Abstract
To begin, we might ask, can there be real equality between languages, or their varieties, in a world in which language (and culture) is most undeniably human capital? Or is it just a fine but far-fetched Utopian fantasy? Referring to the lingering allure of the concept of utopia that has driven a great many intellectual ventures in the past, Seargeant (2008) notes how the rhetoric of some of its pioneers for a ‘perfect language’ is still echoed occasionally by advocates of EIL (English as an international language). As, for example, Modiano (1999a) who, in envisaging a blueprint for a workable international English, comments: ‘Language, instead of creating barriers, or upholding systems of membership and exclusion, should promote cooperation and understanding between peoples from different walks of life’ (p. 27). Seargeant goes on to point out that although as a humanist manifesto this may be admirably democratic, ‘it rather overlooks the way in which language works as an index of difference, and operates by means of a dynamic which orders experience through the creation of hierarchies’ (p. 226, citing Bourdieu 1991). In other words, there is a no such thing as a neutral playing field where all languages enjoy equal status. Power is real.
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Rubdy, R. (2015). Unequal Englishes, the Native Speaker, and Decolonization in TESOL. In: Tupas, R. (eds) Unequal Englishes. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137461223_3
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