An example from India is shown by the behavior of the family of the poet Tagore who outwardly appeared to have accepted many foreign customs, but at home still held strong feelings of national and cultural pride, collected Bengali literature and |on one occasion. Write my father a letter in English it was promptly returned to the writer” (Tagore 1992: 104-105 originally published 1911). This kind of behavior was also seen in Indian schools, Lachman Khubchandani related in 1994 (Pune, India) that he had as a pupil, from the age of twelve, written in every English textbook: “I dream of a time when English will be kicked out of my country”.

These accounts and statements are all evidence to the fact that forcing a language on a society, not in conjunction with but, at the expense of their mother tongue obviously creates social, cultural and even emotional discord in those it is foisted upon.

As mentioned previously language is such an integral part of being, of thinking and feeling. It is in the words of Kramsch “The arena in which political and cultural allegiances and loyalties are fought out”.

Language can be used for alike and opposite results; suppression and liberation, incapacitation and facilitation. So there is equally evidence which shows the spread of English as beneficial to a society. Phillipson himself refers to the relative success story which is Singapore.

Singapore has four official languages, Chinese, Tamil, Malay and English, but practically all children are educated in the latter. They are also expected to study their mother tongue and its social, cultural and ethnic roots (Kuo and Judd 1988 13-14). University education is only offered in English and it is government policy to establish English as Singapore’s language of business, industrial and public sectors. The economy is thriving, is it possible that ”modernization” has actually taken place in the way many governments have promised, but not delivered, through the medium of language? Current policy promotes English alongside the maintenance of Asian values. The Prime Minister himself has been quoted as saying ”foreign talents can impart their skills, not their values, to the Singaporeans”. An argument whilst admirable surely cannot prevent the infiltration of Western culture? This and the possibility that in the future after reaping the benefits of Western influence and language, Singapore may declare linguistic indepence shows more perhaps about the structural context of linguistic imperialism in Singapore than evidence in support of linguistic imperialism.