Book contents
- English and Spanish
- English and Spanish
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Figures
- Tables
- Contributors
- 1 Introduction: English and Spanish in Contact – World Languages in Interaction
- 2 The Emergence of Global Languages
- 3 Some (Unintended) Consequences of Colonization
- 4 Dialect Contact and the Emergence of New Varieties of English
- 5 The Emergence of Latin American Spanish
- 6 Creole Distinctiveness?
- 7 Contact Scenarios and Varieties of Spanish beyond Europe
- 8 Pluricentricity and Codification in World English
- 9 Spanish Today
- 10 Uncovering the Big Picture
- 11 Morphosyntactic Variation in Spanish
- 12 English and Spanish in Contact in North America
- 13 ‘The Spanish of the Internet’: Is That a Thing?
- 14 Alternating or Mixing Languages?
- 15 The Persistence of Dialectal Differences in U.S. Spanish
- 16 Identity Construction
- Index
- References
2 - The Emergence of Global Languages
Why English?
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 17 September 2021
Book contents
- English and Spanish
- English and Spanish
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Figures
- Tables
- Contributors
- 1 Introduction: English and Spanish in Contact – World Languages in Interaction
- 2 The Emergence of Global Languages
- 3 Some (Unintended) Consequences of Colonization
- 4 Dialect Contact and the Emergence of New Varieties of English
- 5 The Emergence of Latin American Spanish
- 6 Creole Distinctiveness?
- 7 Contact Scenarios and Varieties of Spanish beyond Europe
- 8 Pluricentricity and Codification in World English
- 9 Spanish Today
- 10 Uncovering the Big Picture
- 11 Morphosyntactic Variation in Spanish
- 12 English and Spanish in Contact in North America
- 13 ‘The Spanish of the Internet’: Is That a Thing?
- 14 Alternating or Mixing Languages?
- 15 The Persistence of Dialectal Differences in U.S. Spanish
- 16 Identity Construction
- Index
- References
Summary
This chapter documents the globally leading status of English and investigates reasons for this. It is argued that the layperson explanation that English is 'easy' to learn fails as an explanation and that 'classic' reasons brought forward by Crystal (2009), English having been available 'at the right time and the right place' as the language of British colonialism, industrialization and American dominance, is valid but insufficient. It is supplemented by wider perspectives on the process of colonization, the role of English in modernization and globalization, the importance of its ethnic neutrality in some countries, and its massive spread as 'New Englishes' especially in Asia and Africa. Historians' accounts are screened for a comparison of the developments of English versus Spanish in colonization, and it is shown that, while both nations successfully built empires around the globe, only the British replenished their colonies with large settler streams and thus produced copies of the homeland society in foreign lands and established permanent ties with them. Finally, the recent past has experienced an unparalleled 'transnational attraction' of English which has boosted its role.
Keywords
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- English and SpanishWorld Languages in Interaction, pp. 10 - 30Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2021
References
Ammon, Ulrich. 2015. Die Stellung der deutschen Sprache in der Welt. Berlin, Boston: De Gruyter.Google Scholar
Belich, James. 2009. Replenishing the Earth: The Settler Revolution and the Rise of the Anglo-world, 1783–1939. Oxford, New York: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bolton, Kingsley. 2013. “World Englishes and international call centres.” World Englishes 32(4): 495–502.Google Scholar
Bolton, Kingsley, and Graddol, David. 2012. “English in China today.” English Today 111(28): 3–9.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bunce, Pauline, Phillipson, Robert, Rapatahana, Vaughan, and Tapas, Ruanni F., eds. 2016. Why English? Confronting the Hydra. Bristol: Multilingual Matters.Google Scholar
Buschfeld, Sarah, and Kautzsch, Alexander. 2014. “English in Namibia: A first approach.” English World-Wide 35(2): 121–160.Google Scholar
Buschfeld, Sarah, and Kautzsch, Alexander. 2017. “Towards an integrated approach to postcolonial and non-postcolonial Englishes.” World Englishes 36(1): 104–126.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Buschfeld, Sarah, Kautzsch, Alexander, and Schneider, Edgar W.. 2018. “From colonial dynamism to current transnationalism: A unified view on postcolonial and non-postcolonial Englishes.” In Sandra, Deshors, ed., Modeling World Englishes: Assessing the Interplay of Emancipation and Globalization of ESL Varieties. Amsterdam, Philadelphia: Benjamins, 15–44.Google Scholar
