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English as a Global LanguageThe English language is quickly becoming the dominant language in the world enabled with the height of globalization and technology. Linguists from around the world believe that English dominates over all languages as never before and may never be conquered by another language. As a native speaker living in a foreign country it is more obvious to me how much of the English language is being used in other countries. Just driving down the street, walking in the shopping mall, and eating in restaurants, I notice that many things are written in both Turkish and English. John McWhorter, a linguist at the Manhattan Institute stated, ?English is dominant in a way that no language has ever been before," he said. "It is vastly unclear to me what actual mechanism could uproot English given conditions as they are."(4) English is the common language when it comes to technology, science, business, and finance. Since more companies are doing business internationally, if two employees from two different countries need to communicate they will most likely do so in English. Evidence shows that there are more native speakers of Spanish and chinese, but when they need to communicate with others from around the world they communicate using English. Children growing up today learn English in hopes of becoming a part of the interconnected world, and to possibly have a better career. Working a short time teaching, most of my students were learning English in hopes of getting a promotion or obtaining a more rewarding job after graduating from the University. ?English and globalization have spread hand in hand through the world?, Mark Warschauer said. "Having a global language has assisted globalization, and globalization has consolidated the global language," he said. There have been two very successful English empires, American and British that has also dominated a new empire, the Internet.(3) The top ten languages of the internet are English, chinese, Spanish, japanese, Portuguese, German, Arabic, French, Russian, and korean which consist of 82.2% of internet users. The growth rate of other languages like Arabic at 2501% and chinese at 1478%, but experts agree that English is most likely to remain as the global language. If you look around the internet today, you will find the majority of websites, social media, news, and blogs are written in English. In 2010, 43.4% of the world population uses English on the internet with a growth rate of over 300% from 2010 to 2011(1). Since 1995, the traffic of the internet increases 100% each year while the actual number of internet users increased on average 35% each year. (2) In 1991, there was a hand full of websites and as of 2011 there is almost 1 billion websites most of which are available in English. The teaching of English has become a multibillion-dollar industry, and according to David Graddol, nearly one-third of the world's population will soon be studying English.(3) Just in the city that I live in with a population of over 1.5 million people, there are close to 50 language schools available to learn English. students are however finding it easier and faster to learn English by attending a University outside their own country. According to Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), over the past three decades, the number of students enrolled outside their country of citizenship has risen dramatically, from 0.8 million worldwide in 1975 to 3.7 million in 2009, a more than fourfold increase.(4) This coincides with the growth of globalization of societies and economies. The top 5 countries that students enroll outside their country are the united states, united kingdom, Australia, germany, and Canada. The number of students studying abroad indicates that the English language has and could remain as a global language. There is however an increase of language schools in non-english speaking countries that are offering English courses to accommodate the increasing demand for learning English and due to the financial crisis in most countries. I truly believe that English as a global language is here to stay, unless the same technology that enabled it to become the global language tears it down. (1) http://www.internetworldstats.com/stats7.htm (2) http://www.zakon.org/robert/internet/timeline/ (3) http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/09/world/asia/09iht-englede.1.5198685.html?pagewanted=all (4) http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/61/32/48631079.pdf
