GOING GLOBAL THROUGH ENGLISH

                  The spread of English is both a cause and result of globalization. But Graddol warns that this trend is 'probably not a cause of celebration by native speakers'. In a world in which English becomes a global basic skill, says Graddol, native English-speakers will lose their historic competitive advantage.
             English is well on its way to becoming the dominant global language. Is this a good thing? Yes, in fields such as science where a common language brings efficiency gains. But the global dominance of the English language is bad news for world literature, according to CEPR researcher Jacques Mélitz (Centre de Recherche en Economie et Statistique, Paris and CEPR). Why? Because if the English language dominates world publishing, very few translations except those from English to other languages will be commercially viable. As a result, virtually only those writing in English will have a chance of reaching a world audience and achieving ‘classic status’. The outcome is clear, Mélitz argues: just as in the sciences, those who wish to reach a world audience will write in English. “World literature will be an English literature”, Mélitz warns, “and will be the poorer for it – as if all music were written only for the cello”. His work appears in "English-Language Dominance, Literature and Welfare," (CEPR Discussion Paper No. 2055). By literature, he refers to imaginative works of an earlier vintage that are still read today, and therefore the accumulation of world literature refers to the tiny fraction of currently produced imaginative works which will eventually be regarded as ‘classics’. According to Mélitz, the tendency of competitive forces in the global publishing market to privilege the translation of English fiction and poetry into other languages for reading or listening enjoyment may damage the production of world literature and in this respect make us all worse off.  In the case of literature, as opposed to other uses of language, language does not serve merely to communicate content (say, a story line) but is itself an essential source of enjoyment. Therefore, it is futile to argue that nothing would change if all potential contributors to literature wrote in the same language. “We might as well pretend that there would be no loss if all musical composers wrote for the cello” said Mélitz. Translations can only approximate the rhythms, sounds, images, allusions and evocations of the original, and in literature, those aspects are essential.