The Factors Contributing Language Development

English language as an International language both in Indo-European and the part of West Germanic has its own history (taken from an index to English by Perrin. G. Porter, 1963: 164). According to its history, it has four periods: old English (about 5-12 AM), Middle English (about 1150-1450 AM), early modern English (1450-1700 AM), modern English (1700-now) (Mc. Arthur 1992: 722, 657, 322, 667).

            It has that era and what we use now is modern English with its development from period to period which is impacted by many factors.

1. Geographical Variation

            Variation of geography contributes the development and accent used in certain places. There are Scottish English and Irish English in United Kingdom. The text produced is sometimes different such as in Scottish English for plural form: een (eyes), shain (shoes), hors (horses).

2. Social Variation

            There are two kinds of English usage based on its class of manners, social class, etc. They are formal and informal. For example: the word ‘forward’ is formal and the informal form is ‘send’, the informal form of word ‘advise’ is ‘inform’,etc.

            There is also English for the working class called Cockney in England (Mc Arthur. 1992: 226). For example: word spelling; wiv (with), ovver (other), nuffink (nothing), spelling in  sentence; I ain’t ‘ad much time ter look around yet ( I have not had much time to look around yet). (Bowling, 1995: 208, 270, 348, 374)

3. Topic variation

            It’s generally divided into two parts. The first is general or social English such as in l daily conversation in schools, shops, markets, etc. The second is English for specific purposes such as law, politics, lesson, etc.

4. Culture

            Since every country has different culture, some English words can’t be translated literally into some languages, for example: go dutch means ‘bayar sendiri-sendiri’, french leave means ‘membolos pergi tanpa pamit’, dutch courege means ‘keberanian seseorang karena pengaruh alkohol’, etc.

Those are the factors contributing the language development. The more age develops the more terms appear and it happens in every part of life with many perspectives. We can’t avoid that we have to know the modern language because it will always develop.