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English as an International Language: Its Past, Present, and Future

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 English as an International Language:
Its Past, Present, and Future

Yasukata Yano
Waseda University

1. Introduction

First of all, let me ask you a question: Why do you learn English when you do not necessarily
need the language in your daily life? Perhaps some of you plan on going to Britain, the United
States, Australia or other English-speaking countries for the purpose of travelling around,
studying, working, or residing as an immigrant. Or perhaps some of you want to study English
to escape from your monolingual and monocultural perspectives by learning what is going on
in foreign countries and what foreign people think and how they behave. There is no doubt that
we are unique individuals and that no two individuals are identical; however, at the same time,
we are not completely free from the ways of the society that we were born and raised in. We are
bound by our mother tongue and mother culture. A few of you might even want to be specialists
in Anglo-American studies. Most likely, however, you will realize that you need the knowledge
and competence of the English language in whatever you do professionally, domestically, or
internationally. Globalization continues to lower national boundaries, expand the scope of
activities beyond national boundaries, and change daily lives, in an attempt to be increasingly
international.
Given this situation, what variety of English should one choose as the model to learn? Native
speakers’ English such as British, American, or Australian English? Or non-native speakers’
English such as Indian, Singaporean, or Nigerian English?
When we study a foreign language, we naturally want to use the language like a native
speaker does, that is, we understand, speak, read, and write like a native speaker. We want
to emulate a native speaker, think like a native speaker and behave like a native speaker. It
means that we want to internalize not only the system of the target language but also beliefs,
worldviews, values of the people, and the society of that language. Therefore, it seems reasonable
that teachers and learners of English tend to think that only native speakers’ English is ‘real,
natural, authentic’ and best fit as the model to learn. Remember, however, the fact that English
is not used exclusively by native speakers but by many non-native speakers the world over and
that you learn English to express yourselves, your society and your culture in the language.
Today, English functions as a means of intranational communication among non-native
speakers in countries such as Bangladesh, the Philippines, and Zambia. It also functions as a
means of international communication, 80 percent of which is, according to Carter (2003,
p. 97), among non-native speakers, who do not necessarily follow the Anglo-American way of
language use. Besides, Cook (2003, p. 29) points out that just being a native speaker does not
guarantee proficiency in writing, rich vocabulary, range of styles, and ability of cross-cultural

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 Yasukata Yano English as an International Language: Its Past, Present, and Future

communication. He gives examples of a native speaker’s inaccurate writing such as ‘Lovly new
potato’s’ and ‘Revised customer service arrangements presently under implementation’. He
adds that in many cases the expertise of the non-native speakers exceeds that of many native
speakers.
From the perspective of English as an International Language (EIL), the model to learn should
be the varieties of standard English, which have clarity and international comprehensibility while
maintaining locality rather than conformity to the Anglo-American standards. These varieties
are those used and understood by educated speakers, both native and non-native speakers.
First, however, let us look at how English has developed into a language for international
communication from the local language of a tiny island nation off the European Continent.

2. Development of English as an International Language

Since the English language arrived in the British Isles from Northern Europe in the fifth century,
it stayed as the language of the Isles for over 1,000 years. There are four major factors, in my
view, that made English an international language by spreading it to the world—emigration,
colonial policy, the Industrial Revolution, and the emergence of a super-economic power—the Figure 1. English Spread by Emigration After Strevens (1992, p. 33)
United States.
The first spread of the English language is the result of a massive wave of emigration that These areas are called the Inner Circle by Kachru (1992, p. 356) and people speak English
started in the late 16th century when England established settlements on the east coast of North as a Native Language (ENL). In the capacity of ‘norm providers’, therefore, they have been the
America, first to the south in what we now know as Virginia (after the ‘Virgin Queen’, Elizabeth keepers of the language’s standards, judges of its pedagogic norms, and models for learners to
I). Then, Puritans (later known as ‘Pilgrim Fathers’) arrived on the Mayflower and settled to follow in the linguistic and socio-cultural behaviour.
the north of Plymouth, Massachusetts. Many of the settlers in Virginia came from the western The second wave of the spread of the English language was the result of the British Empire’s
part of England where s sounds are voiced and postvocalic r is pronounced. On the other hand, colonial policy. The colonial development extended to the southeast and south of the Asian
many of the settlers in Massachusetts came from the eastern part of England, where postvocalic Continent and the east, west, and south of the sub-Saharan African Continent. This spread
r is not pronounced. From the 17th to the 20th centuries, vast numbers of immigrants continued can be superimposed on the world map, as shown in Figure 2, again after Strevens (1992, p. 33,
to flow in from Ireland, Scotland, Germany, Italy, and other parts of Central Europe. Great shading done by the author):
numbers of Africans were also brought in as slaves. Today, North America has the largest
English-speaking population of over 300 million.
