The Internationalization of English

Jenkins (2003, pp. 33-38)

Changes in the second half of the 20th century

• English became an international language.– Change in global communication

• Scholarship about English became international.– Change in language education

• The ownership of an internet in English became international.– Change in media communication

Overview of this article

1. The reasons why English remains the world’s major international language

2. The need to ensure mutual intelligibility across international varieties of English

Critical view about English as an international language

• Phillipson (1992)– Linguistic imperialism– Potential to jeopardize the learning of other

languages– Potential to jeopardize the existence of

smaller languages

Why is English the international language?

Crystal (1997)

1. Historical

2. Internal political

3. External political

4. Practical

5. Intellectual

6. Entertainment

Historical reasons• Colonies of Britain & US (in the Outer Circle

territories) used English for their main institutions such as the following:– Parliament– Government agencies– Civil service– Law courts– Religious bodies– Schools– Higher education

Internal political reasons

• English may provide a neutral means of domestic communication between different ethnic groups as in India.

• A distinctive local variety may serve as a symbol of national unification.

External economic reasons

• The USA’s dominant economic position has considerable pressure on multinational business organizations, especially tourist and advertizing industries to work with English.

Practical reasons

• In reality, English is the international language in the following contexts:

- Air traffic control

- Maritime, policing and emergency services

- Academic conferences

- Tourism

Intellectual reasons

• Most of the scientific, technological, and academic information in the world is expressed in English.

• Over 80 per cent of all the information stored in electronic retrieval systems is in English.

Entertainment reasons

• English is the main language in the following contexts:

- Pop music

- Pop culture

- Satellite broadcasting

- Home computers and video games

The conflict between mutual intelligibility and group identity

• The evident problem is intelligibility in the spoken language.

• It is spoken language that is closely bound up with feelings of personal and group identity.

• There is strong justification for not conforming to the accent of native speakers from the point of view of EIL.

Activity 1: Intelligibility vs Identity 1

• Have you ever given thought to retaining your L1 identigy in English?

• Is it important to you to retain your L1 identity in English?

• Are you more concerned to be intelligible to native speakers of English or to non-native speakers of English, or do you not distinguish between the two groups of listener?

Activity 1: Intelligibility vs Identity 2

• Do you believe it is appropriate to retain your L1 accent in your English or that you should attempt to sound ‘native-like’?

• Do you believe it is possible to retain your L1 accent in English and still be intelligible to native-speakers?/non-native speakers?

Activity 2: Intelligibility vs Identity

• What do you think about the following quote?– Most people quite simply do not learn English to

speak to native-speakers. On the other hand, people learn Spanish, …, because they are interested in Hispanic culture for some reason … and will therefore want a spoken and written model which will further this aim. There is a world of difference between English, and in fact, all other living languages at present.

(Prodromou, 1997, p. 19)