Rosemary Salomone - The Rise of English

Hello everyone, this is Kris. Welcome to another podcast episode here on The Actual Fluency Podcast. Today we're gonna be talking to Rosemary Salomone, professor at St. John's College in Queens, New York, and she's previously worked with international bilingual programs, language education, English education as well. And in today's episode, we're gonna be talking about this topic of English on the rise and the global politics and risk that it brings with it.

Well, my my journey to the book has been, uh, certainly not direct. I'll put it that way. Uh, I started out in terms of my career, uh, I started out in a graduate program in with a PhD in Linguistics and Education. Uh, and during that time, I taught French to elementary school children, I taught, uh, English to international students at Columbia University, where I was doing my graduate work. I, uh, developed programs for bilingual students in New York City, uh, for Italian and Spanish-speaking students, and, uh, French Haitian students as well. It was a very diverse community.

Oh, wow.

And so immediately after the PhD, that propelled me into law school. Uh, and so the rest is kind of history. Uh, and then I came into teaching. I I first taught at, uh, the Harvard Graduate School of Education. I was teaching, uh, bilingual, well, it was really language planning, and language planning from an international perspective, and education law and education finance there. Uh, and I did that for I guess five years, and in the middle of that, I went back to law school, uh, and completed, uh, an LLM Master's Degree in Constitutional Law.

Wow.

And that's what took me into teaching in law school. Uh, and I teach Constitutional Law and Administrative Law, but I also teach a seminar on Children and the Law, and a Comparative Equality and Anti-Discrimination seminar, which I'm teaching this semester, which I absolutely love. It's just 19 students once a week, and we sit there and talk about all the global issues of the day.

Wow.

Uh, and so, if I look at my research, the common thread coming through my research all these years, it has been educational equity and educational opportunity and educational access. Looking at various in various areas of it. Uh, I came back to language about, I guess, about 15 years ago, when I started writing my last book before the the current book, uh, True American. Uh, and there I looked at the education of immigrant children, largely in the United States, but the last chapter looks at Europe, and the education of migrant children in Europe.

Awesome. Well, there's a lot to, uh, kind of get into there for sure. Right. So, but it is interesting to start out with to say that you do have those two perspectives that for looking let's say outside the English-speaking world, everyone seemingly wants to learn English. Uh, but there's obviously not the same it's not the same on on both sides but reverse, but it's it's interesting how that doesn't translate into, let's say, more people coming to the US with more diverse backgrounds, but it doesn't seem to translate into more foreign language skills in those countries.

No.

So that's that that's interesting. And and I think obviously it ties in very well with the the topic of migrant language learning as well, which we also covered in a in another book. Um, which is something that I'm very interested in as well. Uh, I've uh, I have a little project or not a project, but there's a little Danish town in in Iowa I go to once in a while called Elk Horn. And, you know, the language is is all is all but lost, but uh, they try to maintain some of the traditions even though it's been, you know, got a hundred and 30, 50 years since the the settlers came and and went.

Oh, really?

Yeah, the people I talked to said that once that happened, because that was a big meeting place, right? These were pretty religious Danish people that came over. Uh, once that they take that away, it's like hollows out the culture from the inside. That's a whole different, uh, book maybe, like the the language language and religion, but, uh, you know, that that's why I'm also very fascinated about this topic and, you know, a lot of the podcast episodes also about people learning their heritage languages, or rediscovering, or teaching their kids, you know, that's a big topic. So, so yeah, it's a, I I think I think you fit right in with with the listeners here.

Well, for my my ancestral language was Italian, I guess you could tell from my surname that there's some Italian connection there. And, uh, my three of my grandparents were Italian immigrants. And, uh, they did not want the grandchildren to speak Italian. Uh, and that's what that's what where the title of my last book, the last book came from, True American, because they really wanted my generation to be the True Americans, that we would not have any trace of an accent, that we would be totally full-blooded Americans. So I didn't learn Italian until I went to the university.

Yeah. And this is uh, I I think this is more the rule than the exception, to be honest, especially with the those generations that came came in from Europe there. Um, I I talk to a lot of people who are in that same situation. I don't know, have you seen a kind of a positive change in the other way or do you think it's still kind of the same now?

