Global Communication Is the Vehicle for Language Expansion

Abstract

This article is investigating the development of the English language and its influence on global communication in the world. Globalization has both positive and negative effects on existing languages, integration between countries and cultures as it involves changes. Survey and interview methods are applied for the determination of various people’s level of foreign language knowledge and opinions about globalization. Practical implication in this work is to inform society about globalization through the foreign language expansion, the language transmission through lexicon or vocabulary, and the grammar.

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Ysmailova, R. , Imankulova, T. , Kalmamatova, Z. , Zhakaeva, G. , Kochkonbaeva, S. , Abdullaeva, Z. , Turgunbaeva, Z. , Salieva, D. , Adylbekova, B. and Zhusubalieva, M. (2021) Global Communication Is the Vehicle for Language Expansion. Sociology Mind, 11, 1-9. doi: 10.4236/sm.2021.111001.

1. Introduction

Global communication acts as a conductor of linguistic expansion, as a study mentions that language diversity has an influence on management decisions in modern multinational institutions (Tenzer et al., 2017). In world globalization, mechanisms and factors influencing national mentality can be explained in the context of global social experience. That is why studying of language problems is significantly important. Therefore, today’s implementation of complex efforts and conceptual plans for minimizing negative effects from the consequences of global trends in the world is required. In the era of globalization, countries change their national thinking through the media employing linguistic manipulation following their interests. Language is the most important component of national culture, which is formed together with the formation of an ethnic group, as a prerequisite and condition for its existence. Language is existing in the national, corporate, technical, or electronic areas and functions in terms of defining hierarchies (Brannen et al., 2014). Language ability and proficiency are essential cultural resources in internationalization and globalization for the implementation of strategic advantages (Johnstone et al., 2018). Therefore, the problem of ethnic identity and all the processes of globalization cannot be solved without taking into account the main instrument of cultural expression, which is language. Language development is a category of philosophy, which is a consistent and steady transformation of the original system relations over time. There is a common distinction established concerning the language meaning transmission through lexicon or vocabulary, and the grammar, which is determining morphosyntax (Rosselli et al., 2014). Language is an integral and essential element of any national culture, a complete familiarity with which necessarily implies an attempt to penetrate the mindset of the nation, and attempt to look at the world through the eyes of the carriers of this culture. In the collective consciousness of the language, the community builds its world, the semantics of the language fully reflects.

The concept of “globalization” has been widely reviewed by scholars from a wide range of disciplines such as education, political science, cultural studies, economics, sociology, and history (Marlina, 2013). Global communication research should concern about the transformation of society, should be human-centered (not driven by technological determinism), truly global, focused on human rights; more participatory and qualitative communication research will be necessary to monitor and evaluate from the perspective of social relevance (Servaes, 2015).

The problem of the relationship between language and thought is among the most complex and urgent issues of philosophy. The complexity of the problems is due to the complexity and contradictory nature of thinking and language. As necessary attributes of a person, these phenomena combine both social and biological issues. The globalization of English provides the language with a global lingua franca and an international language diversifies (Xu, 2018). The spread of the English language around the globe is classified by the linguist Braj Kachru that is consisting of three concentric circles representing different ways in which the language is acquired and used by people in different countries as represented in Figure 1 (Fleckenstein et al., 2016).

Globalization forcefully actualizes the contradictory relationship between two fundamental factors that influence the development of language and language policy. Advanced globalization makes people bilingual or multilingual; connect people through the Internet to someone else across the globe, and the necessity of speaking more than one language becomes more distinct (Abutalebi & Weekes, 2014). On the one hand, it is the need for mutual understanding, and on another, the need for identity. Language learners face monolithic representations

Figure 1. Kachru’s classification of English as a global language.

of their heritage languages as located in their parents or grandparents’ countries of origin, and learners of English as an international language, who are studying in center nations are challenge native-speaker norms (Higgins & Sharma, 2017).

This work aimed to determine the inseparable connection between national thinking and the national language, and their mutual interdependence. According to the forecasts of some scientists, the culture will become a worldwide rough intercourse and ignorance at the confluence and contamination of the national languages across the global communications system. There is the culture behind every language, the expressive richness of a living language; a great number of languages are existing in the world and reflect the infinite variety of ways of thinking.

2. Research Methods

Interview and survey methods were useful in the determination of people’s opinions living in various geographical areas, and among experts who work in the sphere of education, medicine, economy, and service. Respondents who work in the administrative parts and retired people who have enough experience of different times in the country have participated.

