People and places
Linguistic capital in the 21st century Graham Noble explores what the rise of China, Spanish, and bilingualism mean for the status of English in international education
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destinations for the secondary school graduates of countries around the world, particularly China. Even ISC Research, the leaders in international schools research, define international education as found in any school that offers a curriculum ‘wholly or partly in English’ outside of an English-speaking country (ISCR, 2018). And the demand for a quality education delivered wholly or partly in English is growing across the Middle East and China, where increasing numbers of emerging middle-class parents are looking for ways to bypass national systems of education and gain access to western post-secondary schools. It is no wonder that English remains so popular. English continues to be an important form of capital, conferring social and financial benefits as well as mobility on its users. But there are signs that this conferral is no longer automatic, nor as important as it might have been in the past. It is arguably beginning to change on three separate fronts. Spring |
Autumn
If you had to be pragmatic and choose one language that would open the most doors, allow for the easiest way to communicate with the largest and broadest range of people, and even navigate the greatest number of cultural and scientific institutions around the world, you would probably choose English. The British Empire laid the groundwork for this proliferation of English, with the United States continuing the legacy in the 20th century. As we approach the end of the second decade of the 21st century, it doesn’t seem that English is going anywhere soon. Or does it? English is now spoken by more people as an additional language than by native speakers (Noack and Gamio, 2015). More than 80% of top scientific journal articles are published in English (Huttner-Koros, 2015). Twenty-two out of the top twenty-five QS 2018 university rankings are in nations where English is a national language (QS, 2018). American, British, Australian and Canadian universities remain prime
| 2019
