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“how do you do”. Thought that is a question until i realized the way to answer it is “how do you do”
When I first read the question, Chinese is the first language that comes to my mind. It is spoken from numerous people around the world (one reason is for its huge population) and people might assume that only Chinese people speak this language. However, due to immigration of Chinese people, their ancestors lives almost in every continents. Chinese is an official language in Hong Kong, China, Macao, Taiwan and Singapore and is spoken in 21 other countries as mother tongue by a part of the population. Therefore, Chinese does not belong to a particular group because of its diverse users.
I’m from a nation in the Expanding circle so i’m looking forward to seeing comments. My language has borrowed lots of English words but changed the pronunciation so that people could use them easier
English is more like a galaxy consisting of a vast variety of planets than a single planet. English is dynamic and exists in many forms and to be honest I found it quite intriguing that the language that teachers have always taught me is not necessarily true. As long as the communicative purpose is achieved, the variable forms but successful functioning, is not a single, fixed, monolithic code which allows English to do its job, but rather a collection of different resources, spread across users and uses. From this perspective, English is not one thing, but many. It exists in different forms: it is plurilithic.
In the national education system in my country, teaching and learning English focus a lot on ‘correctness’ (whether it is grammar, vocabulary). And I do think that it is still important to acquire the accuracy since it is the key in the early stage. It will help learners to avoid misunderstanding. However it is also worth-mentioning that the definition of correctness is becoming more and more vague. Different people from different contexts have distinguished views of standard language.
I do agree with the analogy between standard English and dress code or table etiquette. However, we all know that there are different dress codes to different events, so as etiquette. The point here is that standard English restricts its usage or lacks versatility. At the end of the day English is a tool of communication and it should be used flexibly and in contexts, as long as the listeners understand and receive the message that speakers want to convey correctly.
Dialect is defined as a particular form of a language which is peculiar to a specific region or a social group. In Vietnam there are numerous dialects but they are usually divided into three categories, which with a variety of accents: North, Central and South. I also agree that the so-called Standard English can be considered as a dialect due to the codification together with various other socio-political and economic reasons.
This is the very first time I heard about ‘language’ as a verb since it is only commonly known as a noun. It has definitely add motions which is now an undeniable feature of language. And I totally agree with the point of exchanging words. My home country is Vietnam and during the time of being invasion, we had ‘borrowed’ lots of English words and now it is unconciously widely spoken by the citizen.