The Cultural Inquirer This Week: ▼ Shakespeare in the bush ▼ Myself in India ▼ The Chickens’ Disaster ▼ Readers Bloq ▼ Three Student Teksts about Cultural Encounters Sponsor:
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Editorial
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The world is changing and it‘s getting more open and connected for each status update that we post. Social platforms enables us to connect with people from the other side of the world. However the viral communication and people spending more time online makes the Internet a powerful tool for education, communication and cultures encountering. In this edition of The Cultural Enquirer culture is the absolute centre of all our attention. Culture is a vast and highy complex phenomenon which is ever mind-boggling, fascinating and for some people crucial. Culture is a powerful human tool for survival but it‘s a fragile phenomenon. It‘s constantly changing and easily lost because it exists only in our minds. Our written languages, goverments, buildings, and other man-made things are merely the products of culture. They aren‘t culture in themselves. For this reason, archeologist can‘t dig up culture directly in their excavations. The broken pots and other artifacts of ancient people that they uncover are only material remains that reflect cultural patterns - they are things that were made and used through cultural knowledge and skills. English has inarguably achieved some sort of global status. Whenever we turn on the news to find out what's happening in East Asia, or the Balkans, or Africa, or South America, or practically anyplace, local people are being interviewed and telling us about it in English. We will seek to enlarge and expand your horizon with this month‘s edition by starting off with our focus on a short summary of a text about an Englishman who travels to Africa and visits the Tiv‘s. Hoping for cultural acknowledgement and sharing. India the world‘s 2nd largest population with a whopping 1.2 billion citizens are a world away from our Western world in terms of structuring society and how the culture is in general. In an analysis about a woman originally from England but living in India we follow how she experiences the very ugly face of culutral fatigue despite of living amongst diversity. Perhaps the situation with New Zealand and the Maoris is very symptomatic for two cultures clashing. That‘s why we‘ve decided to zoom in on a wonderfull story about two different families having problems with their different ways of living and understanding culture as a tool and a medium for commuication. We always have been very delighted for all of you readers and that‘s exactly why we keep posting your letters and debates which off course will be visable as usual in the back of this edition as well! We will end this paper with a special treat and publish three assignments written by students from VIA University College Silkeborg in Denmark. They‘re all about their view on the English language not only as a tool but as a communication tool. Watch out guys one of these young students could very well become editors themselves. 2
IPHONE
Enjoy the music the right way 3
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Shakespeare in the Bush Anthropologist Laura Bohannan is visiting
cooperative function system is highly lack-
a West African tribe, the Tiv’s, who is living
ing. As the story comes to an end something
far away from civilisation. Bohanan brings
quite interesting happens – the folks
along ‘Hamlet’ which is the central subject
around the fire tells her that she ought to
to the story. She’s quite sure that the book
tell the elders of her own country about how
can only be interpreted in one way and one
incorrectly she’s been and furthermore that
way only but she soon comes to believe
she’s been spending time with people of
otherwise.
wisdom in Africa.
The story is about the clash of two different cultures who meet in the middle of simple surroundings. Rocks, nature, wild life and dust all adds up and become this big pile of the unknown bringing people together. Clashing horizons and learning points will be revealed while reading this one. One day the Englishman is appointed as the storyteller and he wants to tell the natives about story hiswords. part of theIf you have any prices of standard This a story can from fit 175-225 products or services, you can include world. IfThe elders are and very critical and yourwise newsletter is folded mailed, this story will appear on the
a listing of those here. Laura You may Bohannan want
refer your readers to any other ethnocentrist towards Hamlet. They to criback. So, it’s a good idea to make it
American cultural aneasy toof read at asupernatural glance. tisize some the events in created for your organization. forms of communication that you’ve
thropologist A question and answer session a the story and they only rely onis their own You can also use this space to remind good way to quickly capture the at-
for a knowledge theYou world and whatreaders is na-to mark their calendars tentionabout of readers. can either 2 books: ―Tiv Econoregular event, such as a breakfast
compile questions that you’ve retural for them. They dont have the dual meeting for vendors every third Tuesmy‖, ―Return to ceived since the last edition or you
day of the month, or a biannual chariLaughter‖ ty auction.
