Every now and then one stumbles across complaints about the decaying state of the English language. British English is under threat from American English. English is dying or just on the verge of drawing its last breath. Recurring allegations similar to these are made by worried, albeit self-opinionated, speakers who are not only quick to declare the time of death of English, but also to point the finger at who they think is to blame for these developments. As part of my PhD project on usage attitudes in British English, I included the somewhat general question ‘What do you think about the state of the English language?” in an online questionnaire which was completed by 230 informants from Great Britain in order to obtain an insight into commonly held beliefs about British English. This particular question generated answers from 176 informants who shared their personal beliefs, or rather fears, about the state of the English language. In this article, I would like to share some of the insights gained through the preliminary analysis of these answers and invite you to contribute by completing a survey on this topic.

One of the recent trends in Korean English Language Teaching (ELT) is that Korean parents are sending their children to countries in which English is a second language (ESL). Among these countries, the Philippines is the most preferred country due to its low tuition costs, low cost of living, and a population of well-educated ESL teachers. Every year, approximately 30,000 Korean students study in universities, elementary and secondary schools, and language academies in the Philippines. 10% of this student population consists of student visa holders and 90% are Special Study Permit (SSP) holders. SSPs are issued to international students studying non-degree special courses for a period not exceeding one year, and 90% of Korean students are presumed to enroll on short-term intensive English programs. The exodus of Koreans to the Philippines to learn English is being led by private language academies, which are founded and run by Koreans, solely targeting Korean students. In 2011, the number of such private language academies was estimated to be 280 (Kim, 2011). Furthermore, it was reported that Korean students were spending over 425 million US dollars annually in the Philippines (KEDI, 2012).

College English refers to a type of English course offered to non-English majors at tertiary level in mainland China. In recent years, however, College English has been criticised as ‘deaf and dumb English’ (Wu, 2004; Zhang, 2002) because of Chinese students’ perceived weaknesses in listening and speaking. As Zhang (2002), Director of the Department of Higher Education in the Chinese Ministry of Education (MOE), explains, ‘Chinese university students can neither speak English nor understand it when they hear the language spoken’ (p. 4). To improve the situation, Zhang urges that ‘[w]hile reading has to be reduced properly, listening and speaking should be increased in College English textbooks’ (ibid.: 5). In other words, it is listening and speaking rather than reading that should be emphasised.

This article is about a small group of words in English, ones beginning with the prefix <de->, followed by <s> and a vowel. If we omit rare words and obvious derivations, we end up with the following list:

China's rapid economic development has helped to raise the international status of Mandarin. One prediction is that ‘in ten years, Mandarin will be as important worldwide as English’ (Trudgill, 2014: 387). Another even greater change resulting from China's economic growth is the increasing popularity that English enjoys in China (Hu, 2004, 2005; Hu, 2009; Zhang, 2012; Werner, 2014). English is now used in a wide range of fields and contexts throughout the country. This is not surprising given the dominance of the English language on a global scale. English, now increasingly employed together with Chinese to combine global with local appeal, functions ‘as an index of modernity, progress, internationalism and globalization, a symbol of success, sophistication and projection into the future’ (Vettorel, 2013: 262). One indicator illustrating this phenomenon is the widespread use of public signs in both Chinese and English. Some authors argue that this use of bilingual signs has resulted in the creation of ‘an attractive linguistic landscape’ in China (Yang & Liu, 2008:79). Accordingly, research on bilingual public signs has, in recent years, become ‘a hot area in the translation field’ (Zou et al, 2011:27), attracting the attention of a growing number of scholars (e.g. Dai & Lü, 2005; Song, 2013; Chen, 2014).

In some Asia-Pacific countries, English is neither an ethnic heritage nor a colonial legacy. The dominant position of English can also be a result of it being the common language for worldwide communication. The superiority of the English language in such countries manifests itself in language policy and national curricula which leads to a frantic pursuit of English. An educational trend in China, Japan, Taiwan, and Vietnam is to start English instruction early to give children an edge in second language acquisition. A rationale used for this is the positive relationship between a nation's international competiveness and the English language competence of its citizens (Baldauf & Nguyen, 2013; Hu, 2009; Park, 2009). One example of a nationwide English learning movement is ‘the-earlier-the-better’ in Taiwan. To win elections, electoral candidates used to propose English instruction to be available at Grade 1 (age of 6) although the Ministry of Education ruled for Grade 5 (age of 10) to be the year for English to be introduced (Chang, 2009). Another example of early English learning is overseas study in South Korea. Young children are sent to North America to receive long-term education so that they can learn to speak English without a Korean accent (Song, 2010).

