Globalization Impact On English Language

Globalization” is a social process “characterized by the existence of global economic, political, cultural, linguistic and environmental interconnections and flows that make the many of the currently existing borders and boundaries irrelevant. Today, globalization has had and will continue to have effects on many aspects of society, including language” (Steger, 2003). Globalization can be defined as “the interconnections of global economic, political, cultural and environmental processes that continually transform present conditions” (Steger, 2013). In the last few decades, English has emerged as the pre-eminent language for international communication. It is spoken by more people around the world than any other languages, and is regularly

Furthermore, it has been estimated that “only one fourth of all English users worldwide are native speakers, and most non-native speakers using English do so in the absence of native speakers” (Seidlhofer, 2011). After reading three articles of Douglas McGray, David Crystal and Mauro E. Mujica we can see how globalization impact on English itself. The United States was created by emigrants not only from Great Britain but people from all over Europe and from other countries were drawn to this country. English language has been a diverse entity. It has changed dramatically over the centuries since it first arrived on the shores of Britain from the north of Europe, and these changes mean that the language was spoken is almost incomprehensible to us now. However, English exists in the world today

“Newt Gingrich has said it is essential we have a common language: English. Mitt romney has said people need to learn English to be successful. Rick Santorumhas called learning English the greatest gift his father and grandfather received as immigrant...” (Mujica, 2012). Douglas McGray looks into the problems of education which includes the lack of foreign language and culture knowledge that students should possess “As a result, young Americans like Christina represent something of paradox: surrounded by foreign languages, cultures, and goods, they remain hopelessly uninformed, and misinformed, about the world beyond U.S. borders”(Douglas McGray, 2006) another example is statistic included stated that only 85 percent of students couldn’t locate the country of Iraq on a map. “The result of this that the United States has a rapidly growing population of people-often native born-who are not proficient in English” (Mujica,2003). However, Mujica used another statistics from the world about English language “Many nations showed almost unanimous agreement on the importance of learning English. Examples include Vietnam, 98 percent; Indonesia, 96 percent...” (Mujica,2003). Diversity of many cultures and their languages define the beauty and national pride of one country and then any changes and modifications of the language affect its structure. It is commonly said that a language of a country equals its