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English as a Global Language

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English as a Global Language
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English as a Global Language – Debating the future of world English with references to Cristal, Phillipson and Reid.

Introduction

The aim of this essay is to explore the positions of Cristal, Phillipson and Reid and to consider how to address and how not to address the global language situation. There have been many different opinions expressed by academic linguistics as to weather the spread of one dominant language is an advantage or a disadvantage. Thus, this paper will present some of the main positive and negative aspects of English as a global language.

The term global language introduced in 1997 by David Crystal, a British linguist, in his book entitled English as a global language. It is the language used by the globalizing world. For centuries in Western culture the role of Latin met, when he was a dead language, which no one spoke, but which still taught in schools at the age of twenty-grit. So it was a common language (lingua franca) for scientists from different countries and the Western Christianity.

Firstly, because everyone is able to learn one foreign language and English is available in most influential mass media, it may contact people to get comfortable with the whole world. In other words, anyone can become a citizen of the world. Until recently, the citizens of the world were the only people who know several languages. They were often lucky to wealthy families, brought up by foreign governess.

According to Cristal’s view for those who do not speak English will be, in almost every case, empowered by learning English. Furthermore, Crystal postulates that the explosive growth of non-native English speakers has resulted in a world English, which is being shaped and directed just as much by these non-native English speakers as by mother-tongue English speakers. Crystal emphasizes a new world view, based on global interdependence, which “sees English playing a central role



References: • Chorpita Douglas The Problem of World English: Avaliable at http://chorpita.com/uni/chorpita_douglas_world_english last accessed 01 December 2012 • Bada Erdoğan, English as a World Language in Academic Writing http://www.readingmatrix.com/articles/sept_2010/bilal_genc.pdf • Graddol, D. (2006). English next. Retrieved December 12, 2006, from www.britishcouncil.org/files/documents/learning-research-english-next.pdf • Crystal, D. (1997). The language that took over the world. Retrieved December 15, 2006, from http://www.davidcrystal.com/DC_articles/English39.pdf • Reid L. Jessica Questioning a world standard English available at http://www.ijls.net/volumes/volume6issue1/Jessica1.pdf • Phillipson, Robert. 2000a. Linguistic Imperialism. 5th http://books.google.co.uk/books?hl=en&lr=&id=BGw8bsbRJtYC&oi=fnd&pg=PA333&dq=Phillipson,+Robert.+2000a.+Linguistic+Imperialism.+5th&ots=KJPe1q6Hdm&sig=YCksPFB7-u42VFvgW3ogoqF54Ig#v=onepage&q&f=false

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