valeska virgínia soares souza [email protected] extra activities english as a global...
TRANSCRIPT
Although the future is unpredictable and changes happen faster and faster, I believe the English language will remain as the universal language. The demand for language schools, with a focus on English, is increasing. Nowadays, with the great advancement of technology, English is becoming necessary for the people to follow these developments. English is used not only for scientific, but also cultural knowledge. Since it is the most used language in the world, we need to unify the "Englishes" in order to make the understanding easier, because globalization requires everything to be faster and more accurate, and this unification will make communication more transparent and flexible. In the third millennium, I believe the world will be multilingual, but most people will speak and use English and it will have an aggregator role, being used in various regions of the globe.◦ TEACHER'S FEEDBACK: I am amazed by your text, not only your English,
but also your point of view regarding the subject. I also hope English has an aggregator role and that it coexists with various other languages in a multilingual world.
Estimates vary, but the ratio of native speakers to non-native speakers is anywhere between 1:2 (Rajagopalan 2004) and 1:3 (Crystal 2003), and this gap is widening all the time.
However, it is worth ackowledging, as Crystal does, that these totals are to some extent only guesstimates, and avoid certain difficult questions, such as how good at the language someone has to be before we can say they are a real ‘speaker of English’.
There are a number of factors which have ensured the widespread use of English.◦ A colonial history◦ Economics◦ Information exchange◦ Travel◦ Popular culture
Many people worry about what it means for the cultures and languages it comes into contact with, seeing its teaching as a form of ‘imperialism’.
...if, in 500 years, English is the only language left to be learnt, ‘it will have been the greatest intellectual disaster that the planet has ever known’ (Crystal, 2003)
A much more important predictor of language survival will be whether there is still a viable community with its own social and cultural identity to keep a language alive.
EAP - English for Academic Purposes EAQUALS - European Association for Quality Language Services EAL - English as an Acquired Language EAT - European Association of Teachers EFB - English for Business (LCCIEB) EFC - English for Commerce (LCCIEB) EFL - English as a Foreign Language EFTI - English for the Tourism Industry (LCCIEB) ELICOS - English Language Intensive Courses to Overseas Students (Australia) ELSA - English Language Skills Assessment (LCCIEB) ELT - English Language Teaching EOP - English for Occupational Purposes ESB - English Speaking Board ESL - English as a Second Language ESOL - English to Speakers of Other Languages ESP - English for Specific Purposes
The reality of Global or World English(es) has caused some people to become interested in what actually happens when it is used as a lingua franca◦ Non-use of third person present simple tense◦ Interchangeable use of the relative pronouns who and
which◦ Omission of definite and indefinite articles where
obligatory; insertion whre they do not occur◦ Use of an all-purpose tag question such as “isn’t it” or
“no?”◦ Heavy reliance on certain verbs of high semantic
generality◦ Pluralisation of nouns which are considered uncountable◦ Use of that clauses instead of infinitive construction
The issue of intelligibility has been raised by a number of scholars recently. In the 1980s, Maley (1985) warned of a clear possibility that the different “regional varieties will develop independently to the point where they become different languages rather than varieties of the same language”. Jenkins (2007) spoke more recently of “the goal of mutual intelligibility,” implying of course that there is a real danger of the installation of a modern-day version of the Tower of Babel if the English language goes on expanding worldwide at this rate. Finally, the question of intelligibility was prominently foregrounded by the participants in a ‘Symposium on intelligibility and cross-cultural communication in world Englishes’, promoted by the journal World Englishes (2008). It seems fair to say that there is a growing number of scholars around the world worrying about the destiny that awaits the English language as it continues its triumphant march across the globe.
So the question of what would guarantee communication across different varieties of World English (or, if you insist, different World Englishes), or equivalently what would guarantee mutual intelligibility is to be answered by first ascertaining if there is willingness on the part of the speakers to understand one another. To that extent, this is a politically loaded question.
That said, it is always useful to remember that the conditions are ripe for there to be a political will in favor of communication across geographical and cultural barriers. As noted earlier, such conditions have been engendered by globalization and the progressive dismantling worldwide of trade barriers and state-sponsored impediments to free circulation of information (such as censorship and prohibition on free internet access). More than ever before in history, countries need one another and this alone will guarantee that we continue to talk to one another and overcome traditional barriers that until recently made it difficult to do so.