English as an international language

Kachru…

…“Knowing English is like possessing the fabled Aladdin’s lamp, which permits one to open, as it were, the linguistic gates to international business, technology, science and travel. In short, E provides lingustic power.”

Check your understanding

• What is necessary for a language to be an international language?
• Who does an international language belong to?
• When does a language achieve a global status and how is it achieved?
• The categorisation of the countries where E is spoken is…(Kachru)?
• What is the role of E in those countires?
• What are the features of an international language?
• What is the educational goal of learning it?
• What is EIL in a local and global sense?
• What is a language spread by migration?
• What is a microacquisition?
• What is a language shift?
• What is urban migration?
• What are historical and current reasons for the spread of English?
• What are the negative effects?
• What are the concerns raised in relation to the negative economic repercussions of the spread of English (Tollefson) – explain!?