Non-Native English Speakers - Essay Example

People can still do much better or complement a lack of language mastery through other non-verbal means, and a world which has seen a large number of people move from one country to another through a process of immigration made language learning an essential ingredient for success to a lot of people. But this does not mean that those who cannot speak the language perfectly cannot get their message across, as other means are available in order to communicate. An example of this situation is when a person is learning how to speak and write English to be like a native speaker.

The discovery of America triggered probably one of the largest waves of immigration in the history of people's movement. This period is called as the Age of Immigration, in which some 32 million people moved from Europe to America between the years 1820 to 1920 for a variety of reasons (Pakenham, 1998:64) and this trend of people moving out from their countries to another country even continues to this day. Among the reasons are to seek political asylum to avoid persecution and repression, pursue economic opportunities, as migrants seeking to improve their lives, for inter-racial marriages and as globalization in trade and commerce has increased, for investment and business opportunities as well.

Modern forms of travel have greatly contributed to this massive movement of people, such as in the global tourism sector. Discussion This massive movement of people across different countries and varied cultures requires the use of a common language for them to communicate and understand each other. By virtue of being a world power, England earlier and then America later, English has become almost the accepted standard for global communications, called as the lingua franca (as it is the virtual universal language used to bridge two people speaking entirely different mother tongues).

In this connection, English, as spoken between them, may not be as perfect as native speakers. Be that as it may, English between these two persons can still be understood even if it is quite awkward or rudimentary, as long as the message gets across and the intent is understood. The requirement that English should be perfect is not absolute for people to understand. Further, it takes some time for full assimilation, together with the concomitant language shift; it explains why many people of today speak only imperfect English (ibid. 99). However, such limitations do not preclude people from successfully interacting with each other.

This is true in the international arena of globalization in business, finance, trade, and commerce. This increased mixing and intermingling of people of various cultures have led to the cultural diversity we see in many countries today. This multicultural environment has placed people in close proximity with people of other cultures and many languages, leading to multi-ethnic societies in which the citizens of a country has to deal with ethnic immigrants in their midst. In this context, it is vital that people should still be able to communicate and get along fairly well, even in elementary ways so that they could understand each other and hold the fabric of society together.