Has English reached its peak of influence?

Guest   Fri Oct 10, 2008 12:33 am GMT
With the relative decline of the US in its overall strength in the world, will the status of English be affected? Or, has English reached its peak of influence, as other languages like Spanish and Chinese are gaining importance?
More original name   Fri Oct 10, 2008 12:53 am GMT
Probably. Of course, it's not just the US thats sprialing down into oblivion, but all of western civilization. I expect Spanish to decline, too.
Skippy   Fri Oct 10, 2008 1:54 am GMT
I doubt it. English is the most studied second language in the world and parents continue to encourage their children to learn it. English speakers can go almost anywhere without speaking any other language and get around just fine.
Guest   Fri Oct 10, 2008 5:27 am GMT
-Has English reached its peak of influence?-

Has Hollywood reached its peak of influence?
Jasper   Fri Oct 10, 2008 5:54 am GMT
[I doubt it. English is the most studied second language in the world and parents continue to encourage their children to learn it. English speakers can go almost anywhere without speaking any other language and get around just fine.]

I agree. (Hey Skippy, why do I agree with you on absolutely everything except politics? It's a curious dichotomy.)

Spanish will never be a lingua franca because it's the language of the workers. Linguas francas (is that spelt right) usually follow economic trends; the chance of economic domination by Spanish-speaking countries is remote at best.

Chinese might or might not have a better shot, though; its only drawback is its extreme difficulty.
Damian in Edinburgh   Fri Oct 10, 2008 7:50 am GMT
Apparently Chinese is not anything like as difficult as you would imagine at first glance. Once you get to grips with their form of alphabet and the characters then it's quite simple - so we are told by a nice lady at the London School of Languages or Language Centre or whatever is the correct title of that esteemed establishment.

It's pretty certain that Chinese will assume massive global importance once China assumes the position of No 1 as economic World Superpower in the not too distant future. Let's hope they do something about their dreich human rights record before that happens.

The Great Wall of China is visible from way out in Space, as we all know....I think that is very symbolic.

PS: Nice to see that request notice under the name box - I wonder how many of our prolific "Guests" will choose to ignore it? Hey ho.......
Guest   Fri Oct 10, 2008 9:59 am GMT
Most probably yes
Iain   Fri Oct 10, 2008 11:57 am GMT
The Great Wall of China is not visible from space: it's an attractive myth, although this may add symbolic weight.
Whether the English language willl grow and consolidate can only be down to speculation. Twenty years ago probably most people living and growing up in the former Soviet Bloc would never have imagined that the Russian language would so soon not only no longer be taught as a second language but would actually be rejected by people who saw it as being forced upon them. How many people using or learning English now might (soon) associate it with an outdated and hostile social, cultural and economic model? On the other hand English may now have reached a degree of 'internationalness' that doesn't link it too literally with the countries that initiated its spread.
Time will tell.
Guest   Fri Oct 10, 2008 1:06 pm GMT
The strenght of Russian was based on the military power of the evilish Sovietic Union but English is so widespread because people need it to study, to do business, etc. They choose English freely and hence if English declines it will decline slowly, not suddenly like Russian. Said this, English has not even started to decline, so I can't see the time when English will cease of being the world lingua franca. There are still hundreds of millions of people in the third world that don't speak English and will learn it as long as their countries develop and build economic ties with English speaking countries and other countries that already use English widely like North Europe, etc.
Xie   Fri Oct 10, 2008 2:03 pm GMT
Our British gentleman seems to be very interested in the Chinese culture.

"Peak" is difficult to say. What really is it?

I also think the mere need of getting around with English only is a big scam. Anglophones' life isn't that easy with English only, and my life isn't easier, either. Still, most of us struggle with English - it can be that the number of students keeps on booming, but this still won't improve fluency to a large degree, to a degree that, as you may imagine, people treat English as their second nature. Quite on the contrary, I think English on the international scale has its own limitations. Simply because people see the point of using it in international communication doesn't mean they have to be that fluent in it.

By getting around we actually only mean utterly low level of proficiency - this, I think, may in fact be what dumbing-down theorists are basing their grounds on. To a large degree, yes, like Hong Kong with future graduates like me, my level of English is really enough for a lot of business... but more sophisticated ideas just won't translate with getting-around English.

Even if you want to business with, say, the future Chinese who would be, as you may predict, speaking very good English anyway, and it seems that not even Chinese is necessary at large - perhaps essential only for technical personnel, like lawyers, translators...

still, ideas won't translate. You can't really understand the secrets behind all those Chinese customers without trying to know what they really do in their life. Even in business terms, that kind of cultural proficiency is quite important.

I don't have that much time on books. But I think you can't know guanxi at all without understanding it in a monolingual context. Of coz, you don't need to learn a language to be a great CEO in MNCs - that would be what budding students need.
Damian in Edinburgh   Fri Oct 10, 2008 3:01 pm GMT
***Our British gentleman seems to be very interested in the Chinese culture***

Maybe you refer to me there and if so - how novel it is for me to be addressed as a gentleman. Not many guys in my profession are regarded in that manner - but anyway I can't contradict you when you suppose that I'm very interested in the Chinese culture - I am - aren't most Occidentals? At the same time I adore their takeaways.

