TEMA 1.- English in the world today
Language
Uses:
•Identity and marking function
•Sign of economic, cultural and politican domain: ‘The difference between a
language and a dialect is that language is a dialect with a nary and an army.’
Meaning:
•It is the mirror of the mind (Leibniz): what language can tell us about the
human mind? It treats the formal approach (formal aspects of language)
•Is is a means of communication: The linguistics studies how language manages
for communicate. It treats the functional approach (functional aspects of lang.)
In a territory, normally some languages are in contact:
•Bilingualism: a territory where there are two languages which coexist.
•Plurilingualism: more than two languages which coexist with the same political
and legal level. (España)
•Diglossia: two variants (dialects) of a language that are used in different
situations, one normally for everyday use and another for formal situations.
They are used in different situations but respectively at the same level, there is
not a substandard one (one variant is supposed to be inferior than the other, but it
is not)
•Code switching: Two languages which are in contact and used in the same
sentence (Spanglish: ‘me voy de shopping’)
Speakers of English:
•As first language: It is the language we have from birth (native language or
mother tongue): GB, Ireland, USA, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South
Africa…)
•As second language: It is a non-native language officially recognized and
adopted in a multilingual country. It is often used for government, education and
in law. : Pakistan, Singapore, Nigeria, Hong Kong, Kenya, India, Bangliadesh…
•As foreign language: Is is any language used in a country other than one’s own,
a language that is studied mostly for cultural insight or economical interest:
Most Western Europe.
•As lingua franca: any language that is widely used as a means of
communication among speakers of other languages. English is the working
language today.
•Pidgins: Simplified language that develops as a means of communication
between two or more groups that do not have a language in common:
colonization, trade…
• It has a limited vocabulary, and a simplified syntax, morphology and
phonology.
• They may end up as a lingua franca of a community: eg. Nigerian Pidgin
English or Tok Pisin (New Guinea)
TEMA 2.- Variants of English
