Language globalization and language globalistics

Dolgenko Aleksandr Nikolaevich ORCID: 0000-0002-9320-6571 Doctor of Philology Head of Department for Russian and Foreign Languages, Moscow Academy of the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation 125080, Russia, Moskva, g. Moscow, ul. Vrubelya, 12 adolgenko@mail.ru Other publications by this author

Kosyreva Marina Sergejevna PhD in Philology Docent, the department of Foreign Languages, Novosibirsk Military Institute of the Internal Troops named after General of the Army I. K. Yakovlev 630114, Russia, g. Novosibirsk, ul. Klyuch-Kamyshenskoe plato, 6/2 mar_kosyreva@mail.ru Other publications by this author

Globalistics formed in the 1980s as an interdisciplinary branch of knowledge, uniting the research field of economics, political science, international relations and cultural studies for the analysis of the globalization process. This process appears as a permanent process of structuring the space of existence and interaction of all local communities. Globalism is focused on studying the possibilities for the formation of an integrated system of meanings, identity and experience within the society, on the creation of strategies for the effective inclusion of local communities in the system of international interaction, searching and organizing the effective mechanisms for the participation of external factors in the solution of local problems and strengthening the role of local factors in international functioning in the field of economy, security, culture, technology, migration and communication. In accordance with this, traditional science system forms industries, which is focused on the study of globalization processes and their results in the corresponding objects of study: economic globalism, political globalism, sociological globalism, cultural globalism, etc.

The starting point for the development of this branch of knowledge is the publication of the book by outstanding linguist D. Crystal "English as a Global Language" ^[1]. Although there is no universal understanding of the phenomenon of global language, it is possible to define the main characteristics of global vocabulary, as well as the properties of English language, which determine its status as global in the modern linguistic and cultural situation.

The fundamental idea of linguistic globalism is the thesis of D. Crystal where a language gets the status of global language when its exclusive role is obvious and recognized in any country in the world. However, this statement does not provide much insight into the phenomenon, as it is based mainly on extralinguistic factors. Essentially, it is a language that is known and spoken at the international level, characterized not only by the number of speakers as a mother tongue and as a second language, but also by its geographical distribution and application in intercultural communication. In this case, the global language acts as the lingua franca, which allows people from different sectors of society and nationalities to communicate on a more or less equal basis.

Historically, power is an important factor for a language to become a global one. Latin was a global language of its time, although it was the language of the powerful minority in the Roman Empire: it was the language of political leaders and administrators, the language of the Roman army and later the language of the Roman Catholic Church. This leads to the idea that language dominates only when its speakers dominate.

Interlinguistics has established that the international influence of language is due to a combination of three factors:

1) as a mother tongue or first language in a number of countries;

2) has been adopted as an official language in a number of countries;

3) is taught in schools as a foreign language in a number of countries.

These factors traditionally ensure that the language receives and maintains the status of an international one.

Important factors in the popularity of any language are the internal structural qualities of the language, the size and the composition of the dictionary, the quality of its literature in the language, and its connection with great cultures or religions. However, the history of the world's languages shows us that a language is becoming an international language mainly due to the political influence and economic power of native countries. At the beginning of the 21st century, these extra-linguistic factors are complemented by the peculiarities of intercultural interaction in the world of modern communications, globalization of trade and unprecedented high mobility of the world's population. New Babylon needs a single language. The higher the speed of inter-lingual interaction, the more urgent is the necessity for a single sign system.

The main issue in the work of D. Crystal, dealing with the problems of linguistic globalism, is the conviction that has already mentioned, as a factor of power (political and military superiority of native speakers) and the determining factor for obtaining any language status of the global one. In this sense, Latin was a global language of its time, although it was a minority language in the Roman Empire: it was the language of political leaders and administrators, the language of the Roman army, and later the language of church authority in the Roman Catholic Church. This naturally suggests that language dominates only when its speakers dominate. Moreover, they influence on a wide range of spheres of life: politics, economics, science, technology, material culture, sports, etc.

It is easy to see that in the beginning of the 21st century native English speakers are not so arrogant in their claims to be dominant in all these spheres. Nowadays, English expresses the highest quality of globalism than any other language in the world. As an intercultural communication tool, it covers the world much more than Latin or French. Moreover, history doesn’t have a language that is as widely spoken as English is. In politics, business, science, information technology, education, transport, mass consumption and entertainment (including sports and tourism), English hasn’t just become a language of international communication, but also a global language.