Towards the end of the 18th century, England established a penal colony in Australia; the
convicts were mostly from London and Ireland, whose Cockney and Irish accents can be traced
in today’s Australian English. A half a century later, the number of immigrants rapidly increased.
Around that time, the British started to emigrate to New Zealand but the development was
slow.
This first major spread of the English language can be superimposed on the world map, as
shown in Figure 1, after Strevens (1992, p. 33, shading done by the author):

Figure 2. Spread of English as a Result of Colonial Development, After Strevens (1992, p. 33)

28 29
 Yasukata Yano
In these British colonies, the English language was the means of governance, education,
and business. In multi-ethnic and therefore multi-linguacultural colonies, the language also
served as a lingua franca and a unifying force. These regions are called the Outer Circle by
Kachru (1992, p. 356), where people speak English as a Second Language (ESL), that is, they
use English daily as a lingua franca, an official language or otherwise, although English is not
their mother tongue. Naturally, this leads to phonological and lexical transfers from indigenous
languages, accompanied by code-switching and syntactic and pragmatic modification of
English. As English penetrates into many domains of people’s lives, such as home, school, and
workplace, local linguacultural thought and behavioural patterns are incorporated into the
language to accommodate the local needs of expression, communication, and identity. They
are ‘norm-developers’ in that they change and create expressions and use English on their own
endonormative (their own) standards. It is the process of transforming the English language
into acculturated, institutionalized, and codified varieties.
The third wave of the spread of the English language was the result of scientific and
technological developments which led to the Industrial Revolution. Britain excelled in the
application of scientific knowledge to practical affairs in an industry; in the 18th and 19th
centuries, the British had raw materials in the colonies, controlled the commerce with the world’s
greatest merchant marine, and demanded industrial development. In other words, the British
controlled demand, supply, and transportation. The English language spread to the world along
with advanced science and technology and the social and economic transformation from an
agrarian, handcraft economy to a machine-powered industrial one.
The fourth wave of the spread of the English language was the result of the power of
English-speaking countries, especially the United States, the economic superpower from the
20th century onwards. The United States is overwhelming in terms of military power, economic
power, political power, scientific and technological power, and cultural power, which pushed for
English to become a language commonly used in international diplomacy, politics, business,
science and technology, naval and aviational communication, post, media, art, literature,
academia, sports, and entertainment. Accordingly, English is the most taught foreign language
in the region which Kachru (1992, p. 356) calls the Expanding Circle, where English is a Foreign
Language (EFL) like China, Russia, Brazil, France, and Denmark. In the Expanding Circle,
people use their respective mother tongues for daily communication and use English only when
they communicate with foreigners. They are ‘norm-dependent’ in that they use English according
to the standards set by native English speakers. However, their thought and behavioural patterns
inevitably stem from their mother linguacultures because of the need to express their ideas,
opinions, and feelings, which are often foreign to the Judeo-Christian tradition of the Western
culture.
In Figure 3, Crystal (2003a, p. 61) shows an estimation of the number of English speakers in
the world:
30
English as an International Language: Its Past, Present, and Future
Expanding Circle
Outer Circle
Inner Circle
320-380 million
300-500 million
500-1,000 million
Crystal (2003a, p. 61)
Figure 3. Kachru’s Three Circles of English Use
The figure shows that there are approximately 350 million (the mean) native speakers in the
Inner Circle, with approximately 400 million second language speakers in the Outer Circle and
over 750 million foreign language speakers in the Expanding Circle. The total number is almost
1.5 billion, which is about a quarter of the world population.
3. Divergence as a Result of the Spread
Language changes with time. Who can imagine today that the word ‘nice’ originally, or at
least until 700 years ago, meant ‘stupid’? The word ‘gay’ meant ‘cheerful and enjoyable to be
with’ until the 1960s when it began to mean a ‘homosexual’. The word ‘salon’ was an elegant
social scene for the 18th century French aristocrats, but now it is used to refer to a place where
hairdressers or beauticians conduct their business.
