University Magazine

By Karina Pizzacalla

St. Trinnean’s College

INTRODUCTION

The English language has always been associated to the variety of English spoken in the south of England. This variety has even been considered the “educated” version not only within Great Britain but also at international levels. It is true to say that many people associate RP or Received Pronunciation to the best model of English to teach and to learn. But this concept is nowadays changing due to the growing importance of American English. The United States as a powerful country, have acquired significant importance not only at political and economical but also at technological fields; therefore, the variety of American English is spreading around the world and is competing with the British variety.

It is impossible to deny the fact that English IS the most important language spoken and written all over the world. Millions of people use English to communicate at a global context. However, and taking into account the fact that different geographic regions adopt the language but also adapt it to their own idiosyncrasies, it is also possible to say that the future of English may also arise problems of intelligibility and as a consequence of this, people from different countries and using distinctive varieties will not be able to understand each other. Or perhaps some other language may emerge and replace English…

The aim of this paper is to analyse the different views stated by linguists who differ in terms of whether the English language will be the successful language to be used in the future, or not. In order to carry out this analysis, I will 1) explore the reasons that contribute to make English the language chosen by millions of people to succeed in communication at international levels. 2) Explain briefly the reasons of the spread of both British and American English throughout the world, by means of colonisation in the first case, and through technology in the second one. 3) Finally, I will conclude my paper by explaining what supporters of different theories suggest about the future of English.

1. ENGLISH: THE LINGUA FRANCA

According to Bill Bryson in his book Mother Tongue, more than 300 million people around the world speak English. It has become the lingua franca of business, science, education, technology, politics and popular music… In India –for instance-
There are more than 300 papers written in English; when companies all over the world decide to form joint ventures, the language they use is English. What is more, the students from China learning English outnumber the people in the United States…

All this leads us to ask which are the features of English that make it the “common” tongue. As stated before, Bill Bryson clearly distinguishes and explains eight characteristics which contribute to make English the language “chosen” by most of the people all over the world: 1) Its richness of vocabulary and the wealth of available synonyms, 2) Its flexibility and versatility, 3) Its relative simplicity of spelling and pronunciation, 4) The fact that its pronouns are uninflected, 5) English is free of gender, 6) Its articles -free of gender and number- 7) Its conciseness, and 8.) Its complexity.

1.1 RICHNESS OF ENGLISH VOCABULARY

It is said that one of the main factors that “sets English apart “from other languages is its richness of vocabulary. The Webster’s Third New International Dictionary lists 450,000 words, and the revised Oxford English Dictionary lists 615,000. According to the linguist mentioned, this is just a partial list because he says that the technical and the scientific terms would add many million words more.
Besides, the synonyms available in English provide shades of distinction that simply do not exist in other languages. One of the languages that Bryson mentions is French, which lacks certain distinctions between pairs of words such as house and home, or man and gentlem or between “I have written” and “I wrote”. He also points out that Spanish does not differentiate a chairman from a presidenta and that the Italians “have no equivalent of wishful thinking”. Incredible though it may seem English is the ONLY language that has books of synonyms such as the Roget’s Thesaurus.

1.2 FLEXIBILITY AND VERSATILITY

Another factor that contributes to make English the global language used at present is its flexibility. This can be seen in the freedom English speakers can enjoy when using either passive or active constructions. Bryson says, “not only can we say, ‘I kicked the dog’, but also ‘The dog was kicked by me’ –a construction that would be impossible in many other languages.” Furthermore, many English nouns operate both as noun and as verbs. This versatility at work makes the rules of English grammar also “perplexing”: many native speakers cannot differentiate a full infinitive from a bare one.

1.3 RELATIVE SIMPLICITY OF ITS SPELLING AND PRONUNCIATION

The third characteristic which makes English advantageous for users is its relative simplicity of its spelling and pronunciation. It has got few clusters and singsong tonal variations. In some languages such as Cantonese, the variation in tone changes the meaning of a word. With respect to orthography, some languages are very difficult to spell, for instance Welsh. The Welsh word for beer is “cwrw” and the Irish Gaelic word for winter is “geimhreadh”. Indeed, these examples are self-evident.

1.4 UNINFLECTED PRONOUNS

The pronoun YOU, in just this one form, can refer to different genders and different shades of relationships. In German, there are seven words to say you.

1.5 ENGLISH IS FREE OF GENDER

Questions of femininity and masculinity pose serious problems for other languages, but not for English. In French –for instance- students find it difficult to remember whether it is ‘la plume’ or ‘le plume’.

1.6 ARTICLES

When comparing other languages to English it is possible to assert that the latter does not carry the burden of differences in gender. Not only are the definite and indefinite articles free of gender but they can also be discarded. The sentence: ‘It’s time to go to bed’ proves that the definite article ‘the’ in the time or in the bed are omitted whereas is other languages it is obligatory.

1. 7 CONCISENESS

Another significant element that makes English an easy language to master is its tendency towards conciseness. This can be clearly observable if we contrast it with German, just to cite one example. The word in German for the English phrase “business trust company” is spelled: Wirtschaststreuhandgesellschaft. Besides, English favours truncations: IBM, NATO, laser…

1.8 DECEPTIVE COMPLEXITY

Although this feature of English might seem strange, its being illogical and complicated does not prevent it from being used. On the contrary. The fact that nothing in English is ever quite what it seems definitely helps generalizations.

