World Englishes Flashcards
What does the term lingua franca mean?
the language common to speakers whose first language is not English but who use English to communicate with each other.
What are the three causes of the dominance of English?
-Exploration
- Colonialism/ Empire
- American Economic and cultural dominance
How would the American economic and cultural dominance be one of the causes of dominance in English?
American economic- the power of money, international banking
As long as countries will want to talk to each other through their government and economy than English will wildly be influenced and spoken.
American culture- for example, media, pop songs, advertising, radio tv and the power of American imperialism, power of the 17th century.
How did Colonialism/Empire become one of the causes of the dominance of English?
Colonialism: For example, Britain had colonial rule over Singapore from 1819-1965 where it implemented English via Education.
- Children were taught how to read and write in English during the 70’s as it was a requirement.
- Later on this developed Singlish which is non- standard ‘street’ language which is used by many young people in Singapore.
Empire: The economy was took over by the British Empire in the 19th century, therefore this led to the colonisation of British English.
Can you list 10 English speaking countries?
- Nigeria
- Gharna
- Sri Lanka
- Singapore
- Trinidad
- New Zealand
- Canada
- India
- Tanzania
What does the term diaspora mean and why did it happen?
movement of larger groups- from U.K to Australia, New Zealand (1790), America (1770).
This happened because English speakers settled and used English as their first language (L1) adapting to their needs.
What did David Crystal say the amount of speakers around the world were?
- 400 mil L1 speakers
- Over 400 mill L2 speakers
- Between 6/700mil EAL speakers (English as an additional language)