Language changes with space as well. Why is ‘potato chips’ in British English ‘French
fries’ in American English? Why is ‘lift’ an ‘elevator’? Why is ‘underground’ a ‘subway’; ‘flat’,
an ‘apartment’; ‘the ground floor’, ‘the first floor’; and ‘chemist’s’, the ‘drugstore’? Professor
Higgins might shout, ‘Pants, pants, pants! Why can’t Americans say “trousers” “trousers”’!
Widdowson (2003) writes:
If you spread something, or something gets spread, the assumption usually is that it
remains intact. Start spreading the news (as Frank Sinatra sings), and everybody is
supposed to get the same news. Spreading is transmitting. A disease spreads from one
country to another and wherever it is it is the same disease. It does not alter according to
circumstances; the virus is invariable. But...language is not like this. It is not transmitted
without being transformed. It does not travel well because it is fundamentally unstable.
It is not well adapted to control because it is itself adaptable. (Widdowson, 2003, pp. 45
–46)
Even in the Inner Circle, while postvocalic r is not pronounced in British English, it is in
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 Yasukata Yano
American English. The conversation piece such as ‘Have you got a car? Yes, I have’ in British
English is ‘Do you have a car? Yes, I do’ in American English. In Australian English, there are
inevitable borrowings from the aboriginal languages such as ‘kangaroo’, ‘boomerang’, ‘gibber’ (a
rock) and ‘jumbuck’ (a sheep). Also found are items with different meanings, such as ‘footpath’
meaning pavement and ‘singlet’ implying a vest.
In the Outer Circle, English speakers are certainly ‘norm-developers’. In South Asian English
(India, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka), interdental fricatives th are pronounced as aspirated [p] and [d];
[v] and [w] both being pronounced as [w]. There are ample instances of borrowed and hybridized
lexicon. Kachru and Nelson (2006, pp. 157–158) give examples such as bungalow ‘one-storeyed
house’, chit ‘a note or letter’, and batch-mate ‘fellow student’. Idioms and metaphors are also
transferred from their languages—‘In olden times, a woman just worked like a bullock’ and ‘...
you are a big man and we are but small radishes from an unknown garden’. Duplication is used
for emphasis, for example, ‘Cut it into small small pieces.’ Also yes/no and isn’t it being used as
general tags as in ‘You are coming, yes?’ or ‘He was angry, isn’t it?’
In Southeast Asia, telephone operators say ‘Come again’, instead of ‘Would you repeat it
again?’ Being sensitive is ‘onion-skinned’, what makes your body hot is ‘heaty’, and to live is to
‘put up’. Accordingly, they use utterances such as ‘Don’t tease my daughter. She is an onion-
skinned girl’, ‘Durian is heaty, so don’t eat too much’, and ‘Where does she put up?’ They use
‘prepone’ in a manner similar to the use of ‘postpone’ and have coined ‘infanticipating’ from
‘infant’ and ‘anticipating’. In Malaysian English, sex difference is added to the word ‘cousin’
and hence ‘cousin brother’ and ‘cousin sister’ are commonly used (Honna, 2002). When they
are nervous, they say, ‘I have a mouse in the chest’. When I asked them to tell me why they don’t
use the idioms used by native speakers, a fellow Filipino linguist replied, ‘If Americans can say,
“I have butterflies in my stomach,” why can’t we say “I have a mouse in the chest?”’ Yes, in the
Philippines, English is theirs to express themselves, their society, and their culture.
In Africa, English is used in ex-British colonies and Liberia of freed US slaves in the sub-
Saharan continent—Ghana, Nigeria, and Liberia in West Africa; Kenya and Tanzania in East
Africa; and Botswana, Namibia, and Zambia in Southern Africa. Kachru and Nelson (2006,
pp. 199–202) report that, under the influence of local languages, articles are often omitted as
in the sentences ‘Let strong...team be organized’ and ‘I am going to cinema’; mass nouns are
used as countable nouns as in the phrases ‘all my furniture’, ‘all his properties’, and ‘noises of
laughter’; redundant pronouns are inserted to echo the subject as in the sentences ‘My daughter
she is a college student’ and ‘Robert he is currently working for the government’; for the question
‘Hasn’t the President left?’ the answer is ‘Yes (he hasn’t left yet)’ and ‘No (he has left)’. There
also occurs semantic extension, for example, ‘some amount’ means money or cash, a ‘benchman’
implies an intimate friend, ‘machine’ implies a sewing machine, ‘minerals’ implies soft drinks
and ‘steer’ implies the steering wheel.
