Spotlight - 11.2019

LANGUAGE SPECIAL 11/2019 Spotlight 15

LANGUAGE SPECIAL

The state of

English today

Wenn über eine Milliarde Menschen eine Sprache sprechen,

verändert sich die Sprache unweigerlich, und das ständig. Was sind nun

die großen sprachlichen Entwicklungen, und was bedeuten sie für Sie als

Lernenden? JULIAN EARWAKER hat sich schlaugemacht.

Illustrationen von KATHARINA BOURJAU

ADVANCED AUDIO

T

exting, tweeting and trend-

ing into the 21st century,

the English language has

come a long way from its

Germanic origins more

than 1,500 years ago. Through trade, colo-

nization and technology, English has be-

come a global lingua franca and what the

Dutch sociologist Abram

de Swaan defines as the sin-

gle “hypercentral language

that holds the entire world

language system together”.

The British Council es-

timates that “English is

spoken at a useful level by

some 1.75 billion people

worldwide”. That is around

a quarter of the world’s

population. But where is English today?

What are the important trends and de-

velopments? And what does this mean

for you, the learner?

What’s trending?

It’s all about accents

Matthew Ellman, an English language

trainer with the Cambridge University

Press, reports on a number of trends. At

the top of his list are accents, such as the

growth of Estuary English and the de-

cline of received pronunciation.

Reporting on a presentation by lan-

guage expert Professor David Crystal

(see our interview on page 18) at the 2018

English UK conference, Ellman writes in

his blog: “Globalisation and the internet

mean we’re exposed to a wider range of

English accents than ever before, and

as a result, it’s international varieties of

English that are driving change in UK

accents.”

The main trend, he says, is in a levelling

of rhythm, rather than in changes to vow-

el or consonant sounds. Historically, Eng-

lish (and German) has been stress-timed,

with stressed syllables spoken at regular

intervals and unstressed

syllables shortened to fit

this rhythm. Today, Ellman

points out, it’s more com-

mon to hear British teen-

agers using syllable-timed

English, in which each

syllable takes roughly the

same amount of time.

Followers of the British

royal family will notice

a change in accents here, too: English

speech instructor Geoff Lindsey recently

blogged how Meghan, Duchess of Sussex,

has begun to adopt southern British “fall-

rise” intonation in her speech.

Beyond Britain, in global English, the

trend is for a non-prescriptive approach to

accent, says communication trainer and

author Chia Suan Chong. Writing for the

British Council, Chia says that accepting

English as a lingua franca means that sim-

ply being understood is important. She

can see an increase in “multi-literacies”

and “translanguaging”, in which elements

of English are mixed with those of other

native tongues and their pronunciations.

Here, English learning welcomes linguis-

tic diversity and uses the learner’s knowl-

edge of other languages as an advantage

rather than a barrier.

adopt [E(dQpt]

, hier: annehmen,

übernehmen

billion [(bIljEn]

, Milliarde(n)

Estuary English

[(estjUri )INglIS]

, Dialekt des Englischen

aus dem Mündungsbe-

reich der Themse

exposed [Ik(spEUzd]

, ausgesetzt; hier: in

Kontakt

non-prescriptive

[)nQn pri(skrIptIv]

, nicht normativ

received pronunciation

[ri)si:vd prE)nVnsi(eIS&n]

, britische Standardaus-

sprache

stress [stres]

, hier: betonen,

Betonung

vowel [(vaUEl]

, Vokal-

English

welcomes

linguistic

diversity