Stephen van Vlack

Sookmyung Women`s University

Division of English Language and Literature

English for International Communication

Spring 2007

Week 14 - Linguistic Issues in the Inner Circle

Guidelines for Presentations and Reports

Having looked in some detail at the US we find that even inner circle countries have quite important linguistic issues and the exclusivity of English is not always assured. In this project I want you to take a closer and more detailed look at the linguistic situations of the inner core countries. This involves determining and explaining the particular linguistic issues in the country you have been assigned.

In these 25 minute presentations, presentation groups consisting of three to four students each, will need to discover and review different linguistic issues in each inner core country both in the past, present day and future. The main focus, however, should be on the present day and any treatment of historical issues should be used to shed light on and further explain the background of current issues. It should be clear from our discussion in class this week that each inner core country has its own particular issues to grapple with. In the US and other immigrant nations, for example, it is very hard to separate language issues from immigrant issues. In countries where the local population still clings to local language(s) then the issue of colonialism is still a major issue from which language issues cannot be separated. It is up to each group to determine the relevant issues in each country and then some of the things which are affected by these issues.

In order to first determine what the relevant issues are for each respective country researchers should first consult the Internet to determine possible linguistic issues and then start to narrow down their treatment looking for newspaper articles, government documents and statistics. There are several people in each group and a massive amount of available information out thereon the Internet. You will need to devote a fair bit of time to finding these things and making sense of them.

There will be no report due for this presentation. Groups will need to give me a print copy of their PowerPoint slides and will e-mail me the PowerPoint file after the class is over.