The transcultural communication that characterizes our times needs to be carried out in a few commonly shared languages and this requirement has sharpened the awareness about uneven language status. While defenders of...The transcultural communication that characterizes our times needs to be carried out in a few commonly shared languages and this requirement has sharpened the awareness about uneven language status. While defenders of minor languages frequently make use of such concepts as ecosystem, human rights, capital, power, imperialism, etc. To express alarm at the spread of the English language in the present world, researchers tend to forget that these concepts applied to languages are only metaphors which, taken at their face value, would conceal the non- exclusive nature of language as a communicative instrument. A question is raised as to whether we should go beyond an essentially nationalist perception of language inherited from the nineteenth century.展开更多
文摘The transcultural communication that characterizes our times needs to be carried out in a few commonly shared languages and this requirement has sharpened the awareness about uneven language status. While defenders of minor languages frequently make use of such concepts as ecosystem, human rights, capital, power, imperialism, etc. To express alarm at the spread of the English language in the present world, researchers tend to forget that these concepts applied to languages are only metaphors which, taken at their face value, would conceal the non- exclusive nature of language as a communicative instrument. A question is raised as to whether we should go beyond an essentially nationalist perception of language inherited from the nineteenth century.
