Муниципальное бюджетное общеобразовательное учреждение
«Привольненская СОШ»
Проектно исследовательская работа по теме:
«Английский язык - как глобальный в современном мире»
Выполнила: ученица 11 класса Нурситова Г.
Научный руководитель: учитель английского языка
Накшинова Б.М.
Привольный ,2014
Content
Introduction 2
Chapter 1 4
Chapter 2 8
Chapter 3 11
Conclusion 18
Bibliography 20
Annex 21
The actuality of the problem. The world wide process of globalisation influence the process of changing and interaction of the languages. It is defined by different factors. The English language is considered to be an international language, it is the standard for diplomacy. Its popularity is not argued. Nowadays the English language is the most widely spoken language in the world. It is learned as a second language all around the world and used as an official language of the European Union and many Commonwealth countries, as well as in many world organisations.
We can not say, that this question wasn't described, learned or discussed in the works of different scientists and investigators. Among them are David Crystal, Thomas Pyles, David Graddol and John Algeo.
The aim of our investigation is to study the English language as a component uniting countries, organisations, societies throughout the world in a whole linguistic unity and its role in the process of globalisation and interaction with help of such methods as syntheses, analyses and deduction.
The tasks of our work are the following:
to analyse the geographical spread of the English language
to define formal and legitimic sides of the spread of the English language within the certain state
to find out the historical background of the spread of the English language throughout the world
to show up the definition of the globality of the language
to forecast the future of the English language in the brinks of the investigation
The subject of our investigation is the English language as one of the methods of the impact of the globalisation on the people.
The object is existing and potential relations of the English language in the world linguistic unity.
The originality of the investigation is defined by the particular features of the approach to the investigation and its methods.
The methodology of the investigation includes such scientific methods as analyses and deduction.
The structure of the work is the following:
introduction
3 chapters
conclusion
bibliography
annex
Significance of the modern English
Modern English is the dominant language or even international language of communications, science, information technology, business, seafaring, aviation, entertainment, radio and diplomacy.
Its spread beyond the British Isles began with the growth of the British Empire, and by the late 19th century its reach was truly global. As a sequence long of British colonisation it became the dominant language in the United States, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. It was also influenced by the growing impact of the USA.
English replaced German as the dominant language of science Nobel Prize laureates during the second half of the 20th century. English equalled French as the dominant language of diplomacy during the last half of the 19th century, nowadays it almost surpasses it.
A working knowledge of English has become a requirement in a number of fields, occupations and professions such as medicine and computing; as a consequence over a billion people speak English to at least a basic level.
One impact of the growth of English is the reduction of native linguistic diversity in many parts of the world. Its influence continues to play an important role in language attrition. Conversely, the natural internal variety of English along with creoles and pidgins have the potential to produce new distinct languages from English over time.
The English language became global in all sense of this word. We may say that we can see its influence nearly in all even specific spheres of our life. Still we know that it has not happened at once. It has been a rather long process, which of course has a certain background, even some. To prove the aim of our investigation and to fulfill the tasks announced we decided to investigate the reasons why the English language became global. And we study the geographical, historical and socio-cultural backgrounds of this process in the following three chapters.
Chapter 1
Geographical background
Nearly 375 million people all over the world speak English as their first language. According to some data nowadays English is the third largest language by number of native speakers, after Mandarin Chinese and Spanish. And if we combine native and non-native speakers it can be the most commonly spoken language in the world, though possibly second when compared with the Chinese languages (it depends on classification).
The estimates of second language speakers depends on how literacy or mastery is defined and measured. It may vary from 470million to over a billion people.
The countries with the highest populations of native English speakers are, in descending order: the United States, the United Kingdom (61 million), Canada (18.2million),Australia (15.5 million), Nigeria (4 million), Ireland (3.8 million), South Africa (3.7 million), and New Zealand (3.6 million) 2006 Census.
Countries where English is a major language.
