Robert Henry Lawrence Phillipson (born 18 March 1942 in Gourock, Scotland)[1] is Professor Emeritus in the Department of Management, Society and Communication at Copenhagen Business School in Denmark.

[2] In his 1992 book, Phillipson made the first serious and systematic attempt to theorize linguistic imperialism in relation to English language teaching.

[3] In his 1997 article, Phillipson defined linguistic imperialism as "a theoretical construct, devised to account for linguistic hierarchisation, to address issues of why some languages come to be used more and others less, what structures and ideologies facilitate such processes, and the role of language professionals".

[4] He recently listed seven constitutive traits of linguistic imperialism: (1) interlocking, (2) exploitative, (3) structural, (4) ideological, (5) hegemonic, (6) subtractive, and (7) unequal.

It is ideological: beliefs, attitudes, and imagery glorify the dominant language, stigmatize others, and rationalize the linguistic hierarchy.

In the 2009 collection of his previously published essays, he explained the scope and significance of such research: The study of linguistic imperialism focuses on how and why certain languages dominate internationally, and on attempts to account for such dominance in an explicit, theoretically founded way.

In Africa, the languages of some of the colonizing powers, England, France, and Portugal are more firmly entrenched than ever, as English is in several Asian countries.