The prehistory of English globalization is linked to the political and economic power of the British Empire, which in the 17th-18th centuries spread its influence almost all over the world and made English one of the major international languages. About 100 countries in the modern world use English either as a state language or as an official language. However, English itself becomes global due to the American economic, political and then cultural superiority in the second half of the twentieth century. The dominance of the U.S. in the areas of popular music, film, television, business, finance, sports, and information technology is no doubt. By the beginning of the 21st century, the American influence in the world makes English not only extremely important but practically the only possible instrument of intercultural interaction not only in various spheres of the market (especially in the sphere of tourism and advertising), but also in such spheres as science and technology (access to modern scientific and technical databases without the use of English is impossible; it is a mandatory working language of international scientific events, etc.).

However, it would be a mistake to assume that the globalization of English is the result of purely extra-linguistic factors like the economic and political superiority of native speakers. It is necessary to take into account some linguistic peculiarities of English, which predetermined its victory in a kind of race for global linguistic domination.

Firstly, it is the richness and depth of the lexical composition. The 20t volumes of Oxford Dictionary of Modern English includes more than 615 thousand words. If we take into account scientific and technical terminology, the total lexical composition of the English language will exceed one million words, which makes it the largest in the world. According to some surveys, the vocabulary of the English language is now actively growing with new words: from 8000 to 20,000 lexical units annually. In general usage of about 200,000 English words, which is at least 2 times more than words, such as German or French. The presence of a large number of synonyms, phrasal and idiomatic richness of the English language contains the potential opportunity to express a variety of meanings and solves any communication problems - from everyday communication to high poetry.

Secondly, English has an important quality of flexibility. Flexibility manifests itself at different levels of the language system. The order of words, the category of deposit, the ability to use the same word as a noun and verb, great derivative capabilities - all works for the flexibility of English as a communicative tool.

Then, English grammar has a high degree of unification than most languages in the world. Thus, for example, the category of gender is fully conveyed by the word and does not require additional manifestation with the help of articles, as in German or Spanish. Predicate can easily exist without a subject. There are virtually no case-free forms of nouns in English (with the exception of some personal pronouns), which, compared to, for example, Finnish, which has fifteen forms for each noun, or Russian, with its 12 forms (plus 2-3 rudimentary), is a model of the highest degree of unification of the grammatical system. The same should be said of the verb: if, for example, in Latin, the verb has 120 possible forms, and in modern German - 16, then English operates only with 5 forms, of which only 3 are actively used.

Then, English considered relatively simple in terms of spelling and pronunciation: it does not require either the mastery of subtle tonal variations in pronunciation, as Cantonese, or a whimsical, sometimes extravagant, combination of consonants, as Welsh or Gaelic. Of course, English includes sounds that are usually difficult for foreigners to pronounce, or sounds that have a variety of graphic fixation options. However, the relative phonetic-graphic simplicity of English is supported by the regularity of consonants pronunciation and freedom from vowel and consonant diacritics. In addition, borrowings from foreign words in English, as a rule, retain the original spelling (transmitted through transliteration, rather than transphonation). The phonetic predictability of the graphic transmission in English is quite high (according to D. Crystal, 84%), while those who know Latin but do not know English will seem unpredictable in their pronunciation to write no more than 3% of English words.

Finally, the globalization of English is due to its cosmopolitan nature. English actively accepts thousands of words from other languages with which it has historically come into contact, giving it a sense of closeness and accessibility, a kind of linguistic hospitality, unlike such languages as French, which does everything possible to prevent the influence of other languages on itself.

These linguistic factors of attractiveness of English are important for the realization of its global status, but cannot provide it without as well-known extra-linguistic factors: technological, political and economic. In the Middle Ages, the Latin language seemed to have established itself as a universal language of education and culture. This seemed to be the same, but it has changed. Among the languages of international communication, historically there were contenders for worldwide dissemination, but their claims did not extend beyond the territories of multinational states (Roman, Byzantine, French Empires).

In the absence of comparable historical precedents, it is difficult to make more or less accurate forecasts of the development of linguistic globalization. In this regard, the global status of English is unique and currently irreversible ^[3].

It is important to note that fluency in English is not as important to language globalization today as it is active usage. In comparison, the world's most widely spoken language, Mandarin, is Mandarin, with about 1 billion speakers, and English about 400 million, but according to the British Council, about 2 billion people use English on a regular basis (without being native speakers). Global Internet communication, the main tool of which English has historically been able to become the language of choice, inexorably expands the composition of "users" of the global language. In addition, linguistic globalistics will solve new challenges in the field of linguistic globalization.