A Lost Conference Paper
December 2, 2007This is a paper I read at the FAAPI conference in 2001. It still seems pretty relevant today. The text is unaltered apart from the removal of a couple of personal references.
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‘No es el chancho sino quien le da de comer’
Standards, foreign experts, local elites and linguistic imperialism
INTRODUCTION
The purpose of this talk is to try to make some sense of the notion of linguistic imperialism in the context of that part of the Buenos Aires English language teaching (ELT) world with which I am familiar. I will start by outlining and commenting on some of the theoretical proposals, go on to look for evidence of linguistic imperialism in the local context and finally make some recommendations of my own for ELT in Buenos Aires.
LINGUISTIC IMPERIALISM
Much is made of linguistic imperialism these days. Robert Phillipson (1992) first properly opened up the field. It seemed, at first, that here was someone who could cut through the suffocating banalities usually offered to explain the success and spread of English in the world and tell us what was really going on. Phillipson certainly leaves his readers with few illusions about the spread of English having just “happened”. For him the world has to be seen in strictly bi-polar terms with the rich northern ‘centre’ nations the United States and the United Kingdom in particular conspiring to protect their own interests by imposing their languages and culture on their poor southern ‘periphery’ counterparts. His analysis, though it ‘…raised themes hitherto unaired within English language teaching…’ (Holborow 1999:74) seemed rather too black and white to be really credible.
If the vulgar Marxism of Phillipson falls short of the mark, can Alastair Pennycook do any better? In two books (1994a, 199 
and a stream of articles (1989, 1990a, 1990b, 1994a, 1994b, 1994c, 1994d, 1994e, 1995, 1996a, 1996b, 1997a, 1997b, 1998a, 1998b, 2001), he has sought to have ELT throw off what he sees as the yoke of the Enlightenment and view the linguistic imperialism question through a kaleidoscopic postmodernist optic.
Pennycook offers a view of language, society and pedagogy that, on the face of it, is much more sophisticated than Phillipson’s. On closer examination, however, it turns out to be no more convincing and, in some respects, less so. Pennycook’s problem is that his postmodernist critique of thought and practices in applied linguistics and ELT effective enough though it is in places is based on a relativist epistemology that contradicts its own performance. One cannot credibly attack others for claiming universal validity for their views while implicitly claiming it for one’s own. Furthermore, in the postmodernist hall of mirrors, where there is no truth only ‘truth’ it is doubtful whether any tenable concept of justice can be sustained. The moral force of Pennycook’s critique is thus also undermined.
However inadequate attempts to theorise it have been, we all know that there is something going on with the role of English language in the world. I will now turn my attention to what exactly that something might be in the context of Buenos Aires.
PRONUNCIATION
It struck me soon after I arrived in Buenos Aires that I had never met English teachers anywhere so concerned about their pronunciation. “Splendid!” you might say. Professionals concerned to maintain professional standards, anxious to set a good model for learners, etc. Well, yes, up to a point. It gradually became clear to me, however, that excessive pressure was being placed on trainees in the Profesorados to produce RP. The consequences of this include the following:
1. Other English pronunciation standards tend to be ignored.
2. Excessive reverence for native speakers of RP, especially teachers, regardless of their skills, qualifications or experience.
3. Form tends to be valued over content. Those who can produce a high-quality imitation RP tend to be looked upon with approval.
4. Everybody worries themselves sick about producing trivial errors. After a conference presentation an acquaintance was congratulated on her lovely pronunciation, not a word was said about the content of her talk.
5. Trainees and teachers are thus effectively infantilised, eternally aspiring to an unreachable and pointless goal.
What is to be done? A broader solution is offered in the next section. However, in the area of pronunciation alone serious consideration should be given to Jenkins’ proposal for the development of ‘…a pedagogical core of phonological intelligibility for speakers of English as an International Language…’ (2000: 123). This would set attainable, realistic goals for trainees and would be a first step towards putting an end to the cultural cringe alluded to in points 1 and 2.
STANDARDS
To what can we attribute the local obsession with RP? Again, a possible broader explanation will be offered in a moment. However, it seems to me that the immediate culprit is the idea that standard English consists of RP plus a strong dose of grammatical rectitude. Consequently writing tends to be, at best, neglected, and at worst, viewed as an opportunity to put trainees through their grammatical and idiomatic paces. Mastery of grammar is a necessary skill for the proficient writer but alone it will not suffice. Failure to address the issue of content emasculates trainees’ critical faculties and helps make them vulnerable to the latest pedagogical fad arriving from London or Los Angeles. The ability to write a cod-literary story bursting at the seams with idioms does not a professional and independent-minded professional language teacher make.
It is my contention that viewing standard English as essentially a written form — with writing understood more broadly than as just an agglomeration of grammatically correct sentences — would give trainees a more realistic objective for their production than trying to achieve RP-like pronunciation. It would also help them develop critical skills vital for their professional futures.
FOREIGN EXPERTS AND LOCAL ELITES
So what are we left with? Phillipson and Pennycook’s very inadequate theories purporting to explain the role of English in the world today, the certainty that the role and spread of English in the world is not a phenomenon that can be explained only in terms of rational individual choice, and finally, a range of beliefs and practices with which we are all familiar in the local ELT community. What sense can be made of them?
Let me start by returning for a moment to re-examine the question of imperialism. It is generally held to be something that is done to “us” by “them” and to be sustained and propagated by force, broadly defined. Among the more notable consequences of this view is that “we” are all victims regardless of our station in life. And if “we” are all victims then the responsibility for our predicament lies elsewhere rather than with ourselves and attempting to change this situation is useless since “they” have a monopoly of power. What I would like to suggest is that things are not quite as simple as that. Assuming such a thing as linguistic imperialism exists and plays a role in the spread of English, then it does so with the connivance of local elites and it is sustained not by force but by an ideology which helps maintain the position of those elites and contributes to the development of subjects willing to participate in their own subjugation.
