THE SOCIOLINGUISTIC IMPLICATIONS OF TEACHING ENGLISH IN PUERTO RICO 1

Abstract

I have been asked to discuss the sociolinguistic implications of the teaching of English in Puerto Rico. As you all know, English has become the international lingua franca of the Information Age and is promoted globally as the language of science, technology, business, and diplomacy. According to renowned linguist David Crystal, author of English as a global language (1997) and The language revolution (2004), about 1.4 million people around the planet speak some form of English. (That’s approximately a quarter of the population of the Earth.) Moreover, as Crystal is fond of reminding us, there are now more non-native users of English than there are native speakers. The importation of English into any new locale has numerous sociolinguistic implications for the speech community in question, regardless of whether it’s in Singapore, Greenland, or Vanuatu. There may be concerns about English displacing the local language(s) as young people begin to associate English with modernity and progress and reject their vernacular as old-fashioned and inadequate for expressing their current lifestyles. This may lead to what is called language shift in which a community shifts its preference or dominance from one language to another, or in the worst case scenario it may even lead to

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