The Ideology of English: French Perceptions of English as a World Language [Reprint 2013 ed.] 9783110848120, 9783110115499

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The Ideology of English

Contributions to the Sociology of Language

49

Editor

Joshua A. Fishman

Mouton de Gruyter Berlin · New York · Amsterdam

The Ideology of English French Perceptions of English as a World Language

by

Jeffra Haitz

Mouton de Gruyter Berlin · New York · Amsterdam 1988

Mouton de Gruyter Berlin (formerly Mouton, The Hague) is a Division of Walter de Gruyter & Co., Berlin.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Flaitz Jeffra, 1955The ideology of English : French perceptions of English as a world language / by Jeffra Flaitz. p. cm - (Contributions to the sociology of language : 49) Bibliography: p. Includes index. ISBN 0-89925433-0 (alk. paper) 1. English language-Foreign countries. 2. English languageInfluence on French. 3. English language-Study and teachingFrench speakers. 4. English language-France-Public opinion. 5. Language policy-France-Public opinion. 6. French language-Foreign elements-English-Public opinion. 7. Public opinion-France. I. Title. II. Series. PE2751.F55 1988 420.8941-dc 19 88-11981

Deutsche Bibliothek Cataloging-in-Publication Data Flaitz, Jeffra: The ideology of English : French perceptions of English as a world language / by Jeffra Haitz. - Berlin ; New York ; Amsterdam : Mouton de Gruyter, 1988 (Contributions to the sociology of language ; 49) ISBN 3-11-011549-2 NE: GT

Printed on acid free paper.

© Copyright 1988 by Walter de Gruyter & Co., Berlin. All rights reserved, including those of translation into foreign languages. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form - by photoprint, microfilm, or any other means - nor transmitted nor translated into a machine language without written permission from Mouton de Gruyter, a Division of Walter de Gruyter & Co., Berlin. Typsetting: Asian Research Service, Hong Kong. - Printing: Gerike GmbH, Berlin. Binding: Dieter Mikolai, Berlin. - Printed in Germany.

This work is dedicated to my best friend and closest colleague my husband, Wayne Northcutt.

Preface The truism that I appreciate most in both my professional and private life is the one which asserts that few things in this world are genuinely either black or white but are instead a fusion of the two, rendering uncountable shades of grey. Whether we are gossiping about personal relationships, arguing politics, or trying to diagnose an illness, we often find the solutions to our problems to be far from pure and simple, but rather to be heavily influenced, and thus significantly complicated, by seemingly "extraneous" matters. Many times consideration of such contextual elements enhances our understanding and appreciation of a problem or topic, thereby prompting growth and discovery. It may also create or deepen a sense of wonder at the exquisite interplay of the ideas, events, and other phenomena in our lives. International English is a choice example of a phenomenon subject to the black-white dichotomy. While its utilitarian merits are beyond question, those of us who gravitate toward the shades of grey strongly suspect that this rapidly spreading international lingua franca must be more than a wonderful, but uni-dimensional tool, for few things in life are truly "pure and simple", and language particularly is no exception. Therefore, what I have done in this book is to take an interdisciplinary approach to the question of the ideological content of International English; combining my strong interest in international politics with my life-long love of language has both indulged my emotional tie to my work as a scholar and has satisfied what I consider to be an essential criterion for good research, which is to consider the context, to explore the shades of grey. There are a number of people to whom I owe special recognition for helping me develop and enjoy an interdisciplinary project of this nature. The late Dr. Anthony Papalia, a specialist in the teaching of foreign language culture at SUNY/Buffalo, gave me and my research his undivided attention. He also provided me with generous amounts of encouragement and acted as an excellent model for how to proceed through the research process in a tightly organized and efficient manner. Drs. Stephen Dunnett (Director of SUNY/Buffalo's Intensive English Language Institute), and Paul Garvin (Professor of Lin-

viii

guistics at SUNY/Buffalo), as well as political scientist Dr. Nancy McGlen-Gadawski from Niagara University gave generously of their time in offering me the perspectives of scholars engaged in a variety of fields related to my research. I would also like to acknowledge the contribution of anthropologist Frada Naroll who worked one-on-one with me as this study began to germinate. She guided me through a joyous anthropological study of France that deepened my understanding of and appreciation for the culture I was about to enter as a researcher. The assistance and support of others, too, proved essential in producing this work. To these friends I am more grateful than this brief acknowledgement can express: Jagdish Agrawal, Connie Capisto-Borde, Hélène Courbon, Mike Dryden, Ambuj Jain, Cécile Langlet, Hervé de Lanversin, Sheila Malovany-Chevallier, Maya Salvadó, Ariel Shidlo, and the Interlibrary Loan staff at Lockwood Memorial Library. Last, but most certainly not least, I owe very special thanks to my husband, Dr. Wayne Northcutt, for his patience, confidence, and interest and for re-introducing me to France, fascinatingly "grey"

Jeffra Flaitz Paris 1987

Contents Preface

vii

List of Tables

xii

List of Figures

xiv

Chapter One: Introduction Background Need for the study Statement of problem Hypotheses and related research questions Definition of terms

1 2 9 12 13 14

Chapter Two: The theoretical context Diffusion Causes Processes Attitudes Asia/Southeast Asia Middle East North America Western Europe Language and culture/ideology

17 18 20 30 37 38 43 46 47 51

Chapter Three: The diffusion of English in France Language borrowing Education Primary and secondary education Continuing education Media Television Cinema Radio Press Science

59 60 62 63 68 71 72 74 82 86 90

χ Business and industry Foreign specialists Employment announcements Chapter Four: The defense of French — authority's response to the spread of English Content analysis of subjective oratory Loss of prestige Linguistic corruption Ideological colonization Legislation Chapter Five: French attitudes toward English — "les gens qui passent" Qualitative : Method Subjects Materials and procedures Qualitative: Results Findings and discussion Transcript of interview with SI (Courbon) Transcript of interview with S2 (Langlet) Transcript of interview with S3 (de Lanversin) Transcript of interview with S4 (Salvado) Quantitative: Method Subjects Variables Materials: Instrument Validity Reliability Procedures Survey questionnaire Questionnaire response guide Quantitative: Results Findings and discussion

95 95 98

103 103 105 106 107 111

119 121 121 122 124 124 125 135 139 143 149 149 154 154 156 156 158 158 163 166 166

xi Chapter Six:

Summary Summary of results Discussion of conclusions Implications for the profession Implications for further research

189 189 198 201 203

Appendix: Etiemble text stimulus

205

References

207

Index

223

List of Tables 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28

Regions where English is used as a primary language 7 Regions where English is used as a second language 7 Regions where English is used as a foreign language 8 Books published in English and French ( 1984) 8 Estimated number of European secondary school students in English classes ( 1971 ) 9 Estimated number of speakers of six European languages in millions (1500-1926) 22 Number of English and French speaking trade nations to % of world imports - pre-WWI to 1974 27 % of anglicisms used in nine subject categories of the germanophone press 36 Distribution (%) of students studying a modern language (first choice) in France 65 Distribution of teachers by language and type of institution (1982-1983) 66 Foreign teaching assistants in French schools 66 French schools with bilingual sections 67 Comparison of language students to foreign imports 68 English word count on French television 74 Foreign films in the Paris region (June 1985) 76 Foreign films in the Paris region (July 1985) 77 Foreign films in the Paris region (August 1985) 78 Composite of foreign films in the Paris region (summer 1985) 79 Foreign films appearing regionally in France (July 1985) 80 French students enrolled in English classes by city ( 1984) 81 Foreign language used on French radio 84 English on French morning radio programming 86 Occurrence of English in Le Monde (September 1984 August 1985) 87 Books imported and translated into French ( 1968-1969 and 1978-1979) 89 Knowledge of foreign languages among French scientists 92 Foreign language titles in the Bulletin signalètique 93 Citations made by nine major scientists 93 Foreign specialists in French industry (1982) 97

xiìì 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53

Foreign language demand in French employment ads 99 Distribution of demand for foreign language skills across professions 100 Titles of books on the defense of French 104 Terms to avoid/terms recommended 114 Descriptive information for subject pool (ethnographic investigation) 122 Characterization of Courbon (SI) interview 134 Characterization of Langlet (S2) interview 138 Characterization of de Lanversin (S3) interview 142 Characterization of Salvado (S4) interview 146 Distribution of sample by location 150 Population of cities included in study 151 Descriptive information for subject pool (quantitative investigation) 152 Factor analysis over ideology items 164 Squared correlations of factors and ideology variables 165 Frequencies for attitude items 1-10 concerning ideology, culture, and people 167 Frequencies for attitude items 11-20 concerning ideology, culture, and people 168 Means and standard deviations for attitude items 1-10 concerning ideology, culture, and people 169 Means and standard deviations for attitude items 11-20 concerning ideology, culture, and people 170 Frequencies for language attitude items 172 Means and standard deviations for language attitude items 173 Semantic-differential profiles: American and British English 173 Frequencies, means, and standard deviations for motivation items 175 Canonical correlation of four factors and language variables 178 Significance of correlations between ideology variables and demographic variables 181 Significance of correlations between language variables and demographic variables 182

List of Figures 1 2 3 4 5 6

Kachru's concentric circle model of English diffusion Diffusion processes of English and Italian in France Process of linguistic decay C.-J. Bailey's wave model of diffusion Distribution of industries with foreign participation by country of origin English on commercial signs in Paris

31 32 34 34 96 117

Chapter One

Introduction La supériorité du français à époque . . . c'était d'abord celle d'une France unifiée, centralisée, surpeuplée, dynamique et impérialiste. Celle de l'anglais d'aujourdhiti n'est pas une nature différente ... Jacques Cellard (1981)

The extent to which the English language as it is used and encountered today in France is encumbered by ideological nuances has not been empirically established. Traditionally, language specialists have argued that any given language and its culture are inseparable; indeed, the notion of a culturally neutral language would most certainly seem ludicrous to the vast majority of researchers involved in the fields of cultural anthropology and social linguistics. Nevertheless, a number of prominent scholars, including Yeshiva University sociolinguist Joshua Fishman, have recently begun to observe a trend, international in scope, in which English as an International Lingua Franca appears to be shedding its cultural and ideological association with English-speaking nations. No studies have been conducted whereby attitudes toward the English language are directly measured against attitudes toward Anglo-American ideology, although a 1982 study by Pierson, Fu, and Lee included an examination of reactions to several statements which articulated a link between study of English and deteriorating national or ethnic identity. Several other studies which examine attitudes toward English in general have revealed the display of very little affect at all towards English (Shaw 1981 ; Cooper - Seckbach, 1977; Cooper - Fishman 1977; Fishman 1977a, 1977b; Fishman - Cooper - Rosenbaum 1977). This observation has prompted Fishman to suggest that English as an International Lingua Franca may well be ideologically neutral, a claim that runs contrary to established perceptions of the close relationship between a language and its cultural counterpart. France serves as a highly relevant case in point for determining

2 Introduction whether the English language, widely used and encountered in a country whose own language once occupied the linguistic throne of preeminence, can function as a modern tool for communication and technology in absence of any ideological or cultural influence. In its own heyday, namely in the 16th-l 9th centuries, the French language was touted and consciously promoted as a vehicle of French culture and ideology. France was, it is well known, a powerful and advanced nation at the time. The French language, moreover, was said to have a "mission civilisatrice". In a word, the association between French language and ideology was not only recognized, but openly accepted, justified, and exploited. Today, amid the still resounding din of claims concerning French cultural and linguistic superiority, efforts are underway by scholars and governmental officials alike to minimize the influence and use of English, the world's newest international lingua franca, in France. Why? The answer may lie in the belief that the English language, like French in an earlier era, carries with it cultural conventions and ideological values characteristic of Anglo culture. Be it British or American, English-speaking culture is both different from and, to many, in conflict with French culture. Just as French was once seen as the "mirror, tool, and weapon" (Kelling 1975) of le hexagone, English may now be perceived as the agent of an "adversary" ideology. The purpose of the research reported in the following pages, therefore, was to determine whether English as a Lingua Franca in France is indeed devoid of ideological content, or if France, itself the home of a former lingua franca which was once unabashedly hailed as a powerful ideological force, proves otherwise. Examining this issue is tantamount to once again exploring the as yet unestablished link between language and culture.

