English and Globalization

Nowadays, all businesses are being affected in one way or another by globalization and by the rapid advance of technology, especially in the area of communications.

Some businesses are trying to expand their markets to gain advantage of such process; however, the use of English by entrepreneurs from the United States as the only language to communicate with stakeholders is taken as a ethnocentric attitude throughout the world.

English has become one of the most important languages, but, most of the time its use is limited to politics, international trade or international relations. In other words, most of the people who use it are somehow involved in jobs that require them to use English; the same is not true for those businesses' consumers, who most of the time only speak their native language. (Strauss, 1997, p. 1)

What is still surprising for many is that even though the majority in the United States is conscious of the continuous globalization process, the US department of education does not facilitate students with courses in other languages during their first years of study. (Crispel, 1997, p.12)

In her article "Speaking other tongues," Diane Crispel (1997) points out that even though it is easier for a person to learn a foreign language at an early age, students are offered this opportunity at later years during middle school or high school. These classes were not a requirement in any of the States as of 1991. (p. 12)

Nevertheless, the number of students taking foreign language classes in high school or college has been increasing since the early 1980's; but not all of these students try to continue practicing that second language once they get out of high school. (Crispel, 1997, p. 12)

The need for language skilled people has not just been growing in the business industries but also in the area of education. Crispel mentions that during the years of 1993 and 1994, the demand for foreign language teachers was much bigger than the supply. Around twenty four percent of the schools offering these jobs found it very difficult to fill those vacancies. (Crispel, 1997, p. 13)

This shortage of personnel for the education system might be due in part by the great demand and higher salaries those people receive when working in other industries. (Crispel, 1997, p. 13)

A lot of companies in the United States have passed policies that require the use of only English in the workplace. Some studies have revealed that the fact of having workers with poor English skill is costing around 175 billion per year in loses related to productivity, wages, and unemployment compensation. Furthermore, this makes non-native English speakers remain in low wage jobs. (Strauss, 1997)

There are currently more than 25 million foreign people forming part of the work force, which represent more than 11 percent of the total workforce. Setting policies can become discriminatory acts against these workers and companies have paid millions in legal disputes because of such policies. Even the federal government passed a law instituting English as the only language to be used in this area; but such law did not get approves by the senate. (Cantu, 1998, p. 50)

We need to acknowledge that the process of immigration into the United States has not diminished at all, and in fact the percentage of immigrants is still raising and experts agree that it is not going to stop in the near future. (Strauss, 1997)

While US companies are still trying to force their workers to speak only English, companies in Europe establish learning programs to teach their workers, most of whom speak two or three languages, what is known as a lingua franca, or a "language that is used to communicate among a nation's diverse cultures that have diverse languages." (Ball, 1996, p. 296)

Though the United States at the moment is the major economy worldwide, economists and marketing experts consider all of Europe as an example when it comes to relations with employees and consumers of an enterprise.

With the establishment of the European Union, the member countries allowed not just the free trade of products within each other; the Union also allows the free movement of people or workers within these nations. This meant that there were going to be people from different nations, and with different languages working together. An example of this is the European Central Bank, which will be in charge of the central banks of the 15 nations when the Euro begins circulating in the continent. The Governing Council and the Executive Board of the ECB is formed by individual from the EU nations and the only way for them to communicate with each other is by using a language that is common to all of them; in this case English.

But countries in Europe are not the only ones trying to improve communications for their people; China can also be a good example. In a country with more than 1.5 billion habitants, the number of languages or dialects might differ within regions; therefore, the government is establishing the mandarin language as their lingua franca to improve communications internationally with Singapore, Taiwan, and other Asian countries. (Ojala, 1997, p. 8)

The second major factor that has and still is playing a major role in the spread of the English Language is Technology with the continuous advancement of the communication systems.

One of these methods is the World Wide Web, which makes it easier and cheaper to communicate with other individuals around the world and provides businesses with a very powerful tool to advertise their goods or services worldwide.

Matt Bellm (1998), who works as an Internet editor for various global companies, points out the importance of the World Wide Web, and how this powerful marketing tool is being underutilized by multinational organizations all over the world. (p. 62) He explains that although the World Wide Web is being used globally, 82.3 percent of the existing web sites are written in English. (1998, p. 62)

In a research carried out by Euro - Marketing Associates, an international marketing agency located in the San Francisco area, the company reported that there is only 28 percent of people in Europe that are able to understand English, which means that most of the world population is not able to understand what is written on the Internet. With this information we can deduct that most of the global companies are not reaching millions of consumers not only in Europe but in all of the other continents as well. (Bellm, 1998, p. 62)

To avoid the language barriers, some software companies have began developing translation software not just for web pages but these can also help with the translation of other documents such as letters or memorandums. (Bellm, 1998, p. 62)

Babelfish has become one of the