The English language as a product.
The purpose of this essay is to answer the question “Why is English the international language?”
Graddol characterizes English as the first lingua franca [Graddol, 2006:11]. Many international organisations such as North Atlantic Treaty Organization, The United Nations, Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation and European Free Trade Association made English their procedural language even though most members are not countries with a majority of native English speakers [Graddol, 2006:92].
Phillipson notes that there is a sharp decline in the use of French and German, as well as progressive use of English as the default internal language and this entails clear fortification of the interests of English-speaking member-states
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The combination of these two reasons has brought into existence a language which consists of many varieties, each distinctive in its use of grammar, sounds, and vocabulary [Crystal, 2003:29].
As a result of the worldwide influence, geographical-historical aspect, of the British Empire, English language enlarged its influence in every part of the world, because of expansion and colonisation of Africa and the South Pacific, English took a further step as a global language [Crystal, 2003:24].
The socio-cultural explanation looks at how people around the world depend on English for their economic and social welfare. Millions have appreciated the convenience of having lingua franca available to serve global human needs [Crystal, 2003:29].
There is the closest link between language dominance and economic, cultural, and technological power and Phillipson notes that the influence of English as the product comes from such factors as [Phillipson, 2008:9]: Politics (US empire)
Business (material system)
Prestige code (domination of English-speaking
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This observation leads us to Esperanto created by Ludwik Lejzer Zamenhof in 1887. Esperanto is based on the lexicon of supreme European languages, has a Latin alphabet as writing system and a friendly phonology, syntax, and morphology. From David’s point of view on Esperanto has a social attraction because of the fact that it is no one’s mother tongue and every user can feel like a native speaker. A great number of these constructed languages developed with the plan that a single world language will lead to world peace, but it seems that many wars have historically come to the group of people using the same language [David,
The author, Bill Bryson, briefly introduces and describes the history of English. In this book, The Mother Tongue, Bryson uses an interesting way and scholarly manner to guide readers through the various linguistic and social movements in the English language, the center of the world language as well as the export of manufactured goods. He gives different kinds of instances by comparing with various languages to present how the language merged together of interacting.
The most important channels such as CNN and BBC broadcast US programs in English. This encouraged people to learn English in order to understand the broadcast and to follow the change operated in International Relations as well as in the world system; therefore, English became the International language completely declining the French language. Moreover, its large domestic market, relatively tolerant values, domestic diversity and geographic isolation all are helpful. But a hegemon it remains, and by that very it must make others uneasy (Understanding the Bush Doctrine, p385).
There is a direct correlation between the influence of French culture and language on English culture and language and the advent of capitalism in during the 17th and 18th century. The Industrial Revolution is directly related to the social institution of language which has direct influence from the French culture.
Thus, it could be established that Malay speaker find it difficult to understand and use English language plural inflections due to the fact that there are no plural inflections in the Malay language. Unlike the Malay language, the plural formation of words in the English language is much more complicated because there are many
Mollin, S., 2006. “English as a Lingua Franca: A New Variety in the New Expanding Circle?”, The Nordic Journal of English Studies 5(2), pp. 41-57. Available from
Since the beginning of human interaction, culture was a driving force with respect to language. Culture completely shapes the how and what people say to each other. Additionally, culture’s influence on language has been so powerful, that the more dominant a culture becomes the more the language of that culture will permeate other cultures that it has interaction with and subsequently comes to dominate the language of neighboring cultures. Some may even argue that language is a sub-culture of culture itself and yet others argue that language is simply a product or manifestation of a particular culture. Irrespective of the position that one may assume in this age old debate the overriding theme is culture significantly impacts language and in-turn, culture drives consequences of social institutions. I will address language as a social institution and its consequences in a separate paper.
This essay will discuss how the English language contributes to globalization. It also shows some problems that arise from this. Furthermore, we will give or suggest some solutions for these problems.
Fisher studied the birth and development of standard varieties of French, English, Spanish, and Italian and mentioned the lack of a discussion that points out similarities in this process in various countries and emphasised that such similarities are necessary for a general understanding of the nature of standard languages (1996: 65). It should be obvious that generalising outside this European context is even more problematic. Both the diachronic and synchronic approach to defining the standard language that have appeared suffer from the weakness that they take well-known, mostly western, languages as their point of departure and many of the approach taken so far can safely be qualified Euro-centric. The authors, too, are often from a western society, which leads to approaches of replicating older models and the underlying assumptions regarding the coming to existence of nation states in a European...
Based on the number of people who use it as a language and its easy nature to learn, English is the best candidate as the global language, which should facilitate communication in the changing environment. This draws the line between English and other languages whose usage is predominant across Europe and parts of Asia. In terms of numbers and effectiveness in learning, English is more superior to other languages.
Since the establishment of the British Empire, the spread of English language has been experienced in many parts of the globe. The success can be attributed significantly to the colonization activities that the empire had embarked on. They would train the indigenous community English language as they suppressed the local dialect. This massive spread is termed as lingual imperialism (Osterhammel 2005, pp. 14). The English language has become the first and second language of many nations across the world, and this makes it an international language. The native’s proportion to the non-native who speaks English cannot be compared with nations in the isle of Britain and far are speaking the language .considering that more than 70%
The development of the English language was a combination of cultural, political, social and religious events that each playing their own part shaping the modern English language spoken today as a first language by 400 million people . As Baugh and Cable convey to us in A History of the English Language; ‘It understates matters to say that political, economic, and social forces influence a language’. Although it cannot be identified exactly when the inhabitants of Britain began to speak English, there are some sources that give an insight into the nature of the forces that played a role in its foundation such as: the four medieval manuscripts;
...nology is moving ahead at the speed of light. With all this advancement comes the inevitable need for a language that unifies the world. The need for a common language to conduct our business and economic affairs, and our need to communicate internationally on political and world interventions has made English the leader in world languages. It is not the language spoken first by most, but it the language that the world uses when it comes together to communicate.
English spreads widely in each countries, no matter the area of region or information transfer, English becomes an important position in global language. As the specification of a global language, it essentially refers to a language that learned and spoken internationally, so English can be the most out-standing. According to the number of English-speaking calculations, English is the official language used by most countries, English is the most widely used second language in the world, and the percentage of web pages with English content is estimated to be over 50% (Crystal, 2003). Meanwhile, the history and usefulness cause English to be a global language, and they mainly influence to spread English faster in China and to bring convenience
In order to visualize the “global” as an adjective in the collocation “global language”, a study has shown the numbers of people speaking the language. According to them, there are about 6000 languages in the world and not surprisingly English is at the top of the list of most dominant. In the world there are 375 million first-language speakers, approximately the same number of second-language speakers and about 750 million foreign-language speakers (David Graddol, The Future of English? A Guide to Forecasting the Popularity of the English Language in the 21st Century. British Council, 1997). According to magazine Economist, more than one billion people speak some form of English. These numbers could make people think that English is really conquering the world which can be both positive and negative.
Historically, there has always been a powerful connection between a country’s military expansion and the spread of its language.Infact, English has no intrinsic linguistic quality which other languages lack. All human languages have the same basic intrinsic linguistic competence to generate grammatically acceptable utterances. Therefore, if English is considered as the power language then linguistic imperialism is surely at work. Robert Phillipson (1992) has clarified that ‘the dominance of English is asserted and maintained by the establishment and continuous reconstitution of structural and cultural inequalities between English and other languages