Spread of English_ Reasons and effects

Different roles of English: ● English as an international language (EIL): Crystal (1997): when a language 'develops a special role recognised in every country’ a) when many people speak it as a mother tongue / native language b) given an official status, usually for economic progress (law, government, media, education) c) given priority as a foreign language: taught in schools as 2nd language, need to learn even in adulthood (English as a foreign language (EFL) speakers) ● English as a lingua franca (ELF): used as a means of communication amongst each other, not only for speaking to native English speakers - Language shift Bilingualism and multilingualism, regarded as aberrations by English mother tongue speakers in the UK and US (at least in the past), are the norm for the rest of the world. Instead, speakers of dominant languages (especially English) have been long reluctant to acquire other languages, expecting others to make the effort to learn their mother tongue; they also often view code-switching as linguistic incompetence. - (Sweeny and Zhu Hua, 2010) Monolingual L1 English speakers are among the least skilled users of English as an international lingua franca, compared to bilingual or L2 speakers who are more able to exercise accommodation skills (adjusting their language to facilitate communication), yet they are the most biased against other varieties of the English language different from their standard. Other reasons why English has spread: - Linguistic hegemony: when dominant groups create a consensus by convincing others to accept their language norms and usage as the norm. Hegemony is ensured when they can convince those who fail to meet those standards to view their failure as being the result of the inadequacy of their own language. English Only movement (American English, or as the members like to call it Official English): started from a substantial influx of southern Europeans into America, who were usually non-native speakers, when multilingualism was tolerated. With the context that immigrants were racially inferior to the northern Europeans who initially colonised the country, the US government began reversing the policy that allowed immigrants to use their native languages as the language of instruction in education. By the early 1920s, ¾ of the US states insisted on English-only education – a policy that was often