summarize some quesaspect can of material and generic immaterial. They tions that are frequently asked about
are forced to translate the story usingIf their your organization. space is available, this is a good
Doctorate from Oxford University
Husband Paul J. Bohannan
place to insert a clip art image or own cultural and question A listing background of names and titles of mansome other graphic.
agersdont in yourunderstand organization is about a good Eurowhat they way to give your newsletter a personal
pean customs. The binary cooperative touch. If your organization is small, you may want to list the names of all function system is highly lacking. As employees.
the
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Myself in India
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Cultural encounters Analysis by Levent, Jens and Kristian
Profile on Jhabvala
Myself in India When speaking of cultural encounters the essay Myself in India by Ruth Prawer Jhabvala is indeed a describing and interesting meeting. She criticizes India and their way of living as well as their holy cows. Even though her husband is Indian she is getting more and more distanced to India. This is an analysis of two horizons meeting each other in a vast land of grand diversity.
India as an animal
Ruth Prawer Jhabvala is a british short story writer. She was born in Cologne in Germany but fled from the Nazis to Britain in 1939. In 1951 she got married to an Indian architect and short after they moved to India. In 1975 she moved to New York where she used her almost 25 years of experience in a foreign country to write dozens of writings. Her main theme for her writings is what happens when people from west and east meet.
Throughout the essay Jhabvala refers to India as an animal. We think that maybe she is trying to underline the fact that India is way back in terms of evolving their society compared to the Western world. She has a hard time wrapping her head fully around the Indian way of etiquettes and behaviour, which is why she feels so awkward when she leaves her over-protected and air-conditioned room. 6
“My husband is Indian and so are my children. I am not, and less so every year ” An animal is far away from human beings. They are completely controlled by their instincts and they have no free will whatsoever as we do. She describes herself as being on the back of this great moving animal of poverty and backwardness (India). But at the same time she ig-
The best way for Europeans to adjust to India
nores the animal and concentrates her thoughts on the westernized and cultivated Indians. Perhaps she does that because it‘s much more convenient for her, rather than going in to a fight with the animal in her deepest mind layer? We think of a weak animal when reading Jhabvala‘s essay. She looks at India with some pity because they have all this pov-
society and to the way that they communicate and spend time to-
erty and she describes the country as being raw and naked. Kind of like the whole truth being fanned up in your face with 160 Miles per hour. It is as if the Indians are content with what they have in their country. She describes the whole reincarnation process quite interesting; If a poor fellow looks at a rich guy eating his food he will most likely think to himself that
thoughts like all the time when we are together with family and friends. But she has so little in common with these Indians that it makes a lot of sense that she tries to stay indoor behind her curtains and under the cool breeze of her air -conditioner because she seems to have an insufficient level of need
he himself will one day or in another life be the next one who will experience that very same meal. They have this way of thinking that makes them perfectly fit to survive these major difficulties that their society challenge them with e.g. Poverty, raw nature, the heat, the holy cow (she do NOT) understand why she should or how she should be able to look upon the cow which is so thin that you can see its
or desire to her surroundings Indian fellow creatures. Jhabvala copes with India because she needs to. Her family and her husband are bound to India, which is her only real reason for staying. ‖ My husband is Indian and so are my children. I am not, and less so every year‖ This statement underlines the fact she is not succeeding
bones, she does not grasp that notion.
in coping with India.
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‗I feel lonely, shut in, shut off. It is my own fault. I should go out more and meet people and learn what is going on.‘ She has a hard time adapting to the
gether. She describes one particular incident where she talks about how Indians can be together for a whole day and almost NOT talking with each other. Whereas we would feel pretty awkward and somewhat stupid if we didn‘t talk and shared our
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Two kinds of Indians
Human skulls and over population After reading her text one might feel bad. India is being described in a very illustrative picture language that brings out the worst feelings in my stomach. Especially when she talks about the exaggerated images with the cold mountains and the necklace of human skulls. One feels sick to his stomach. We all feel that we wouldn‘t live in a place like India. There are a lot of peoples and they have big issues with over population and child labor. Their culture is so different from ours that it‘s hard for us to relate to them but they do have a lot of interesting aspects of their ways of living and the religious views. We are used to live in the safe and clean society here in DK that it would be too overwhelming for us to try to even think about living there but I guess for some people big changes is compelling and awesome.
