Global Communication and Risk Societies

Abstract

International communication today implies using English, the undisputed global language. This poses a challenge in the context of risk societies. In his seminal work Risk Society: Towards a New Modernity, sociologist Ulrich Beck defined a risk society as one that reacts methodically to threats brought about by the process of modernization. In sociolinguistic terms, risk societies are those whose native tongues are marginalized through lack of documentation; exclusion from the educational, health, and legal systems; continuing diglossic status even when non-traditional uses of the language exist; and language loss as users pass away. The current risk that many societies with non-English native speakers face is acceptance of their marginalized world English as legitimate, even when their variations are systematic and not merely idiolectal and can thus be said to constitute their nativized English.