Ângelo Anselmo Morrumbe

Arão Ricardo Manguele

Clédson Gabriel Langa
Daurisio de Crevan Martres
Lucas Alberto Nhamirre
Nélia Nelson Nhoela
Rogério Dioclésio Munguambe

WHAT IS A GLOBAL LANGUAGE?

Licenciatura em Inglês

Universidade Save
Extensão Maxixe
2023
 Ângelo Anselmo Morrumbe
Arão Ricardo Manguele
Clédson Gabriel Langa
Daurisio de Crevan Martres
Lucas Alberto Nhamirre
Nélia Nelson Nhoela
Rogério Dioclésio Munguambe

WHAT IS A GLOBAL LANGUAGE?

Assignment designed to the

subject of History of English
with purpose of evaluation.

Lecturer: Dr. Carlos João

Rafael

Universidade Save
Extensão Maxixe
2023
Índice
Introduction.................................................................................................................................3
What is a global language?.........................................................................................................4
What makes a global language?..................................................................................................4
Why do we need a global language?...........................................................................................5
What are the dangers of a global language?...............................................................................6
Could anything stop a global language?.....................................................................................7
A critical era................................................................................................................................8
Conclusion..................................................................................................................................9
Bibliography references............................................................................................................10
 3

Introduction

We are now experiencing a globalization era. Globalization is a relatively new phenomenon

of multi-dimensional nature that puts variety of complex trends in the economic, social and
cultural fabrics of all societies. So, in this assignment we will be talking about a global
language, where we will define and explain how a language can archive this status globally,
how a global language plays a role on the death of other languages is presented to make us
aware of preserving our own language, while making use of that global language.

We will see that there are some advantages of the global language being the world language,
such as easier and faster communication between people from different countries or cheaper
ways of communicating. However, there are many more disadvantages. Some of them are
losing cultural heritage that comes with language, so, in this assignment we’ll be clarifying
this situation in details.
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What is a global language?

A language achieves a genuinely global status when it develops a special role that is
recognized in every country.

To achieve such a status, a language has to be taken up by other countries around the world.
They must decide to give it a special place within their communities, even though they may
have few (or no) mother-tongue speakers.

There are two main ways in which this can be done. Firstly, a language can be made the
official language of a country, to be used as a medium of communication in such domains as
government, the law courts, the media, and the educational system. To get on in these
societies, it is essential to master the official language as early in life as possible.

Secondly, a language can be made a priority in a country’s foreign-language teaching, even

though this language has no official status. It becomes the language which children are most
likely to be taught when they arrive in school, and the one most available to adults who – for
whatever reason – never learned it, or learned it badly, in their early educational years.

Russian, for example, held privileged status for many years among the countries of the former
Soviet Union. Mandarin Chinese continues to play an important role in South-east Asia.
English is now the language most widely taught as a foreign language – in over 100 countries,
such as China, Russia, Germany, Spain, Egypt and Brazil – and in most of these countries it is
emerging as the chief foreign language to be encountered in schools, often displacing another
language in the process.

What makes a global language?

A language does not become a global language because of its intrinsic structural properties, or
because of the size of its vocabulary, or because it has been a vehicle of a great literature in
the past or because it was once associated with a great culture or religion. These are all factors
which can motivate someone to learn a language, of course, but none of them alone, or in
combination, can ensure a language’s world spread. Indeed, such factors cannot even
guarantee survival as a living language.

A language has traditionally become an international language for one chief reason: the power
of its people – especially their political and military power. But international language
dominance is not solely the result of military might. It may take a militarily powerful nation to
establish a language, but it takes an economically powerful one to maintain and expand it.
 5

English is spoken by people throughout the world as their first language, second language and
foreign language. Indeed, English is now a world language.

English as a world language is not merely an international language. The notion of

international language can be understood as a language which is used in any international
communication which involves people from two or more countries. Japanese is an
international language, but it is not a global language. Japanese is often used by people who
communicate with Japanese people, usually in the area in which Japanese people, tradition,
political power and/or business are dominant. Japanese, however, is not used in a great
number of other contexts.