Uh, well, it's it's rather interesting. I think I think, uh, my generation started searching for our roots, and so we we went back to the to the original, the ancestral country. Uh, searching for our roots, and felt very comfortable because we felt very comfortable being Americans. You know, we didn't have this torn identity. Um, and, uh, I the next generation doesn't feel from that old immigrant immigrant way from a hundred years ago, okay? The next generation doesn't feel that tie at all.

Right.

I just I think that's totally, you know, we had immigrant grandparents. They didn't. So when I look at my son, you know, he's American.

Yeah.

And he speaks French fluently, but he doesn't speak Italian. So, you know, as a child when I would take him to to Italy, uh, people would ask me, well, why doesn't your son, you know, you're you're speaking to us in Italian, why doesn't your son speak Italian?

I don't know. I don't know. Right. So, but uh, newcomers, this new wave of immigrants, that's very interesting, because they're maintaining their language and their culture in a much more positive way. But they can, because they have the internet. Okay, they live many of them can live transnational lives where they go back and forth visiting their home country, which was not the case of immigrants a hundred years ago. Those who came pretty much came and never went back. My grandparents never went back.

Sure.

Uh, and it was very difficult to for them to communicate with their families. It was by postal mail. And that could take a long time. Whereas here you just get on the internet, you can do Zoom meetings with your relatives, uh, and so there's much, uh, more direct contact with their their home, uh, country and their relatives. And so you see the newer immigrants maintaining their language and their culture. Some folks don't like it. You know, some folks are quite threatened by it, particularly because we have a huge Spanish-speaking population in the country. Uh, and some, you know, there are some folks in the United States who find that very threatening. They don't see it as a real resource for the country.

Right. Yeah. But that comes back to you know, exposure and I guess uh, yeah, it's uh, experience, right? If if you don't see it or hear it, if you're not in it, then it's it's you just don't it doesn't evolve anyway. It just it stays the same. That kind of us and them mentality.

Right.

In a way. And that's unfortunate.

And that's unfortunate. Uh, when I was writing The True American book, uh, one chapter is on Americanization past, and my editor at the time couldn't understand, well, why you, you know, this is about today, immigrant children today. Why are you writing this historical chapter? I said, no, you don't understand. I want people to understand what their ancestors went through a hundred years ago, and how the public schools were very unkind to these children in so many ways. And how there were laws quite the law you were mentioning in the 50s is interesting because it was really around 1919 that a number of states right at at after World War I, uh, a number of states adopted laws prohibiting teaching through another language in the public.

Oh, was that early?

Right. But but it was really a response to, uh, the Germans, the Italians, you know, who our enemies were during World War I. So this this issue in Iowa was that that's very very late date.

I mean, it would have probably happened anyway, but, you know, I feel like if you're a kind of a a secular society or community rather, then losing that would probably be like losing a part of your soul and I could see how it declined very quickly after that. Um, at least that's what I that's what I was told that that was around the time where the last the last, uh, native speakers, uh, were were still around there from, you know, second and third generation.

And specifically to target the Danish. There there uh, there was a rash like in the 1980s, 1990s, going forward a bit, of these English-only laws that were adopted in a number of states in the United States, where, you know, uh, English is the language of the state. You know, English is not our national language in terms of our our country. It's not in our Constitution, it's not in any law. But states were adopting these English-only laws.

So the the states were were were they challenged then as unconstitutional by the,

No, I mean, no, uh, it wasn't really unconstitutional. Uh, it was, uh, I think it was bad public policy that was requiring, you know, everybody in government offices could only speak English, that we are an English-only state.

So the Constitution, uh, obviously I'm not from America, so I'm not intimately familiar, but it doesn't afford the freedom of language. It affords a lot of other freedoms, but not language.

It doesn't, you know, and we that's one of us that we look at in my in my comparative equality seminar, uh, looking at these newer democracies that have newer constitutions, and you do see a protection for linguistic or language rights in these newer constitutions. In our Constitution, there's no mention of language at all.

Mm. Right. Guess they didn't think that far ahead.

No, I guess not. I don't know. I guess they didn't they didn't anticipate the waves, huge waves of immigration that would ultimately wash over our country.

So what's uh, where's where's all this English stuff going? You know, everyone wants to learn English. The world is kind of running on English. The internet is kind of in English. What where's it all all going? Is there going to be a big counter push at some point? Are we going to see more kind of other language, uh, you know, societies, websites, uh, schools? Uh, or do you think it's just going to continue as kind of the lingua franca of the world? Or where do you see it all going?

