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LING 115 MIDTERM 2 questions and answers certified 2024
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LING 115 MIDTERM 2 questions and answers certified 2024
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LING 115 MIDTERM 2Define global lang; 3 ways a lang achieves special status - correct answer
✔GL - has a special role and dominant widespread use throughout world.
Lang may have a special status if - 1. It is mother tongue of majority of country
(English is L1 of USA, Canada, Britain, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand, South
Africa, and some of countries in Caribbean), but being a mother tongue isn't
enough to give special role to a lang bc no lang is L1 of every country; 2. If
recognized as an official lang (learned as an L2 used alongside other
indigenous nat/official langs); English is official lang in 70+ countries, more
than any other country (French, German, Spanish, Russian, Arabic are close);
3. Promoted in education (taught as foreign lang). Because of these three
reasons, Eng is now spoken fluently by 1.2-1.5 billion people (2nd most
common lang is Mandarin, spoken mostly in China, so not global lang).
What causes a lang to become globally dominant?; what if a lang is
linguistically complicated? - correct answer ✔When it is sued by
influential/successful groups of speakers, who have military, economic, and
cultural power.. Ex - Latin became an int'l lang bc Romans' military power and
(one Rome fell) religious power of Roman Catholic church. Being a
linguistically easy-to-learn lang doesn't give a lang any advantage in
becoming globally dominant.
Crystal - Eng was in the right place at the right time to become globally
dominant - correct answer ✔Originally, English spread throughout the world
(18th and 19th centuries) as a result of military force and colonization by the
British. By the beginning of the 19th century, British lead industry and trade.
By end of 19th century, USA had pop larger than any country in Western
Europe and its economy was the most productive and fastest growing in the
world. During 20th century, growth and spread of English was powered by the
leading role of the USA in the world's economy.
Advantages of a global lang, Why do we need a lingua franca - correct
answer ✔in ethno-linguistically complex pops, need a lingua franca (common
,lang); sometimes a local lang associated with a powerful ethnic group may be
used, or a non-indigenous LWC (English) is adopted because of political,
econ, or religious influence of the foreign power/economic advantages that
are made available by use of LWC. The need for a global lingua franca arose
in 2nd half of 20th century, with the founding of world organizations (United
Nations), where many countries were represented in meetings, as well as with
the establishment of restricted int'l groups (Euro Union and Commonwealth of
Nations); without a lingua franca, it would be expensive to translated. The
need for a lingua franca has arisen with technological developments (increase
in availability of int'l air travel and development of modern int'l communication
systems (the latter allows instantaneous copying of info around the world).
What are the possible dangerous of a global lang? - correct answer ✔people
with L1 Eng may be less keen to learn other langs, leading to restricted
cultural knowledge; in business, knowledge of more than one land is best (⅓
british exporters miss business opportunities because of poor lang skills, and
40% of British comps can negotiate in other langs, versus 90% of
Belgian/Dutch/etc. Companies. Lang death is possible bc of the dominance of
a GL, but it's more likely that larger local langs threaten smaller langs when
they become nat/off/regional langs (Spanish threatens Galician).
Will anything stop the growth of a global lang? - correct answer ✔Yes, if
there is a massive change in power, but that's unlikely. More likely is the
growth and development of technology for machine translation, but that will
take a while, so Eng will become stronger, and maybe by the time of such
tech, English will have become impregnable.
