16.1500, Review: Socioling/Lang Planning: Crystal (2004)

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LINGUIST List: Vol-16-1500. Wed May 11 2005. ISSN: 1068 - 4875.

Subject: 16.1500, Review: Socioling/Lang Planning: Crystal (2004)

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1)
Date: 10-May-2005
From: Federico Gobbo < federico.gobbo at uninsubria.it >
Subject: Language Revolution 

	
-------------------------Message 1 ---------------------------------- 
Date: Wed, 11 May 2005 01:12:34
From: Federico Gobbo < federico.gobbo at uninsubria.it >
Subject: Language Revolution 
 

AUTHOR: Crystal, David
TITLE: The Language Revolution
PUBLISHER: Polity Press
YEAR: 2004
Announced at http://linguistlist.org/issues/16/16-208.html


Federico Gobbi, Insubria University, Varese, Italy

SYNOPSIS

This book aims to describe the main language problems humankind 
face worldwide and proposes an agenda for linguists called 'Themes 
for the 21st Century'. As declared in the preface, readers of previous 
works by the same author (in particular: Crystal 1997, 2000, 2001) 
may have a sense of déjà vu, but this book goes further indeed, 
especially in its last chapter.

In the first chapter, 'The Future of Englishes', which actualizes Crystal 
1997, the reader is introduced in the complex realm of the life of the 
English language. Starting from the statistics, we learn that among a 
quarter of the world's population have a reasonable good command of 
English, and moreover, the number of second and foreign speakers 
will exceed native ones in the next century. How English achieved 
such a unique status? Crystal's answer is based on the main facts: 
politics, economics, the press, advertising, broadcasting, motion 
pictures, popular music, international travels and safety, education, 
and communication. Such a spreading of a single language is a 
novelty in history, so it is difficult to say what will happen.  
Nevertheless, some major trends may be found. First of all, English is 
no more owned by its native speakers by now and even more in the 
next future: British English is spoken by 4% of the whole English-
speaking community. More, the raising of new varieties (e.g. in India, 
Singapore, Ghana) adds a local flavour in the vocabulary to express 
national identities, thanks to the high degree of hybridism of the 
language itself, finally giving the so-called 'New Englishes'. Although 
English is usually linked with the colonial past, the complex language 
map often makes it the only local common language suitable for 
government needs. A question arise: will the rise of Englishes end in a 
spread of mutually unintelligible varieties, as occurred with spoken 
Latin? Crystal's answer is no, because global communication media, 
considered as a great centripetal force, make varieties increasingly 
similar. So, the linguistic prognosis of Crystal is a triglossia scenario: 
an ethnic or ancestral language at home; a national language in one's 
own country; an 'International Standard English' at international level --
 i.e. an English variety derived from a polished mixture of British, 
American and some local flavour. For example, in Wales the situation 
will be: Welsh English, British Standard English, International Standard 
English; in Northern Spain, it may be: Basque, Spanish, International 
Standard English.

In the second Chapter, 'The Future of Languages', which actualizes 
Crystal 2000, save the first section, the reader is introduced in the 
theme of languages in danger and language death. For Crystal, the 
strong hybridism in the English lexicon (e.g. the triplet kingly - royal - 
regal, respectively borrowed from Germanic, French and Latin) shows 
that human languages cannot be controlled. From the other side, it is 
widely known the phenomenon of languages in danger: of about 
6,000 languages in the world, most probably half of them will 
disappear in the present century. More, according to Ethnologue, 
about 5,000 has less than 100,000 speakers, and about 2,000, mostly 
in Australia, had to be documented -- i.e. when the last speaker dies, 
nothing remains of the language itself. Why languages die? The main 
reason known in the literature are of three types: (1) natural disaster; 
(2) cultural assimilation; (3) genocide. In the case of cultural 
assimilation, perhaps the most interesting for linguists, Crystal points 
out that not only English is a cause: also Spanish, Portuguese, 
Russian, and Arabic, historically had similar roles. There are three 
broad stages in decaying, regardless of the languages involved: in the 
first stage, there is some social pressure to speak the dominant 
language; in the second stage, there is an emerging bilingualism; in 
the third stage, the dominant language eats one after the other the 
contexts traditionally of the endangered language, and lastly it is no 
more spoken in families. Often it is the second generation speakers, 
freshly urbanized, who feel ashamed to speak the language of their 
parents, and, when the third generation want to get back to their very 
roots, it is too late: the language, not documented, is lost. Action of 
linguists shall involve different strategies for revitalize endangered 
languages, but primarily the community should get aware of the 
danger of its own language. In every linguist agenda, maintaining 
language diversity should be a priority: awareness of the danger, 
documentation and education of the community itself are the acts to 
be taken now. With a well-used ecological metaphor, as we take care 
of the biodiversity of our planet, so we should take care of the 
linguistic diversity: a strong ecosystem is a strong diverse, in both 
fields. In the 1990s, the consciousness of the phenomenon got over 
the boundaries of language specialists, especially in Europe and in 
world government institutions as UNESCO. Now it should reach the 
mainstream media to have a stronger social effort.

