English as the Lingua Franca
Title: English as the lingua franca
Translation involves the very idea of transformation of thoughts into language which is the most unifying factor among human communities. In our multilingual, multicultural, transnational world, therefore, there is a need of a common global lingual space. English, being the globally acknowledged language is often associated with certain hegemonic domination over other indigenous languages of the world. Though there were some issues of power struggles and politics involved with the language since its colonizing period, it by no means indicates that it attempts to occupy the other lingual spaces to establish its supremacy. Literature being an ideology is closely associated with social power. Literature is born out of language and the diversity of languages in the world therefore produces different literatures with different sensibilities and cultural backdrop. There are nations like USA, Britain, Canada, Ireland Australia, New Zealand, South Africa and several Caribbean countries using English as their mother tongue and it is also used extensively in the South Asian countries. English irrespective of being the mother tongues for many nations is such a language in which a huge body of literature is written. New literatures are being produced everyday in different new genres. Genres in literature are not any recent developments. The huge body of translated literature can be regarded as a new genre in literature in the sense that there is an essential gulf between the original piece of literature and its translated counterpart because the sense and sensibility, cultural nuances and the shaping force behind any original text is ought to differ from that of the translator owing to his/her individual point of view of in a certain temporal and spatial framework. This paper is dedicated not to defend the position of English as a lingua franca but to address the various
Translation involves the very idea of transformation of thoughts into language which is the most unifying factor among human communities. In our multilingual, multicultural, transnational world, therefore, there is a need of a common global lingual space. English, being the globally acknowledged language is often associated with certain hegemonic domination over other indigenous languages of the world. Though there were some issues of power struggles and politics involved with the language since its colonizing period, it by no means indicates that it attempts to occupy the other lingual spaces to establish its supremacy. Literature being an ideology is closely associated with social power. Literature is born out of language and the diversity of languages in the world therefore produces different literatures with different sensibilities and cultural backdrop. There are nations like USA, Britain, Canada, Ireland Australia, New Zealand, South Africa and several Caribbean countries using English as their mother tongue and it is also used extensively in the South Asian countries. English irrespective of being the mother tongues for many nations is such a language in which a huge body of literature is written. New literatures are being produced everyday in different new genres. Genres in literature are not any recent developments. The huge body of translated literature can be regarded as a new genre in literature in the sense that there is an essential gulf between the original piece of literature and its translated counterpart because the sense and sensibility, cultural nuances and the shaping force behind any original text is ought to differ from that of the translator owing to his/her individual point of view of in a certain temporal and spatial framework. This paper is dedicated not to defend the position of English as a lingua franca but to address the various