Part 1: An English Speaking World: Joshua Zaborowski

I was assigned Part 1: An English Speaking World and it was giving information on the development of modern English. Throughout the film it was showing examples of how English is a neutral language and how it is the most used and being learned language in the world. For example, In India there was a huge debate on what was going to be the main language throughout the country and it ended with English being the best option against the language of Hindu. This was baffling to me because I really had no idea that countries such as this on the eastern hemisphere were making these types of decision on language. In addition to this, the film also talked about how business, politics and law throughout the world’s countries are being done in English. This too me was very interesting because it shows that any important business that needs to be taken care of is taken care of in the world’s neutral language. I liked in the film how they talked about Public School English. The fact that they could get students from different areas and have their English tongue switched to all match one form is quite impressive. It also stated that once the British English started to die off that the American English gave it a rebirth, but now it has become bigger than its original “parents.” Going off of this note, the film also talked about how American English allows for more “slang” to be included in the dialect than does British English. I liked how they gave interviews to teens and young adults in America and explaining “slang” and how they use it in everyday conversation. These slang words that were talked about are still being used in today’s society. (Shows the growth of the English language even in modern terms) One of the most intriguing parts to me however about this documentary was when it started going into detail about the Chinese. Chinese is the second most used language in the world and it has more people in China speaking Chinese than our whole American population. Yet, there is huge portion of their population learning English because it is considered the worldwide language and “key to success” language in terms of job opportunities and such. This made me link the fact that the Chinese economy and workers have such a high success rate because they are very educated in language; giving them the advantage over the competitor workers. Overall, this film made me realize how the English language has developed and not only affected a nation or two, but the whole world as a whole. My favorite term used was when the host Mr. McNeil stated “the varieties of English not dialects.” This statement was neat because it was showing that English is all basically the same, it just contains different specifics.