Given the unprecedented spread of English, native English speakers (NESs) have been estimated to number 508 million by 2050 (Graddol, 1997: 27), while a bold estimation of speakers of English is 2 billion by 2050 (Crystal, 2008: 4–5). The international demographic profile of English presents a scenario whereby the development of English depends on how this language is used by non-native English speakers (NNESs), who are obviously in the majority for English use (e.g. Brumfit, 2001: 116; Crystal, 2008: 6; Graddol, 1997: 10; Mauranen, 2012; Seidlhofer, 2011: 7–8). While the importance of the number of English speakers globally is acknowledged, English in China remains a particularly interesting area for linguists. Not only English is widely learned in China, but also Chinese speakers of English are increasingly involved in intercultural encounters. In Graddol's (1997, 2006) discussion of the future of English, a comprehensive account is put forward about China, a country that has statistical significance for the development of English, given its large population of people who know English and its economic development. As Crystal (2008: 5) notes:

China has since 2000 started marketing itself as a hub for international education, and there has been a push by the government to attract a large number of foreign students to the country's universities. Sharma (2011) reported that there were around 260,000 foreign students studying in China's universities, and that the aim of the Ministry of Education was to attract around 500,000 foreign students by 2020. However, as China is a so-called ‘emerging destination’ for foreign students, perhaps not surprisingly, the vast majority - around two-thirds - of its foreign student population is currently from the Asia region (Study in China, 2012). Although the largest number of foreign students in China study Chinese language programs, an increasing number are attracted by such programs as engineering and medicine. These courses are also being promoted as English-medium programs, with whole degree programs offered from undergraduate to postgraduate levels in English. Little research has been carried out on how these programs are being conducted, the reception of these programs by foreign students in China, and the impact this is having on China's universities. The attraction of international students to China's higher education institutions would no doubt alter the dynamics of language use on these university campuses. This article reports on the reception and use of English by foreign university students in one such international degree program: international undergraduate students studying for a degree in Bachelor of Medicine and Bachelor of Surgery (MBBS) in the School of Medicine of one of China's leading universities. This case study provides an example of how English-medium instruction programs are currently being used to attract foreign students to China's universities, partly in order for these universities to promote themselves as ‘international’ institutions (see also Botha, 2014; and Bolton and Botha, 2015).

It goes without saying that a common culture and a common language make trade easier between individuals and countries, and for this reason the human being has always tried to find a way to communicate with foreign people in order to buy and sell goods and services. But learning as many languages as the market requires has always been a rather difficult issue, so since ancient times some languages have played the role of lingua franca. Throughout history there have been various lingua francas in the world, used as working languages or bridge languages, based on the prestige and economic relevance of some countries in particular phases of history, as is the case with Latin in the Roman Empire; in the Eastern provinces of the Empire Greek served the same purpose (De Houwer & Wilton, 2011).

Interest in the differences between English in Britain (or more especially England) and the United States supports a small industry, of which I am a small part. But there are those who argue that the differences are so negligible that they are not worth investigating. One of these is University of Edinburgh Professor of General Linguistics Geoffrey Pullum, who wrote a post on the topic for the Lingua Franca blog of the Chronicle of Higher Education. Pullum (2014) concluded:

The English language is no longer any one nation's monopoly; practically every nation on earth has a stake in it. This is the overall thrust of the book in the spotlight. The amazing journey of the language from a none-too-conspicuous dialect once spoken on a part of a tiny island off the north-western coast of Continental Europe to a language of wider communication across the world is the topic that the book engages with. In the ten chapters that make up this book, Urszula Clark surveys the current state of the language in its worldwide spread, along with the inevitable phenomenon of the emergence of new regional varieties or ‘Englishes’.

In many ways, Dalzell's is an exemplary slang dictionary, as one might expect from so experienced a slang lexicographer. Slang dictionaries do not usually explain the principles underlying inclusion, the selection of headword forms, the ordering of senses and the designation of country of origin, although this information is vital to any careful user.