English is the primary language in :
Anguilla;
Antigua and Barbuda;
Australia;
the Bahamas;
Barbados;
Belize;
Bermuda;
the British Indian Ocean Territory;
the British Virgin Islands;
Canada;
the Cayman Islands;
Dominica;
the Falkland Islands;
Gibraltar;
Grenada;
Guam;
Guernsey;
Guyana;
Ireland;
the Isle of Man;
Jamaica;
Jersey;
Montserrat;
Nauru;
New Zealand;
Pitcairn Islands;
Saint Helena;
Ascension and Tristan da Cunha;
Saint Kitts and Nevis;
Saint Vincent and the Grenadines;
Singapore;
South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands;
Trinidad and Tobago;
the Turks and Caicos Islands;
the United Kingdom;
United States.
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In some countries where English is not the most spoken language, it is an official language. These countries include:
Also there are countries where in a part of the territory English became a co-official language, e.g. Colombia's San Andreas y Providencia and Nicaragua's Mosquito Coast. This was a result of the influence of British colonisation in the area.
It is also one of the 11 official languages that are given equal status in South Africa (South African English). English is also the official language in current dependent territories of Australia (Norfolk Island;Christmas Island and Cocos Island) and of the United States (American Samoa, Guam, Northern Mariana Islands, Puerto Rico, and the Solomon Islands), and the former British colony of Hong Kong.
English is not an official language in the United States. Although the United States federal government has no official languages, English has been given official status by 30 of the 50 state governments. Although falling short of official status, English is also an important language in several former colonies and protectorates of the United Kingdom, such as Bahrain, Bangladesh, Brunei, Cyprus, Malaysia and the United Arab Emirates.
Chapter 2
Historical background
English is a West Germanic language. It arouse in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England. Historically, the English language originated from the mixture of different languages and dialects, which was termed Old English. They were brought to the eastern coast of Great Britain by Germanic (Anglo-Saxon) settlers in the 5th century. The name of the Angles was derived from the word English, and possibly from their ancestral region of Angeln. A significant number of English words are based on the Latin roots, because Latin was considered to be the lingua franca of the Christian Church and European intellectual life in that period of time. The language was further influenced by the Old Norse language due to Viking invasions in the 8th and 9th centuries.
The Norman conquest of England in the 11th century gave rise to large number of borrowings from Norman-French. Vocabulary and spelling conventions began to give the superficial appearance of a close relationship with Romance languages. The Great Vowel Shift that began in the south of England in the 15th century is one of the remarkable historical events, that approved the emergence of Modern English from Middle English.
The English language is often associated with migration because it came into being in the 5th century with patterns of people movement and resettlement. But as a world language its history began later, in the 17th century, in the foundation of the American colonies. French, Dutch, Portuguese and Spanish were established as colonial languages. In Latin America Portuguese and Spanish are still important. But in the 19th century the British empire maintained its position in the world and also the signficance of English, having created a ‘language on which the sun never sets’.
In Europe of the middle ages, power was distributed between Church, sovereign and local barons. Still each nation state required therefore an internal lingua franca which could act as a vehicle of governance and serve as an emblem of national identity. The English language was defined to serve the purposes of a national language.
The process of decolonisation, which took place in the 20th century demanded to establish new national languages which could provide an integrated identity for multi-ethnic states. Some countries such as Singapore adopted a multi-language formula which reflected the ethnic languages of the new state. For example, in India, Hindi is the sole national language and English technically an ‘associate’.
In the 18th and 19th centuries there was an attempt to fix and ‘ascertain’ the English language. Still it was not successful: the language continued to adapt itself to new circumstances and people. And it was not just Britain which desired a national language from English. There is an increasing number of national standards, including those related to the ‘New Englishes’ which have appeared in former colonial countries such as Singapore. Each standard is supported (or soon may be) by national dictionaries, grammars and style requirements.
No central authority has ever existed which can regulate the language. language The English language has always been hybrid and flexible. First from Celtic and Latin, later from Scandinavian and Norman French, then from the many other languages spoken in the British colonies, the English language has borrowed freely. One of the few certainties associated with the future of English is that it will continue to evolve, reflecting and constructing the changing roles and identities of its speakers. Yet we are now at a significant point of evolution: at the end of the 20th century, the close relationship that has previously existed between language, territory and cultural identity is being challenged by globalising forces. The impact of such trends will shape the contexts in which English is learned and used in the 21st century.
