English as a Most Commonly Spoken Language

Date: 2015-10-07; view: 522.

Ex. 1. Read the text and do the exercises that follow.

Think ahead

READING AND SPEAKING

Part A

ENGLISH AS A WORLD LANGUAGE

UNIT 3

Communication: English as a Most Commonly Spoken Language

Grammar Focus: Degrees of Comparison. Numerals.

Language Use: Preferences

1) What do we learn foreign languages for?

2) Which language is spoken by most people in the world?

3) How long have you been studying English?

4) What other foreign languages would you like to speak? Why?

5) Do you think that the knowledge of foreign language is important? Why?

The English language belongs to a West Germanic group of languages. It originated in England and had a long history.

It is only in the course of the last hundred years that English has become a world language. In Shakespeare's time it was a “provincial” language of secondary importance with only six million native speakers. But in the course of time English has become a world language because of its establishment as a mother tongue outside England. This exporting of English began in the seventeenth century, with the first settlements in North America. Above all, it is the great growth of population in the United States, assisted by massive immigration in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, that has given the English language its present standing in the world. Nowadays English is the most important world language in politics, science, computer technology, business, trade and cultural relations. In a number of speakers (400 million) it is second only to Chinese.

People who speak English fall into one of three groups: those who have learned it as a native language; those who have learned it as a second language in a society that is mainly bilingual; and those who are forced to use it for a practical purpose – administrative, professional or educational. One person in seven of the world's entire population belongs to one of these three groups. Incredibly enough, 75 percent of the world's mail and 60 percent of the world's telephone calls are in English.

English is the official language of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, of the United States of America, of Australia and New Zealand, etc. It is used as one of the official languages in Canada, the Republic of South Africa and the Irish Republic, etc. It is also spoken as a second language by many people in India, Pakistan, numerous countries in Africa. The number of second-language speakers may soon exceed the number of native speakers, if it has not done so already.

Even more widely English is studied and used as a foreign language (32,6 percent). It is the most studied foreign language in Europe, Japan, China, Israel, etc. In this respect English acquired an international status. It is used for communication across frontiers, listening to broadcasts, reading books and newspapers, in commerce and travel. Half of the world's scientific literature is in English. English is associated with technological and economic development of the great manufacturing countries and it is the principal language of international aid. It is not only the universal language of international aviation, shipping and sport, it is to a considerable degree the universal language of literacy and public communication in general. It is the major language of diplomacy, and is the most frequently used language both in the debates in the United Nations and in the general conduct of the UN business. In this respect it might be thought that English will become ever more dominant in the future. It will become the global language – either the first or second language of every person on the planet.