Comments on: Illegitimate English

By: Is English a local language in Berlin? | Language on the Move

Is English a local language in Berlin? | Language on the Move — Fri, 07 Sep 2012 10:44:05 +0000

[…] Do we reproduce power differentials if we constantly mark the geographical origin of a linguistic resource that has been rendered socially and economically salient – and, as an effect, has spread globally? In this context, we may also ask: Whose ‘English’ is called English and to whose ‘English’ is a localised name attached (which then is typically seen as requiring subtitles in ‘English’ broadcasting)? […]

By: Khan

Khan — Wed, 29 Aug 2012 11:19:49 +0000

Dear Ingrid

Many thanks for a wonderful post illustrating the politics of sub-titling. As I have shared with colleagues earlier also that the recent report on role of languages in Pakistan published by British Council (2012) has shown all Pakistanis speaking standard British English. In addition, the learned scholars have not considered it important to discuss the issues of translation and transcription. I think your observations are very valid and logical showing what Bourdieu (1977: 650) observes ‘the tacit presuppositions of its efficacy’
Khan

By: Idris

Idris — Tue, 28 Aug 2012 10:22:51 +0000

Non-native speakers of English are probably destined not to be in the same league as native speakers. And the more they use English subtractively, the less likely they are to escape their inferior position. This is why political leaders may chat in English behind the scenes, but when it comes to the press conference following discussions, they are advised, as most of them do, to speak in their national language. So without being a cynic, it is difficult to expect the promotion of English by many bodies (like the British Council, for example) to result in anything other than the average non-native speaker of English vying for a consolation prize.

By: Saeed

Saeed — Mon, 27 Aug 2012 17:21:28 +0000

As the caption reads, the first speaker is the General Manager. Hence, he must have possessed the economic capital (i.e. money and other financial assets), cultural capital (i.e. the knowledge sources he might have gained through his profession), social and symbolic capital (through his networks and connections of power as the manager). What seems to be a question here for me is why in spite of possessing all these capitals, he should still be labeled as illegitimate? I think the main reason can be found in the concepts of “field” (the domain where the agents struggle over possessing the power over other members) and “habitus” (the mentality or cognitive system of structures we acquire during our life time). In this communicative event, the field is Bangladesh but is shown to English speaking audience…hence I think we can deduce that the power of native speakerism norm outweighs and makes the language as illegitimate. On the other hand, the mentality of the audience (habitus) “unconsciously aids in its (the standard English language as the norm) preservation” (Bourdieu, 1991, p. 44). Ironically the footage showing how globalization backfires in the textile market, ends up making a wry grimace at the globalized English market of the Bangladeshi speakers!

By: Saeed

Saeed — Mon, 27 Aug 2012 17:20:49 +0000

Dear PeterL…you made a plausible argument but as you have noticed in the footage, the intelligible talks of the Bangladeshis are “selectively subtitled” as Ingrid mentioned. I agree that it could have other reasons, however; I have seen many similar instances of this “unification” attempts- as Bourdieu says- in Persian movies too where “accented Persian” is captioned in Standard Modern Tehrani Persian as a way of showing linguistic unity in the country.
Since Ingrid drew on Bourdieu (1991) to discuss the matter, I would also like to elaborate more on the matter from this perspective. Bourdieu likens language to a commodity or a socio-economic capital. I would like to know how different species of capital namely economic, cultural, social, and symbolic capitals are existent in the Bangladeshis and if these capitals can save them from being labeled as the illegitimate language speakers.

By: Roslyn Appleby

Roslyn Appleby — Mon, 27 Aug 2012 10:09:17 +0000

Thanks Ingrid for this interesting post.

Readers interested in following up on the problems and pitfalls of ‘Language in Development’ (an emerging field of study), might like to consult two books published by myself and a colleague at the University of Technology, Sydney:

Appleby, R. 2010, “ELT, Gender and International Development: Myths of Progress in a Neocolonial World”, Multilingual Matters, Bristol.
Widin, J. 2010, “Illegitimate Practices: Global English Language Education”, Multilingual Matters, Bristol.

By: Agi B

Agi B — Mon, 27 Aug 2012 08:33:33 +0000

Absolutely agree. Not sure if it is still in practice but I also found it imperialistic to dub foreign speech with accented English e.g a person speaking in Hindi dubbed in English with an artificial Indian accent.

By: Ingrid Piller

Ingrid Piller — Mon, 27 Aug 2012 03:14:24 +0000

In reply to PeterL. Thanks, PeterL. You are right, subtitling can mean all kinds of things. If all speech is subtitled (e.g., for the hearing impaired) or if all speech under certain conditions is subtitled (e.g., as in your example, all interviews outside the studio), then no further implications arise. However, what I am talking about is selective subtitling, i.e. someone made a decision that some speakers would be intelligible to the audience while others would not be intelligible. That decision requires to "imagine" who the audience will be and thus a decision about what kinds of speech and speakers have legitimacy to that imagined mainstream and what or who has not.

By: PeterL

PeterL — Mon, 27 Aug 2012 02:39:20 +0000

I agree that subtitling can make it appear that the person doesn’t speak English well, but what’s the alternative to subtitling when there’s a good chance that the viewing audience will have some difficulties in understanding what the person says?

Why do you jump to the conclusion that subtitling means illegitimate? It can mean nothing more than difficult to understand because it’s different or because it’s poorly recorded or because there’s background noise … I’ve seen Australians subtitled on American TV, for example; and I’ve also seen Americans subtitled on American TV. I am a native speaker of North American English and I often find accents from southern Asia very difficult to understand over the telephone (but not too difficult in person), whereas I have little difficulty with Australian or most of the British dialects. It’s just a matter of what I’m used to. And I’ve had to “translate” for Americans (and very competent Israeli speakers of English) when in Scotland (and my father had to translate for me at a street market in London).

Incidentally, NHK often subtitles interviews done outside a studio, even when the person is speaking standard Japanese (although if the interviewee goes off into dialect, there’s a tendency to make the subtitles into standard Japanese, but not always).

By: Christof Demont-Heinrich

Christof Demont-Heinrich — Mon, 27 Aug 2012 01:31:04 +0000

Very thought-provoking, and, in multiple places, searing — in a good sense — entry. It seems pretty clear that “giving the whole world English” isn’t going to suddenly transform massive socio-economic inequalities. Indeed, as the “need” to subtitle “inferior” forms of English for the metropolitan cosmopolitan English speaking/reading elites shows, there’s plenty of socio-economic and cultural division and hierarchy within languages. In other words, while language is part of the picture, it clearly isn’t the core issue. Of course, it’s a lot easier to “give the whole world English”, feel good about yourself for doing this and/or make some good money while doing it, than to attack the core factors underlying global socio-economic inequality and hierarchy.