Hypercentrality of English language in the World of Globalization

Suheel Rasool Mir

− Abstract

Globalization is increasing rapidly in the contemporary world; this increase in globalization has affected language. This impact in turn affects the culture of the language. One way through which globalization has affected language is by spreading one language globally, where that language is considered as the dominant language, it tend to over shadow other native languages. English language has emerged as the dominant language due to the onslaught of globalization which has connected every part of the world into a global village. As a result, this dominant language has penetrated into the indigenous cultures of the various societies thus threatening the very existence of native languages of indigenous people and by implication their social fabric because language is an important component of any social system. In the era of globalization, English language is used globally in almost all domains of national life like business, media and internet. This language has assumed the character of an international language with dominant factors. As this dominant language is being rapidly spread over the globe, the dominant culture that it represents is also gaining currency. Thus the world??s native languages are fast disappearing and the dominant one is rampant across the globe. On global scale it has led to extinction of other languages and culture, thus endangering them. Endangered languages are no longer spoken by children. Only few elders speak it and extinction occurs when the language is no more spoken as a result of globalization. It is evident from the secondary sources that almost 5000-6000 languages have been endangered due to globalization. In today??s globalized world English is perceived as an advantaged language and many parents push their children to learn English language over their native language in order to bring them at par with global developments.