Morphology and syntax

1. English Today
English 402
GLESSIE ANN S. BARBA
Discussant

2. English Today
Who speaks English
English as Lingua Franca

3. Who Speaks English?

4. ‘English is spoken by almost two
billion people in the world’

6. One of the most familiar ways of
representing the global
community of English speakers is
in terms of three circles. The
‘inner’ circle represents the native
speakers; the ‘outer circle’
consists of second-language
speakers in countries like India.
The ‘expanding circle’ was the
ever-increasing number of people
learning English as a foreign
language.

7. Out of the world’s approximately 7.8 billion inhabitants, 1.35
billion speak English. The majority aren’t native English
speakers. However, about 360 million people speak English as
their first language.
The most common first language is Chinese, followed distantly
by Spanish and then, in third, comes English.
In addition to being widely spoken, English is by far the most
commonly studied foreign language in the world, followed by
French at a distant second.

8. Fast-forward one and a half millennia and English is now
spread extensively across the globe.
Today it is used, In one form or another, by more people,
in more areas, and for a wider set of purpose, than any
other language.
In the last few decades, English has emerged as the pre-
eminent language for international communication. It is
spoken by people around the world than any other
language, and is regularly described as ‘global language’.

9. The
use of
English
around
the
World

10. Map of
English
spoken
natively
and
non-
natively

11. The list of countries where English is legally an official language is
actually much longer: Antigua and Barbuda, the Bahamas,
Barbados, Belize, Botswana, Burundi, Cameroon, Canada, the
Cook Islands, Dominica, Eswatini, the Federated States of
Micronesia, Fiji, The Gambia, Ghana, Grenada, Guyana, India,
Ireland, Jamaica, Kenya, Kiribati, Lesotho, Liberia, Malawi, Malta,
the Marshall Islands, Mauritius, Namibia, Nauru, Nigeria, Niue,
Pakistan, Palau, Papua New Guinea, the Philippines, Rwanda,
Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the
Grenadines, Samoa, Seychelles, Sierra Leone, Singapore, the
Solomon Islands, South Africa, South Sudan, Sudan, Tanzania,
Tonga, Trinidad and Tobago, Tuvalu, Uganda, Vanuatu, Zambia
and Zimbabwe.

12. The estimates of the number of speakers of English vary widely
depending on whether one includes non-native speakers or not.
Bailey (1991: vii) estimates that 15% of the world’s population
makes regular use of English. Crystal (2003: 6) estimates that this
number has grown to 25%, or 1.5 billion and Graddol (1997)
estimates the same 1.5 billion speakers. Graddol (2006: 95)
estimates that, due to China’s decision to make English a
compulsory primary school subject, 20 million users of English will
be added each year.
It is difficult to confirm these figures because of the lack of
agreement on how much English a speaker needs to know to be
included.

13. Who qualifies as having the competence to be a ‘speaker’ of it?
Is the English that is spoken in a town on the south coast of
England the same as that spoken on the north island of New
Zealand or in the centre of Singapore? And if there are
significant differences between the way it is spoken in these
places, at what point do we say that they are different varieties of
the language, or that perhaps they are actually
different languages? And does a ‘speaker’ of the language need
to have perfect fluency in it? Does someone learning the
language count as a ‘speaker’?

14. What does
“World
Englishes”
means?
Kachru’s
Circles of the
1980s

15. Kachru (1985) formulated the well-known distinction
between the inner circle (where English is used in the
home: Great Britain, Ireland, US, Canada, Australia,
NZ), the outer circle (where English is part of the
government/school system: India, Singapore, and 50
other regions), and the expanding circle (where there
is no history of colonization but where English is used
for communication with other countries: Europe,
China, and Japan).

16. Using Kachru’s model, Crystal (2003: 61) estimates for 2001 that
the inner circle has 320–380 million speakers, the outer circle
300–500 million and the expanding circle 500 million to 1 billion.
He thus arrives at the 1.5 billion mentioned earlier.
In the 1980s, Kachru’s model raised awareness of the different
Englishes; more recently, however, it has been criticized as no
longer reflecting reality. In many countries where English is not
spoken natively — such as Norway and the Netherlands — it has
become a second language in certain domains, such as
business, banking, advertizing, and education. Kachru has
therefore suggested another model (see Graddol 2006: 110), one
where the inner circle has 500 million “high proficiency users” and
the outer circle shows the numbers of lower proficiency speakers.

17. English has changed dramatically over the centuries since it
first arrived on the shores of Britain from the north of Europe,
and these changes mean that the language that was spoken
at that time is almost incomprehensible to us now.
As the language has spread beyond Britain it has continued
to change, and to change in different ways in different
contexts. It has diversified to such an extent that some
scholars suggest that it is no longer accurate to talk of a
single ‘English’; that instead there are many different English
languages around the world today.

18. English as Lingua Franca

19. The term lingua franca applies to any
language that is used widely by non-
native speakers of it to communicate.
Latin was the lingua franca of the
medieval period, and English has this
status at the moment.

20. Today, English is a common lingua franca
across the globe. According to some estimates,
almost 80 percent of English speakers in the
world are non-native speakers.

