Future of English?
http://www.britishcouncil.org/ba/learning-elt-future.pdf   Â
As  I was browsing around looking for ideas for my paper, I stumbled across this article forecasting the popularity and future of the English language in the 21st century. It’s relatively old, published maybe 11 years ago by the British Council but it brings up interesting points that are still relevant today. One of the points that really intrigued me was the idea of a bilingual future. Because English is associated with countries in positions of power and with “leading-edge” developments, it is possible that the world will eventually become a multilingual place with English being one of the primary languages spoken. As of now, the world of international business is definitely a bilingual playing field but one can only wonder if it will get to the point where even citizens of third world countries will be fluent in English.  Any responses?   Â
  On a different note, I’d like to follow the example and also throw my idea out there for my paper. After reading in Crystal about Shakespeare’s contributions to the English language,  I began thinking about whether there were more recent authors who have come close to doing the same. Not able think of one off the top of my head, I broadened the idea to genres, and I came up with the topic of the contributions of novel lexemes from science fiction literature to the English language (going back to my presentation topic). I realize this is still pretty broad but I’d love to hear from others whether or not they think this is an viable topic.  Â
meghan wrote:
I think the idea of looking at the ways in which specialized realms of literature have shaped the language is a really great idea. In fact, when you mentioned the idea of science fiction contributing to language it made me think a lot about Harry Potter. I never really thought about it before now, but it’s ridiculous how many words can be referenced from Harry Potter that most people would understand. Because it’s such a broad, worldwide phenomenon, it goes beyond any previous literary or film novelties in language (even more than, say, star wars). You’ve really led me down a good path with that idea! I think I might do Harry Potter for my paper!
As far as your ideas about the future of English on an international level, I think it’s very evident where it’s going. I mean, if we just consider the vast number of bilingual people who have secured English as their second language, it becomes very evident that as far as communication is concerned, it reigns supreme in worldwide relations–in politics as well as business. The question of whether English will spread to third world countries, however, does not have such a clear-cut answer. I think that people adopt English into their language repertoire out of necessity. Isolated countries who do not have large economic or political pull on an international scale don’t really have any strong necessity for English proficiency. At this point I feel confident in saying that as far as international elements are concerned, English certainly prevails. In the case of ordinary citizens, however, I think that unless the English language is personally important for them it will remain an element of the educated elite and the politically and economically minded.
Posted 31 Mar 2008 at 12:59 pm ¶
Stephanie wrote:
If you’re going to continue with that topic about the adopted English of science fiction, I stumbled across this book: http://www.amazon.com/dp/0195305671/ (that’s the Amazon.com listing, from which you can probably get the requisite information to find it in our/another library).
Hope that helps.
Posted 02 Apr 2008 at 12:01 am ¶