No matter whose statistics one believes, it is clear that English now has more non-native speakers than native ones” (Weeks 1996). How far do you agree?
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Answer:
In today’s globalized world language knowledge becomes more and more important for good and skilled communication. Especially the knowledge of one the world language English is necessary to be competitive and able to communicate worldwide. Today, English is the second or third most popular mother tongue in the world, with an estimated 350-400 million native speakers. But, crucially, it is also the common tongue for many non-English speakers the world over, and almost a quarter of the globe’s population maybe 1½-2 billion people can understand it and have at least some basic competence in its use, whether written or spoken. It’s true that many levels of proficiency may exist among those non-native speakers, and no serious counting, and has been under-taken to date regarding the actual number of proficient non-native English speakers. However, the vast majority of many millions of non-native speakers of English are not conscious of being speakers of EIL. Rather, they perceive themselves as speakers with a higher or lower degree of success, or ‘corruption’ of a native variety of the language.
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