Evolution of the English language in a globalizing world: the impact of cultural diversity, digital discourse and language education paradigm shifts

The article addresses the factors that contributed to high paces of the English language evolution nowadays. The relevance of the study is conditioned by the development of digital discourse, contributing to the modification of English and the emergence of its socio-cultural and functional variation. The purpose of the article is to identify the consequences of the change of the educational paradigm and the introduction of the plurilinguistic approach to teaching foreign languages. The article elaborates on the negative consequences of the increasing application of multimodal communicative competence and the practical approach to English language learning, which resulted in linking the level of language competence to the achievement of certain practical goals. The author concludes that the blurring of grammatical norms, acceptance of language informality as a new norm and the replacement of the linguocultural component of the language by its sociocultural variation and practical functionality may have a number of negative consequences for Standard English, ranging from increasing illiteracy rate to the blurring of the national cultural component of English.