See God in a Cow She really tries to feel the good vibrations that the Indian have toward the cow. But she can‘t cope with that notion. She sees the cow as a cow and nothing else for that matter. In other words she can‘t see any religious connection to an animal whatsoever and she has a hard time moving her perspective from herself. So she comes off as being somewhat egocentric. She states that India is a perfect place for religion to prosper.
- A rich man would stuff himself in ―pilao‖, and think that he has earned it due to his previous lives. - A poor man who‘s standing in line for his/her next life – which hopefully would be better. If you don‘t accept the belief in reincarnation this path is not open for you though, so according to Jhabvala, Indians don‘t face their problems in a proper way – just false acceptance.
For Europeans there are three stages 1: Quote: ―tremendous enthusiasm – everything about India is marvelous‖ this type of person develops into next sort. 2: Quote: ―everything Indian not so marvelous‖ develops towards sort three. 3: Quote: ―everything about India is abominable‖
Indians accept their poverty The Indians accept their fate because of their beliefs in reincarnation. If things are not to your liking, the only thing you can do is to accept them and hope for a better life next time. This is one of the issues Jhabvala sees as very problematic. 8
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Don’t pretend just be! We don‘t feel that she should even try to be an Indian. You shouldn‘t attempt to be something that you aren‘t. We see this all the time around us. Young people trying to be like the celebs but almost every time fail. In terms of cultural changes is it of highly importance that you at least try to adapt to the environment in which you live in in order to be a human being in balance with you fellow creatures and the culture itself. She seems so negative and sour towards the Indian society and their way of being that it seems to us as her being or trying to be Indian is mission impossible. The sad thing is that she locks herself up in her little closed room and it‘s almost as if even sun light can‘t come in when she draw the curtains. We think that she is culture fatigue. Even minor annoyances is blown up in her mind and she freaks out even more as you read through the text so the notion of her being assimilated is perhaps wrong but we do feel positive that she can at least try to adapt further than what she has achieved until now.
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Stages of Culture Shock ―Culture Fatigue‖: A fairly short-term response to ―stimulus overload.‖ This occurs when you begin to respond to the behavior of the ―new‖ culture and are stressed by trying to deal with lots of new cultural information all at once. Stress and irritation intensify as you attempt to study or work in a foreign environment. There is a cumulatively greater impact due to the ―need to operate‖ in unfamiliar and difficult contexts. So she has had enough, like nothing can be said or done to ensure her or even to make her feel better. She has some issues I‘d say some huge issues with not only India as a country but also as a culture and as a place. It‘s easy to imagine that even the “Culture shock is neither caused by a single act bloody smell of India makes her nor easily traceable to a particular event. It is stomach go crazy.
cumulative, attributable to many small things that happen over time, and it has the potential to be more deeply felt and take longer to alleviate.” This passage describes the core of her issues pretty well. She has outlasted herself on this one. All these negative emotions and the bad vibrations are stemming from her dislikes in India. In particular she has had enough with all the different changes that are happening in front of her eyes and there is nothing she can do about it e.g. the poor people. Reading how she talks about the poor people one can almost feel the disgust in her mind. 10
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The Chickens Disaster
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Is it possible to live together?
Take a trip to New Zealand only
He sometimes gets furious. It‘s not fun to watch or be near
100 ÂŁ!
him but I love him. At least we have each other in these hard times. We all want a peacefully life and a happy family living together in peace and harmony but sometimes life brings us challenges. It's important that we are united and stand together as one family whenever the going gets rough. Jack has always been bad tempered but that‘s what I love about him. His passion. We all have good and bad sides. I believe that we have a whole set of different identities that we use under different situations in our everyday life. If I meet the
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Maori family at the pavement I am one person and if the Gladstones are coming over for supper an evening I will be another person. This doesn't mean that I have issues or identity problems it's perfectly normal. It's human nature and so we all have to master the use of these different identities in the different settings that life brings us. We have had a lot of situations with the family that lives next to us and it really has nothing to do with them being Maori people but it's the difference in how we as people approach and live together. Some cultures are so different that it's hard to see how the two cultures can ever fit to become compatible with each others.
