According to the author, are these sentences true (T) or false (F)?

C

D But the language is, in another way, at a critical moment in its global career; within a decade or so, the number of people who speak English as a second language will exceed the number of native speakers. The implications of this are likely to be far-reaching. The centre of authority regarding the language will shift from native speakers; their literature and television may no longer provide the focal point of a global English language culture, their teachers no longer form the unchallenged authoritative models for students. E It seems, then, that the future for English may well be a complex and plural one. The language will grow in usage and variety, yet simultaneously diminish in global importance. It may cease to be the most important language, sharing that role instead with other languages such as Spanish and Chinese. In short, the future of English will be more complex, more demanding of understanding and more challenging for the position of native-speaking countries than has hitherto been supposed.

^‘’The Future of English' by David Graddoi

As the world is in transition, so the English language is itself taking new forms. In many parts of the world, as English is taken into the fabric of social life, it develops a momentum and vitality of Its own, diverging increasingly from the kind of English spoken in Britain or North America, English is also used for more purposes than ever before. Everywhere it is at the leading edge of technological and scientific development, new thinking in economics and management, new literature and entertainment genres. These give rise to new vocabularies, grammatical forms, and ways of speaking and writing. Nowhere is the effect of this expansion of English into new domains seen more clearly than in communication on the internet and the development of 'net English^’.

THE FUTURE OF ENGLISH (TASKS)

I. Give Russian equivalents for the corresponding English word combinations and phrases:

1. There seems little likelihood...

2. The future may well not be straightforward.

3. It can be expected to be an uncomfortable and at times traumatic experience for many people.

4. as English is taken into the fabric of social life...

5. The implications of this are likely to be far-reaching.

II. Match the definitions with the words defined:

L	to diminish	A. to go beyond, to be greater than
2,	to take stock of smth.	B. to become less
3.	to be eroded	C. to come to an end, to stop
4.	dominance	D. to grow old
5.	to age	E. being most important, influential
6.	to give rise to	F. field of thought, knowledge, activity
7.	domain	G. to review
8.	to exceed	H. to lead to, to give birth to J. to get farther apart from each other as they progress
9.	to cease

III, Decide whether the author considers the statements true or false (prove it by the text):

1. English will be less important in the future than it is now.

2. The USA will continue to be the most important economic power.

3. The Internet is developing its own variety of English.

4. Most users of English will speak American English.

5. In a few years, there will be more people speaking English as a second language than those speaking English as a first language.

IV. Match each paragraph of the text with one of the headings (put down some key-phrases to discuss the paragraph):

1. New varieties of English

2. The future of English

3. English in the world today

4. Ownership of the English language

5. A period of transition

V. Dwell on the statements of Task III. Try to combine the opinion of the author with that of your own.

No Getting Around It: English Is Global Tongue

by the Marques de Tamaron

Most of us feel that our own language is an essential part of our national identity, yet at the same time we realize that we need a world language, a sort of lingua franca. Over the centuries, Greek, Latin, Spanish, French, Malay, Swahili and other languages have been used as international instruments for trade, diplomacy or religion. Many of them are still used in that capacity.

But three new elements have complicated the situation. The first is the rise of English to the position of world language. This makes life easier for many people, but it irritates others. Many speakers of less widespread languages feel threatened by English. It is like sleeping next to an elephant; regardless of its intentions, the size of the animal makes it dangerous.

Speakers of minority languages quite rightly fear the disappearance of their cultural identity. According to Michael Krauss of the Alaska Native Language Center, nine out of ten of the 6,000 languages in the world will die out within the next

century. This is the second new element in the linguistic situation. The third, more dangerous, novelty is the modern reluctance to accept multilingualism. Why shouldn't a Corsican use Corsican in some cases and French in others? Indeed, why should a Frenchman feel dishonored using English to sell Camembert to a Japanese? Nowadays, linguistic rivalry is the third most common cause of conflict, after race and religion, and is often mixed with the other two. It need not be so.

Everyone is right in trying to preserve his or her vernacular tongue. But this should not exclude other languages. Speakers of minor languages will also have to learn a major language to profit from the expanding world economy.

international Herald Tribune

2 Which of these alternative titles would be suitable for the article? Give reasons for your choice.

a Keep your own language - but learn another

bThe spread of English; it's time to fight back

C WHY DON'T THE FRENCH LEARN JAPANESE?

