Comments on: Money talks

By: Rąwąn Alħąlwąni

Rąwąn Alħąlwąni — Sat, 26 Aug 2017 11:22:00 +0000

Hello Professor Piller,

It is interesting to know how Arabic is considered one of the important languages in Munich. I am actually surprised to know that as people mainly started to rely on English in most of the foreign countries, i.e. Europe, as a form of communication or as a lingua franca. Indeed, it is reasonable to know that with the rise of people visiting and living in some cities, their language forces its power to exist in many places in the city or community.

When I was in Toronto, I was told by a native friend that Chinese come to Toronto and live for as long as they could without having the burden to learn English. In fact, they have their own village in Toronto that is called china town. They have their own China there, Canadian bank that uses only Chinese, Chinese food, cloths, furniture and spices, locals sell almost everything a Chinese need from China, and Chinese offices that help organize school and government papers to Chinese migrants; they actually do not need English at all.

Best regards,
Rawan Alhalwani from APPL941.

By: Khan

Khan — Sat, 21 Jan 2012 11:29:23 +0000

Thanks for an insightful blog showing us how the economic/ financial aspects act as central contributing factor behind the multilingual signages in these countries. I also agree with your conclusion that ‘ language is a means to make profit’. But does that mean that counter hegemony is also possible through becoming hegemonic?

Thanks once again Ingrid. Very interesting.

Khan

By: Christof D-H

Christof D-H — Tue, 17 Jan 2012 20:37:23 +0000

Very interesting observations and reflections. I think that the cracks that appear will likely be driven by the economic logic you highlight here. And while I’m sure there are plenty of cracks, and more will appear, I believe that, generally speaking, the logic of efficiency coupled with the ideology of monolingualism (which ensures English-only in many international contexts, e.g. the academic conference), the deeply entrenched practice of upward language learning, and, more broadly speaking, a social order in which members of dominant fundamental groups (cultural, linguistic, etc.) insist that everyone else assimilate to their linguistic, cultural model while they simultaneously dismiss smaller, “lesser” languages & cultures will ensure the continued hegemony of English internationally, in particular, in elite domains of power, most notably, higher education, which is arguably the gateway to all other international domains of power.

By: Kimie Takahashi 高橋君江

Kimie Takahashi 高橋君江 — Tue, 17 Jan 2012 05:21:14 +0000

A fascinating observation, and it reminded me of my recent stay in Macau, the “Monte Carlo of the Orient”;-) As Chinese and Portuguese are official languages, you see them in the official public signage, shop signs and commercial ads. Portuguese is obviously a maker of Macau’s cultural identity, but it disappears almost completely once you enter the major casinos and hotels, where the majority of their customers are Chinese nationals from mainland China and Hong Kong. While English fares much better and signs within many casinos are bilingual in Chinese and English, we find that some of the games, such as poker machines, are only in Chinese. As the biggest casino tourism in the world, I naively expected Macau to be completely immersed in English. But as you point out here, it makes perfect business sense to cater for linguistic needs of the main clientele, and the big spenders who keep this town growing phenomenally have little need for English, let alone Portuguese.