How does this work in practice? I have already indicated what effect I think the emphasis on RP and failure to attend to meaning has on trainee teachers. There is more to it than that though. Argentines of all stripes are given to lamenting the supposedly nefarious influence of foreigners in their affairs. All the more surprising then the degree of bowing and scraping done before alleged foreign experts in ELT. At last year’s FAAPI conference it would have been easy to get the impression that the English language is something that can only be accessed by the grace of middle-class, middle-aged, white Englishmen jetting in for the weekend with all expenses paid by their publishers. I did not see all the contributions from these people but the ones that I did see were notable for their high ratio of platitude to insight and the patronising manner of their delivery. There was also, in at least one case that I saw, what could most charitably be described as a marked confusion between commercial and academic aspects of the presentation. Several teachers expressed dissatisfaction to me privately about the quality of these talks. None of them spoke up at the time. Why? Fear of that dreaded pronunciation mistake perhaps…
I think it would not be going too far to suggest that teachers and trainees ask themselves the following questions after the next presentation / book launch they attend: “Was the speaker remotely familiar with the reality of the English language classroom as I experience it?”, “Was the presenter trying to promote an expensive, new, imported coursebook, or other new material that did not appear to represent any great advance on the one they were trying to promote last year?”, and finally, “Was one of my main reasons for attending the fact that the speaker was from the United Kingdom and/or a native speaker of English and would I have attended if the exact same points had been made by someone from Lomas de Zamora called Carlos Gómez?”
CONCLUSION
I realise that the interpretation I have offered here could be accused of being sketchy and impressionistic. Regardless of its defects, I would suggest that it is not entirely divorced from reality and will strike a chord with many of you. I also realise that some will say that as a foreigner who only came here in January of 1999 I cannot possibly know what I am talking about. I trust they will apply the same salutary scepticism to the claims made by foreign publishers at the next book launch they attend or the ideas of the next “revolutionary” imported language learning technique they hear about. Finally, I realise that I may be accused of peddling outdated Gramscian-Marxist ideas. Well, I plead guilty to that. I would just ask you to consider if they really are so outdated.
In any case, some things are clear. There is no World Bank of English Words and no International Grammar Fund before which Argentines have to present themselves, cap-in-hand, begging for the resources necessary to use English. The English language is the property of all those who wish to use it. Trainees must leave the Profesorados with a good grasp of standard spoken and written forms but, just as importantly, also with the self-confidence to use and appropriate English for their own purposes. No one here cringes before the Spanish of Madrid and neither should any English teacher feel that their mission in life is to be an ever more exact phonological imitation of a tiny percentage of the native English speakers who live in the south-east of England. Above all, there is no point in English teaching professionals — in their capacity as citizens — complaining about the various ills allegedly visited on Argentina by foreign countries and international institutions if they do not first make an effort to put their own house in order.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Holborow, M. 1999. The Politics of English. London: Sage Publications.
Jenkins, Jennifer. 2000. The Pronunciation of English as an International Language. Oxford: OUP
Phillipson, R.H. 1992. Linguistic Imperialism. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Pennycook, A. 1989. The Concept of Method, Interested Knowledge and the Politics of Language Teaching. TESOL Quarterly 23 (4): 589-618.
Pennycook, A. 1990a. Critical Pedagogy and Second Language Education. System 18 (3): 303-314.
Pennycook, A. 1990b. The Diremptive/Redemptive Project: Postmodern Reflections on Culture and Knowledge in International Academic Relations. Alternatives 15 (1): 53-81.
Pennycook, A. 1994a. The Cultural Politics of English as an International Language. London: Longman.
Pennycook, A. 1994b. Incommensurable Discourses? Applied Linguistics 15 (2): 115-138.
Pennycook, A. 1994c. The Politics of Pronouns. English Language Teaching Journal 48 (2): 173-178.
Pennycook, A. 1994d. Critical Pedagogical Approaches to Research. TESOL Quarterly 28 (4): 690-693.
Pennycook, A. 1994e. Beyond (F)utilitarianism: English as Academic Purpose. Hong Kong Papers in Linguistics and Language Teaching 17: 13-23.
Pennycook, A. 1995. English in the World / the World in English. In J. Tollefson (Ed.) Power and Inequality in Language Education. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 34-58.
Pennycook, A. 1996a. Borrowing Others’ Words: Text, Ownership, Memory and Plagiarism. TESOL Quarterly 30 (2): 201-230.
Pennycook, A. 1996b. English, Universities and Struggles over Culture and Knowledge. In Hayhoe R. and J. Pan (Eds.) East West Dialogue in Knowledge and Higher Education. New York: M.E. Sharpe, 64-80.
Pennycook, A. 1997a. Cultural Alternatives and Learner Autonomy. In P. Benson and P. Voller (Eds.) Autonomy and Independence in Language Learning. London: Longman, 35-53.
Pennycook, A. 1997b. Vulgar Pragmatism, Critical Pragmatism, and EAP. English for Specific Purposes. 16 (4): 253-269.
Pennycook, A. 1998a. The Right to Language: Towards a Situated Ethics of Language Possibilities. Language Sciences. 20 (7): 73-87.
Pennycook, A. 1998b. English and the Discourses of Colonialism. London: Routledge.
Pennycook, A. 2001. Critical Applied Linguistics: A Critical Introduction. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Earlbaum Associates, Inc., Publishers.
