Unit A1 Englishwhat used to be a language only spoken by the monolingual Britonsis now a language spoken by billions of people of different

nationalities, cultures, and traditions. English is now spoken as either a first or second language, a foreign language, an international language, or as a lingua franca; all thanks to the two diasporas that it went through. During the first diaspora, Britons migrated to North America and Australia (which soon became a place of exile for criminals), thus creating mother-tongue varieties of Englishthe people from the latter two continents are now considered to be the speakers of Standard English, a variety of English deemed as superior among all others. Now during the second diaspora, the English language reproduced in the continents of Asia and Africa, thus creating second-language varieties now known as New Englishes. The people of the latter two continents usually use English as a second or foreign language, or as a language for international communication. Overall, English is a very dynamic and flexible language; it is now used in various domains such as government, education, etc. Unit A2 These New Englishes also include impure varieties called pidgins, which are born through the language contact phenomenon. If the latter pidgins become the first language of a generation of speakers, it becomes a creole (which could then be decreolized into a standard dominant language). There are some linguists who think that pidgins and creoles are abominations to the English language, and thus must be obliterated. But there are also linguists who think that pidgins and creoles may provide new insights on first and second language acquisition, and are therefore not completely bad languages. No one knows exactly how pidgins and creoles are formed, but there are five main theories that hope to explain their origin: the independent parallel development theory, the nautical jargon theory, the theory of monogenesis and relexification, the baby talk theory, and the synthesis theory. Unit A3 English around the world is spoken mainly in three ways: as a native language, a second language, and as a foreign language. English is used as a native language when it is spoken by people who were born and raised in the following Inner Circle (Kachru 1992) countries: the UK, USA, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand countries where English is historically the first language to be spoken. English is used as a second language by Outer Circle (Kachru 1992) countries like India, Philippines, Pakistan, etc.countries where English serves country-internal functions. And finally, English is used as a foreign language by Expanding Circle (Kachru 1992) countries like Taiwan, Japan, Nepal, etc.countries where English serves no significant purpose. However, it is important to note that the latter Circles of Kachru don't give an accurate description of language competence. In other words, it doesn't necessarily mean that those from the Inner Circle are better in English than those in the Outer or Expanding Circle.