English as an International Language

We are now living in a globalised world where diversity is considered as the norm, which resulted in international and intercultural communication skills being essential. English language spread in accordance with the process of globalisation. Because it was passed on to many different nations with diverse cultural perspectives, the ownership of English no longer belongs to typical English speaking countries such as America, Australia and the England. Since international communication involves an international language, it became pivotal that we understand the concept of changed ‘ownership’ of English language by going through denationalisation and renationalisation, in order to communicate well in between different cultures, as the globalised world expects us to do.

English language has been spreading rapidly so far. Due to globalisation, and internationalisation. Technology, international relations and politics, communication and media, and education have been limitlessly developing over the past centuries (McKay, S. 2002, p.17). Seeing that the world is firstly developed by the English speaking nations, other none English speaking nations are required to learn English to be able to access the global community for such developments. Because language is central for such developments, exponential growth of spread of English was possible. Due to this escalation of English language, most of the countries encouraged their citizens to learn English. As Graddol, D (1999) estimates the number of English second languages speakers to grow from 235 million to around 462 million in next 50 years. However, the outcome of this spread is very dissimilar. Some nations, such as Malaysia, Singapore and India adapted English to be one of their official languages whereas in expanding circle countries, mainly use English for academic purpose. As Crystal, D. (1997) points out that “special role that is recognised in every country”, the role of English in each countries is much localised according to their needs.

To understand English as an international language, it is crucial that we appreciate how the ownership of English has been denationalised through developments in many areas in the way of achieving globalisation. During and after globalisation, the contact between different nations became frequent, because the world is now treated as a whole, rather than an individual nation by a nation. This fact underpins the necessity of intercultural competence which is in this century is considered as an obligation (Jackson, J. 2014, p84). Hence it later lead English to become an international language, which Smith L. E. (1976) states as the language that is “used by people of different nations to communicate with one another” (p.38). Thence the ownership of the English has been denationalised, which by means, it is separated from those previously recognised English language speaking countries to simply become internationally recognised as language itself to become one of lingua franca. Then through the wide usage of English in profuse nations, the language has been renationalised. English has been adapted by each nations, whether in outer or expanding countries (Kachru, B. B., 1984), and became “World Englishes” (Sharifian, F., 2006). Therefore it is no longer “examined exclusively in terms of their linguistic features but rather as emergent systems that are largely adopted and explored to encode express the cultural conceptualisations” (Sharifian, F., 2006). English by going through renationalisation, it is renewed according to each culture to form a new type of language used only in that certain cultural group. Examples of renationalisation of English includes edited, therefore culturally adapted forms which are: Konglish (Korean English) and Chinglish (Chinese English). In addition, drawing from my Korean background, proper English was only tested during my school years and in formal interviews (i.e. Job interview), but not used anywhere else in daily lives in Korea. Whereas my friend from Malaysia mentioned that in Malaysia, they use English as an auxiliary