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However it's always important to remain calm and be positive about things. Because things aren't always as simple as they occur. The Maoris are kind people but sometimes some things are incompatible. You can‘t take an ice cube and put it in a sauna because it‘ll melt and disappear. If we are to live side by side with these people some radical changes must come and clear things between us. We all know that these people feel somewhat used by us due to the fact that their society didn‘t follow the speed of which our society has evolved during the course of time. I always wondered what the big difference was. Being black or white - I mean what‘s the difference here? We are all human beings living together but somehow we just can‘t do it can we! I‘m really getting sick and tired of all these confrontations and fights between races. And we have these people up close, they‘re our neighbours but we can‘t say something that‘d be highly inappropriate. One of my friends asked my the other day how I ‗d feel if my daughter married a Maori guy. At first I was really shocked by what I said but then again - I was just being honest and that‘s what I‘ve been taught all my life. But somehow being honest in the racial matter just not feels right. All I want is my children and everyone to be happy and live a good life.
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DEAR EDITOR In your previous magazine, you gave a summary of the movie East is East, which I was very fond of. You generally stated that this movie was a controversial comedy between Muslim families living in England and how the different views on family roles can have great impact on father-son relationships. I was especially fond of the humorous angle you used to define this very problematic issue – Of thinking that Muslim religion thinks that they can just fit in anywhere? I think no. That is exactly what this movie tries to emphasize. It’s what it’s all about. After having read your summary, it have especially come to my attention, that if we are to do anything about this Muslimproblem, we have to act now.
“”East is East” is a very refreshing inventive family story” Imdb.
If Muslims aren’t properly integrated or assimilated, they have to get out of England. We don’t want their kind here. Peter R. Acist
Fun facts about Islam: In a century’s time Islam had converted one-third of the world
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DEAR PETER
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I’m astounded by your letter. The summary, you talk about, was in no way meant to harm Muslim culture, nor do I think the movie is. It’s just questioning the cultural barriers, when two different cultures are put up against each other. The Muslim culture which is based on Collectivism, has a patriarch in its’ center of the family. It is he who makes all the important decisions. If a Muslim father says “This is how it’s going to be”, then that’s the ways it’s going to be, end of story. In European culture, we’re more focused on individualism, where each member of the family is a part of larger democratic decision. This is what we thought we’ve made clear when we wrote the summary of East is East. Not a statement of Muslim culture being wrong, but that our culture should be more open to foreign cultures. An extract from the summary, “Muslim sons are tired of predetermined marriages by their fathers. The funny fact is, that the movie deals with a father who is married with his English wife – yet he tries to sustain Muslim traditions, and get his sons married into traditional Muslim families, in spite of his own failure with his previous Muslim wife.” We try to outline that this view on marriage is not coherent with European cultures’ view on marriage. Not that it’s wrong - Just that our culture can have a different way of doing things. So Peter, we are not to debate whether Muslims are accepted in England, but how we can help other Muslims to gain a better life in England. We’re very interested if other readers have misinterpreted our summary of East is East… Please let us know. Sincerely the Editor Fun Facts about Religion: “Jedi” is an official religion, with over 70.000 followers in Australia 15
English as a Tool
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- Levent Kalayci, Student at VIA University College
―English became the main determinant of a child´s progress up the ladder of formal education.‖ The language of African Literature, Ngugi wa Thiong´o, 1986. 1952 in Kenya. Thiong´o describes the conditions under which he was forced to live with in his childhood. English has a huge status mainly as a language in the world because of the imperialism period of the British and the USA´s domination economic wise and off course not to forget their military force which they have showed over and over again throughout history in all parts of the world. English has acquired a high status among the young generations due to the massive cultural exports and imports e.g. MTV, American sitcoms and Hollywood blockbusters. A huge amount of young Danish children consume these medieas on a daily basis. Words such as: nice, cool, what´s up and LOL have all more or less been implemented into the Danish vocabulary. In Denmark it‘s clear that a lot of the English words are taking their toll on the production and on the development of the Danish language. In 2009 the Danish government-owned television network DR1 held its annual award show. They chose the word nice as the coolest word. Recognition of a language at this magnitude acts like a catalysts for the