THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK AND RELATED CONCEPTS
4.3 PHILLIPSON’S LINGUISTIC IMPERIALISM THEORY
4.3.1 What is Linguistic Imperialism?
73 policy would be different and better than a situation where there is no clear cut position on which type of mother tongue education a country is adopting. This leaves us with questions on the extent to which African governments in general have considered UNESCO’s position on MTE. It is the intention of this research to unearth the experiences of teachers in using a minority language (Shangani) as the medium of instruction and whether or not the ideals of MTE have been embraced by the Zimbabwean government in its 2006 Education Amendment Act on the use of the sixteen indigenous languages in education in Zimbabwean schools. The reason why I am concerned about the Zimbabwean policy is that it was under the colonial rule by the British and it was normal that the English Language dominated in education. How then is the policy likely to succeed in the face of Linguistic imperialism and the hegemony of English (and even the national languages) on the minority languages? It is critical at this stage that I refer to Phillipson’s Linguistic Imperialism Theory and how it influences the likely experiences of teachers in implementing a mother tongue education policy.
74 where certain languages are dominating other languages as well as ideology which shapes and supports such domination characterise situations where linguistic imperialism is taking place.
Phillipson (1992: 56) cites Ansre (1979:12-13) defining linguistic imperialism as,
The phenomenon in which the minds and lives of the speakers of a language are dominated by another language to the point where they believe that they can and should use only that foreign language when it comes to transactions dealing with the more advanced aspects of life such as education, philosophy, literature, governments, the administration of justice etc. Linguistic imperialism has a subtle way of warping the minds, attitudes and aspirations of even the noblest in society and preventing him from appreciating and realising the full potential of the indigenous languages.
From this definition of linguistic imperialism, Ansre highlights very critical issues. One of the issues raised is the fact that Linguistic Imperialism occurs where a language (or languages) is dominated by another language. Where this domination occurs, the dominated people believe that they are able and are obligated to use that language in advanced transactions such as education, judiciary or even in literature. Linguistic imperialism also makes the dominated language speakers lose confidence in their own languages to an extent that they cease to appreciate and realise the potential in their own languages. For example, in a research carried out by Kadodo and Mhindu (2013) on the extent to which Shona and Shangani languages were used as mediums of instruction in Masvingo and Mwenezi districts respectively, “one of the education officers commented that nobody in his or her normal sense would really want his/her child to be taught through the mother tongue when the industry still demands for English” (ibid: 118). This implies that this supposed custodian of the policy does not even believe the implementation of the policy is a worthwhile endeavour and at the same time he does not even see the potential of indigenous languages taking over as languages of industry and commerce once they are empowered as languages of instruction. From Ansre’s (1979) point of view, this kind of thinking reflects a situation where linguistic imperialism has taken place. The particular education officer can be said to be a baptised follower of linguistic imperialism because he has come to accept that those that are ‘normal’ should see the use of local languages in education as unacceptable but should rather use the English language.
Phillipson (1992) opines that it is important for critiques to ascertain linguistic imperialism as a discrete category of imperialism so that an assessment of its function in an imperialist structure in its entirety can be made. According to him, for two fundamental reasons the phenomenon called linguistic imperialism pervades all the other brands of imperialism: “The
75 first has to do with form (language as the medium for transmitting ideas), the second with content” (ibid: 53).
In trying to highlight the reason of form, he advances that for links in all fields language is the principal means of communication and as such it is indeed a prerequisite for most varieties of contact other than spontaneous compulsion. Phillipson (1992) maintains that linguistic imperialism supersedes all the other brands of imperialism due to the fact that communication presumes reciprocated understanding on the basis of a shared code and that it is the centre’s language which is used. This confirms that the domination of a people is only possible where the language of the centre is imposed on the dominated people.
It should be noted that Phillipson (1992) identifies linguistic imperialism as a sub-type of linguicism which, according to him, refers absolutely to philosophies and organizations where language is the way for causing or upholding an imbalanced allotment of resources and power.
He adds that, this can be noted in situations where mother tongues of immigrant or indigenous minority children are ignored in the school system and consequently affect their learning.
