Book contents
- English in the German-Speaking World
- Studies in English Language
- English in the German-Speaking World
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Figures
- Tables
- Contributors
- Preface
- Chapter 1 English in the German-Speaking World: The Nature and Scale of Language Influence
- I The Status of English
- Chapter 2 English in the German-Speaking World: An Inevitable Presence
- Chapter 3 English in Germany and the European Context
- Chapter 4 English in the Former German Democratic Republic
- II The Transmission of English
- III Domains and Features of English
- IV Beyond Germany
- Index
- References
Chapter 2 - English in the German-Speaking World: An Inevitable Presence
from I - The Status of English
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 11 November 2019
- English in the German-Speaking World
- Studies in English Language
- English in the German-Speaking World
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Figures
- Tables
- Contributors
- Preface
- Chapter 1 English in the German-Speaking World: The Nature and Scale of Language Influence
- I The Status of English
- Chapter 2 English in the German-Speaking World: An Inevitable Presence
- Chapter 3 English in Germany and the European Context
- Chapter 4 English in the Former German Democratic Republic
- II The Transmission of English
- III Domains and Features of English
- IV Beyond Germany
- Index
- References
Summary
History has seen a long succession of world languages – Chinese, Ancient Greek, Arabic and the major languages of European colonial expansion, to name but a few. The power and reach of these world languages waxed and waned, but only one of them, namely English, has risen to the position of a truly global lingua franca. This unipolar linguistic world system, with English at its centre, is a historically new phenomenon, and it is very recent, dating back no further than the middle of the twentieth century and completely undisputed only since the end of the Cold War in the late 1980s and early 1990s, when English made significant advances in China, Russia and the Soviet Union’s other successor states in Europe and Asia (Northrup 2013).
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- English in the German-Speaking World , pp. 13 - 30Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2019