REFERENCES Allen, H B (1967) TESOL and the journal TESOL Quarterly, 1, 3–6 Foley, J A (1998) Language in the school In J A Foley, T Kandiah, Z Bao, A F Gupta, L Alsagoff, H C Lick et al (Eds.), English in new cultural contexts: Reflections from Singapore (pp 244–269) Oxford: Oxford University Press Foley, J A (2001) Is English a first or second language in Singapore? In V B Y Ooi (Ed.), Evolving identities: The English language in Singapore and Malaysia (pp 12–32) Singapore: Times Academic Press Kachru, B (Ed.) (1982) The other tongue—English across cultures Urbana: University of Illinois Press Kachru, B (1985) Standards, codification and sociolinguistic realism: The English language in the outer circle In R Quirk & H G Widdowson (Eds.), English in the world: Teaching and learning the language and literatures (pp 11–36) Cambridge: Cambridge University Press for The British Council Pakir, A (1993) Two tongue tied: Bilingualism in Singapore Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development, 14, 73–90 Pakir, A (1994) English in Singapore: the codification of competing norms In S Gopinathan, A Pakir, H W Kam, & V Saravanan (Eds.), Language, society and education in Singapore (2nd ed.; pp 63–84) Singapore: Times Academic Press Rubdy, R (2007) Singlish in the school: An impediment or a resource? Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development, 28, 308–324 Silver, R (2005) The discourse of linguistic capital: Language and economic policy planning in Singapore Language Policy, 34, 47–66 Silver, R E (2008) Peer work, peer talk and language acquisition in Singapore primary classrooms (final report) Singapore: Centre for Research in Pedagogy and Practice, National Institute of Education English in Globalisation, a Lingua Franca or a Lingua Frankensteinia? ROBERT PHILLIPSON Copenhagen Business School Copenhagen, Denmark Ⅲ TESOL declares that it is a global organization The expansion of foreign and second language learning worldwide from the 1950s spawned different associations, as Fishman (this issue) documents at a time when U.S ambitions were global Troike wrote in 1977 of “large amounts of government and private foundation funds in the period 1950–1970, perhaps the most ever spent in history in support of the propagation of a language” (p 2); Alatis and Straehle (1997) confirmed that “by the 1960s, TESOL had truly become a worldwide endeavour” (p 11) The United States and United Kingdom were partners and rivals in promoting English and approaches to its learning worldwide (Phillipson, 1992, chapter 6) Alatis SYMPOSIUM: IMAGINING MULTILINGUAL TESOL 335 and Straehle absolve the TESOL world of linguistic imperialism, denouncing my book on the topic but casually admitting that they have not read it TESOL’s expansionist ambitions dovetail with U.S corporate and government global aims This trend leads me to conclude that even if U.S TESOL were to more actively embrace the other languages of its emerging bilinguals, the languages of a more multilingual TESOL would still be hierarchically ordered “Globalizing” English is incompatible with balanced multilingualism—though this is not (yet?) the case where English is relatively successfully learned as a foreign language in Europe, and where U.S TESOL is virtually unknown However, the use of English is increasing throughout Europe: as the dominant corporate language; 70%+ of films on TV and in cinemas in Europe are Hollywood products; youth is consumerist, Coca-colonised, and more familiar with U.S products and norms than others; English is the most widely learned foreign language and other foreign languages are mostly in retreat; research is increasingly published in English, which is seen as more prestigious than a national language These developments all impact on other languages, with English as a foreign language in continental Europe transforming into a kind of second language As in former colonies, English largely serves elite formation purposes European Union policy statements have repeatedly advocated “mother tongue plus two” languages in general education, but this remains wishful thinking The languages of immigrants tend to be seen as problems rather than as resources, much like in TESOL The United States has seen itself as a model for the world for more than two centuries George Washington foresaw American colonies ultimately becoming an empire A belief in the manifest destiny of AngloSaxon culture to spread around the world was articulated in 1838 by the Board of Foreign Missions of the USA, then 13 “colonies” (Spring, 1996, p 145) Successive American presidents parrot this: “We have room for but one language here, and that is the English language” (Theodore Roosevelt, 