In the Expanding Circle, although speakers are ‘norm-dependent’, Chinese speakers of
English use plenty of ‘face’ collocations because mien zu or face is an important concept for
them. In business negotiations, they commonly use phrases such as ‘You haven’t showed us the
least amount of face’, ‘You are simply losing my face’, and ‘Please stand my face’. The Japanese
tend to use nominalization and passivization, reflecting the Japanese way of thinking, which
gives the impression of hiding the agent. ‘The air pollution with hydrogen sulfide is going’ is
preferred to ‘These factories are polluting the air with hydrogen sulfide’ and ‘It was decided to
32
English as an International Language: Its Past, Present, and Future
close down the factory’ is preferred to ‘We decided to close down the factory’.
In the Arabic world, religious faith is reflected in correspondence. The following is the first
part of an e-mail message created to request for donation.
Assalamualaikum,
In the name of Allah the Beneficent, the Merciful, the Master of the day
of Judgments, I greet you in the Name of Allah, the Beneficent, the Merci-
ful. To whom All the Praise (HQ; 31:26; 17:111) and the most Beautiful
Names (HQ: 7:180; 17:110; 20:8; 59:24) belong.
I am from Saudi Arabia...
If the English language spreads and keeps changing into locally acculturated and
institutionalized varieties, will the language develop into separate languages such as the
American language, the Indian language, and the Nigerian language rather than American
English, Indian English, and Nigerian English? It might, as Latin once did. As variety functions
only intranationally, there will be no need for it to be understood by English speakers outside
the country.
4. Convergence as a Result of Globalization
Today, people, capital, commodity, information, and service move constantly and massively
across national boundaries. The technology of air transportation allows people to travel around
the globe. China’s investment instantly influences the international financial world. Even the
fishes for sushi, the most traditional Japanese food, come from all over the world. The technology
of computer-assisted communication makes it possible for us to have daily contacts on the
global scale. Manufacturers of developed countries maintain factories all over the world. Call
centers of American companies, for example, are set up in India. Also, terrorist attacks such
as those carried out by Al Qaeda, environmental pollution, epidemic diseases—such as AIDS
(acquired immune deficiency syndrome) and avian influenza—and natural disasters—such as
cyclone, hurricane, typhoon, earthquake, and tsunami— are events observed across the world.
In order to react and interact in response to the global occurrences and flow of these things
and phenomena, nations are compelled to organize the international network of cooperation,
which can be called ‘global unionization’. Nations have concluded numerous treaties, agreements,
and pacts. To name a few, we have the time-honoured UN (the United Nations, 1945), OAS
(Organization of American States, 1948), NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization,
1949), OECD (Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, 1961), ASEAN
(Association of Southeast Asian Nations, 1967), ALADI (Association Latinoamericana de
Integracion, 1980), SAARC (South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation, 1985), APEC
(Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Conference, 1989), EU (European Union, 1993, started
as the European Coal and Steel Community of 1952), NAFTA (North American Free Trade
Agreement, 1994), SCO (Shanghai Cooperation Organization, 2001), AU (African Union, 2002,
former OAU, Organization of African Unity of 1963), and many other developing organizations
such as ASEAN plus 3 (2005).
This extensive unionization reflects a world in which no countries can afford to exist alone.
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 Yasukata Yano
Politicians, diplomats, and businesspeople travel worldwide and interact globally using computer-
aided communication, which has a globalizing effect in that such closer and frequent interactions
bring nations together, form relationships of interdependency and closer communication, and
further increase the need to learn a common language. We have several major languages, such as
English, Spanish, French, and Arabic, which serve as a means of international communication.
No one knows what will happen in the future, but at the moment, English has spread far more
extensively than other international languages. The more interdependent nations become,
the more knowledge and competence of a common language is required; the more the
common language is used, the more the varieties of the language converge for international
intelligibility.
Second, globalization has also brought about interdependence among individual people.
Today, no person can live alone. People travel worldwide and communicate globally using
computer-aided communication, such as e-mailing, chatting, blogging, and web browsing, besides
speaking and writing, which have a globalizing effect in that these phenomena bring people
together, form relationships of interdependency and closer communication, and further increase
the need to learn a common language. English is required to be internationally intelligible.
Third, globalization has made our societies per se international. Our societies are rapidly
becoming de-territorialized and hybrid by becoming multi-ethnic and therefore multi-lingual
and multi-cultural, which give rise to multi-linguacultural individuals who identify themselves
with many different cultures and different ways of communication. And English is used as a
cross-ethnic and cross-cultural means of communication.
