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part of that activity. Let’s find out more informationBog'liq @English with Akmalkhan. Scale up 1 SB
part of that activity. Let’s find out more information.
The British Council provides resources for people
learning English, and also teachers of English. M artin
Peacock is the Director of Global English Product
Development.
Richard: Martin, tell me about English as a global
language.
Martin: OK, well many people talk about English
as being a global language. And the reasons for that are
the widespread use of English. It’s used in education,
it’s used in science and technology and, importantly,
English is also used in business.
Richard: Are there many global languages?
Martin: W ell, no, not really. I mean there’s ‘the’
global language which is English in the sense that
English Is used in these many different contexts;
there’s only one. There are other languages which are
used very widely and spoken by many people in many
different places: Cantonese, for example, a variant of
Chinese, is spoken in many different places so it’s
global in a geographic sense and it can be global in
the numbers, but in terms of the use in different areas
of education, science, research, English is the only
global language.
Richard: Are there different types of English?
Martin: W ell, yes, there are lots of different types.
There’s different accents of English. I come from the
North of England, where I have a particular accent. So
within England itself, within the U K , there are many
variations in English pronunciation and that extends
globally, so you see English in America and used in
Australia, which is different in accent and also in
usage as well.
Richard: And what about the impact of technology
on a language?
Martin: In the past, new words were coined by
people - it might have been in a speech or a newspaper
article or in a book - they were written down and then
other people adapted them and used them and that
could be quite a slow process and new words might
come into a language over a long period:
10,20
years.
So technology allows languages to evolve much more
quickly.
Richard: So technology can change the language,
but in what way does it help people to learn the
language?
Martin: W ell, it helps in many ways. In the past,
students in locations in other countries didn’t have
access to much genuine English; they may have a
book or an odd newspaper, but what the internet
allows them is to read and often to read and translate
languages like English on a massive scale.
(Adapted from http.Y/learnenglish.britishcouncil.
org/en/britain-great/english-great-part-2)
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