21. Teaching and learning English as a lingua franca (ELF) is
probably the most radical and controversial approach to
emerge in recent years. It squarely addresses some of the
issues which global English raises.
An inexorable trend in the use of global English is that fewer
interactions now involve a native-speaker. Proponents of
teaching English as a lingua franca (ELF) suggest that the way
English is taught and assessed should reflect the needs and
aspirations of the ever-growing number of non-native speakers
who use English to communicate with other non-natives.

22. English in Europe
The Council of Europe’s framework has had a
significant influence on curriculum developments in
many European countries, and represents much
more than the teaching of foreign languages.

23. English has replaced Russian as the first foreign language in
Estonia. (Data from 2000 Estonian census).

24. In many large companies, English has become a working language

25. ENGLISH AS EUROPEAN LINGUA FRANCA
One of the weaknesses of the European project is that all
languages are positioned as having a ‘home’ in one or more
member countries. In theory, English has no greater status, in
European terms, than, say, French or Swedish. In practice,
within many large companies, and even in parts of the
European governmental institutions, English has become a
common working language. In some quarters the de facto
special status of English in Europe is causing resentment (see,
for example, Phillipson, 2003).

26. While ELF is a widespread and useful mode of communication for many,
some scholars and linguists have criticized its proliferation as a form of
linguistic imperialism. This term became popular in 1992 with the publication
of Robert Phillipson’s influential book of the same name. In it, Phillipson
argues that English has long been a tool of submission and cultural
domination of colonies. Contemporary critics of ELF cite the problems
associated with studying a language in a disorganized, unstructured way.
Speakers of ELF may eventually speak both their native language and
English imperfectly, leading to issues with effective communication. In spite
of these criticisms, ELF continues to flourish in many countries, oftentimes
enriching the language with colorful aphorisms and unique turns of phrase.

27. SEVERAL TRENDS
Not surprisingly, English has acquired a special
place in school timetables in most countries.
Steadily, across Europe, English has become
the ‘first foreign’ language in education
systems, often replacing another language
from that position.

28. Unlike traditional EFL, ELF focuses also on pragmatic
strategies required in intercultural communication. The
target model of English, within the ELF framework, is
not a native speaker but a fluent bilingual speaker, who
retains a national identity in terms of accent, and who
also has the special skills required to negotiate
understanding with another non-native speaker.

29. When English first began to spread beyond the shores of the
British Isles the movement was very much one way. English
went out into the world and developed in many different ways.
But now that there are so many international varieties of English
in existence, it no longer makes sense to think of the
development of English as being a one- way process. It is no
longer the case that all varieties of English are developments of
British English. Some varieties of English, for example, have
developed from American English, thus their connection with
British English is indirect at most.

30. English as
an Asian
language

31. India is only one of many countries in South and
South-East Asia to now exploit its English-speaking
colonial heritage and connect to the global
economy. However, it is likely that it will be China
who will determine the speed at which other Asian
countries, such as Thailand, shift to a global English
model.

33. India, of course, is not the only Asian country which
counts English as a colonial legacy. Pakistan,
Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Malaysia, Singapore,
Brunei, and the Philippines all now exploit their
anglophone heritage to attract offshore contracts.
As regional trade grows, encouraged by ASEAN,
English is becoming an ever more valuable lingua
franca in Asia.

34. ENGLISH IN CHINA

35. India has demonstrated the huge economic benefits of
speaking English, but it is China which is now setting the pace
of change in the region. In 2001, China decided to make
English compulsory in primary schools from Grade 3. In
practice, rural areas may not meet that target, whilst big cities,
such as Beijing and Shanghai, have already introduced
English at Grade 1. More people are now learning English in
China than in any other country. Within the formal education
sector an estimated 176.7 million Chinese
were studying English in 2005.

36. Kachru (2004) suggests that there were 200 million Chinese
English users in 1995. As a result of the new policy, China now
produces over 20 million new users of English each year. It
seems possible that within a few years, there could be more
English speakers in China than in India.
The developments in English teaching already described
suggest that a new orthodoxy appears to have taken root in
the last few years which could be described as ‘The World
English Project’. If this project succeeds, it could generate
over 2 billion new speakers of English within a decade.

37. English today is spoken by approximately 450 million
people all over the world. But the language used by its
many speakers varies, in pronunciation, spelling,
grammar, and vocabulary, to such an extent that it seems
necessary to ask whether these people can all be
considered to be speaking English. Even more people
speak English as a second language, with figures varying
from 1 billion to 1.5 billion people, and with considerably
greater levels of linguistic divergence.

38. Since more than half of the world’s native English
speakers live in the USA, we might wonder whether
the balance of power has shifted such that to speak
‘English’ today is to speak General American rather
than Standard British English. Does English no longer
‘belong to England’, as Dr Johnson confidently
claimed, but rather to the USA, or to everyone who
wishes to employ it?

39. As English continued to develop during the nineteenth
century in America, so too did the attitudes towards its
usage. Early Modern period in England, attempts were
made by such literary luminaries as Jonathan Swift to
‘fix’ the English language; that is, to formulate a system
of rules for so- called ‘correct’ usage. At the beginning of
the nineteenth century, the American lexicographer
Noah Webster took an opposing view to Swift and his
companions and was more interested in radically
changing the language rather than preserving it in the
way that Swift and others had proposed.

40. Gelderen, E. V. (2006). A history of the English Language. John Benjamins Publishing Company
https://www.altalang.com/beyond-words/how-is-english-used-as-a-lingua-franca-today/