The Future of Englishes (Prof.

Crystal)
Heineken refreshes the parts other beers do not reach.

24-2-2011 13:44:00

Most succesful slogan of Heineken, lasted more than 20 years. Lots of poster campaigns, involving situational company. (pouring Heineken into a lawn mower, John Sylver renewed after drinking Heineken.) Lingustic play, new slogan: Heineken refreshes the pirates other beers do not reach. They found a lot of other words that can replace the word parts: parrots, poets (referring to Wordsworth daffodil poem) A group of Japanese students saw the poster and started discussing. (what does it mean?) They could understand the spelling, grammar, pronunciation, yet they couldnt understand it: because they didnt have the cultural background to understand it. It is the cultural background that is causing the biggest comprehension problem. An American native speaker would have just as much difficulty. It is a matter of being aware of the cultural background. To understand the future, we need to learn about the present and the past. How many English speakers are there? How many people speak English in the native speaking countries? (highest estimate: 450 million) Historically, there are people in Papoea New -Guinea, who speak a new language based on English. Are they included in English speakers? How many speak English as a second language, where it has a special, official of semi-official status. (India, Sri Lanka, Nigeria, Ghana, Singapore,) THE PROBLEM OF FLUENCY. How fluent have they become? How much of the language do you have to learn to be considered a speaker of that language, where do you draw the line?

India is the critical country in answering the question. About a third can engage in basic conversation. Not to mention the foreign learners, who learn it in secondary school or even earlier, we havent the foggiest idea? The best guess from the British council, there are a billion people learning English around the world from beginners to advanced. Here, the critical country is China. Estimated, around 200 million, some said, by the time of the Olympics, that number would double and they probably did, but it is still uncertain, because there are no statistics. Add all figures together: somewhere between 1500 and 2000 million people. The notion that everybody speaks English around the world, as in some newspapers claimed, is rubbish. Especially in the countryside, the level is really low. 400 million <-> 2000 million. For every native speaker, there are five foreign speakers. The centre of gravity has shifted. We OWN English now and native speakers are in the minority. Even the distinction between native and non-native is questioned: A German who speaks German as mother tongue and English marries a Malaysian women who speak Malay and English. The lingua franca here is English and that is the language the baby will hear the most. But their English is not with a normal phonology, the linguistic background is different, so does this become the standard? 400 years ago, English was of no use as a global language, even within the shores of the UK (Welsh, Gaelic, Cornish,) Why non-lingustics answer why English is the global language: - It is the most beautiful language. - It hasnt got any grammar. This global language business is less than 50 years old. It is very recent, especially in the 90s. in the last 50 years, the number of nations willing to talk to eachother has quadrupled. (UN)

Why is English the tongue in those countries, say Nigeria? There are more than 400 other languages, you cant satisfy everyone. They decided to stay with English, cause everyone hates it equally. (language of the oppressors.) If we adopt it, lets adapt it: Nigerian English. Example: South African English. Change of meanings of words, newly adopted words from original languages. Ex.: robot ahead: traffic light ahead. These are the majority speakers in the world these days. These are the people who are introducing new English to express culture in that language. The future of Englishes is going to be flooded with cultural differences at our doorstep. You will talk to people when travelling the world, who will assume you understand what they say, when you dont. The internet is also very important in this evolution.

2/24/2011 1:44:00 PM

2/24/2011 1:44:00 PM