Week 11 Post: Experiencing English from the Inside Looking Out

Week 11

McKay & Bokhorst-Heng Chapter 1

From the inside looking out, a native speaker of English really has no idea of the power and integrity the English language holds. The beginning of chapter 1 is actually mind blowing to a native speaker like myself. ¾ of the world’s mail is in English? English is the MAIN language of books, newspapers, airports, air traffic control, etc.? 80% of the information in the world’s electronic retrieval systems is in English? Never having realized the power and prevalence of English in the world, I feel naïve. As a native speaker, I actually feel as though I am at a disadvantage; I am not fluent in another language. The possibility of one day being a teacher of English to native and in this case, non-native speakers, seems daunting. People, well the world, seems to value this language and use it so much that in order to do right by myself and society, I need to be the best English language instructor I can be.

Later in the chapter, McKay and Bokhorst-Heng discuss the population’s division of native languages. Chinese, Mandarin is first by far, and English is in second. If Chinese, Mandarin has the largest population of native speakers, why is English the widest used language? Why does this language hold the power? The languages are not even close when it comes to native speakers with Chinese, Mandarin with 15% of the population speaking it natively and English having just 5.4% speaking it natively. I understand that the regions that use Chinese, Mandarin are much larger than those who use English. I just cannot understand why English is the most used. The beginning of the chapter dicusses it is because of media sources such as music, movies, etc. But it never, I don’t believe, explains why English is the most powerful in these categories.

The textbook describes that there are different perspectives of the spread of English. These are homogeny and heterogeny. The homogeny perspective takes the position that “the spread of English is leading to a homogenization of world culture.” Heterogeny takes the perspective as “describes the features of World Englishes as a sign of pluricentricism that has been brought about by globalization.” I, personally, do not believe we could ever have a homogenization of world culture. There are too many moving parts to culture (and while the advancement of technology could aid in this) that having a homogenized culture would be impossible. Even after hundreds of years. People are proud of their culture, and they should be. Even if changing everything you do to a Westernized culture would make you more successful, people would hold true to their backgrounds and that is what makes a specific country, that specific country. People would chose only to live in a region where the weather is the best if cultures were all the same! I know I would!