Language Choice in a Nation Under Transition: English Language Spread in Cambodia

316 Pages·2006·3.999 MB·

by  Thomas Clayton PhD (auth.)

LANGUAGE CHOICE IN A NATION UNDER
TRANSITION
Language Policy
VOLUME 5
Series Editors:
Bernard Spolsky, Bar-Ilan University, Israel
Elana Shohamy, Tel Aviv University, Israel
Editorial Board.
Claire Kramsch, University of California at Berkeley, USA
Georges Liidi, University of Basel, Switzerland
Normand Labrie, University of Toronto, Canada
Anne Pakir, National University of Singapore, Singapore
John Trim, Former Fellow, Selwyn College, Cambridge, UK
Guadalupe Valdes, Stanford University, USA
The last half century has witnessed an explosive shift in language diversity not unlike the
Biblical story of the Tower of Babel, but involving now a rapid spread of global
languages and an associated threat to small languages. The diffusion of global languages,
the stampede towards English, the counter-pressures in the form of ethnic efforts to
reverse or slow the process, the continued determination of nation-states to assert national
identity through language, and, in an opposite direction, the greater tolerance shown to
multilingualism and the increasing concern for language rights, all these are working to
make the study of the nature and possibilities of language policy and planning a field of
swift growth.
The series will publish empirical studies of general language policy or of language
education policy, or monographs dealing with the theory and general nature of the field.
We welcome detailed accounts of language policy-making - who is involved, what is
done, how it develops, why it is attempted. We will publish research dealing with the
development of policy under different conditions and the effect of implementation. We
will be interested in accounts of policy development by governments and governmental
agencies, by large international companies, foundations, and organizations, as well as the
efforts of groups attempting to resist or modify governmental policies. We will also
consider empirical studies that are relevant to policy of a general nature, e.g. the local
effects of the developing European policy of starting language teaching earlier, the
numbers of hours of instruction needed to achieve competence, selection and training of
language teachers, the language effects of the Internet. Other possible topics include the
legal basis for language policy, the role of social identity in policy development, the
influence of political ideology on language policy, the role of economic factors, policy as
a reflection of social change.
The series is intended for scholars in the field of language policy and others interested in
the topic, including sociolinguists, educational and applied linguists, language planners,
language educators, sociologists, political scientists, and comparative educationalists.
LANGUAGE CHOICE IN A NATION
UNDER TRANSITION
English Language Spread in Cambodia
Thomas Clayton
University of Kentucky
Lexington, KY, USA
Q-
Springer
Thomas Clayton, PhD
Department of English and Linguistics
University of Kentucky
1231 Patterson Office Tower
Lexington, KY 40506
LANGUAGE CHOICE IN A NATION UNDER TRANSITION
English Language Spread in Cambodia
Library of Congress Control Number: 2005938060
Printed on acid-free paper.
O 2006 Springer Science+Business Media, Inc.
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at the date of going to press, neither the authors nor the editors nor the publisher
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Printed in the United States of America
Contents
Preface vii
Acknowledgements ix
Chapter 1 : Introduction
1. Language Policy Protests at the Technical University
2. Language Choice, the Context for Language Choice,
and English Language Spread
3. Cambodia
Chapter 2: The Economic Context for Language Choice
1. Economic History
2. Economic Transition, Economic Integration, and Language
3. Trajectories and Correlations in Economy and Language
Chapter 3: The Political Context for Language Choice
1. Political History
2. Political Change and Language
3. Trends and Directions in Politics and Language
Chapter 4: The Assistance Context for Language Choice:
Employment
1. Assistance History
2. International Assistance, Employment, and Language
3. Trajectories and Correlations in Assistance, Employment,
and Language
Chapter 5: The Assistance Context for Language Choice:
Projects 117
1. Capacity Building for Technical Assistance 117
2. Sample of Projects 118
3. English as Projects 120
4. English in Projects 126
5. Trends, Trajectories, and Their Limits in English and
Assistance Projects 141
Chapter 6: The Assistance Context for Language Choice:
Education 149
1. Educational History 149
2. Education in Cambodia 154
3. French and English in Cambodian Schools and Universities 190
4. Three Groups in International Assistance 204
Chapter 7: Language Choice in a Nation Under Transition 207
1. The Context for Language Choice 207