Why is English is world's first GL? - History of colonization and emigration -
correct answer ✔during reign of queen elizabeth I, when Britain started to
expand its influence overseas in form of colonies throughout the world =
British Empire. From 17th-20th century, large scale migration from GB to
territories within the empire - North America (USA and Canada from 17th
cent); Australia and New Zealand (from 18th cent), South Africa (from 19th
cent), Southeast Asia, including Singapore, Malaysia, and Hong Kong, in
Africa (West Africa from 16th cent onwards, with trading peaking in 19th cent;
,English pidgin langs in Nigeria and Liberia (liberia established as repatriation
of slaves from North America); East Africa - from 19th cent in Kenya,
Tanzania, Uganda, and southern Africa in Malawi, Zambia, and Zimbabwe);
South Asia - trade partner and part of empire since 17th cent (India, Pakistan,
Bangladesh, and Sri Lanka), South Asia now ranks as third in world for
number of Eng speakers, used in education and administration, in 1960s,
there was conflict bt supporters of Hindi as nat lang for India and speakers of
other regional langs, so ENg was made alternative to local state lang and is
now used in law, gov admin, edu, armed forces, media, business, tourism bc it
is ethically neutral and unifying, and in Davidian areas of south, English is
preferred to Hindi and is medium of int'l communication. Further growth of Eng
came from Industrial Rev and econ power of 20th century.
Spread of English Model (circles) - correct answer ✔inner - traditional bases
of English (USA, Britain, etc.); outer/extended circle - English in non-mother-
tongue situations (lang is part of country's chief institutions and is impt as 2nd
lang in multilingual setting), includes Singapore, India, Kenya, and 50+
countries. Expanding circle - recognize how impt English as a foreign lang is
but do not have 1. History of colonization by members of inner circle, or 2.
Give English special admin status (China, Japan, Greece, Poland), where
English is taught as foreign lang.
How many countries where Eng holds place in inner or outer circles?, how
many people have learned Eng as first lang?; as second lang?; have native-
like competence?; have reasonable competence? - correct answer ✔75, 400
mil, 350 mil, 750 mil, 1.2-1.5 billion. No other lang has spread so quickly and
extensively. *IC - 320-380 million; OC - 150-300 mil; EC - 100 mil-1 billion.*
Industrial Rev technology and the spread of Eng - correct answer
✔innovations were of British origin, and Britain was workshop of world bc so
many manufactured goods; new terms of tech and science advancement
added new words to English lexicon. After napoleonic wars, foreigners came
to Britain to learn about new technologies, and British went abroad to teach
new science and methods of industry to other counties. Scientists that came
to Britain were Brunel from France, Siemens from Germany, and Marconi
, from Italy. Similar developments in North America in 19th century, when USA
became the new fastest growing economy.
Official spread of English in int'l orgs - correct answer ✔Britain and USA
were victorious in WWI and WWII contributed to use of Eng for int'l relations.
League of Nations established in 1920 after WWI, with 42 members from diff
countries (non-EU countries), so Eng and French were official langs of
League of Nations, which evolved into United Nations in 1945 (5 off langs -
Eng, French, Russian, Spanish, Chinese). Of 12,500 int'l orgs, 85% make use
of English, vs. 49% French, and 10% of each Arabic, German, and Spanish.
⅓ used only English (esp in Asia and Pacific, where 90% use only Eng). orgs
whose names begin with Euro- have 99% Eng official lang use (60% French
and 40% German).
Spread of Eng in media and edu - correct answer ✔1. Newspapers and
journals easily available bc printing tech, esp. In science and edu (80% of
words science journals are in Eng); 2. Shortwave radio programs available in
English around world; growth in film industry and improvements in motion
picture tech led to spread of films made in English; 3. Music industry is widely
listened to; 4. Cheaper air travel is available to all parts of world, so more
global tourism, with English as default lingua franca. Edu and science have
followed shift toward Eng, including in countries where Eng has no official
status, since those students will have to read English papers in college, so
might as well teach them in English.
English and the explosion in global comm bc computers/internet - correct
answer ✔80% of world's electronically stored info is in English (both public
and private info); this is bc first systems designed to carry info over Internet
were developed for Roman alphabet. It used a 7-bit ASCII code and character
set called Latin 1 (no symbols of marking special features of non-Euro langs);
later, 8 bit and Latin 2 became available, but there were still difficulties in int'l
implementation of systems allowing representation of non-Roman scripts, and
most browsers remained unable to handle multilingual data presentation.
Crystal says "if you want to take advantage of Internet, learn Eng". now
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