Languages in a Globalizing World

Nowadays, attention of modern researches and scientists is

focused on the phenomenon called “globalization”. Possibility to

cross borders has always been a source of innovations in human

history. No people, been isolated would be able to create even a

small fraction of its cultural and technical heritage. Despite

the variety of studies on globalization, most of researches

including such theorists of globalization as Wallerstein (2002),

Sklar (200), Kotchetov (2002), Saveliev (2002) consider economic

and financial interaction between people to be the driving force

of modern transformations.

However, globalization goes in many directions, and is a

versatile process, which cannot be reduced only to one

sphere. Globalization, as the expansion, intensification, and

deepening of global interdependence and interconnectedness,

is manifested in all aspects of modern life and is one of the

key transformations of modern society (Kiryiyanova 2007: 65).

The most rapid processes of interaction happened in the 50’s

of the XX century. They were facilitated by the establishment of

the main political forum – the United Nations in 1945, and

subsequent emergence of other international organizations:

UNESCO and UNICEF (1946), WHO (1948) and IAEA (1957), the

emergence of multinational and regional political organizations,

such as the Commonwealth (the British) and the European Union,

the organization of transnational corporations.

Further, such events as the end of apartheid in South Africa,

the reunification of Germany, the disintegration of the Soviet

Union, the end of the wars in El Salvator, Nicaragua,

Afganistan, Angola, Cambodia, the resurgence of China showed

willingness of peoples to interact with each other on the

world’s arena. In the present time, there appeared an

unprecedented migration of people, their relocation, and

resettlement, blending, as a result of social and economic

shocks on a global scale. This, undoubtedly, leads to the

interaction of different cultures, their peaceful coexistence,

but most of all, to a clash – “a clash of civilizations”.

Furthermore, intense development of transport and electronic

communication means almost complete decrease of territorial and

temporal remoteness and makes people closer to each other and

more mobile. Modern means of communication allow interaction

between geographically distant individuals in real time. The

notion “Global Village” – is used nowadays as the most capacious

description of the modern world. Today nations acquire an

increasing number of possibilities to communicate with each

other. The effectiveness of communication depends on mutual

understanding, intercultural dialogue, tolerance and respect for

the culture of partners.

All this has led to the emphasis of interaction of cultures in

the context of globalization. The desire to achieve a successful

economic and political dialogue/polilogue makes it necessary to

take into account the peculiarities of national culture of

partners.

Thus, we can say that, having economic interests as its

origins, globalization is accompanied by ethno-cultural

processes, processes of cultural interaction, or processes,

which are referred to as “cultural globalization”.

The phenomenon of “cultural globalization” or “globalization

of cultures” is studied by such scholars as R.Robertson

(Kiryiyanova, 2007), J.Tomlinson (1991), A.Giddens (1999),

R.Agenur (2004), A,Aharoni (2008), J.Lewanowski (2003), B.Barber

(1995), Samuel Huntington (1996), W.Beck (2001), B.Parker (2005)

and others.

The concepts of “Westernization”, “Americanization”, “Coca-

colonization”, and “Mc Donalization” of our society are used

very often as synonyms of the concept “cultural globalization”

or “globalization of cultures”. The reason for this was the

undeniable economic superiority of the U.S. and Britain in the

world during the XIX – XX centuries, as well as active

government policies of these countries, aimed at the global

spread of English. Let us quote the words of David Chrystal “…

together with the U.S. dollar the English language acquired its

spread all over the world” (Crystal, 2001: 45). Much attention is

paid to the interaction of cultures, or, to be exact, to the

globalization of cultures. But no attention has been paid yet to

the processes that happen in the languages during the formation

of the “Global village”. Studying globalization of cultures it

is important, to pay more attention to the influence of this

phenomenon on languages, as any language is the most important

part of its culture. The interdependence between a language and

a culture is very complex. It is studies in the works of many

scientists. For example, David Matsumoto affirms that the verbal

descriptions of culture are one of the primary means by which

culture can be studied (Matsumoto, 2006:36), Clifford Girts gives

a similar understanding of culture. According to his words,

culture is “…a historically transmitted pattern (patterns) of

values and meanings embodied in symbols which people

communicate, perpetuate and develop their knowledge about the

world and reflect their attitude to life …” (Ter-Minasova,

2000:194). Barbara Parker notes that “…a language transmits

cultural information in a verbal and non-verbal form; parents

teach children their native culture through their language…”

(Parker, 2005:267).

The idea that a language is a “mirror of the people’s

culture”, “the treasury”, “the storehouse”, the treasury of

culture”, “the transmitter, the carrier of its culture”, “the

instrument of culture” is reflected in the works of such authors

as: E. Sapir (1939) , E.M.Vereshchagin (2005), V.G. Costomarov

(2005), G.A. Antipov (2000), O.A.Donskih (2000), I.J.Morkovina

(2000), Y.Sorokin (2000), S.G. Terminasova (2000), E.L.Mosunov

(2007), and many others. Thus, taking into the account the

points of views of scientists enlisted above, we adhere to the

opinion that a language plays a primary role in the twain

“language-culture”, and studying globalization of cultures, it

is very important to pay attention to the influence of

globalization on ethnic languages. What happens to the languages

under the influence of globalization? In this article the

attention is paid to the processes that appear in the ethnic

languages in the process of globalizing of our world. The

transformation of a language is considered as one of the most

important in a number of ethno-cultural processes, because the

language is the first to reflect all social, political, economic

and cultural changes in our society. Nowadays, there even

appeared the notion of “cultural-linguistic globalization”

(Bogdanova, 2006:72). It is based on the dominance of the English

language, caused by the development of English-language media

network. What processes happen in the languages of the modern

globalizing world? Among these processes we differentiate the

following trends:

1. The processes of language’s integration

Integration processes influence the linguistic situation all

over the world. One of the ways of language’s integration that

appears during the processes of intercultural interaction is

cross-language borrowings. Words, utterances and discourses are

borrowed. The researchers recognize the global spread of the

English language as well as borrowings from the English language

into all spheres of communication in the most ethnic languages.

This process requires careful consideration and study as “…a

language reflects the world and culture and creates its native

speaker, his personality, individual character and national

character, as well as ideology…” (Schitova, 2004:17). When

borrowing a word from a foreign, non-native language, is like

removing a piece of the mosaic of an unknown pattern, and

combining it with the worldview of the native language. The

relation between an object of the real world, the concept which

reflects this object and the world, which is used to denote

them, is very complex. That is why; borrowing units from a

foreign language, a person simultaneously perceives, comprehends

and adopts a new, strange, unknown cultural worldview. Together

with a foreign word a person as if transmits into his / her

consciousness a concept from a foreign cultural worldview, a

piece of foreign cultural mosaic and he / she is exposed to the

influence of the culture encoded in this word. In this case, the

superposition of a secondary, non-native cultural worldview of a

foreign language upon the primary pattern of the native

worldview, created by a native language and culture takes place.

The secondary worldview is not reflected in the language, but it

is created by it. The interaction between these two cultural

worldviews (native and borrowed) takes place and it demands a

certain kind of adaptation to foreign, another’s perception of

the world. According to Ter-Minasova “…under the influence of

the secondary worldview the human personality is reorganized and

reformed…” (Ter-Minasova, 2000:183). When the words are borrowed

from one language into another they are assimilated in a

different way. The word being borrowed from a donor-language

into the recipient-language must comply with the rules of the

recipient-language. But the assimilation of the borrowed words

happens not at once and not in all cases. At first the borrowed

words are exotic; they are symbols of a foreign culture and they

name objects of a foreign way of life. These may include: names

of the objects of nature, national traditions and political

structure, cuisine, beverages i.e. all. Which in one way or

another reflects the uniqueness of the people’s life and their

territory. In the course of time the exotic word may turn into

the word, denoting the object of reality introduced into the

life of speakers of the recipient language. For example, such

words as “mayor”, “the Parliament”, “municipal”, “speaker” were

in the position of exoticisms till the mid 80’s of the XXth

century, which characterized the political and state structure

of other countries (not of the Soviet Union and Russia) then

these phenomena, denoted by these lexical units appeared in

Russian political system, and these lexemes seized to be

exoticisms for Russian people. Some exoticisms can resist

assimilation and conform to the rules of the native language,

i.e. they become exononyms, or in the other way, these lexical

units are called xenolexemes. For example, O.G.Shitova gives the

following definition of the term “xenolexeme” – “…words of

foreign origin, assimilated or half-assimilated by the

recipient-language…” (Schitova, 2004:16). She emphasizes that “…

the degree of adaptation and assimilation of xenolexemes must be

investigated separately for each word…” (Schitova, 2004:17). Such

words as “izba”, “samovar” in the French language can serve as

the examples of xenolexemes borrowed from Russian. In the

Russian language these may be such words as “animation”,

“lamination”, “cider” and “whiskey” borrowed from English.

Integration of languages occurs not only at the lexical level,

but also at the grammatical level. For example, at the turn,

there appeared and became functionally active the suffix –инг

(from the English suffix - ing), in addition to it, the set of

words with unique roots was borrowed, for example: менеджер-

менеджмент (a manager - management), спонсор – спонсировать (a

sponsor – to sponsor), мерчендайзер – мерчендайзинг (a merchandiser

- merchandising). The desire to be modern, up-to date results in

the active use in speech of lexemes created to the rules of the

English language. Such lexemes are used in everyday speech, in

the language of media, etc.; we can enumerate such compound

nouns as, for example: хит-парад (hit parade), топ-менеджер (top

manager), топ-модель (тор model), секс-шоп (sex shop), ток-шоу (talk

shows), etc. If we take into account that Russian is an

inflexional language, the construction of lexemes according to

the rules of the analytical language, which English appears to

be, leads to a gradual loss of suffixes and inflections, as well

as, it leads to the loss of their inherited functions and

meanings. Many linguists such as A.Verhzbitska (Verhzbitska,

2001:194), V.G. Kostomarov (Ter-Minasova, 2000:156) attribute the

function of emotional and sensual expressiveness to the suffixes

and inflections of flexional languages, i.e. the loss of

inflections and suffixes leads to the loss of emotional,

expressive speech, typical of the flexional languages, such as

Russian and others. In the course of time, the acquisition, the

process of communication receives features of formal,

impersonal, business interaction. Taking into account the fact

that the active penetration of the English words takes place in

all the Languages of the world one could assume the emergence of

similar trends in all the languages of the world.

Another kind of languages’ integration is intralingual integration.

As an example of intralingual integration we can name the move

of the peripheral subsystems of a language to the center, the

invasion of them into the literary language. Territorial

dialects, slang, argot, vulgarisms are ascribed to the

peripheral subsystems of a language. There is a tremendous

growth of the influence of youth slang, jargon on the official,

business, and even scientific communication. Thus, we can say

that the integration of languages is accompanied by the

processes of the linguistic shift of the subsystems of a

language, as well as the process of borrowings both of lexical

items and the grammatical phenomena of the languages, that are

considered to be prestigious, for example, English. The

integration of the languages affects the content, the form, as

well as the “grammatical structure” of languages in the process

of interaction.

Excessive borrowings from one language into another,

especially when a recipient language has got units equivalent to

the borrowed ones may cause a backlash, because these borrowings

mean “the invasion” of a foreign culture into the recipient

language. As a result, there happens, firstly, communicative

discomfort, because to understand the information, native

speakers must have appropriate level of cultural and linguistic

competence, they must know what borrowed words denote in the

donor-language; and secondly, there happens the violation of the

most important function of a language – it ceases to be the

means of clear communication of a certain nation, ceases to be

the means of unification of a certain nation. For example,

active introduction of English words into the language of

contemporary media leads to the fact that information is

transmitted in the “bird’s language” - beautiful, but totally

incomprehensible.

As a result, senior generations are cut off from the flow of

information or they perceive information not correctly, because

they seem to be not competent enough in foreign languages. In

this case, there emerges a problem of saving the uniqueness of

the ethnic languages, preserving of ethno-linguistic purity in

the context of globalization.

It should be noted that the process of globalization is not

single-sided. Any action causes reaction. These also can be said

about globalization of cultures and languages (as the main parts

of cultures). Talking about ethno-cultural processes, this

reaction is expressed in the appearance of processes, opposite

to the linguistic integration. We call these processes as

differentiation and regionalization.

2. The next process is the regionalization process. Webster’s

Comprehensive Dictionary of the English language (1966) gives

the following definition of “regionalization”: “…3. A specific

habit, custom, or way of speaking of a certain

region…”(Nemishenko, 2006:284). During the last fifty years there

appeared a number of international organizations. These

organizations need a single international language of

communication for their efficient functioning. For a long time,

due to economic and political reasons, this role belonged to the

English language. Any ethnic group that has integrated and

integrates into transnational organizations and communities has

to use an internationally accepted language, and of course,

falls under the influence of this language. As it was noted

above, first and foremost, the role of the international

language belongs to the English language. That is why,

integrating people fall under the influence of this language.

However, not every ethnic group is ready to abandon its

linguistic identity, ethnic identity and cultural traditions for

the sake of the idea of integration. Therefore, there appear

fears for the fate of native languages of smaller nations –

whether the use of their languages will be limited to the sphere

of “interpersonal”, “family” communication and the creative

possibilities of these ethnic languages will be suppressed, or

may be these languages and peoples, using them , will be pushed

to the periphery of civilization. These fears are, of course,

justified, because more often there appears the idea of creating

English bilingualism in countries where the English language is

used as an official language, or as the language of business,

politics. But, on the other hand, the English language, in its

global spread is undergoing such transformations, that even the

British sometimes refuse to recognize the English they hear from

the foreigners, as their mother tongue. Even in English-speaking

countries there appeared regional variants of English, for

example, British English, American English and Indian English.

The borrowed words are assimilated by the recipient-language

according to its laws and structure. They undergo changes under

the influence of the system of the recipient-language.

