International English the sphere of influence of English-speaking countries. Here English may serve as a useful lingua franca between ethnic and language groups. Higher education, the legislature and judiciary, national commerce, and so on, may all be carried out predominantly in English. The "expanding circle" refers to those countries where English has no official role, but is nonetheless important for certain functions, e.g. international business and tourism. By the twenty-first century, non-native English speakers have come to outnumber native speakers by a factor of three, according to the British Council. Darius Degher, a professor at Malmö University in Sweden, uses the term
Pseudospeciation Pseudospeciation Pseudospeciation refers to the claim that cultural differences cause humans to separate into different social groups, with different language, dress, customs, etc. These cultural differences are analogous to the formation of different biological species (speciation). In the extreme, pseudospeciation leads to dehumanization of other cultural groups (out-groups). Pseudospeciation, according to the "Oxford English Dictionary", refers to the tendency of members of in-groups to consider members of out-groups to have evolved genetically into different, separate, and inferior species to their own. The term was first used by Erik Erikson in 1966, according to his biographer, Lawrence J. Friedman. Dehumanization is