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In:English as an International Language: Challenges and possibilities
Edited by Michael Clyne and Farzad Sharifian †
[Australian Review of Applied Linguistics 31:3] 2008
► pp. 28.1–28.16

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English as an international language

Challenges and possibilities

 | Monash University/University of Melbourne
 | Monash University
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Available under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial (CC BY-NC) 4.0 license.

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Published online: 1 January 2008
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https://doi.org/10.2104/aral0828
In recent years, there has been a rapid evolution in the demographics of English speaking communities and individuals around the world, with an unprecedented growth in the number of users and learners of English. In the majority of cases, these learners and users are those who would traditionally have been classified as “non-native” speakers. This trend towards non-native speakers far outweighing native speakers in number is projected to pick up speed. The evolving nature of English in this context of its globalisation has called for a reassessment of a number of key dimensions in applied linguistic studies of English. Scholarly debates have surfaced about various political issues including the validity of the old distinction between “native” and “nonnative” speakers, what form English should – or is likely to – take as a language of international/intercultural communication (or lingua franca), and which groups are empowered and which ones disadvantaged by the accelerating prominence of English. Collectively, the essays in this issue of the journal engage with these issues in order to take the debate up to the next level. This article is a position paper which offers to open up the forum and to expand on some of some of these fundamental questions.
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