Tiêu đề C1 - POSTCOLONIAL AFRICA AND NORTH AMERICA ✅

Explore current debates in Global Englishes Postcolonial North America and Africa I. English in North America 13 British colonies: In 1776, the 13 colonies declared their independence from Great Britain. The names of the colonies were Connecticut, Delaware, Georgia, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, and Virginia.
Why did English become standard but not other languages? → linguistics imperialism Discuss questions: - US Census - điều tra dân số (1990-2010) + An increase in Africans and Latin Americans + White (non-Hispanic) population on a downward trend → An increasing number of non-native English speakers English Only Movement / US English / Official English Historical background: - Back in the late 19th century, multilingualism was still tolerated - Influx of immigrants from southern Europe (e.g., Italians): racially inferior to northern Europeans (early colonisers) We have room but for one language here and that is the English language, for we intend to see that the crucible turns our people out as Americans, of American nationality, and not as dwellers in a polyglot boarding house (Theodore Roosevelt’s 1907 response to southern Europeans’ arrival) - multilingualism policy was reversed: education for immigrants no longer in their native languages English Only Movement / US English / Official English - Early 1920s: 75% of US states used English as the only language of instruction - Policy inhumanely executed (cf. Native American boarding schools) faced a system of militaristic discipline, manual labor, instruction in a trade, and abusive treatment for ‘reverting’ to the mother tongue. Many children fled these conditions only to be rounded up by Indian agents (called “school police” in Navajo) and returned to school. Main reasons for boarding schools (1860-1978) Native American Boarding Schools (also known as Indian Boarding Schools)

English in Africa - Debates (arguments - counterarguments) between Phillipson (1992), Bisong (1995), and Phillipson (1996) - The definition of Robert Phillipson above → Its dominance leads to a linguicide, more aptly titled a “lingua frankensteinia” - Bisong (1995): + People in the “periphery” use English pragmatically - they send their children to English-language schools precisely they want them to grow up multilingual + to interpret such actions as emanating from people who are victims of Centre linguistic imperialism is to bend sociolinguistic evidence to suit a preconceived thesis - Has English succeeded in displacing or replacing other languages in Nigeria? (read book) - Has the dominance of English caused Nigerian culture to be undervalued and marginalised (read book) - Why did writers Chinua Achebe, Wole Soyinka, and Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o, all of them literate and fluent in their mother tongues, write in English? (read book) - Evidence showing the degree to which African languages are marginalised in favour of English - Local governments (newly independent Nigeria) played a part in promoting English over local languages → de-emphasing ethnicity - Phillipson (1996): + 90% of African population do not speak English and thus no access to literature written in English. Writing in English is a form of elitism. Choosing to write in African languages is a political choice to reach and help a community resist a repressive government. + Children sent to English medium schools due to parents’ neglect of state schools which use dominant local languages Three to four hours of English exposure does threaten mother tongue competence: since English medium education is the primary route to higher education and upper positions ⇒ Summarize: The debates surrounding the role of English in Africa, particularly between Phillipson (1992) and Bisong (1995), with Phillipson's subsequent response in 1996, revolve around the themes of linguistic imperialism and the pragmatic use of English as a lingua franca. Phillipson originally argues that the spread of English serves as a form of linguistic imperialism, disadvantaging local languages and promoting the dominance of English-speaking nations, which perpetuates cultural and linguistic inequalities. Bisong counters this by highlighting the practical role of