Linguistic imperialism continues to impact higher education which was founded on slavery (the colonial economic system), and was institutionalized to maintain a racial hierarchy. However, indigenous resistance has, and continues to endure as education is used as an extension of colonial power.
In the last month, President Donald Trump has made demands to own Greenland and suggestions of U.S. military power overtaking several nations by force (i.e. Cuba, Venezuela, etc..). A host of other comments endorsing colonialism isn’t uncommon for our 47th president. But colonialism hasn’t just impacted American history. It continues to impact American students today.
In the research paper “Language and power: linguistic imperialism”, Nataliia Lukianenko defines linguistic imperialism as “… the dominance of one language over others, often resulting in the marginalization of local languages and cultures.” Lukianenko goes on to emphasize that language hierarchies have significant implications for power dynamics, education, and identity formation for the colonized. Meaning the impact of linguistic hegemony isn’t an accidental by-product of colonialism, it’s systemic in the colonists’ approach to cultural subjugation.
Linguistic imperialism fundamentally operates within the structure of imperialism. It was first introduced through military power in colonization, and then developed through economic, social, and cultural subjugation. There is a distinction to be made between physical and linguistic subjugation.
In relation to colonization, physical subjugation often refers to violent military force used to displace and control a group of people. While linguistic subjugation refers more to the systemic erasure, devaluation, and replacement of native languages and epistemologies. And in turn, identities. Subsequently, linguistic subjugation is just as violent.
“Black Orpheus” by Jean-Paul Sartre, brings up this idea of language habits and how a language can be viewed as superior via the language itself. Sartre defines language habits as the ways we use words and associate them with one another, inherently containing underlying perspectives of the world.
Specifically with colonial languages, racial prejudice is evident in the type of values certain words imply. For example, the color white implies innocence and virtue: “‘White like snow’ to indicate innocence,” as Sartre puts it. While the color black implies death, chaos, and impurity. Implying they contrast one another; whiteness embodies righteousness and peace, while its antithesis – blackness – embodies violence and animality in need of civilization.
These language habits Sartre notes are incredibly relevant to how we still perceive language because language itself emphasizes the claim of superiority made by the colonialist. By making language the primary means of speech (and consequently expression) for the colonized, the colonialist simultaneously makes these language habits, which imply inherent values to human beings, the only means by which the colonized understand themselves. Meaning a colonized person’s recognition of their own blackness is understood under these distinct values of whiteness and blackness.
In examining language habits and their function under colonialism, we understand the ways in which linguistic power by colonists posed a threat to the colonized. Language has the capacity to make something visible or invisible. It’s fundamental to how we perceive ourselves. In taking away language, you take away the ability for people to perceive themselves outside of colonialism. And the ability to make themselves visible.
Robert Philipson, author of the book “Linguistic Imperialism”, argues that English spread through colonial education systems that explicitly downgraded indigenous languages. Consequently associating English with modernity and advancement in society. In other words, civilizing what the colonists viewed as uncivilized.
For example, Philipson writes, “Native American languages were initially used in missionary work and education, but when competition for territory and resources intensified, conflict between the settlers and indigenous peoples increased.” Meaning, the conflict between colonialists and established colonies is the one between the colonizer and indigenous people’s resistance.
As a result, British colonialists established educational institutions, in which they would forcibly take native children into boarding schools. This is one of the ways linguistic hierarchy was established in the U.S. But how has it been maintained?
In higher education, global educational standards maintain English as the benchmark of academic quality, making access to knowledge for students somewhat dependent on linguistic assimilation. Thus, minoritized languages face erasure as educational and economic systems pressure communities to adopt dominant languages for survival – accelerating linguistic and cultural loss.
Abdallah Al-Kahtany and Munassir Alhamami published a 2022 study in Sustainable Multilingualism titled “Linguistic Hegemony and English in Higher Education” that explicitly links English to linguistic hegemony. The study reports that students in non‑Anglophone universities experience lower achievement when content is delivered in a non‑native language, identity tensions, feeling their own language and culture are devalued, and unfair assessment and access (as those with stronger English gain disproportionate advantage, regardless of their knowledge on the subject).
