- ID
- 2157454
- Banca
- UNISUL
- Órgão
- Prefeitura de Biguaçu - SC
- Ano
- 2016
- Provas
- Disciplina
- Inglês
- Assuntos
English as a Global Language
For more than half a century, immigrants from the
Indian subcontinent and the West Indies have added
variety and diversity to the rich patchwork of accents
and dialects spoken in the UK. British colonisers
originally exported the language to all four corners of
the globe and migration in the 1950s brought altered
forms of English back to these shores. ___________(1)
that time, especially in urban areas, speakers of Asian
and Caribbean descent have blended their mother
tongue speech patterns with existing local dialects
producing wonderful new varieties of English,
___________(2) London Jamaican or Bradford Asian
English. Standard British English has also been
enriched by an explosion of new terms, such as balti
(a dish invented in the West Midlands and defined by
a word that would refer to a 'bucket' rather than food
to most South Asians outside the UK) and bhangra
(traditional Punjabi music mixed with reggae and hiphop).
The recordings on this site of speakers from minority
ethnic backgrounds include a range of speakers. You
can hear speakers whose speech is heavily influenced
by their racial background, alongside those whose
speech reveals nothing of their family background and
some who are ranged somewhere in between. There
are also a set of audio clips that shed light on some of
the more recognisable features of Asian English and
Caribbean English.
Slang
As with the Anglo-Saxon and Norman settlers of
centuries past, the languages spoken by today’s ethnic
communities have begun to have an impact on the
everyday spoken English of other communities. For
instance, many young people, regardless of their
ethnic background, now use the black slang terms,
nang (‘cool,’) and diss (‘insult’ — from ‘disrespecting’)
or words derived from Hindi and Urdu, such as
chuddies (‘underpants’) or desi (‘typically Asian’).
Many also use the all-purpose tag-question, innit — as
in statements such as you’re weird, innit. This feature
has been variously ascribed to the British Caribbean
community or the British Asian community, although
it is also part of a more native British tradition - in
dialects in the West Country and Wales, for instance
— which might explain why it appears to have spread
so rapidly among young speakers everywhere.
Original influences from overseas
The English Language can be traced back to the
mixture of Anglo-Saxon dialects that came to these
shores 1500 years ago. Since then it has been played
with, altered and transported around the world in
many different forms. The language we now recognise
as English first became the dominant language in
Great Britain during the Middle Ages, and in Ireland
during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. From
there it has been exported in the mouths of colonists
and settlers to all four corners of the globe.
‘International English’, ‘World English’ or ‘Global
English’ are terms used to describe a type of ‘General
English’ that has, over the course of the twentieth
century, become a worldwide means of
communication.
American English
The first permanent English-speaking colony was
established in North America in the early 1600s. The
Americans soon developed a form of English that
differed in a number of ways from the language
spoken back in The British Isles. In some cases older
forms were retained — the way most Americans
pronounce the sound after a vowel in words like
start, north, nurse and letter is probably very similar
to pronunciation in 17th century England. Similarly,
the distinction between past tense got and past
participle gotten still exists in American English but
has been lost in most dialects of the UK.
English around the world
Like American English, English in Australia, New
Zealand and South Africa has evolved such that they
are distinct from British English. However, cultural
and political ties have meant that until relatively
recently British English has acted as the benchmark
for representing ‘standardised’ English — spelling
tends to adhere to British English conventions, for
instance. Elsewhere in Africa and on the Indian
subcontinent, English is still used as an official
language in several countries, even though these
countries are independent of British rule. However,
English remains very much a second language for
most people, used in administration, education and
government and as a means of communicating
between speakers of diverse languages. As with most
of the Commonwealth, British English is the model on
which, for instance, Indian English or Nigerian English
is based. In the Caribbean and especially in Canada,
however, historical links with the UK compete with
geographical, cultural and economic ties with the USA,
so that some aspects of the local varieties of English
follow British norms and others reflect US usage.
An international language
English is also hugely important as an international
language and plays an important part even in
countries where the UK has historically had little
influence. It is learnt as the principal foreign language
in most schools in Western Europe. It is also an
essential part of the curriculum in far-flung places like
Japan and South Korea, and is increasingly seen as
desirable by millions of speakers in China. Prior to
WWII, most teaching of English as a foreign language
used British English as its model, and textbooks and
other educational resources were produced here in
the UK for use overseas. This reflected the UK's
cultural dominance and its perceived ‘ownership’ of
the English Language. Since 1945, however, the
increasing economic power of the USA and its
unrivalled influence in popular culture has meant that American English has become the reference point for
learners of English in places like Japan and even to a
certain extent in some European countries. British
English remains the model in most Commonwealth
countries where English is learnt as a second
language. However, as the history of English has
shown, this situation may not last indefinitely. The
increasing commercial and economic power of
countries like India, for instance, might mean that
Indian English will one day begin to have an impact
beyond its own borders.
https://www.bl.uk/learning/langlit/sounds/case-studies/minority-ethnic/
The sentence “For more than half a century,
immigrants from the Indian subcontinent and the
West Indies have added variety and diversity to the
rich patchwork of accents and dialects spoken in the
UK” represents a sentence in the: