World Englishes and Linguistic Imperialism

That English is a ‘global’ or ‘international’ language is uncontroversial in the first years of the 21st century. (McKay, 2003) The English language dominates the sciences and technology, business, international relations, mass media, and youth culture, and is the most widely taught and learned foreign language (Phillipson, 1992). Around a quarter of the world’s population is proficient in the language (Crystal, 2003), and approximately a third (Fishman, 1998-1999; Kachru, 1992b) have been estimated to be users of English. While these facts are generally uncontested, how they are to be interpreted has been the subject of controversy among applied linguists, and the interpretations put forward have implications for the teaching of English throughout the world, including in education programs in the United States that accept international students. Although these implications have been explored extensively vis a vis the teaching of English internationally, there is as yet little work on their influence in higher education institutions in the U.S. The purpose of this review is to survey the main themes that have arisen in scholarly discussion of English in the world, and to consider whether and how they might influence the teaching of international students in U.S. higher education. The review focuses particularly on the debate surrounding the question of world Englishes, and on Robert Phillipson’s theory of linguistic imperialism, two broad and related themes that have been influential not only in scholarly debate but also in the creation of language policy. The conclusion explores how these themes might inform research into English language teaching and learning in U.S. higher education institutions.

Phillipson’s theory of linguistic imperialism, expounded in his book of the same name (Phillipson, 1992), gave rise to much argument over the place of English in the world, but there was already plenty of disagreement over the nature of global English. A widely accepted model of English in the world had been formulated by the linguist Braj Kachru, who proposed three concentric circles: (e.g. Kachru, 1992b) an Inner Circle, representing the countries in which English has its traditional base (e.g. the UK, Australia, and the USA); an Outer Circle comprising former colonies in which English has some form of official status (e.g. Bangladesh, Ghana, and India); and an Expanding Circle, made up of countries where English is learned and used as a foreign language (e.g. China, Egypt, and Indonesia). Kachru pointed out that most users of English communicate not with native English speakers from the Inner Circle, but with speakers from other Outer and Expanding Circle countries. Consequently, it is wrong to assume that English is learned in order to understand western, English-speaking cultures; that the forms of English spoken in those countries are necessarily the model for learners the world over; and that newly arising forms of English are inferior or incomplete forms of Inner Circle English. These consequences in turn call into question other assumptions: that ‘native English speakers’ from the Inner Circle countries make the best teachers, for example, or that forms of English that deviate from Inner Circle norms are necessarily ‘wrong.’ (ibid.) Hence, English conceived of as monolithic entity is incorrect: the new reality is one comprising Englishes. This view continues to be accepted: Pennycook (2009) has recently endorsed a view of pluricentricity and multicompetences in English.
Kachru’s assumptions about English in the world were opposed by Quirk (1990), who argued that English learners have a right to learn, and English teachers have the responsibility to teach, Standard English, that is, the institutionalized varieties found in Britain and the USA. Only through Standard English could learners hope to connect internationally with others and thus be freed from their economic and social limitations. Kachru (1991) declared Quirk’s argument an example of deficit linguistics, in that it assumes that English speakers in the Outer and Expanding Circle countries are inferior speakers of the varieties spoken in the Inner Circle countries such as the USA and the UK. Quirk’s position, argued Kachru, was reflective of the view of English from a monolingual perspective, a view which failed to take account of the complex realities of multilingual societies. Quirk’s proposal was in any case unrealistic, according to Kachru, since in a world with hundreds of millions of speakers, most of them in non-Inner Circle countries, there is no authoritative, codified version of English which can serve as a global model.

Strevens (1992), aligned with Quirk, suggested that learners should aspire to teach, and learners should try to learn, ‘educated’ English, which, he claimed, is characterized by a standard grammar and vocabulary everywhere in the world; and that learners should not agonize over whether to choose British or American English as their model, but choose the one they feel is most useful to them. In spite of his recognition of world Englishes, Strevens appears to recommend that the educated native speaker in the U.S. or Britain should serve as the model for English learners worldwide. This, he argued, would have the effect of “preserving the unity of English in spite of its great diversity.” (ibid., pp. 39 - 40)

The debate over world Englishes versus standard English emanating from Inner Circle countries continues to exercise English language teaching practitioners almost two decades later. In one recent study, for example, five Taiwanese university teachers expressed the dilemma posed by, on the one hand, recognizing that ownership of English should not be limited to the Inner Circle countries; and on the other, their own desire to teach a standard model of English in the classroom. (Lai, 2009) The case for World Englishes, and how it is related to linguistic imperialism, has been taken up by numerous scholars, and is described in further detail below.