1919, p 2); “The whole world should adopt the American system The American system can survive in America only if it becomes a world system.” (Harry Truman, 1947 in Pieterse, 2004, p 137); “Our nation is chosen by God and commissioned by history to be a model to the world” (George W Bush, 2000, quoted in Niebuhr, 2000).3 The British also rationalised their empire similarly: Cecil Rhodes saw the Anglo-Saxon race as the highest to be evolved in a divine plan, and funded the Rhodes scholarships in pursuance of this goal (Katzen, 1970, p 274) The “special relationship” explains the asymmetrical pairing of 336 While former President Bush was the Republican nominee for president, he made this comment in a speech to a B’nai B’rith convention in Washington in reference to his support for Israel and in praise of work conducted by faith-based social programs TESOL QUARTERLY Roosevelt and Churchill, Reagan and Thatcher, Bush and Blair Think tanks are promoting closer links between English-speaking countries (Bennett, 2004) A central message is that “Multiculturalism and bilingualism should be abandoned, and assimilation and learning of English should become national policies” (Bennett, 2007, p 85) Scholars tend to lend credence to this ideology: The English language happened to be “in the right place at the right time” (Crystal, 1997, p 110); “The ascendancy of English is merely the outcome of the coincidence of accidental forces” (Kaplan, 2001, p 19); Spolsky (2004) asks whether the spread of English “happened or was caused” (p 90), a false way of conceptualising the issue (see Phillipson, 2007) Linguistic imperialism now interlocks with the neoliberal economy, finance, the military, culture, and education Thus, Educational Testing Services, of Princeton, New Jersey, has a wholly owned subsidiary, ETS Global BV, which proclaims on its Web site: “Our global mission goes far beyond testing Our products and services enable opportunity worldwide by measuring knowledge and skills, promoting learning and performance, and supporting education and professional development for all people worldwide.” In 2009, their outreach is still global, but less bombastic: “As an advisor to governments, corporations and educators throughout the world, ETS and ETS Global subsidiaries help create and manage all aspects of custom assessment solutions that reflect local cultural and linguistic practices” (Educational Testing Service, 2009) In like fashion, Gordon Brown announced on his first trip as Prime Minister to China and India in January 2008 that he was launching a project to make English “the world’s common language of choice.”4 One of his goals is to strengthen the British TESOL business, which “could add a staggering £50 billion a year to the UK economy by 2010,” according to The Sun (Murdoch-owned) newspaper (Pascoe-Watson, 2009) Choice as to whether people should learn English is a luxury that the world’s have-nots not enjoy, unlike postcolonial elites This situation led one distinguished African scholar to conclude that in the global village there are a few chiefs—very powerful economically and militarily—and a lot of powerless villagers [ .] The market has indeed replaced imperial armies, but one wonders whether the effect is any different [ .] It is therefore not the case that more English will lead to African global integration; the reverse is more likely [ .] Giving false hopes that everybody can have access to “World English” is unethical (Rubagumya 2004, pp 136–139) Pascoe-Watson (2009) cites this 2008 statement by Brown, originally cited in The Sun on January 18, 2008, in a follow-up article in The Sun on March 9, 2009 SYMPOSIUM: IMAGINING MULTILINGUAL TESOL 337 Advocates of World English and English language spread tend to assume its advance is unproblematic and detached from the agendas of the powerful There is a tendency for scholars to refer to English as a lingua franca, falsely assuming that the language is neutral, free of cultural ties, and serves all equally well I would suggest that in whatever specific contexts we meet the term lingua franca, we ask whether it might not be more appropriately labelled as a lingua economica (the corporate globalisation imperative) lingua cultura (the specific values and norms of a society, country, group, or class, needing exploration in foreign language teaching) lingua academica (an instrument for international collaboration in higher education) lingua emotiva (the pull of Hollywood, global advertising, pop culture, and how such grassroots identification with English ties in with topdown promotion of the language) lingua bellica (the language of military aggression) lingua frankensteinia (Phillipson, 2008, whenever English