Background The rise and fall of French as an International Lingua Franca: English waiting in the wings of history In the year 1780, the President of the United States, John Adams, made a prediction that, in retrospect, established him as a man of vision. He declared: "English is destined to be in the next and succeeding centuries more generally the language of the world

Background 3 than Latin was in the last, or French in the present age" (quoted by Kachru 1982b:229). Undoubtedly the French did not take Adams's proclamation too seriously. France by that time, after all, had long been established as a prosperous and influential nation — more so than the fledgling and newly-independent United States — and French was traditionally accepted as the prestige language for the court, international diplomacy, and culture both at home and abroad. Historian J.M. Roberts (1983:691) writes of this period: What happened in France was bound to matter elsewhere . .. France was also the cultural leader of Europe. What her writers and politicians said and did was immediately accessible to people elsewhere because of the universality of the French language, and it was bound to be given respectful attention because people were in the habit of looking to Paris for intellectual guidance. Thus did the French language vicariously gain prestige; it was the language of Europe's most powerful and prestigeous court under Louis XIV, later served as the linguistic vehicle of the Enlightenment in the 18th century, and in the years spanning the French Revolution (1789-1815) carried the principles of a new social order to the rest of the world. Those who wished to share the glory hastened to master the French language, the symbol of French hegemony, or even to adopt it at the expense of the mother tongue as a way to gain closer proximity to the most favored nation. The Russian aristocracy, for instance, spoke French often to the total exclusion of Russian. The famous Russian poet Pushkin, in fact, depended upon his old peasant nurse to secretly teach him the language of his motherland. Frederick II of Prussia also spoke French, as did Catherine the Great. In addition, it is said that the letters of the Prince of Ligne, Casanova, Grimm, the Abby Galiani, Walpole, and Joseph II were all written "in the best French" (le Cornee 1981:83). France's political hegemony in the 16th-l 9th centuries contributed both to the spread and prestige of the French language and also to its enduring legacy. At the climax of French efflorescence, notions about the intrinsic superiority of the French language were propagated by René Descartes and other philosophes, reaching mythological proportions that to this day have barely been diminished. Claims that French alone possessed the qualities of clarté, brièvtè, pureté, politesse, and naïveté and that these characteristics were a reflection of a superior culture constituted the basis of French propaganda. The following quotations, recorded

4 Introduction at two different junctures in French history, illustrate the timelessness of the myth of the natural superiority of the French language. In 1770, we hear the Abby Raynal in his Histoire philosophique proclaim: . . si ce [le français] n'est pas le langage des Dieux, c'est celui de la raison et de la vérité"(quoted by le Cornee 1981:45). Two hundred years later, a 1970 edition of the mini-encyclopedia series Que sais-jel reveals the monotonously strong drumbeat of the same propaganda. Jacques le Cornee (1981:47), author of Quand le français perd son latin, paraphrases Que sais-je author Guiraud : [Si] . . . "l'anglais, l'allemand, ou le russe sont poètes â bien moindres frais . . . c'est que la méthode du français est très subtile" et qu'il est "le produit rare et délicieux d'une terre avare, le fruit d'une très patiente et très savante culture."

Such sentiments have often been shared by non-native speakers of French, too. Sengalese President Leopold L. Senghor sees French as the "merveilleux instrument trouvé dans les décombres du régime colonial" (.Projet culturel extérieur 1983:28). In 1965 he wrote: Le français, ce sont les grandes orgues qui se prêtent á tous les timbres. Il est, tour á tour ou en même temps, flûte, hautbois, trompette, tam-tam et cannon. Il est la langue des Dieux, (quoted by le Cornee 1981:45)

For Senghor, a poet as well as a politician, not even the humiliation of colonial occupation has dampened his enthusiasm for the French language. France's claim as la grande nation and its language as la langue des Dieux, however, has for some time begun to ring empty to the rest of the world. A look at contemporary France in 1986 reveals why. France today is a nation that over the past two hundred years has lost considerable ground — both literally and metaphorically speaking. Factors such as France's soaring debt accumulated by her attempt, beginning in the 17th century, to ensure French supremacy in Europe and on the high seas, the growth of the German population in the latter half of the 19th century and consequently of the strength of its army, and the rising fortunes of the neophyte United States, to mention a few, all contributed significantly to France's decline in power and influence. In 1736,

Background S for example, Great Britain won possession of formerly French territory in Canada. In 1803 France sold its Louisiana territory, consisting of the area between the Mississippi River and the Rocky Mountains, to the United States for $11,250,000. France was soundly defeated in the Franco-Prussian War of 1870-71, was crippled by the Great Depression of the 1930s, and again was defeated and rapidly taken siege by Nazi German forces during World War II. In the 1950s and 1960s, its former African and Indo-Chinese colonies demanded independence. Within no time at all, it seemed, France had been de-throned and in its colonies cries of "français, langue d'esclave" could be heard. French imperialism was a thing of the past and the vehicle of its message, the French language, declined in value and prestige accordingly. French thus ceded its status to English. Perhaps the most obvious domain in which English was seen to supplant French was in the language of treaties. The 1887 Triple Alliance (Germany, Austria, and Italy) still deferred to the legacy of French by publishing its pact in that language despite the fact that France was itself the underdog in the agreement. But by 1919 the Treaty of Versailles appeared in both French and English, the 1921 Naval Conference of Washington established English as its sole working language, the Treaty of San Francisco (1945) with Japan appeared entirely in English and the first two versions only of the 1947 Treaty of Paris with Germany were written in Russian and French, in addition to English. While once French functioned as the only recognized lingua franca for international diplomatic purposes, today it shares equal status as a working language of the United Nations along with English, Spanish, Russian, Arabic, and Chinese. It occupies twelfth place in total number of native speakers (98 million French speakers compared to over 300 million English speakers and 834 million speakers of Chinese), and in its use as a foreign or second language is largely confined to areas of former colonial domination (le Cornee 1981:41). As was mentioned earlier, the French continue to see in their language a greatness and universality that many others now fail to perceive. Instead, French is widely regarded as a beautiful but somewhat superfluous tongue compared to English which is rarely credited with greatness but often with usefulness and dynamism. Fishman, Cooper, and Conrad (1977:335) explain the decline of French by arguing that it was unable to fall in step with the times.

6 Introduction It [French] remained primarily elitist and esthetic in functional orientation in a century in which the world turned increasingly toward massification and technological modernization — two processes in which Francophonie was hardly outstanding. The fall of a lingua franca, such as French, is just as natural as its rise. Even in the second millennium B.C. Sumerian lost its influence to Akkadian as a result of the siege by Hammurabi of Babylon. The language, in a word, lost its cultural/political base and thus its medium of momentum. Greek, too, gave way to Latin beginning in 149-146 B.C. when Rome took over Macedonia and most of Greece. And Latin in turn gave way to a host of vernaculars after the retreat of the Roman soldiers. There are two unique developments, however, that distinguish English from French as an International Lingua Franca, or any other previous world language. The first is its unprecedented spread over the globe. French at its apogee was the predominant language of wider communication in Europe, but it never rivalled Chinese in the East, for example, and its influence abroad was confined basically to its colonies. Today it is estimated, however, that more than 300 million people speak English as their native tongue. An equal number is estimated to speak it as a second or official language. No figures are available which indicate the extent of its use as a "performance" language (i.e. as a foreign language), but it is apt to be considerable (Kachru 1984). Table 1, 2, and 3 demonstrate the pervasive spread of English in each of these domains. The second development that distinguishes English as an International Lingua Franca from its predecessor, French, is its promotion by non-English mother-tongue countries. France continues to invest heavily in efforts to increase the spread of French, but English language training programs are widely created, sponsored, and promoted by non-English mother-tongue interests. The British Council, an organization known for its efforts to promote and supervise the teaching of English abroad, in comparison to its French counterparts such as CREDIF (Centre de recherche et d'études pour la diffusion du français) and Alliance Française enjoys greater success on a smaller budget simply because of the momentum created by the popularity of English around the world. French language agencies, on the other hand, find themselves constantly struggling to justify their existence and shouldering a weighty financial burden.

Background

7

Table 1. Regions where English is used as a primary language. Country

Note.

No. of Speakers (in millions)

U.S.A. U.K. Canada Australia New Zealand South Africa

226.50 55.93 24.60 14.92 3.20 2.00

Total

327.15

Partially adapted from "World Englishes and the teaching of nonnative speakers" by Braj Kachru, 1984, TESOL Newsletter, XVIII, no. 5:25.

Table 2. Regions where English is used as a second language. Country

Bangladesh Ghana India Kenya Malaysia Nigeria Pakistan Philippines Total Note.

No. of Speakers (in millions) 89.00 11.31 27.36 15.80 14.42 90.00 85.60 50.74 384.23

From "World Englishes and the teaching of English to non-native speakers" by Braj Kachru, 1984, TESOL Newsletter, XVIII, no. 5:25.

8

Introduction

Table 3. Regions where English is used as a foreign language. China Egypt Indonesia Israel Japan Korea Nepal Saudi Arabia Taiwan U.S.S.R. Zimbabwe Note.

From "World Englishes and the teaching of English to non-native speakers" by Braj Kachru, 1984, TESOL Newsletter, XVIII, no. 5:25.