Peak, as in the title thread, means the greatest point of power or influence which something can attain or achieve - like the very top of a curve to put it in a simple illustration. It can also mean the very top of a mountain, or a sharp point at the front end of some instrument or weapon. Media traffic reports also refer to "peak hours" - meaning those times of the day (usually mornings and evenings) when road traffic flows and density are at their highest volume....also called "rush hours".

Please explain your difficulty with saying a word like "peak"...if you can. Forgive my ignorance here but does the "p" sound exist in Chinese? It must do because there is a place called Pingxiag on the map of China. Is it the "k" sound that's the problem?


As for the Great Wall of China not being visible from space - you are quite correct - it's just another urban myth according to a website. A nice one though. I will have to have words with my school geography teacher if I ever see her again.
Xie   Sat Oct 11, 2008 1:49 am GMT
A local sociolinguistic study (by HKU, to be exact) does show that, at least in Hong Kong, contrary to some popular beliefs before 1997, English didn't decline at all. The "average" English level actually improved through the years, and the trend is like that much less people claim to be bilinguals (Cantonese, English), and more to be trilinguals (Cant, Eng, Man). Far less people claim to be bilinguals (Cant, another Chinese dialect/language as you name it).

Compared to the 80s and 90s, in 2003 (as it shows; I can't find the exact essay now), there are more people who claim to know English. Indeed, despite my personal rant, while many of us often still think our English is too bad.... while not being (culturally) "native", it should be quite .... eh... vaguely obvious that our English is actually quite good on the whole, even if some of us might think Germans and their northern neighbors beat us. In a region with largely NO exposure to English, then it's really a great place to see a lot of young people (up to their 20s) who speak at least some decent English.

In this non-Anglophone corner of the world, I don't see its decline. Naturally, to remain a center of education in this region, I can foresee that English will enjoy the prestigious status it has had. In the political scene, yes, Anglophones and anyone affiliated with the past administration are now either non-existent or have changed side (like the current chief executive...), and virtually all major policies and in other official contexts only the local language is used.

I'd say it's in fact more like a bilingual society than before. On a global scale, having been introduced to the internet also helped a lot of folks here "learn" English somehow. This may be pretty much a lot other folks elsewhere have been doing...there's just virtually NO chance that I can't use English. How can I say it's past its peak then?
Xie   Sat Oct 11, 2008 2:03 am GMT
I can give you a good example. For some complicated cultural reasons, we often rant about how authorities and employers tend to belittle ordinary people, fresh university graduates, and average young employees in general, in order to .... play down their significance and keep their salaries low, by saying that, for example, their English is too bad for working purposes.

You may ask: what exactly is belittle? That has to do with the chronic economic recession here, and many many other social conflicts about employment, and the value of (university) educational qualifications in general. Naturally, people often complain about salaries... that should be pretty universal.

Just how bad is it? Again, I can't find the exact article (and translate it), but some months earlier some newspapers described the IELTS results for Hong Kong students (the majority being would-be university graduates). It's said that (I think you can check this by consulting IELTS)... well, the average marks of candidates in selected countries that offer IELTS are as follows:

1 Germany
2 Russia
3 Hong Kong
4 & 5 Philippines and Malaysia

And then some guys of some educational organizations (about consultation, sort of) and of some HR organizations are complaining that Hong Kong students (in general, since they are the majority of candidates here) SUCK in English. How? Because the Germans and Russians on average have higher marks than these Chinese in Hong Kong. Their idea is that, even though Hong Kong had been a British colony and still has English as official and English is essential for it as an "international" city, it's unacceptable to see our mark behind Germany (which speaks a Germanic language) and Russia, in both of which English isn't official.

But they, too, didn't see that the two other countries above also have English as official, and, as COUNTRIES, both of them are lagging behind in terms of economic development.

Of course, this is my interpretation (and I hate their belittling people like us). But really, I think this is hardly justified. This ranking is, as you can GUESS, excluding Anglophone countries where Anglophones took the IELTS. That is to say, excluding those, Hong Kong is ranked third, and I don't think that's a SHAME (as they put it) for us. After all, we aren't native.

As I see it, their idea is also that Hong Kong should have been ranked first, ahead of Germany (quite a few of us believe Germans are good at English) and Russia (ditto). Even when this isn't true (being JUST third, oh, what a pity for Hong Kong... third...), though, isn't it quite a bit of linguistic achievement?
Xie   Sat Oct 11, 2008 2:12 am GMT
On the list, I also saw that... actually, Denmark and ?Sweden/Norway? (not sure) are even behind Malaysia... don't you guys say that the people there speak very good English, almost accentless English?

IELTS results is just one very ...eh...pseudo-objective indicator of international competence in English. You all know that a test doesn't reflect everything of language proficiency, as a rule.

My wild guess is just that, without our extreme motivation of learning English and the very high commercial and education value it has here, naturally Hong Kong deserves a good ranking like this, which those authorities still won't be satisfied with.

And I suspect that, in earlier decades, even as a colony, the level of English couldn't have been that high, given much less learning resources (population kept on booming in the last 20 years, and universities did evolve... Hong Kong has had 6 more universities since the 80s). In average terms, "more" people claim to know English and are proficient; in absolute terms, then, you can estimate that far MORE people do fit this criterion, then I'm quite sure that ....

in fact, I don't think there's a peak at all. that peak might be more associated with the US economic power. There's now no point of NOT learning English, but having ever more students of English just doesn't show where the peak is...
Adam   Sun Oct 12, 2008 1:48 pm GMT
English hasn't reachd the peak of its existence. Not with the rise of India.