5. Regional Standard Englishes
With the spread of the language, English becomes localized and codified and develops into
institutionalized varieties, but at the same time, the language is required to remain internationally
intelligible due to the frequency, density, speed, and significance of its use as a global lingua
franca at the time of globalization. At present, therefore, two opposing forces are competing
with each other—one, the diverging force to establish institutionalized varieties for intranational
use, which is accelerated by the use of English on the endonormative standards, and the other,
the converging force to standardize each variety for international intelligibility. How do we
escape from this dilemma? What will happen to English in the future? Will we have one single,
international standard type of English which is higher in terms of prestige and functionality
than the existing British and American standard Englishes? I do not think so. I do not think it
will be desirable, necessary, or feasible to have one variety of English for international use. In the
distant future, I speculate that the geography-bound models such as Kachruvian model of the
three Circles or the Native speaker-Second speaker-Foreign Learner distinction will be replaced
by the individual person-based model of proficiency.
From the necessity, intensity, as well as frequency of interaction in English within respective
wider regions, however, I conjectured in Yano (2001, p. 126) that English would be converged to
six major regional standard Englishes in the near future as a transit state to the individual person-
based model. As shown in Figure 4, they are Anglo-American English (the term represents native
speakers’ English in this paper), Euro-English, Asian English, Latin English, Arab English, and
African English. Why? Because the need and frequency of intra-regional use of English is much
34
English as an International Language: Its Past, Present, and Future
higher than the inter-regional use.
English as an International Language
Anglo-American English
Arab English
Euro-English
Latin English
African English
Asian-English
After Yano (2001, p. 126)
Figure 4. Regional Standard Englishes
Anglo-American English shares a lot among their varieties in terms of linguistic, historical,
and cultural cognateness. Although English spreads from the British Isles across the Atlantic
Ocean to North America and to the Southern Hemisphere, it shares the linguistic stock of
the Anglo-Saxon tradition as well as the Judeo-Christian cultural tradition in its mainstream.
Euro-English is a regional variety most advanced in standardizing as you hear and read in radio
and TV news, and newspapers and magazines, in business interactions, conferences, and on
the streets in Europe. Although Euro-English has a slight accent of European languages and
artificial school English-like tones, it is precise, clear, and highly intelligible for international
ears and eyes. The 1998 survey conducted as part of a Eurobarometer study indicates that 47
percent of the European Union population speaks English, although there are only 16 percent
of native English speakers. However, the percentage must be much higher by now. Euro-English
is the de facto lingua franca in this multi-linguacultural region.
Asian English is in its formative phase due to the intensive and extensive interactions in many
domains within Asia, although Asia is ethnically, linguaculturally, religiously, economically, and
politically extremely diverse. Bolton (2004, p. 388) reports that more than 600 million Asians
use English, and every Asian city has newspapers and radio and TV programmes in English.
More and more Asians are increasingly using English with other Asians, thus making English
an important pan-Asian lingua franca in business, social, and other interactions. For example,
ASEAN member nations use English in their meetings and correspondence. Naturally, ASEAN-
35
 Yasukata Yano
specific expressions are created, such as HOG, the Head of Government, not a pig. Universities
and schools in many countries use English as an instruction medium. Most of the political,
business, and social interactions are handled in English.
In Singapore, the Regional Language Centre (RELC) of SEAMEO (the Southeast Asian
Ministers of Education Organisation) educates and re-educates English language teachers and
ELT professionals in the ASEAN member nations. Most of the teaching staff there are Asian
ELT professionals. In a sense, this is a way of ‘Asianizing’ the English language and its use so
that the language fits the Asian contexts, and also it is a way of standardizing it to be ‘Asian
English’. RELC-trained English teachers are dispatched or they go back to Malaysia, Indonesia,
Thailand, and Vietnam to spread Asian English.
These regional standard Englishes are not a single, codified English in respective regions.
They are a league of varieties within each region and share cross-national intelligibility within
the region while keeping local linguacultural characteristics and identities.
6. The Future of English
The economic, technological, and demographic globalization brings political, cultural, social,
and linguistic changes to our societies on the global scale. It encourages the spread of English.
English learners, especially young learners, are on the increase as many countries have introduced
or are planning to introduce English into the primary school curriculum. Graddol (2006, p. 122)
observes an increasing number of bilingual youngsters, and it is expected that in the foreseeable
future, English will become a basic skill, not a special talent. Then, the presently prevailing
geography-based models of English use, I conjecture, will gradually change to the individual
person-based model of proficiency. There are a number of factors that will lead to this change.