3. Results and Discussions

3.1. Survey and Questionnaire Results

A survey conducted in 2015, determined the current level of foreign language knowledge with the help of volunteer students in grades 3 - 4 studying English at the Faculty of World Languages at Osh State University. Student volunteers distributed according to their living conditions in the regions and surveyed the local population. According to research, people in Kyrgyzstan try to learn a foreign language in schools, universities, special courses, but only 100% to 21% of respondents can speak a foreign language as shown in Figure 2. The majority of English-speaking respondents are from Bishkek and Osh. 79% of respondents do not speak a foreign language, but some of the respondents (28.5%) set a goal to learn English during the year. After English, which is popular, Turkish and Chinese are also receiving more attention. 71% of respondents emphasize the importance of learning English in Kyrgyzstan, and 31% believe that learning English is a great need in the current socio-cultural situation. For example, the Resource and Methodological Center of the National Statistics Committee announced the organization of English language courses for staff of the central office. The course aims to help the staff of the National Statistics Committee to use the terms used in international statistical practice.

The results of a study held together with the 5th year students of the World Languages Faculty in 2015 among the population in the town of Osh (Kyrgyzstan) showed the complexity of perceiving confusion. Figure 3 shows the diversity of responses from respondents and experts perceiving globalization differently determines that the spread of globalization will also be different. Among experts were those who work in the sphere of education, medicine, economy, and service, respondents were those who worked in the administrative parts and retired people who have enough experience of different times in the country. A quarter of respondents (28%) and almost half of experts (44%) believe that globalization opens up positive prospects for human development, which is the development of technology, traveling possibilities, changing life for the better; and 18% of respondents and 27% of experts were pessimistic: negative influence of the West to the youth of the country, loss of national values, etc. 54% of respondents and 29% of experts said they could not say for sure.

Figure 2. Results of a survey conducted in 2015 which determined the current level of foreign language knowledge at the Faculty of World Languages at Osh State University.

Figure 3. Results of a survey held by the Osh State University, World Languages Faculty in 2015 among people showing the diversity of responses from respondents and experts.

As for the stuff of respondents and experts in general (Figure 4) live and work in the following six different geographical places Osh (68% respondents and experts), Jalal-Abad (17%) and rural areas Uzgen region (5.6%), Naukat region (3.4%), Alay region (2.9%), Aravan region (3.1%). Such selection of cities not only reflects the number of population of those places but also the active interviewers-participants of the project. Expecting result was the approved different views on the changes during globalization.

Results of the questionnaire held by volunteer-students from Osh in 2017-2019, are shown in Figure 5. As it is shown in the table the number of people who learn and decided to learn the English language in the future was increasing every year.

With the extinction of each language, our world loses another opportunity to think, to know, to exist, and to act differently and thus to differ from the dominant culture. It is no accident that modern researchers have a particular interest in ethnolinguistic processes in modern conditions. However, the full explanation and understanding of the driving mechanisms and the factors influencing the

Figure 4. The number of respondents and experts participated in the survey.

Figure 5. Results of questionnaire held by volunteer-students from Osh, 2017-2019.

national mentality in the new environment of globalization of the world community are possible only in the context of global social experience. Because of this, analysis of modern approaches to the problem of language in other parts of the world is required. The problem of language expansion as one of the methods of implementation in the ethnic consciousness of other people with the goals, at first glance, is quite humane: the spread of new technologies, introduction to the world culture, and so on, must be solved not only by forbidden actions but a deep social and philosophical understanding of what any intervention is a change that will lead not only to a change in the mental consciousness but also, as a consequence, depending on the cultural, ideological, political and financial. Today we can talk about replacing some languages (the Kyrgyz language is not the exception) with English (probably American) through the global communications system. The content of mass information processes influences the emotions, thinking, and judgment of the individual, in his actions and activities in general. The consumption of this content is becoming a habitual necessity very fast. Internet, advertising, media, movies reproduce American culture, which easily (as the basis—the promise of abundance, the temptation of enrichment) changes the traditional national values, lifestyle, using the powerful thinking tool language. Any language is in constant change and dynamics, and the most moving component is the vocabulary.

3.2. Vocabulary Expansion

Vocabulary, as the most mobile layer of the language, reacts most sensitively to all changes in the social, cultural, and other spheres of life of the speaking collective, because the word is the “mirror of life”. The process of updating in vocabulary is ongoing, and there are times when it is especially intense. The 90s became such a period in the history of vocabulary. After the collapse of the USSR, radical changes took place—the political conditions of life of native speakers changed, significant economic successes and improvement of the social system observed.

