MODULE 5A

COMMUNICATION, POWER AND

GLOBALIZATION

Learning Outcomes:

1. Understand the power dynamics of

language as a tool for communication

2. Determine the role of communication

in and its impacts to globalization

3. Value the significance of

communication as a vital edge for
individual’s global competitiveness

Time frame: 3 hours

Activity:

Give a one-liner title for the image on the

right.

Analysis:

1. Is language a tool for communication

that reflects power? Abstraction

2. How does the language create power? You see in the poster that all are connected to the world, so what connects
the world? Language. Language is a versatile communication medium, often
3. What is the role of the language in and widely used in tandem with music, pictures, and actions to amplify its
promoting globalization? power. Silence, too, adds to the force of speech when it is used strategically
to speak louder than words. The wide range of language functions and its
versatility combine to make language powerful. Even so, this is only one
part of what is in fact a dynamic relationship between language and power.
The other part is that there is preexisting power behind language which
it reveals and reflects, thereby transferring extralinguistic power to the
communication context.

Language: Tool for Communication and Power

Through language, humans express and communicate their private thoughts

and feelings as well as enact various social functions. The social functions
include co-constructing social reality between and among individuals,
performing and coordinating social actions such as conversing, arguing,
cheating, and telling people what they should or should not do. Language
is also a public marker of ethnolinguistic, national, or religious identity, so
strong that people are willing to go to war for its defense, just as they would
defend other markers of social identity, such as their national flag. These
cognitive, communicative, social, and identity functions make language a
fundamental medium of human communication (Ng and Deng, 2017).

There are five approaches to analyze the power of language as a tool for
communication and can be grouped for discussion under the power behind
language and the power of language. In the former, language is viewed as
having no power of its own and yet can produce influence and control by

GEC 102 - Purposive Communication | 14

revealing the power behind the speaker. Language also reflects the practical importance of this phenomenon and its impact
collective/historical power of the language community that uses it on English vocabulary, grammar, and accent have led to
(Ng and Deng, 2017). the emergence of a new field of research called “English
as a lingua franca” (Brosch, 2015).

A. Power Behind Language This will be discussed in the next module.

1. Language Reveals Power

When negotiating with police, a gang may issue the threatening

message, “Meet our demands, or we will shoot the hostages!” The
threatening message may succeed in coercing the police to submit;
its power, however, is more apparent than real because it is based
on the guns gangsters posses. The message merely reveals the
power of a weapon in their possession. Apart from revealing power,
the gangsters may also cheat. As long as the message comes across
as credible and convincing enough to arouse overwhelming fear, it
would allow them to get away with their demands without actually
possessing any weapon. In this case, language is used to produce
an intended effect despite resistance by deceptively revealing a
nonexisting power base and planting it in the mind of the message
recipient (Robinson, 1996).

2. Language Reflects Power

Under here, we have two sub-topics: (a) Ethnolinguistic Vitality, and

(b) World English and Lingua Franca English.

a. Ethnolinguistic Vitality
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The language that a person uses reflects the language ges&cd=vfe&ved=0CA0QjhxqFwoTCLD6gIGs--wCFQAAAAAdAAAAABAD

