Rise Of English As An International Language
The Rise of English
The rise of English as an international language has always been a debatable issue. Its critics condemn the global dominance of English as a form of linguistic imperialism, in which hegemonic powers like Great Britain and the United States extend their influence and interests by promoting the teaching and learning of English (Phillipson, 1992). In contrast, others have observed that the ascension of English as an international language has been supported by individuals in various contexts who appropriate the language as a means to pursue their localized interests and agenda (Canagarajah, 2007). Crystal (1997) explains that there are very many people globally that use English in comparison to other languages which is historical. …show more content…
Adoption of English in this sense represents suppression of native languages and spread of myths and for what cause, Economic benefit for the native English speaking nations. Moreover, the selfish purposes of the British to promote their economy rather than promote English as a unifying common language is part of the factors that make the rise and spread of English a rather disadvantageous concept. Based on this, it is possible to relate to scholar (Phillipson, 1992) that its rise is a promoter of Imperialism among other factors. Benefits of the rise of the English …show more content…
Moreover, as stated by Kaplan (1987), nowadays with the immense influence emanating from American technology, the greatest percentage of major scientific and technical data accessible to the globe currently is either transcribed in or abstracted in English. As a result, it is possible to understand the major efforts by these nations to globalize the English language. English has also been identified as a communication language characterized by democratic values due to its structural aspects such as the absence of a system of coding social class differences. As such, even with its widespread, it is still a convenient and unifying language without discriminatory features which in many instances result to
The rise of English as an international language has always been a debatable issue. Its critics condemn the global dominance of English as a form of linguistic imperialism, in which hegemonic powers like Great Britain and the United States extend their influence and interests by promoting the teaching and learning of English (Phillipson, 1992). In contrast, others have observed that the ascension of English as an international language has been supported by individuals in various contexts who appropriate the language as a means to pursue their localized interests and agenda (Canagarajah, 2007). Crystal (1997) explains that there are very many people globally that use English in comparison to other languages which is historical. …show more content…
Adoption of English in this sense represents suppression of native languages and spread of myths and for what cause, Economic benefit for the native English speaking nations. Moreover, the selfish purposes of the British to promote their economy rather than promote English as a unifying common language is part of the factors that make the rise and spread of English a rather disadvantageous concept. Based on this, it is possible to relate to scholar (Phillipson, 1992) that its rise is a promoter of Imperialism among other factors. Benefits of the rise of the English …show more content…
Moreover, as stated by Kaplan (1987), nowadays with the immense influence emanating from American technology, the greatest percentage of major scientific and technical data accessible to the globe currently is either transcribed in or abstracted in English. As a result, it is possible to understand the major efforts by these nations to globalize the English language. English has also been identified as a communication language characterized by democratic values due to its structural aspects such as the absence of a system of coding social class differences. As such, even with its widespread, it is still a convenient and unifying language without discriminatory features which in many instances result to