Paper 4 Section A

Being one of the most highly influential languages of this day and age, English has grown a global standing among hundreds of other languages. According to the World Economic Forum, 1.5 billion people speak the English language. But, despite this overwhelmingly large number of English speakers, the article that we are presented with brings this standing into question. 'Can English remain the 'world's favorite' language?' Of course, there are many theories supporting both sides of the argument.

One of the main things that are brought up in the article is English's standing as the world's lingua franca. Lingua Franca means the default language that people use when they can not understand each other in their native tongue. The reason that this is brought into question is the creation of translation technology and the implementation of it on almost all software across the internet. 

Viewing Kachru’s concentric circles, most English speakers fall into the outer and expanding circles, which means that the language is a second language or a foreign language to the people of those countries. The fact that second-language speakers outnumber first-language speakers means that if for some reason, the second-language speakers decide to stop using English, the number of speakers would drastically drop causing the 'fall' of the English language as the world-leading language. In turn, Mandarin would take the number one spot for most spoken language. Continuing, the translation technology creates a pathway to the elimination of lingua franca, because the need for a default language is no longer needed for communication.

As the translators get better and become 'as good as, or better than, human translators' there will be no need to learn a second language. As stated by The British Broadcasting Corporation, voice recognition technology will evolve to the point where people will be able to speak their own language and be translated instantly for their listeners to understand. People will instinctually grow to rely on this technology rather than learn a new language. People will use their mother tongue when they get the chance to, it is easier for them to do so as this is the language that they have used their entire life. 

Social media, the leading platform for communication, has already implemented translation technology. I myself have begun finding 'posts' from different countries which can be translated at the simple press of a button. The lack of need of English will lead to the comment sections of 'posts' being in a multitude of languages that can be typed on a keyboard. Although, less known languages that are not accessible on a keyboard will die out much faster than the English language.

Another important thing to consider is the lack of linguistic imperialism that occurs in this time of peace in the world. When the British Empire stopped expanding and began giving back to the peoples of the territories, they lost a very large portion of their dominance in terms of both power and language. An example of this is the mass growth of Hindi after India became independent from Britain. Although English is still present in the country and still actively taught, some citizens are desperate to not lose their natural culture and language. This leads to the rejection of English teaching, and again, the diminishing of English dominance.

While English in the near future will most definitely remain one of the world's most predominant languages, the growth of technology will completely destroy this standing. In my opinion, the English language will not fully disappear or be wiped off the face of the Earth, as many years of the Earth's history are written in English. I only feel that its dominancy will fall as other inner circle languages take over.