Australia's Globalisation - Cultural Annihilation of Cultural Understanding?

Abstract

In 'Australian Folklore' no.12 (1997) there appeared the present writer's 'A Global Language but a Regional Culture', a response in some measure to the release that year in Australia of David Crystal's 'English as a global language'. Both the article and the book endeavoured to come to grips with the seemingly inevitable forward march of English to the detriment or even loss of so many other world major and minor languages. The catalytic forces causing this progress were deemed to be "historical (i.e. imperial or trade/missionary/marine) and cultural ... [arising from] political developments; access to knowledge ... the media ... international travel and [being in] the serendipitous 'right place at the right time'."