A Sociolinguistic View of Globalization

The present study offers an analysis of the effects of globalization from a sociolinguistic point of view. It attempts to discuss the tremendous effects of globalization on societies and languages. The major characteristics of globalization as noticed nowadays are excessive communication (through language of course) and increased mobility all around the world. Therefore, the study elaborates on the consequences of globalization in two basic dimensions, people's mobility (migration and ease of traveling), and language mobility (which resulted in the development of English as an international language). The discussion strongly suggests that many of the established sociolinguistic phenomena become questionable in the current era of globalization. Several issues about languages and societies such as dialects and lingua franca appeared to require further sociolinguistic examination and a sustainable definition. In its dynamism of change, the future of the sociolinguistics of globalization will continue to raise an array of questions and concerns.

the axis of these two broad types of mobility. The study follows an analytic research methodology which is frequently used in social studies.

Defining Globalization
Globalization is one of the modern terms that has been used loosely. It has meant a range of things to various users (Zughoul, 2003). From one perspective, it was used to refer to the threat of the superpower to destroy local cultures and languages and to insistently impose Western and often largely American values and ways of living and images of consumer society (and subsequently language) on much of the rest of the planet. Some people refer to that perspective as McDonaldization (Blommaert, 2010) or Americanization (Zughoul, 2003). From the other pole of the continuum, some people believe that globalization presents many promises of higher living standards, better job opportunities, and more democracy. Despite being positive or negative, globalization is generally marked by increasing integration of the world's economy, culture, and infrastructure through transnational investment and the rapid progress of communication, and information technologies. But is it also the integration of the world's languages? Gridden (1990) defines globalization as the intensification of worldwide social relations which link distant localities in such a way that local happenings are so shaped by events occurring many miles away and vice versa. Indeed, even local social celebrations have nowadays entered the cultures of far societies usually as the result of travelling and through social media means. It is in the intention of many young people to participate in global events as a clear sign of global convergence.
Seeds of globalization run deep and are in a sense the offspring of the industrial revolution and the era of colonization and migration which spread British and West European culture and language throughout the world. During the second half of the twentieth century, the spread was made easier because of technologies like telecommunication, television, communication satellites, electronic fund transfers, and much more (Zughoul, 2003). Some scholars consider the Internet the ultimate tool of globalization with social media applications connecting people all around the globe (Tankosić & Dovchin, 2021).

Globalization and Migration
Since globalization is associated with mobility and integration, it naturally results in a great increase in migration. With the uneven distribution of income among residents of many countries, and among different countries, many people are becoming economic migrants, trying to improve their circumstances by relocating to somewhere in the industrialized world. A clear example is evident in the big number of Somali, Nigerian and Sudanese migrants in many Western countries (Templer, 2010). Lately, more migration results from political reasons such as wars in Syria, Palestine, and more recently Ukraine with residents obliged to flee and live as refugees or asylum seekers in different hosting countries (Templer, 2021). The development of transportation technologies made it feasible and encouraging to migrate, in addition to the communication possibilities with immigrants in the target location. Migrants learn from television and the Internet what a different lifestyle may be elsewhere and long to become a part of that. Moreover, many of these migrants have no chance for a livelihood in their city or country. Many others come from rural areas where traditional farming is disappearing. Migration is also necessitated by world trade which currently allows companies from various origins to open and run branches all around the world. Migrant workers move with their linguistic and cultural 'luggage' from all around the world. Different language materials will be mobile too such as signs, manuals, and catalogs all continue to move with these companies, providing multilingual language resources in one location.
Such movement results in linguistic super-diversity and unusual multilingualism and different minorities in the Western World. Before the globalization era, migration used to mean a permanent change in the location of residence. People leave their homeland and migrate to a new society where they are immersed in its language and social structure. They live almost completely separated from their country of origin, and accordingly, they face pressure to completely accommodate the host society's language and culture (Templer, 2021). The history of the United States over many decades reflects this pattern where most residents speak English as a first language. Nowadays, the presence of smartphones, satellites, and the Internet made it possible for immigrants to maintain intensive contacts with networks elsewhere, including often their countries of origin, and to consume its media and cultural products. All this has its effect on patterns of language use and may cause complexities that require further theoretical analysis and empirical studies by sociolinguists. It is expected that more and more pidgin and creole languages develop around the world due to the unusual multilingualism in many large cities in the world. Such varieties of languages are worthy of sociolinguists attention.