Phillipson was not by any means the first to acknowledge the role of colonialism in the spread of English. Kachru, for example, wrote: “The spread of English has been viewed both as a unique phenomenon of our times and as an unprecedented form of linguistic and cultural colonization.” (Kachru, 1992a, p. 4) Yet Phillipson provided the most fully elaborated explanation for the worldwide dominance of English grounded in colonialist history and imperialistic intent (Phillipson, 1992). He situated linguistic imperialism within Galtung’s imperialism theory, in which imperialism is described as a relationship in which one society dominates another, and which comprises six interconnected forms of imperialism: economic, political, military, communicative, cultural, and social. In this framework, linguistic imperialism is a form of cultural imperialism, which is both enabled by and enables the other forms of imperialism. Basing his work on an analysis of what he saw as dominant and dominated cultures, he divided the world into “core English-speaking countries,” (Kachru’s Inner Circle countries) in which the dominant group are English native speakers, and “periphery-English countries” (Kachru’s Outer and Expanding Circle countries) where English was either imposed during the colonial era or is learned as a foreign language. In this relationship, the peripheral-English countries are dependent on the core English-speaking countries for language norms, and learners tend to aspire to ‘native-like fluency,’ which is the situation advocated by Quirk and Strevens. Phillipson defined linguistic imperialism as, “the dominance of English…asserted and maintained by the establishment and continuous reconstitution of structural and cultural inequalities between English and other languages.” (Philipson, 1992, p. 47) It is founded on what Phillipson calls linguicism, analogous to racism and sexism, and described as the “representation of the dominant language, to which desirable characteristics are attributed, for purposes of inclusion, and the opposite for dominated languages, for purposes of exclusion.” (ibid., p. 55)

Phillipson argued that the spread of the English language, while uncritically accepted by many of those who teach and learn it, is far from benign; it is, on the contrary, a carrier of ideology – it carries ideas relating to customs, beliefs, and ways of thinking, through teaching and its materials – textbooks, literature, and other media. It thereby serves the interests of the countries that have made a deliberate policy of spreading it, most notably Britain and the USA, suppressing indigenous languages and suppressing other imperialistic languages, such as French, in the process. Phillipson describes Britain and the U.S. as having deliberately engaged in the promotion of English and cultural transmission, through agencies such as the British Council and the United States Information Agency.

None of this necessarily implies ill intent on the part of the individuals who are involved in English language teaching; nevertheless, according to Phillipson, these individuals “function in an imperialist structure.” (p. 46) Ignorance of the social and cultural implications of English language teaching among teachers tends to be perpetuated by their education and training, which focuses on methods, techniques, and language learning theories, to the exclusion of the broader social context, an exclusion reflected also in core-English country produced textbooks. (Canagajarah, 1999b)

Hence, the growing number of English language ‘expert’ English language teachers working in Third World countries have been largely ignorant of and insensitive to the local social, cultural, and linguistic context, and have tended to promote monolingualism, both as teaching practice (English only) and as a societal goal. Education is therefore implicated in, as Phillipson described it, “stifling local languages and imposing alien tongues and values.” (p. 28) The implicit understanding of monolingualism as the norm and bilingualism or multilingualism as aberrant is contrary to the language situation in many countries of the world. Monolingual teaching is one of five tenets adopted, Phillipson claimed, by the English Language Teaching (ELT) field that originated in core English-speaking countries, and which are still prevalent in English language teaching worldwide. Phillipson’s complete list is as follows:
• English is best taught monolingually.
• The ideal teacher of English is a native speaker.
• The earlier English is taught, the better the results.
• The more English is taught, the better the results.
• If other languages are used much, standards of English will drop.
(p. 185)

Phillipson called these tenets into question and recast them as fallacies.

