Unit 1 Speaking English

FACT FILE

•  English has about 380 million native speakers, but altogether more than one billion people speak English.

•  English is the most widely used language on the internet, closely followed by Chinese.

•  The English language (ca. 700,000 words) has more words than German (ca. 175,000 words) or French (ca. 100,000).

•  The English language grows by about 25,000 new words a year – a world record.

1  English today

WhatdoyouthinkistheroleofEnglishtoday?Dothequizandfindout.

1. How many people in the world speak English? a sixth (1⁄6) of the world population a third (1⁄3) of the world population three quarters (3⁄4) of the world population

2. Which language has more speakers than English? Mandarin (a form of Chinese) Hindi (a language from India) Spanish

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3. Which language is the top language on the internet? Mandarin English German

4. Which of these languages has the most words (at the moment about 700,000)? French English German

5. How many words do you need for everyday communication? about 500–800 about 1,200–2,000 about 2,500–3,000

6. Where do most English words come from? Latin and Romance languages (Latin, French,

Italian, Spanish, Portuguese) Germanic languages (German, Dutch, Danish,

Norwegian, Swedish) Asian and African languages

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English as a world language

1  Reading: Not the only show in town

a)Readthetextbelow,thendecidewhetherthestatements(1–7)aretrue(T)orfalse(F).Putainthecorrectboxandjustify1youranswerbyquotingthefirstfourwordsofthesentenceinwhichyoufoundtheinformation.Thefirstone(0)hasbeendoneforyou.

English is everywhere nowadays. When Queen

Elizabeth I died in 1603, the English-speaking

world had a population of just eight million. In

the 1960s there were about 250 million speakers

of English. This has risen to over one billion,

including those who speak it as a second or

foreign language. But why has it spread so far

and wide?

The driving force behind the success of

English is that people move around much more

than they used to. More people than ever leave

their home countries to live and work in other

parts of the world. Migrant workers, refugees,

asylum seekers, people travelling on business,

international students, peacekeeping troops,

aid workers, people visiting friends and family

members, and of course tourists. And more and

more of them speak English – even though on a

rather basic level.

It is very interesting that many non-native

speakers use English to communicate. An

international study on travel has shown that

nearly three quarters of visits were by visitors

travelling between non-native speaking

countries. That shows that English is a lingua

franca, a global language which is spoken and

understood almost everywhere. In addition,

Hollywood, jazz and rock ’n’ roll helped to make

English the world language of pop culture – a

status the language still has today. The leading

American role in science and technology has

also given the world the PC, the internet and

e-mail, all of which have taken English to

every corner of the world. Now whole fields of

business (e.g. IT and marketing) are dominated

by English terms.

The influence of English on other languages

is quite strong. Some experts even say that

English is responsible for “language death”, for

killing off other languages. Five hundred years

ago there were about 15,000 languages – now

there are fewer than 7,000. However, it is not only

the rise of English that has led to this situation.

The numbers of small languages have gone

down mainly because the top twelve languages

(like Chinese and Spanish) that are spoken by

50% of the world population have taken over.

English isn’t the only show in town.

Mandarin, Hindi, Spanish and Russian are

becoming more and more important. Portuguese

is catching up fast, too. This is because a large

number of people use these languages as their

second language. If you look at second language

users, English is second after Mandarin.

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10

15

20

25

30

35

40

45

50

1 to justify: begründen

China India

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Statements T F Justification

0 At the beginning of the 17 th century England had a population of less than ten million. x

When Queen Elizabeth I

Q1 English has spread so quickly because people today travel more than in the past.

Q2 Non-natives often use English.

Q3 75 per cent of international visits are by people who speak English as their first language.

Q4 Popular music and US movies have helped English to become a lingua franca.

Q5 The rise of English is the only reason for smaller languages to disappear.

Q6 More than 50 per cent of the world population speak Spanish and Chinese.

Q7 More people speak Mandarin as a second language than English.

b)Gothroughthetextagainandfindalternativesforthefollowingphrases.

today

approximately

has gone up

according to a recent study

that explains why

moreover

quite considerable

have decreased/fallen

increasingly

2  Speaking about languages

Inpairs,lookatthediagramsandthentalkaboutlanguagesandtheirimportance.Usethephrasesfromthetaskabove.

Tourism and speaker interaction Estimated ranking of languages

WORD BANK

Talking about diagrams

The graph shows … . • pie chart • bar chart • percentage • per cent • to amount to • to estimate • estimated • with regard to • as far as … is concerned • ranking • to rank (fourth)

Tourism and speaker interaction Estimated ranking of languagesDisappearing languages

2000

4000

6000

8000

10000

12000

14000

16000

22002100200019001800170016001500

Num

ber o

f la

ngua

ges

in w

orld

0 200 400 600 800 1000 1200Japanese 126

French 128

German 128

Portuguese 191

Bengali 211

Russian 277

Spanish 417

Hindi 487

English 508

Mandarin 1,0521.

2.

3.

4.

5.

6.

7.

8.

9.

10.

when second-language use is taken into account. (Based on Ostler, 2005)

(Data derivedfrom World Tourism Organisation)

Year

English to English 4 %

English to other countries

12 %

Other countries

to English 10 %

Non-English speaking to non-English speaking 74 %

Tourism and speaker interaction Estimated ranking of languagesDisappearing languages

2000

4000

6000

8000

10000

12000

14000

16000

22002100200019001800170016001500

Num

ber o

f la

ngua

ges

in w

orld

0 200 400 600 800 1000 1200Japanese 126

French 128

German 128

Portuguese 191

Bengali 211

Russian 277

Spanish 417

Hindi 487

English 508

Mandarin 1,0521.

2.

3.

4.

5.

6.

7.

8.

9.

10.

when second-language use is taken into account. (Based on Ostler, 2005)

(Data derivedfrom World Tourism Organisation)

Year

English to English 4 %

English to other countries

12 %

Other countries

to English 10 %

Non-English speaking to non-English speaking 74 %

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