, often ‘more logical’ or ‘more elegant’ from a linguistic point of view” (11). The relationship that non-standard dialects have with mainstream society is related to that of English literature and postcolonial literature. Both transform the language from a periphery and are closer representations of the English language and society than the mainstream because of the freedom to transform according to changes that happen in languages and cultures.

       Bolton and Gee also encounter a similar economic conflict. Gee states that Marx “Believed that our knowledge, beliefs, and behavior reflected and were shaped most importantly by the economic relationships (relations of production and consumption) that existed in our societies” (7). Bolton contextualizes the study of English literature and language and points to the issues that are encountered in multiculturalism, despite its intentions. He quotes Miyoshi, who discussed the focus on cosmopolitanism and the neglect of economic isolation as playing into the hands of capitalism. The discussion of economics in the context of language brings to light the role language has in controlling economic power. The standard is valued because it is expected when entering institutions from which one can profit, which is at least partly why the standard is expected in education. Looking at this in the context of Bolton’s article, multicultural studies and literature also have to subvert this economic power. The connection between Bolton and Gee’s arguments is also seen in Global Englishes and Transcultural Flows because of Alastair Pennycook’s concern with globalization and a discussion of global Englishes that is not limited to homogeny and economic policies controlled by a superpower.