Colonial Linguistic Dominance and the Emergence of World Englishes: A Critical Synthesis of Power, Identity and Language Policy

Abstrak

There are between 6000 to 7000 living languages in the world. A language becomes influential, through the combined weight of native and secondary speakers, the demographic and economic power of the countries that use it, its role in science and diplomacy, and its socio-literary prestige. English has emerged as a preeminent global lingua franca, giving rise to the field of World Englishes. This paper offers a critical synthesis of the historical and sociolinguistic literature on the colonial roots of English dominance. Drawing on Kachru’s concentric circle model and Foucault’s power-identity framework. It examines how colonial language policies produce both structural linguicide and creative linguistic resistance. By organizing existing scholarship around three intersecting themes: power and identity, the differential impact of colonial languages on indigenous communication, and the dialectic of resistance and acceptance, the paper clarifies a coherent research agenda for future empirical work on postcolonial language policy. The discussion draws on illustrative cases from Ireland, Singapore, Kenya, Papua New Guinea, and the Indo-Pakistan Subcontinent to demonstrate the global reach of these processes.