The declining role of French as an International Lingua Franca compared to the rapid rise of English can be seen in the number of books published in each of these languages in Africa, Asia, Europe, and Latin America (see Table 4). In Africa, Asia, and Latin America, the books published in English far outnumber those published in French. Only in Europe does French still claim greater pervasiveness than English, though not to the same overwhelming degree seen by the domination of English over French in other parts of the world. This is but one indication of the relative popularity of English to French on the world scene.

Table 4. Books published in English and French (1984). Country Africa Asia Europe Latin America Note.

English

French

80.0% 18.9% 5.7% 2.7%

16.9% 0.2 % 13.3% 0.4%

From Annuaire statistique (1984). Paris: UNESCO.

Need for the study

9

Another insight into the ironic popularity of English in France is gained in noting that of all the major countries of Western Europe, France has the highest percentage of secondary school students enrolled in English classes - 88%. The figures in Table 5 illustrate the popularity of English study throughout Western Europe. Table 5. Estimated percentage of European secondary school students in English classes (Europe 1971). Country France Austria West Germany East Germany Greece Italy Spain Note.

% of students 88.0% 84.3% 33.3% 84.3% 81.7% 29.9% 20.0%

From "English as a world language: The evidence," (p. 22) by Andrew Conrad and Joshua Fishman in The spread of English, Joshua Fishman and Robert Cooper (eds.) 1977, Boston: Newbury House.

Need for the study Thus far the discussion has focussed largely on the rise and decline of the French language as an international lingua franca and the subsequent eclipse of French in its international role by the English language. It has been shown that both developments were artifacts of a broader and more political force — the rise and fall of nations. Diffused throughout the discussion has been the reference to language as social symbol; more specifically, French has been observed to function and to be consciously promoted as a symbol of French political, cultural, and ideological preeminence in the 16th-19th centuries. Today many French people allegedly believe that the world's newest international lingua franca, English, is similarly imbued with value-laden features often found to conflict with French values and norms. Moreover, it is said that many fear irreversible damage to their language and culture as

10 Introduction a result of the penetration of the English language in France. However, the extent to which American English is truly the linguistic foe of French and represents an "enemy ideology" has not been established empirically. Thus far, in fact, the discussion has been largely speculative, not to mention subjective. Both Joshua Fishman and Braj Kachru, both of whom have studied the spread of English, agree that the relationship between English as a linguistic entity and as an ideological vehicle needs to be better documented. Fishman (1977b: 123), in his edited work, The spread of English, asserts: Obviously, languages are not liked or disliked in a vacuum, but rather liked and disliked as symbolic of values of peoples, of ideologies, of behaviors. It is the symbolic nature of English and affect with respect to its associations that we must seek to explore more widely. We have accomplished far less with respect to what people know and believe about English than we have with how they feel about it. Not only has the ethnic and ideological encumberedness (or lack thereof) of English not been studied, but even the dimensions of language feeling, belief, and action posited a decade ago by Stewart have remained largely unstudied.

Kachru (1982a:3) is also concerned with non-native speakers' attitudes toward the global ramifications of English as an International Lingua Franca: The global consequences (good and bad) of English as the other tongue have hardly been presented, and certainly the perspective of those who use it as the other tongue has been largely ignored. The side of the native speaker has been concentrated upon.

Thus far, Fishman (1977b; 1982) reports that the handful of English language attitude studies conducted have indicated very little affect at all toward English. This finding prompts him to suggest that the persistent popularity of languages of wider communication, such as English, "may derive from ethnic neutrality every bit as much as the staying power of minority languages may derive from ethnic relatedness" (Fishman 1977b: 126). In other words, Fishman appears to be suggesting that English as a language of wider communication may be culturally and ideologically void despite the strength of American political, economic, and cultural hegemony. Writing in Kachru's (1982b:20) edited work, The other tongue, Fishman illustrates his point by comparing French and English as rivals in a modern, "no-nonsense" world:

Need for the study

11

The non-francophone world has "nothing but love" for French, and in the cruel world that is a sign of weakness . . . . English gets along without love, without sighs, without tears, and almost without affect of any kind. In a world where econo-technical superiority is what really counts, the heightened aesthetic-affective image of French smacks of weakness, innocence, and triviality. He offers as additional evidence the observation that the majority of the native English-speaking population "is itself quite unemotional about English, viewing it as a medium pure and simple rather than as either a symbol or a message" (Fishman 1982:20). A love-of-mother-tongue study now underway by Paul Garvin of the State University of New York at Buffalo is exploring the truth of this assertion. Thus far, Garvin (1985, personal communication) has found no great emotional attachment to English among its North American native speakers. It appears to be regarded less as a "national treasure" than as a tool for communication. As for the non-English mother-tongue world, the manifestation of little or no affect towards English, either positive or negative, has been observed in the studies conducted (Cooper — Seckbach 1977; Cooper - Fishman 1977; Fishman 1977b). Sometimes such conclusions have been drawn through the examination of secondary sources rather than through direct observation or experimentation (Fishman — Cooper — Rosenbaum 1977). No studies, furthermore, have attempted to determine whether the non-English mother-tongue population perceives English as an International Lingua Franca to function more specifically as a symbol of American ideology, although several investigations of attitudes toward English and its speakers have included a consideration of English as ideological or cultural symbol in an indirect way (Shaw 1981 ¡Pierson - Fu - Lee 1982; Lewis 1982). A study of this kind would certainly be appropriate in the third world, where English is likely to be linked strongly with what Fishman (1977b: 119) refers to as "process variables" — modernization, industrialization, technological know-how or with what Garvin (1985, personal communication) calls the developing "international urban culture", both thought to be somewhat removed from strictly American cultural influences. A study of the relationship between the English language and American ideology is also well suited to a country such as France whose own language until relatively recent times once functioned as

12

Introduction

the civilized world's lingua franca. Neither the third world nor France, however, have previously been examined for signs of this relationship.

Statement of problem The primary purpose of this study was to investigate French perceptions of the relationship between the English language in its role as an international lingua franca and American culture and ideology. A combination of qualitative and quantitative methods and instruments were used towards this end. Conversational analysis, an ethnographic technique, was primarily used to solicit data in the pilot stage of the research in Buffalo, New York, while a forced-choice questionnaire based on the pilot data comprised the quantitative component and was distributed in France shortly thereafter. The questionnaire included measures of attitudes toward American and British English, attitudes toward American and British ideology, and attitudes toward speakers of American English and British English. Questions concerning the source of English as an International Lingua Franca, motivation to study English, competence in English, and demographic variables supplemented the attitude measures. In addition to the study of attitudes in the private domain, insight into the problem was gained by examining the discourse of public officials, scholars, and journalists as well as the action taken to defend and promote the French language. This component of the study is bibliothical. The secondary purpose of this investigation was to explore the actual diffusion of English in France as it was thought to provide important insights into the attitudes of the French elite as well as those of the average citizen toward English penetration in France. Therefore, the researcher examined the infiltration of English in the French media, its status as a subject in the educational system, and its use in the realm of science as a means to document what is called by some in France "linguistic pollution", "linguistic colonization", or "linguistic imperialism". In addition to the investigation into attitudes and diffusion, answers to the following questions were sought:

Hypotheses and related research questions 13 1. What effect do demographic variables such as age, gender, occupation, educational background, place of habitation, and knowledge of a regional dialect have on French attitudes toward American and British ideology, culture, speakers, and language? 2. What effect do variables such as knowledge of English and degree of proficiency in English have on French attitudes toward English? 3. What is the relationship between motivation to study English and attitudes toward English? 4. Does public opinion with respect to attitudes toward English in France differ from official or academic response?

Hypotheses and related research questions Data emanating from the ethnographic, bibliothical, and quantitative instruments used in this study will provide a basis for finding answers to the questions posed above. The following hypotheses, however, were established at the outset of the research: 1. French attitudes toward English as a linguistic entity are strong and negative. 2. A comparative analysis of French attitudes towards Americans and American ideology versus attitudes toward British people and British ideology will reveal feelings which are more strongly positive toward the British component than toward the American component. 3. There is a relationship between French attitudes toward English, speakers of English, and American ideology. For each component, these attitudes are expected to wax negative. 4. English is not supra-ethnic; moreover, the United States and not Great Britain is regarded as the impetus behind the spread of English as an International Lingua Franca in France. 5. English penetration of France in depth and scope is greater than that of any other non-indigenous language.

14 Introduction

Definition of terms Ideology and culture Today the word "ideology" usually summons up negative connotations. We often hear this term used in reference to the communist world, for example, which from the stereotypical American perspective is usually fraught with unpleasant, even immoral, associations — conformity, social repression, "Big Brother" mentality, and the like. Originally, however, "ideology" was a word used to describe the "science of ideas" for which the French Enlightenment was known (Bluhm 1974:2). Like the word "science" today, it projected a basically positive image. In this work, the term "ideology" will be used in a neutral sense defying its popular connotation as well as its original one. Instead, it will be used to describe any body of ideas, be they of positive or negative persuasion, which reflect "the social needs and aspirations of an individual, group, or culture" {American heritage dictionary 1979:350). Therefore, in discussing American ideology, reference may be made both to imperialism and to democracy, to materialism and to progress. Ideology is sometimes seen to exist in near but not absolute proximity to the concept of culture. David Smith (1973:99) claims that ideology acts as a component or a subsystem of the broader scheme of culture. He defines culture as a "learned system of rules which governs behaviors of members of society". In looking more closely at culture, we find ideology which is seen to include a set of beliefs concerning how things are, how they should be, and how to relate both to each other and to behavior. Language, too, to Smith constitutes a subsystem of culture. The term "ideology" is often used interchangeably with "culture". Adler's definition of culture, to give an example, is not unlike Smith's notion of ideology. Adler defines culture as "an intertwined system of values and attitudes, beliefs and norms that give meaning and significance to both individual and collective identity" (quoted by Sukwiwat 1981:216). Eventually, too, Smith (1973:105) confounds the two in presenting another definition of ideology which is almost identical to his earlier one of culture: a "set of rules which an individual has acquired for making judgments about things or behaviors he experiences".

Definition of terms 15 To simplify the problem, the term "ideology" will be used in this work in reference to political and economic systems while "culture" will be reserved for application to social systems. Both are thought to be highly consistent patterns which govern relationships and social processes and behaviors. Ideological encumberedness This expression was coined by Joshua Fishman (1977b) in his edited work, The spread of English. Some complain that the term itself is cumbersome. Many Fishmanesque expressions are. The term "non-English mother-tongue countries" used earlier in this chapter is another example of a Fishman coinage that is awkward despite its specificity. In defense of its use, one must recognize the fact that Fishman has often created new terms to describe newly conceived phenomena. "Language maintenance and language shift", "ideological encumberedness", and "non-English mother-tongue interests" are three such expressions which capture the essence of sociolinguistic phenomena which have not until recently been given either attention or a name! Nevertheless, to say that a given language is ideologically encumbered is simply to imply that the language functions as a symbol of the values, attitudes, and beliefs held by its native speakers, that the language provokes and projects associations to its mother culture and her speakers. Colloquially, one might say that a language is "culturally loaded" or "ideologically charged", that it "carries ideological baggage". The term "ideological encumberedness", however, is not only more sophisticated but also more strongly suggestive of a negative connotation of the notion of ideology not unlike its popular meaning. Note, for example, that Fishman does not say that English is or is not ideologically "marked" but instead uses an expression which implies hindrance and handicap. In distinguishing more positive associations with English as "process variables", as mentioned earlier, Fishman is able to conclude that English is not ideologically encumbered; that is to say, it does not appear to provoke negative connotations. The purpose of this study, then, is to determine whether the English language is ideologically "encumbered" or if it is simply ideologically "marked".

Chapter Two

The theoretical context Emprunter c 'est un quelque sorte de trahir. Pierre Trescases(1978)

The thrust of this work and the breadth of material it must cover to adequately address the issue of French attitudes toward English require an examination of the relevant literature in three main areas: (1) language diffusion, (2) attitudes toward English, and (3) language as it relates to ideology and culture. Due to the inherent difficulty of studying language diffusion and the ideological manifestations of a given language, there is a dearth of empirically based and substantiated research to report on. Studies dealing with attitudes toward English and speakers of English are more abundant. Nevertheless, the novelty of English as an International Lingua Franca helps to explain why more sociolinguistic and politico-linguistic studies have not been conducted. They are certain to be soon underway. This is an issue of particular concern to Braj Kachru (1982a:3), a specialist in the study of the spread of English and its varieties: Our knowledge about the motivations and attitudes favoring the spread of English is still very restricted. Fragmentary case studies have focused only on selected aspects, and very few of them have insightful historical and contemporary dimensions.

For the moment, the methods, procedures, and findings of the present study may be illuminated by first examining the theory of language diffusion. Moving from this relatively general topic towards the more specific purpose of the study, the following section will address the research on attitudes of non-English mother-tongue groups toward the English language and native speakers of English. The final section of this review of relevant literature deals with the relationship between a given language and the ideological norms recognized by its native speakers.

18

The theoretical context

Diffusion History brings us a host of examples of the diffusion of powerful languages from all over the globe. In the second millennium B.C., Akkadian supplanted Sumerian as the prestige language of the Nile Valley. Greek and then Latin held away on the European continent for several centuries. French reigned supreme in Western Europe from the 16th to the 19th centuries. Chinese was and still is the lingua franca of a vast population in the Far East, as Russian is in Eastern Europe, and Arabic in the Middle East. We may also speak of English in this vein but the breadth of its domain is strikingly vast and growing more vast, and the duration of its reign is for now unknown. It is indeed a special case of language diffusion. But what is meant by language diffusion? What are its causes? What processes are involved in its development? These are questions that have captured the interest of scholars for many years and around which the discussion of the phenomenon of language spread revolves. Many of the observations made in regard to this topic have dealt with the languages of empires long since vanished or diminished, such a^ the Roman and Ottoman Empires (Brosnahan 1963; Greenberg 1965). Today scholars are not only attempting to identify and understand the trends established by the spread of English, but they are also trying to compare today's trends and theories with those of yesterday. Three major works appearing since 1977 are each collections of articles written by scholars prominent in the field and edited by sociolinguists Kachru (1982b), Fishman - C o o p e r - C o n r a d (1977), and Cooper (1982b). Before examining the work of these and other scholars, a definition of language diffusion is in order. Stanley Lieberson (1982:37) defines language spread as "nothing more than a reshaping of the existing pattern of language acquisition and usage". Cooper (1982a:6) agrees but draws more attention to the factors of time and language function: language spread, then, is "an increase, over time, in the proportion of a communication network that adopts a given language or language variety for a given communicative function". As such, the phenomenon must involve more than just the spread of language. It may better be described as the spread of linguistic and social behaviors, for languages do not acquire speakers but vice versa —

Diffusion 19 speakers acquire languages. However, E. Glyn Lewis (1982:217) writes: While it is obvious that new speakers have to learn a language for it to spread, it is also true that what a language is perceived to be or to stand for, irrespective of objective considerations, is what attracts the increasing clientele. In that sense a language does "acquire speakers". Taken from this point of view, Cooper (1982a) in his edited work Language spread: Studies in diffusion and social change identifies three basic elements of language spread: form, function, and pervasiveness. When a language spreads, it tends to undergo alteration, often resulting in one or more varieties of the language. In referring to these varieties, Cooper (1982:6) files them under the general heading "form". "Form" also refers to the syntactic and lexical similarity of the spreading language to the mother tongue or second languages spoken by the "adopters or potential adopters". A reference to "function" in the discussion of diffusion tells one not so much why but for what purpose a given language or language variety is spreading. More specifically, the reference is to communicative function. Cooper (1982a) further classifies this aspect of diffusion, identifying three variables under the rubric "function": (1) language skill(s) such as reading or speaking required by the function, (2) whether the function of the spreading language is commonly shared between or within groups, and (3) whether the function of the spreading language is used for horizontal communication across the various racial, geographic, or economic strata of the community or for vertical communication between the higher and lower strata. In identifying this third dimension, Cooper is in effect rejecting an earlier suggestion by Mazrui and Zirimu (1978) that the function of a spreading language can be broken down into economic, political or administrative, and religious components. Cooper (1982a) also speaks of "pervasiveness" as one of the defining elements of language spread. Pervasiveness indicates the extent of adoption of the spreading language and involves attitude change as well as the acceptance and spread of innovations in general. Just as the element of function was further subdivided, so too is Cooper's notion of pervasiveness. He sees this component as being comprised of or affected by four basic variables: aware-

20

The theoretical context

ness, evaluation, proficiency, and usage. The first simply involves the potential adopter's knowledge that the language is accessible for a given communicative purpose. The second refers to the attitudes toward how well the spreading language fulfills its communicative function. Proficiency indicates the speaker's ability to perform on a purely functional level in regard to use of the spreading language for a particular communicative function. And usage addresses whether or not the speaker actually uses the language. Thus ends Cooper's definition of language spread. The following sections are expected to illuminate his position. The first of these sections examines the literature which is directed at answering the question "What are the causes of language diffusion?"

Causes One of the first studies to focus on the causes of language spread was L.F. Brosnahan's 1963 study of language imposition. Brosnahan, relying mostly on historical data, identified four factors as playing essential roles in the adoption (or imposition) of a lingua franca. The first is military conquest. When the Roman army took siege of Western Europe, as when William the Conquerer of Normandy descended upon England, the language of the victorious forces became the language of imperial administration — Latin in Europe and later French in England. Fishman, Cooper, and Rosenbaum (1977:77), writing as research partners in Fishman's edited work, The spread of English, appear to agree that this factor is of special significance: The great world languages of today are languages of empire, past and present. Only two, Mandarin Chinese and Russian, continue as single, ethnolinguistically diverse states. The others - Arabic, English, French, and Spanish - are imperial legacies having survived the disintegration of the empires that fostered them.

The second feature which must accompany successful language spread according to Brosnahan ( 1963) is that an extended period of time, figuring in centuries, must elapse while the community is under siege to allow sufficient time for the language to take hold. A counter example is given through the illustration of Attila the Hun's empire which collapsed too quickly for the language to

Diffusion

21

"take root". The question of time is examined, too, by Fishman et al. (1977:79) in their discussion of language maintenance and language shift. He suggests that the phenomenon may not necessarily involve an all-or-nothing process but rather language spread may be a question of partial adoption. It is plausible that less time is required for one language to supplant another partially - being employed for some of the functions for which the mother tongue was originally used, or being learned for entirely new functions which are introduced along with the language - than for one language to supplant another as mother tongue. Duration of authority may be less important in determining whether an imperial language remains in a former colonial territory as an additional language than . . . whether the language spreads there as a mother tongue.

Brosnahan's ( 1963) third prerequisite is that the language must be diffused in an area of multilingualism. The communication needs of a linguistically heterogeneous population are allegedly better served by a lingua franca than by the ability of the population to speak a variety of languages. Turkish, then, is offered as another counter example. It did not live on after the Ottoman Empire fell, it is suggested, because the population was simply too homogeneous. It had little need of a lingua franca after the Empire collapsed and Turkish was no longer legally imposed. Brosnahan (1963) also suggests that Turkish failed to continue in its function as a lingua franca because it did not fulfill the fourth requirement — the conferring of material benefits upon the learner. During the days of the Ottoman Empire, merchants engaged in a substantial amount of trade with speakers of Arabic, Greek, and Latin. The relatively small amount of commercial activity with the Turks hindered the spread of Turkish. Again, Fishman ( 1977b : 114-115) concurs with Brosnahan in his chapter on "The spread of English as a new perspective for the study of language maintenance and language shift": Spreading languages that are not being imposed by force must provide (or promise to provide) entree to scarce power and resources or there would be little reason for indigenous populations to adopt them for intergroup use, or, by extension, for certain subsequent intragroup use as well. Thus we must begin tracing the spread of a LWC (Language of Wider Communication) to the power differentials with which its possession is associated . . . Languages are rarely acquired for their own sake. They are acquired as keys to other things that are desired.

22

The theoretical

context

Traunmuller, too, concludes that "a second language will be learned if and only if the presumptive learner estimates the advantages of knowing that language to be higher than the costs" (quoted by Conrad — Fishman 1977:55). In line with this argument is Otto Jespersen's assertion in 1938 that language spread is strongly associated with the political fortunes of nations and the potential benefits to be derived from personal affiliation with those in power (see Conrad - Fishman 1977). Table 6, displayed by Conrad and Fishman, attempts to demonstrate Jespersen's claim. Table 6. Estimated number of speakers of six European languages in millions (1500-1926) Year

English

German

Russian

French

Spanish

1500 1600 1700 1800 1900 1926

4-5 6 8 1/2 2040 116-123 170

10 10 10 30-33 75-80 80

3 3 3-15 25-31 70-85 80

10-12 14 20 27-31 45-52 45

8 1/2 8 1/2 8 1/2 26 44-58 45

Note.

Italian 9 1/2 9 1/2 9 1/2-11 14-15 35-54 41

From "English as a world language: The evidence," (p. 54) by A.W. Conrad and J. A. Fishman in The spread of English, J. A. Fishman & A.W. Conrad (Eds.) 1977, Rowley, Mass.: Newbury House.

Brosnahan's work set the stage for an extensive study by Fishman, Cooper, and Rosenbaum (1977), and invited comment by other language specialists. Greenberg (1965) amends Brosnahan's categories, for example, by adding a caveat to the argument that a population must be sufficiently linguistically heterogeneous to adopt a lingua franca. Greenberg argues that if, in that heterogeneous population, there is already established a suitable lingua franca, as Hebrew is in Israel, there will be no possibility of an outside lingua franca gaining hold. Thus, English in Israel, while it functions as a lingua franca in a few isolated realms, has little chance of supplanting Hebrew in the near future. Misra (1982), on the other hand, rejects Brosnahan's (1963)

Diffusion 23 four prerequisites out of hand, arguing that they are not applicable to the case of Indo-Aryan in North India after 2000 B.C. The language spread, alleges Misra, (1982:148) as a result of the growing "awareness and acceptance of the culture and intellectual supremacy of the Aryans". What is more, its adoption served as an important symbol of the speaker's vicarious link to the elite. In order to lay the matter to rest, for the English language in any case, Fishman, Cooper, and Rosenbaum (1977) set out to determine which of Brosnahan's ( 1963) four factors promote the spread of English and which may be added to the list. They hypothesized that the following five factors could be appended: urbanization, industrialization or economic development, educational development, religious composition, and world power affiliation. The data collected emanated from secondary sources in 102 non-English mother-tongue countries which were then intercorrelated and analyzed in order to isolate the relevant criterion variables relating to the status of English as a medium of instruction or as an official or national language in these countries. The findings of this study indicated that eight of the nine factors posited as significant by Brosnahan ( 1963) and Fishman et al. ( 1977) exhibited no less than a moderate relationship to the status of English. Only the variable "world power affiliation" failed to produce even a moderate correlation. The variables which emerged most prominently were: (1) former anglophone colonial status, (2) linguistic heterogeneity, (3) religious composition, (4) educational development, and (5) economic development. Urbanization and economic/educational development standing alone, however, had little affect on the status of English and therefore must be viewed as working in tandem with other factors. With regard to Fishman et al's (1977) finding that religious composition ranked highly as a factor promoting language spread, Charles Ferguson (1982:95), too, has uncovered what he suggests is an "indirect relationship" between the spread of religion and the introduction of written language in a nonliterate speech community. While he claims no simple, direct relationship between religion and language spread has been established, Ferguson does point out a variety of phenomena that tend to support the linkage. The first concerns the observation that the spread of the written forms of a language, such as Latin or Arabic, has often occurred in conjunction with the dissemination of a sacred text — the Bible

24

The theoretical context

or the Koran. The second situation in which religion plays a major role in promoting the spread of language is through colonization, a process in which invading forces carry with them and simultaneously "transplant" to the new land both their language and their religion (Ferguson 1982:101). The work of missionaries has also at times facilitated the diffusion of the language of the stranger as prayers often require recitation in the missionary's tongue. Additional findings reported by Fishman et al. (1977:105) revealed that the factors "urbanization" and "educational development" were closely related to enrollment in English classes after the variable "former anglophone status" had been factored out. The authors explained this trend by suggesting that poorer countries . . . were more likely to rely on English as a medium of instruction and to stress English as a subject of instruction than were richer nations, but power nations were less likely to provide equal opportunity to learn English through formal schooling.

While Carol Scotton's (1976) research has focussed on the local lingua francas of Africa, she too has addressed the question of why languages spread. Her hypothesis as stated in a chapter appearing in Fishman's 1976 Advances in the study of societal multilingualism was that people will adopt a lingua franca if they perceive it to be beneficial to them. This echoes the assertions of Brosnahan (1963), Traunmuller, Jespersen (see Conrad — Fishman 1977), and, to an extent, Conrad and Fishman (1977). But Scotton observes that the promise of a better future represented by the adding of a lingua franca is usually counter-balanced by the perception that one's own mother tongue is deficient in bringing in better socioeconomic opportunities. The mother tongue, in other words, acts as neither a viable resource, "something that can be turned to for help", nor as a promising investment, "something to which people commit themselves for future advantage" (Scotton 1976:65). For Scotton (1976), the spread of a language is based not only on the benefits to be derived from its use but on a number of other social and economic factors as well. Educational attainment, special group membership, amount and type of social status are among them. In addition, Scotton argues that languages carry "attribute values", and that languages having certain attribute

Diffusion 25 values will attract certain types of people. Moreover, she claims that the status of these languages change as their attribute values change. Therefore, it seems that the use of, attitudes toward, and spread of a language will depend greatly on the personal and social dynamics of a community, that no one factor in isolation can account for language spread. A suitable analogy, credited to Karl Deutsch, is offered by Scotton as a more graphic representation of her theory: Clearly, the effectiveness of any key in turning a particular lock depends only slightly on the energy with which it is turned . . . and far more on the correspondence of the configuration of its notches with the configurations of the tumblers in the lock, (quoted by Scotton 1976:86) Stanley Lieberson (1982:39) chooses to regard language spread as a phenomenon that involves both the impact of political, technological, economic, and demographic changes in the language community, as well as the: processes and linkages of the most elementary sort between societal change and the spread of language, including both the direct influence of social organization as well as the indirect influence that occurs when one linguistic change generates another change in the existing pattern of acquisition and usage. One such process at work in language spread is what Lieberson calls "conservation", which is to say that the language patterns of major lingua francas, such as English, are maintained not by the same forces as those which originally established them but by the forces of momentum which maintain them. In a word, patterns of language usage "perpetuate themselves" (Lieberson 1982:40). Lieberson offers French as an example of a lingua franca whose role in the realm of international diplomacy continued even after the decline of France on the international scene. Lieberson argues that French conserved its number one status in the League of Nations because for centuries it had coveted the role of international mediator. The bandwagon effect helped prolong the status and use of French. At the same time, in the same organization, Spanish, a language spoken by all but four member nations of the League, was rejected as a working language, so strong was the French tradition. There is another factor that contributes to the conservation of a language in its role as lingua franca, according to Lieberson

26

The theoretical context

(1982), namely the contribution of "third parties" who speak neither the predominant lingua franca nor its potential rival as a mother tongue. These third parties are seen to benefit, too, from the conservation of a given lingua franca. Small linguistic polities such as speakers of Swedish, for example, rely heavily on the use of English as a contact language not only with native speakers of English but with other non-native English speakers. Without the linguistic vehicle offered by English, or any other prominent lingua franca spoken as a second language, the countries represented by these language groups would soon collapse, since it is clear that few power groups would invest the necessary time and energy in so unprofitable a task as learning a little-known language, such as Swedish. The role óf interaction and its intensity is another major consideration identified by Lieberson ( 1982) in examining the phenomenon of language spread. Interaction, be it between or within language groups, is claimed to have the potential effect of altering usage patterns of various lingua francas. In looking at the variable "intensity", Lieberson has isolated three factors that define it more precisely. They are distance, transportation, and affluence; all three work to increase interaction between nations and their linguistic polities by bringing people closer in a relatively short amount of time and at no unreasonable expense. Technology, of course, is the difference that makes a difference in discussing the intensity of international interaction of the past and present. Lieberson (1982), in fact, advances the argument that an examination of the changes in commercial interaction among the world's nations will shed light on the usage patterns of today's international lingua franca, English. Table 7 demonstrates the role of English and French-speaking nations relative to the percentage of world imports received in four time periods. A look at Table 7 indicates a drop in the percentage of world imports received by English-speaking nations after World War I. This very same time period, however, is marked by the dramatic rise in status of English as an International Lingua Franca as was mentioned earlier in Chapter One. How then does Lieberson justify his claim that trade statistics can illuminate the growing trend toward the international use of English? First, he points out that the figures presented in Table 7 are perhaps not entirely representative of international commercial activity. In addition,

Diffusion

27

Table 7 Number of English and French speaking trade nations to % of world imports — pre-WWI to 1974. (Total leading trade nations = 29) Year

English-Speaking Nations

Pre-WWI 1927 1938 1974 Note.

% of imports received 9 33.0% + 9 40.6% 9 37.2% 9 27.9%

French-Speaking Nations % of imports received 4 16.7% 4 13.1% 4

15.3%

From "Forces affecting language spread: Some basic propositions," (pp. 4 4 4 5 ) by Stanley Lieberson in Language spread, 1982, Robert Cooper (ed.), Washington, D.C.: Center for Applied Linguistics.

t h e spread of English m a y certainly b e heavily i n f l u e n c e d n o t so m u c h b y t r a d e as b y A m e r i c a n superiority in t h e realms of techn o l o g y and science. But in regard t o t r a d e , Lieberson ( 1 9 8 2 : 4 5 ) suggests t h a t t h e v o l u m e of activity was n o t as i m p o r t a n t in t h e post-World War I d a y s as was t h e level and n a t u r e of its i n t e n s i t y o n t h e world scene: Although the role of these English-speaking nations declined, the importance of world trade itself increased considerably . . . Clearly international trade became increasingly important to the nations of the world. In other words, the intensity of interaction went up even though the relative importance of English declined. International trade was more important than ever before and hence the relevance of learning additional languages was greater than ever. English was still by far the single most important language, and thus its power or strength increased through increasing interaction . . . If these propositions about interaction are correct, it leads to the paradoxical conclusion that a language can become increasingly used and important at the same time as the source of its initial strength (the native speakers) declines. This is because increased interaction intensifies the relevance of a language. The weakeness of Russian and Chinese for world communication . . . is due to their low levels of interaction - not their inherent weakness. Yet a n o t h e r crucial f a c t o r in t h e spread a n d conservation of a lingua f r a n c a is seen b y Lieberson ( 1982) t o rest in t h e n u m b e r of speakers and political o r n a t i o n a l u n i t s it possesses. Spanish, in

28 The theoretical context our day, is an appropriate example of a language having both large numbers of native speakers as well as numerous political units (nations). English, too, is relatively expansive in this respect. But languages such as Chinese, Russian, Hindi, or Japanese, while each fulfilling the first requirement (large numbers of speakers) boast relatively few national units. Another counter example offered by Lieberson is German which can claim more native speakers than can French, but French is represented by a greater number of political units than is German. While intensified patterns of interaction have appeared to aid the spread of international languages in the 20th century, sometimes the sheer pressure exerted by others to adopt the lingua franca is sufficient for a linguistic change to occur in absence of any alteration in interaction pattern. In addition, occasionally the perceived aesthetic qualities of a spreading language can facilitate its rise in status, but Lieberson (1982:43) cautions that such perceptions are no more than: intervening variables . . . rather than fundamental causal factors. If there are radical attitudinal shifts towards a language which affect its spread, it is almost certain that underlying such attitudinal changes are shifts in intergroup relations.

E. Glyn Lewis (1972; 1975; 1978; 1982), for his part, has contributed to the discussion of the factors promoting language spread primarily through his study of language change in the Soviet Union and Wales. He, too, attributes language diffusion to the broader variables of politics, economics, and modernization as well as to the social variables of language attitudes and social interaction. These factors are aided by and determine the work of agencies, "personal or institutional organizations by means of which these movements are realized in action" (Lewis 1982:215). Much of Lewis's discussion of the spread of lingua francas falls closely in line with the observations and hypotheses made by his colleagues and reported earlier in this chapter, especially in reference to the influence of interaction and the artifacts of modern life on the course and fate of spreading languages. To these factors he also adds the effect of political ideologies and the religious or cultural characteristics of a linguistic polity. Lewis argues that the amount of ideological distance between the lingua franca and the language it is supplanting or complementing will help determine whether

Diffusion

29

or not the spreading language will take root. Allegedly, the greater the distance, the more diminished the possibility of widespread diffusion of the lingua franca. One of the scholars cited in Robert Cooper's (1982b) edited volume, Language spread, is Elihu Katz whose 1963 article on diffusion of innovations appears to concur with Lewis's (1982) contention that ideological distance is an important consideration in examining language spread. Katz, like both Scotton (1976) and Lewis (1982), focusses his attention on the value systems belonging to or emanating from a given innovation. For our purposes, a spreading lingua franca may be thought of as an innovation. Katz claims that an innovation will only be successful to the extent that there exists a suitable fit or "compatibility" between an individual, entire polity, or culture and the innovation. Should there be no or little compatibility between a spreading language and its potential adopters, a pattern of hostility and resistance is likely to emerge. When an incompatible language is thus strongly promoted or imposed forcefully upon a resistant population, antagonists have cause to cry "linguistic colonization", according to Louis-Jean Calvet (1982:195) whose scholarship has focussed heavily on such sociolinguistic phenomena in former French colonies. Calvet writes that: the problem of pervasiveness is therefore a problem of power relationships and, correlatively, a problem of resistance. When a language disappears to be replaced by another language . . . a population is definitely colonized.

Linguistic invasion, compounded by the varying degrees of sensitivity shown toward the indigenous language through subsequent language policies, affects the future of that language long after de-colonization. Calvet cites the case of Swahili which enjoyed a favorable status under British colonial rule and is now the official language of Tanzania. Mandingo, on the other hand, is still inferior in status to French in West Africa largely due to French suppression of the language during colonization. Therefore, Calvet claims the phenomenon of language spread to be political as well as sociolinguistic. Age and level of modernization are also identified by Lewis (1982) as exercising a special influence over the spread of lingua francas. Studies appear to confirm the notion that younger individuals are more likely to adopt a lingua franca as a mother

30 The theoretical context tongue than are older individuals. Age in combination with level of education also produces a powerful effect in this regard, with increasing amounts of education correlating highly with positive attitudes toward and use of the lingua franca as a mother tongue. In regard to modernization, it is suggested by Lewis (1982) that linguistic polities moving into a post-traditional phase demonstrate less concern for the ethnic and linguistic heritage of their community and greater interest in the pragmatic functions of a lingua franca than do those fixed in the traditional phases. He cites as examples the Baltic states of the Soviet Union, which he sees as belonging to a post-traditional era, as opposed to the case of Wales, a nation observed to remain in a fixed traditional phase. Thus, from the research conducted to date on the cause of language spread, it appears that no single factor determines the fate of a potential lingua franca, but that a number of elements, occurring together as a composite and constantly changing, influence the course of a spreading language. Further research is required to complement and corroborate the conclusions made by the above-mentioned sociolinguists as to the reasons why lingua francas spread. Perhaps an easier question to answer deals with the nature and course of the processes involved in language spread. The relevant research in this area is discussed in the following section. Processes Braj Kachru (1984) in his life-long study of the diffusion of English has identified the process as being comprised of three concentric circles: (1) an inner circle, (2) an outer or extended circle, and (3) an expanding circle (see Figure 1). The inner circle represents the "traditional cultural and linguistic base of English", the areas of the world in which English is spoken as a mother tongue (Kachru 1984:25) (see Table 1, 2, and 3 in Chapter One). The United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand are located within the inner circle as defined by Kachru. The outer or extended circle encompasses "institutionalized non-native varieties of English" or what are often referred to as "new Englishes" (Kachru 1984:25). The varieties of English spoken in Bangladesh, Ghana, India, Kenya, Malaysia, Nigeria,

Diffusion 31 Pakistan, the Philippines, Singapore, Sri Lanka, Tanzania, and Zambia are represented in this circle. Contrary to the linguistic situation characteristic of the inner circle, the linguistic environment of the outer circle is usually marked by bilingualism or multilingualism. In such situations, English enjoys a prominent role in national education and national language policies. What is more, while the linguistic competence of its speakers is not always uniform, it often is subject to artistic manipulation through the literary genre.

Figure 1. Kachru's concentric circle model of English diffusion.

The expanding circle identified by Kachru (1984) represents performance varieties of English (or English as a Foreign Language) used in areas of the world lacking former anglophone colonial status. The English of China, Egypt, Indonesia, Israel, Japan, Korea, Nepal, Saudi Arabia, Taiwan, the USSR, and Zimbabwe would fall into Kachru's expanding circle.

32

The theoretical

context

Pierre Trescases (1978) also described the diffusion of English in the context of France by using concentric circles (see Figure 2).

ENGLISH (20th C.)

ITALIAN (16th C.)

1 4 « ^ r — technology

.technology

2 - y - MA-economy

! commerce

5 — -

- y - 4 society

j culture

¿ - J - culture

] society

—ideology

Videology

Figure 2. Diffusion processes of English and Italian in France. Note.

From Les attitudes françaises envers les grands courants d'emprunt: italianismes et américanismes (unpublished Ph.D. dissertation) (p. 398) by Pierre Trescases, 1978, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

His claim is that this process in the 20th century is technologybased and initiated by technical innovations which tend to keep their original names. This process is also said to be maintained through the medium of advertising. The diffusion process of Italian in 16th-century France, on the other hand, was largely ideology-based. Kachru has identified the geographical loci of the diffusion of English, Trescases its theoretical domain and progression in 20thcentury France. Wolfgang Dressier ( 1982) describes the impact of a lingua franca's diffusion on the indigenous mother tongue. He attempts to define the socio-psychological progression of an individual's or language group's evaluation of its own mother tongue and of the spreading language. He asserts (p. 324-325): In my opinion the basic mechanism of language decay starts with social change subordinating the respective speech community to another speech community. Speakers reflect this unfavorable change sociopsychologically by a less favorable evaluation of their language. A consequence is a sociolinguistically restricted use of their language, which results in an impoverished linguistic structure for their language. The impoverishment has a feedback

Diffusion

33

on the speakers' sociopsychological evaluation, because the quality for guaranteeing the prestige function and the self identification function . . . of the language has diminished. For Henry Kahane ( 1982) of the University of Illinois, the diffusion of a world language involves a two-pronged process. One prong is represented by linguistic acquisition, the other by integration or borrowing. Acquisition is the wholesale adoption of a language either as a mother tongue or as a second or foreign language. In the Philippines, for example, one may both "pick u p " the language or consciously study it in school. Integration, on the other hand, involves extensive borrowing from the spreading language for integration into the mother tongue. The French provide an excellent example of a linguistic polity which is extremely active in the realm of lexical borrowing from English. " L e jogging", "un pull", and " u n pressing" are contemporary samples of the integration to which Kahane refers. Acquisition is, of course, today distinguished from learning (Krashen 1976; Krashen Butler — Birnbaum — Robertson 1978; Dulay — Burt — Krashen 1982), the first implying natural, unconscious absorption of the language, the second implying concentrated attention on mastering the forms and lexicon of the language. Both processes can be seen to operate with respect to English. Figure 3 illustrates Dressler's hypothesis. Other scholars observing the nature ànd course of language spread, especially with respect to the issue of time, are Ushari Mahmud (1982) and Katz (1963). The latter argues that the most essential factor in language spread is not the act of adoption but the time at which it occurs. Both Katz and Cooper agree that more work needs to be done in this area. Writes Cooper (1982a: 13): "No study of language spread which plots as a function of time the number of potential adopters exists". They recognize, all the same, the difficulty of obtaining data of this kind. Mahmud (1982) also examined the element of time in the language spread process in his study of 2894 students and their families in Juba, Democratic Republic of Sudan. The evolutionary process in language behavior patterns which he observed to emerge in his research was seen to conform well to C.J. Bailey's 1974 wave model of diffusion. In Figure 4 the element of time is shown to change as the functions of a language, represented by the small Roman letters a, b, and c, increase and vary.

34

The theoretical context

Social

- - » - N e g a t i v e — * Sociolinguistic—•Linguistic

Subordination

Socio-

Restriction

Decay

Psychological Evaluation

ι 1 I I 1

Figure 3. Process of linguistic decay. Note.

From "Acceleration, retardation, and reversal in language decay?" (p. 325) by Wolfgang Dressier in Language spread, 1982, Robert Cooper (ed.), Washington, D.C.: Center for Applied Linguistics.

T I M E o : ® TIME i:(a(ô) TIME ii:

TIME i i i : [ c ( b ( a ( ô j

Figure 4. C.-J. Bailey's wave model of diffusion. Note.

From "Language spread as a wavelike diffusion process: Arabic in the southern Sudan" (p. 173) by Ushari Mahmud in Language spread, 1982, Robert Cooper (ed.), Washington, D.C.: Center for Applied Linguistics.

