ENGLISH AS A WORLD LANGUAGE 英语是一门世界语言.doc

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1、ENGLISHASAWORLDLANGUAGEThe English language spreadasBritainexpandeditscolonialempirefromthe1600sonandestablishedlegal,military,andeducationalsystemsinmanycountriesalongEnglishlines.BritishexpansionendedafterWorldWarII(1939-1945),whenmanyofitscoloniessoughtindependence.SinceWorldWa

2、rIIAmericanEnglishhasdominatedasaworldlanguage,largelybecauseofU.S.economicandpoliticalinfluenceandtheadvanceoftechnology,especiallycomputingandtheInternet.Attheturnofthe21stcentury,Englishprevailedasthemostwidelyusedlanguageinternationally.At the same time as Englishbecameaworldl

3、anguage,thenumberofEnglishspeakerslearningasecondlanguagedroppedsubstantially.Evenmoredisturbingly,Englishwasblamedforthe“death”ofsomeminoritylanguages,suchasGaelicandvariousAustralianaboriginallanguages(seeAboriginalAustralians).Variousmeasuresareneededtoprotectthesesmallerlangua

4、gesfromdisappearing.The English language seemssettodominateworldcommunicationsforsometimetocome.Althoughdominancebringswithitadegreeofstandardization,itisnotthecasethatEnglishislosingitsvariety,eitherwithincountriesoracrosstheglobe.Currentresearchsuggeststhat,ratherthandwindling,d

5、ifferencesinvocabulary,grammar,andpronunciationcontinuetoallowpeopletoexpressmultipleidentities.ThefearofsomelinguiststhatmasscommunicationswouldleadtothedeathofEnglishdialectsappearstobeunfounded.