The handbook of language and globalization (review)

The study of language and globalization, an area of inquiry that has grown rapidly in the past decade, is a multifaceted enterprise defined more by its subject matter than by any particular approach to linguistic phenomena. This handbook places it broadly within the field of sociolinguistics (the editor's introduction is titled 'Sociolinguistics in the global era'), but the researchers involved in it also include linguistic anthropologists, applied linguists, and discourse analysts (especially adherents of the 'critical' school), as well as scholars who are not linguists but approach language from the perspective of economics, sociology, psychology, or political science.

Imposing a clear structure on such a diverse body of work is not an easy task. Coupland has opted for a thematic approach, organizing his twenty-nine chapters into four main sections: Part 1, 'Global multilingualism, world languages, and language systems'; Part 2, 'Global discourse in key domains and genres'; Part 3, 'Language, values, and markets under globalization'; and Part 4, 'Language, distance, and identities'.

Part 1 contains eight chapters, the first six of which present different perspectives on the same issue: to what extent the world's linguistic diversity is threatened by globalization, and particularly by the global dominance of English. We begin with SALIKOKO MUFWENE's typically robust contribution, 'Globalization, global English, and world English(es): Myths and facts'. While acknowledging the scale of language spread in the global era, Mufwene insists that there is nothing novel about the process itself, and argues that the homogenizing effect of global English is over-stated: apart from the fact that world Englishes are themselves far from homogeneous, '[English] is not evenly distributed around the world. The average population speaking it fluently in the "Outer Circle" countries hardly exceeds 20% ... [and] is even smaller in countries of the "Expanding Circle" ' (45). This contrasts with the view taken by ABRAM DE SWAAN in 'Language systems'. His model of global language systems casts English as the 'hypercentral' language 'which holds together the entire constellation ... like a black hole devouring all languages that come within its reach' (57). The metaphors become darker still in 'The global politics of language: Markets, maintenance, marginalization, or murder?' by TOVE SKUTTNABB-KANGAS and ROBERT PHILLIPSON. It becomes clear as the chapter progresses that for them the emphasis falls on 'murder' in the subtitle, although English is not the only language they indict. ULRICH AMMON's 'World languages: Trends and futures' also makes the point that there is not just one world language, presenting various facts and figures to support the view that several languages other than English could be said to fulfill global functions. THOMAS RICENTO's 'Language policy and globalization' returns to the issues broached by Skutnabb-Kangas and Phillipson. He considers educational and other policies that promote English in the developing world, and asks how far the arguments commonly advanced for this—for instance, that access to a global language brings significant economic benefits—are supported by evidence; his conclusion is that the point 'has not been demonstrated' (138). JONATHAN POOL's chapter, 'Panlingual globalization', discusses strategies for making language diversity a more efficient and economically sustainable option, giving as an example the development of PanLex, a multilingual resource for machine translation.

The reader who turned to these chapters hoping for a clear steer on the issues addressed was always going to be disappointed, since this is an area in which scholars hold conflicting views. Perhaps more could have been done to guide readers through the arguments, for instance, by having more explicit cross-referencing between chapters and by ordering them in a way designed to highlight similarities and differences (Ammon's chapter might usefully have been placed with de Swaan's; and Skuttnabb-Kangas and Phillipson's chapter could have been put alongside Ricento's). I would also have welcomed more extensive comments on these contributions in the editor's introduction, since...