Paper 4 Section A: Can English Remain the Favorite Language?

         At present, English is highly dominant  with “1.5 billion people” speaking the language.  It is also extremely  important for being able to communicate internationally and improve one’s status.  However, English may not always remain this powerful.  English only has “400 million” speakers using it as their first language, and these numbers are dwindling because of increases in usage of other languages and the decreasing reliance on it to communicate globally.  Therefore, it may seem that the English language will ultimately go through language fragmentation.

Currently, English is a highly popular and powerful  language.  According to the article, the author cited a study by the Cambridge University Press that said  “up to 350 million people” in China and “100 million in India” have an understanding of English.  This contributes to the idea of English’s linguistic dominance/imperialism.  Robert Phillipson coined the term in his book Linguistic Imperialism.  His idea can simply be explained as one language that holds control over and dominates other languages so that the dominant language gains control of a country’s political, economic, and social institutions.  This, in turn, results in language death of native languages and thus results in the impoverishment of those who speak the “dead” native language.   Therefore, those who wish to be successful in everyday life must accept the dominant language.  This has obviously been seen in countries such as China and India who want to be able to do business with a global superpower like the United States.

Additionally, according to the text,  English currently “is the world’s favorite lingua franca.”  In reference to English, it means that English is able to be used among speakers from all over the world who speak different native languages in order to communicate with one another.  The article uses the idea of a Chinese speaker and a French speaker who do not know how to speak the other’s language.  The author said “chances are that they would use English.”  This ability to share a common language is very powerful for communication, thus English maintains its current position as being highly useful.  This idea of lingua francas can be seen within Kachru’s concentric circles language model.  The Expanding Circle segment of the chart displays those who use English as a lingua franca.  This segment contains approximately 500-1000 million people.  At present, this displays how many people use English for communication across languages in everyday life, like when participating in business.

However, English in the future will no longer be able to hold the dominance that it currently does today.  Instead, with the emergence of technology, English will likely undergo linguistic fragmentation.  According to the article, computer translation services will be able to outdo human translators as the machines will be able to translate “in real time.”  This will retract from the benefits of a person being multilingual.  In the past, multilingual translators were essential in important cross-communication settings like in trade meetings between countries since the message could be relayed clearly.  Now, however, if a computer is able to translate the information in real time, while most likely having fewer mistakes than human translators, they will be used more often.  Therefore, political figures will no longer need to use English as a common lingua franca nor will they need multilingual translators who speak English.   If this is indeed the case, then in the future, the Expanding Circle section of Kachru’s diagram will diminish since there will not be a need for English for cross-communication.

Additionally, there has been a decrease in the amount of people using English in predominantly English speaking countries, like the United States.  According to the article, around one “fifth of Americans speak a language other than English in their own homes.”  This is highly important. This is because the fewer the people that speak English as their first language in a predominantly English speaking country, the fewer the people in the next generation that will speak English as their mother tongue.  This will ultimately decrease the Inner Circle, as seen in Kachru’s diagram, since  the people in this section speak English as their first language.  English will end up gradually shifting to becoming a second language and another language may take over.  This is supported by internationally renowned linguist David Crystal in one of his interviews.  He said that if other languages gain power and popularity like English did, they can take over English as a dominant language, since the new language will be more useful in the future.  

All in all, although English is highly important and popular currently, English is likely to see a decline in usage due to technological advancements and the introduction of new powerful nations and their corresponding languages.  Therefore, English will then progress through UNESCO’s five  levels of language endangerment and may eventually become obsolete like Latin.