[Air-l] Language on the Internet (was AoIR in Latin-America)

[Alex Kuskis]

>Technically speaking, English is a minority........Joshua

That might be true from a strictly statistical point of view, Joshua,
but English is a language that has lifted beyond its weight for
several hundred years. Politically and economically this
might be the result of one global English empire succeeding
another one. But, just as important is the fact that both Industrial
and Information Revolutions emerged from the English language
world, and to the extent that technologies embody the assumptions
of language and culture, modern ICT embodies Anglo-American
thinking and values. That is why, as the Internet is consolidating
almost everywhere, new high speed technologies variously alluded
to as Web 2.0 and 3.0, the sematic Web, and Internet 2 are being
rolled out from Silicon Valley, MIT, Bangalore, Waterloo (the
Blackberry) and other English language domains. The Internet
is not static, continues to evolve, mostly out of the English-
speaking realm where it's so integrated with the culture, and
the digital divide with the so-called Third World continues to
increase. The downside of all this for the English-speaking
world is that it reinforces mono-lingualism and language
chauvinism. It's admirable to learn a language for love or curiosity,
but the fact is that most people do it for economic advantage and
up until recently, English speakers haven't had to.

Wikipedia has a fairly good entry on 'English on the Internet',
which is certainly debatable, but probably sound....Alex Kuskis

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_on_the_Internet
If a gradual decline in English first language users is inevitable it does
not necessarily follow that English will not continue to be the language of
choice for those accessing the Internet.
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In the future then, English and Chinese may have roughly equal positions at
the top of the overall Internet first language users but English will likely
continue to dominate as the default choice for those accessing the Internet
in a second language.
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Internet content
b.. Given the enormous lead it already enjoys and its increasing use as
lingua franca in other spheres English web content may continue to dominate
even as English first-language Internet users decline. This is a classic
positive feedback loop: new Internet users find it helpful to learn English
and employ it on-line, thus reinforcing the language's prestige and forcing
subsequent new users to learn English as well.

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "joshua raclaw" <Joshua.Raclaw at colorado.edu>
To: <air-l at listserv.aoir.org>
Sent: Wednesday, March 22, 2006 4:31 PM
Subject: Re: [Air-l] Language on the Internet (was AoIR in Latin-America)

> Alex,
>
> Technically speaking, English is a minority.  I don't think you can argue
> with
> Geert's assertion that (relatively speaking) the use of English online is
> shrinking exponentially.  It's a much more multilingual arena than it was
> even
> a few years ago (and certainly the 'multilingual internet' is getting much
> more scholarly attention as of late because of this).
>
> Also, please don't misinterpret the statistic that 1.5 billion people
> speak
> English by thinking that these are monolingual and/or native speakers!
> Just
> because a speaker knows English doesn't mean they're going to use it in
> every
> context, and this applies both online and off.
>
> Joshua
> Joshua Raclaw - PhD student
> Department of Linguistics
> University of Colorado at Boulder