International English

Task 1 and 2, page 26

1) When I have had conversations with non-Norwegians in the past, I haven’t exactly cared about either vocabulary, grammar or pronunciation. I just wanted to get my message across and have them understand my point. If I couldn’t find a word or an expression I used to find synonyms or try to talk around the subject. It is only now that I have begun caring about vocabulary, grammar and pronunciation. Whenever I am speaking with non-Norwegians today, I see it as practise, and try to say things correctly and have fluency in my sentences. If I have to choose the most important of them (vocabulary, grammar or pronunciation), I think I have to say vocabulary. It is more important than pronunciation and grammar because you can make others understand you without a perfect pronunciation or correctly endings. As long as you know the words, most of the ones you are talking to will understand. Norwegians understand foreigners with accent, so why shouldn't they understand us?

2) Vocabulary: “Inner Sircle” and “Outer Sircle” are contributions we have.

Standars: Today we have two different standar forms of english: American and British.

Other “Englishes”: Countries where English has been a second language for a long time, it occur other Englishes like Spanglish, Englog, Hinglish and Singlish.

The future of English: Professor David Crystal believes that in the future there will be three forms of English: local dialect, education business, and communicating with foreigners.