There have been three broad and related objections to linguistic imperialism. They can be called the micro-social objection, the world Englishes/appropriation objection, and the political objection. They will now be examined in turn.

Sri Lankan scholar A. Suresh Canagarajah did not object to Phillipson’s thesis as such. However, he pointed out its limitations in his book, Resisting Linguistic Imperialism in English Teaching, and related work. (Canagajarah, 1999a, 1999b) Canagarajah argued that Phillipson, as a representative of the center, could provide only a macro-level perspective on linguistic imperialism that did not represent the situation from the point of view of the periphery, nor the lived experience of those struggling with English in the periphery. Phillipson’s view from the center assumed a reproduction orientation on power: that the power structure, comprising a powerful center and a weaker periphery, was maintained in part through language, teaching materials, methodologies, and institutions. Canagarajah claimed that this view was too deterministic; it ignored the complexity of the foreign language learning environments of the periphery, including the varying cultures, teacher and student agendas, and the socio-political background, in which the individuals in those situations might resist linguistic imperialism. “At the micro-social level of the classroom, then,” Canagajarah argued, “teachers and students enjoy some agency to question, negotiate, and resist power.” (1999a, p. 211) Using a largely ethnographic research approach, he showed how Sri Lankan university students in some cases rejected English, for example by pushing the teacher to use Tamil, and in other cases appropriated English in various ways for self-empowerment, such as tactical code-switching, or defacing donated English textbooks as an assertion of their identity or to subvert the ‘hidden curriculum’ of the American textbook. Though modest, such negotiation at the local level is a step in resisting power, according to Canagajarah. In contrast to a reproduction model of education which relies on a deterministic view of mental conditioning in students to serve dominant social institutions and groups, Canagajarah focused on what he called, “resistance theories (that) explain how there are sufficient contradictions within institutions to help subjects gain agency, conduct critical thinking, and initiate change.” (Canagajarah, 1999b, p. 22) The maintenance of existing power structures is, in the micro-social view, not guaranteed.

A variation on Canagajarah’s resistance theory is what Sonntag (2009) calls linguistic cosmopolitanism. Rejecting the structural determination of linguistic imperialism theory, whereby individuals are depicted as being at the mercy of a dominant global structure, linguistic cosmopolitanism takes the individual as the unit of analysis, and views the individual as autonomous and capable of seeking the good life, trading if necessary his or her identity with a particular culture and engaging with ‘the Other’ in a creative way to empower themselves and fulfill their aspirations. By implication, learners of English are not dominated, as in the linguistic imperialism view, but appropriate language on their own terms, and in a way that, according to Sonntag, “frees culture and language from geographical boundedness.” (p. 16)

Uysal et al. (2007) illustrate how local level situations and processes can influence the level of English dominance. They show that while English has a dominant role in primary school curricula in three expanding circle countries – Turkey, Latvia, an France - factors such as a lack of well-equipped teachers in Turkey, a reaction against Russification in Latvia, and strong public support of English in spite of government efforts to promote other languages in France, serve to encourage or disrupt the spread of English in an unplanned way. They conclude: “contrary to Phillipson’s (1997) claims about the hegemonic expansion of English in Europe resulting in linguistic imperialism, at least at primary level in these three countries, English spread did not seem to amount to linguistic imperialism or linguistic marginalisation of native languages.” (Uysal et al., 2007, p. 203)
The second objection to linguistic imperialism as an explanation for the spread of English can be labeled the world Englishes/appropriation objection, which connects activity at the local level with empowerment through the creation of new varieties of English and gives learners access to new opportunities. The phenomenon of empowerment through the rise of world Englishes (or in Strevens’ (1992) formulation, localized forms of English) has been widely recognized by many linguists. (Crystal, 2003) Ferguson described how ‘control’ of a language can pass from its original native speakers to those to whom the language has spread. “This process is just beginning in English,” he claimed. (Ferguson, 1992, p. xvi) Kachru (1992a) argued that English is adopted because of the status it may bestow on those who know the language, or on the opportunities it opens up to those who learn it.

