标准英语作为语言意识形态的传播问题及其批判

Problems and Critique of the Dissemination of Standard English as Language Ideology

以英美口音为代表的标准英语在世界各国的英语教学实践中都占据主导地位。能否说一口流利的英式或美式英语,俨然成为了教师和学生的教育目标、教育机构衡量学生语言能力的重要标准和社会机构衡量个体综合素质的重要指标。这种奉标准英语为圭臬的语言意识形态在现实中导致了很多问题,且其在外圈和扩展圈国家尤为严重,并进一步强化了英语全球扩张背后所掩盖的不平等的国际政治经济格局。本文介绍了标准英语作为语言意识形态的核心观点,并从以下三个层面对其逐一进行批驳:从本体论来看,标准英语并不是能够清晰定义的客观实在,只是一种理想化的意识形态迷思;从当今全球语境来看,标准英语并不符合世界英语使用状况的现实;从理论挑战来看,标准英语遭到了新兴起的解放语言学思潮如世界英语理论和英语作为通用语理论的激烈批评。标准英语意识形态的传播给教育、职场、全球文化等诸多方面带来了严重的消极影响。因此,有必要从解放语言学的角度出发,采取有效的策略,打破标准英语的藩篱。

Standard English, represented by the British and American accents, has a dominant status in the English teaching practices all over the world. The ability to speak fluent British or American English is not only the education goal of teachers and students, and an important criterion in the assessment of learners’ linguistic capabilities by educational institutions, but also a significant index of a person’s overall quality evaluated by social institutions.This linguistic ideology celebrating the superiority of standard English has caused many serious problems in reality, especially in the Outer and Expanding circles, and further consolidate the unequal world political and economic order underlying the global spread of the English language. This paper introduces the basic assumptions in the standard English ideology and then refutes them from the following three aspects. Firstly, standard English is not a definable reality. Secondly, standard English does not fit the current global reality of English use in the world, and new liberating linguistics such as World Englishes, and English as a Lingua Franca are emerging.Thirdly, standard English ideology has caused many adverse consequences in various domains such as education, workplaces and world culture. The last section of the paper attempts to provide suggestions ans strategies to cope with the global spread of the standard English ideology.