I wanted to speak about with you about English. As a person who will be an English teacher, I’m going to mention English’s effects in our lives within two essay and one of them is the essay below.
ENGLISH AS A GLOBAL LANGUAGE, IS IT A GOOD OR BAD THING?
English is on the way of being a global language. Starting its journey during the Seven Years War(1756-1763),English has been completing its task. From that time to nowadays, being boosted by many factors such as colonialism, British origin of Industrial Revolution, speaker migration etc. it has had a remarkable effect on all over the world. However, whether it is good thing or not is a controversial issue. Of course, we cannot ignore the benefits we have gained thanks to it, but unfortunately the destruction it has led to is superior to the progress it has offered.
Some may see English as a fundamental tool in order to have a place in global affairs and trade. It is the contention of them that the spread of English is useful in terms of having a voice in some particular fields. For example; they believe that without knowing it, having a good reputation or progress is difficult, because people announce their inventions thanks to it. They also see English as a significant instrument in international trade. In their opinion societies can have a place in global trade thanks to it, as language of commerce. They may be right to some extent, however unfortunately the progress this voice has offered generally leads to destruction, also. Yes, people can announce their inventions thanks to it, but is it really possible complete translation if those scientific works? In his ‘The impact of English dominance on literature and welfare’, Melitz (2007) explains his personal opinion about this issue and gives an analogy by saying that:
The natural or social scientist of outstanding ability whose prefered language is
other than English can publish readily in his own language, even in the most prestigious
journal, but will have much greater difficulty doing so in similarly ranked journal in English.
The spread of English not only affects scientific works, but also literary works. While a poem or novel can capture attention of reader on its mother tongue, it can lose its value in another language, because English annihilates their aesthetic side on its journey of being a dominant language. Authors can also have difficulty in another language, because as Beajour illustrated, they marry to a language, and so the muse refuses to whisper them again in a different language.(Melitz,2007,p.210)
The spread of English has bad effects on translation of some particular works, however its only damages are not those. First of all, it damages cultural identity of societies and creates a linguistic gap among them, because language is not just a tool of communication. People do not just pick up the language. With a language, they do not look at matters the same as they did earlier. People start to lose their cultural identity although this situation is not always welcomed in a good way by society. As Ha (2008) illustrated in his book ‘Teaching English as an international language’, while an English teacher who has trained oversea, can be open to everything because of language, her or his that change is not welcomed in the same way in each society. Apart from these, people who know English, take the advantage of it on other countries, also. Countries manipulate the ideas of other countries with the help of English and so they gain soft power upon those countries. America can be a good example of this, because she can spread her ideas through her global language. Even people who have never been to there learn her culture by losing their own gradually. Association of English with economic elites is also another bad side of it. According to Crystal, because of these association, people begin to think that there is a strong relationship between economic wealth and language, and this leads to a linguistic gap among societies.
Secondly, the spread of English damages other languages and thoughts about them. First of all, while English is being a global language, it reduces the role of other existing languages and it starts to do this by deteriorating those languages’ structure. Nowadays, even people who don’t know English, use English words in their communication or teenagers changes their own words’ structure especially during chatting. Moreover, unfortunately this situation results in disappearance of minority languages. Crystal names that disappearance as linguistic death and in his book ’English as a global language’ he states that although this is ‘an intellectual and social tragedy’ at least half of the world’s existing languages will die out until the end of 22nd century.(2003,p.20)Secondly, it affects people’s thoughts towards other languages. Its being so much widespread makes people unwilling to learn other languages, because according to them, it is unnecessary to learn them while they can communicate with most of the people thanks to ‘a global language. ’Unfortunately, this opinion turns into the opinion that learning other languages is a waste of time, and this opinion is so much common even in countries whose mother tongue is English.
All in all, being a global and dominant language of English has damages rather than benefits or progress. It leads to deterioration in languages, cultures, literary or scientific works etc. During its journey, it removes so many values from societies. So, whether the spread of English is a good thing is worth to think one more time.
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