Diffusion 35 Mahmud (1982:181) describes his theory thus: It seems that language diffuses through the different functions in a gradual time-governed process in a manner similar to the process of "lexical diffusion", whereby a linguistic change propagates itself gradually across the lexicon, from morpheme to morpheme . . . Likewise, a language code as an innovation propagates itself across the various communicative functions, its use increasing progressively within each function at different rates. The work of the researchers mentioned thus far has concentrated on the purely theoretical issues of language spread be they related to the causes or to the actual processes of this sociolinguistic phenomenon. The research study with respect to the diffusion of English in France conducted by the researcher in the summer of 1985 and reported in Chapter Three deals only marginally with the causes of the spread, the understanding being that a more thorough investigation of this kind is better left for a later date as a separate pursuit outside the scope and appropriateness of a study of French attitudes toward English. The same rationale for paying only scant attention to the diffusion process followed by English in France is offered to the reader. The insights provided by the research reported above, however, help illuminate the situation in France. Studies of a more concrete nature conducted in non-francophone countries may also facilitate a better understanding of the spread of English in France. Such studies function as points of comparison for each other as well as for the diffusion component reported in Chapter Three, and therefore indirectly shed light on both the causes and processes of the diffusion of English worldwide. The following research studies have focussed on the diffusion of foreign words, particularly anglicisms, in the press. Two of these studies sought to determine the domains in which foreign words most often appeared. The third attempted to gauge the status and widespread use of English by examining the requirements of want-ads printed in daily newspapers. In 1975 a group of Austrian researchers (Viereck — Viereck — Winter) chose three newspapers {Die Presse, Kleine Zeitung, and Süddeutsche Zeitung) whose relationship they claimed to be representative of the Austrian population. In tabulating the number of anglicisms in two issues of each of these publications, the

36

The theoretical

context

authors found anywhere from 14% to 58% of the English words appearing in the notices/classified ads section and 42% to 86% of the anglicisms were found in the non-classified ads section. Table 8 demonstrates that while no trend appears to emerge in terms of the use of anglicisms in the text of these three germanophone publications, the classified ads and notices section of the papers do reveal the use of a consistently significant percentage of English words. Table 8. % of anglicisms used in nine subject categories of the germanophone press. Categories world politics local politics local events domestic economy culture sports travel radio/television ads/notices

KZ

DP

SZ

3.9 5.3 16.5* 1.1 4.6 19.9* 0.7 12.0* 36.0*

22.9* 4.8 6.0 32.5* 5.9 7.9 4.6 1.6 13.8*

13.7* 4.2 5.0 8.5 2.6 2.2 1.6 4.1 58.1*

*significant percentages Note.

From "Wie Englisch ist unsere Pressesprache?" by Κ. Viereck, W. Viereck, and I. Winter, 1975, Grazer Linguistische Studien, 2:210-213.

A 1977 study of "Foreign loanwords in Hebrew newspapers" (Ronen — Sechback — Cooper) examined 25 issues of a major Hebrew newspaper over a 24-year period, counting the first 100 words of the main editorial plus the first 100 words of each issue's lead news article. While the classified ad section was not included in the study, they found that the text of these Hebrew publications contained loanwords most frequently in the domains of politics, economics, science, and the military. A similar trend suggests itself in the Austrian study mentioned above, especially with respect to the findings reported from Die Presse and Süddeutsche Zeitung. Another study conducted by Cooper and Sechback (1977)

Attitudes

37

indicates the diffusion and importance of English in Isreal by examining the number of times it is cited as a job requirement in want ads. Cooper and Sechback scanned the Friday editions of the three major Hebrew newspapers in the year 1973. English appeared in 85% of ads requiring language skills and 10% of the total ads. A full 30% of the ads requiring proficiency in English also called for a university degree but only 26% were white-collar jobs. The nature of employment for most of these positions was non-scientific and non-technical. As can be seen from the studies reported above, clear trends and patterns have not yet been seen to emerge across studies with regard to the diffusion of English in the non-English press. One obvious reason is the dearth of studies conducted to date on the topic. More work needs to be done in this domain in order to draw conclusions in which scholars can place their confidence. Research dealing with attitudes toward English has been more prolific and rigorous, and thus more reliable. It is this topic that is now examined.

Attitudes The role played by attitudes has received much attention in the past twenty years in the field of second and foreign language research. In particular, we have seen numerous studies conducted on the effect of attitude on proficiency and achievement (Gardner - Lambert 1959; 1972; Anisfeld - Lambert 1964; Lambert - Gardner - Barik - Tunstall 1963 ; Lambert - Gardner Olton — Tunstall 1968). In recent years, however, in the realm of English language attitude research, the quest to establish the link between attitude and achievement has given way to interest in other aspects of attitude in language learning. For example, the profession is beginning to witness a proliferation of research which focusses on comparative or interethnic language attitudes, on the nature of language attitudes, and on defining the language attitudes of a particular speech community. This type of research, more so than that focussing on attitudes and achievement, is of particular relevance for the attitude study reported in the following chapters. For this reason, this section of the literature re-

38

The theoretical context

view will only briefly examine the research to date on the impact of attitude on English language proficiency, but will dwell more heavily on those studies concerned with defining the attitudes of non-English mother-tongue populations toward the English language and its speakers, often in comparison with other languages and their native speakers. Recent studies of this kind have tended to be equipped with multiple sub-foci. That is to say, a study whose general purpose is to analyze attitudes toward English may also examine the motivation(s) of the population under observation to study English, it may check attitudes toward both speakers of English and the language itself, it may compare these attitudes to those held toward speakers of other languages, and at times it may even attempt to determine correlations between use of English, proficiency in it, and attitude toward it. Given the multi-purpose nature of these studies, it is difficult to categorize the relevant research into neat components — interethnic attitudes, attitude and proficiency, attitude toward English speakers, attitude toward English — for many studies deal in part with each of these. Following this pattern would impose an unnecessarily tedious process of backtracking on the reader and parcelling out isolated bits of findings in each category for the writer. It is thus more efficient to report on each study in its entirety by using geographical location as the classification criterion. Since the prime loci of English language attitude research have been the Middle East and Asia/Southeast Asia, the discussion will commence with the studies conducted there, moving on to findings generated from research in North America, Europe, and Africa. A s i a / S o u t h e a s t Asia Shaw's 1978 study of attitudes (reported in 1981) held toward English by Thai, Indian, and Singapore students serves as an appropriate example of one such study which exhibited an interest in several aspects of language attitude. A questionnaire distributed to 825 respondents covered five different topics: (1) the language background of the students, (2) reasons for studying English, (3) pattern of English usage, (4) language skills which were identified as requiring improvement, and (5) general attitudes toward the English language, its indigenous varieties and its future as a world

Attitudes

39

language. Items (2) and (5) are reported here. The young adults Shaw surveyed were asked to choose from among a number of possible reasons normally given by students of their age and backgrounds for studying or not studying English. On the positive side, the most frequently chosen responses were of a purely instrumental nature. The term "instrumental motivation", of course, was coined by Gardner and Lambert (1959; 1972) in their studies of the impact of motivation on second language proficiency. Instrumental motivation is the force that encourages the learner to exploit the target language as a tool for gaining access to the material benefits or opportunities which cannot normally be obtained through use of the mother tongue. "Integrative motivation", on the other hand, is characterized by the learner's desire to become a part of the target culture. Gardner and Lambert initially arrived at the conclusion that integrative motivation is superior to instrumental motivation as a catalyst for successful second language learning. Recent studies, such as the one conducted by Shaw in 1978 have attempted to refute this claim by demonstrating that in many parts of the world integrative motivation plays a very minor role in explaining the popularity of English. At the same time, low integrative motivation cannot be said to shed light on attitudes toward the native speakers of English. But Shaw (1981:112) suggests it does tell us something about the perceived role of English in relation to its native speakers: There is a chance that they [the respondents] might also be projecting a view that English does not always have to be considered in reference to the native-speaking countries. Perhaps they see English as a bonafide international or intranational language which is not inseparably connected to any particular countries.

Shaw (1981) also gauged attitudes toward English. In this study, the young citizens of former British colonies appeared to make little connection between the English language and the British culture it was thought to represent. Instead of demonstrating attitudes as hostile towards English as they are toward England, Shaw's subjects indicated 57.8%-74.1% that English was their favorite foreign language. Only 13.1%-17.3% suggested that they did not like it but nevertheless perceived it as useful. Shaw ( 1981:118) thus records the following observation:

40

The theoretical context

Unlike their forefathers, they don't seem to feel that English is a distasteful necessity that they would rather do without if possible. This is not to say that they would continue to study English if it were as useless as Latin, but that English has lost much of its colouring as a colonial legacy. Perhaps they are looking at it in terms of the future and not the past. With regard to the future of English, 50%-74% of this study's respondents believed that English is destined to continue in its role as a world language even following the hypothetical decline of U.S. power. Perhaps this, too, is an indication that the English language is gradually disengaging itself from its mother-tongue cultures. A similar study by Oiler, Hudson, and Liu (1977), in addition to studying respondents' reasons for studying English, also examined attitudes toward self and the native language group as well as those toward the target language group. Their study of 44 Chinese-speaking foreign students studying in the U.S. put forth a hypothesis which speculated that positive attitudes (especially toward the target culture) would correlate highly with better proficiency in the target language than would negative attitudes. To measure these attitudes, the authors used a direct attitude questionnaire as well as an indirect measure of attitudes developed by Spolsky (1969). This technique makes use of a number of fivepoint identity scales each consisting of a long list of adjectives by which the respondent rates him/herself, how s/he would like to be, speakers of his/her native language group, and speakers of the target language. The rationale for this technique lies in the assumption that a subject positively values any trait that s/he indicates s/he would like to exhibit more of. Furthermore, a subject is thought to indirectly manifest integrative motivation if s/he rates members of the target language community as or more highly than his/her native language group. In analyzing their data, Oiler et al. did not find their Chinese subjects to display significant amounts of integrative motivation, rating as they did fellow Chinese higher than Americans on the personality traits they perceived as most favorable: modest, helpful, economical, intellectual, kind, clever, considerate, conservative, not nervous,reasonable, stable, calm, sincere, dependable, and teachable. (Americans received higher ratings on the following scales: confident, competitive, broadminded, democratic, optimistic, businesslike, not stubborn, efficient, not sensitive, successful, fashionable, happy,

Attitudes

41

not shy.) However, the data did reveal that the varying degrees of integrative orientation measured by attitudes toward self, own language group, and target language group, were positively correlated to proficiency. Gail Fu's 1975 dissertation on attitudes toward English in Hong Kong did not assess integrative or instrumental motivation, but rather focussed in on two distinct objectives: (1) to determine the perceived importance of English in that area and (2) to assess attitudes toward the use of English. A questionnaire distributed to 561 students was used for this purpose and revealed the following trends: With regard to the perceived importance of English, 83% of the students surveyed indicated that English was a necessary prerequisite for upward job mobility. In addition, 36% of the sample felt content with spending large amounts of time in class studying English with 44% indicating that they saw this demand as neither reasonable nor unreasonable. A full 54% indicated they would willingly accept more English study hours; to 21%, the additional hours made no difference. Fu (1975) also examined students' feelings about using English, and found that for all their enthusiasm for studying the language, they nonetheless exhibited little confidence in themselves when speaking it. Asked if they would feel uncomfortable about being addressed in English in a variety of contexts, the students gave these responses: 61% indicated they would not feel comfortable if spoken to in English by a teacher in the school corridor; 51% would feel the same about being addressed in English in a history class; 66% would feel uncomfortable if the same event occurred outside of school; and 50% would not feel comfortable being addressed in English by their classmates. The students in Fu's 1975 study were also asked to evaluate English-speaking Westerners by completing an open-ended statement. While responses varied widely, patterns emerged which characterized Westerners in both a positive and negative light. Some, for example, saw Westerners as open, friendly, and sincere, while others were more critical, indicating that English-speaking Westerners were arrogant, scornful, and cold. A later study by Pierson and Fu (1982) once again attempted to examine the attitudes toward English of Cantonese-speaking secondary school students in Hong Kong. They included in theii research an additional variable — achievement in English. Th S3 3 O υ