In the third Chapter, 'The Role of the Internet', which actualizes 
Crystal 2001, the reader is introduced in the effects of the Internet 
revolution on languages: the author argues that Internet manifested a 
variety, called 'Netspeak', whose characteristics are pulled from oral 
varieties in a written form (unlike the traditional model, where spoken 
varieties are written down). Netspeak is used primarily in the Web, in 
e-mails, in chatgroups. Until now, the rules how to communicate via e-
mail, how to socialize in chatgroups, and how to construct effective 
Web pages are not taught in school, but soon it will. It should be 
remembered, that a principle of modern language teaching is to get 
the learners aware of linguistic responsibility and appropriateness, 
depending of the context. Within English, the Netspeak variety seems 
to elevate less controlled written varieties to the detriment of more 
traditional formal varieties, especially in spelling and punctuation. After 
some years of English-only domination in the 1990s, the Web actually 
is increased mostly by languages other than English: the author guess 
that about 1,500 languages have some presence in the Web. 
Furthermore, Internet may help endangered languages: for example, it 
can give publicity at almost no cost, and it may increase the sense of 
language identity in case of speakers living away each other. From 
the other side, Internet is mainly a written medium, consequently the 
need of language documentation becomes even more important. 

In the fourth Chapter, 'After the Revolution', Crystal discusses the 
notion of bilingualism: it should be noted that learning a language 
involve four modes - listening, speaking, reading and writing (deaf 
signing may be a fifth under certain circumstances), so proficiency in a 
language should be a four-dimensional space. Consequently, instead 
of planning a language policy as 'L1 + 1/2', i.e. 'learn one-two foreign 
language(s) in addition to your own', it is more effective to think in 
terms of 'language portfolio', i.e. learning the language modes as you 
really need in a multilingual context. For example, in the case o EU, it 
is useless to translate everything in every official language, as they 
remain unread, instead it is worthwhile to translate documents and 
speeches according to their means: e.g. an EU document about 
coastal defences will be of interest of certain country members, and 
not others. On the community awareness level, purism should be 
avoided, as it puts useless barriers between 'right' varieties 
and 'wrong' varieties among the members of a given speech 
community, with no advantage for any one. Indeed, funding to support 
minority languages in general are very low compared to biodiversity, 
for example. How to invert this trends? Crystal suggest four ways: the 
media, the arts, the Internet, and the school curriculum. In particular, 
the analysis of the arts as a medium fit to communicate the relevance 
of language diversity and the theme of languages in danger should be 
taken in account: the arts get into people's sensibility, communicating 
not only awareness but also enthusiasm. Until now, there are few 
stories told in music, dance, poetry, and theater which have as the 
main topic languages in danger: linguists should collaborate with the 
world of arts and media in order to get the topic more in the 
mainstream.

In the fifth Chapter, 'Language Themes for the Twenty-First Century', 
tries to note a practical agenda, to accomplish the 
imperative "everyone, in an age of global communication, needs to be 
language-aware". Crystal proposes, for example, to make language 
museums for schools, and to write Christmas postcards with a wider 
world language coverage, and so on. In the end, he proposes ten 
main projects for the new millennium.  

EVALUATION

David Crystal dealing with globalization and languages is always an 
interesting, idea-rich and provoking read. Compared with the previous 
books (Crystal 1997, 2000, 2001) this one is less technical at the 
language level: the author consciously avoids terms specific in 
linguists, to reach a wider audience. About the main arguments of this 
essay, I want to raise some questions. First of all, about the concept 
of 'Englishes'. Especially in print, Englishes are very homogeneous, 
and International Standard English has a considerable stable grammar 
that acts as a centripetal force: I don't think speakers of Ghana or 
Singapore feel English as a vehicle of national identity, but a vehicle of 
an international, global one.  On the other hand, it is also true that 
Englishes' phonetics is everything save a standard. Henceforth, when 
the author deals with the theme of languages in danger and language 
death, my impression is that the profile is really too abstract, 
compared with books on the same theme (e.g. Hagege 2001): the 
linguicide role of the English language among many world languages 
is a well-known position (e.g. in Phillipson 2003, and Tsunoda 2005); 
as a reader, I should be aware of this position throughout the book, 
and very interested in an answer by the author. 

In my opinion the most intriguing chapters are the last ones -- but I am 
an untypical reader, as I read the previous books on the same topic. I 
can make sure that my students of Communication sciences are 
taught about language registers in web pages, as others also can do 
at other universities. By contrast, as educators we have to (re)teach 
how to write a short essay, a paper and so on -- in short, texts. To put 
it another way: students now know how to write down hypertexts, but 
they are forgetting how to write down texts per se! Internet is a 
globalizing medium, but it is also the case that high technology speaks 
one language only: English. For example, every programming 
language, is, in some way, a dialect of English. I agree with the author 
that arts and media should get aware of biodiversity, and I think in the 
last five years this is becoming more and more mainstream (see also 
Message 2 at LINGUIST List 16.1441). But another question arises: 
how may academics, as most linguists are, get in contact with media? 
Usually, media, arts and academy are two (or three?) worlds not so in 
contact one with the other. Even if, personally, I would be really 
happy, linguists wanna be rock stars? 

REFERENCES

Crystal, D. (1997), English as a Global Language. Cambridge: 
Cambridge University Press. 

Crystal, D. (2000), Language Death. Cambridge: Cambridge 
University Press. 

Crystal, D. (2001), Language and the Internet. Cambridge: Cambridge 
University Press. 

Hagege, C. (2001), Halte à la mort des langues. Paris: Jacob. 

Phillipson, R. (2003), English Only Europe? Challenging Language 
Policy. London and New York: Routledge. 

Tsunoda, T. (2005), Language Endangerment and Language 
Revitalization. Berlin and New York: Mouton de Gruyter. 

ABOUT THE REVIEWER

Federico Gobbo is a Research Associate in the Department of 
Communication and Computer Sciences, Insubria University in Varese, 
Italy. His research interests lie in languages in contact, language 
politics, language planning, language communication through IT, 
computational linguistics, computer epistemology and computer ethics.





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LINGUIST List: Vol-16-1500