The Globalization of Language

This reflexion comes from the article ”The Globalization of Language. How the Media Contribute to the Spread of English and the Emergence of Medialects” published in 2004 by Stig HJAVARD. This article makes an analysis of the role of the language of the media, around 3 main hypothesis.

Ad rarely translated into French

            The first one is for part of it implied by the title of the article, asserting that the language used in the media is spreading not only the English language, but also the American/ British culture. In fact, S. HJAVARD leans on the omnipresence of English in media to explain why more and more people speak, or at least understand this language. He adds that this process has known a new dynamism because of the emergence of Internet, a space where English is even more present than elsewhere. On the other hand, the spread of this language is accompanied by the spread of a culture coming from the English-speaking countries, United-Kingdom and even more United-States in the lead. To sum up, the spread of their language spreads their culture, their so well-known “way of life” all over the world, which determines what has become a kind of “global culture”.

            Then, the second hypothesis, also included in the title of the article, is that the media would create their own languages, which he calls by the following neologism: “medialects”. These languages can for instance come from the options or the restrictions given by each media, these particular conditions establishing a sort of structure for the communication. In this case, the language used depends on the type of the media and of the activity made on it. Moreover, those “medialects” often come from English, as the settings of each new media are generally first developed in this language and then translated, since the companies from English-speaking countries are leading the IT industry.

A symbol of the domination of USA Companies

The last hypothesis the author makes is that English would be putting away the other languages. He leans on the significant number of new words created from a more or less direct English origin, in the case of Danish, language considered as the ideal model to establish the growing and intrusive influence of English on the other languages. But this situation is not so brand new, and S. HJAVARD, making reference to the middle of the XX^th century, appoints other responsible than Internet or even the media in general, with the firms, and especially the multinationals, or with certain politicians. Therefore, this last hypothesis appears more such as a consequence of globalization in general,  and particularly

of   the   global   domination   of   the   United-States.