A feature of English that makes it different compared with all other languages is its global spread” (David Crystal).
This quote from David Crystal expresses how much is English dominant and it could to the term Linguistic Imperialism. At first I would like to define, what linguistic imperialism means and how it is explained, then I would like to define some other important terms connected with linguistic imperialism.
Linguistic imperialism, sometimes called language imperialism, can be explained as the transfer of a dominant language to other people.
A lot of information about linguistic imperialism provided book written by Robert Phillipson - Linguistic Imperialism (published in 1992 by Oxford University press). In this book Phillipson …show more content…
His explanation why English became so dominant is quite simple – every global language can be spread by the prosperous military expeditions.
On the other hand, Robert Phillipson presents his theory about Western countries and their use of English. He says that these countries have used English as an instrument to gain and dominate colonies and to regain former colonies. I would like to mention that Phillipson also found denunciations of linguistic imperialism dated back to history – more precisely, Soviet analyses describing English as the language of global domination. So as we can see even in those days English was taken as the dominant language and not even English speaking countries realize it.
I´m not really sure, why these two authors have different point of view, because they were born in the same century, they were even born in the following years (1941; 1942). The true reason might be the fact that Crystal come from Northern Ireland and Phillipson come from England. Crystal´s different opinion might be affected by some historic events – for example the Easter Rising when the Irish Republic was claimed but it was not accepted by Kingdom of Great Britain, this led to the Irish War of …show more content…
The Merriam – Webster dictionary explain the term Anglosphere as “the countries of the world in which the English language and cultural values predominate” (The Merriam – Webster Dictionary). Therefore, we can say, that the Anglosphere is a complex of English speaking nations, where inhabitants speak mostly English (they have English as their official or as one of their official languages), which have similar cultural heritage and which usually cooperate in politics and in the
This quote from David Crystal expresses how much is English dominant and it could to the term Linguistic Imperialism. At first I would like to define, what linguistic imperialism means and how it is explained, then I would like to define some other important terms connected with linguistic imperialism.
Linguistic imperialism, sometimes called language imperialism, can be explained as the transfer of a dominant language to other people.
A lot of information about linguistic imperialism provided book written by Robert Phillipson - Linguistic Imperialism (published in 1992 by Oxford University press). In this book Phillipson …show more content…
His explanation why English became so dominant is quite simple – every global language can be spread by the prosperous military expeditions.
On the other hand, Robert Phillipson presents his theory about Western countries and their use of English. He says that these countries have used English as an instrument to gain and dominate colonies and to regain former colonies. I would like to mention that Phillipson also found denunciations of linguistic imperialism dated back to history – more precisely, Soviet analyses describing English as the language of global domination. So as we can see even in those days English was taken as the dominant language and not even English speaking countries realize it.
I´m not really sure, why these two authors have different point of view, because they were born in the same century, they were even born in the following years (1941; 1942). The true reason might be the fact that Crystal come from Northern Ireland and Phillipson come from England. Crystal´s different opinion might be affected by some historic events – for example the Easter Rising when the Irish Republic was claimed but it was not accepted by Kingdom of Great Britain, this led to the Irish War of …show more content…
The Merriam – Webster dictionary explain the term Anglosphere as “the countries of the world in which the English language and cultural values predominate” (The Merriam – Webster Dictionary). Therefore, we can say, that the Anglosphere is a complex of English speaking nations, where inhabitants speak mostly English (they have English as their official or as one of their official languages), which have similar cultural heritage and which usually cooperate in politics and in the