Observatory PASCAL

Joe Lo Bianco's Hot Topic, Language, Place and Learning, provides an important starting point for this conversation. The particular starting point for Lo Bianco's analysis, the claim that we can anticipate that half of the world's population will speak soon speak some form of English, is a provocative one. He proceeds to outline the role of the Americans in this process, and the way in which the English language has been implicit in the economic, political and cultural imperialism of the United States over the last two hundred years. The culmination of this process leads to a key step in Joe's thesis in this Hot Topic, that English is now 'a very stretched language, pushing the idea of connection between talk and place, people and place, very wide and far, more than any linguistic medium' (page 5). 

This leads to an exploration of the implications of the break in the intimate relation between language and place, of its impact on meaning, and of its political implications: 'people do not imagine language as a neutral, ideology- or values-free mechanism for conveying messages' (page 7). This prompts consideration of issues related to language and place, the significance of language in shaping social capital, and the trends emerging as globalisation unfolds.  

It also raises some polemical issues about the impact of globalisation in destroying diversity, undermining in particular the prospects of languages associated with small hunter/gatherer societies. However, as Lo Bianco notes, globalisation has also prompted a reaction against its apparent homogenisation, leading to campaigns that assert the importance of local cultures and languages.  

One of the principal drivers for individuals to learn English, of course, is their desire to participate in paid employment, to become 'human capital'. This twist in language is itself worthy of comment,  

Where does this analysis end? Whilst the overall evidence suggests a pessimistic conclusion about the fate of the intimacy between language and place, Lo Bianco sees some cause for optimism in the nature of language itself: ‘while language attrition is undeniable and the contraction of the vitality of many of the world’s distinctive cultures is clearly happening some see in globalisation a moment of new kinds of hybridity of language and culture, the emergence of multicultural societies everywhere, vast population mobility, ever more diversifying codes of communication, and “micro-cultures” of Internet-mediated identity’.  

Lo Bianco concludes that language is ultimately a resource for making and sharing meaning, a resource which speakers draw on according to cultural and pragmatic norms deriving from local settings, in order to meet practical communication needs.