I’m thinking about the implications of “English as capitalism’s lingua franca.” The acquisition of English in many ways determines one’s place in the economic system. Even new forms of literacy depend on English. For instance, coding languages are largely based on English; therefore, not knowing English also poses an obstacle for a certain class of workers who wish to break into or gain an advantage in markets that require coding. 

Besides the economic value of English, I was also struck by the perceived socio-political value of English, which is that it was viewed by many as the embodiment of a political alternative to the communist regime. The English language itself is associated with individual freedom, open-mindedness and liveliness even though official textbooks reflect the state’s “containment” of English. Maria’s initial blind idealization of English (Chapter 2) is the most shocking case to me. The image of Maria disappearing behind English in her video project is particularly disturbing: “In these videos, all the dialogue would be in English, and Maria’s American interlocutors would do ever more of the talking; Maria, in later projects, was mute” (61). The act of buying into (the glamorous vision of) English rests on the imperative of buying into a hierarchy. This, Prendergast later concludes, is the “perversity of English” (131). 

How is the export of American English tied to the fantasy of a post-racial America? During our discussion last week, we talked about how literacy necessarily intersects with race in the U.S. I wonder if the global spread of English is also related to the maintenance of white supremacy. And if so, how? Several of the people being viewed talked about their desire to interact with “foreign” instructors and “native-speakers,” but is “foreign” synonymous with “white British/American” in this context?