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September 14 – 15, 2019
Organized by Faculty of Letters, Universitas Negeri Malang (UM)
WORLD ENGLISHES – A SYMBOLIC POWER TO OPPOSE INTERNALIZED RACISM
Uning Musthofiyah and Lilik Isnainiyah
The University of Merdeka Malang, Malang
uning.musthofiyah@unmer.ac.id
MTSS Darussalam, Jombang
lilik.isnainiyah@gmail.com
Abstract: Recently there has been a growing recognition in the use of World Englishes worldwide. Along with
the growth of economy and an increasing number of English users among nations in Kachru’s expanding
circle, the World Englishes that initially reflect the varieties of English, are instead used as a symbolic power
to oppose internalized racism which has been rooted for centuries among post-colonial countries. By using
Critical Interpretive Synthesis, the researcher summarizes the empirical evidences of internalized racism. The
awareness of internalized racism will help students to learn English without being subjected to the latent
oppression of English language imperialism.
Keywords: internalized racism, world Englishes, critical interpretive synthesis, character building, language
imperialism
INTRODUCTION
As time evolves by, World Englishes has emerged to be an alternative to Standard English (i.e., British
English, American English and Australian English) that offers choice for English learners to redefine their goal
and how it could benefit their life. According to Chen (2013), language offers more than just a communication
tool but also brings impact on self-identity and behaviour. Thus, understanding how language could influence
one’s behaviour and identity reinforces the need to seek for alternatives that bring more benefits than
otherwise. This is exemplified by a case of EFL learners who study English to imitate proficiency level of native
English, which eventually makes such unrealistic and intimidating goal, leading to inferiority and insecurity in
their local accents which are supposedly to be proud of, rather than being regarded as linguistically deficient.
For the EFL learners, the longing for imitating native proficiency might come from aspiration on westerners’
value; however, to some extent, this tendency should be put under scrutiny, to which it reflects internalized
racism.
From some literature, the internalized racism refers to an acceptance of belief and attitude that certain
group is more superior to others which leads to a feeling of inferiority (Paradies, Harris, & Anderson, 2008). If
left unaddressed, this issue subsequently maintains unfair treatments & unequal opportunities across groups
(Paradies as cited in Berman & Paradies in 2008). Due to its subtle existence and its deeply-rooted problem in
society, people often regard internalized racism as normal thing in life. In the United States, literature about
internalized racism commonly discuss African Americans (Blakesley, 2016; Molina, & James, 2016); whereas in
Australia, it is frequently about aboriginal groups (Internalized Racism, n.d; Paradies & Cunningham, 2009).
In relation to English Language Teaching, particularly among Kachru’s inner circle and expanding circle,
embracing realistic goals in learning English is more desirable while in the same time involving two factors that
support effective communication in the global stage: intelligibility and comprehensibility (Jung, 2010), In this
situation, speaking English with local dialects is no longer perceived as linguistically deficient but as linguistically
diverse with a set of local culture to be proud of. Social perspective in Second Language Acquisition (SLA)
should be taken for consideration rather than entirely adopting norm-referenced English Language (Kirkpatrick,
2011). World Englishes allow users to embrace their national identity through local accents (Kirkpatrick in
Kirkpatrick, 2011) that involves several features for successful communication, such as pragmatics, discourse
analysis, genre analysis and involves consideration of culture and sociolinguistics (Pakir, 2009). World Englishes
is very important to be disseminated in the region of Asia for liberating from colonial mentality, especially
expanding circles and outer circles that had once experienced colonialism.
In order to preserve local language and liberate oneself from colonial mentality through character
education among students in the post-colonial countries, internalized racism should be well addressed. Because
inferiority will turn into barrier that could reduce the dynamics of local and minority languages. Based on Hans
Rausing Endangered Languages Project Annual Report as cited in Kirkpatrick (2011), International language
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Organized by Faculty of Letters, Universitas Negeri Malang (UM)
teaching can lead to the diminishing local and minority language. For the purpose of learning English without
diminishing local culture and language, it is necessary to consider World Englishes as an alternate one.
In this article, the objective of study is to critically review the World Englishes and Internalized racism
and how they are interrelated. By using several articles that have been predetermined, we try to identify the
reasons why we need to disseminate the world Englishes among post-colonial countries to provide choice for
English language learners as an alternative to the norm-reference English.
RESEARCH METHOD
Through Critical Interpretative Synthesis (CIS), a new theory is generated from in-depth discussion and
relevant empirical evidences (Dixon-Woods et al., 2006). Sampling of the data is taken from some articles and
other empirical evidences as well as other documents that imply the existence of internalized racism and
explore why the World Englishes become a subtle force for social justice. As part of meta ethnography, CIS
allows researchers to analyse various types of literature as in depth as possible. Therefore, the following review
questions are as follows (1) How are Internalized racism reflected among English users in post-colonial
countries?, and (2) Why does World Englishes help to oppose internalized racism?
Data collection from electronic databases is quite few; we managed to filter up to 11 articles in the
final stage. The inclusion criterion includes articles that discuss empirical studies in the form of qualitative or
quantitative studies, some documents that can provide relevant information to answer research questions. We
also provide some keywords for tracking down some relevant articles from electronic databases as part of
purposive sampling method. After all selection process is completed, the shortlisted articles remain as relevant
sources which are further taken into a stage of data extraction.
