Interactions between English-Speaking and Chinese-Speaking ...
7xu394 Unit 1 Speaking English - oebv.at€¦ · Unit 1 Speaking English FACT FILE • ... L...
Transcript of 7xu394 Unit 1 Speaking English - oebv.at€¦ · Unit 1 Speaking English FACT FILE • ... L...
Unit 1 Speaking English
FACT FILE
• English has about 380 million native speakers, but altogether more than one billion people speak English.
• English is the most widely used language on the internet, closely followed by Chinese.
• The English language (ca. 700,000 words) has more words than German (ca. 175,000 words) or French (ca. 100,000).
• The English language grows by about 25,000 new words a year – a world record.
1 English today
WhatdoyouthinkistheroleofEnglishtoday?Dothequizandfindout.
1. How many people in the world speak English? a sixth (1⁄6) of the world population a third (1⁄3) of the world population three quarters (3⁄4) of the world population
2. Which language has more speakers than English? Mandarin (a form of Chinese) Hindi (a language from India) Spanish
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3. Which language is the top language on the internet? Mandarin English German
4. Which of these languages has the most words (at the moment about 700,000)? French English German
5. How many words do you need for everyday communication? about 500–800 about 1,200–2,000 about 2,500–3,000
6. Where do most English words come from? Latin and Romance languages (Latin, French,
Italian, Spanish, Portuguese) Germanic languages (German, Dutch, Danish,
Norwegian, Swedish) Asian and African languages
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English as a world language
1 Reading: Not the only show in town
a)Readthetextbelow,thendecidewhetherthestatements(1–7)aretrue(T)orfalse(F).Putainthecorrectboxandjustify1youranswerbyquotingthefirstfourwordsofthesentenceinwhichyoufoundtheinformation.Thefirstone(0)hasbeendoneforyou.
English is everywhere nowadays. When Queen
Elizabeth I died in 1603, the English-speaking
world had a population of just eight million. In
the 1960s there were about 250 million speakers
of English. This has risen to over one billion,
including those who speak it as a second or
foreign language. But why has it spread so far
and wide?
The driving force behind the success of
English is that people move around much more
than they used to. More people than ever leave
their home countries to live and work in other
parts of the world. Migrant workers, refugees,
asylum seekers, people travelling on business,
international students, peacekeeping troops,
aid workers, people visiting friends and family
members, and of course tourists. And more and
more of them speak English – even though on a
rather basic level.
It is very interesting that many non-native
speakers use English to communicate. An
international study on travel has shown that
nearly three quarters of visits were by visitors
travelling between non-native speaking
countries. That shows that English is a lingua
franca, a global language which is spoken and
understood almost everywhere. In addition,
Hollywood, jazz and rock ’n’ roll helped to make
English the world language of pop culture – a
status the language still has today. The leading
American role in science and technology has
also given the world the PC, the internet and
e-mail, all of which have taken English to
every corner of the world. Now whole fields of
business (e.g. IT and marketing) are dominated
by English terms.
The influence of English on other languages
is quite strong. Some experts even say that
English is responsible for “language death”, for
killing off other languages. Five hundred years
ago there were about 15,000 languages – now
there are fewer than 7,000. However, it is not only
the rise of English that has led to this situation.
The numbers of small languages have gone
down mainly because the top twelve languages
(like Chinese and Spanish) that are spoken by
50% of the world population have taken over.
English isn’t the only show in town.
Mandarin, Hindi, Spanish and Russian are
becoming more and more important. Portuguese
is catching up fast, too. This is because a large
number of people use these languages as their
second language. If you look at second language
users, English is second after Mandarin.
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1 to justify: begründen
China India
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Statements T F Justification
0 At the beginning of the 17 th century England had a population of less than ten million. x
When Queen Elizabeth I
Q1 English has spread so quickly because people today travel more than in the past.
Q2 Non-natives often use English.
Q3 75 per cent of international visits are by people who speak English as their first language.
Q4 Popular music and US movies have helped English to become a lingua franca.
Q5 The rise of English is the only reason for smaller languages to disappear.
Q6 More than 50 per cent of the world population speak Spanish and Chinese.
Q7 More people speak Mandarin as a second language than English.
b)Gothroughthetextagainandfindalternativesforthefollowingphrases.
today
approximately
has gone up
according to a recent study
that explains why
moreover
quite considerable
have decreased/fallen
increasingly
2 Speaking about languages
Inpairs,lookatthediagramsandthentalkaboutlanguagesandtheirimportance.Usethephrasesfromthetaskabove.
Tourism and speaker interaction Estimated ranking of languages
WORD BANK
Talking about diagrams
The graph shows … . • pie chart • bar chart • percentage • per cent • to amount to • to estimate • estimated • with regard to • as far as … is concerned • ranking • to rank (fourth)
Tourism and speaker interaction Estimated ranking of languagesDisappearing languages
2000
4000
6000
8000
10000
12000
14000
16000
22002100200019001800170016001500
Num
ber o
f la
ngua
ges
in w
orld
0 200 400 600 800 1000 1200Japanese 126
French 128
German 128
Portuguese 191
Bengali 211
Russian 277
Spanish 417
Hindi 487
English 508
Mandarin 1,0521.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
when second-language use is taken into account. (Based on Ostler, 2005)
(Data derivedfrom World Tourism Organisation)
Year
English to English 4 %
English to other countries
12 %
Other countries
to English 10 %
Non-English speaking to non-English speaking 74 %
Tourism and speaker interaction Estimated ranking of languagesDisappearing languages
2000
4000
6000
8000
10000
12000
14000
16000
22002100200019001800170016001500
Num
ber o
f la
ngua
ges
in w
orld
0 200 400 600 800 1000 1200Japanese 126
French 128
German 128
Portuguese 191
Bengali 211
Russian 277
Spanish 417
Hindi 487
English 508
Mandarin 1,0521.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
when second-language use is taken into account. (Based on Ostler, 2005)
(Data derivedfrom World Tourism Organisation)
Year
English to English 4 %
English to other countries
12 %
Other countries
to English 10 %
Non-English speaking to non-English speaking 74 %
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