Tiêu đề A2 - WHO SPEAKS ENGLISH TODAY ✅

A2. WHO SPEAKS ENGLISH TODAY? I. THREE DISTINCT GROUPS OF USERS The spread of English around the world is often discussed in terms of three distinct groups of users: 1. A NATIVE LANGUAGE (ENL) ● The USA, the UK, Canada, New Zealand, Australia (5 so-called Native Countries). ● English a mother tongue: the language of those born and raised in countries where English is historically the first language to be spoken. ● Kachru (1992a: 356) refers to these countries (mainly the UK, USA, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand) as "the traditional cultural and linguistic bases of English". ● Their English speakers are thought to number around 360 million (2018). 2. A SECOND LANGUAGE (ESL) ● Language spoken in a large number of territories such as India, Bangladesh, Nigeria, and Singapore, which were once colonized by the English. ● These speakers are also thought to number around 360 million, although higher if English-based pidgins and creoles are included. 3. A FOREIGN LANGUAGE (EFL) ● The English of those whose countries were never colonized by the British, and for whom English serves little or no purpose within their own borders. ● Historically, they typically learned the language in order to use it with its native speakers in the US and UK, though this is no longer necessarily the case. ● The current number of EFL speakers is dif icult to assess, and much depends on the level of competence that is used to define such a speaker. The categorisation also ignores a fourth group of users, namely those who speak English as: 4. A LINGUA FRANCA (ELF) ● Speakers of English as a Lingua Franca, who use English for intercultural communication, are now the world's largest English-using group. ● A language used for communication between groups of people who speak different languages.
5. SIX PROVISOS BY MCARTHUR ● There are already a number of dif iculties with the traditional three-way categorisation ➔ McArthur (1998: 43-46): six provisos [pra vaizou] 1. ENL is not a single variety of English, but dif ers markedly among territories and regions (inter- and intra-regions). What is accepted as standards also vary among territories. 2. Pidgins and creoles do not fit neatly into any one of the three categories. P/C: spoken in ENL, settings, e.g. in Nicaragua, Panama, and Surinam in the Americas 3. Large groups of ENL speakers living in certain ESL territories, e.g. India and Hong Kong as a result of colonialism. 4. Large group of ENL speakers living in certain ENL settings, particularly the US and, to a lesser extent, the UK as a result of immigration. 5. Much of the world is bi- or multilingual, and that English is often spoken within a framework of code-mixing and code-switching. 6. The basic division is between native speakers and non-native speakers of English, that is, those born to the language and those who learned it through education. The first group has always been considered superior to the second regardless of the quality of the language its members speak. ● 3 MORE REASONS: 1. In a number of so-called ESL countries such as Singapore and Nigeria, some English speakers learn the language either as their L1 or as one of two or more equivalent languages within their bi- or multilingual repertoires
2. There are so-called EFL/ELF countries such as The Netherlands and Scandinavian countries where English is increasingly being used for intranational (i.e. country internal) purposes 3. The focus on Users of English and the linguistic features that identify them as members of specific nation states, whether ENL, ESL, or EFL, has resulted in a neglect of the Uses of English. II. MODELS AND DESCRIPTIONS OF THE SPREAD OF ENGLISH 1. TIMELINES 2. Streven’s World Map of English
3. McArthur’s Circle of World English