Sometimes, these changes may be unexpected. For example, the

English word “barman” corresponds in Russian to the word

«бармен» - (“he – barman”) and “барменша”(“she – barman”,

“barwoman”) in the Russian language. For the English language,

which practically has no gender division, the word «барменша»,

combining the identification of the masculine gender in English

(suf. – “man”) and the identification of feminine gender in the

Russian language (suf. «ша» - suf. “-sha”) may sound

preposterous. Just as the word «чипсы» (“chipsy”) in Russian.

This word has already got an identification of the plural in

English – “chips” in its structure – the ending “-s”. And in

Russian – ы, the ending denoting the plural number of the nouns

is added. In this case it seems to be excessive. Some

difficulties appear in assimilating spelling rules. The reason

for these are some spelling skills. In German, for example,

anglicizes are assimilated in their original form, due to the

complete absence of the transcription for them. This causes some

difficulties in reading English words, because the number of the

letters and phonemes in English is different. But in the

Albanian language English borrowings are usually transcribed,

including personal names, for example, “Shekspir” instead of

“Shakespeare”. These processes reveal the regionalization

processes in the ethnic languages. Regionalization is perceived

as a counterforce to integration of languages under the

influence of globalization, and it is especially important in

maintaining the identity and purity of ethnic languages. The

examples enlisted above prove that the linguistic diversity and

linguistic peculiarity are not disappearing. They have acquired

a new form of existence. Of course, Business English is gripping

the world, but at the same time the English language has changed

beyond recognition under the influence of recipient-languages.

3. Next globalizational process happening in ethnic

languages is the process of differentiation. In contrast to the

processes of ethno-linguistic integration, it is aimed at

preserving linguistic identity and purity of the native

language. The language policy of France can serve as a striking

example of linguistic differentiation. It is aimed at complete

expulsion of the borrowings which came from the English

language. In speech they use only French native lexemes, for

example: “la ‘ordinateur” instead of “a computer”. The era of

globalization is characterized by the compression of space and

time. The next ethno-linguistic process, caused by globalization

is the reflection of this characteristic feature of

globalization; we call it the compression of the language. It

happens due to the rapid development of information and

communication technologies, such as the Internet, mobile

communications.

4. The compression of a language is revealed in the appearance of

a new sublanguage of users of information and computer

technologies. Striking features of this sublanguage are the

reduction of speech, use of abbreviations, ellipses, and the

emergence of emoticons that can not only speed up communication,

but also cheapen it. Extensive use of abbreviations goes from

Internet communication into the texts of e-mails, SMS, texts of

the advertisements, journalistic texts, and from there into

daily contacts, into the literary language. Frequent use of

abbreviations in texts lead to the appearance of hybrid language

freaks, whose meaning may be incomprehensible to people not

taking part in these forms of communication. The need to

transmit and receive information incredibly quickly, forces the

communicants to be incredibly creative and use the most

economical form of abbreviations. It leads to the appearance and

frequent use of such linguistic forms as the initial reduction,

for example: CD, Media, Web-ct and a DJ. It is traditional

to use capital letters in the middle of the word, for example:

e-Learning. One of the striking changes in all the languages is

the emergence of emoticons – combinations of punctuation marks

to indicate emotions: , , :-@, etc. All these examples

indicate the appearance of a hybrid language or a pseudo

language, which, according to Goffmanova may hinder the natural

function and development of ethnic literary languages

(Nemishenko, 2000:182).

Thus, processes taking place in the ethnic languages in the

context of globalization, justify that the languages are

changing rapidly nowadays, The processes which take place in the

ethnic languages reflect globalization processes happening in

the modern world. Thus, the languages’ integration is a

reflection of the homogenization of the modern world. The

languages of the modern world are flooded with the foreign

borrowings, mainly from the English language, which in different

ways are assimilated by the recipient – languages. Colloquial

expressions, slang, vulgarisms penetrate into written,

journalistic, special, semiofficial, and official texts. In its

turn, languages’ differentiation is the manifestation of the

conflict between global and local phenomena, and space-time

compression, as a characteristic feature of globalization is

manifested in the compression of a language and the appearance

of a peculiar pseudo language, which is characterized by

reductions of different kinds. We are faced with these

manifestations of the globalizational processes in languages at

every step, and we can either condemn them or perceive them as a

means of enriching our native languages. But first and foremost,

these processes of language transformations provide a wide field

for research to linguists and sociologists. For example, it

seems acute to examine the linguistic interaction of different

social groups, in order to know, if we have the stratification

of a single nation under the influence of globalization; or in

order to know, if there appeared the exclusive language of

people, accustomed to the use of such information technologies

as computers, the Internet technologies, and mobile

technologies. In addition to that, it is interesting not only to

examine the changes which appear in the languages as a result of

the expansion of the leading ideologies, cultures and languages,

but is also essential to study how the worldviews, the

perceptions of a person and his/her world change in languages in

a globalizing world.

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