This is different from the fact of English as a global language. English is not only used when
people communicate with English speakers. English is used by people of different first
languages. It is not only applied when people speak to English people, but also used when
people from different nations meet. English is the most widely spoken language in very
different contexts in the world. Therefore, English is not only an international language, but
also a global language.

Why do we need a global language?

A global language allows for communication between different cultures. Language has
always been the focal point of cultural identity. A global language dismantles communication
barriers and offers individuals a gateway to understanding one another’s cultures.

Translation has played a central (though often unrecognized) role in human interaction for
thousands of years. When monarchs or ambassadors met on the international stage, there
would invariably be interpreters present. But there are limits to what can be done in this way.
The more a community is linguistically mixed, the less it can rely on individuals to ensure
communication between different groups. In communities where only two or three languages
are in contact, bilingualism (or trilingualism) is a possible solution, for most young children
can acquire more than one language with unselfconscious ease. But in communities where
there are many languages in contact, as in much of Africa and South-east Asia, such a natural
solution does not readily apply. The problem has traditionally been solved by finding a
language to act as a lingua franca, or ‘common language’.

The prospect that a lingua franca might be needed for the whole world is something which has
emerged strongly only in the twentieth century, and since the 1950s in particular. The
 6

pressure to adopt a single lingua franca, to facilitate communication in such contexts, is

considerable, the alternative being expensive and impracticable multi-way translation
facilities.

The need for a global language is particularly appreciated by the international academic and
business communities, and it is here that the adoption of a single lingua franca is most in
evidence, both in lecture-rooms and board-rooms, as well as in thousands of individual
contacts being made daily all over the globe.

What are the dangers of a global language?

The benefits which would flow from the existence of a global language are considerable; but
several commentators have pointed to possible risks. Perhaps a global language will cultivate
an elite monolingual linguistic class, more complacent and dismissive in their attitudes
towards other languages.

With the increasing spread of English language, there came the death of many minor
languages alongside. Crystal (2000) explains that a language dies when nobody speaks it
anymore, for languages have no existence without people. Furthermore, if the language has
never been written down, or recorded on tape, people who speak it are the only “carriers” of
that language. The moment the last speaker of an unwritten or unrecorded language dies, the
archive disappears forever. When that happens to a language which has never been recorded
in some way, it is as if it has never existed.

Fennell (2001) explains that people mostly regard English as a language of economic
opportunity, though this is not a universal feeling, since some consider English a tool for the
destruction of linguistic and cultural diversity. A number of commentators have seen the
spread of English not as an unqualified benefit, but rather as an opportunity reserved only for
the selected few and a means to construct patterns of inequality both within countries and
between the “west” and the “rest”.

Crystal (2003) also contemplates the possible negative repercussions of a single language
becoming the global language. Perhaps a global language will cultivate an elite monolingual
linguistic class, which will be more complacent and dismissive in their attitudes towards other
languages. Such linguistic elites, whose mother tongue is the global language, would most
likely be able to think and work more quickly in that language, and to manipulate it to their
 7

advantage at the expense of those who do not speak it that well, thus creating and maintaining
the traditional inequalities between rich and poor, based on language.

Pattanayak (1981) has suggested that in India the use of English affords improved educational
opportunities for only a very small minority. On the whole it accentuates the rift between the
urban and the rural, the developed and the developing and the masses and the elite. He argues
that since the English is almost exclusive language of science and technology, this actually
prevents ordinary people from having access to and interacting with it. Because it prevents
many languages sharing communication, it promotes ‘alienation, anomie, and blind spots in
cultural perception’.

Could anything stop a global language?

Strong political statements of this kind immediately prompt the question, “Could anything
stop a language, once it achieves a global status?” The short answer must be “yes”. If
language dominance is a matter of political and especially economic influence, then a
revolution in the balance of global power could have consequences for the choice of global
language.