By the end of the 19th century, Britain had established the preconditions for English as a global language. Communities of English speakers were settled around the world and, along with them, patterns of trade and communication. Yet the world position of English might have declined with the empire, like the languages of other European colonial powers, such as Portugal and the Netherlands. But the dramatic rise of the US in the 20th century as a world superpower changed the situation. There were, indeed, two other European linguistic contenders which could have established themselves as the global lingua franca – French and German.
The US was destined to be powerful industrialised country because of its own natural and human resources. The US is today the world’s third most populous country with around 260 million inhabitants. Not surprising therefore that it now accounts for the greater proportion of the total number of native English speakers.
After the war, several international agencies were established to help manage global reconstruction and future governance. The key one has proved to be the United Nations and its subsidiary organisations. Crystal (1997) estimates that 85% of international organisations now use English as one of their working languages, 49% use French and fewer than 10% use Arabic, Spanish or German. Crystal (1997) estimates 99% of European organisations use English as a working language, as opposed to 63% French and 40% German. French is still the only real rival to English as a working language of world institutions, although the world position of French has reeled since World War II. Nowadays it is the only alternative which can be used in many international forums as a political gesture of resistance to the hegemony of English. As a delegate from Ireland once addressed the League of Nations many years ago, explaining his use of French, ‘I can’t speak my own language, and I’ll be damned if I’ll speak English’
The position of English in the world today is defined due to the outcome of Britain’s colonial expansion and the more recent activity of the USA. Any substantial shift in the role of the US in the world can influence the use and attractiveness of the English language amongst those who are not native speakers.
Chapter 3
Socio-cultural background
The press
The English language has been an important medium of the press
for nearly 400 years. The Weekley Newes began to appear (irregularly) from 1622; the
London Gazette in 1666; and Lloyd’s News in 1696, providing
general news as well as information about shipping. The development of the American press began later. It included the Boston
News-Letter (1704), The New-York Gazette (1725), and the New
York City Daily Advertiser (1785). The beginning of the eighteenth century in Britain was marked by the rise and fall of The Tatler (1709)
and The Spectator (1711), while the end brought the arrival of
The Times (1788) and The Observer (1791).
The nineteenth century was the period of greatest progress,
because the new printing technology and new
methods of mass production and transportation were introduced. The
development of a truly independent press, chiefly fostered in the
USA, where there were some 400 daily newspapers by 1850, and
nearly 2,000 by the turn of the century, also took place. Massive circulations were achieved by such papers as the New
York Herald (1833) and New York Tribune (1841). By the end of the century, popular journalism, in the form of The Daily Mail (1896),
brought Britain into line with America.
The mid nineteenth century was marked by the invention of the telegraph (they
were long known as ‘wire services’). Paul Julius Reuter started an
office in Aachen, but then moved to London, where he opened an agency. By 1870 Reuters
had acquired more territorial news monopolies than any of its
Continental competitors. In 1856 the New
York Associated Press become dominant. It meant that the majority of the information being transmitted along
the telegraph wires of the world was in English.
Newspapers are not only the international media: they play an important role in the identity of a local community. Most papers are
for home circulation, and are published in a home language. It is
therefore impossible to gain an impression of the power of English
from the bare statistics of newspaper production and circulation.
None the less, according to the data compiled by the Encyclopaedia Britannica in 2002 about 57 per cent of the world’s newspapers are published in those countries, where the English language has special status.
Scientific publishing
English is now the international language of science and technology. It has not always been so. The renaissance of British science in the 17th century put English language science publications on the first pace in the scientific community. But after World War I German became the dominant international language of science. Later the growing role of the USA ensured that English became the global language of experiment and discovery. Journals in many countries shifted from publishing in their national language to publishing in English. This language shift is common elsewhere. A study in the early 1980s showed nearly two-thirds of publications of French scientists were in English. As might be expected, some disciplines have been more affected by the English language than others. Physics is the most globalised and anglophone, followed a close second by other pure sciences.
It is not just in scientific publishing, but in book publication as a whole that English rules supreme. English is the most popular language of publication. Unesco figures for book production show Britain outstripping any other country in the world for the number of titles published each year. In 1996, a remarkable 101,504 titles were published in Britain [link] For the history of cinema, see Nowell-Smith (1996)
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