Global English

Question 1

What are world Englishes?

Answer 1

Global English varieties that have existed for some time eg. Singaporean English, Indian English

Question 2

What is English as a lingua franca?

Answer 2

English is seen as a commonality / bridge language between people whose first language isn’t English

Question 3

Nicholas Ostler’s commentary on global English

Answer 3

‘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

Question 4

English speaking figures in CE1600

Answer 4

Mostly a localised language - spoken between 5 and 7 million people

Question 5

English speaking figures in the present day

Answer 5

Spoken by between 1.5 and 2 billion people across at least 75 global territories

Question 6

How did English speakers move around the world?

Answer 6

Colonial expansion, global trade, invasion

Question 7

What was the first diaspora?

Answer 7

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)

Question 8

What was the second diaspora?

Answer 8

Smaller groups of English speakers settled in areas such as South Africa, South Asia and other regions of Africa

Question 9

How was English used during the second diaspora?

Answer 9

A means of communicating between settlers and traders / between the local people themselves - essentially acted as a pidgin

Question 10

How did L2 varieties arise?

Answer 10

Initially worked as a lingua franca, then gained a degree of power and status, then adopted as an official language

Question 11

Crystal (2008) English estimations

Answer 11

Around 400 million L1, over 400 million L2, between 6-700 million ELF = 1.5 billion speakers of some form of English

Question 12

Dates for the first diaspora

Answer 12

17th century to USA and Canada - 1770 to Australia - 1790 to NZ

Question 13

Dates for the second diaspora

Answer 13

Late 15th century in west Africa - 1600 in South Asia

Question 14

Why was the arrival of English into new countries significant?

Answer 14

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

Question 15

How did pidgins develop in the English speaking world?

Answer 15

As a result of slavery - slave traders prevented rebellions by dividing people from others who spoke the same language, therefore contact languages developed

Question 16

Braj Kachru (1992)’s ring model

Answer 16

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)

Question 17

What are the problems with Kachru’s ring model?

Answer 17

Suggests an ‘inner circle privilege’, with varieties outside the centre being seen as further from the ‘real thing’

Question 18

McArthur’s circle of world Englishes

Answer 18

Places world standard English in the middle, then branches of nations, then areas / varieties within that country

Question 19

Modiano (1999)’s centripetal model

Answer 19

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

Question 20

Schneider (2007)’s sequence of the emergence of world Englishes

Answer 20

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)

Question 21

Phonological feature of Jamaican English

Answer 21

-‘eth’ and ‘theta’ sounds in standard English are usually pronounced as dentals eg. thing - ting, this - dis

Question 22

Phonological feature of Indian English

Answer 22

Production of a dental retroflex when producing /t/ and /d/ consonants

Question 23

Vocabulary mixing example in Hindi English

Answer 23

Compound of two English words (‘air dash’) means a fast local flight

Question 24

Kim and Elder (2009) - issues with idioms in world Englishes

Answer 24

American air traffic control officers slipping into vernacular idioms and talking too fast - Aviation English is an agreed lingua franca

Question 25

Grammar of world Englishes

Answer 25

Not marking agreement in third person verbs eg. he walk ten miles, not marking plural endings on nouns

Question 26

Jennifer Jenkins’ argument on how English should be taught

Answer 26

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

Question 27

Widdowson, quoted in Zamel et al (2002)’s attitude to global English

Answer 27

‘How English develops in the world is no business whatever of the native speakers of England, or the US, or anywhere else’

Question 28

Crystal’s world Englishes attitude

Answer 28

‘momentum of English’s growth has become so great that there is nothing likely to stop its spread’

Question 29

Granddol’s world Englishes attitude

Answer 29

‘The current global wave of English may lose momentum’

Question 30

McArthur’s world Englishes attitude

Answer 30

‘English is going through such a radical change around the world that it is fragmenting into a ‘family of languages’

Question 31

Ostler’s world Englishes attitude

Answer 31

-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

Question 32

Saraceni’s world Englishes attitude

Answer 32

-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