There is no shortage of books which foresee a future in which, following some cataclysmic
scenario, the universal language is Chinese, Arabic or even some Alien tongue. But to end up
with such a scenario, the revolution would indeed have to be cataclysmic, and it is difficult to
speculate sensibly about what this might be. Smaller-scale revolutions in the world order
would be unlikely to have much effect, given that English is now so widely established that it
can no longer be thought of as ‘owned’ by any single nation. A rather more plausible scenario
is that an alternative method of communication could emerge which would eliminate the need
for a global language.

If progress in this domain continues to be as rapid as it has been in the past decade, there is a
distinct possibility that, within a generation or two, it will be routine for people to
communicate with each other directly, using their first languages, with a computer ‘taking the
strain’ between them.

The accuracy and speed of real-time automatic translation is undoubtedly going to improve
dramatically in the next twenty five to fifty years, but it is going to take much longer before
this medium becomes so globally widespread and so economically accessible to all, that is
poses a threat to the current availability and appeal of a global language. And during this time
 8

frame, all the evidence suggests that the position of English as a global language is going to
become stronger. By the time automatic translation matures as a popular communicative
medium, that position will very likely have become impregnable. It will be very interesting to
see what happens then – whether the presence of a global language will eliminate the demand
for world translation services, or whether the economics of automatic translation will so
undercut the cost of global language learning that the latter will become otiose. It will be an
interesting battle 100 years from now.

A critical era

It is impossible to make confident predictions about the emergence of a global language.

There are no precedents for this kind of linguistic growth, other than on a much smaller scale.
And the speed with which a global language scenario has arisen is truly remarkable. Within
little more than a generation, we have moved from a situation where a world language was a
theoretical possibility to one where it is an evident reality.

Fundamental decisions about priorities have to be made. Those making the decisions need to
bear in mind that we may well be approaching a critical moment in human linguistic history.
It is possible that a global language will emerge only once. Certainly, as we have seen, after
such a language comes to be established it would take a revolution of world-shattering
proportions to replace it. And in due course, the last quarter of the twentieth century will be
seen as a critical time in the emergence of this global language.

In certain parts of the world (most of the states of the former Soviet Union, for example),
English has still a very limited presence. And in some countries, increased resources are being
devoted to maintaining the role of other languages (such as the use of French in several
countries of Africa). Notwithstanding the general world trend, there are many linguistic
confrontations still to be resolved.

Governments who wish to play their part in influencing the world’s linguistic future should
therefore ponder carefully, as they make political decisions and allocate resources for
language planning.

Now, more than at any time in linguistic history, they need to adopt long-term views, and to
plan ahead – whether their interests are to promote English or to develop the use of other
languages in their community (or, of course, both). If they miss this linguistic boat, there may
be no other.
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Conclusion

During the assignment we concluded that a global language is a language that is spoken and
understood by a large number of people across the world, regardless of their cultural and
linguistic backgrounds. When people of different backgrounds meet, they need to
communicate using a particular language as a lingua franca. English is now a world lingua
franca. Nowadays, English is used by people in almost every part of the world.

It is also commonly used in international communication, business, trade, and diplomacy. The
concept of a global language has been debated for centuries, with some arguing that there
should be one dominant language to facilitate communication and understanding between
people of different countries, while others emphasize the importance of preserving linguistic
diversity and promoting multilingualism. Some of the most commonly spoken global
languages include English, Spanish, Mandarin Chinese, French, Arabic, and Russian.

We also concluded that there are several factors that contribute to the emergence of a
language as a global language, including historical, economic, political, and cultural reasons.
The emergence of a global language can be traced back to colonialism and the expansion of
empires, where the dominant language of the colonizers was imposed on the colonized
people. Economic factors also play a role, as countries with strong economies and global
influence tend to use their language as a means of communication and exchange.
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Bibliography references

AMMON, U. (2007). Global scientific communication (pp. 123-133). Amsterdam: John

Benjamins Publishing Company

CRYSTAL, D. (2000). Language Death. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press

FENNEL, B., A. (2001). A History of English. A Socioliguistic Approach (pp. 267-269).

Oxford: Blackwell Publishing

HOWSON, P. (2013). The English Effect. British Council