David Graddol

Who is David Graddol?

David Graddol 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:

Graddol's views about English as a world language are similar to, though not identical with, those held by his linguist colleague David Crystal.

He graduated from the University of York with a BA in Language and Linguistics in 1975, also in Sociology in 1983.