Week Eleven

I have always been confused by the term globalization. Although there are an abundance of definitions for the term, they all have overlapping gray areas. The biggest controversy I find is that some define the term in a positive light while others cast a negative shadow across the term. Our McKay text supposes that “perhaps no other term has been as widely used and abused during the twenty-first century as the term globalization.” I found it interesting how they used the word abused. But this makes sense. Every time a culture was spread to another area, it was globalization, even if it was then abandoned in its original locale.

To try and clarify the gray areas of this term, McKay includes a list of categories this includes globalization “as internationalization, liberalization, universalization, westernization and deterritorialization.” The most common definitions I hear associate the spread of liberal and western ideas.

Keeping the different types in mind, I then thought about whether globalization is a good thing. The discussions regarding this are typically with other language majors. Since language majors are more liberal in their views and require globalization/spread of languages for jobs, they are normally all for it. When I go home, the Amuricans (yes, with a ‘u’) think it’s horrible and all immigrants should stop stealing their jobs. The under-educated don’t know enough about it to hold an organized conversation. The migrant workers are out in the fields when these discussions happen. So finding a neutral place to hold such a discussion is a little challenging.

It can be said that globalization can be seen “as the cause of a loss of cultural and linguistic diversity…which has contributed to greater disparity between the rich and the poor.” In many countries being bilingual, especially with English proficiency, can help attain greater financial prosperity. This motivates learners of more obsolete languages to abandon passing on their mother tongue to their children in hopes of greater prosperity for their bloodline.

In other respects, it allows for different communities to come together and share ideas. They can share food, clothes, technology, etc. The need for a Spanish teacher would be null, leaving me trying to find a job that fits my linguistic, pattern-recognizing brain. But in this notion of globalization, McKay notes that “while capital and goods can ‘freely’ move, the human element should stay where [it ‘belongs’]. While the United States may welcome foreign music, food and style, immigrants are not as easily accepted. If too many come to the land of, seemingly, plenty, it will no longer be the land of plenty.