acceptance of English in the Danish language. I‘ll provide you with an example; if you want to be cool in Denmark, you‘d more likely speak English rather than German, Chinese or Swahili. This is mainly because of the cultural similarities we share with the English world. English in small countries There are some advantages for small countries to be under American influence. The Benelux countries have all been under American influence since they were liberated from the Nazi Germans. After the WW2 it was rather normal for all the deliberated nations to adapt to the American culture. The advantages have been vast like democracy, free markets, equality, and human rights. Globalization has become a huge factor in everybody´s lives e.g. stock markets, the huge economical dependency in between the world´s countries. A conflict on the other side of the world has an impact on our lives e.g. our economy can suffer from different crisis (the 1973 oil crisis) and some events might even unite us as when Chilean miners were rescued after 69 days underground in 2010.
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Lingua franca
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However, one of the challenges we have to face is which language we choose to use as the uniting language, the socalled lingua franca. “The positioning of English (...) as Europe´s primary lingua franca is so recent (...)‖ The changing role of English in Europe, Jennifer Jenkins 2003. It´s very important that the spoken English which the non-native speakers use will retrieve it´s spinal meaning from the Standard English. In this way it won´t differ too much from the natives´ language. If we succeed in staying true to the standard and seek to convert it to our own way of speaking it would benefit the language. People all over the world would be able to communicate and succeed in a higher level of understanding one another. Understanding each other is important especially when we participate in a global world. Cultures meet all the time. It‘s said that the shortest distance between two persons is a smile. Imagine what impact it would have on people if they were able to express and converse with people who came from another part of the world. This brings me to the Facebook effect. This online viral communication tool has a whopping 600 million users worldwide and is still growing at neck breaking speed. The utility has no content of its own whatsoever but it provides the users with a set of network tools that enables the users to stay connected and to share a vast majority of their everyday life, past and future. Facebook has more than anybody else shown that communicating and staying connected with the people they surround themselves with is what everybody wants to do. In terms of which impact Facebook has had and still has on English as a language it‘s fair to say that a lot of worldwide users stay connected via an English language due to the fact that the language setup stays in English. So again we see that English is being beamed throughout the world and people use that very utility each and everyday. Recent Facebook data stream shows that more than 37% of users from countries who don‘t have English as a native language actually have English as the default option. English as an international language Chinua Achebe states in The African Writer and the English Language “(...) the English language will be able to carry the weight of my African experience. But it will have to be a new English, still in full communion with its ancestral home but altered to suit its new African surroundings.” English is now considered as an international language. In Europe some would call it lingua franca, but it has now the status as an international communication medium. According to Achebe it´s important that the users of the language put an effort in to developing and honoring the language as its ancestors wanted it to be. A decent language acquirement can very well be the surviving point of the Standard English. In non-native speaking countries people will have a hard time being able to speak English at the same level as native speakers. Achebe believes that the goal is to bend and use English in such way so that it can be used be everybody, not just native speakers, not just Europeans or Westerners, but Africans and Asians as well. Being an international language, English is bound to progress and keep changing if it fails to do so it might decline in value and usage. 17
English in a small country “But language is of its nature unstable. It is essentially protean in nature,
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adapting its shape to suit changing circumstances. It would otherwise lose its vitality and its communicative and communal value.‖ Henry Widdowson, ―The ownership of English‖, Lecture delivered at the 1993 IATEFL International Conference. However, Widdowson proceeds: “Standard English promotes the cause of international communication so we must maintain the central stability of the standard as the common linguistic frame of reference.