2. SPREAD OF BRITISH AND AMERICAN ENGLISH

Five hundred years after the scholar Richard Mulcaster said that the English tongue was not going to stretch further than their island (1582), this concept has changed considerably. The reasons for the success of this language over others may be divided into two historical processes: A) Colonisation and B) Technological modernisation.

2. A) COLONISATION

Britain as a powerful country began to expand in the seventeenth century with settlements in North America, Australia, Canada and New Zealand. English speakers, therefore, spread the language together with the process of colonisation. Similarly, when colonising Africa and Asia, the British forced the natives to learn it. Domination through language produced a terrible impact on natives whose identities were clearly threatened. Language IS power and by eradicating indigenous languages, their values were also eliminated. This loss of identity on the part of the oppressed led them to the destruction of their customs, habits, language, or –to be more specific- of their culture.

2. B) TECHNOLOGICAL MODERNISATION

Education helps societies to develop; and to belong to the modern world new values into the population have to be introduced through education, which plays a fundamental role in the “distribution of knowledge.” Many programmes of education are produced in English speaking countries, especially the United Kingdom and the United States. American “models of technology and economy” are exported to the underdeveloped countries. These ones, import knowledge of both technology and economy models in the foreign language: English. Again, the American variety of English is introduced through technological modernisation.

However, this is not the only form of spreading the American English variety. American films, advertisements, pop songs, and media in general, have also become part of our everyday life. They influence our lifestyles and our cultures, sometimes by deliberate -and at the same time- subtle imposition of thought control. This is the case of what Luke Prodromou (1997) suggests by the term: “coca-colarization.” Drinking coke means much more than just calming down our thirst. Beyond the “Coca Cola” drink there is a process of acculturation, of belonging to the modern values, which has got a dramatic economic impact in favour of the United States…

3. DIFFERENT THEORIES

David Graddol wrote a book in 1997 whose title is The Future of English. He suggests that although English is at present the dominant language of the world, there are reasons to believe that this status will not be maintained in the future, or that it will be threatened. He refers to the fact that economic growth and power are factors that obviously influence the languages of those countries who dominate, but he also thinks that there are many other countries now that are becoming more powerful and that their languages, as a result of this, are also becoming a tool of successful communication. He says that Spanish, Chinese, Hindi and Arabic languages are going to turn into powerful ones due to the economic influence of the countries where they originate.

It is crucial to mention at this point that there is not an English Academy (as there is a Spanish Academy!) to establish the rules of the English language: this means that English develops freely; it is adopted and at the same it is adapted to local needs.

As Kachru et al suggest (1996, 83) the setting up of rules has been a matter of perpetuation of conventions through dictionaries, grammars, rhetoric handbooks and conventions in general. However, by the process of appropriation, communities adopt the language dissociating the original norms and creating their own varieties.

According to Widdowson (1997) many problems may arise when appropriation takes place. He explains that due to different cultural values and conventions, the language may incorporate so many distinctive elements typical of each community, that it may become unintelligible for the rest of the speakers.

This question of intelligibility or unintelligibility is posing serious problems to linguists and speakers of the language all over the world. What is more, some of them foster the “Standardisation” of the language.

At present, RP seems to maintain some prestige as the variation regarded as “Standard English”. However, it is essential to mention that only 3 per cent of the population of Britain speaks RP. The question then is: is RP better than any other variation? Should RP be maintained at all costs as the language of the educated elite? According to Crowley (1989,190) the feeling of superiority of RP is only that: a feeling, but it is not grounded on linguistic features since no one has the right to say that some forms are correct and others should be avoided. Every variety of English is important for its community of speakers, and every variety should be respected as such.

According to Honey (1989, 65) societies judge accents by stereotypes which people
have about speakers. Professionals, such as doctors or teachers, are regarded as educated, therefore, their language is felt to be “better” than the language used by bus drivers… Indeed, speakers have got their own history and geography, their own culture and language, which form part of their own identity.

Prejudices due to stereotypes seem to favour certain varieties of English while some others are undervalued. These attitudes also prevail in England even today when about 101 varieties of English are being used!
If 101 varieties are standing in England alone, it is easy to understand that hundreds of other variations are being used in communication all over the world.

CONCLUSION

As stated in the introduction of my paper, the development of my paper consisted in focusing on the characteristics that make English the international language today. It has been possible to establish that two main varieties of English –the British and the American ones- have influenced the spread of English all over the world through the processes of colonisation and technological modernisation. Besides, some theories about the future of English have been briefly explained.

However, and taking into account that this issue is by no means exhausted, it is crucial to mention that more research will have to be done since none of the theories mentioned can be either completely proved or refuted at the moment. All the linguists mentioned have expressed their viewpoints and have supported their ideas with the evidence they considered appropriate.

Taking all these points into consideration, I want to express that there is still too much controversy as regards the future of English. Whether it will continue being the lingua franca or whether it will be modified completely or even replaced by any other language is a matter that requires more time and research.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

BRYSON, Bill (1990) Mother Tongue: The English Language. London: Penguin
HONEY, John (1997) Language is Power. London: Faber and Faber
KACHRU, B.B. and Nelson, C.L. (1996) “World Englishe” in McKay, S.L. and Horn Berger, N.H., 71-102
PRODROMOU, L. (1997) “Global English and the Octopus” IATEFL Newsletter 135, Feb/March, 12-14
WIDDOWSON, H. (1997) “EIL, ESL, EFL: Global issues and local interests” World Englishes 16:1, 135-146