community’s power. A useful way to think about a language

community’s linguistic power is through the ethnolinguistic
vitality model (Bourhis et al., 1981; Harwood et al., 1994). B. Power of Language
Language communities in a country vary in absolute size overall
and, just as important, a relative numeric concentration in
3. Language Maintains Existing Dominance
particular regions. For example, Francophone Canadians, though
fewer than Anglophone Canadians overall, are concentrated Language maintains and reproduces existing dominance
in Quebec to give them the power of numbers there. Similarly, in three different ways represented respectively by the
ethnic minorities in mainland China have considerable power ascent of English, linguistic sexism, and legal language
of numbers in those autonomous regions where they are style. For reasons already noted, English has become a
concentrated, such as Inner Mongolia, Tibet, and Xinjiang. global language, an international lingua franca, and an
Collectively, these factors form the demographic base of the indispensable medium for non-native English speaking
language community’s ethnolinguistic vitality, an index of the countries to participate in the globalized world. A
community’s relative linguistic dominance (Ng and Deng, 2017). language evolves and changes to adapt to socially
accepted word meanings, grammatical rules, accents,
b. World Englishes and Lingua Franca English
and other manners of speaking. What is acceptable or
English is becoming a global language with official or special unacceptable reflects common usage and hence the
status in at least 75 countries (British Council, n.d.). It is numerical influence of users, but also the elites’ particular
also the language choice in international organizations and language preferences and communication styles.
companies, as well as academia, and is commonly used in
trade, international mass media, and entertainment, and over 4. Language Unites and Divides a Nation
the Internet as the main source of information. English native
speakers can now follow the worldwide English language track A nation of many speakers who, despite their diverse
to find jobs overseas without having to learn the local language cultural and ethnic background, all speak in the same
and may instead enjoy a competitive language advantage where tongue and write in the same script would reap the
the job requires English proficiency. This situation is a far cry benefit of the unifying power of a common language.
from the colonial era when similar advantages had to come The power of the language to unite people would be
under political patronage (Ng and Deng, 2017). stronger if it has become part of their common national
identity and contributed to its vitality and psychological
As English spreads worldwide, it has also become the major distinctiveness. Such power has often been seized
international lingua franca, serving some 800 million multilinguals upon by national leaders and intellectuals to unify their
in Asia alone, and numerous others elsewhere (Bolton, 2008). The
GEC 102 - Purposive Communication | 15
countries and serve other nationalistic purposes (Patten, 2006). In China, for c. Conversational Power
example, Emperor Qin Shi Huang standardized the Chinese script (hanzi) as an
important part of the reforms to unify the country after he had defeated the A conversation is a speech exchange
other states and brought the Warring States Period (475–221 bc) to an end. A system in which the length and order of
similar reform of language standardization was set in motion soon after the speaking turns have not been pre-assigned
overthrow of the Qing Dynasty (1644–1911), by simplifying some of the hanzi but require coordination on an utterance-
and promoting Putonghua as the national standard oral language (Ng and by-utterance basis between two or more
Deng, 2017). individuals. It differs from other speech
exchange systems in which speaking turns
In the postcolonial part of the world, language is often used to service have been pre-assigned and/or monitored
nationalism by restoring the official status of their indigenous language by a third party, for example, job interviews
as the national language whilst retaining the colonial language or, in more and debate contests. In terms of persuasion,
radical cases of decolonization, relegating the latter to non-official status. a person who cannot do this is in no
Yet language is a two-edged sword: It can also divide a nation. The tension position to influence others in and through
can be seen in competing claims to official-language status made by minority conversations, which are probably the most
language communities, protest over maintenance of minority languages, common and ubiquitous form of human
language rights at schools and in courts of law, bilingual education, and social interaction (Ng and Deng, 2017).
outright language wars (Calvet, 1998; DeVotta, 2004).
d. Narrative Power
5. Language Creates Influence
Narratives and stories are closely related
In this section we discuss the power of language to create influence through: and are sometimes used interchangeably.
(a) power of single words and more complex linguistic structures ranging from However, it is useful to distinguish a
(b) oratories and (c) conversations to (d) narratives/stories. narrative from a story and from other

a. Power of Single Words

Learning a language empowers humans to

master an elaborate system of conventions
and the associations between words and their
sounds. On the other hand, categories of
objects and relations to which they refer. After
mastering the referential meanings of words,
a person can mentally access the objects and
relations simply by hearing or reading the
words. Apart from their referential meanings,
words also have connotative meanings with
their own social-cognitive consequences.
Together, these social-cognitive functions
underpin the power of single words that
has been extensively studied in metaphors https://www.google.com.ph/url?sa=i&url=https%3A%2F%2Ffanyv88.com%3A443%2Fhttps%2Fquotefancy.com%2Fquote%2F1720899%2FJulia-Penelope-Language-is-power-in-ways-
(Benedek et al., 2014; Landau et al., 2014; more-literal-than-most-people-think-When-we&psig=AOvVaw33HUp0JlOuNtF6rzgiEiFS&ust=1605213382914000&source=images&cd=vfe&ved=0CA
0QjhxqFwoTCLD6gIGs--wCFQAAAAAdAAAAABAU
Marshal et al., 2007).
related terms such as discourse and frames.
b. Oratorical Power A story is a sequence of related events
in the past recounted for rhetorical or
A charismatic speaker may, by the sheer force of oratory, buoy up people’s ideological purposes, whereas a narrative
hopes, convert their hearts from hatred to forgiveness, or embolden them to is a coherent system of interrelated and
take up arms for a cause. One may recall moving speeches (in English) such as sequentially organized stories formed by
Mahatma Gandhi’s “Quit India” or Martin Luther King, Jr.’s “I Have a Dream.” incorporating new stories and relating
The speech may be delivered face-to-face to an audience, or broadcast over them to others so as to provide an ongoing
the media. Oratorical power may be measured in terms of money donated basis for interpreting events, envisioning an
or pledged to the speaker’s cause, or, in a religious sermon, the number of ideal future, and motivating and justifying
converts made. Another measurement approach is to count the frequency collective actions (Halverson et al., 2011).
of online audience responses that a speech has generated, usually but not The temporal dimension and sense of
exclusively in the form of applause. Audience applause can be measured movement in a narrative also distinguish
fairly objectively in terms of frequency, length, or loudness, and collected it from discourse and frames. According
non-obtrusively from a public recording of the meeting. A valid incidence to Miskimmon, O’Loughlin, and Roselle
of audience applause should be one that is invited by the speaker and (2013), discourses are the raw material
synchronized with the flow of the speech, occurring at the appropriate time of communication that actors plot into
and place as indicated by the rhetorical format (Ng and Deng, 2017). a narrative, and frames are the acts of