Traditionally, native speakers of English are defined, as in Cook (2003, p. 28), as ‘people who
acquired the language naturally and effortlessly in childhood...in the community which uses the
language.’ However, Crystal (2003a, p. 6) referred to a couple in the Emirates—a German oil
industrialist and a Malaysian who communicate with each other through English learned as
a foreign language and their children learned ‘English as a foreign language’ as their mother
tongue. Crystal observes that such children are rapidly increasing the world over. At the time of
global mobility, there are also increasing numbers of children who have native speaker-parents
but who grow up in the non-English speaking community. Native speakers of English will not
necessarily be those who are born and raised in the English-speaking community. When there
are many children whose parents are non-native speakers or who grow up in the Outer and
Expanding Circles, it may challenge the idea of connecting native English speakers and the
geographical area, the Inner Circle. The idea of native speaker versus non-native speaker itself
also needs to be re-examined. Kachru (2005, p. 213) maintains that ‘the attitudinally-loaded
dichotomy of natives versus non-natives is now pragmatically of doubtful validity’.
Second, demographic changes have taken place in the Inner Circle due to the constant and
massive influx of immigrants, permanent and temporal residents as business people, engineers,
researchers, and students. In the southwestern states in America, such as Arizona, California,
New Mexico, and Texas, Spanish speakers have already outnumbered English speakers and
Hispanification is bringing new linguistic realities. Jenkins (personal communication) observes
that young Londoners of age 25 or under use the invariable tag ‘in it’ as in sentences such as
36
English as an International Language: Its Past, Present, and Future
‘You are happy, in it?’ This might be the result of the influence of immigrants from India,
Pakistan, and Bangladesh, for whom the invariable ‘isn’t it’ is an institutionalized usage. This
demographic change might also challenge the Kachruvian model which connects native speakers
and the Inner Circle.
Third, Kachru (2005, p. 12, p. 25) recognized second-language speakers in the Outer Circle
as ‘functional native speakers’. Truly, my own observation tells that increasing numbers of
second-language speakers have native speaker’s intuition on grammatical correctness and
acceptability as well as generative ability. In Singapore, for example, from Grade 1 onwards,
the medium of instruction for all subjects except the regional language is English, and children
have started using English on the streets and even at home. Schools in many Asian countries use
English as an instruction medium at the primary, secondary, and tertiary levels. When second-
language varieties such as Indian English, Malaysian English, and Singaporean English are
firmly institutionalized, and these ‘functional native speakers’ start to use the language on their
own endonormative standard, they no longer will seek the native speaker norm. Then, will the
geographical demarcation between the Inner Circle and Outer Circle stay significant?
Fourth, in the Expanding Circle, there are people who speak new varieties of English,
which are acquired in adulthood in the Expanding Circle. They are linguaculturally de-Anglo-
Americanized but possess functional clarity and international intelligibility. Euro-English as
a pan-EU lingua franca is one such example, where language functions as a communication
means between and among multi-ethnic, multi-linguacultural, and non-native EU citizens. If
these foreign-language users stop being norm-dependent and turn to ‘norm-developers’ after
second-language speakers, the distinction between the Outer and Expanding Circles may be
questioned. More than 20 years ago, Kachru himself (1985) remarked as follows:
The outer and expanding circles cannot be viewed as clearly demarcated from each other;
they have several shared characteristics, and the status of English in the language policies
of such countries changes from time to time. What is an ESL region at one time may
become an EFL region at another time or vice versa. (Kachru, 1985, pp. 13–14)
If English teaching becomes a basic part of primary school curriculum on the global scale,
and English becomes a basic skill for everyone, then a time will come when it will no longer
matter whether or not you have naturally acquired English in a community where the language
is used as a mother tongue. What will matter is how proficient you have become, not where
you have learnt the language from. This follows that the communal or geographical factor
fades away and the educational factor looms up. Then, the status of an English speaker will
possibly be judged based on not whether he or she is a native speaker, but by his or her level of
cross-cultural communicative competence as an English-knowing bi- or multi-linguacultural
individual. In the future, therefore, the geography-based models might be reconsidered if and
when native speaker’s norm-providing role, second-language speaker’s norm-developing trend,
and foreign-language user’s norm-dependent nature no longer hold.
7. English as an International Language (EIL)
The Kachruvian and other geography-based models rightly depict the spread of English in terms
37
 Yasukata Yano
of history and the present state. To delineate a transitional model from the geography-based
ones to the future individual person-based one, I would like to propose the three-dimensional
cylindrical model shown in Figure 5.
