English as a Lingua Franca of Music
My experience as a non-native speaker of English was in part responsible for choosing the English language as a focus of my research. After conducting preliminary research on this subject, I realized how broad and well-studied this topic was, but it mostly concentrated in the area of learning English as a second language. However, there were not many academic works that contributed to the question of why English is the most preferred language in the world and, specifically, in the music world. Most of the answers came from the Web and online database articles. Although the videos were the last sources to be collected, I would like to start with them first, as they provide the insight into what makes a language a lingua franca, or a universal language.
According to Konstantin Andreev, a professor of English of the Dalarna University in Sweden, throughout history, there were many universal languages. Many of us know that Greek, Latin, Arabic, and Sanskrit were once very popular and widespread languages in certain periods of human history. What we do not know is that a language must have specific characteristics to become a lingua franca. As it turns out, it has nothing to do with the language itself. Andreev distinguishes seven must-haves characteristics in order to become a lingua franca: a number of native speakers, political power, economic interest, ideology, cultural prestige, access to learning, and technology. Andreev jokes, saying that if Russians would have won the Cold War, he would have been speaking Russian and not English in this video, and we all would have understood him. This specifically implicates to the political power of a language. In his second video, he emphasizes the importance of the cultural prestige of a language, saying: “Russian (language) may have had the troops, but it didn’t have the rock-and-roll” (13:02). Again, for a language to acquire supremacy, it must not only be able to intimidate, but also to appeal and attract people in other countries with its own cultural prestige. Andreev mentions the importance of the Beatles and Hollywood movies in establishing the cultural dominance of English in Eastern-European countries. |
Many articles that I found were either focused on English language and its capitalistic values or the growing demand of English language in the world. One of the articles in the New York Times talks about the connection between English language and globalization: “Having a global language has assisted globalization, and globalization has consolidated the global language” (Across cultures, English is the word). English could not be where it is now if it had not been for the position of the United States in the global market. Economic interactions between countries contribute to the importance of English in business world. Other articles were primarily concerned with American influences in European countries. One of them, “Behind the music: What it costs European acts to sing in their own languages,” summarizes a report by Emmanuel Legrand from the European Music Office, where he demonstrates that U.S. singers dominate the music charts all over Europe. The article starts with the line: “If you want to cross borders as a European artist, you had better sing in English.” What can be clearer than that? If you want success and a laurel wreath on your head, you must learn English! The author indicates that the top of the charts were mostly held by Jennifer Lopez, Bruno Mars, Lady Gaga, and Black Eyed Peas in 2010 and 2011. The only Europeans that showed high download rates were Adele, David Guetta, and club musicians like Afrojack and Tiesto. The author of this article, who is from Sweden, says that in Sweden, most of the radio stations play songs of local singers, and only 10 percent of them sing in Swedish. In Germany, only 15 percent of songs played on the radio are by German artists.
It all brings us to the article by Rob Sheffield, a writer for the Rolling Stone, who devoted one of his articles to the French band, Phoenix. Towards the end of the article, one of the members of the band, Mars, explains the reason why they chose English over French in their songs. Even though they were told by the French recording company that it would be a bad idea to sing in English, they did not listen. Mars states: “Hank Williams singing ‘My heart is full of tears’- that’s not possible in French. You would have to say ‘My heart is full of blood, and the blood is wet, and therefore the blood is like tears’- and that’s not a song.” Could it be that English has structural and lexical advantages when it comes to writing lyrics? According to Phoenix, English is a relatively easy language compared to French. |
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