Fishman (1992) averred, stating that the spread of English was no longer simply promoted by Britain and the U.S., but that it was being actively fostered by non-English-mother-tongue countries in both the Third World and in developed countries. Pennycook (2009) drew attention to the paradox between English as a key to the economic success of nations and their peoples, as well as its contribution to social, political and economic inequality. He acknowledged that people desire English strongly, and that this desire “may be linked to a yearning for particular lifestyles, bodies, images, discourses, and identities.” (p. 87) McKay (2003) pointed out that “many individuals learn English not because English is promoted by English-speaking countries, but rather because these individuals want access to scientific and technological information, international organizations, global economic trade, and higher education.” (p. 4) Strevens (1992) claimed that the desire for English among non-native English speakers meant the end of the role of English “as an instrument of subservience.” (p. 30)

For Widdowson (2003), the transfer of control and the creation of World Englishes formed a basis for challenging the linguistic imperialism theory. Widdowson argued that proficiency in a language is not about conforming to a set of standard rules; rather, he stated, “you are proficient in a language to the extent that you possess it, make it your own, bend it to your will, assert yourself through it rather than simply submit to the dictates of its form.” (p. 42) He went on to argue that no nation now has ‘ownership’ of English; learners the world over are taking possession of the language and creating new varieties. This view, however, runs up against the prevailing dominance of native-speaker norms in the core English-speaking countries’ educational practices. Building on this argument, Widdowson called into question Phillipson’s linguistic imperialism theory. The theory is built on the assumption that the English language has ‘spread’ from core countries to periphery countries, and that this idea of ‘spread’ implies that the thing spread (English in this case) remains intact. Language though, according to Widdowson, “does not travel well because it is fundamentally unstable.” (ibid., p. 46) He continued,
One might accept the conspiracy theory that there was an intention to use
English to dominate, but the assumption that the intention was successful,
which is often taken as a necessary corollary, is based on the concept of
the language as an invariant code with communication as the simple
transmission of encoded messages by ideal speaker-listeners in homogeneous
speech communities. (ibid., p. 46)

Widdowson did not deny the fact of imperialism itself; he did, however, argue that because of its inherent mutability and its adaptation by those who learn it, language itself cannot be imperialistic. Hence, the term linguistic imperialism is a misnomer.

To be sure, Phillipson himself acknowledged the rise of world Englishes, whereby periphery-English countries – such as India, Singapore, and West Africa - establish their own norms, but saw this as a reason to break away from dependence on the norms of core English countries rather than as a denial of linguistic imperialism itself. (1992, p. 198)

The third type of objection to linguistic imperialism took issue with what was seen as Phillipson’s political agenda. Crystal (2003) viewed Phillipson’s account of the global dominance of English as “anachronistic.” (p. 23) He acknowledged that the global spread of English is related to the political and economic power of the countries where it is spoken as a first language, but argued in favor of English as a global lingua franca, and while he recognized his own good fortune in being a native speaker of the language, also claimed that his own book “has not been written according to any political agenda,” (ibid., p. xv) Crystal acknowledged the possibility that global inequality could arise from differential access to the global language, but he argued that it could be minimized by the teaching of English as a foreign language to children starting in the first year of compulsory education.

Crystal’s criticism of Phillipson’s thesis was the first shot fired in academic skirmish between them, which continued in the pages of the journal Applied Linguistics. Phillipson’s (1999) review of the first edition of Crystal’s English as a Global Language, he accused Crystal of having a political agenda, of failure to bring a social science perspective to the topic, of ‘invisibilizing’ oppressed peoples in his narrative, of being Eurocentric and triumphalist, and of failing to recognize the role of English in upholding the global power structure. Phillipson drew on Japanese scholar Yukio Tsuda’s distinction between a diffusion of English paradigm, espoused, in Phillipson’s view, by Crystal, and an ecology of language paradigm. Phillipson argued that the former uncritically endorses, “capitalism, its science and technology, a modernization ideology, monolingualism as a norm, ideological globalization and internationalization, transnationalization, the Americanization and homogenization of world culture, linguistic, cultural and media imperialism.” (p. 274) The ecology of language paradigm, on the other hand, incorporates, according to Phillipson, “a human rights perspective, equality in communication, multilingualism, the maintenance of language and cultures, the protection of national sovereignties, and the promotion of foreign language education.” (ibid.)

In his response, Crystal (2000) charged Phillipson with being one-sided, ideologically-fueled, having a political mindset, and attempting to create a stereotype. The acerbic dialogue between Phillipson and Crystal might be interpreted as mere name-calling and fault-finding, but it does capture the different outlooks that scholars bring to the problems of the spread of English: what one may regard as a good faith attempt to objectively describe and explain the phenomenon by scholars in English-speaking countries, the other may insist that all such attempts are of necessity political in nature and should be called into question. The facts themselves are generally not in dispute: it is the way they are described, the connotations of the vocabulary used, whose side of the story is foregrounded, and how one side of the debate views the other, that are at issue. Because of this, the discourse of the debate can itself become the subject of debate: for example, a teacher and students in a graduate seminar in World Languages at Purdue University argued that Phillipson himself had a hegemonic agenda in that his rhetorical style sought to dominate readers by telling them what to believe, rather than allowing readers to form their own conclusions (Berns et al., 1998, 1999). The criticism was about authorial voice and intention, rather than the factual content of Phillipson’s book.

Clearly, Phillipson’s work was controversial and gave rise to numerous objections. Yet linguistic imperialism theory has informed much thought and practice in language planning and English language teaching. In these areas, linguistic imperialism is generally regarded as a force to be overcome. What follows is a review of some of a sample of the literature in these areas.
Crystal (1987) described language planning as “the creation and implementation of an official policy about how the languages and linguistic varieties of a country are to be used.” (p. 364) As an example, Fishman (1992) demonstrated how indigenous languages can be afforded special protection against English by national governments. For example, in the Philippines, the use of English as a medium of instruction in school is limited to mathematics and the natural sciences, considered to be “ethnically less encumbered,” while Philippino has replaced English in the bulk of the rest of the curriculum – in “ethnically more encumbered subjects” such as history and civics. (p. 21)

Troudi’s (2009) study illustrates how English can displace a major national language. He describes how in the Middle East and the Gulf, English is pushing Arabic into “a minor role in post-secondary education,” (p. 95) because of its use as the medium of instruction in the natural and human sciences, and that additionally, English is being introduced at ever earlier stages of elementary and secondary education. While the twenty university students interviewed in Troudi’s study agreed that studying the sciences through English improved their competitiveness and employability, English also became, according to Troudi, “a challenge and sometimes a burden or an obstacle instead of a medium,” (p. 95) and further that the practice of studying in English resulted in “two sides to the participants’ linguistic identity: the cultural, maintained through Arabic, and the scientific, which is maintained through English.” (p. 96) Habbash (2009), exploring the same phenomenon with a focus on Saudi Arabia, acknowledged the association of English with “modernity, high quality life, technology, science, career, success, etc.” (p. 97) while raising concerns about the potential threat posed to Arabic as a language of instruction. Describing as Troudi did the reach of English not only into higher education but as far as the first grade of compulsory education, he argued that, “such increased reliance on English in the absence of empirical research will not best serve the future of Saudi English language learners nor will it safeguard their Islamic values and cultural heritage.” (pp. 96-97) Both Troudi and Habbash draw on their research findings to recommend the strengthening of Arabic language education in their respective countries.

The example of Nigeria illustrates language planning in a country where English exists alongside a number of other languages, no single one of which is the national standard. English is used as the official medium of instruction in Nigeria, against a backdrop of around 400 indigenous languages, including three that are recognized as national languages – Hausa, Igbo, and Yoruba. (Adegbija, 2004; Jibowo, 2009) Adegbija described the role of English as an elite language since colonial times, and its dominance today in the media, business practices and technology transfer, the internet, and in public education, where it is introduced in the first years and is required for entry into and graduation from higher education institutions. He argued for proactive language policies which would mandate, for example, the use of indigenous languages in the media and government. He summarized the problem and the challenge thus:

English is thus largely a minority language monopolised by the elite, and the policy of its
use as Nigeria’s official language has resulted in the exclusion of the masses from
participation in national affairs. A major challenge for language policy is thus to
make it possible for the masses to participate in the national scheme of things
without proficiency in English. (Adegbija, 2004, p. 214)

