English and English Community 1. There is no denying that English is a useful language. The people who speak English today make up the largest speech community in the world with the exception of speakers of Chinese. Originally(起初) they were small tribes of people from northern Europe who settled in England. Their languages became more and more similar to each other. Finally, the language had enough uniformity(统一性)to be used by all speakers in England.The people were united into a speech community through their shared language. 2.A speech community is similar to other kinds of communities. The people who make up the community share a common language. Often they live side by side, as they do in a neighborhood, a village, or a city. More often they form. a whole country. National boundaries(边界), however, are not always the same as the boundaries of a speech community. A speech community is any group of people who speak the same language no matter where they happen to live. 3. We may say that anyone who speaks English belongs to the English speech com- munity. For convenience, we may classify the speakers into two groups: one in which the speakers use English as their native language, the other in which the speakers learn English as a second language for the purpose of education, commerce, and so on. 4. English serves as an alternative language(替代语言) in several areas of public activity for the many nations of the world that employ it as an international second language. English has been adopted as the language of air traffic, commerce, as well as international diplomacy. Moreover, English is the language of the majority of published materials in the world so that education has come to rely heavily on an understanding of English. 5. Learning a second language extends one's vision and expands the mind. The history and literature of a second language record the real and fictional(虚构的)lives of the people and their culture; the knowledge of them adds to our ability to understand and to feel as they feel. Learning English as a second language provides another means of communication through which the windows of the entire English speech community becomes a part of our heritage.