Figure 5. Future Model of English Use After Yano (2006, p. 43)
The upward arrow in the center shows the proficiency level. To begin with, foreign language
users in the Expanding Circle must reach the proficiency level of adult native speakers in the
Inner Circle, who have acquired the language naturally through socialization in English-speaking
communities. So must second language speakers in the Outer Circle, but being ‘functional native
speakers’ they have much less—or for some, no—gap of the proficiency level with native speakers.
Beyond that level, it is up to the individual speakers. Native speakers as well as non-native
speakers need to learn the pragmatic strategies of communication across cultures. Therefore,
the targeted proficiency level of EGP (English for General Purposes) is set a bit above that of an
adult native speaker’s proficiency level.
To acquire the ESP (English for Specific Purposes) proficiency, English speakers in three
circles must equally make an effort to gain professional and linguistic knowledge in respective
disciplines, which have much less to do with being a native speaker. You can be engaged in
international business dealings wherever you learnt business English and the ABC of
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English as an International Language: Its Past, Present, and Future
international business—Brazil, Russia, China, and Malaysia. But native speakers without such
knowledge and training cannot.
Intra-Regional Standard English (intra-RSE) is placed below EIL. It is because intra-RSE
represents communication within wider regions such as Europe and Asia, where Regional
Standard Englishes serve as a pan-European and pan-Asian means of communication within
respective regions.
At the top is EIL, which is the ultimate level of proficiency for cross-regional or international
communication. It is ‘a loose league of regional standard Englishes’. They are varieties of
English with multi-ethnic, multi-lingual, and multi-cultural local identities and yet with high
international intelligibility. Consequently, they are more pluricentric and therefore more
accommodating than the presently dominant Anglo-American native-speaker norm.
8. The Characteristics of English as an International Language
Finally, let me mention what EIL should be or desired to be as a language. In my view, EIL
should have four characteristic orientations: Generalization, Regularization, Commonality, and
Pluricentricity.
Generalization discourages the use of unnecessary, difficult, and complex expressions
or professional jargons and encourages the use of plain and non-technical expressions to
promote high learnability and usability for wider communication. Simplified and universally
intelligible expressions can save billions of dollars by reducing difficulties and lawsuits as a
result of misinterpretation of government documents, insurance policies, dosage instruction
of medicine, and so forth. Crystal (2003b, p. 174) maintains that ‘a lie is a lie, which can be
only temporarily hidden by calling it an “inoperative statement” or “an instance of plausible
deniability”’. Similarly, a nuclear plant explosion cannot be suppressed for long behind phrases
such as ‘energetic dissassembly [sic]’, ‘abnormal evolution’, or ‘plant transient’.
Regularization discourages the use of linguistic irregular forms and tries to regularize them
to heighten learnability and usability of the language. The utmost difficulty and injustice for
learners is the discrepancy in pronunciation and spelling. Why do we have to pronounce the
spelling ‘w-o-r-c-e-s-t-e-r’ [wústr], not [w:sestr]? While the pronunciation changed from
something like [rouf] to [ru:], why do we stick to the old spelling ‘t-h-r-o-u-g-h’? Spelling is
supposed to reflect the pronunciation of the word. The ‘t-h-r-u’ spelling of the highway sign of
THRU TRAFFIC is much more reasonable. In terms of the pronunciation-spelling agreement,
the American English spelling of ‘center’ with er-ending and ‘program’ with a single ‘m’ ending
is preferred to the British spelling of ‘-re’ and ‘-mme’ from the perspective of regularity. On the
other hand, the British pronunciation of ‘twenty’ and ‘international’ with [t] is preferred to that of
American where [t] of [nt] is dropped as in [twéni] and [inrnǽnl]. The British pronunciation
of ‘water’ with a clear [t] is also preferred to the American way where [t] is changed to a flap []
as [wa], but the postvocalic r in ‘car’ and ‘park’ is better pronounced in the American way if
we want to keep the pronunciation-spelling agreement for the benefit of learners and users.
Morphologically, the irregular plural suffix of countable nouns of Greek/Latin origin is
better replaced by the regular plural ‘s’ suffix. In some of the examples below, new regularized
plural forms are already in practice, as we hear and read.