Thus, the speakers of these languages will suffer a lot in their learning since they are made to learn through an unfamiliar language which automatically put those proficient in the foreign language at a great advantage in the whole learning enterprise. Phillipson (1992) further notes that, for linguicism to make up linguistic imperialism it is presumed that an imperialist structure supports the players in question for the mistreatment of one society or mutually by another. It is therefore clear that linguistic imperialism occurs where an imperialist structure supports such exploitation of other language groups.
There are several examples that can be highlighted in our endeavour to understand what Linguistic Imperialism is all about. Prah (2009) identifies quite a number of examples of situations where linguistic imperialism is evident. For example, he talks about what is happening in Algeria and Morocco where he notes that, there is a strain between the central Arab governments and the Berber marginalised groups where these minority groups have felt that Arabisation is threatening their languages and cultures. Prah (2009:2) reports that,
“Through centuries of Arabisation these originally indigenous inhabitants of the area have become minorities.” This implies that the Arabs dominated the Berber speaking community and at the same time relegated them to become a ‘minority’ in their own country.
The Arabic language therefore occupied the top position in the linguistic hierarchy whilst the languages of the indigenous Berber groups were thrown to the periphery. From Phillipson’s
76 point of view this dominance of one language on the other is linguistic imperialism. He argues that, “Linguistic Imperialism is also central to social imperialism, which relates to the transmission of the norms and behaviour of a model social structure, and these are embedded in language” (Phillipson 1992:53).
Prah (2009) further observes that the influence of the Roman Imperial growth was the major cause of the extinction of the Etruscan culture and language. He also identifies the Classical Greek culture which virtually absorbed many of its conquered peoples (such as Judea). “The subject populations became immersed in Greek culture and the spread of koine (common) Greek language was an instrument as well as a result of this cultural assimilation” (Prah, 2009:2). Prah, (2009) notes that in Botswana, the linguistic hegemony of the SeTswana language has led to the linguistic and cultural assimilation of the Khoe and San speakers. This confirms Phillipson’s argument that linguistic imperialism pervades all the other kinds of imperialism.
Phillipson (2015) however, believes that the widespread expansion of the English language could be understood if the lenses of his conception of linguistic imperialism are used. He succinctly says:
The historical record reveals that in the UK, as in other European countries and the USA, a systematic effort over centuries went into attempts to convert a multilingual reality into a monolingual state, and to pursue the same goal worldwide by means of linguistic imperialism (Phillipson 2015:3).
Thus, according to him, the spread of the English language was a systematic, not a random effort to put the language on the driver’s seat in the global economy. He observes that it was not coincidental that in 1945 English became the leading language of international relations, business, banking, scholarship, science, and popular culture but rather, it was through leadership of America (ibid).
Boyle (1997) notes that Phillipson’s Theory of Linguistic Imperialism can be best understoodfrom Galtung’s (1980) conception of the phenomenon where imperialism is described under six broad but interrelated headings: communicational, cultural, economic, military, political as well as social. In Galtung’s conception of imperialism, the world is divided into two major categories: the Centre and the Periphery. He believes that the powerful western countries constitute the Centre whilst the periphery is made up of those countries
77 subjugated by the centre. He believes that within the centre and the periphery, other centres and peripheries are also found.
According to Boyle (1997) Phillipson’s Theory of Linguistic Imperialism (of the English language) follows the stages that Galtung outlines in his general conjecture of imperialism.
The initial phase of Linguistic Imperialism according to Phillipson is the early-colonial stage which is patently compelling (the Stick stage), the second phase, which is characterised by offers of benefits to a few elite is the neo-colonial stage (the Carrot stage) and finally, the neo- neo-colonial stage, in which rule is attained more subtly by ideological influence through technology and the media (the Ideas Stage). It is therefore critical to look at these stages one by one in detail so that we can reach a meaningful understanding of how many countries came to be in this quagmire of linguistic imperialism. This thorough analysis makes the theory relevant where the current research is situated in an African context where linguistic imperialism can be best understood due to its colonial history.