‖ It is more likely for English to hold on to its position as the most spoken international language if it uses Standard English as reference. However, it´s crucial that it provides the space needed for cultural and regional influence. This is exactly what ‗s going on in many places and institutions in Denmark. People use English every day, they listen to music, read news and write blogs. English holds a strong position in Denmark. In a way it it‘s all connected in one way or the other. One thing is the English language in the Danish society in the presence and another thing is how it should be in the future. As a teacher it´s important for me to be updated on all fields at all times. Children today are so well educated and well informed due to the information flow on the Internet. The web provides these huge gargantuan social platforms as Twitter, Facebook and MySpace. By using all these platforms the kids subconsciously acquires an emotional and intellectual connection to English. English will overcome and survive I don´t think that English will be substituted by another language all of a sudden. Why should it and for what reasons? I have a hard time to see that e.g. Chinese, Indian, Spanish or Russian can ever pose a threat to English here in Denmark. The English language is originated form the same tribal language as Danish is which means a lot. We use a whole line of the same words and we take some English words and make them Danish, such as nice and cool. I think English will grow larger and larger especially in Denmark because of the short distance to England. Not to forget the similarities between Danes and Americans/Brits and if you pay attention politically as well. Denmark is committed in a lot of bilateral agreements with America and England. In many ways we are all connected to each other, and if another language should develop and claim an international position and hereby pose a threat it would take many generations to phase out the English language from Denmark. So I believe that the English language will overcome and survive, and perhaps expand its status as it is right now. We must stand in awe for the network platforms as www.facebook.com these gargantuan platforms will change the world as we all know it. This is really just the beginning. The web has up until now been impersonal and unsocial. Facebook is changing that. But it‘s also changing how often we use English. We get connected with people you meet travelling on the other side of the world and you stay connected to them. Suddenly some percentages of your friend list are foreigners and therefore you have to adapt your way of communicating so the first language that comes to your mind will in this case be English. This is something that happened for almost all of my friends. The point I‘m trying to make is that English is so strong and such a beautiful language that I really don‘t see any language even getting near it. 18
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World English – World Englishes
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- Jens Jakob Kristensen Student at VIA University
Yesterday I saw a picture on the internet, of a man standing with a very provoking banner which stated ―Death to all juice!‖. I didn‘t know if I was to take that serious or not? One thing was that it was a very racist comment, and I‘m not a big fan of racism, but another thing was, that it was totally absurd how someone can misspell that incorrectly and be serious about it. For an English-speaking person, this would be a very humorous incident about how important it is to understand the native spoken or written language, before throwing such a sentence out in the open. A lot of times we see misinterpreted texts in different situations, which are often quite funny too. Sometimes incidents happen, where these misinterpretations appear. If we‘re about to build an international society, where we can communicate and cooperate in a proper manner, we have to make these errors more central in our schools, if the international welfare is to flourish. Not only should we practice English more in our schools, but also spread English, in such a degree, that it one day might become the world language. In 1887 a Polish Jew named Ludovich Zamenhof invented a new language called Esparanto. It was based on easy learning grammar. Ludovich hoped this language was going to be the new world language. Afterwards a man called Leo Tolstoy learned this language in not more than 5 hours, and thereby proved it to be an adequate world language. Unfortunately, Hitler disapproved of this language. He feared that the language would someday take over and dominate the Aryan people, which resulted in a vast amount of Esparanto-speakers were sent to concentration camps in Germany. Although Esparanto didn‘t have its breakthrough, a lot of people still speak this language this very day. A lot of them are old throwbacks from the cold war though, but you can still get a Ph.D in Esparanto, as well as in English. (From a news magazine called Newsweek from August 11, 2003). Esparanto was a language trying to make its breakthrough. We can ask ourselves, has English reached its‘ peak yet, or has it just begun climbing to the top and thereby influencing the entire world? We need to make a clear statement: If English is to be spoken by everybody in the future we should have even more focused English-education, maybe teaching English in after schools. This might be a way to improve everybody‘s English skills even more. Bill Bryson, a well-known English writer, states in his book Mother tongue (1990), that English is progressing to be the world language and that it‘s due to the worldwide commerce. The usage of English has become such a broad phenomenon, because of its special rhythm in words and phonetics. Bill Bryson writes in the above-mentioned book that “Products are deemed to be more exciting if they carry English messages even when the message doesn‘t make a lot of sense”. He follows up with an example about a Japanese eraser that will ―self-destruct in Mother-Earth‖, written in English although the product is made entirely for Japanese consumers.
