This is a paper that is focusing on the English as a Lingua Franca research paper. The paper also provides description to use in writing the assignment paper.
The English as a Lingua Franca research paper assignment
Research Paper II: English as a Lingua Franca Instructions
General Instructions: In your first Research Paper, you explored the “backstory” of English language development roughly to the post-colonial period. Also, the ways in which the language was used to assert British dominion throughout the known world.
In this Research Paper II, you will be writing more comprehensively in an effort to bring together insightful answers to a complex host of questions, which respond to the whole body of the readings we do for the course. This paper will be written in 2 parts as is outlined in the syllabus and assignment descriptions for the course. Again, in your writing it will be the insightfulness, the cogency of your ideas, that will most prominently figure in your grade. And again, as we will reiterate in the assignment description for the paper, this will be an exercise in analysis and synthesis of a large body of data and global dynamics, the relations among them, and the variables which both support and limit our vision forward.
Research Paper II requires you to go beyond basic readings in the course to include an expand body of research resources. To guide us in our understanding of how the English language today is being a reshape or re-made into “Global English” or “International English.” There is indeed a movement afoot to create a world-wide standard International English. Will this effort succeed? Has it already taken place to some extent? International English could be very different than the English in our reference handbooks. International English might end up being International Englishes — not a single tongue.
It’s fascinating to observe the ways in which English as a historically colonizing force is now in our present age being subverted and/or fashioned into an amalgum of other national and native tongues. In a sense, then, we may be observing the colonization of English by former colonies.
Assignment Description:
Write a paper on the status of English as a global language – or Lingua Franca. Comprise of 2 parts or phases over a couple weeks, where Part II serves as the Final Version, building on Part I:
Part I: the research and drafting stage (note due date).
Final Version (Part II): the expansion and refinement final stage (note due date).
The following are the questions and concerns that you could take up as you develop, revise, and polish your paper:
Firstly, why is English the lingua franca of the whole world?
Briefly, what caused this development to occur?
Thirdly, what historical and current facts and conditions make it the principal global language?
Fourthly, what is the capacity of the English language to fulfill the often competing obligations of a language, to serve as a global medium of communication. Also, to provide differing communities with differing senses of identity?
Also, can English exist coherently as an untold variety of Englishes?
What is International English and what form(s) will English(es) take as we move forward?
Will its unity dissolve into disunity?
What is the future of the English language?
How do you think it will fare among major languages of influence in the context of globalization?
What will the status of English be in the year 2050 or so, especially in relation to other major world languages?
The paper must demonstrate specific evidence from the texts we are reading for the course. As well as from several other peer-reviewed outside sources. All internet citations must represent recognized authoritative sources. How many you cite will be a factor of how thorough your argument and your evidence are. Too few will likely mean that you have not addressed the issue with sufficient detail and thoroughness.
The paper must document all sources in current APA or MLA format.