For instance, the study of languages in contact under such situations should take into consideration the effect of media (including social media) on either language maintenance or shift. Immigrants seem in the globalized world to be less motivated to acquire the language of the hosting society, as well as their culture since products of most ilr.ideasspread.org International Linguistics Research Vol. 6, No. 1; cultures are easily found in such a globalized world. This results in communities living at the same location, but each preserving their language and culture and acquiring only partial varieties of the language. Yet, their marginalized, peripheral languages are not considered valid in the hosting countries leading to issues of linguistic inequality and usually talent and skill drainage (Templer, 2021). During the Covid-19 pandemic, the marginalized language speakers have very limited access to crucial health information since global communication about the disease was mainly through a few powerful languages with English being central (Piller, 2020). The World Health Organization published important information in only the six official languages of the United Nations (Arabic, Chinese, English, French, Russian, Spanish) and three additional languages (German, Hindi, Portuguese) excluding other world languages, although in practice English predominates all those languages.
An interesting example of this super-multilingual situation can come from the Nigerian immigrants in Berchem, part of metropolitan Antwerpen in Belgium. They use an African language at home, and West African indigenized English in the neighborhood and at the church. However, most of the shops in the area are run by Turkish or Moroccan people, who use a variety of French or German as 'survival' lingua francas. If a Nigerian wants to buy bread at a Turkish bakery, none of the varieties of languages she knows will suffice. For that reason, both resort to very limited 'bits' of the official language Flemish, often mixed with English or German. In a phone shop, however, they use their vernacular variety of English since these shops are owned by Indian or Pakistani people. If they want to visit the school of their children to inquire about their status, they will need to use their African English. Teachers will attempt to answer using their Belgian-Flemish variety of English. The interaction is never smooth and the child may step in to help (Blommaert, 2010). The question that remained for the sociolinguist to answer is, in such situations, is globalization impeding communication or is it facilitating it? Does it lead to the extinction of languages or the rise of others?

Globalization and Languages
Before globalization, sociolinguistics focused on static variation, local distribution of varieties, and stratified language contact. Bearing the fact in mind that language is the intrinsic tool of globalization, there is no doubt that globalization will change these old sociolinguistic perspectives with its dynamic nature. The first noticeable effect of globalization is that languages are no longer tied to stable and resident communities. They quickly move across the globe, and they change in the process. In all parts of the world, one can find shop posters in variant languages, English, Arabic, Hindi, Chinese, French, etc. since large companies, in this globalization period, are opening branches and selling products worldwide.
A clear example of the change of language in the context of globalization can be found in the use of English in South African high schools by both teachers and students. English there almost lost its connection with its central culture, society, and territory, and in other words, is globalizing. The school offers courses in both English and Afrikaans. Analysis of the data revealed that learners consistently committed some grave mistakes which became systematic in their use of English. Erratic use of capital letters, problems in verb inflections, articles, and a wide range of spelling problems are examples of these deviations. These mistakes are not considered mistakes by the teachers, who do not resort to the linguistic norms of English-speaking countries such as the U.S. and Great Britain. Their writing seems to indicate that they are creating a 'peripheral' center of the language they use. Their variety is being localized, and it started to have its features. It is enough for the language, which is communicating with the world, including many English users who are not native speakers. The deviations, especially in orthography, should not be considered mistakes, since even native speakers of English nowadays started to use different spelling, often in their electronic writing for SMS messages and in emails, for many words: such as luv for love, cud for could and even b4 for before (Crystal, 2008;Blommaert, 2010).
This situation, which is not limited to the South African context, is characteristic of many of what Kachru (2006) terms the "Outer circle" of countries where English for colonial reasons has become a major second language, often in an indigenized variety. It poses some problems for the sociolinguist, whether to consider this variety of English a local indigenized variant or a "foreign" variety in the context of what linguists like Kachru terms "world Englishes" in the plural. Furthermore, it can be questioned whether the emergence of such varieties is going to impede intelligibility among speakers of English, along with the impact of this English on the first language of the speakers. One also may inquire if this situation will lead to diglossia if English is reserved for high functions. Anyone listening to BBC interviews with ordinary Nigerians or South Asians in English may find that even if they are "native" speakers from "inner circle" countries like the U.S or Australia, they may have trouble understanding the speaker from Nigeria or Rajasthan.
