David Graddol Biography

David Graddol (born 1953) is a British linguist who has worked in applied linguistics, discourse analysis, sociolinguistics, and history of linguistics. He is perhaps best known for his 1997 book The future of English?, published by the British Council, in which he offers scenarios for how English as a world language may develop. Most notably, he points out that native speakers of English are or will soon be outnumbered by those who speak English as a second or foreign language. In an article that focuses more specifically on this issue, he states the following: