French vs. English as World/Global Languages

[Grant Barrett]

On dimanche 1 octobre 2000 13:09, Salikoko S. Mufwene  wrote:

>     It is also informative to focus on the term
>"mondialisation" itself which la Francophonie uses for
>"globalization." Worse than the homogeneization trend
>associated with globalization, "mondialisation" does not
>suggest "critical humanism" to me. I fear domination and a
>number of other negative things. This is not to say that the
>hegemony of English doesn't conjure up these negative
>consequences... But la Francophonie has noticed that the
>competition and selection principles which have affected
>negatively so many regional and local languages also work on
>the hegemonic ambitions of world's major languages.

You're right, the French concept of mondialisation is a messy,
highly context-sensitive term, meaning different things to
different people, but it's top of the news and top of consciousness for
thinking French. The rising nationalism (and should we also say
the return to regionalism?) only complicates it.

A report in Le Monde a while ago about mondialisation (and there
have been many), detailed the results of a study which surveyed
the perspectives of university students world-wide. One of the
resulting words used to characterize US students was "imperialism."
One of them for South Americans was "football." One of them for
Europeans was "culture."

An interview also in that newspaper had the paragraph below to
say on the topic of mondialisation. Although it does not
specifically refer to language, it has a lot in common with Selim Abou's
comments and it's what I hear again and again from the right and
left in regard to globalization/mondialisation on any front:
economic, cultural, political, linguistic.

"Adhering to the American myth used to be to adhere to the
values of modernity and liberty. Today, Americans no longer represent
these values. There remains only a negative aspect: the
omnipotence of money, of the generification of ways of life, the
threatened environment. These last few years, modernity no longer had
standing. The French lived the Crisis in an attitude wrapped in the
land, traditions, the authentic."

Mondialisation is complicated, and my thoughts are not
completely clear on this topic.