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166 French attitudes toward English - "les gens qui passent"

Quantitative: Results F i n d i n g s a n d discussion The frequencies, means, and standard deviations for each item in the questionnaire up to and including the Ss' motivation to study English were computed. With respect to the scores on the section dealing with attitudes toward American and British people, ideology, and culture, the data indicate that responses were basically positive toward both the American and the British components, with those manifested toward the British slightly less positive (see Tables 43, 44, 45, and 46). The most positive scores were measured in response to a hypothetical invitation to an American cultural evening (item 17 - mean = 1.55) with 87.6% of all respondents indicating interest in attending, the respondent's willingness to welcome British tourists to France (item 3 - mean = 1.66) with 81.9% indicating a positive attitude, and Ss' evaluations of the openness of Americans (item 12 — mean = 2.07) with 66% holding a positive opinion. Respondents also demonstrated a relatively strong positive attitude toward English as a World Language (item 16 — mean = 2.30). Few negative scores emerged from the analysis. Item 7, which dealt with one's willingness to live in England should the necessity to leave France arise, received the most negative response (70.3% answered negatively). Many respondents categorically rejected the notion of leaving their country; consequently, item 7 may measure Ss' attachment to France as well as their attitude toward England. French ambivalence to the Englishspeaking world may also be seen in responses to items 13, 15, and 19. All received slightly negative scores suggesting that the French in the sample population disapprove of American foreign policy (46.9% to 29.7% who approve), yet believe the United States to be the greatest symbol of progress (58.3% to 36.8%). They find the English cold and reserved (45.5% to 34.5%) but overwhelmingly extend a warm welcome to them (81.9% to 11.1%). And Americans, evaluated as open (66% to 17.3%) and worthy of respect (49.7% to 35.9%), are at the same time considered obsessed with wealth (51% to 31%). Nevertheless, the data indicate that the respondents do not perceive American influence to be a threat to French culture (item 2 — mean = 3.30). More than 51% of the sample population rejected the notion that the United

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French attitudes toward English - "les gens qui passent"

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French attitudes toward English - "les gens qui passent "

pothetical component of attitudes — i.e. the manifestation of attitudes through behavior (Fishman 1969). Variable 17 sought to assess Ss' willingness to act on their attitudes toward English and English speakers by indicating their interest in attending an American party. Variable 18 was included as a measure of the Ss' evaluation of the link between exposure to the English language and the adoption of American values. Most subjects, contrary to more publicized opinion of the relationship, did not view the two as inseparable. Also contrary to the researcher's expectations, the variables in Section 1 of the questionnaire did not combine under the preconceived categories: (1) attitudes toward American and British ideology, (2) attitudes toward American and British culture, and (3) attitudes toward native speakers of American and British English. Instead, four factors emerged from the analysis. They included Factor 1 —Positive Orientation toward American Ideology, Culture, and People; Factor 2 — Negative Orientation toward American Ideology, Culture, and People; Factor 3 — Negative Orientation toward British Ideology, Culture, and People; and Factor 4 — Preference for Americans over British. This re-grouping, despite the fact that items were carefully selected for the questionnaire on the basis of how clearly they seemed to fit into the three categories mentioned above, suggests that the constructs "ideology", "culture", and "people" may be automatically associated together by the respondent, rather than being unintentionally and erroneously confounded by researchers. Both the ethnographic component and the quantitative analysis point to a symbiosis among these constructs. Interview data, for example, shows respondents voluntarily expressing their views on English-speaking people, their cultures, and ideologies in response to question stimuli that did not always pertain directly to these elements. SI, the reader will recall, produced copious amounts of data in response to the language stimulus. S3 also moved from a discussion of English language accents to British people, culture, and political events with no direction from the interviewer. However, language-related items ( 1 , 5 , and 16) from the questionnaire were eliminated from the factor analysis in recognition of Fishman's warning that researchers must exercise greater caution in constructing questionnaire items so that attitudes toward a given language and those manifested toward the speakers of that language are not confounded.

Quantitative results 177 Given the results of the factor analysis in exclusion of the general language-related items, it would be most interesting to ascertain at a later date whether or not a second factor analysis, which included a greater number of language-related items of a more culture-specific association, would witness the categorization of items into the same favorable/ unfavorable dimensions as was seen in the factor analysis shown in Table 41 (p. 1), or if language items would form a separate dimension. Were the items related to English-speaking people, culture, and ideology to combine with items related to the English language in a factor analysis, we would have a clearer indication of the extent to which the language and ideological features of a given culture are associated in the minds of French men and women. Further analysis of the data was performed by means of a procedure called canonical analysis. Rather than focussing on a single criterion variable, canonical correlation examines the relationship between sets of variables, such as the four factors emanating from the factor analysis discussed above and language attitude variables in Section 2 of the questionnaire. It is, consequently, a composite analysis. The procedure followed by canonical analysis is here described by Green, Halbert, and Robinson (1966:35): Essentially, two sets of weighting coefficients (a set for the criterion variables and a set for the predictor variables) [are] sought, such that if linear combinations of each set were formed (thus arriving at a composite variable representing each set) and correlated in a two-variable linear correlation, a higher correlation for this particular set of composite variables would be obtained than any other set of combinations which could be formed. As would be surmised, specific numbers satisfying the above criterion are called canonical coefficients. The technique develops these coefficients and also computes the canonical correlation index which would be obtained if the two composite variables were formed and carried through a two-variable linear correlation. Table 51 presents the results of the canonical correlation analysis. Two canonical correlations with ρ less than or equal to .05 were found. Their canonical correlation indexes turned out to be .659 and .500 respectively. This is a measure of the overall correlation between the criterion and predictor sets and can be said to be reasonably strong.

178

French attitudes toward English - "les gens qui passen t"

Table 51. Canonical correlation of four factors and language variables. Correlation 1 .659 ( a =.00)

Correlation 2 .500 (a =.04)

Predictor Set Positive orientation American Negative orientation American Negative orientation British Preference American over British

-.475 .654 .499 - .298

.650 .268 .539 .449

American English clear/garbled elegant/vulgar simple/complex formal/informal soft/loud rich/poor direct/indirect fast/slow

-.441 -.615 - .204 .098 -.199 -.719 -.377 -.169

.186 .365 - .050 .310 -.044 .235 -.181 -.523

British English fast/slow direct/indirect clear/garbled rich/poor formal/informal simple/complex elegant/vulgar soft/loud

000 - .276 -.210 - .411 .019 - .206 -.438 -.120

-.135 .043 -.487 - .483 -.293 - .443 -.616 -.500

.434 .108

.250 .062

Criterion Set

variance redundancy index

With regard to Correlation 1, it can be seen that the highest coefficient in the predictor set ( . 6 5 4 ) is associated with a negative orientation toward American ideology, culture, and people. In Correlation 2, the highest coefficient (.650) is related to a positive orientation toward American ideology, culture, and people. In the criterion set, the attributes of rich/poor and elegant/vulgar

Quantitative results 179 indicate the strongest coefficients (-.719 and - .615 respectively) with regard to American English under the first correlation. For British English, the same correlation indicates that the same attributes carry the highest coefficients but in reverse (-.438 and - .411 respectively). Correlation 2 reveals high coefficients for fast/slow (-.523) and elegant/vulgar (.365) for American English and elegant/ vulgar (- .616) and quiet/loud (- .500) for British English. Interpretation of the coefficients leads to the conclusion that the criterion set for American English correlates - .475 at the .00 level of significance with a positive orientation toward American ideology, culture, and people. This coefficient is negative; therefore negative evaluations of American English are here associated with negative evaluations of American ideology, culture, and people. Likewise, the second variable in the predictor set correlates .654 at the .00 level of significance with American English variables. A positive coefficient from this category (a negative orientation) suggests again that the criterion set is associated with the predictor set such that negative evaluations of American English are predictive of a negative orientation toward American ideology, culture, and people. Correlation 1 also indicates that those who possess negative attitudes toward British ideology, culture, and people also manifest negative attitudes toward the British variety of English. The third variable in the predictor set, negative orientation toward the British realm, indicates a correlation of .499 with British English. Furthermore, the last variable in the predictor set, which implies a preference of one realm over the other, demonstrates a similar association between attitudes toward Americans and toward American English. The correlation coefficient is - .298 and may be interpreted as a modest indication of the relationship between negative attitudes toward Americans with negative attitudes toward the American variety of English. An examination of Correlation 2 reveals that positive attitudes toward American ideology, culture, and people (the first item of the predictor set) are associated with positive attitudes toward American English. The correlation is a healthy .650 at the .04 level of significance. The second factor in the predictor set, negative orientation to the American realm, demonstrates a weak correlation of .268 at the .04 level of significance with positive attitudes toward American English. Once again, a relationship

180 French attitudes toward English - "les gens qui passent " between Ss' unfavorable attitudes toward British ideology, culture, and people and negative attitudes toward the British variety of English emerges from the data with a correlation of .539 at the .04 level of significance. Finally, Correlation 2 indicates a relationship between positive attitudes toward the American people and positive evaluation of American English. Here the correlation is .499 at the .04 level of significance. To summarize the findings from the canonical analysis, then, two correlations were found. The first, Correlation 1 (.659, a = .00), indicates that negative attitudes toward the American realm are related to negative attitudes toward American English, and an unfavorable evaluation of the British realm is correlated with an unfavorable orientation toward British English. The second overall correlation (.500, a = .04) suggests an association between positive attitudes toward the American realm and positive attitudes toward American English. Correlation 2 also indicates a correlation between a negative orientation toward the British realm and negative attitudes toward British English. In addition to the afore-mentioned analyses, the data collected from distribution of the questionnaire was also subjected to cross-tabulation analysis to determine further relationships between variables. For example, cross-tabulation was performed on demographic variables such as gender, age, occupation, etc. and the ideology variables in Section 1 of the questionnaire. Also examined were possible associations between the ideology and language variables, the ideology and language competence variables, and the ideology and motivation variables. The significance of the cross-tabulations was determined by means of a chi-square test. Results of the cross-tabulation analysis are presented in Tables 52 and 53. In examining the relationship between demographic and ideology variables, only three demographic variables — age, occupation, and educational background — appeared to manifest strong and consistent correlations with the ideology variables. The construct age, however, displayed the least association with the ideology variables. Variables 6, 16, and 19 were significant at the .05 level. The cross-tabulations indicated that younger Ss tended in general to hold slightly more positive opinions of both American and British ideology, culture, and people, but differences between younger and older Ss were significant only with respect to items

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