New Vocabulary

getting around avoiding (a problem, the truth etc.). “No getting around it” «we can’t avoid the fact

identity the unique character of a person/country

lingua franca one language used by various different nationalities to speak to each other

irritates annoys, makes … angry

widespread used in many places/countries

regardless of without considering, it doesn’t matter what…

minority a small number of people (antonym – “majority”)

reluctance not wanting (to do something)

multilingualism use of two or more languages

dishonored ashamed (AmE spelling)

rivalry competition (to be the most important)

vernacular tongue local language (not the official national language)

expanding growing, increasing

According to the author, are these sentences true (T) or false (F)?

A Most people are happy to give up their own language and to learn

a world language.

B Latin used to be a lingua franca.

C Everybody is pleased about the rise of English.

D English people are like elephants.

E If your language dies out, you lose an important part of your culture.

F Multiligualism is a dangerous thing.

G Learning languages can help you to make money.

WHY ENLISH IS DOUBLE DUTCH

372 million people around the world use English to communicate. It is second only to Mandarin Chinese as the most widely used language. Though learning English is undoubtedly beneficial, it can be far from straightforward.

An exception to the rule

You don’t have to have been studying English very long to know that when your teacher tells you a rule, there is bound to be an exception. After a few years of learning English, many students get a ‘feel’ for what is wrong and right, but some rules, especially related to spelling, confuse even native speakers. For example: ‘I’ always comes before ‘e’, unless the sound doesn’t rhyme with ‘ee’, or the word happens to be ‘weird’, ‘seize’, ‘protein’, ‘counterfeit’ or ‘weir’, and the names Sheila and Keith.

There is only one reliable rule in English: to every rule, there is an exception.

How do you say that?

When it comes to spelling and pronunciation, what you see is rarely what you get in the English language. It has a fondness for silent letters, such as a ‘k’ at the beginning of a word, a ‘b’ at the end and a ‘g’ and a ‘h’, which often appear somewhere in the middle. Vowel sounds are also difficult to predict, as in the following rhyming words: main, vein, lane, feign.

There is an additional problem that learners of English complain about – some words sound the same and therefore confusing. (e.g. chicken/ kitchen; angry/ hungry)

Multiple confusion over multi-word verbs

If you ask an average English person what a multi-word verb is, the chances are that he/she won’t know, but that doesn’t change the fact that the language is littered with them. Sometimes multi-word verbs are logical: Put out the rubbish; Get on your bike; You can see my house if you look down the hill.

But more often than not, there is no logic at all to multi-word verbs, and the same verb often has more than one meaning:

e.g. I don’t mind what we have for lunch, so don’t put yourself out; I don’t get on with my sister; Rich people sometimes look down on the poor.

Same word, different meanings

It’s rare that an English word means only one thing – the meaning of a word often depends on the context. This can be very confusing, especially if the meanings of the words are similar, as an Italian au pair working for an English family discovered. On her first afternoon in the job, the children asked her for some tea, so she made them each a drink and continued with the family ironing. A few minutes later, she was surprised to hear the children asking for tea again. But knowing the English were a nation of tea-lovers, she thought nothing of it, and made them another cup. However, they were still not satisfied and the au pair became increasingly distressed as the children continued to demand tea. Several cups later, they explained that they were hungry and they wanted a meal – often called ‘tea’ in the UK.

Atlantic divide

If you learned to speak English in the USA, or your teacher is American, your use of the English language will be slightly different from British speakers. American English tends to change prepositions or leave them out completely, and many words have different spellings and meanings on either side of the Atlantic. For example, in the US, the item of clothing called ’trousers’ by Brits is ‘pants’ in the US, while the British use ‘pants’ to refer to underwear. So steer clear of cringe-worthy comments to your British friends, such as “My pants are so dirty today!”

False friends

English words often resemble words with the same meanings in other languages but sometimes the meanings are wildly different, leading to disastrous consequences. The answer of many Spanish students to the greeting: ”Hi, how are you?” took one English teacher by surprise. “I’m constipated”, they would say, without a shred of embarrassment. Eventually the teacher realized that her students weren’t as open and unabashed as they seemed – the Spanish word ‘constipado’, had confused them into thinking it would also mean ‘a winter cold’ in English as it does in Spanish. Other howlers include mixing up the idiom, ‘Can I twist your arm?’, meaning to persuade someone to do something with the phrase ‘break your ankle’, leading to the gruesome request, “Are you sure you wouldn’t like another drink? Can I break your ankle?”

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