“It is difficult not to hear in Standard English always the sound of slaughter and conquest” (hooks, 1994).

Ironically, a language which for many represents neutrality or detachment is a language that arouses a deeply passionate response for many more. From immigrants learning English to assimilate into the culture of the majority, to the millions of English speakers worldwide, who learn the language to compete in the world markets, the feeling toward the language is paradoxically both of resentment and of veneration. Rarely, is there a disengaged con-committal feeling toward learning or using this language. The embodiment of this passion is prevalent amongst intellectuals internationally: Thionog’o from Kenya discards the English language of the oppressors to use his native tongue. While in the US. bell hooks describes it as the “mask which hides the loss of so many tongues’ (1994). In France, Maloof points out how on the one hand “a good knowledge of English is desirable”, but on the other, France has “had to suffer on account of the extraordinary rise of English” (2000), and in Pakistan, Sidhwa proclaims victoriously, “We the excolonized have subjugated the language.” (1996).

Learning one language means acquiring its culture because one cannot be separated from the other. This gain is accompanied by the inevitable transformation or loss of certain aspects of the first language and culture. The fear for many, therefore, is that teaching one common language will create a common world culture, but at the expense of the other cultures worldwide. This loss of culture will ultimately lead to a loss of the many different identities creating a clone of the more dominant identity of the English Speaking World.

The individuals’ cultural identity will disintegrate leading to a disenfranchised, suppressed identity especially if the first language and culture are considered deficient compared to the learned language and culture of English. So compared to the native speaker of the English, individuals will consider themselves inferior, and this feeling of inferiority is intensified because of the native speaker’s feeling of superiority. At the same time, those learning and using the language of power (in this case English) become part of an elitist group, who by virtue of position or education exercise power or influence over others in their group who have not learned English. Thus because of the assumption that the knowledge of English is related to intellectual and social superiority, the English speaking group ends up with power and influence over the non-English speakers. A linguistic hierarchy of power is created with the native English speaker on top, followed by the non-native speaker of English, leaving the non-English speaker at the bottom. In this context, Phillipson defines English Linguistic Imperialism as:

The dominance of English is asserted and maintained by the establishment and continuous reconstitution of structural and cultural inequalities between English and other languages. Here structural refers to material properties (e.g. institutions, financial allocations) and cultural to immaterial or ideological properties (e.g. attitudes, pedagogic principles) (1992)


Linguistic Imperialism is maintained due to the elitism which becomes entrenched in society when the dominance of one language becomes an accepted norm, and the speakers of that language are assumed to have intellectual and social superiority that ensures their power and influence over others. Elitism can be traced to the French word élite , which means selection or choice, and in the case of linguistic elitism the act of selection or choice is done by the native speakers of the language as well as the non-native speakers. The non-native speakers of the language (English), especially those who never acquire native fluency, are assumed by their peers as well as by the native speakers as being intellectually deficient in some way. The manifestations of this elitist attitude toward the English language are prevalent in all aspects of life from educational institutions to businesses and social situations. The international prevalence of this attitude can be found in English speaking countries like the US and UK, where there is a large immigrant population that speaks English as a second language, and in Pakistan and India, where English is the national language, but is not the first language of the majority.

An overview of the history of English in the Subcontinent will help understand present-day attitudes toward this language including current trends and attitudes toward English language learning in Pakistan. Because of a shared history, there is a parallel to this in India. Even though both countries gained independence from British rule over fifty years ago, the indelible scars of Colonial rule are evident in all aspects of society today most profoundly in the legacy of the English language and intimacy with the educational systems.

The foundation of this influence can be traced back to the seventeenth century with the arrival of the British traders to South Asia. A century earlier the Spaniards had arrived in South America bringing with them the Catholic religion and the Spanish language, inflicting devastating causalities physically and mentally on the indigenous people. The arrival of the British in South Asia was, however, different in that the initial group of traders became acculturated to the Indian culture. As Dalrymple (2002) records in White Mughals, the first group of British traders become acculturated to the Indian languages, cultures, religions and ways of life. He describes the relationship between Britain and India as “symbiotic”. “Just as individual Britons in India could learn to appreciate and wish to emulate different aspects of Indian culture, and choose to take on Indian manners and languages, so many Indians at this period began to travel to Britain, intermarrying with the locals there and picking up Western ways (Dalrymple, 2002). Giving examples of immigrants from India settling comfortably and being accepted socially in Britain at that time, he criticizes the distortion of the Edwardian interpretation of the history of that time. Unfortunately, the world remembers this era through the words of Rudyard Kipling as “East is east and West is west and never the twain shall meet.”