Fairclough (2006)  that only emerged because of globalization. Many globalized social media words become part of the lexicon of most languages such as "like", "tag", "story", "tweet", etc. and they undergo phonological, morphological, semantic, and syntactic operations within each language (Tankosić & Dovchin, 2021). This includes English as well in which official dictionaries are including these words are entries (or additional meaning) in their latest versions. For instance, Merriam-Webster adds to the meaning of "tweet" (to post on Twitter). Another example comes from the analysis of English used in spam e-mail letters that often originated in the periphery countries "mostly in Africa" and were sent to the world (Blommaert, 2010). These messages as a new globalized genre of the language since they share unique characteristics. The moral frames of these messages such as tragedies of death, charity, rescue, etc. are used in such messages as social, reasonable motives for the business. In general, the choice of the name of the sender and his claimed area of living often corresponds to each other (British names for those who claim to be in the UK, African names in Africa, etc.). This indicates the global awareness of national features of different societies in addition to their technological communicative competence which allows them to interact with people they do not personally know. In the messages, authors try to deploy registers of knowledgeability, thus attempting to convey specific indexicalities of identity, purpose, and truthfulness. Many messages include narratives that can be appealing to read. In addition, they use affective terms of address that are not often used in formal letters such as 'Dear Friend', 'Dearest One', and 'Dear Partner' to a person they are contacting for the first time. This genre of writing also includes apologies as an introduction: 'forgive me for approaching you in this manner'. The remarkable feature of this genre is its mixture of the formal with the informal, the friendly with the serious in one letter. They show that the world is getting more and more culturally literate.
Similar unique modes, or registers that emerged with globalization are electronic ones. Besides oral and written modes, now we have the electronic mode which characterizes the language of interaction in electronic chatting rooms, and messengers. This register has unique features worthy of sociolinguistic attention. Researchers even added to the slips of the tongue and the pen, those of the finger on the keyboard.

Globalization and English
Among the often discussed consequences of globalization is the increased and intensified global inequalities. These inequalities are not confined to economic variables, but also language inequality. Linguistic inequality is an issue discussed by Calvet (2006). He compared the globalized world languages to an eco-system where some languages become more central and others more peripheral (orbiting around these central languages). No one would deny that English has become the central language of globalization. It allows integration in the globalization process and is even perceived as a "tool" of development. However, its role and its effect on other languages have been heated topics of debate among sociolinguists. In addition, some communities benefit from the globalization of English, exactly as there are victims. These societies which have no easy access to English face a globalization obstacle. They may commit expensive scarce financial resources to teach and learn English, while the Englishspeaking countries, especially of the wealthy "inner circle" (Kachru 2006) economies spend little time or funds to learn any foreign language.
Since language is the ultimate tool of globalization and globalized communication, no wonder that one language serves as the international lingua franca. Unlike the well-known lingua francas in sociolinguistics which serves as a more local or regional means of communicating between two parties that do not share a linguistic repertoire in their specific situations of interaction, English is an international lingua franca as it is used by the whole world to interact. Most lingua francas are simplified, de-culturalized, and denationalized. They may grow later to form pidgins and creoles. Sociolinguists are not quite sure whether these features successfully apply to English as an international language. The only clear topic currently is English, its spread and its many modified varieties worldwide is the core feature that defines the sociolinguistics of globalization (Blommeart, 2010).

English as an International Language
Crystal (1997) expresses that a language achieves global status when it develops a "special role that is recognized in every country" and this special status can be obtained either by making it an official language of the country or by a country giving special priority to the language by requiring its study as a foreign language. There are today more than seventy countries in which English is regarded as the official language, with many other countries where English is studied as a second or foreign language. He contends that in the decades to come a conservative estimate of the speakers of English with native or native-like competence would be 670 million and those with reasonable competence around 1,800 million. McKay (2002) presents these statistics to point to the fact that by the year 2025, the number of bilingual speakers of English will be far more than its native speakers. Other researchers indicate that for every native speaker of English there are three non-native speakers (Graddol, 2006). Thus, most interaction ilr.ideasspread.org International Linguistics Research Vol. 6, No. 1; in English around the globe is between non-native speakers. It is expected that by 2050, half of the world's population will be speaking English (McKay & Bokhorst-Heng, 2008).
