English As A Global Language

The English language began its climb to world dominance with the rise of the British Empire in the 16th century. During this time English began to spread as the worlds lingua franca for business and trade. With the support of the United States, which at the time was one of the most successful nations in history, english was able to overthrow all previous lingua francas. However, english should not be considered as the “gateway to the world”. Although the english language is widely- spoken around the world, making english language the official language of the world will lead to diminishing cultural diversity.

Is it really necessary to have English as the official language? U.S has been trying to find the answer for this question for a long time. And they still didn’t come up with an answer. Presently, there are 23 states that actually wanted to have English as the official language. And it’s still not enough. I agree that there are some benefits for having an official language but we should also consider the disadvantages that are more than advantages.

As we all know that, English is a global language. Language is a familiar feature of our daily life. It is a human and social activity without which human beings cannot function in the society. It is one of the basic needs, and one has to learn it. It is the flesh and blood of our culture. According to Leonard Bloomfield (1935), “Each community is formed by the activity of language.”

Language is one of the most important tools people use in the United States of America, where language is the key that opens the door to all opportunities in this country –that can either unite or break our nation apart. The first time Congress proposed to designate English as the official language of the United States was in 1981, where Senator S.I Hayakawa, from California believed that English unified the American people. Hayakawa believed that bilingual education in the public school system was a threat to the nation itself, where language acted as a barrier that divide us a result of the friction between the public and minority language. Many states soon after, began to institute English-only law that restricted the use if other languages

As a matter of fact, multilingualism is usually an unavoidable reality in most countries where English is used as a second language. In Nigeria, for instance, due to colonial origin, every educated person, or any other person who regularly interacts with people from other ethnic groups usually speak two languages: his mother’s tongue (ethnic language) and English. That’s why different ethnic groups in the country have found in English a common means of communication and identity.

English is the biggest language in the world, many countries use it as the official language. The most important two countries are United Kingdom and the United States. Long times ago, Britain is the first country that occupied North America. And they brought their language to here and teach the local people to say it. But after the United States been independent, Americans developed the British English to American English. We have a huge amount of languages around the world, such as Chinese, Spanish and Portuguese. These three languages are also having lots of speakers. How can English become the biggest language in the world? In the South part of the North America, Mexicans speak Spanish, and the original Americans speak Indigenous languages, but now English is the only language that is using in the US government. Why Americans didn’t choose other languages to be their official language after the United States was established?

English has become the world dominant language due to many factors. From the seventeenth century onwards, the English began to expand their language over the world. This expand was due to the power of the British Empire and its important factors in the world. It is difficult to establish the right number of Englishes in the world as it is almost developing new varieties of English and new things are being discovered. Therefore, English has become widely used all over the world in many different domains and fields. Starting from there, English now has become the global language all over the world and it is used everywhere. English was taken around the world by the soldiers, sailors, traders, pilgrims and missionaries of the British Empire English

In this globalized world, learning an extra language other than their native languages is almost essential for every individual. Although the United States is one of the most diverse countries in the world, the need to promote a national language is widely held in the country as requisite for the promotion of a national identity, a President and Chief Executive Officer of the Center for Applied Linguistics in Washington, D.C, Terrence Wiley states (Wiley, 2014). However, English is not considered as an official language, which creates an opportunity for the citizens and immigrants to not only study English, but also inherit their mother tongues and learn other foreign languages as well, particularly during the secondary education. Additionally, “globalization in the economy and politics have profound consequences for language policies in education” (Wiley, 2014). High schools in the United States value diversity in language classes and support students learning more than one language to foster better communication with people around the world.

Language is important because it's one of the main ways to communicate and interact with other people around us. It keeps us in contact with other people. English language is an example for the importance of a language because it is the international language and has become the most important language to people in many parts of the world. It is most widely used in communicating around the world, Also it is spoken as the first language in many countries. English is playing a major role in many sections like education, medicine, engineering and business. There are many reasons that makes English is the most important language in the world.

Humanity has an unashamedly nature to be curious about life and all things it touches. We long to break each idea down to the smallest part and then scale back and see how it all fits together. It is innate to us from our 1st breath. “Mathematics manifests the freedom of the human ‘image-making’ relation to the world, which is an indicator of the ‘specific difference’ in human nature among the animal kingdom.” We crave this freedom, this knowledge. And for that reason, it is at the heart of storytelling.

The study of World Englishes involves interdisciplinary and integrative approaches and covers a variety of subjects and fields. Kachru (1992) listed the following approaches to the study of world Englishes:

English is largely considered to be the first language for the majority of the population in several countries and the second language for others. It is a lingua franks that people resort to wherever they travel abroad and cease using their national languages. Hence, English is becoming the language of communication globally. Communication allows language users to interact with each other and in turn understand what others are trying to convey. In other words, language could be understood differently depending on the situation and context in which the discourse occurs. Discourse, then, is any spoken or written language which includes verbal and nonverbal elements that are meaningful.

Globalization is an inevitable issue in the world, which brings boundaries between the countries much more close. Because of the sophisticated technology, the mobility of local culture, music, knowledge and goods has enhanced. As we want to communicate with the other races of people, we shall use one language to be a bridge. Therefore, the English becomes a globalizing language because of its clear structure and format. Does the globalizing language good or bad for us? I believe that the answer should not be one-sided. The truth is, English as a globalizing language can bring us good for Economics and local culture. However, it also triggers some negative issues.

In a quiet room in Universiti Brunei Darussalam, the speaker was recorded using a voice recorder performing the task. Prior to recording, I was given few minutes to read the passage. Then, I was asked to analyze my own recording based on my auditory judgements and acoustic measurements. The auditory analysis is categorised into 5 features (See table 1) and the acoustic analysis is classified into 2 features (See table 2). The auditory analysis is carried out by listening to the sounds and the result is based on my final auditory judgement and visual examination of the

English is spoken in most parts of the world, for instance in Great Britain, the USA, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and in many more countries. Moreover in African states English serves as main form of communication.