Even though the connection between these two cultures was promising, by 1818 the British had virtual control over India. Ali (1993) divides the British “power groups” into three categories. The first are the Conservative Tories, which include Warren Hastings, who were interested in implementing the Indian traditions and languages in the education of the Indians. The second are the Evangelicals, including William Pitt, who were “hungry for souls”. Proselytizing Christianity and teaching the English language were ways in which this group would deal with the natives. This group of individuals had similar aspirations to the final group, which Ali identifies as the Radicals. These individuals denounced the Indian traditions as barbaric being based on superstition, so they would have to be eradicated to be replaced by the Anglicized world view using English as a means to this end. Ali describes this attempt as demeaning to the Indians. Having gone through this transition of becoming a “brown Englishman” he looks back with disgust on the way he was forced to make a complete transformation: Changing his way of thinking through language and education and his appearance through the clothes he had to wear. He elaborates, “In the process of transformation from Indian to brown Englishman, I found I had lost not only my freedom, but culture and identity as well, and had become an exile in my own country.” (Ali, 1993) When a few bold writers decided to publish a collection of literature in Urdu, Ali being amongst this group, the book was banned and the writers were identified as communists and were blacklisted. Later, when Ali wrote Twilight in Delhi in English in 1940, it was accepted by the critics and the British Government as a modern Indian creating an interpretation of India for the Western world, replacing Forster and Thompson. Ali chose English intending to reach a larger audience to understand the Indian way of thinking. In the poem, “The Burning of Paper Instead of Children”, Rich eloquently describes this irony: “This is the oppressor’s language, yet I need it to talk to you”.

For the majority of those subjugated to Colonial rule, English represents colonization and oppression, but it is imperative for technological, political and financial power. The power of English was known to those fighting for freedom from British Colonial rule, and is still acknowledged by those competing in the global market in the new millennium. Pakistani’s are faced with this dilemma today. As Haque mentions, “English has become the language of knowledge; it is the language of the biggest reservoir of information, knowledge and literature known in history” (1993). She also mentions the decline of the English language in Pakistan over the years. In anticipating the future of English in Pakistan, Haque predicts the increasing need for English in Science and Technology since, “thirty percent of Pakistan’s gross national product is related to international trade.(Haque, 1993) The study of English would have to be “compartmentalized” and the study of English literature would be restricted to those who want to become writers or journalists-of course if the Literary canon includes voices from South Asia, English literature would represent the culture and identity of the area.

English is, and will continue to be, a necessity for Pakistanis. In a country where the majority speak Punjabi, and the national language is Urdu and a large number of other languages are used on a regular basis, the status of English as a language of power and elitism reflects not only the current global attitude toward the language, but also the complex paradoxical relationship between the colonizer and the colonized. “If their wealth did not set them apart, their ability to converse in English certainly did.” (Sidhwa, 1996). This statement from The Crow Eaters by Sidhwa sums up the general attitude toward English in Pakistan. And by choosing English as one of the Pakistani vernaculars to write her novels, like Ali, and other South Asian writers Sidhwa proves that English is just as Pakistani or Indian or South Asian as it is British, American or Australian.

But has the English language been subjugated by the excolonized, or is it an indication of a trend of creating a linguistic hierarchical paradigm on a global level?

Krishnaswamy argues that labels like Indian English, Pakistani English, or South Asian English do not change the fact that it is still English. By giving the analogy of the Boeing aircraft used for different airlines-the basic structure never changing-the spread of English language is also related to capitalism and the world Market. Is this a new face of colonialism? Some like Krishnaswamy would argue that the English language, whatever form it takes, is another way of controlling the minds and ideas of individuals. “The politics of ‘World Englishes’ is closely linked with what has been termed as ‘Cultural Colonialism’, ‘linguistic imperialism’ and the building up of new ‘empires’ in the technological age, using mass media as its major weapon.” (Krishnaswamy, 1998).


References

Ali, Ahmad. (1993). English in South Asia: A Historical Perspective. In Robert Baumgardner (Ed.) The English Language in Pakistan (pp. 3-12) Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Dalrymple, William. (2002). White Mughals: Love and Betrayal in Eighteenth Century India. London: Harper Collins.

Haque, Anjum R. (1993). The Position and Status of English in Pakistan. In Robert Baumgardner (Ed.) The English Language in Pakistan (pp. 13-18) Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Hooks, bell. (1994). Teaching to Transgres:Education as the Practice of Freedom. Great Britain:Routledge.

Krishnaswamy, N and Archana S. Burde, G. (1998). The Politics of Indian’s English:Linguistic Colonialism and the Expanding English Empire. Dehli: Oxford University Press

Maloof, Amin.(2000) In the Name of Identity: Violence and the Need to Belong. New York: Penguin

Phillipson, R. H. L. (1992). Linguistic Imperialism Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Sidhwa, Bapsi.(1996). Creative Processes in Pakistani English Fiction. In Robert Baumgardner (Ed.) South Asian English: Structure, Use and Users (pp. 231-240) Chicago: University of Illinois Press.