These statistical facts are in tune with Smith's (1976) earlier vision about the "de-nationalization" of any international language which is defined by him as "a language used by people of different nations to communicate with each other". Other researchers refer to English as an international language as English as a global language (Crystal, 1997), a world language, English as an international lingua franca (Seidlhofer, 2005;Graddol, 2006).

Why English?
The sociolinguist may attempt to answer why is it English, and not any other language, that surpassed the confines of community to reach a global status. According to some scholars, it is only because of accidents in history (French, 1963). In other words, English found itself repeatedly in the right place at the right time (Crystal, 1997). It accompanied the rapid spread of industrial development, science, technology, and international trade, in addition to the spread and ease of travel (French, 1963). All these factors had broken down frontiers and forced nations into closer independence.
There are no intrinsic reasons in the English language to allow it to occupy this global position. Linguistically, it is neither more suitable for communication than other languages, nor is it simpler. Some argue, nevertheless, that it is a flexible language that is hospitable to new terminology from any source, and therefore is capable of following the rapid development in all fields. Others claim that it is not linked to an ideological or religious group. However, these claims are not true since most scholars believe that it is British colonization that paved the way for this situation. It spread the English language among many colonies via political and military means. So that the reasons for the spread of English are largely political and economic. Therefore, it established a special place for English in all its former colonies. Mair (2001) contends that even after colonization, still there are semi-secret language planning policies that ensure the existence of English in these countries. One should also mention the effect of migration and the creation of English-speaking countries, former British colonies, such as the U.S. Australia, and New Zealand as an important factors for the spread of English. The New Zealand situation provides an example that applies to other colonies. After the British colonization, the language of the native residents " Māori " was banned in schools and workplaces in favor of English. People were discouraged to use it. It only remained as a community language in remote areas. Nowadays, English is spoken by 98% of the population.
According to Crystal (1997), English has become an international language for one chief reason: the power of its people, especially its political power. However, he continues that while the military power put English in this position, it is the economic power that maintained this position (mainly manifested in the economic, cultural, and technological expansion of the U.S. after 1945). Moreover, the spread of English into former areas of the Soviet bloc after 1990 has been phenomenal.
An illustration of the economic, and also the scientific, power can be found on the Internet. English websites comprise the highest percentage of websites on the web. Well-organized English language resources are growing in number every day. For instance, a very interesting English teaching website "English Town" offers virtual, online English classes. A subscribed user can attend any class with classes starting every hour all through the day. The teacher of the class speaks to the students and uses the webpage as a blackboard to represent the lesson slides. Students, who are located all over the globe, can interact, raise hands, ask questions, do exercises, etc. Such sites allow the spread of English which can be acquired wherever the speaker is, and in a literally global class. That is why some researchers contend that globalization is marked by the uneven distribution of language resources. There is no doubt that in many societies, the more privileged strata have easier access to learning English because these families can send their children to private language schools, buy English books, etc.
As mentioned earlier, dynamically expanding English use across the globe was classified into multi-centric circles by Kachru (1985;. The first is what he called the inner circle is the narrowest and is confined to communities where English is spoken as a native language like the UK, U.S., etc. Somewhat wider is the outer circle which consists of former English colonies where English has an official status such as Nigeria and India. The third group of communities where English is used is the expanding circle. English in these countries is considered the first foreign language. This model is believed to be continually expanding under the impact of globalization. In some ways, French and Spanish have similar models as major colonial powers, in particular, what is known as "francophone", encompassing the inner and outer circle of French-using countries, plus several others. But English is far more expansive and has encroached in part on French even in former French colonies in Africa and America (such as Haiti).

The principles of EIL
There are numerous important issues regarding the relationship between an international language and culture. The first, and most important, is that its users do not need to internalize the cultural norms of native speakers of that language. It is no longer connected to the culture of its native countries. Secondly, the ownership of the international language, since it is no longer the property of any nation, is claimed to be de-nationalized. Therefore, in the local sense, the international language is embedded in the culture of the country in which it is used. It is used to communicate with the world. A sociolinguistic view may ask a very important question about the possibility always present of de-culturalization and the de-nationalization of any human language. Latin is in some ways an example, used by educated Europeans long after it had disappeared as a spoken language associated with a specific place and empire, centered on Rome.