GEC 102 - Purposive Communication | 16

selecting and highlighting some events or issues to promote a 6. Greater immigration, including illegal immigration
particular interpretation, evaluation, and solution. Telling and and others
sharing stories are part of human communication when we try to
transmit our experiences and ideas through words. Impact of Communication on
Globalization
Communication through Globalization
Positive Impacts:
The Kenmoore Global Prospect (2010) outlined the impacts of
communication in globalization. Communication is constant and 1. Communication facilitates information among
widespread that one cannot escape its influence. Without it, generation of people and promotes economic
people would be isolated and unable to give and receive ideas. developments of nations.
Civilization itself would
be impossible. However,
the breakthroughs in
communication in the
past decades and in our
21st century have spurred
increases in cross-border
trade, investment and
migration, as if we live in
“one world.”

Globalization is the process

by which people in the
world are unified into a
single society and function
together. Furthermore,
it is a process in which
geographic distance
becomes a factor of
diminishing importance
in the establishment and
maintenance of cross-
border economic, political
and socio-cultural relations.
This process reaches such
intensity that relations https://www.google.com.ph/url?sa=i&url=https%3A%2F%2Ffanyv88.com%3A443%2Fhttp%2Feconomicsimplified.weebly.com%2Ftechnology-and-commuication.html&psig=AOvVaw1g8nZL-bbTB6H202h6ONz-&ust=1605
215145195000&source=images&cd=vfe&ved=0CA0QjhxqFwoTCNCgtcyy--wCFQAAAAAdAAAAABAJ
change fundamentally,
and people become
aware of the change. The
potential internationalization of relations and dependences create 2. Communication promotes world peace and
opportunities, but also cause fear, resistance, actions and reactions understanding through socialization and
(Kenmoore Global Prospect, 2010). recognition of and among the nations.
3. Communication calibrates world trade through
As discussed in the previous modules, rapid improvements in
successful and fast business transactions.
information technology have allowed our exchange information
and communicate almost everywhere and anytime. The nature 4. Communication promotes exchange of ideas and
of business and how it is done globally have also improved technology.
tremendously through communication.
Negative Impacts:
Through communication, we observe the following trends in
globalization: 1. Communication among the nations today has
contributed to wide spread corrupt practices.
1. Increase in international trade at a faster rate than the
growth in the world economy 2. Improper or insistent communication on politics,
economics and even language barrier may lead to
2. Increase in international flow of capital including foreign disputes and enmity among the nations.
direct investment
3. Improper deliberations and breakdown in
3. Increase in world production output and consumption communication among nations could result to war.
4. Greater trans-border data flow, using technologies as the
internet, communication satellites and telephones
5. Development of global telecommunications infrastructure

GEC 102 - Purposive Communication | 17

Assessment
Answer the following:

1. Based on the discussion, complete the inverted semantic tree:

2. Determine whether the statement is true or false. Write TRUE if it is True and FALSE if it is False. Support your answer by
explaining your points in 2-3 sentences only.
1. _________ Language, as a tool for communication, can change the society.
2. _________ Conversation is not a communication.
3. _________ One power of language is to deceive other communicators.
4. _________ Globalization, through communication, distorts the sovereignty of a nation.
5. _________ For language to spread, it should be used in communication.

Application
From the mnemonics G-L-O-B-A-L, create a statement or set of phrases that would relate and explain our lesson on
Communication, Power and Globalization. For example, G – “Go and connect the world,” or “Great!” then you proceed with L and
so on.

G _____________________________________________
L _____________________________________________
O _____________________________________________
B _____________________________________________
A _____________________________________________
L _____________________________________________

GEC 102 - Purposive Communication | 18

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Prepared by Approved by

Norman Ralph Isla Norman Ralph Isla

Faculty Chairperson
English Department English Department

GEC 102 - Purposive Communication | 19