The Spread Of English In Gulf Arab Countries

So far English has been the most widely-spread and influential language in human history,which has been interwined with many other fields such as economy,policitcs and culture and has become one of the powers that shape the world.However,considering the complexity of language spread,there has been no cogent theory to account for the wide spread of English,though the pursuit is still on the way.Based on an improved version of the classic framework for language spread proposed by Cooper(1979,1982),this study has delved into the spead of Engish in seven gulf Arab countries,namely,UAE,Oman,Bahrain,Qatar,Kuwait,Saudi Arabia and Iraq with theoretical constructs from language policy and planning,communication,language economics,cultural economics and anthropology.It is conducted with methods of literature analyses,historical analyses,case studies and comparative analyses.The major findings are as follows:(1)English has experienced the paving period,the thriving period and the conflicting period.Petrol economy is the driving power for the spread of English in the gulf Arab area,and knowledge economy takes the relay but the renaissance of the local language and culture prevents English from further spreading;(2)the case studies of each country have reaffirmed the fact that economy and culture are the core factors in the spread of English,yet other factors such as population,politics,history and geography also influence and confine the spreading process.Thereby,the degree of English spread diversifies among these countries;(3)based on comprehensive analyses of the seven countries,an economy-driven transculturation model(ET model)of language spread is proposed.This model not only confirms the thought of "econocultural model" put forward by Quirk(1988),but also offers a detailed and in-depth description of how English spreads under this mechanism.The ET model is likely to spark new clues for theoretical progress in language spread and bring valuable references and enlightenments for language spread practice as well.