According to Brutt-Griffler (2002), with globalization, the international language is required to serve other global functions as well. It is needed to develop a world economic-cultural system, which includes the development of a world market and business community. In addition, it is the means of the development of a global, collaborative scientific, cultural, and intellectual life. Unfortunately, communities with no access to this international language will be deprived of participating in that global development process. The overwhelming majority of scientific research articles in almost all fields today are published in English. A century ago, German and French were the leading languages of science, and Russian was a major vehicle from 1945 to the end of the Cold War.
Among the unique features claimed of this special variety of English is that it is necessarily descriptive rather than prescriptive. English as an international language (EIL) is hospitable for variation. No variety is extreme, or correct. Neither British English nor North American English should be the reference. Instead, EIL is a family of equal members of varieties including British English, American English, South African English, Indian English, Singaporean and Malaysian English, Filipino English, etc. Necessarily, it has a sociolinguistically poly-centric nature. It could be also argued that EIL is nobody's mother tongue (Rajagopalan, 2004). With globalization, the ownership of English has been altered.
One of the special characteristics of EIL is that its interactors are unpredictable. They are all users of English, whether Black English, a Cockney, a tourist from the U.S., or perhaps a student or businesswoman from Japan or China (Baxter 1980). EIL is cross-cultural with its speakers ready to operate with English in unknown situations and to tolerate variation in linguistic and cultural behavior. Campbell et al.(1980) discussed that an important principle of EIL is that when speakers of more than one country or culture interact, more than one set of social and cultural assumptions will be in operation". It is a contact language between persons who share neither a common native tongue nor a common (national) culture (Seidlhofer, 2005). The culture of the native speakers is not the sole referent. It can be thus argued that both native and non-native native speakers need training in EIL (Talebinezhad and Aliakbari, 2001). Scholars like Jenkins (2000;2009; argue that pronunciation should be judged and taught solely in terms of what is intelligible to others, rather than what is a "native-speaker" pronunciation norm. That view remains somewhat controversial. Globalization led to English movement and localization in different locations. For each local variety of English (sometimes referred to as world Englishes in the plural), particular characteristics are different from the English of the Inner Circle (most notably but not restricted to phonology), as what has been discussed about South African English and what is known about Indian English. However, these incomplete realizations of the native speakers' norms do not preclude communicative success, and therefore are acceptable from the point of view of EIL (Jenkins 2000;Graddol, 2006). It was clear that ideas were communicated successfully in the spam e-mail messages discussed above, despite the linguistic and stylistic deviations. Since it serves as an international lingua franca, it will be a simplified version of English with fewer linguistic constraints and more flexibility.

Arguments Against EIL
Although claims about EIL and globalization are appealing to users of English in the outer and the expanding circle, there is however heated debate about the accuracy of EIL claims. Proponents of EIL as a tool to participate in globalization strived to persuade others that EIL is not a threat to national identity, culture, and language. Some sociolinguists state their doubts about whether it is ever possible to dissociate a language, even a globalized one, from its cultural background. Among those is Rogers (1982). He questioned the validity of the accepted assumption that English is essential as an instrument in the struggle for growth and technological development. He suggests that English is not like mathematics or algebra in that these subjects are universally neutral 'languages'. They do not belong (historically) to one particular culture. English is not neutral as it has its links to a specific culture, community, and history. He considered English in the world as an instrument of domination of one country by another. To him, this is a hidden form of imperialism, namely linguistic imperialism.
Building on Rogers' views, Phillipson (1992) also considered the spread of English as a kind of linguistic imperialism of which countries are not aware. He addressed the cultural and political implications of teaching English to speakers of other languages in developing communities through the sponsorship of Anglo-American institutions. He even tries to show that most courses in teaching English in those communities were dealt with under the colonial education policy. Phillipson mentions also some connections between English as an instrument of rule in the colonies on the one hand, and the way Standard English (and particularly an "acceptable" pronunciation) were, at a specific historical moment, vital for social advancement in Great Britain itself, at the other hand. Pennycook (2007) similarly argues that the bits of language that are globalized are equally bits of culture and society.
The globalization of cultures can be a serious threat to societies. Despite the calls for an international langue, there is a growing number of Internet websites promoting the American accent (Blommaert, 2010). Therefore, many Indians apply for training if they would like to work abroad or in call centers in India. The philosophy in these websites claims that no one would like to be asked to repeat his utterances and sound oddly like a foreigner. In that way, Indian English has not helped in international communication, a fact that brings the principles of EIL into question.
