English in Mongolia

Abstract: This essay will evaluate the factors that have contributed to the increase in the usage and status of the English language in Mongolia since the country's democratic revolution in 1990. The issue of language spread will first be addressed through a description of the economic, social and educational influences that other foreign languages, particularly Russian, have had in Mongolia in the twentieth century. The reasons for the spread of English will then be displayed by discussing the effects of globalism in the mid-1990s and by analyzing a study on the importance of learning English conducted among university students. The various functions that English now serves among the general population will then be categorized according to Kachru's framework of four linguistic functions (instrumental, regulative, interpersonal, imaginative). Lastly, the issue of nativization will be addressed through a brief examination of the lexical and syntactical modifications propagated by Mongolian English users.