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 Yasukata Yano English as an International Language: Its Past, Present, and Future

Table 1. He finally gets to the garage, eh, and the car’s gone. (Canada)
Singular Plural (conventional) Plural (new) He took his car, did he no? (Scotland)
continuum continua continuums We never be out, do we? (Ireland)
corpus corpora corpuses ( ‘How do people in Bangor spell Mississippi?’)
formula formulae formulas M, ay? double s, ay? double s, ay? double p, ay? (Wales)
spectrum spectra spectrums
syllabus syllabi syllabuses
symposium symposia symposiums When the use of invariant tags spreads enough to capture commonality, the use will be
recognized, institutionalized, and ultimately codified in dictionaries and grammar books as the
Syntactically, the use of two-word verbals, idiomatic, metaphoric, and proverbial expressions standard usage of supranational, supra-regional variety. Other candidates which are in practice
is not encouraged. in many parts of the English-speaking nations are the pluralizing of uncountable nouns such
Commonality discourages the use of English-specific forms while keeping those that are as advices, furnitures, luggages, and properties, and the absence of the third person singular
found in many other languages. For example, the labio-dental fricatives [] and [] seem to be present ending. Non-native English speakers are increasing much more rapidly in the Outer and
peculiar to the English language; Seidlhofer (2004, pp. 216–217) argues that th-sounds need Expanding Circles than native speakers in the Inner Circle. Furthermore, the world’s economic
not be included in their phonological Lingua Franca Core, the basic sounds to learn. Although center is expected to shift from the US, EU, and Japan to China, India, and other Asian nations
these sounds are regarded difficult but important and taught in countless classrooms, she has in the latter half of the century. Their varieties of English will have more power and will be an
statistically proved that communication is not blocked even though th-sounds are replaced by [s, important part of EIL.
z] or [t, d] among European speakers of English, using her data collected from a wide range of The ‘written language’ plays a crucial role to establish EIL in that it standardizes vocabulary,
contexts of several years. word meaning, spelling, as well as grammar. Through the written language, we can modify its
The varied tags of tag questions in English also seem to be English-specific and the complexity linguistic features to more generalized, regularized, and commonalized ones toward a desirable
causes difficulty in learning. In standard English, tags take the opposite of the positive or EIL. The pronunciation-spelling agreement is vital for English to grow in order to be a world
negative form of the verbal in the main clause and agree with it in tense, number, and person. language.
However, tags are moving toward simplified, invariant forms found in many languages such as And pluricentricity encourages us to change our perspective of English from the language
n’est-ce pas in French, nicht wahr in German, no in Spanish, and ne in Japanese. Crystal (2003b, of native speakers in their intranational use to the language of speakers, native or not, in the
p. 299) gives some examples as follows: international settings. This means to de-Anglo-Americanize and internationalize the English
language and release the language and its use from the restriction of the Judeo-Christian
You didn’t see him, is it? (Zambia) tradition and make it more accommodating for wider communication. For example, we can
You are coming to the meeting, isn’t it? (South Asia) expand our greetings from ‘How are you?’ to ‘Dressed up! Where are you going?’ and ‘Have you
They do a lot of work, isn’t it? (Wales) eaten yet?’
She’s gone to town, is it? (South Africa) EIL will be socio-culturally more hybrid, more accommodating, and more comprehensive
You check out now, is it? (Singapore) in that it is a composite of elements drawn from other languages and cultures as it develops.
You don’t mind, is it? (Malaysia) English is no longer the sole property of native speakers. The language belongs to all those who
He has arrived, isn’t it? (Papua New Guinea) learn and use it; for non-native speakers, it is not only access to the wider world but also an added
You are tired, isn’t it? (West Africa) means of expressions of themselves, their identities, their cultures, and their societies. When
It’s my dad, innit. (England) the native-non-native dichotomy is replaced by an individual’s proficiency, English language
education will become extremely important.
He also reports the following use of not so, which is similar to nicht wahr in German and no The 19th century was a century of military power and the 20th century, of economic power.
under the influence of Spanish: Now, the 21st century is a century of knowledge. We never emphasize too much the importance
of education, never.
He will come tomorrow, not so? (West Africa)
Your children are still schooling, not so? (South Asia)
They’re outside, not so? (Papua New Guinea) References
Those men were still singing, no? (SW USA, Pueblo) Bolton, K. (2004). World Englishes. In A. Davies and C. Elder (Eds.), The handbook of Applied
Linguistics. Oxford: Blackwell.
In the Inner Circle, eh, ay, and other more invariant forms are used instead of tags: Carter, R. (2003). Orders of reality: CONCODE, communication, and culture. In B. Seidlhofer

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(Ed.), Controversies in Applied Linguistics (90–104). Oxford: Oxford University Press.

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