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The Effect Of Globalisation On Language Essay

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Humans have a natural born ability to communicate with one another; they are able to exchange ideologies, philosophy, desires, acknowledgements and many more. Above all of these is language; Human language is a rare communication structure that is taught from birth instead of being inherited (Palomar College, 2006). It is estimated that there is around seven thousand spoken languages in the world today, with less than one hundred thousand people using up to ninety percent of those languages (BBC, 2014). As a result of globalisations effect on language, the English language has become a lingua franca, also known as a ‘global language’ (Dewey, 2007). With English becoming the de facto international language a rise in linguistic hegemony has also occurred. This essay critiques two scholarly articles, which explain the effects of globalisation on language. Each article examines English as the lingua franca. The content of the articles is then compared and contrasted to identify related and conflicting views on the globalisation of English.

One billion people daily are learning the English language, 380 million people speak it as their first language and a third of the world’s population is exposed to the English language in some shape or form (Johnson, 2009). It is expected that by the year 2050, half of the world’s population will be competent in the language, which is being hailed as the language of globalisation (Phillipson, 2001). English is essential to the process of

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