| Abstract | A widely held view about the future of the English language is that it should detach itself from its national roots, and drift freely around the world as a lingua franca, and that it should be thought of as an international language. In the article, Gillian Brown, Research Centre for English and Applied Linguistics University of Cambridge, asks what is meant by the expression "English as an International Language". The paper addresses the issue of how far a language and the culture which produced it are inextricably intertwined and describes how to make a language fit to be used internationally. The final section of the article attempts to gaze into the future and predict the status of the English Language as it moves into the twenty first century. |
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