Why English is Not Enough - Essay Example

The first point of the outline was based on the issues of linguistic complacency, decreasing language status in the sphere of education, and high language skills of the population, especially in the spheres of business and policy. The role of tongue in the security and diplomacy was also denoted and analyzed by the professor. It is necessary to notice that the ideas of Nigel Vincent related to different aspects of language in modern society were taken from analyzing the reports that include national and international language data. One of the projects chosen by him was devoted to understanding the needs of language in the industry. In the context of employability and prospects of the job on an international level, there were several questions stated by the professor in the view of the survey, and these questions were related to the foreign languages and English language in the aspect of their topicality in the modern world. In general, the results of this survey demonstrated that bilingual people, who can speak not only English but also French or German in the area of professional experience, for instance, business, are preferable to employers. Mainly such a tendency takes place because of the desire to do business in other counties, including France and German. Such language as Arabic is not rather popular in this aspect, while there is still a lot of evidence that English is not the only language that is demanded in the sphere of business on an international level. The next stage of this survey demonstrated that the majority of respondents were advised to study languages to the level of GCSE to get into their current line of work.

In the aspect of language and security, the professor used the other report of 2013 and concluded that the major issue is the lack of possibility to have a unified national policy and this is related to language. The biggest problem on the international security level is the lack of possibility to understand the situation deeply, as in the case of Crimea's annexation by russia and the conflict with Ukraine.

Professor also noticed the fact that nowadays language transformed from the object of philology to the object of social science, and it can be considered as a demonstration of a general shift and broadening of its functionality. Professor used the example from the film The Imitation Game to demonstrate rather a new side of language, particularly, its interdisciplinary aspect and connections with the disciplines like math. He generally analyzed the issue of linguistic interpretation in the aspect of its potential productivity.

The next aspect of language that was analyzed by the professor was its power, contrasted to the military one and demonstrated by the examples of spreading the British power using the English language. It is characterized as 'soft power' in the lecture. Next, language from the cultural position was also analyzed in the lecture, particularly on the example of the possibility of understanding the cultural phenomena and issues that become possible only in case of understanding the native language of the culture. There was a connection between the social aspect of language and its cultural performance.

In general, the professor was demonstrating the issue that English is not enough for general international proper understanding both in cultural and political aspects. The lecture was rather interesting, it included interactive illustrative episodes, like the video of the Danish queen commenting on the shooting that was used to illustrate the idea of international understanding. The general impression of the lecture is rather positive, it makes the viewer listen to it carefully to catch the ideas of the lecturer, and he can keep the audience concentrated and surprised it. The arguments of the lecturer related to the necessity of understanding foreign languages in the sphere of international business and national culture were rather convincing, his illustrations were interesting and appropriate to the topic.