For now, it is the dominant global lingua franca, for better or worse. You know, for better or worse. And, um, you know, there's speculation what's going to be the next, you know, Latin died. That was a lingua franca at one time. But Latin didn't they didn't have an internet to really spread it as effectively as English has had. Um, it could be another language, you know, they speculate, well, could it be Mandarin Chinese, could it be Spanish? Spanish is spoken at least unofficially on all five continents. So could it be Spanish? Nobody knows for sure.

That's true.

You know, I can roam the world. You can roam the world speaking English. Uh, my government officials can collaborate and and communicate with other leaders across the world in English. Science, English has become the dominant language of science now. Uh, but, you know, the downside is that when you look at when you look at countries in in Europe, for example, professors are under the gun to learn English at this point, to teach in English, because universities are offering more English courses to attract more international students. Uh, and the more they internationalize, the higher their rankings on these international rankings universities. And so it, you know, it it there's this domino effect.

Well, yeah.

They're increasingly doing it. You know, if you come from a family that's well-resourced, well, maybe they gave you tutors along the way. Or maybe you went to better resourced schools where you could learn English. There are a lot of inequities built into it.

Right. I I'd like to share just a quick story about that from my own life because when I was going into high school, I didn't really know what I was going to do with my life at all anyway. That's probably most people. Um, but I I saw that they had this international high school available called International Baccalaureate or IB. And, uh, I'd never heard about it, and it was a school about about an hour from where I lived, which for Denmark is, you know, quite a distance. You know, we're about a five-hour country if you drive from one end to the other. So, you know, five an hour is, uh, it's quite a while.

I I think it is different. It's progressing. And it that was a transition phase, if you will. Uh, but there is still complaints made by by students that, um, the quality of English, the level of proficiency among some of their professors is not quite what it should be.

Right. But it's hard to take seriously, isn't it? It's like, you know, the guy has seven PhDs, but he can't really say anything in English, then it's really hard to stay on the course.

Right. And so that that is still a complaint that's made by some students. Yeah. And you can argue that progressively this will improve as this younger generation that is now learning in English, then they go into academia, then the quality of teaching is going to improve at some point. Uh, but for now, it's still a problem. Yeah.

Right. And are there any risks of any, are there any legal risks that countries might change the laws and become like kind of go backwards a little bit and and and like restrict the use?

Well, you see somewhat of a pushback in some countries. I think the Nordic countries, you know, Norway and Sweden and Denmark, uh, they were in the forefront on English-language programs in in the universities. Uh, but I think you see some forces within those countries beginning to question, well, have we gone too far? And one of the issues, you know, one of the issues is the the quality of teaching and the level of proficiency among the faculty and among the students. Uh, but another is the loss of the national language, to what extent are we losing the national language?

And these are is it's probably because of the size of the countries that they're so kind of easy to push in one direction or the other. Like, for instance, Denmark has a very high, uh, proficiency of English. Um, maybe among the highest in the world, I'm not sure. But, um, obviously with five million, six million people, it's harder to justify speaking more Danish because you want to be competitive, you know, on the job market. We're now in a global market rather than just the local community, right? So,

Right.

I guess that's the challenge.

These are countries with small languages, what we call small languages. That's like Spain that has a big language, it's spoken, you know, unofficially on five continents, or or English, or even French with all those French colonies, former colonies. So these are countries with small languages, and so they realized early on that in order to compete in this global economy, in the global marketplace, they really had to speak what seemed to be becoming the dominant language, English.

Yeah. Which is uh, and then you run the risk of kind of losing a little bit of your own identity along the way if we had all the programs in English.

And you know, I'm finding that to be kind of it's sort of a something that's swirling around my head. And I did give a presentation at a conference on this on this issue back in June. Uh, is it changing identity in these European countries in any way? That, you know, are are people, uh, developing a European identity as part of the EU? I'm not sure. What do you think so?

Uh, that's a tough one. Uh, yeah, I I don't know. I I don't feel like there's the kind of the EU is this brotherhood or sisterhood or whatever that some people make it out to be. I I think people are happy to be in the geographical union, but I think most people don't really care too much about all the other things that they do. Uh, unless you get funding, of course, or you're an Erasmus student or, you know, unless it directly affects you, I think most people are are just happy to be down local, uh, identity, but I think someone like me who moves out of the country and conduct most of my life in English, there is a big shift.

But do you think that's more you're having moved out of the country?

Mm.

Than you're not speaking Danish?

Yeah. No, that's probably that's probably a big part of it. But if people are in the country and they go for you go to university for instance, I guess some time ago almost all the programs would have been offered in Danish except for a few rare global programs. But now I think they probably offer most of them in English, if not the vast majority. Uh, so, that has to have some effect. I'm sure, you know.

I would think so. I just wonder there's this fear that with adopting the language, learning the language, you're adopting the values too. So, is it, uh, American culture is washing over Europe, not just American English. And it's really more American English than European speaking than British English from what I I hear.

That's correct, yeah. Yeah, I would think so. That's probably, I mean, I had a bit of a, when I was younger, I had a bit of a counter towards the American English because everyone around me was speaking in that accent. And I always thought the British accent sounded nicer. I don't know, just, you know, not a big difference. But, uh, so I tried when I was younger to put on a more British style accent and vocabulary.

Exactly. It's about it's about all that soft power, of culture that, um, that is spreading across the globe, coming out of the United States. And so, I I I find that kind of interesting. That question, I don't know the answer if, in fact, Europeans are somehow losing their strong national identity, and is it a little bit more of a European identity? I don't really get that sense. And I think you're pretty much saying that. Or is are they adopting whatever would be considered, I don't know, American values some way?

Some kind of, yeah. Whatever that is. Whatever. Yeah, I think this this is super interesting. Um, but like you, I don't have I don't have an answer for this. But I guess we are seeing some pushbacks in the, especially the Eastern European countries of rejecting very progressive ideas, um, based on essentially their culture and values of that country.

Yeah, yeah. And you do see the rise of nationalism.

Right.

In European countries. But you see the rise of nationalism elsewhere as well.

But isn't it funny that this this is all about a balance? It's like you you should be nationalistic, but not, you know, too much. You know, there's a difference between appreciating your values and then, you know, denying everyone else's.

Well, sometimes it's nationalism masking as patriotism.

Right.

But it's really nationalism.

Yeah. No, so everything in in too much can be bad. I guess that goes for English too. You know, we don't want to, you know, throw it, uh, or, you know, we don't want everyone to just use only English. You know, that would be certainly a sad world.

I think so. I think it really, um, narrows your point of view. Where where we're not So now you have scholarship that's being produced through an English, I.E. American, if you will, lens, or Anglo Anglo lens. And I have to believe that, you know, the the the Spanish or Italian or German or Danish or whatever French lens is somewhat different. Even the way of organizing arguments is different in different languages.

And of course.

And you see that the this Anglo the Anglo argument is is, um, is dominating in scholarship now. And that to me that's unfortunate.

Yeah. Do you have any other tips and and or do you have any tips and advice for people who are, let's say, from a non-native English-speaking country and they're looking to A, obviously improve their English, but also maybe go down a and an an academic route in a in English? Is there anything they can do to better equip themselves, uh, for for that kind of maybe they want to study in America or other English-speaking countries?

Well, you really need is what we call academic English, which is not just conversational English. You need to you need to understand the nuances of of the language. Uh, and that's very difficult. You know, what we learn, even in in foreign language courses here, we learn conversation, but we don't learn academic English. And so I think the only way you could really learn that, uh, is to, if you're lucky enough to attend primary schools, and middle schools, and you know, secondary schools that have really good English teachers. Uh, or if you're really lucky enough to have parents who can afford tutors.

The golden ticket.

But, you know, it's it's their ticket, it's the it right. So English is becoming a gatekeeper.

Right.

Has become a gatekeeper.

Whereas just a thinking out loud, if it wasn't such a big deal about which language you could do you could become, like let's say, you you wanted to you you could become like a full dentist or something in your local language. And then you can you have the skills, and you could then do the job somewhere else. You could apply for to move somewhere else. But because you need I I I think it's a joke from a TV show, um, I think it was House, maybe. It's like, um, my, uh, my medicine my degree in medicine has the problem of not being from your country.

Yeah.

You know. Because you couldn't get a job as a doctor, yeah.

It doesn't count. It doesn't count. Uh, and that's um, and that's unfortunate. One one chapter in the book just looks at, um, uh, marketing English. You know, the the the English as a commodity. What's the value or and what is the the value of multilingual skills as well?

Oh, right, yeah.

