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ENGLISH AS A WORLD LANGUAGEThe English language spread as Britain expanded its colonial empire from the 1600s on and established legal, military, and educational systems in many countries along English lines. British expansion ended after World War II (1939-1945), when many of its colonies sought independence. Since World War II American English has dominated as a world language, largely because of U.S. economic and political influence and the advance of technology, especially computing and the Internet. At the turn of the 21st century, English prevailed as the most widely used language internationally.At the same time as English became a world language, the number of English speakers learning a second language dropped substantially. Even more disturbingl y, English was blamed for the “death” of some minority languages, such as Gaelic and various Australian aboriginal languages (see Aboriginal Australians). Various measures are needed to protect these smaller languages from disappearing.The English language seems set to dominate world communications for some time to come. Although dominance brings with it a degree of standardization, it is not the case that English is losing its variety, either within countries or across the globe. Current research suggests that, rather than dwindling, differences in vocabulary, grammar, and pronunciation continue to allow people to express multiple identities. The fear of some linguists that mass communications would lead to the death of English dialects appears to be unfounded.。
英语是世界语⾔The definition of global languageGlobal language is also called world language. It is a language that is spoken internationally and is learned and spoken by a large number of people as a second language. A world language is characterized not only by the total number of speakers (native and second language speakers), but also by its geographical distribution, as well as use in international organizationsand diplomatic relations.Given that my answer to the question is yes.I think English is a global language.I will support my idea from 3 aspects: the number of speakers,the geographical distribution and the usage in international organizationsand diplomatic relations. (1)The the number of speakersBy far the most widely spoken and fastest spreading world language today is English, which has over 840 million primary and secondary users worldwide.Today, English is the second or third most popular mother tongue in the world, with an estimated 350-400 million native speakers. But, crucially, it is also the common tongue for many non-English speakers the world over, and almost a quarter of the globe population,maybe 1-2 billion people can understand it and have at least some basic competence in its use, whether written or spoken.The following is a list of English-speaking population by country, including information on both native speakers and second-language speakers.(2)Geographical distributionEnglish is spoken by communities on every continent and on oceanic islands in all the major oceans.The countries in which English is spoken can be grouped into different categories by how English is used in each country.The most influential model of the spread of English is Braj Kachru's model of World Englishes. In this model the diffusion of English is captured in terms of three Concentric Circles of the language: the Inner Circle, the Outer Circle, and the Expanding CircleThe Inner Circle refers to English as it originally took shape and was spread across the world in the first diaspora. In this transplantation of English, speakers from England carried the language to Australia, New Zealand and North America. The Inner Circle thus represents the traditional historical and sociolinguistic bases of English in regions where it is now used as a primary language: the United Kingdom, the United States, Australia, New Zealand, Ireland, anglophone Canada and South Africa, and some of the Caribbean territories. English is the native language or mother tongue of most people in these countries. The total number of English speakers in the inner circle is as high as 380 million, of whom some 120 million are outside the United States.The Outer Circle of English was produced by the second diaspora of English, whichspread the language through imperial expansion by Great Britain in Asia and Africa. In these regions, English is not the native tongue, but serves as a useful lingua franca between ethnic and language groups. Higher education, the legislature and judiciary, national commerce and so on may all be carried out predominantly in English. This circle includes India, Nigeria, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Malaysia, Tanzania, Kenya, non-Anglophone South Africa, the Philippines (colonized by the US) and others. The total number of English speakers in the outer circle is estimated to range from 150 million to 300 million. The Expanding Circle encompasses countries where English plays no historical or governmental role, but where it is nevertheless widely used as a medium of international communication. This includes much of the rest of the world's population not categorized above, including territories such as China, Russia, Japan, non-Anglophone Europe (especially the Netherlands and Nordic countries), South Korea, Egypt and Indonesia. The total in this expanding circle is the most difficult to estimate, especially because English may be employed for specific, limited purposes, usually in a business context. The estimates of these users range from 100 million to one billion.