Buschfeld, Sarah, and Schneider, Edgar W.. 2017. “World Englishes: Postcolonial Englishes and beyond.” In Ee Ling, Low and Anne, Pakir, eds. 2017. World Englishes: Re-thinking Paradigms. London: Routledge, 29–46.Google Scholar
Crystal, David. 2008. “Two thousand million? Updates on the statistics of English.” English Today 93(24): 3–6.Google Scholar
Crystal, David. 2009. English as a Global Language. 2nd ed. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Deuber, Dagmar. 2005. Nigerian Pidgin in Lagos: Language Contact, Variation and Change in an African Urban Setting. London: Battlebridge.Google Scholar
Edwards, Alison. 2016. English in the Netherlands: Functions, Forms and Attitudes. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.Google Scholar
Factshunt 2017. www.factshunt.com/2014/01/world-wide-internet-usage-facts-and.html; 22 March 2017.Google Scholar
Hundt, Marianne. 2013. “The diversification of English: Old, new and emerging epicentres.” In Schreier, Daniel and Hundt, Marianne, eds. 2013. English as a Contact Language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 182–203.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Internetworldstats 2019. www.internetworldstats.com/stats7.htm; accessed 21 August 2019Google Scholar
Kachru, Braj B. 1985. “Standards, codification and sociolinguistic realism: The English language in the outer circle.” In Quirk, Randolph and Widdowson, Henry G., eds. English in the World: Teaching and Learning the Language and Literatures. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press and The British Council, 11–30.Google Scholar
Kirkpatrick, Andy. 2010. English as a Lingua Franca in ASEAN: A Multilingual Model. Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press.Google Scholar
Leitner, Gerhard. 2009. Weltsprache Englisch: Vom angelsächsischen Dialekt zur globalen Lingua Franca. Munich: Beck.Google Scholar
Mair, Christian. 2013. “The world system of Englishes: Accounting for the transnational importance of mobile and mediated vernaculars.” English World-Wide 34(3): 253–278.Google Scholar
McArthur, Tom. 1998. The English Languages. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McWhorter, John. 2000. The Missing Spanish Creoles: Recovering the Birth of Plantation Contact Languages. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Mesthrie, Rajend, and Bhatt, Rakesh. 2008. World Englishes. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Mufwene, Salikoko S. 2001. The Ecology of Language Evolution. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Muysken, Pieter. 1997. “Media lengua.” In Thomason, Sarah G., ed. Contact Languages: A Wider Perspective. Amsterdam: Benjamins, 365–426.Google Scholar
Pennycook, Alastair. 2007. Global Englishes and Transcultural Flows. London, New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Schneider, Edgar W. 2003. “The dynamics of New Englishes: From identity construction to dialect birth.” Language 79: 233–281.Google Scholar
Schneider, Edgar W. 2007. Postcolonial English: Varieties around the World. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Schneider, Edgar W. 2011. English around the World: An Introduction. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Schneider, Edgar W. 2013. “Leisure-activity ESP as a special kind of ELF: The example of scuba diving English.” English Today 115(29): 47–57.Google Scholar
Schneider, Edgar W. 2014. “New reflections on the evolutionary dynamics of world Englishes.” World Englishes 33: 9–32.Google Scholar
Schneider, Edgar W. 2016a. “Hybrid Englishes: An exploratory survey”. World Englishes 35: 339–354. DOI: 10.1111/weng.12204Google Scholar
Schneider, Edgar W. 2016b. “Grassroots Englishes in tourism interactions.” English Today 32(3): 2–10. DOI: 10.1017/S0266078416000183Google Scholar
Seidlhofer, Barbara. 2011. Understanding English as a Lingua Franca. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Thomason, Sarah Grey, and Kaufman, Terrence. 1988. Language Contact, Creolization and Genetic Linguistics. Berkeley, Los Angeles: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Velupillai, Viveka. 2015. Pidgins, Creoles and Mixed Languages: An Introduction. Amsterdam: Benjamins.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wei, Rining, and Su., Jinzhi 2012. “The statistics of English in China.” English Today 28(3): 10–14.Google Scholar
Wikipedia 2017. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_territorial_entities_where_English_is_an_official_ language; 22 March 2017.Google Scholar