English is seen by some as 'the global language'. Discuss with Essay

English is seen by some as 'the global language'. Discuss with reference to some of the domains in which English is gaining mos - Essay Example In order to do this, the countries force learning English through their educational system seeing to it that people master the language to decent extent. In case the countries, which adopt certain language as their ‘second language’, are influential enough in the world arena, it could be considered to be a global one. Why do we need a global language? The reason for some kind of international means of human negotiations is quite obvious: people from different countries need to have certain tool in order to communicate, understand and get on with each other concerning some mutual issues. In modern world, where exists a huge amount of languages, it is not possible to solve the problem through bilingualism and trilingualism and, thus, some commonly accepted and understood language is obviously needed. Such language is usually called lingua franca, and implies some simple rules application, so people would not meet a lot of difficulties when learning it. In these terms, a no tion of pidgin arises, which means that common language is drawn towards simplification and combines features from various languages (Todd, 1984). Furthermore, using common language is quite favorable in that sense that this practice significantly reduces costs for translation and interpretation work. Such international establishments as World Bank, UNESCO, the World Health Organization, and UNICEF spend a great part of their budget for removing all the discrepancies in their communication concerning diverse languages usage. Different business and scientific communities also favor from common language adoption as this would ease their exchange of experience essentially. Reasons why English is the global language There are a lot of factors, which forced English to be the global language and in order to analyze them we separate all the reasons into three main groups: geographical-historical, socio-cultural, and linguistic reasons. Geographical-historical reasons Geographical-historica l reasons are closely connected to English expansion through America, Asia, Africa, Australia and the whole South Pacific region, when English colonies were established in these areas. Specifically, English language came to British Isles from northern Europe in 5th century and rapidly widespread nearby areas of Scotland, Cornwall, Wales, and Cumbria. Further significant expansions of English occurred just at the end of 16th century, when English settlements were established in Virginia and New England. Active population movements within American continent led to English assimilation of new territories in the area of the Great Lakes, Texas, and California. Further, waves of immigrants moved to Canada and gradually expanded to the Caribbean islands and South Africa in 17th century, Australia and New Zealand at the end of 18th century (Kachru, 1988). Such powerful expansion led to presence of English an all parts of the world including St. Helena island in Atlantic region, Seychelles i n Indian region, the islands Hawaii and Fiji in Pacific region. Socio-cultural reasons Socio-cultural reasons are closely associated with dependence of various areas on English in terms of social and cultural development. A huge amount of world broadcasting programs are conducted in English, when you travel you always meet advertisements and signs written in English, if you