MODERNITY OF LANGUAGE

MODERNITY OF LANGUAGE

From a western point of view, there
have been three major phases in
human history: premodern, modern,
and postmodern. Each phase (shown
opposite) is associated with different
forms of social and economic organisation,
different beliefs, and different
ideas about expected forms of change.
The changing relationships between
languages now taking place may refl ect
the decline of modernity in the world

Modernity spread from Europe across
the world. Its roots were in the
Renaissance and its development can be
charted through the centuries – the emergence
of capitalist economies, colonial
expansion, protestant non-conformism
in northern Europe, territorial wars, the
Enlightenment and the industrial and urban
age of the 19th century. Languages in
Europe during this period became ‘modern’:
codifi ed, standardised, languages which
symbolised and helped unify national identity
– often at the cost of other language
varieties spoken within national borders.
The rise of modern languages brought with
it modern concepts of the ‘native speaker’
and its counterpart: the notion of a ‘foreign
language’. Before the 18th century there
was no concept of ‘foreign language’ as we know it today.

THE END OF MODERNITY
Many of the extraordinary and rapid
changes we have seen recently in the
world can be understood as the old order,
as represented by modernity, being swept
away by a new one – as equally powerful
as modernity was. The structures, attitudes
and needs of modernity have been undermined
by globalisation, new technologies
(especially those related to communication),
and the changing demographic shape
of the world.
In many cases since the start of the
21st century. It, of course, is in the nature of
things that precursors can always be found.
Major trends now were minor trends at some
earlier stage, though their importance may
not have been recognised. Some argue, for
example, that globalisation started in the
15th century with the development of capitalist
economies, nation states and national
languages. By the 19th century, scholars
were well aware of the potential impact
of new technologies, such as the electric
telegraph, on social, political and economic
life. Some analysts prefer to talk about ‘late
modernity’ rather than ‘postmodernity’
– emphasising the continuity with the past
rather than the novelty of the present. But
there comes a moment where one has to
pause and conclude that a new framework
is required to understand the events now
unfolding before us, to comprehend why
they are happening, and to speculate on
what might happen next. We need a ‘paradigm
shift’ – like the scientific  revolutions

we have reached such a moment in relation
to the status of global English: the world has
changed and will never be the same again.
As ever increasing numbers of people learn
English around the world, it is not just ‘more
of the same’. There is a new model. English
is no longer being learned as a foreign
language, in recognition of the hegemonic
power of native English speakers.