is learned or used subtractively) There is currently a widespread concern that European languages are experiencing “domain loss,” in research publication, in higher education, business, and international relations This is a real risk, but the term itself is inappropriate because it conceals agency When English supplants another language, what happens is that users of English (whether as a first or second language) accumulate linguistic capital and others are dispossessed of their languages, their territory, and their functions Analysis of such processes, which I see TESOL as viscerally involved in, can be strengthened by distinguishing between the project, processes, and products The promotion of “global” English is a project (making English the default language internationally and increasingly intranationally), for which the processes tend to be normalized and legitimated by political, scholarly, and educational cheerleaders (inappropriate advocacy and pedagogy), which serve to consolidate products (Anglo-U.S linguistic norms, with local variation) Linguistic capital dispossession, which subtractive language learning or use promotes, means that English takes over space that earlier was occupied by the national language or the mother tongue What is therefore needed as a more ethical alternative is international English projects that strike a sustainable balance between English and other languages, through processes that lead to multilingual competence Additive English for specific purposes is desirable, provided English learning and use are situated in local multilingual ecologies There is an urgent need for professional rethinking and for the political will to address such language policy issues 338 TESOL QUARTERLY THE AUTHOR Robert Phillipson is Professor Emeritus at Copenhagen Business School, Denmark His areas of research include the role of English in the modern world, reasons for its spread, and consequences for other languages; language policies in European Union (EU) institutions and interactions between EU member-states; and language pedagogy REFERENCES Alatis, J., & Straehle, C A (1997) The universe of English: Imperialism, chauvinism, and paranoia In L E Smith and M L Forman (Eds.), World Englishes 2000 (pp 1–20) Honolulu: University of Hawaii Bennett, J C (2004) The Anglosphere challenge Why the English-speaking nations will lead the way in the twenty-first century Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield Bennett, J C (2007) The third Anglosphere century; The English-speaking world in an era of transition Retrieved February 28, 2008, from www.heritage.org/bookstore/ anglosphere Crystal, D (1997) English as a global language Cambridge: Cambridge University Press Educational Testing Service (2009) Custom assessments [Web site] Retrieved June 24, 2009 from http://www.ets.org/ Kaplan, R B (2001) English—the accidental language of science? In U Ammon (Ed.), The dominance of English as a language of science Effects on other languages and language communities (pp 3–26) Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter Katzen, M F (1970) Rhodes, Cecil John In Encyclopedia Britannica (vol 19, pp 272– 274) Chicago: Encyclopedia Britannica Niebuhr, G (2000, August 29) The religion issue: Lieberman is asked to stop invoking faith in the campaign The New York Times on the Web Retrieved July 13, 2008, http://partners.nytimes.com/library/politics/camp/082900wh-dem-faith html Pascoe-Watson, G (2009, March 9) PM Brown’s British invasion The Sun News Retrieved March 9, 2009, from http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/ article701093.ece Phillipson, R (1992) Linguistic imperialism Oxford: Oxford University Press Phillipson, R (2007) Linguistic imperialism: a conspiracy, or a conspiracy of silence? Language Policy, 6, 377–383 Phillipson, R (2008) Lingua franca or lingua frankensteinia? English in European integration and globalisation World Englishes, 27, 250–284 Pieterse, J N (2004) Globalization or empire New York & London: Routledge Roosevelt, T (1919, January 3) Letter to R K Hurd Available from http://msgboard snopes.com/politics/graphics/troosevelt.pdf Rubagumya, C (2004) English in Africa and the emergence of Afro-Saxons: Globalization or marginalization In M Baynham, A Deignan, & G White (Eds.), Applied linguistics at the interface (pp 133–144) London: Equinox Spolsky, B (2004) Language policy Cambridge: Cambridge University Press Spring, J (1996) The cultural transformation of a Native American family and its tribe 1763–1995 Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum Troike, R C (1977) The future of English (Editorial) The Linguistic Reporter, 19, SYMPOSIUM: IMAGINING MULTILINGUAL TESOL 339