English as the Official Language
- It is often argued that English is one of the most difficult languages to learn. Though this may be true, it is one of the most common languages spoken worldwide (preceded only by Chinese and Spanish). English is the most commonly taught language, so should it become the official language for the world? (See Should English be the World's Official Common Language?)
Studying Literature
- People wonder whether or not studying literature is worth the time, as the stories usually revolve around fictional people, events, or even worlds. Should this even be something that children and young adults are asked to study in the public school system? (See Why Study Literature as a Humanities Subject?)
English as a Degree
- Many people choose to pursue a degree in English, but when asked what they want to do with it a lot of English majors either don’t know or aren’t able to say how their English degree will help them get their dream job. It’s true, that it’s difficult to get a really good job with an English degree, but does that make it useless? (See Is an English degree useless?)
I am particularly intrigued by the first point (that of English becoming the official language). On the one hand, it would be immeasurably valuable to have one language in common for the whole world because we could trade with, learn more from, and visit any other country without a language barrier. However, I have to wonder if it’s really fair for one group of people to request everyone else to speak their own language. Plus, we could be in danger of losing specific cultural qualities by asking people to somewhat disregard their parent language.
On the studying literature topic, perhaps another question is what literature should they be studying? However, many fictional works introduce new ideas or reflect the themes or problems of the time period they were written in. For example, "The Great Gatsby" by F. Scott Fitzgerald is fictional, nevertheless it illustrates the theme of the American Dream, social classes, and love--from which each profound lessons can be learned. I think of the 'ad fontes' theme and how studying the past can help us appreciate and learn for the present and future.
ReplyDeleteAs a linguist, I am very interested in the idea of English becoming a global language. Many will say that it already has. I do not think there is a direct correlation between English becoming a global language and the death of other languages. We can have both: English being learned in many countries, but preserving the native tongue also.
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