Abstract English, along with a small number of other languages in the modern period, has expanded away from local through national to international domains, changing significantly along the way. But the changes are not simply those that take place in the normal course of the history of a language; other changes come about as a language takes on new cultural, economic and political responsibilities. Critical moments occur when a language comes to be written as well as spoken, and then when it comes to function as a standard language for some sort of nation‐state. In that socio‐historical perspective English is now acquiring a new identity as the global language of the late capitalist world. Some of the consequences of this development are beginning to show; but we have yet to find out what the long‐term effects are that arise when a language finds itself globalized.
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