Teach English in Huangjia Zhen - Anqing Shi

english As A Global Language With the decline of the British Empire came the decolonization of many territories, the most recent being the Hong Kong handover in 1997. Although they granted independence and extracted themselves from the territories, one thing remained and is now flourishing: the english language. John Wilson (pen name: Christopher North) wrote ?His majesty?s dominions, on which the sun never sets?, which no longer holds true for land but does however for the english language. These days english can be found everywhere which is why it many are now referring to it as a ?global language? and lingua franca of the world. This paper will define what a global language is, what makes a language global, and explore why english came to be the one. Further, we will explore the pros and cons of english attaining this status. What is a global language? A global language is a language that somehow has found itself with a ?special status? in numerous countries all over the map. The next questions then are: What is meant by ?special status?? How does a language achieve this? There is no single answer to these questions as the term is earned by a combination of factors. The first, and maybe most obvious, is that there are many countries that speak it as a mother tongue. english, for example, is spoken as a mother tongue in the united states, Canada, Britain, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa. The second is it has been adopted by many other countries and given a certain value within the communities despite the lack of mother tongue speakers. This ?value? is realized in a variety of ways. One way is that the language is granted ?official? status and is employed in core areas such as the government, law courts, media and education system. When a language is declared to be an official language, the people of the community must learn the language as quickly as possible to get on in the community. More than 70 countries have taken english as their second language and given it special status. This number is much greater than any other language, although other languages such as french, German, spanish, Russian and Arabic have been noted to have great official use as well. Alternatively, instead of making the language official, some countries give special status to a language by making it a priority in its foreign language teaching. Often the language is included in the education system?s curriculum, as seen in the former Soviet Union when Russian held a privileged status. Taught in over 100 countries, english is now the most widely taught foreign language in the world. Some countries are major players on the international stage including China, Russia, Germany, egypt, Spain and Brazil. It has been deemed an important foreign language making it, in many countries, the ?chief foreign language?, sometimes displacing another. english replaced french as chief foreign language in schools in Algeria, a former french colony (Crystal, 3-5). Through both means, english has earned a special status among many countries making it the perfect example for what a global language is. How does a language become global? In the previous section, we concluded that a global language is a language that has been found to hold a special status in many countries. But the main question is how the language has earned this status. What it comes down to is power: economic, political, military, technological and cultural. A language is only as powerful as its speakers. ?When they succeed, on the international stage, their language succeeds. When they fail, their language fails?. There is much evidence to support this that dates back to ancient times. Latin became the international language through the might of the Roman Empire. After their power declined, the Roman Catholic Church maintained Latin as the international language of education. Similarly, greek was made a global language at the time of Alexander the Great, and Arabic, with the spread of Islam fueled by the Moorish armies. It takes a combination of these different powers to make and maintain a global language. Typically a military power can establish the language however it needs an economic power to maintain and expand (Crystal, 7-9). This will be expounded on in the next section. Why english? As aforementioned, power is the key to a language gaining global significance and status. Especially in the 19th and 20th centuries, economic power became extremely important with the rise of globalization and technology advances. At this time, Britain was the world?s leading industrial and trading country. Combined with British imperialism, english went worldwide with the empire. Then, in the 20th century the large united states, english stayed on the forefront with America?s economic supremacy (Crystal, 10). Pros and Cons In this day and age, having a global language is simply convenient and efficient. Without one, we would have to depend on translators, inconvenient and often costly. Although it suffices for interaction between two languages, when the number increases it is often very cumbersome (Crystal, 11). The downside to a global language is that if you don?t know it, you are now excluded from everything that is going on: education, industry, work, etc. In some professions, it is simply a requirement such as medicine and computing. Not knowing the language cripples your participation in what is happening in the world. This is good and bad for english native speakers. The good part is that we are already equipped to participate. At the same time, we are disadvantaged because for many, english is our only language (British Council). This paper briefly discussed what a global language is and what it means for english to be the language of the globe. It is clear that english succeeded because its speakers were powerful, especially during the explosion of globalization. It seems that english was around at the right time, and that is how it came to be the global language of today. . References British Council. "english the Global Language." Englishonline.com. British Council, 2010. Web. 19 Apr. 2011. . Crystal, David. english as a Global Language. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge UP, 2003. Print.