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Therefore English is a language that enforces consumer‘s desire to buy, due to
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the influence that it has on a global scale ensuring that the English language is here to stay. Another writer named Jennifer Jenkins, a Sociolinguist and expert in English phonology and phonetics, wrote a book called World Englishes, and makes it clear in one of her main chapters called ―The changing role of English in Europe” in which she states “Those who speak English will have the best access to material success”, claiming that English is going to expand way beyond the English borders! These two examples mentioned above, I emphasized because there is truth in them. The most of our world is nowadays built on material success. It‘s a matter of how well we advance in our social and working careers that defines how good our lives are. In coherence to these two experts, this all depends on our level of education, on how well we have been taught in skills of communicating and socializing. This is where the teacher‘s role comes in. The teacher‘s most important role is to develop their students in such a way, that they‘re able to go out of the school entrance and say to themselves, ―Now, where is my place in this big world? Where‘s my place in this society‖. This is our goal and it‘s only once this is achieved teachers can go home to their fancy houses, with a smile on their faces, and wait for next year‘s load of students. It is not accounted for, how many English speakers there are – This would be impossible. Approximately 570 Million to 1.5 Billion speak the English language, according to The Cambridge Encylopedia of English Language from 1995. That‘s around a fourth of the whole world‘s population. With that amount of English speakers, we should look more carefully into school systems – Are we really able to give children the absolute best opportunity to learn English language? School reforms, especially here in Scandinavia, are reducing the age that students have English lessons and are experimenting with the connection between age and learning capabilities of the children. How young do children need to be before they can learn? This could be a good progression, but how should teachers introduce English to their students nowadays? Is it a worldwide language or just another language for they should learn in school? An interesting text about learning a new language is the well known story of Robinson Crusoe, the first novel ever written by Daniel Defoe in 1719, has been rewritten into a comical play by Adrian Mitchell, an English poet, novelist and play writer. An interesting excerpt of Adrian Mitchell‘s rewritten version of ―Robinson Crusoe‖ is the part where Crusoe is teaching Friday, his native friend, proper English. Friday doesn‘t want to learn Crusoe‘s English which is not as beautiful as, according to Friday, his own native language. Yet he is forced to do so. This is a clear reference to their two cultural language barriers, as the European colonists sailed to Africa and founded colonies all over the continent and forced English down native people‘s throats. The English language is still developing and has been through many events to become what it is today. It has come to my attention that no other language/languages are doing as well as English is, because of the commercial advantage of being labeled everywhere. English is also progressing a lot in the educational sector as well. Thereby being the language of the future, for the next generation and for our children and their children etc. My promise, as a teacher, is to do whatever it takes, to increase the chance of English reaching the 1 st prize as the World Language, thereby assuring its future. Not just end up as the Esparanto language did – Which I seriously doubt! 21
World English — World Englishes
THE CULTURAL INQUIRER
- Kristian Hoffmann Student at VIA University
English language in Danish schools. English is part of our everyday life. It‘s all around us. We get influenced through the media and indeed the youth is even more influenced by English than adults. In Denmark the young generation has already taken the English language in their grasp. Through television, radio and Internet the youth learned a lot more about the English language than they would have ever learned 40 years ago. This development is very interesting because children in Denmark start having English lessons in third grade which means they are only 9 years old. The consequence of this early teaching might have a great impact on the children‘s English and their future life in a globalized world with English as the main communication language when speaking beyond boundaries of countries. English as a global language You might see the younger generation are using the English language like a kind of slang when practising their English with their fellow comrades. I‘ve heard many conversations of children using the English language in e.g. games on the Internet and I find it pretty impressive when overhearing a conversation between youngsters like my brother (Age: 12) talking with his friends from Holland, Russia, England and Mexico using a communication program called Ventrilo. Even though he is restricted in the use of the English language he still talks English which is reasonable in its form of correctness. I know games on the Internet effect children‘s use of language and therefore also English. Children don‘t speak Oxford English but they try to sound like their idols from music or movies which is in my opinion both good and bad. Good because they get to know the language better and have a better basic wisdom about the language than without these inspirations. However you might find their sentences sounding like chunks of English and not one of their own making.
