The Last Lingua Franca

The Last Lingua Franca PDF Author: Nicholas Ostler
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
ISBN: 0802717713
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 353

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Book Description
Examines the rise and fall of English as the most widely spoken language in human history and discusses what language will overtake its dominance as English-speaking nations are challenged by the rising wealth of Brazil, Russia, India and China.

The Last Lingua Franca

The Last Lingua Franca PDF Author: Nicholas Ostler
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
ISBN: 0802717713
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 353

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Book Description
Examines the rise and fall of English as the most widely spoken language in human history and discusses what language will overtake its dominance as English-speaking nations are challenged by the rising wealth of Brazil, Russia, India and China.

The Last Lingua Franca

The Last Lingua Franca PDF Author: Nicholas Ostler
Publisher: Penguin UK
ISBN: 1846142164
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 352

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Book Description
The author of "Ad Infinitum: A Biography of Latin" presents an erudite and provocative examination of the rise and coming fall of English as the world's language. Illustrations. Maps.

The Last Lingua Franca

The Last Lingua Franca PDF Author: Nicholas Ostler
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
ISBN: 0802778704
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 353

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Book Description
English is the world's lingua franca-the most widely spoken language in human history. And yet, as historian and linguist Nicholas Ostler persuasively argues, English will not only be displaced as the world's language in the not-distant future, it will be the last lingua franca, not replaced by another. Empire, commerce, and religion have been the primary raisons d'etre for lingua francas--Greek, Latin, Arabic have all held the position--and Ostler explores each through the lens of civilizations spanning the globe and history, from China and India to Russia and Europe. Three trends emerge that suggest the ultimate decline of English and other lingua francas. Movements throughout the world towards equality in society will downgrade the status of elites--and since elites are the prime users of non-native English, the language will gradually retreat to its native-speaking territories. The rising wealth of Brazil, Russia, India, and China will challenge the dominance of native-English-speaking nations--thereby shrinking the international preference for English. Simultaneously, new technologies will allow instant translation among major languages, enhacing the status of mother tongues and lessening the necessity for any future lingua franca. Ostler predicts a soft landing for English: It will still be widely spoken, if no longer worldwide, sustained by America's continued power on the world stage. But its decline will be both symbolic and significant, evidence of grand shifts in the cultural effects of empire. The Last Lingua Franca is both an insightful examination of the trajectory of our own mother tongue and a fascinating lens through which to view the sweep of history.

English as a Lingua Franca

English as a Lingua Franca PDF Author: Anna Mauranen
Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing
ISBN: 1443815810
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 385

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Book Description
English as a lingua franca has become a hot topic in Applied Linguistics and English Studies. While it has been a subject of controversy for some time, linguistic observations on actual use have largely been missing out of the debate. This is now changing fast, and the study of English as a lingua franca has become a vibrant research field. This book reflects achievements in the growing field; it presents a good selection of empirical findings, thus providing substance to arguments. It comprises contributions from pioneers and established scholars in the field, along with reports from substantial ongoing research projects. The papers offer insights into the workings of English as a lingua franca in different contexts—conversational, academic, professional, and business situations. They tackle essential theoretical issues, analyse linguistic and interactional features of ELF, and discuss attitudes towards ELF. The studies are firmly anchored in analyses of authentic language in social interaction, some also using survey and interview data. Many papers also touch upon debates on language policy and linguistic ideologies. This collection of papers from the key areas of current ELF research will be of interest to English linguists and applied linguists, graduate and undergraduate students of English, educational and language planners, and teachers of English.

Emergent Lingua Francas and World Orders

Emergent Lingua Francas and World Orders PDF Author: Phyllis Ghim-Lian Chew
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1135235562
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 276

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Book Description
This book presents an alternative paradigm in understanding and appreciating World Englishes (WEs) in the wake of globalization and its accompanying shifting priorities in many dimensions of modern life, including the emergence of the English language as the dominant lingua franca (ELF). Chew argues that history is a theatre for the realization of lingua francas, offering a model that shows the present as derived from the past and as a bearer of future possibility, the understanding of which is rooted in the understanding of World Englishes and ELF. The book will engage with some of the current theoretical debates in WEs and includes, as a means of fleshing out the model, sociolinguistic case studies of Arabia, China Fujian, and Singapore.

The Lingua Franca

The Lingua Franca PDF Author: Natalie Operstein
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1316518310
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 425

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Book Description
By de-anonymizing the key text on Mediterranean Lingua Franca, the book opens unexpected new areas for linguistic and historical research.

Lingua Franca English

Lingua Franca English PDF Author: Yvonne Dröschel
Publisher: Peter Lang Pub Incorporated
ISBN: 9783034304320
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 358

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Book Description
Questions of how to access and analyze the use of English as a global language are central to the study of the continuing spread of English as a vehicle of cross-cultural communication. The present book explores the relationship between the functions and forms of English as a Lingua Franca, and introduces the concept of Lingua Franca English to deal with the systematic differences between national native varieties of English and the non-native varieties which have developed relatively recently. The investigation of the sociolinguistic and linguistic processes involved in the development of Lingua Franca English focuses on Switzerland, and is carried out by means of a detailed comparative linguistic analysis of a large amount of data obtained from written and spoken English produced by Swiss speakers. The result is a detailed and critical description of current issues affecting the study of English as an international language, and a thorough investigation of the ongoing processes resulting from the interaction of Swiss people with different language backgrounds in shaping the nature of the English spoken in Switzerland. By examining the characteristics of English as it is used in Switzerland, light is shed on the diachronic problem of the focusing mechanisms involved in the growth of non-native varieties of English and processes of second language acquisition generally.

Lingua Franca

Lingua Franca PDF Author: William Thacker
Publisher: Legend Press Ltd
ISBN: 1785079751
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 190

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Book Description
A marketer learns the limitations of language in this “hilarious” and thought-provoking satire (Flux Magazine). Miles Platting is pulled from the ruins of a shipwreck into a hospital in which no one will speak to him. The founder of Lingua Franca—a naming rights agency committed to renaming every UK town after a corporate sponsor—Miles is desperate to recount the story of his quest for linguistic supremacy to anyone who’ll listen. Confined to his bed in a deathly quiet ward, Miles seeks to find his colleagues and reunite with his true love. But in doing so, he must confront his most deeply held convictions and consider the question of what’s in a name in a world where the spoken word has been replaced with silence.

English as a Lingua Franca: Attitude and Identity

English as a Lingua Franca: Attitude and Identity PDF Author: Jennifer Jenkins
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN:
Category : Foreign Language Study
Languages : en
Pages : 300

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Book Description
Based on research conducted among teachers, this text examines the role of standard language ideology in ELF attitude formation, critiques current SLA theories and ELT practices, highlights links between ELF accent attitudes and ELF identities, and includes proposals for making ELT pedagogy and testing more relevant.

Interactions Across Englishes

Interactions Across Englishes PDF Author: Christiane Meierkord
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 0521192285
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 265

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Book Description
The global spread of English has resulted in contact with an enormous variety of different languages worldwide, leading to the creation of many new varieties of English. This book takes an original look at what happens when speakers of these different varieties interact with one another.