Dr. Diego Luna, an Ethnic Studies professor at Highline College sat down for an interview on this topic. On the consequences students face as a result of linguistic imperialism in higher education, he notes, “We have the receipts. 100 years of education research on student efficacy and how human beings learn. The stronger the foundation someone has, which includes their home language, their faith, [if] they’re from a religious community, their culture. The stronger that is, the better the student can do. The general practice in higher education is that if people leave their stuff at the door, the more successful they’re going to be.”
Dr. Luna goes onto note that this is an underlying, yet fundamental contradiction in higher education. This contradiction impacts students’ energy (specifically international or non-english speaking students). It’s mentally and emotionally taxing to not only be pressured to assimilate, but to simply figure out one’s own standing (in turn one’s culture) in an institution like higher education that specifically functions through that contradiction.
English is indispensable to a person’s ability to pursue education. In turn, a person’s ability to advance in society, especially financially. The idea of classism and its impact on the linguistic hierarchy isn’t foreign to higher education. In fact, it’s the very foundation of it.
Luna notes, “The example that most immediately comes to mind is most of our Ivy League schools. Those schools are what they are because they were really the first schools founded in what became the United States, and were able to take advantage of, and be embedded in colonially or colonialism as it began to form in what’s now the U.S. coast and move west. So Harvard, its primary benefactors for its first 50, 60 years of existence were shipwrights and shipowners in Rhode Island and Massachusetts who were primarily moving enslaved Africans to southern colonies at the time.”
From its founding, higher education in America has been funded by colonial economics. Dr. Luna notes that its goal was to prop up the people higher on the racial and economic hierarchy. Through language, this elitism can be found in many colonial narratives. For example, the praise of fluency in English, or “good english” (meaning english without a criminalized or “ghettoized” accent or dialect). This praise is in turn synonymous with the praise of the colonialist narrative of civilization, progress, and modernity.
The founding of higher education and its suppression of not only non-English languages, but accents and dialects, has never limited the presence of them. 72% of Highline students are people of color. And while this doesn’t necessarily reflect language diversity, different languages and dialects can be heard throughout campus. In Building 8 alone you can hear at least five languages being spoken. Twice as many if it’s during peak hours.
Understanding how linguistic imperialism still impacts us is important because we pursue higher education because we believe in making a future for ourselves. Our collective student body is a direct challenge to the notions that higher education was founded on. In understanding the history of higher education we can better the institution as a whole. And in turn, our own futures.
In terms of power structures, the global dominance of English in diplomacy, trade, and international governance reinforces geopolitical hierarchies and shapes how nations communicate, negotiate, and participate in global affairs.
In fact Lukianenko notes, “Quantitative analysis of labor market data demonstrates a strong correlation between language proficiency and economic opportunities.” Meaning people who are fluent in the dominant language (in this case English) have more job prospects and access to advancement opportunities than non-English speakers.
Because English functions as a form of linguistic capital in these systems, proficiency in the dominant language consequently determines access to jobs, mobility, and economic resources. This inherently deepens global inequalities for groups of people (especially those colonized).
It’s important to note the relevance of linguistic imperialism and its application. However, it’s just as important to note the continuous indigenous resistance and response to it. Language revitalization has demonstrated that linguistic diversity can be preserved even within the power structures that linguistic hierarchies significantly feed into. Education is imperative to these language revitalization efforts.
According to Teresa L. McCarty, there is evidence that heritage-language education can strengthen a native students (re)acquisition of their indigenous languages. This data also shows that this language revitalization has promoted high levels of academic achievement. Language revitalization not only offers sociolinguistic opportunities for students in higher education, but fundamentally changes the colonial structure that’s inherent to the institution. Which directly impacts student success.
Overall, the study of linguistic imperialism and its effect doesn’t argue for, or against any particular language. What it does is analyze how linguistic imperialism functions in order to identify discrimination in the systems that were inherently founded on it through colonization. Most notably, higher education.