Nevertheless, in response to these claims of linguistic imperialism and English in this globalized era, several scholars have criticized such a stance. For example, Davies (1996) illustrates that there are a lot of countries like Tanzania which has chosen a language different from their own as an official language, in this case, Swahili. He does not consider this situation a kind of imperialism. However, Davies did not recognize that Swahili is related in one way or another to the Tanzanian culture much more than English. It can also be a symbol of social unity and unique identity, which cannot be claimed for English. Davies was successful, nevertheless, in pointing out the value of English in those countries and the benefits they get from it in terms of participating in the globalized world.
In addition, Davies argues that English is not imposed on these countries against their will, and cannot be imperialistic. He comments on his own experience in Nepal. Although English was widely available in the school system, in the early 1970s Nepal withdrew from English for purpose of nation-building. But English did not go away. Nepali families insisted on sending their children to a few Indian schools where English was taught. Thus, Davies explains that English in Nepal was not something imposed on people by the colonizer. Rather it was the desire of people themselves, or at least a certain social class, to learn it. An easy answer to his claim is that the public may not be aware of the negative effect of replacing the national language with English. They only seek better opportunities for their children in this globalized world, which can unfortunately only be achieved through English.
Unlike Davies, Ramson (1996) stresses that English is opposed in India for many national reasons. But he also indicates that regardless of the political rhetoric against English for nationalistic or other reasons, English is in India to stay. In some ways, it is the only Indian "national" language, since Hindi is mainly a language of the Indian north, and many southern Indians prefer not to learn it as L2 to high proficiency. He admits that Indian English has some specific features of its own, but he argues that this does not have a negative effect. It meets a very important need with which the writer concludes his paper: "thanks to current globalization, Indians have at least realized that they can communicate with the international community only in English that is not only intelligible but acceptable too".
Another contradictory view results from Ivor Timmis' (2002) study. Not sure whether or not learners of English need to conform to native-speaker norms, Ivor Timmis (2002) has chosen to investigate and then represent the students' preference about the conformity to native-speaker norms, and how "native speaker" is defined. He wanted to test whether their views are in harmony with those of their teachers. He surveyed to find out whether and how far students wished to conform to native-speaker norms including the field of pronunciation. The questionnaire he made drew 400 students' responses from 14 different countries supported by 15 interviews. Another questionnaire for teachers drew 180 responses from 45 countries.
The results show that the majority of the students prefer to pronounce English like native speakers. A large group of those who do not like to sound like native speakers did not show any negative attitude toward speaking like a native speaker but they were either low-motivated or more realistic. On the contrary, the teachers' results were quite the opposite, since more teachers focused on intelligibility rather than native-speaker competence. Some regard accent as a part of personality and must be left to the student's choice. Others seemed to choose what they regarded as the more "realistic" choice. Timmis (2002) concludes that "there is still desire among students to conform to native speakers' norms". According to him, teachers seem to be moving away from native-speaker norms faster than students are. The question which Timmis did not answer is why these students wish to sound like native speakers. Do they opt for a complete mastery of the language, or is it because they wish to sound less inferior, and somehow more like "outsiders"?
Some researchers insist that English is capable of being de-culturalized, and their evidence is the writings of thirdworld novelists like Achebe in his Things Fall Apart and many other writers (Davies, 1996). More uniquely, Joseph Conrad, a Pole, achieved mastery in English, publishing many key novels, though written largely in a kind of late Victorian English. All of the African and Indian and other post-colonial writers, as in Malaysia, illustrated how English has been appropriated to express the local identities of non-native authors. English is used in their writings to represent a variety of different cultures. These writers aim at asserting their culture and cultural identity by using English as a means to do so. It was the first step, although partially, to clear English from the accompanying English cultures.
Although the trend "the Empire writes back" (Tiffin, et al, 2002) is an attempt to localize EIL, nevertheless there are doubts about the possibility of truly localizing English. These doubts are intensified by the accompanying globalized American culture that coincides with the spread of English. For instance, among younger generations all around the world, wearing jeans has become almost a global tradition. More and more people are accepting this tradition whether or not it clashes with their own cultural and sometimes religious background. Traditional dress increasingly is reserved for older generations, more rural people, or those who are looked down on because they are not able to 'modernize'. The same applies to other aspects of life like food i.e. burgers and pizza. The idea of modernization is threatening cultural identity. What modernization means is following the Western or often American lifestyle enshrined in a kind of consumer society. No one can deny that the American culture is seen as a supermodel by many.