DATA ANALYSIS
The shortlisted articles are taken for in depth analysis. It requires a lot of time for researchers to read
some relevant articles and to prepare a summary of no more than two pages for each paper. In each summary,
a brief information about the objective of study, and research method of each paper are elaborated to illustrate
some perceived features related to internalized racism and world Englishes. During analysis, the researchers
continue searching for articles that could fill the information gap found during the analysis. As a result, from
these studies there are several synthetic constructs, as follows:
1. Internalized racism
2. Inequalities
3. Word Englishes
RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
Finally, three synthetic constructs were established to identify the existence of internalized racism
among English users in the post-colonial countries and to provide some reasoning on why World Englishes acts
as a weapon against internalized racism. The first synthetic construct is internalized racism that is reflected
through an aspiration of norm-referenced English which at the same time undermining the local accents of
English learners. Pakir (2009) said that International English (IE) paradigm focuses on reducing accents and
setting a goal to closely resemble native speakers’ proficiency which make such a goal difficult to achieve, unless
only for a handful of people. Such an idealistic goal disregards the main purpose of communication for mutual
understanding which involves various elements in addition to verbal aspect.
In fact, the internalized racism stand along with postcolonial ambivalence might refer this
phenomenon. As for postcolonial ambivalence, it describes hybridity of selves among post-colonial countries
which position them between state of aspiring and rejecting the values of ex-colonizers, resulting in the need to
imitate the norms of colonials while struggling to preserve their local values (Bhabha in Sayed, 2016). For post-
colonial countries who have experienced layers of colonization for centuries, the feeling of aspiration toward ex-
colonizers is not easy to get rid of. Cultural and linguistic imprints left by ex-colonizers may still persist (Kachru,
1997).
Moreover, internalized racism is exemplified on the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN)
Charter Article 34 as cited in Kirkpatrick (2011), ASEAN promotes a linguistic monopoly for English language
despite of having a large diversity of languages in the region, which is contrast to the European Union (EU) that
comes with 23 official languages (Dosch & Mols, 1994; Kirkpatrick, 2011). Historically, almost all ASEAN member
countries were colonized by Westerners, except Thailand, so that the psychological effects of years of
colonization are not easy to diminish, they still consider westerners’ value is more superior, which is in contrast
ISoLEC Proceedings 2019 114
September 14 – 15, 2019
Organized by Faculty of Letters, Universitas Negeri Malang (UM)
to the EU acknowledging several official languages, showing an acceptance of language diversity without any
superior language. This tendency, certainly, needs to be readdressed because of irrelevancy of today’s situation.
With the economic growth, better quality of welfare as well as better education and human resources, South-
east Asian Nations turned into a major global socioeconomic group in global stage (Asian Development Bank
2012 in Joseph & Matthews, 2014).
The existence of Internalized racism is evident through a term of Eikawa which Kachru (1997) describes
as the psychological dominance in the human mind that affects individual’s perspective on western world.
Eikawa is further described as infatuation and admiration towards western culture and set Caucasian race in a
higher position or superiority. It accepts one group's superiority towards others. Without any doubts, it
indicates the existence of internalized racism. Another case is exemplified by Singaporean government that sets
a government decree on ideology of standard language (Bao in Schmitz, 2014), positioning Standard English as
superior to Singlish that is more representative to local culture.
The second synthetic construct is inequalities for English language users. According to Garcia as quoted
in Kirkpatrick (2011), there is a distinct characteristic between monolingual and multilingual children that
separates them from unified and similar testing in language learning. The multilingual proficiency cannot be
compared with monolingual proficiency that is benefitted from its native-ness. Interestingly, the official
language testing program considers English language learners from an expanding circle as linguistically deficient
even though other varieties in the Kachru’s inner circle are also based on language deficiency from the original
British English. Moreover, non-native teachers within the expanding circle and inner circle range are considered
inferior to native teachers even though local teachers are better able to grasp socio-pragmatics which are
required for effective communication on basis of contextual meaning.
The third synthetic construct is World Englishes that recognizes Native English teachers (NETs) but also
accepts the existence of multilingual English teachers (METs), giving many choices for English users on how
English should be taught. Meanwhile, the advantages of Multilingual English Teachers are that they can
understand the socio-pragmatics for successful communication. For example in Southeast Asian region, socio-
pragmatics such as accepting compliments, asking for requests and no interruption during talk (Kirkpatrick,
2011) set to provide effective communication and prevent misunderstanding. With the multilingual model,
intelligibility and comprehensibility are the main goals (Jung, 2010). It does not work in line with IE paradigm
that considers local accents as a mistake that must be avoided. According to McVeigh (as cited in Rivers, 2011),
if learning English continues to focus on the Inner Circle Model, then the inferiority complex will always be there
and persist. He further explains that inferiority complex continues exist as foreign language learners set an
unrealistic goal for language proficiency. When it is very difficult to achieve, they will feel inadequate and
inferior toward those of native English speakers who are benefitted from this situation since birth.
CONCLUSION
From the three synthetic constructs, the idealization toward Standard English could be rooted from the
concept of internalized racism. Given the growing number of English language users in the expanding circle as
well as the increasing number of immigrants who speak non-English as mother tongue in the inner circle, this
issue regarding English Language Teaching should be readdressed in order to create more practical and
accommodating English language in the global stage. For post-colonial countries, World Englishes provide a
choice to liberate ones from colonial mentality and treat local accents as part of cultural identity rather than
linguistic deficiency.
At last, this article has some limitations for generalization as it comes with few empirical evidences and
non-exhaustive synthetic constructs. Therefore, future study should address this problem and provide more
comprehensive, in-depth analysis in order to provide thorough understanding about internalized racism and
World Englishes.
REFERENCES
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ISoLEC Proceedings 2019 115
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Organized by Faculty of Letters, Universitas Negeri Malang (UM)
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