2. Language Choice in Cambodia 21 1
3. Trajectories and Correlations in Language Choice 23 5
Chapter 8: English Language Spread 24 1
1. Promotion, Choice, Spread 24 1
2. The Debate About English Language Spread 24 1
3. Linguistic Imperialism 243
4. Language Choice 264
5. Language Choice in a Nation Under Transition 267
Interviews and Personal Communications
References
Index
Author
Preface
The Language Policy series, now published by Springer Science, started
out under the imprint of Kluwer Academic Publishers with a study of
language education policy for a minority group in one small country (Israel),
went on to a survey of language and language education policy in a large and
complex region (the Pacific), and then added two detailed studies of two of
the world's major nations (the Soviet Union and China). This fifth volume
goes back to a single and relatively small country, but obtains the kind of
generality we are seeking by dealing with the puzzling (for some) switch
from French colonial hegemony to English global dominance in Cambodia,
a nation that continues much of its private, public, and economic life using
the Khmer language that most Cambodians speak.
By looking in detail at both the historical situation and the economic
revolution in recent years, Thomas Clayton is able to analyze Cambodia as a
major case for exploring and evaluating the competing explanations for the
spread of English globally. He shows how the linguistic imperialism theory
needs to be modified to deal with the multitude of external and internal
agencies and forces that were at work, while providing a sensitive considera-
tion of the positive and negative effects of economic development and
globalization.
What is particularly pleasing for us is that, while the book centers on
language policy, it is free from the linguicentrism that affects many scholars
in the field-it is concerned with economic and social effects, showing how
language matters intersect with poverty and development and economic
gaps. It makes clear that language policy is and must be an interdisciplinary
field.
Bernard Spolsky and Elana Shohamy, Series Editors
Acknowledgments
I conducted the majority of research for this book while a Fulbright
scholar in Cambodia in 2000. I would like to thank the Fulbright Program
for awarding me the grant that enabled this research, as well as the College
of Arts and Sciences at the University of Kentucky for giving me a scholarly
leave to undertake it. In Phnom Penh, my family and I benefited greatly
from the attentions of the Public Affairs Office of the United States Em-
bassy; I express my particular thanks to Ms. Marrie Schaefer, the public
affairs officer at the embassy, and to her deputy, Mr. Chau Sa. In addition, I
am grateful to the faculty and staff of the Faculty of Law and Economics for
welcoming me as a visiting professor; I extend my sincerest thanks to the
dean, Mr. Yuok Ngoy, now rector of the renamed Royal University of Law
and Economics. I wrote much of this monograph while on sabbatical in the
academic year 2003-2004, and I again thank the College of Arts and
Sciences at the University of Kentucky for support during this period.
Finally, I would not have been able to complete this project had hundreds of
people in Cambodia not taken the time to talk with me about language and
education issues. I thank them all for their invaluable contributions to this
volume, while reserving for myself the errors that remain in it.
Chapter 1
INTRODUCTION
1. LANGUAGE POLICY PROTESTS AT THE
TECHNICAL UNIVERSITY
During the 1980s, students attending what was then the Kampuchea-
Soviet Friendship Higher Technical Institute in Phnom Penh, Cambodia,
received instruction in Russian from Soviet professors. Following the
collapse of the Soviet Union, the cessation of Soviet assistance to Cambodia,
and the departure of Russian-speaking instructors from the country, France
stepped in with a package of support to the technical university valued at 35
million francs, nearly $7 million (all figures in U.S. dollars unless otherwise
noted). With the initiation of French assistance delivered through the
Organisation Internationale de la Francophonie's Association des Universi-
t6s Partiellement ou Entikrement de Langue Franpise (AUPELF), on 10
September 1993 French became the language of instruction at the renamed
Institut de Technologie du Cambodge.
Many students at the technical university did not agree with the language
policy change. It was not that they wanted to continue studying in Russian,
or even to shift the instructional medium to Khmer, the first language of 90
percent of the Cambodian population. Rather, they wanted to study in
English. In an attempt to make their views known, students staged several
protests at the Institut de Technologie du Cambodge. Early on, they ex-
pressed their opinion with relative restraint. During a one-day rally in
October 1993, for example, one young man marched around the university