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THE CULTURAL INQUIRER
English as lingua franca Seeing the English development in a futuristic point of view I agree upon Jennifer Jenkins, a well-known professor of modern languages and World English/Englishes, from the University of Southampton, and her view on English as being labelled as Europe‘s primary lingua franca. Jennifer Jenkins discusses the changing role of English in Europe in the book ―World Englishes‖ Routledge 2003. In 40-50 years I still think we‘ll see the same pattern as now. We still have a lot of Englishes around the world and even though we tend to imitate the ―real English‖ aka Oxford English we won‘t find genuine English in the future. We still have our own differences and hopefully we won‘t look down upon other kinds of Englishes. A globalized world should be open towards differences also when talking about languages. Speaking on behalf of the English teachers in Denmark, I think that the Internet will be for English pupils as pocket calculator is for the Math pupils. We all talk about pupils have to learn how to behave in a global society but this is only possible if we as teachers take our teaching into consideration. We have to think more creative and be ―fetchy‖ to earn the pupils attention. So why not meet the pupils on their own field of knowledge and be open for anything that could be a possible motivator for our pupils. Everyone knows that pupils are much more motivated and energetic when talking/working with something they know of and we know that they will do it great if it‘s something more interesting than the usual way of teaching. I hope to involve the Internet and it‘s potentials as much as possible. Hopefully my optimistic view will be discussed and debated in the teacher community. A new, better and much easier language? You might even see a new and better world-wide communication language such as what the innovative Gianne Brownell described in her article ―Speaking up for Esperanto‖ in Newsweek, August 11, 2003 which is an article about a Polish Jew invented language from 1887. This language is even five times easier than learning English and even ten times simpler than Russian. The language is built upon Romance, Slavic, Greek and German tongues. One of the reasons why the English language is in such a big global scale is because of the imperialism and we have seen examples of dictators like Hitler, Saddam Hussein and Stalin trying to extinguish Esperanto because of its threatening factor towards their own language. Nevertheless the English language stands as winner and as a lingua franca in the European Union.
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THE CULTURAL INQUIRER
The English language needs to adapt to its present
With a lot of different types of English I think we need to adopt some of the simplicity from the Esperanto language. We need to broaden the grammar and make it simpler. In the poem ―Listen Mr Oxford Don” the writer John Agard makes a fool of the English language and its strict grammar. ―Me not no Oxford don, me a simple immigrant, from Clapham Common, I didn’t graduate, I immigrate‖ I find it very interesting talking about motivation in the classroom and I think we have more to discover when talking about motivation games and tasks. It could be interesting to examine what makes people doing repetitive tasks in games like World of Warcraft. If it is possible to find the essence of this and transfer this to the teaching it would be possible to learn even the most boring grammar to a ten year old. Consequences for the teaching of English in Denmark I think we might see a huge improvement of teaching of English in Denmark because of all the new methods being taught in the college of education. New approaches are displayed so you can read about them on the Internet in blogs from all around the globe. These new methods work in different ways and are very inspiring for any fresh educated teacher. I think this is just the first hesitant beginning of the blog mentality and though I hope to see this kind of communication being used in a much larger scale than now, I think there is a whole new era of teaching on the run. Unfortunately it is hard to change the way of teaching world-wide because of the lack of funds and if it would work it is going to be a long struggle to adjust this way of thinking.
We need to educate our pupils so they are able to work and adapt themselves to an evolving world going even faster when talking about technology and possibilities. For that reason we have a very important profession indeed. We are the guiding element when talking about progress and innovation of the future.
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