Beyond Culture and (National) Identity? Language, Globalization and the Discourse of Universal Progress in American Newspaper Coverage of English

Abstract

This paper critically interrogates discursive appeals to linguistic and communicative universality. It does so primarily by way of the analysis of discourses on the global hegemony of English in five American-owned prestige press publications—the Los Angeles Times, the International Herald Tribune, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and The Washington Post. It also draws parallels between broader contemporary and historical examples of what the author defines as a discourse of universal progress on English. This discourse frames the hegemony of English as a simple and largely unproblematic fact of the global order while celebrating its allegedly intrinsic progressive tendencies and capabilities. Among these are English's superiority as a purveyor of “objective” reality, its ability to facilitate individual and collective (economic) success, its capacity to advance the production and exchange of knowledge and information, and its status as a bestower of universal (global) voice and unity. The author challenges some of the assumptions that underlie this discourse, contending that, at the highest levels of abstraction, the discourse of universal progress strips English and language of their rootedness in culture and various forms of social identity and struggle.