(3)The usage in international organizationsand diplomatic relationsmediaEnglish is the world's most widely used language in newspaper publishing, book publishing, international telecommunications, scientific publishing, international trade, mass entertainment, and diplomacy.English has replaced German as the dominant language of scientific research. International organizationBy the time of the foundation of the United Nations at the end of World War II, English had become pre-eminent and is now the main worldwide language of diplomacy and international relations.It is one of six official languages of the United Nations.Many other worldwide international organisations, including the International Olympic Committee, specify English as a working language or official language of the organisation.Many regional international organisations such as the European Free Trade Association, Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), and Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) set English as their organisation's sole working language even though most members are not countries with a majority of native English speakers. While the European Union (EU) allows member states to designate any of the national languages as an official language of the Union, in practice English is the main working language of EU organisations.ScienceA working knowledge of English has become a requirement in a number of occupations and professions such as medicineand computing. English has become so important in scientific publishing that more than 80 percent of all scientific journal articles indexed by Chemical Abstracts in 1998 were written in English, as were 90 percent of all articles in natural science publications by 1996 and 82 percent ofarticles in humanities publications by 1995.。
世界英语复习资料名词解释1.What is world Englishes?Whereas the English language was spoken in the min-sixteenth century only by a relatively small group of mother-tongue speakers born and bred within the shores of the British Isles, it is now spoken in almost every country of the world, with its majority speakers being those for whom it is not a first language.2.What is pidgin?A pidgin is a language with no native speakers: it is no one‟s first languages but is a contactlanguage. That is, it is the product of a multilingual situation in which those who wish to communicate must find or improvise a simple language system that will enable them to do so...3.What is a Creole?It‟s often defined as a pidgin that has become the first language of a new generation of speakers…a Creole, therefore, is a “normal” language in almost every sense.4.new Englishes resulted from the first diaspora, inner circleNew Englishes learned as second languages or as one language within a wider multilingual (使用多种语言的)repertoire （全部节目，技能）of acquisition（习得）outer circleNew Englishes covers a large number of varieties of English which are far from uniform in their characteristics and current use.5.Levels of variation: pronunciation, grammar, vocabulary/idiom, and discourse style.6.Standard language is the term used for that variety of a language which is considered to be thenorm. It is the variety held up as the optimum for educational purposes and used as a yardstick against which other varieties of the language are measured. Being a prestige variety, a standard language is spoken by a minority of people within a society, typically those occupying positions of powers. Standard English is by no means an easy language variety to identy.7.Non-Standard English is any dialect other than the literary Standard English, and also includescommon errors used by speakers of otherwise Standard English. The word "ain't" is a good example of a non-standard word used by Standard English speakers, but the greatest volume of non-standard English is in the form of regional dialects.8.Lingua franca a language used for communication among people of different mother tongues.A hybrid language containing elements from several different languages used in this way. Anysystem of communication providing mutual understanding.(colonial past; economic power of the us判断题：(内容不完整)1.the two dispersals of English the first dispersal: the migration of around 25000people from thesouth and east of England primarily to America and Australia, resulted in new mother-tongue varieties of English; The first diaspora involved relatively large-scale migrations of mother-tongue English speakers from England, Scotland and Ireland predominantly to north America, Australia and New Zealand. L1 varieties of EnglishThe second diaspora, involving the colonization of Asia and Africa, led to the development ofa number of second language varieties, often referred to as “New Englishes”.L2 varieties ofEnglish.2.Theories of originOne the independent parallel development theory two the nautical jargon theory three the theory of monogenesis and relexification four the baby-talk theory five a synthesis.3.models and descriptions of the spread of Englisholdest model: Strevens an upside-down tree diagramGorlach‟s circle model International English at the center; f ollowed by regional standard Englishes; semi-/sub-regional standard Englishes; non-standard englishes; outer rim:pidgins and creolesMcarthur‟s English spread : world standard English is in the center.Most useful and influential model of the spread of English is Kachru : inner circle outer circle and expanding circle.