And there's all this data on both. You know, how much does English will English pay on the job market in a non-Anglophone country? Could be quite a lot. And how much do language skills pay in an Anglophone country? Could be not as much, but it it is substantial enough in terms of your career opportunities. And it's not just, uh, multinational corporations. Some of them are now changing totally to English as the home office is totally in English.

Uh. I see. And at some point, I think within about two or three years, I think it was 80% of the engineers in the Tokyo office were not Japanese.

Right.

Well, that's what happens when you have those kind of policies, right? But, um, and and that's a shame because, you know, I know Rakuten doesn't only work in English-speaking countries. So, you know, you why would you need to that have that? I think having a, you know, a useful level is fine, just communication. But expecting people to be basically multilingual is, uh, I mean, that's a tall order.

Exactly. Exactly. So there there again are the inequities of it. And the burdens, you know, as much as there are the benefits of this common language that we can collaborate with each other. Uh, there are also the burdens of it.

Absolutely.

Excuse me, this is my Okay. My phone ringing. Uh, and so, uh, when you look at what just look at the current pandemic, okay? Uh, and so, it's not just multi multi-national corporations, it's service providers. It's when you have the United States, we have a huge immigrant population that doesn't speak English. Uh, and so we need, uh, other language speakers at banks, at at shops, at stores. Certainly in hospitals, and we found it within the pandemic, where they this was a is still a serious health crisis. And we need people in those hospitals who can communicate with patients and with the families of patients giving them very critical information.

Yeah. And it so just rounding off, kind of a a similar advice but for, you know, the the Anglophones listening, to use that term, the people from the US or, uh, Canada, or Great Britain, who are listening to the podcast. I know there's a lot of them who might be interested in learning a language, or they've begun kind of the the journey of of doing so. Uh, what kind of message would you have to to them, uh, on top of of this that you just said?

Well, I think they should take it very seriously and to do it very diligently. It's hard to learn a language when you're not in the country. I mean, you know, we have to be honest about that.

Absolutely. I mean, it's hard to learn. I would like to say, I think it's hard to learn a language no matter what. I think it's a very, you know, long-time consistent effort that rivals, you know, weight loss and other big feats of of of strength. So, never downplay the the difficulty. It's definitely hard. But it's not, uh, yeah, it's not complicated, you know. Anyone can do it and the materials are are, you know, there more than ever resources available.

My goodness, on the internet. There are just

Just free, yeah.

The internet is flooded with programs to learn, uh, you could have work with a tutor virtually. You know, you could work with a tutor personally, work with a tutor virtually. Some of this is some will cost money and some of it isn't. Some of it isn't at all. Just try it and try to get yourself into some kind of a community of people who with whom you can speak that language, just for practice.

Yeah. Amazing. And great. And this obviously also why this podcast, you know, to keep people engaged and interested and motivated in in adding more language skills, because we definitely believe that the world is better, uh, multilingually, and I think the benefits for me are, you know, yeah, I can't even begin to describe the the positive benefits it's had for me to know more than one language. And and like you said earlier in in the recording, you know, it was also about culture and understanding of other people, and, uh, I guess empathy in a way. You know, you understand people better if you have the language. It's kind of weird how that works, but it's just true.

Oh, it's true. Absolutely.

It makes it less alien maybe, I don't know if that's it. You know, I don't know. It's a it's strange, you know, when I was learning Russian, I was often when I heard Russian, I would say, oh, these people they seem like why are they so angry and upset all the time? Then I learned the language, I was like, they're just normal people like everyone else. You know. So it's kind of interesting. But I think, yeah, it's it's worth it for sure. And if people want to travel and things like that, then the experiences you get with just a little bit of the local language is completely night and day from from just having English.

And people, uh, appreciate your your you're making some attempt at speaking their language.

Very much so. So, but anyway, I know this, uh, topic could probably be, I mean, you've written quite a lot on the topic, and so, I know this, uh, 40 minutes might not have, uh, done it justice. But just remind us, uh, what the book is called and where everyone can, uh, go and get it.

Uh, the book is called The Rise of English. Uh, Global Politics and the Politics Global Politics and the Power of Language. Uh, and it's published by Oxford University Press. It's due any day. We're a little worried about supply chains and getting the book out. Uh, but it it should be available any day.

Perfect. Well, thank you so much for taking the time and, uh, have a a fantastic day.

Thank you, Kris. My pleasure.