Between East and West: English as the Language of Escape in Communist Romania

Abstract

At the start of the 21st century, the status of English is as controversial as ever, given the current linguistic situation of widespread linguistic loss and the emergence of English as a preeminent language - a world language, an international language, a global language or a lingua franca in almost all settings (Graddol, 1997, 2006; Seidlhofer, Crystal), i.e. a much (over)-used vehicular language. It can easily be argued that no other language ever has been as hotly debated as English, which I would call a “commodity”. To the list of qualifiers that have been assigned to English I would add “escape”, which I would argue is the role English assumed behind the Iron Curtain. Based on my own experience as a teenager in communist Romania, as well as evidence from various memoirs published following the collapse of the regime in 1989, the paper argues that, more than just a symbol of freedom, in communist Romania, the role of English was clearly that of escape from the ideological pressures and widespread fear, as well as the degraded and degrading everyday reality.