----- Review on The Ownership of English by Henry Widdowson
Huang Lijun
When I was a primary school student, I was taught:” In China, people speak Chinese; in Japan, they speak Japanese; and in Great Britain and the USA, they speak English”. Indirectly, these instructions led me to believe that not only did these people speak those languages, but to some degree, they also owned them. Nowadays, English gains the increasing importance in the world stage and it is widely acknowledged that English is a global language for the convenience of international trade, conference and cross-culture communication. Since it is an international language, the question is which community, and which culture, have a rightful claim to the ownership of English? People in Britain and the USA hold their ground that” if the language disperses into different forms, a myriad of Englishes, that it ceases to serve as a means of international communication”( Widdowson, H.G. 1994) . They legitimately lay claim to the ownership of English and assert that they are the stable centre of standard while all the varieties are peripheral. The truth is, however, there is one language but many voices. African English, South Asian English and Philippine English have developed in the culturally and linguistically pluralistic contexts. They , to some extent, gain the ownership of English, equally to their English counterparts. For instance, annually, Singaporean government offers scholarships for the Chinese people, the Thais, and the Malays to learn English in their country. Who can deny that the Singaporean take, in some senses, the ownership of English?
According to H.G. Widdfowson(1994), it is important to “ raise the question of how we stake out our own territory as English teachers in delimiting and designing our world.” His “ The Ownership of English” brings to light the importance of viewing our role as educators as more than diffusers of linguistic knowledge. The situation in China calls for deep thinking. If we, English teachers, brush aside the fact that language teaching is unavoidably the empowering process, we will get dumbfounded at what the profile of Chinese English speakers is in 20 years. Chances are that the generation growing up with internet, Coke, Macdonald, will lose their 3rd eye--- the critical thinking ability our ancestors bestowed us. They may have a good command of English and become mechanical and logical, but not creative.
In the following pages, I will discuss some ways in which we can enhance the teaching of English as a global language.
Not speaking English as the first language, many of us still believe that we don’t have the same linguistic rights upon English as the native-speakers do. Consequently, we perpetuate in the classroom the idea that our use of English is marginal, inadequate and second to that of native speakers. It is high time that we discarded this stereotyped concept. The very fact that English is an international language means that no nation can have custody over it. To put it simply, no one owns English. We Chinese also can take the ownership of English by taking advantage of English for our own purpose. Why can’t our government build a huge publication industry to publish English of our own and of the native speakers’ as well? Why can’t our Chinese writers write in English as what Lin Yutang did a few decades ago, to create a hunger of the rest of the world to know about China through English? Since English is such a global language, why bother to teach the rest of the world the complicated Chinese? Once we demolish the myth of English ownership, we will perform better in the classroom by our self-assuredness and our students will gain confidence in their ability to use English as well. What’s important, our students will grow and value their English.
It is no doubt that native speakers of English enjoy the deference in our profession because what they say is invested with both authenticity and authority. Guided by this belief, we buy textbooks and teachers’ book wrote or compiled by the native speakers. We learn their culture and history to achieve acculturation. But these are contextually limited. Their English is associated with the communicative and communal needs of their community, and these may have comparatively less relevance to those who learn English as an international language. What about the many interactions between non-native speakers whose only linguistic commonality is English?
Therefore, it is highly recommended that we shift the emphasis away from contexts of use to contexts of learning to engage the students’ reality and activate the learning process. If not, the students can’t engage with the language, and they can’t make it their own. It may be real language but not related to their world. So we should inform our students not only of the English and American culture, but also the attitudes, beliefs, values and so on of our own cultural world. In this way can we use English to empower ourselves and to give us a voice in the international body of English users.
Closely related to the myth of English ownership is the idea of valuing non-native varieties. In ten years’ time, non-native users of English will have outnumbered native users. Our common goal should be intelligibility rather than a continuous search for the perfect English. Native and non-native speakers alike will have to collaborate and meet somewhere among their multiple Englishes if they wish to continue communicating.
Quite too often we talk about mistakes, deficiency, bad English and bad grammar. The word “Chinglish”( Chinese English) is defined, in most instances, as the non-English, namely non-standard expressions of English in a Chinese way, undoubtedly negative in meaning. It is argued that words like“Kowtow”,”Kongfu”,”Typhoon”,”Qigong”,”Taiji” etc are typically Chinglish which were introduced into English and consequently enriched the English vocabulary. Therefore, I am proposing that natural steps of the learning process be treated as such and that we set more realistic goals about language performance, without always having to check students’ language production against some imaginary model of perfection. Valuing students’ linguistic varieties is just a start. Do be circumspect when you are circling the student’s Chinglish expressions with your critical red ink. The word “Chinglish” may be transferred some day from derogatory meaning into a neutral one referring to one variety of English. Who knows?
The language of English, once the preserve of English people and Americans, has become the linga franca for the whole world with the globalization process. Varieties of English are being used for international communication in science, finance, commerce and so on. The multiple Englishes serve a whole range of different communities and their institutional purposes and these transcend traditional communal and cultural boundaries. Obviously, English can’t be owned by self-selected members of a rather exclusive group of people. The true ownership comes only when we are able to take possession of English, turn it to our advantage and make it real to us. The new epoch calls for us, English teachers, to stop being the passive followers of existing systems, but rather, to be the creators of the new paradigms.
Widdowson, H.G.1994. The Ownership of English TESOL Quarterly
Phillipson, R. 1992. Linguistic Imperialism. Oxford University Press.
Kachru, B.B. 1994.” The Speaking Tree: A Medium of Plural Canons”. In Tickoo, M.1995. Language and Culture in Multilingual Societies.