SOURCE: Cutting Edge Advanced Resource Bank - Module 1
Is globalisation good or bad?
- Comment on 3 or 4 of the statements below in your own words. Say whether you agree or disagree.
- Who is likely to have made these statements?
- Where do they come from?
- How old do you think the speaker is?
- What is the main point they are making?
b) "English will never dominate the world. It'll never replace other languages because it forces other countries to adopt English cultures. People want their own culture and their own language. They only need English in business...sometimes."
c) "It makes me sad when I see people in different countries wearing the same clothes, eating the same food and listening to the same tunes. In my day, we knew other countries did things differently and we were interested but we didn't want to do the same as them. The differences were good, not bad."
d) "Yeah, there's lots of American stuff but there's also loads of stuff from loads of different countries. You can get Chinese good or Indian food or Somali or Japanese or anything. You can listen to South American music or pop from Hong Kong. This is globalisation at its best."
e) "When I was young, we didn't know much beyond the end of our street. Now we know it all. We see it all on the TV and read about it in the papers. It's better. It makes you feel part of something more important than the end of your street."
f) "Why should I have to spend a fortune on expensive trainers for my children just because some foreign company says they're good? What's wrong with the ones they make here? Globalisation can have very expensive results."
g) "If people knew more about other places and understood the differences, they wouldn't resent them. And if they didn't resent them, they wouldn't want to get revenge. I think this is where most of the world's problems come from."
h) "Everyone knows Tom Cruise. He's a good actor, true. But Gong Li is also good, she's great, but not too many people know her. The problem is she's not American. It's all wrong. It's nothing to do with how good you are, it's where you come from that's important."
i) "My parents never travelled. They never knew anything about other countries unless they went to the pictures or read the papers. My generation knows so much more about everywhere and we love it. My mum says "what's the point in travelling when you've got it all here now?", but I don't agree. Having it all here makes me want to go and see it all in the countries it came from. Globalisation has made me more interested in other cultures, not less."
j) "Okay, so local companies have gone out of business, but the multi-nationals pay better and you know there'll always be a market for what you make. That's not a bad thing, is it?"