Such a view is supported by data in a very strong Asian culture with its own powerful identity, in the situation among young Japanese. When they talk about fashion they use English terms in Japanese pronunciation as "shadoh" for eye shadow or "gai" for guys. Such language is incomprehensible to older Japanese, a fact that widens the communication gap. Chikara Kato, a professor in linguistics, explains this situation that applied to many thirdworld countries. He believes that this action shows a kind of inferiority complex over language which has turned into a dangerous longing (Zughoul, 2003). Mair (2001) indicates that the spread of English has a negative influence on individual self-esteem and collective cultural identity. This paradoxical issue requires sociolinguistic analysis.

The Future of EIL
If communication is growing with globalization, a sociolinguist may research whether the earth is going to be a monolingual planet and will lose much of its multilingualism in the post-globalization era. Scholars do not believe that, showing more concerns about the fragmentation of English (Crystal, 1997). There are fears of the side effects of EIL since new Englishes are likely to grow into mutually-incomprehensible varieties (we hear currently about Japalish, Singlesh, Manglish in Malaysia, etc). That is because more and more localized 'hybridized' variations will be finding their ways to EIL, as is the case in English in South Africa. These will be somewhat truncated repertoires of English. However, Crystal (1997) believes that with globalization this will not happen soon but most users of English globally will become bi-or multi-dialectical (Facchinettie, Crystal, Seidlhofer, 2010).
To avoid such consequences, advocates of EIL worked on standardizing it to ensure intelligibility. For instance, Jenkins (2000) worked on the core phonology of EIL which contains a reduced set of phonemes, in addition to other important rules of stress and syllables. Similar attempts were made by Meierkord (1998) in pragmatics and Seidlhofer (2004) in lexico-grammar. Seidlhofer (2010a;2010b; 2011) has a major long-term empirical project on Euro-English, called VOICE (Vienna-Oxford International Corpus of English).
McKay (2002) contributed basically to the issue of culture in an EIL classroom. Such kind of standardization is crucial for international intelligibility. What ensures that EIL will continue to play its communicative role is the spreading of these core norms and adopting them in EFL classrooms around the globe. However, sociolinguists express anxieties that with the globalization of English, other minority languages can be threatened first with attrition, and then with language death (Blommaert, 2010). One of the worst examples of that comes from Australia where the rate of language death has become perhaps the highest in the world (Zugoul, 2003). Paradoxically, other researchers indicate that the very spread of English can motivate speakers of other languages to insist on their local language, binding them to their own cultural and historical traditions (House, 2004). The growing number of Internet websites in different languages may support such a claim. This struggle between either language maintenance or shift creates another challenge for the sociolinguist to examine.
McKay and Bokhorst-Heng (2008) unfolded two other potential dangers of the spread of English. First, there is the fear that more native English speakers will become monolingual. The spread of English can result in a sort of complacency and self-sufficiency among native English speakers towards learning other languages. This is a clear trend in the United Kingdom (Garner, 2008) This growing monolingualism among English speakers may also promote the view that an English-only classroom is desirable and discount the benefits of using students' other languages in facilitating the learning of English. The second danger is the economic inequality in access to English learning, with the possibility that English will be only available to the elite social group. In addition, the large budgets that non-native countries spend on teaching English to their citizens will continue to be a heavy burden on their economy, and on the other hand, the business making of native English countries teaching English shows striking economic inequality that goes hand in hand with globalizing English (Templer, 2002). In Australia, for instance, international education is the second largest industry after mining.

Conclusion
This analysis of globalization and sociolinguistics has spotlighted important issues which remain largely unresolved. First, it shows that up to the present time, there has been no definitive and systematically analyzed study of the sociolinguistics of globalization. Resources are scattered and do not build on each other's findings, perhaps with the exclusion of Blommaert (2010) which was a first, though not successful attempt. There is a need for a critical and experimental account of many of the sociolinguistic issues discussed above, with more empirical work in depth. Future research is encouraged to conduct experimental studies that investigate the effect of globalization on languages and dialects. Globalization cannot be rejected. Whether or not it poses a real (or imagined) threat to the community, it will inevitably continue to spread. For this reason, responsible people have to urgently take actual steps to prevent the unwelcome effects of globalization and to manage to channel it in ways that benefit a majority of people everywhere.