Peter Bradwell
Researcher
Peter Bradwell is a researcher at Demos. He is interested in digital identity, technology and the ways that information and knowledge is shared...
at 3:19pm
on Friday, 2nd March 2007
Lots of interesting stories about languages recently. The Guardian picked up on a protest about proposals to restrict access to English language courses.
Perhaps most interesting was a report in the BBC website on the emergence of a new language in Cameroon: frananglais. It's a mixture, apparently, of French, English and Creole, and has been causing teachers there some consternation.
Interesting stuff, and especially for us perhaps; Sam and I have just finished writing As You Like It: Catching up in an age of Global English. In it we suggest that what has happened over time to the English language is closely bound up with shifts in global power. As it has become a global 'lingua franca' - used by people who don't share a first language as a means to communicate - so the UK's relationship with the world has changed dramatically.
English now offers access to individual opportunities across the world - but these opportunities 'sit' within the legacy of the power relations of old. English has always facilitated opportunity, influence and reach; but in the UK, counterintuitively, we must learn that where we once directed the spread of English around the world, we are now just one of many shareholders in the asset that it represents.
We'll be discussing what the UK can do about this at the launch event on 15 March with help from David Graddol, author of English Next and expert on Global English, and Simon Anholt, country branding expert and member of the Public Diplomacy Board. If you would like to join us, drop an email to englishlanguage@demos.co.uk.
Perhaps most interesting was a report in the BBC website on the emergence of a new language in Cameroon: frananglais. It's a mixture, apparently, of French, English and Creole, and has been causing teachers there some consternation.
Interesting stuff, and especially for us perhaps; Sam and I have just finished writing As You Like It: Catching up in an age of Global English. In it we suggest that what has happened over time to the English language is closely bound up with shifts in global power. As it has become a global 'lingua franca' - used by people who don't share a first language as a means to communicate - so the UK's relationship with the world has changed dramatically.
English now offers access to individual opportunities across the world - but these opportunities 'sit' within the legacy of the power relations of old. English has always facilitated opportunity, influence and reach; but in the UK, counterintuitively, we must learn that where we once directed the spread of English around the world, we are now just one of many shareholders in the asset that it represents.
We'll be discussing what the UK can do about this at the launch event on 15 March with help from David Graddol, author of English Next and expert on Global English, and Simon Anholt, country branding expert and member of the Public Diplomacy Board. If you would like to join us, drop an email to englishlanguage@demos.co.uk.
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