Global English Flashcards
What are world Englishes?
Global English varieties that have existed for some time eg. Singaporean English, Indian English
What is English as a lingua franca?
English is seen as a commonality / bridge language between people whose first language isn’t English
Nicholas Ostler’s commentary on global English
‘The current state of English is unprecedented - it has a pre-eminent role in science, commerce, finance, politics etc…with no challenger comparable to it, it seems almost untouchable
English speaking figures in CE1600
Mostly a localised language - spoken between 5 and 7 million people
English speaking figures in the present day
Spoken by between 1.5 and 2 billion people across at least 75 global territories
How did English speakers move around the world?
Colonial expansion, global trade, invasion
What was the first diaspora?
English spread from the British Isles to areas that are now the USA, Canada, Australia and New Zealand - English speakers settled in large numbers and established the first language varieties of English (L1)
What was the second diaspora?
Smaller groups of English speakers settled in areas such as South Africa, South Asia and other regions of Africa
How was English used during the second diaspora?
A means of communicating between settlers and traders / between the local people themselves - essentially acted as a pidgin
How did L2 varieties arise?
Initially worked as a lingua franca, then gained a degree of power and status, then adopted as an official language
Crystal (2008) English estimations
Around 400 million L1, over 400 million L2, between 6-700 million ELF = 1.5 billion speakers of some form of English
Dates for the first diaspora
17th century to USA and Canada - 1770 to Australia - 1790 to NZ
Dates for the second diaspora
Late 15th century in west Africa - 1600 in South Asia
Why was the arrival of English into new countries significant?
Arrival of English coincided with arrival of political power, trade, religion, and violence - relationships between natives and British colonisers were characterised by forced subjugation of natives and their languages
How did pidgins develop in the English speaking world?
As a result of slavery - slave traders prevented rebellions by dividing people from others who spoke the same language, therefore contact languages developed
Braj Kachru (1992)’s ring model
Places native speaker Englishes on the inside (UK, USA), then inner circle eg. India, Nigeria, then outer circle eg. Brazil, Russia, where English is often a lingua franca / spoken in business etc. (no distinct varieties)
What are the problems with Kachru’s ring model?
Suggests an ‘inner circle privilege’, with varieties outside the centre being seen as further from the ‘real thing’
McArthur’s circle of world Englishes
Places world standard English in the middle, then branches of nations, then areas / varieties within that country
Modiano (1999)’s centripetal model
Suggests that individuals proficient in international English are at the centre, followed by those with native and foreign language proficiency / cross-cultural communication/those with strong regional accents / dialects, followed by learners
Schneider (2007)’s sequence of the emergence of world Englishes
Foundation - Exonormative stabilisation (looking for norms and standards of their English variety) - Nativization - Endonormative stabilisation (country often gains independence and the English gains its own norms and differences - Differentiation (developing regional and social differences)
Phonological feature of Jamaican English
-‘eth’ and ‘theta’ sounds in standard English are usually pronounced as dentals eg. thing - ting, this - dis
Phonological feature of Indian English
Production of a dental retroflex when producing /t/ and /d/ consonants
Vocabulary mixing example in Hindi English
Compound of two English words (‘air dash’) means a fast local flight
Kim and Elder (2009) - issues with idioms in world Englishes
American air traffic control officers slipping into vernacular idioms and talking too fast - Aviation English is an agreed lingua franca
Grammar of world Englishes
Not marking agreement in third person verbs eg. he walk ten miles, not marking plural endings on nouns
Jennifer Jenkins’ argument on how English should be taught
Focus for English teaching should be on features that impact the intelligibility of speakers - consonant sounds and the contrast between long and short vowel sounds is important, but word stress and stress timing are less significant
Widdowson, quoted in Zamel et al (2002)’s attitude to global English
‘How English develops in the world is no business whatever of the native speakers of England, or the US, or anywhere else’
Crystal’s world Englishes attitude
‘momentum of English’s growth has become so great that there is nothing likely to stop its spread’
Granddol’s world Englishes attitude
‘The current global wave of English may lose momentum’
McArthur’s world Englishes attitude
‘English is going through such a radical change around the world that it is fragmenting into a ‘family of languages’
Ostler’s world Englishes attitude
-English will go the same way as other powerful languages in history - as American and British power declines, English will lose its preeminent role
-Technological advancement will eventually intervene
Saraceni’s world Englishes attitude
-English has ‘spread’ rather than ‘relocated’ - ‘spread’ suggests a centre-periphery model, which is problematic
-English needs to be ‘de-anglicised’ through relocation in order to cut the ‘psychological umbilical cord’ between L1 English and English in the rest of the world
