Should English become the official language. (Should there be an official world language.) - Essay Example

Therefore, I believe to a large extent that English (or any other language) should not be made the official language of the world because there is a lot of scope in the field of multilingualism, multilingualism has a huge positive impact on an individual’s cognitive development, and one’s language is an integral part of one’s culture and ethnicity (Baker and Jones1998). Multilingualism means the use of many languages by an individual. Although many people are learning to speak English, no fact can deny that the field and demand of multilingualism is enormous.

Even the United States, the country where English is the most spoken language, has a great need for individuals who can speak multiple languages. The reason why the field of multilingualism is so vast is because multilingualism itself applies to so many different professions. For instance, multilingualism can be used in international trade, international diplomacy and foreign relation. It can also be used in national security and defense, marketing, business, engineering, community development, public relations and media.

Medical and health care professionals should know more than one language in case they come across a patient who is unable to speak ‘the official language’. . Moreover, if English or any other language would be made the official language of the world, it would be extremely time-consuming for non-English speakers to learn a whole new language, not to mention the loss of jobs that interpreters and translators would face. Even the education profession would face loss of jobs; teachers who teach foreign languages like Spanish, Arabic, Mandarin and many others would have nowhere to go.

Thus, it would be a very wrong move to make English the official language of the world because there is a lot of scope in studying different languages. Furthermore, there are numerous job opportunities in the field of multilingualism; about three fourth of respondents to a survey on languages in the EU confirmed “improving job opportunities” as the top most reason why youths should learn many languages (Working Together to Build a Multilingual Society 2003; Orban 2007). Other than the availability of many job opportunities, there is another advantage of knowing many languages rather than only one ‘official’ one; creativity.

Recent study has shown that an individual who speaks more than one language enhances one’s normative cognition, which leads to increased creativity. The reason for this is that due to variations in the use of specifiable processes, and the flexibility and richness of stored cognitive structures to which the processes are implemented. Therefore, the impact on an individual’s cognition of speaking more than one language results in intricate cognitive functioning, which may lead to a higher creative performance.

One of the popular mechanisms of normative creativity that multilingualism can lead to is divergent thinking. Research shows that a multilingual