Cross- cultural Communication This page intentionally left blank

The advantages of English as an international language
The main generally accepted advantages of using English are as follows:
It has a wide, rich and cosmopolitan vocabulary that includes many 
foreign borrowings and assimilations and it is able to adapt easily to 
changes in social styles of communication. This ability to adapt is the 
chief strength of the English language.
It also shares relatively similar structures and many common words with 
Germanic languages, in particular German and Dutch. In addition, it 
shares many words with other European languages derived from Latin, 
for example, French, Italian and Spanish.
It has relatively simple inflections – simple plurals, verb forms and adjec-
tives, uses natural rather than grammatical gender and has the additional 
advantage of not having cases.
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66 Cross-Cultural Communication
It is generally phonetic, although it does include a number of difficult 
pronunciations. It does not, however, have the difficulties associated 
with several- tone languages, such as Thai, Korean or Chinese.
A number of English words have become universal, for example, airport, 
passport, hotel, telephone, tennis, golf, stop and jeans.
Those who learn English acquire knowledge of British culture, literature, 
values and lifestyle. These have been actively promoted by the British 
Council and the BBC World Service.
The dominance of English is reflected in the fact that the teaching of 
English in schools in non- English- speaking countries is increasingly seen 
as a ‘lifestyle’ subject, second only to the mother tongue, and is being 
introduced in primary schools for pupils as young as five.
In 2006, a British Council report predicted that the number of people learn-
ing English in the world would increase to two billion by 2020. English 
language tuition, including courses, teaching materials and books, is most 
likely to increase with China, Eastern Europe and Latin America being the 
main growth areas. The demand for online courses is also increasing with 
the development of digital programmes.