Kyrgyzstan, as any other post-soviet republics, found itself in the brace of these global changes after gaining its independence. All this, combined with technical and material innovations common to world culture, could not but affect the quantitative growth of modern Kyrgyz vocabulary, the formation of its sections. Besides, new words in these processes are often formed by borrowing words (the result of international contacts), which are usually actively processed in the Kyrgyz language system: вебсайт-website, блог-blog, флэш моб-flash mob, шоу-show, бизнес-business, сервиз-service, лаптоп-laptop, саммит-summit, телефакс-telefax, пейджер-pager, интернет-Internet, etc. Most often, new words used in the media, on television and radio. Among them are words such as спонсор-sponsor, диск-disk, диск-жокей-disk jockey, etc. The computer is now considered a symbol of modern civilization not only in distant foreign countries but also in the territory of the former socialist republics and one can note numerous relevant neologisms such as монитор-monitor, процессор-processor, принтер-printer, сканер-scanner, киборд-keyboard, файл-file, вирус-virus, etc. For example, it is difficult to find a person who does not know such medical terms as инфекция-infection, мануальная терапия-manual therapy, анти-ВИЧ-anti-AIDS, хоспис-hospice, анти-стрессanti-stress; vocabulary of youth subculture: пирсинг-piercing, мейнстриим-mainstream, фортуна-fortunes, чат-chat; business and financial terms: бартер-barter, брокер-broker, депозит-deposit, кэш-cash. Currently, a vivid example of the “expansion” is the prefix mega, for example, мегаборбор-megacenter, мегапроект-megaproject, мегастрой-megabuilding.

Thus, for the transformation of the mental attitudes and behavior patterns of native speakers in the context of globalization, a set of operations aimed to apply for the implementation of two major problems: 1) active exaggeration of the English language role and, 2) discredit other languages. Manipulation of individual and public consciousness is realized with the help of borrowings.

How to confront these social problems, or at least just get rid of the most dangerous consequences—that’s the question in our days that has an extensive general scientific and general social interest, and at the same time a great social and philosophical significance. It would be wrong to say that such a situation—a unique consequence of social processes in the conditions of globalization, taking place over the past decades is only in our country. Even there is more reason to believe that instead of searching panacea to simulate the situation, it is necessary to utilize the socio-philosophical analysis further to develop the conceptual foundations of ideological, moral, and social crisis outputs. With greater urgency, the social philosophy is facing challenges, the solution of which, one or another way depends on the near future.

The pragmatic use of language suggestive determines its role in the manipulation of national thinking. The word is the main element of a language and communication. A suggestion is a component of normal human communication but can also act as a specially organized form of communication, which is formed through verbal and nonverbal means. The transformation of language in the instrument of domination marked the beginning of the process of destruction of language in modern society. Language has become a commodity and distributed over the laws of the market. The introduction of the so-called word-amoebas, not related to mental concepts, into the national thinking, filling the language with these words defined as a form of subordination of individualistic society. The global world, in which modern humanity lives, is too complicated for it could be exhaustively explained and described in the language of any culture, even the most developed. All language processes are important to consider in the context of globalization, reflecting the ratio of political and economic forces prevailing in the world today. In the last quarter of the XX century, international development witnessed important processes defined by many scholars as globalization, which is an objective process, largely determines the contours of the future world order. The very nature of globalization is widely recognized information, a communication component, essentially inconceivable outside a certain language environment, regardless of language means.

The issue of language relations repeatedly updated in a contradictory process of globalization, their communication components. The optimistic view of these processes captures the role of language means of communication and understanding of cross-border relations between various entities. Pessimistic views focused on the negative consequences of globalization for the language. This is the challenge of ethnocultural and linguistic identity as a developed society of the modern type, and archaic systems facing challenges of modernization; undermining the vitality of hundreds of languages by English due to the expansion of world languages; the whole complex of contradictions, referred to as an identity crisis. Globalization cannot be imagined without mass media. All of the above is relevant to contemporary Kyrgyz culture reality and requires the implementation of complex efforts of the conceptual and practical-political plan, blocking the negative effects of the consequences of global trends in mass media.

4. Conclusion

Global communication is the vehicle of language expansion in the countries of the “second world”. Even though the Kyrgyz language remains the state language in the country, the effects of globalization cause concern that we observe in the Kyrgyz language. The substitution of Kyrgyz national borrowing concepts leads to the rupture of semantic relationships, destroying a long line of indigenous words. The conditions in which we live are only a projection of the thinking of our economy. Our world is never better than our conversations. Today it is especially important to preserve and protect native words. This requires all the active position, a great effort to revive the Kyrgyz words of love and education, and a caring attitude of every person to it.

Conflicts of Interest

The authors declare no conflicts of interest regarding the publication of this paper.

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