to ride on smb. back

[Katrine_Binter]

Пожалуйста, помогите перевести.

to ride on smb. back

Выражение встречается в следующем контексте:

Whether we take a benign view of such "multinational" economic activity or, like John Pilger and many others, view it as a threat to the identities of individual countries and local control, English is the language that frequently rides on its back.

Заранее спасибо

[watchkeeper]

контексту бы поболе
what is "such 'multinational' economic activity "

anyway, в зависимости от более широкого контекста может быть:
выезжать (на чьей-л.) спине, использовать (что-л.) в своих интересах ,или даже, ехать зайцем

[Katrine_Binter]

Речь идет о распространении английского языка по миру, перечисляются факторы, повлиявшие на это. Среди них: колониальная история, путешествия, обмен информацией, массовая культура и экономика. И вот как раз в разделе "Экономика" встречается данное предложение. Вот весь абзац:
A major factor in the spread of English has been the spread of commerce throughout the world, and in particular, the emergence of the United States as a world economic power. International commerce has taken English with it. This is the twentieth-century phenomenon of "globalisation" described by the journalist John Pilger as "... a term which journalists and politicians have made fashionable and which is often used in a positive sense to denote a "global village" of "free trade", hi-tech marvels and all kinds of posibilities that transcend class, historical experience and ideology". Thus one of the first sights many travellers see arriving in countries as diverse as the Czech Republic and Brazil, for example, is the yellow twin-arched sign of a McDonalds fas food restaurant. Whether we take a benign view of such "multinational" economic activity or, like John Pilger and many others, view it as a threat to the identities of individual countries and local control, English is the language that frequently rides on its back.

[Shumov]

in a nutshell: вслед за McDonald's приходит и англ. яз.

т.е. проникновение английского в инородную культурную среду нередко следствие (неизбежный "побочный эффект", если угодно) экономических преобразований такого рода.