老师ppt的内容ActivityRead the text and see how much you can understand the following:Helt na envairomen em bikpela samting ol meri long kantri tude i gat bikpela wari long en.Bikos dispela tuplea samting i save kamap strong long sindaun na laip bilong famili na komyuniti insait long ol ples na kantri.Long dispela wik, moa long 40 meri bilong Milen Be provins i bung long wanpela woksop long Alotau bilong toktok long hevi bilong helt na envairomen long ol liklik ailan na provins.Bung i bin stat long Mande na bai pinin long Fraide, Epri 22. Ol opisa bilong Melanesin Envairomen Faundesen wantaim nesenel na provinsal helt opis i stap to bilong givim toktok insait long dispela worksop.Tok Pisin, Papua New Guinean newspaper, WantokEnglish translationHealth and environment are two of the major things which women in the country today have big concern about.Because these things often have a strong effect on the situation and life of families and communities within villages and in the country.This week, more than 40 women from Milne Bay Province are meeting in a workshop at Alotau in order to talk about the difficulties of health and environment in the small islands and provinces. The meeting began on Monday and will finish on Friday April 22.The officers of the Melanesian Environment Foundation together with the national and provincial health office are there too in order to give talks in the workshop.ActivityRead the following two extracts and try to pick out any features of lexis, grammar, pronunciation or discourse style which characterize the variety in each extract.Extract 1O dronke, man disfigured is thy face,Sour is thy breeth, foul artow to embrace,And thurgh they dronke nose semeth the soun,As though thou seydest ay …Sampsoun, Sampsoun‟,And yet, god wot, Sampsoun drank never no wyn,Thou fallest, as it were a stiked swyn.CommentsExt ract 1 is by the Middle English author Geoffrey Chaucer. It comes form the Pardoner‟s Tale‟, one of Chaucer‟s Canterbury Tales (c.1386-1400), and tells the story of a fraudulent preacher who preaches against avarice, a sin which himself commits. The section of the tale provided in extract 1 comes form the Pardoner‟s sermon in which he rails against drunkenness.The language is clearly considerable to modern English, but not necessarily any closer than some of the contemporary New EnglishExtract 2When it was early in the morning of the next day, I had not palm-wine to drink at all, and throughout that day I felt not so happy as before. I was seriously sat down in my parlour, but when it was the third day that I had no palm-wine at all, all my friends did not come to my house again, they left me there alone, because there was no palm-wine for them to drink.CommentsExtract 2 comes from the Nigerian author, Amos Tutuola‟s work, the Palm-Wine Drunkard. Tutuola‟s English is influenced by his mother tongue, Y oruba (an indigenous Nigerian language), and this comes across in his writing. While exhibiting features not found in the English of native speakers (e.g. …all my friends did not come…), Tutuola‟s English should be perfectly intelligible to those who speak other varieties.Extract 3Went down there and he's a-holding three dogs in one hand and the coon in the other hand. And they's all a-trying to bite the coon and the coon a-trying to bite Jack and the dogs, and Jack pulled out a sack and it wasn't a dang thing but an old pillow case that Maggie had used, his wife, it was about wore out.This is an example of Appalachian speech from West Virginia in the US. Appalachian speech is considered to represent a very conservative dialect of American English and therefore to be closer than others to the speech of the original Elizabethan settlers. Certain features are not used in modern English dialects, e.g. the a-prefix with -ing forms.Activity 1Crystal (2003b: 107) provides the following reasons why those for whom English is not their mother tongue should wish to learn it, not only in countries such as India, but in countries such as Brazil, China and Italy.1.Historical reasons2.Internal political reasons3.External economic reasons4.Practical reasons5.Intellectual reasons6.Entertainment reasonsYou read through the reasons and consider these two questions:1. Which, in your view, are most relevant to those who need or want to be able to communicate internationally in the English language?2. Are the scenarios that Crystal outlines still the same as they were in 2003 when his list was published, or are you aware of any changing circumstances in relation to your own and/or other countries?Activity 2Consider the roles of intelligibility and identity in your own language learning experience, as follows:If you speak English as a second or subsequent language:1.Have you ever given thought to retaining your LI identity in English?2.Is it important to you to retain your LI identity in English?3.Are you more concerned to be intelligible to native speakers of English or tonon-native speakers of English, or do you not distinguish between the two groups of listener?4.Do you believe it is appropriate to retain your LI accent in your English or thatyou should attempt to sound 'native-like'?5.Do you believe it is possible to retain your LI accent in English and still beintelligible to native-speakers? /to non-native speakers?Phase 1 -- FoundationThe initial stage of the introduction of English to a new territory over an extended period of time. Phase 2 -- Exonormative stabilisation: FijiBilingualism increases amongst the indigenous population through education and increased contacts with English settlers.Phase 3 – Nativisation: Hong KongNeologisms(新词,旧词新意) stabilize(使稳定) as English is made to adapt to local sociopolitical and cultural practices.Phase 4 -- Endonormative stabilisation: SingaporeGradual acceptance of local norms, supported by a new locally rooted linguistic self-confidence.Phase 5 – Differentiation: Australia and New ZealandA change in the dynamics of identity as the young nation sees itself as less defined by its differences from the former colonial power as a composite of subgroups defined on regional, social and ethnic linesActivityReview five-stage classification of English development and place the following countries within his model: the United States, Nigeria, and India.。
