Text 1-1. Global demography and languages

(Based on David Graddol’s English Next. Why global English may mean the end of English as a Foreign Language)

 

1. The growth of the use of English as the world’s primary language for international communication has obviously been continuing for several decades. But even as the number of English speakers expands further there are signs that the global predominance of the language may fade within the foreseeable future.

Complex international, economic, technological and cultural changes could start to diminish the leading position of English as the language of the world market, and UK interests which enjoy advantage from the breadth of English usage would consequently face new pressures. Although the world’s population is still increasing fast, different countries – and languages – are affected in very different ways. Some languages are ‘demographically challenged’ whilst others are rapidly acquiring new native speakers.

Demographic change is one of the most important factors affecting languages – and to a much greater extent than other key trends affecting English – they can be predicted.

Much of the rapid change which we have witnessed in recent years – in economic, political and social spheres – is related to population trends. As the developing world becomes more populous whilst developed countries meet the challenges of an ageing population, the world language system has been transformed.

 

2. Demography – who lives where – has been, along with scientific and technological progress, the main driver of change in the world since the 18th century. The world population then started rising fast.

Cities in Europe expanded, sustained first by the agrarian revolution, which allowed greater food production with fewer workers, by the industrial revolution, which created new employment opportunities in towns, and by improvements in healthcare, which reduced mortality rates. This trend towards population increase, industrialisation and urbanisation is still not completed in much of the world. By the 1990s, population increase in many developed economies had slowed, but in less developed parts of the world it was still rising fast. The reasons for this imbalance lie in a complex mix of material circumstances, life chances and financial needs. In rural areas, children are important to family economies and as a future support for parents. In urban, middle class families children become more of a financial and lifestyle liability. This is one reason why populations grow more slowly as a country becomes more urbanised, middle class, and wealthy.

 

3. Demographic trends are among of the most important factors affecting language spread, language shift, and language change. As populations in the less developed countries rise, the demographic balance between languages is changing. Languages differ remarkably in the age structure of the population speaking them, which will affect the future destiny of languages in the world but also the nature of educational services.

Despite increasing immigration controls in some of the preferred destination countries, global migration is higher than ever before. Analysis of international travel movements suggests that three-quarters of all travel is between non-English speaking countries. This suggests a large demand for either foreign language learning or the increasing use of English as a lingua franca.

 

4. By the 1990s public concern had arisen in developed countries about what was perceived as unsustainable population growth in the developing countries. In the 21st century, the focus of debate has shifted to the economic and social problems caused by ageing populations in developed nations: lack of skilled workers, problems in providing public services for the elderly – especially health – and the ‘pension crisis’.

However, the world’s population overall is still young and numbers are growing. Yet demographic projections suggest that the rate of increase in developing countries is also now slowing and that the world population will stabilise at between 9–10 billion, possibly later this century.

 

5. If we chart these demographic changes we get an ‘S-shaped’ graph. The curve starts gradually, rapidly gains speed, then begins to slow and level out as time passes. Such an S-shaped graph is familiar to anyone analysing social change or the spread of innovation – whether it be new mobile phone users, the diffusion of a sound change through the lexicon in a rural English dialect, or the spread of a contagious disease.

Instead of thinking about the ‘population explosion’ as a process which is out of control, it may be more helpful to think of the world system as switching from one state to another: from a population of around 500 million to a population of 10 billion. We are now in the middle of this switch and many of the – at times bewildering – changes taking place in the economic, social and political world are ultimately attributable to this.

6. Conventional wisdom suggests that the further ahead we look, the less accurately we can predict. But we live in a transitional age where change is rapid, making it more difficult in some cases to forecast year-to-year change than the general shape of things to come.

The future of languages in the world depends on people. Who lives where? What are their basic needs? What kind of work will they be doing?

In order to understand some of the remarkable events and trends now taking place, we must look beyond the next few years and try to envision the world of the future.

This suggests where destiny lies – even if the way there is strewn with surprises.

Recent population growth has been mainly in the less developed countries. The more developed countries are experiencing a shrinking, ageing population. This, in turn, is changing the relative size of the world’s languages.

One consequence of the rapid population growth in the developing world is that the age structure of countries varies considerably. In 2005, the median age in Italy was over 40 years, and getting higher year by year. Italy’s problem is faced, albeit to a lesser extent, by many other countries in western Europe. In Uganda, on the other hand, the median age was under 15 years.

In many developing countries, the number of children needing primary education is rising faster than governments can build new schools and train teachers.

7. It is not unusual to see age peaks and troughs in the age profile of a population as a ‘baby boom’ gives rise to a ‘baby boomlet’ a generation later. Such waves make capacity management at different educational levels tricky. On the whole, it is easier to increase the participation rate and introduce major curriculum innovations when a demographic cohort is declining in size.

In Poland, for example, a demographic wave worked its way through the educational system in the last decade or so, but declining numbers of young people are entering school.

 

8. Countries like Italy, facing declining numbers of young people in comparison with the numbers of elderly, are likely to receive large numbers of migrant workers to support the economy. This will in turn change the ethnic and linguistic profile of the country. On the other hand, countries which have rising numbers of people of working age, such as Poland, may experience high levels of emigration. Such migrant workers may acquire language skills which they bring back to the country at a future date.

Demographic patterns have a profound impact on societies – affecting social structures, educational systems, and economic futures.

 

9. This report draws on research data generated by a computer model of global demographics created by The English Company (UK) Ltd. The model allows the visual exploration of past and future population trends in different countries. The model also allows the impact to be estimated of educational initiatives – such as the lowering of the age at which the teaching of English begins.

The computer model allows similar projections to be produced for the populations of native speakers of different languages.

OVERVIEW QUESTIONS: MAIN IDEA, MAIN TOPIC, AND MAIN PURPOSE OF THE TEXT

 

Instruction: After almost every text, the first question you should ask is an overview question about the main idea, main topic, or main purpose of the text. Main idea questions ask you to identify the most important thought in the text, the main idea or topic of apassage.

There are two types of main idea questions: matching headings with paragraphs or sections, and identifying which sections relate to certain topics. For both types of questions you should use the skill of surveying the text, but because the strategies are slightly different for each question type, we will look at them separately.