Jibowo’s (2009) study of 300 Nigerian undergraduate students illustrates the challenge in gaining support for such policy. He found that over 50% agreed with the continuing use of English in schools, with only a negligible number against. Respondents commented on the need for English to understand scientific and technological concepts, and on its value as an international lingua franca. Unlike in the Arabic countries, in multilingual Nigeria no other language than English was considered suitable as a national language that could unify the Nigerian people. In spite of perceptions of the need for English, Jibowo pointed out that many students wished this were not the case because of “the difficulty they encounter in learning English language in schools.” (p. 99) This difficulty echoes Troudi’s finding that English can be an obstacle to learning, and is confirmed by Bamgbose, who described Nigerian students “fall(ing) by the wayside simply because of English, which is a compulsory subject.” (Bamgbose, 2001, p. 361)

The current situation in South Korea is described by Shim (2009). The administration of President Lee Myung-bak has set forth a plan to strengthen the teaching of English in public schools through Teaching English in English (TEE). The plan includes hiring thousands of new teachers who are qualified to teach TEE, providing in-service training for current teachers, and offering financial aid to teacher training colleges that hire native English speaking lecturers. Shim discusses the pros and cons of this policy across four areas: economic (the plan as a waste of national resources versus opening up the nation to globalization); educational/developmental (negative versus positive effects of introducing foreign language teaching too early in childrens’ lives); national identity (threat to the national identity versus the view that national identity in the modern world is, in Shim’s words, “complex, fluid, and at times contradictory” (p. 109)); and social conflict (escalation of social inequality through access to English versus the opening up of access to English to all through public school teaching). Shim is persuaded that the arguments in favor of the administration’s plan win out in the public debate, but raises concerns about a number of critical issues that were overlooked, among them: the increased reliance on the American English model, American English speakers, and American textbooks; the availability of American English on the internet, making its presence in the classroom unnecessary; and the marginalization of teachers and students who are not able to become proficient in, or who disagree with TEE and the American English model. Shim ends by making a case for critical pedagogy which would teach students to resist domination by American English, and the teaching of world Englishes, emphasizing the use of English as a lingua franca among non-native speakers as opposed to a tool for communicating with Americans.

In the context of the teaching of English in European countries, Mondiano argued that native speaker varieties are carriers of ideology, specifically that:
British English promotes systems of exclusion and marginalization, of class
stratification and the preserving of traditional ways of living and thinking,
while American English represents a New World hegemony insensitive to how
US mass-produced culture and aggressive multi-national corporate programs
impact on both developed and developing nations. (2001a, p. 169)
Such ideologies, like soldiers in the Trojan horse, colonize learners’ minds and negatively impact upon the learners’ “cultural integrity.” (p. 159) Mondiano’s answer, which he claimed is the responsibility of applied linguists, practitioners, and language planners, is to promote English as an International Language (EIL), a neutral variety of English that is stripped of the ideological baggage of nationality and is “in harmony with the spirit of the international movement.” (p. 171)

In another paper, Mondiano (2001b) took up the argument that many of the world’s English learners will not have any need to use the language for communication with core-country native speakers, but with other non-native English speakers. Increasingly, cultural artifacts such as music and film are being produced in English in periphery countries by non-native speakers. Kachru’s concentric circle model of English speakers becomes irrelevant as the center of gravity shifts toward non-native English speakers, and English becomes, in Mondiano’s words, “simply a utilitarian communicative tool, one which allows the non-native user to retain, to the greatest degree possible, their distinctive cultural characteristics,” (p. 344) and thus avoid becoming “coerced into conforming to a nation-state centred view, as opposed to an international frame of reference.” (p. 340)

