Anglocentrism edit
- Clarify distinction between Anglo- (England) and Anglo- (English language), and give notice that this article focuses on English language centrism.
- Prove that Languages have cultures.
- Prove that the English language culture is different from the cultures of all other languages.
- Prove that this culture ignores or relegates the cultures of other languages in a way that no other language does.
- Prove that this occurs in English language media, entertainment, law, attitudes, government.
- Examine specific examples in English-speaking countries: Canada, Australia, UK, USA, New Zealand, South Africa, Republic of Ireland.
- Examine Anglo-centrism in non-English speaking countries (Africa, SE Asia, India).
This article focuses on linguistic Anglo-centrism --- that is, the way English-speaking societies shape their worldview as "English-dominant" . Special attention is given to English-speaking cultures and the way that they relate to other languages, deal with language minorities, and accommodate translation and traduction. [Future editor of the previous sentence may wish to change this text as "traduction" is a French word not found in English dictionaries.-ed.]
- No need to learn a second language, because "everyone speaks English." Language as purely practical, based on economics (historically this is the majority view).
- Lack of respect of minority language rights: "Why don't they just learn English?" Speak White.
- Non-belief in language blending: "Everyone has their own language and they shouldn't mix too readily." (Wikipedia name policy, Gavin's question "Why do you sometimes speak Korean to English speakers?" mixing languages in literature, movies, diglossia. [Please consider rewriting the previous sentence as diglossia is not in the English dictionary. polyglot)
- Emphasis on translation (Make their cultural output accessible to us) rather than foreign language learning (Make us accessible to their cultural output).
- Speaking another language is "a big deal", and should be reserved for appropriate occasions.
- English fluency is mandatory in English-speaking countries, economic betterment follows from learning English and is a necessary step in developing foreign countries and underprivileged regions.
- Adapting other languages to be more "English-like" -- altering Gaelic letter forms to look more Roman, changing Korean Romanization so that no accents are used, showing preference to Romanized orthographies for native languages in Canada rather than UCAS [?Please explain or define UCAS?-ed.].
- Viewing Bill 101 as a bad thing.
- English as language killer.
Four way paradigm:
- Translate what they say into English.
- Translate what we say into foreign language.
- Teach them to speak English (Translate them).
- Teach us to speak foreign language (Translate us).
This is a problem that directly opposes multiculturalism, and multilingualism. It seems only to affect English-language speakers and their cultural worldviews. Speakers of English influenced by the unique prominence of English act differently than members of other cultural groups. They take their own superiority for granted and allow it to unconsciously shape their subjective world views. Speakers of English are uniquely less-likely to learn other languages, feel the need to integrate with other cultures, or admit to and accommodate the existence of other cultures in their home countries.
Canadian culture has dealt with Anglo-centrism uniquely, because it is the only major English-speaking country that has been tolerant of a significant lingusitic minority since its inception. There have been many problems with multilingualism and Anglo-centrism