Sociolinguistic Profile of English in East Asia

Abstract

In modern world all spheres of people's life politics, economy and culture are under the influence of globalization process. People should have a common means of communication -a lingua franca if they want to cooperate mutually beneficially in modern world. The English language is such lingua franca, a means of cross-cultural communication, for many nations of different cultural and ethnic background, as about 1.5 billion people speak English today. English, being a global language, gave rise to many varieties in different parts of the world, Asian Englishes among them. The article deals with sociolinguistic profile of English and history of its development in China, Japan and Korea. Users and uses of English in East Asia also have their own lingua franca, showing impact on East-Asian languages and attitude to it. Keywords-language variety, intercultural communication, China English, Japanese English, Korean English, English language proficiency