As a global communication expands throughout the world, so does the need for a global language

ENGLISH – GLOBAL LANGUAGE?
-STUDENTS’ VIEW-

mr.sc. Moira Kostić-Bobanović

University of Rijeka
Faculty of Economics and Tourism
“Dr. Mijo Mirković”, Preradovićeva 1,
52100 Pula
E-mail: [e-mail]


Abstract


In this article we will discuss the students' opinion about English as a global language. The research was carried out among the students who have been attending the 3^rd and the 4^th year of our Faculty. The results are very interesting and useful. The students expressed their opinion about two main points: what makes one language a global language and is English going to be a global English.
1. INTRODUCTION

As global communication expands throughout the world, so does the need for a global language; a language that is recognized and understood by people everywhere.

In many parts of the world that language has been established, English.
In most countries around the globe the English language can be found in some form or another, whether it be an international news broadcast such as CNN, or a Chicago Bulls tee shirt. What centuries of British colonialism and decades of Esperanto couldn't do, a few years of free trade, MTV, and the Internet has. English dominates international business, politics, and culture more than any other language in human history. For this world to be truly global, there must be some commonality or ease of communication. If trade and tourism around the world are going to operate and a global economy function and a global culture flourish, a widely shared, reasonably accessible language is requisite.(1)

But what is a global language?

According to David Crystal, a well-known professor at the University of Wales a language achieves a genuinely global status when it develops a special role that is recognized in every country. This might seem like stating the obvious, but it is not, for the notion of “special role” has many facets. Such a role will be most evident in countries where large numbers of the people speak the language as the mother tongue. But no language has ever been spoken by a mother-tongue majority in more than a few countries so mother-tongue use by itself cannot give a language global status. To achieve such a status, a language has to be taken up by other countries around the world. They must decide to give it a special place within their communities.
There are two main ways in which this can be done.
Firstly, a language can be made the official language of the country, to be used as a medium of communication in such domains as government, the law courts, the media, and the educational system. Secondly, a language can be made a priority in a country’s foreign-language teaching, even thought this language has no official status.
English has inarguably achieved some sort of global status. Whenever we turn on the news to find out what's happening in East Asia, or Africa, or South America, or practically anyplace, local people are being interviewed and telling us about it in English. In April 2000. the journalist Ted Anthony, in one of two articles about global English that he wrote for the Associated Press, observed that when Pope John Paul II arrived in the Middle East to retrace Christ’s footsteps and addressed Christians, Muslim and Jews, the pontiff spoke not Latin, not Arabic, not Hebrew, not his native Polish. He spoke in English.
Indeed, one may found a list of facts about the amazing reach of English language that may have begun to sound awfully familiar. English is the working language of the Asian trade group ASEAN. It is the de facto working language of the 98% of German research physicists and 83%of German research chemists. It is the official language of the European Central Bank, even though the bank is in Frankfurt and neither Britain nor any other predominantly English-spoken country is a member of the European Monetary Union. It is the language in which black parents in South Africa overwhelmingly whish their children to be educated. ()