The English language: a personal point of view

Résumé du document

The English language is the first language of about 350 million people and probably as many people can speak and understand English as a second language. English also has an official or special status in more than 75 countries. About 80% of the world's electronically stored information is stored in English and about two scientists out of three read and publish their work in English. The most commonly discussed reason for the central position of the English language is the economic and political pre-eminence of English speaking-countries. In my opinion though, there are several others reasons for the phenomenon. The English language has various advantages that make the principal language used in international communication.

Extraits

[...] More generally, the English language is linguistically complicated. As we said before, English borrows lot of words from others languages so it exists more than one version of English. British English and American English are the most used but Canadian English, Australian English and New Zealand English are important varieties as well. In consequence, English vocabulary is very complicated, which makes the English language learning difficult. This is the inconvenient of the international aspect of English. Indeed, English has a rich repertory of idioms and it contains several words that have the same basic meaning but different connotations. [...]

[...] If we take in consideration that the language barrier is a source of several ethnic conflicts in the entire world, we must do what we can to promote a common way of communication. So, why do not use the English language? It is already speaking generally by many people, all through the world and over several continents, and it is the universal language on internet whereas it has no official status. That represents the strength and the great influence of this language because it is commonly admit without any law or rule. It imposed to the world itself. [...]

[...] To conclude, even if there are problems that I cannot ignore about the English language, my personal point of view is that it contains more advantages than disadvantages. I think that we must have a common language and the drawbacks raised by English are the same for all the others languages. So, why do not choose English as our international communication language? Anyway, the position of English can only be altered by a major political and economic change such as the increasing importance of Asiatic countries like China and Japan. [...]

[...] Another mater raise by English supremacy opponents is the standardization that the use of one language would automatically bring, according to them. From their point of view, the learning of English by the majority of people would cause the disappearance of people differences and of their own cultures. In fact, nowadays, everybody must be bilingual to work and even in its daily life. Because of that, the others languages are less learn as a second language than before by the other countries. Native languages are more and more often talked and known only by the inhabitants of the country. [...]

[...] Indeed, the English language has various advantages that make it use as the principal language in international communication. From my personal point of view, English is a great language. It is a purely subjective opinion but I find this language nice and simple to learn. Comparing to the French language, English is really easier grammatically. It only includes one past tense for instance, that is why English-speaking students have much more difficulties to learn the French language than their French fellows do to learn English. [...]