Abhas Bhargava

LING 111
Extra Credit
12/9/15

The Role of Language in Globalization:

Language, Culture, Gender and Institutional
Learning

Globalization is a force that propels cultural change, and this article focuses
on exactly that: the dynamics of change. It discusses about how important of
a role language policies play in the current international reforms. Even
though studies have been done on policymaking, very little study has been
conducted on policy enactment: the ideological values and purposes of
educational policy reform. This article describes about such a project that
focused on training English teachers in a region in the Middle East, who often
lacked the professional skills to cope with the goals of todays society. The
study was designed such that the student teachers and educators had to
document their activity, and were interviewed, as an exploratory,
Participatory Action Science (PAS) project where the usage of E-Portfolios was
adopted. The article focuses on the role globalization plays in the common
world, and how it is interconnected in the various aspects around. However,
this globalization is not only causing English to enter new territories, but also
invading the culture and traditions, and bringing along a large set of western
ideologies: preconceptions, lifestyle, and media: which could result in the
antagonizing of minority cultures and languages altogether.

Abhas Bhargava
LING 111
Extra Credit
12/9/15
Language is truly much more than a mere form of communication: It
represents experience and social attitudes, and links knowledge with
demands for group worth. Language policies are influenced by values,
ideologies, language identities, as well as international and economic market
pressures. The internationalization of English has caused a discrimination
which is mostly due to the hierarchizing of languages in terms of their
economic importance. A form of prejudice which involves making judgments
of those who differ in economic, social and educational status on the basis of
their usage of the language, is called linguicism. Language status, however,
attributes to specific linguistic pointers to the global trends that characterize
as being modern and globally educated. How second language speakers
and teachers dealt with such evolving and growing ambiguities of their
language statues is also an important focus in the study.
The study was conducted as a series of interviews and collaborative
information sessions over the course of 4 months. Language skills empower
women, as they are often ones who specialize in language. In the project,
gender-related differences were noticed. A proficiency in the specified
language gave these speakers an advantage over the others, and they often
represented the Westernization process.
Globalization is causing a cycle of changes globally that cannot be ignored:
new forms of communication are helping the world to achieve a social

Abhas Bhargava
LING 111
Extra Credit
12/9/15
equilibrium that encourages the use of language in a way that can be
respectful of various viewpoints rather than representing economic agendas
for capital gain. Supporting institutional change can hence expand our
understanding of the cross-cultural and cross-gender interventions.