The argument presented by Widdowson and cited in the paragraph mean...

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“In other words, there are those among us who argue that the future of English is dependent on the likelihood or otherwise of the U.S. continuing to play its hegemonic role in world affairs. Since that possibility seems uncertain to many, especially in view of the much-talked-of ascendancy of emergent economies, many are of the opinion that English will soon lose much of its current glitter and cease to be what it is today, namely a world language. And there are those amongst us who further speculate that, in fifty or a hundred years’ time, we will all have acquired fluency in, say, Mandarin, or, if we haven’t, will be longing to learn it. […] Consider the following argument: a language such as English can only be claimed to have attained an international status to the very extent it has ceased to be national, i.e., the exclusive property of this or that nation in particular (Widdowson). In other words, the U.K. or the U.S.A. or whosoever cannot have it both ways. If they do concede that English is today a world language, then it only behooves them to also recognize that it is not their exclusive property, as painful as this might indeed turn out to be. In other words, it is part of the price they have to pay for seeing their language elevated to the status of a world language. Now, the key word here is “elevated”. It is precisely in the process of getting elevated to a world status that English or what I insist on referring to as the “World English” goes through a process of metamorphosis.”

RAJAGOPALAN, K. The identity of "World English”. New Challenges in Language and Literature. Belo Horizonte: FALE/UFMG, 2009, p. 99-100.