French has long served as the donor language par excellence in the history of English. French has enriched the English vocabulary throughout the centuries since before the Norman Conquest (Serjeantson, 1935: 104–5). The French impact on the English lexicon has received much attention in studies of the language and its development. However, French borrowings which have recently been introduced into English have figured little if at all in research thus far.

Quality or speed: that is the question. The big problem for professional translators nowadays is that our clients want both. We are required, on a daily basis, to try to do the impossible, to square the circle, to attempt to maintain a satisfactory degree of accuracy and style while meeting deadlines that at times can only be described as sadistic. Levels of translator stress have gradually risen, though sadly they have not been accompanied by a commensurate rise in translation rates. I cannot help but wonder, as I glance nervously at the clock, how we have ended up in this sorry state of calendarial bondage, in which we would hardly be surprised to hear an indignant client remark, in the immortal words of Louis XIV: ‘I almost had to wait!’

Today many people associate Korea with large corporations such as Samsung, Hyundai, or LG. As remarkable as its rapid technological advancement is the country's growing fervor for learning English. Compared with other countries, Korea is rather distinctive in remaining monocultural in its overall demographic composition. Behind the seemingly quiet, monolingual and monocultural façade is a vibrant force that drives its people toward an Anglophone world. Once colonized by Japan, Korea was heavily influenced by the Japanese language and culture. It is no coincidence that the Korean lexicon contains many words of English origin (Anglicisms) that are also found in Japanese. Examples include hotchkiss (‘stapler’), ball pen (‘ballpoint pen’), pama (‘perm’), manicure (‘nail polish’), salaryman (‘salaried man’), and mass com (from ‘mass communication’, used for ‘media’). These represent only a handful of examples among numerous Anglicized words that entered the Korean language during the Japanese colonization which spanned a period of thirty-six years.

With the acceleration of globalization, universities in East Asia are increasingly under pressure to compete internationally, and ‘internationalization’ of tertiary education in the region has topped the education reform agenda of each government (Mok & James, 2005). In an effort to join the league of world-class universities and attract international students, East Asian universities have expanded the number of English-medium lectures (EMLs) offered as part of their internationalization strategy, and no country has embraced the move more than Korea (Newsweek, February 26, 2007). As of 2010, all the classes at the Korean Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) are conducted in English only and 93 percent of classes at the Pohang University of Science and Technology (POSTECH), the nation's two best science and engineering universities, with rates of EML averaging around 10 to 30 percent among the top 7 universities in Korea as of the first half of 2008 (Chosun Ilbo, March 10, 2008). Reforms of Korean universities characterized by the introduction of EMLs have been praised by many local as well as top international media such as the New York Times and the Science Magazine. Often lost amid the hype, however, are the challenges facing local students in learning complex material in English, a language which most have learned only as a foreign language and to limited levels of proficiency. This article compares opinions expressed in the mainstream media with those from university presses run by student organizations that have been most active in expanding English-medium programs by analyzing articles related to EMLs. The aim of this comparative research is to find out if there are any observable differences in views presented by these two types of print media, in an attempt to shed light on the move to EMLs in this exclusively monolingual country.

As a mother tongue English is the second most spoken language in the world. Chinese is the first, but English is far more widely spoken around the world. ‘Today English is spoken or written, with varying levels of fluency, by a third of the world's population’ (Crystal, 2010: 8). It has been accepted as the most common means for international communication worldwide. Hence, it occupies a special position as the international language of communication in almost all the countries of the world. Before 1971 in Bangladesh, English was used as a second language. It was first introduced when the country was a part of India when British imperialists mandated the teaching of English in 1835 throughout India. After its introduction in the curriculum, English consolidated its position as the language of the ruling class. It became the most important subject of study in the curriculum. Its dominance increased when it replaced Persian as the official and court language in 1837 and even further in 1844 when Lord Harding announced that Indians who had received an education in English would receive preference in all government appointments. However, towards the end of the British rule, a reaction arose against English education and the use of English generally. With the departure of the British rulers in 1947, English lost its earlier prominence and prestige. During the Pakistan period, when Bangladesh became a part of Pakistan (1947–1971), English retained its position as an essential subject of study. Learning English was still considered indispensable for social, intercultural and international communication, educational advancement, professional success and progress in life. In independent Bangladesh, English occupies the place of being the most important foreign language. It is taught and learned as a compulsory subject alongside Bangla, the first language, from the primary level up to the highest level of study.

Saudi English (also called ‘Arabicised-English’ by Al-Shurafa, 2009) is probably one of the least studied varieties among the ‘New Englishes’. This paper aims to provide an introduction to the main syntactic features of the variety. In order to do this I will use the list of features discernible in varieties of English world-wide as ascertained by two scholars working actively on the typology of the different Englishes, Kortmann & Szmrecsanyi (2004). They use the term ‘angloversals’ for recurrent non-standard features widely found in English across the globe. This paper investigates three such ‘angloversal’ features which I believe to be widespread in Saudi Arabia: (a) #57: deletion of be; (b) #17: irregular use of articles; and (c) #53: invariant present tense forms due to zero marking for the third person singular (Kortmann & Szmrecsanyi 2004: 1146–7). This article also aims to study the effects of the Arabic substrate on the variety of English spoken in Saudi Arabia. The occurrence of the features is investigated among different strata in the society.

The aim of this illustrative paper is to show how words and expressions are coined or changed in Cameroonian speech in English and French in order to insult or stereotype other groups of people. Taken along official language lines, ethnic boundaries and social divides, these lexical elements reproduce some aspect of the addressee's history, social stance, academic achievement, professional background, linguistic and political belonging, and even gender. The expressions are from four major sources: French, English, Pidgin English and various indigenous languages. Some of them capture common social phenomena in the society. For example, Pidgin English supplies a descriptive name for a woman who moves in with a man to whom she is not married, i.e. come-we-stay. This appellation focuses more on the woman and the relationship rather than on the man. Such coinages are also common elsewhere in Africa. For instance, Nigerian Pidgin English supplies the appellation face-me-I-face-you for cramped up residential apartments in which rooms face each other on the corridor. Lexical strategies for naming and derogation are common in these two societies where groups compete with each other for their voices to be heard and respected.

It is now common knowledge that the English language has become part of Nigeria's linguistic family, albeit as a second language that has been ‘home-grown…adapted and tamed to suit the Nigerian environment’ (Adegbija, 2004: 19). Summarizing Alamin A. Mazrui (2004), Akere (2006: 9) describes this domestication as ‘the transformation of English as an alien medium, to make it respond to local imagery, figures of speech, sound patterns and the general cultural milieu of the region’. This has been the practice of many writers where English is the colonial masters' language and is now adopted as a second language, but with ‘local colour’, as noted by Emenyonu (2006: xi). This dynamic and creative variety has helped Nigerians express their world view in a more international medium. In addition, there are more ‘pragmatic’ sub-varieties, including what Omolewa (1979: 14–15) calls ‘working English’. This is, however, different from the widespread Pidgin English, which continues to serve as the linguistic bridge across the linguistic Babel of Nigeria. While Pidgin is greatly influenced by the immediate local languages, thus making uniformity difficult to achieve, the emerging Nigerian English (henceforth NE) is not as heavily dependent on indigenous local languages. According to Igboanusi (2002: 4), ‘NE has its origin in British English, and the lexicon of NE has therefore shown a strong British influence.’ In other words, while Pidgin is common among the uneducated and spoken by the educated when necessary, NE is spoken by the educated and the level of education determines the variety of NE used by individuals. NE should be seen as an autonomous variety, showing acceptable departures from the rules of standard diction, pronunciation and grammar. The contact of English with indigenous languages in Nigeria is bound to lead to greater deviation from the standard in the future. Since Nigeria has one of the largest populations of speakers of English as a second language in the world (Akere, 2009; Jowitt, 2009), this is bound to have implications for English as a global language.

The purpose of this paper is to foreground the extent to which the English language has eroded the originality and purity of the Yoruba language. The main focus will be on code-switching practices, which I believe to be detrimental to Yoruba in the long run. Although linguists have long proposed a ‘leave-your-language-alone’ attitude (see Hall, 1950), there is little doubt that the effects of first British colonization and then globalization have changed the linguistic ecology of Africa. Few sociolinguists would deny that a people's language is a symbol of their identity and culture. In an important textbook in the field, Holmes (1992: 70) confirms that ‘Language is an important component of identity and culture for many groups, maintaining their distinct identity and culture is usually important to … self esteem.’ What are we then to make of the extensive code-switching that I will be documenting in this article? Linguists' tolerance has certainly extended to code-switching studies in Africa, from which much important data has been drawn. The main scholar in this area is Carol Myers-Scotton, whose two books on code-switching (1993a,b) were based primarily on her research in Africa and remain central to the field internationally. Scholars like Coupland and Jaworski (1997) propose that the use of mixed speech in a conversation is not necessarily a language defect but a sign of flexibility and creativity. Understanding the social, psycholinguistic and syntactic motivations for switching is one thing, but the applied linguist and educationist also has to ask serious questions about what this means for the future of local languages heavily implicated in code-switching.

For the last three decades, globalization has been a major theme of sociolinguistics and studies of multilingualism, in keeping with large scale changes evident in late-modern societies (Blommaert, 2010). One of several stances within this research is the importance accorded to English in processes of linguistic globalization (see Leung et al, 2009). Three theoretical stances in particular have dealt with English globalization: World Englishes (e.g. Kachru, 1986), Linguistic Imperialism (e.g. Phillipson, 1992) and more recently Global Englishes within a context of modern-day rapid transport, electronic media, cultural hybridities and economic migration (Pennycook, 2007). All three approaches emphasise different aspects of the nature of English insertion in multilingual contexts.

In a recent article in ET 109 Michael Bulley (2012: 35) presents ‘the permutations for monosyllables in common use in standard British English having the phonetic pattern: single consonant + short vowel + single consonant’, using the OED as his source for data. While acknowledging the usefulness of Bulley's tables for pedagogical purposes, I wish to offer a very distinct answer to the question why certain words are missing from the contemporary English lexicon although they could have occurred as possible words.