Research 2006
Speaking with One Voice?
World Politics and Global English
Peter Ives
Associate Professor, Politics
As players on the world stage debate their roles in a global community and acceptable definitions of democracy, they continue to overlook one important element: the language of debate itself.
“In contemporary discussions of global governance, there’s an extensive discussion of global civil society—people talking amongst each other in the global public sphere. It’s seen as this open free realm of discussion and debate,” says Politics Associate Professor Peter Ives. “But if democracy is more than voting, if it is public discussion and debate, then the language of these public discussions and debate—and whether they are translated and how that translation is done—are of crucial importance.”
Ives is particularly concerned with the effects of language as the world population of people speaking English as a second language—often described as Global English—surpasses the number of native English speakers.
To investigate these issues, Ives draws on his previous research on the Italian political theorist, Antonio Gramsci. This includes his book, Gramsci’s Politics of Language: Engaging the Bakhtin Circle and the Frankfurt School published by University of Toronto Press in 2004 that recently won the Raymond Klibansky Prize for the best book in the Humanities funded by SSHRC.
Part of his new project on Global English focuses on the European Union (EU). “There we have a fascinating example—the EU as democratic governance above the nation-state level,” he says. Unlike a simple trading bloc, the EU is taking on responsibilities that used to be the purview of nation-states, and it’s running into the question of what to do about language diversity.
Though the EU has 20 official languages, looking at documents of policy debates within the EU, Ives wonders to what extent English dominates public discourse. “A lot of the discussions and specific policies do describe linguistic diversity as a resource crucial to European identity,” says Ives. “Officially, any citizen of a member-state can address the EU Parliament and get a response in one of the official languages. But if you’re actually a politician from Finland, for example, you’ll be made well aware that others do not appreciate the problems and cost created by insisting that the committees you work on operate in Finnish as well as English.”
Ives adds that questions of language have not only political ramifications, but personal and social ones as well. “In many cases, the predominance of English tends to exacerbate class differences and hierarchies of power,” he says. “For example, some people can afford to send their kids to school to learn English, but others cannot.”
To learn more about his research on world politics and Global English, contact University of Winnipeg faculty member Peter Ives at p.ives@uwinnipeg.ca