English as a Global Language - Essay Example

Future Status of English as the Global Language Introduction  Language is essential for communication purpose and for international communication, an international language is essential. It is difficult for an American to communicate with an Indian or Chinese through Hindi or Chinese language. Same way it is difficult for Chinese people to communicate effectively with an American using their mother tongue. In short, an international language is necessary for the effective communications between people from different countries with different languages. English is accepted as the international language currently because of the wide popularity of it. In most of the international business communications or diplomatic meetings, English is using as the language for communication. But many people believe that the acceptance of English as an international language is decreasing. Even in prominent English speaking countries like America and Britain, immigration resulted in the increase of non native speakers of English. According to the article What Global Language, today approximately 2.4 million Chinese-speakers live in America, and more than four out of five of them prefer to speak Chinese at home (What Global Language). In this paper I argue against the usage of English as an international language after analyzing the arguments in favor and against using English as an international language. Future Status of English as the Global Language Many people are of the view that the supremacy of English as the global language will continue till USA remain as a superpower. It is a fact that America is currently the only one superpower in the world. They are controlling the global political and economical matters up to certain extent. Apart from America, UK and Australia are also prominent countries in which English is the native language. In short, supporters of English as a global language believe that the supremacy of United States and UK like prominent countries may not decrease in near future and hence the acceptance of English as the global language will never vanish. The above arguments in favor of English as the future global language seem to be meaningless. China is the number one country in the world as far as population is concerned. India is the second largest country in population size. Mandarin is the Chinese language and Hindi or Urdu is the Indian official language. David Graddol in his research published in the journal Science in February 2004 suggests that English, currently the second most spoken world language is likely to be overtaken by Arabic and the related languages of Urdu and Hindi by 2050 (The Future of English). Moreover, China and India are currently developing much faster than US or UK. Many people believe that India and China will become superpowers in near future itself. In other words, the current global status of English will be lost when China or India expel US from the top spot. According to The New York Times article, Across cultures, English is the word, written by Seth Mydans and published on Monday, April 9, 2007, because of globalization and technological advances, English dominates the world and it may never be dethroned as the king of languages (Mydans). Supporters of English as the global language are of the opinion that globalization will save English from losing its global status. It is a fact that globalization has brought many changes in the business world. Globalization helped business people to establish businesses in different countries without many problems. Supporters of English as international language argue that globalization has strengthened the global status of English further. The above arguments also seem to be illogical. In fact China and India exploited the globalization possibilities more than the Americans or British. “The combined economies of India and China are already bigger than that of the EU countries put together” (Ahmad). Globalization helped India and China to grow further. In other words, the dominance of India and China in international matters is growing and that of the western world is decreasing. Thus English is slowly losing its popularity as the global language whereas Mandarin and Hindi are gradually growing. According to the article, English, The Global Language, “India and China are emerging as one of the crucial players on the world scene for the future. With these populous countries gaining so much power, their languages are set to gain in importance and see a rise in people who speak them outside of their borders” (English, The Global Language).   Another major argument cited in favor of English as the global language is with respect to its acceptance in the scientific world. Rohmah (n. d) has argued that about 80% or 85% of all the scientific and technological information is written in English at present (Rohmah, p.112). It is a fact that most of the scientific discoveries are currently publishing in English language because of the wide popularity of English. Moreover, America and Britain were the two most advanced countries in the world earlier which helped them to preserve the status of English as a global language. But we should remember that science and technology used English language not because of the simplicity of the language, but because of the supremacy of US and UK on world politics. Even big technology based companies like Google, now forced to use other languages like Chinese and Hindi in their web pages. In other words, scientific and technical information are compatible with other languages also. The American and UK supremacy prevented the scientific world to use other languages to publish their discoveries. Compared to many other languages, it is difficult to learn English properly. Moreover the accent of English is different in different countries. Even if an Indian or Chinese learn English language well, it is difficult for them to communicate effectively with the Americans or British because of the pronunciation or accent differences. According to David Crystal (2003), a language achieves global status when it develops special role that is recognized in every country (Crystal, p.3). Supporters of English as global language argue that it is difficult to cite a single country in the world in which English is not using. In most of the countries English is accepted as the medium of instructions. Moreover, English is using extensively in business world across the world. We were witnessing a major restructuring of the world language hierarchy: a process in which many of the lesser used languages would be lost, whilst larger languages consolidated at the top. It warned that it was by no means clear that English would be the clear global winner in the new world linguistic order (Graddol, p.2) The current global status enjoyed by English may not last long as major developments of restructuring of the global languages are going on at present. It is difficult to argue that English might be able to retain its top spot because of these restructuring processes. Conclusions English will remain as a prominent language in the world, but it is impossible to believe that English will keep its global language status in future because of the popularity of other languages like Mandarin and Hindi. English has already started to decrease its prominence because of globalization and the huge immigration of Indians and Chinese to the English speaking countries like America and Britain. In other words, even in English speaking countries, English is losing its supremacy. In short, it would be difficult for English to keep its current status as the international or global language in future. Works Cited 1. Ahmad, Aqueil. “India, China & Asia”. Accessed on 6 July 2010 from 2. Crystal, David. 2003. “English as a Global Language”. Accessed on 6 July 2010 from 3. English, The Global Language?. 2010. Accessed on 6 July 2010 from 4. Graddol, David. “The Future of English Next - Going Global”. Accessed on 6 July 2010 from 5. Mydans, Seth. 2007. “Across cultures, English is the word”. The New York Times. Monday, April 9, 2007. Accessed on 6 July 2010 from 6. Rohmah, Zuliati. “English as a Global Language”. Accessed on 6 July 2010 from 7. “The Future of English”. Accessed on 6 July 2010 from http://www.putlearningfirst.com/language/04change/future.html 8. “What Global Language”. 2000. Accessed on 6 July 2010 from Read More