English as an International Language, otherwise known as English as a Lingua Franca (ELF) (Jenkins, 2007) may appear to present a solution to the problem of linguistic imperialism, but runs into its own problems, not least of which is that the decision as to what constitutes such a variety of English needs to be defined, and thus far those most interested in the project are scholars from the Inner Circle countries such as McKay (2003), Mondiano, and Jenkins, which potentially opens EIL itself up to charges of linguistic imperialism. Further, merely attempting to pin down what would be the agreed-upon features of such a variety is also problematic, though Jenkins has attempted to do this in the area of pronunciation (Jenkins, 2000). Another problem is the contradiction that exists between the process of appropriation described above, whereby a number of Englishes emerge and serve national and local purposes, and the proposal that English should be a lingua franca, a shared means of communication for people around the world. Even if mutual intelligibility can be achieved among the varieties, it is unclear whether the speakers of different varieties – and in particular those of the Inner Circle countries - will find other national forms acceptable, such as prepone in Indian English (Widdowson, 2003), or the outgone president in Nigerian and Ghanaian Englishes (Bamgbose, 2001), in addition to stylistic, grammatical, pragmatic, and phonological variations. As Strevens (1992) has pointed out, some users of English may speak and write varieties of English that do not conform to one of the (Inner Circle) standard forms, and that many native English speakers – including English language teachers – “overtly or unconsciously despise these varieties,” (p. 37) Such an attitude may be perceived by those non-native speakers as “arrogant, imperialist, and insulting.” (ibid.) McKay (2003) argues in fact that English has not become de-nationalized, but re-nationalized, as speakers in varying locales have appropriated the language and created new forms and usages. Finally, it is not clear whether learners of English around the world will in fact aspire to learning a variety of English that is removed from at least one of the Inner Circle cultures with which it is associated.

As can be inferred from the above survey of the literature, linguistic imperialism and its critics focus on the position of English in what Kachru described as the Outer Circle and Expanding Circle countries. There appears to be little if any work on English teaching or the teaching of international students in the Inner Circle countries that makes reference to the theory, yet travel to those countries for the purpose of study is an aspect of cultural imperialism, or even the “educational imperialism” (Phillipson, 1992, p. 58) with which linguistic imperialism is associated; and the students traveling to the Inner Circle come from countries where questions of linguistic imperialism, resistance, and world Englishes are being played out. It seems impossible to deny the connection between the issues surveyed above and international students in the U.S. higher education, and yet it is also challenging to make a case for linguistic imperialism when students have voluntarily come to the U.S. to study.

Nevertheless, I believe that the themes explored above can inform research in U.S. higher education which is grounded in critical pedagogy theory. According to McLaren (2008), critical theory conceives of culture as “a set of practices, values, and ideologies from which different groups draw and make sense of the world.” (p. 74) A dominant culture determines the prevailing practices, ideologies, and values, within and around which subordinate cultures struggle to express their own cultural meanings. They do this through hegemony, a process whereby the dominant culture creates “consensual social practices,” (ibid., p. 76) in institutions such as schools, rather than by means of force. Because of the ‘default’ nature of the dominant culture’s ideology, practices, and values, to reject these is seen as unusual or rebellious.

Through this lens, the higher education institution can be seen as the meeting point of a dominant linguistic group and various subordinate groups. Expectations around accuracy of language, the use of English only, conformity to American English norms, and so on may be part of the institution’s culture which international students, as well as those belonging to other groups such as U.S. language minorities, have had no say in creating. It may be argued that international students should not expect to have had any say in the creation of American educational practices, and this is of course true; but it does not change the fact that these students, recruited into U.S. institutions, must then negotiate the prevailing culture, including its expectations around language, in order to be successful. As an example, an instructor may expect international students’ English to be free of grammar errors and to conform stylistically with the American norm. A world Englishes/linguistic imperialism view of this might ask whether such an expectation is realistic, given the fact the student has learned English as a foreign or second language, and in a country where the American standard was not the model, or where English was learned primarily for purposes of communication within that country. This gives rise to the questions of whether there should be tolerance of different varieties of English, or whether such varieties are viewed as deficient, as well as who makes such decisions and on what basis. In grounding research in critical pedagogy, and bringing themes of linguistic imperialism and world Englishes to bear, it might be possible to gain insight into the varying perceptions that instructors, international students, and their American classmates hold – implicitly and explicitly - with regard to English. Phillipson described as one of his main objectives, “to influence people from my own group in the Centre, in the hope that they will reconsider their role, their cherished methodologies, and their political ‘detachment.’” (Phillipson, 1996, p. 163) I believe that qualitative research in a U.S. higher education institution informed by (if not necessarily embracing in their entirety) linguistic imperialism theory and world Englishes would be an innovative and fruitful way to encourage such reflection with a view to developing institutional language policies that take account of the international students experience. I would expect such an attempt, like Phillipson’s book, to arouse controversy and disagreement.


References

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