global english Flashcards
what are Kachru’s concentric circles?
started with the British Empire and Queen Victoria , inner circle (USA, Britain, Canada and the West) set the standard for outer and expanding circles. Inner would use English as a first language, outer as a second language and expanding as a lingua franca as it is the language of business and aviation
What is Robert Phillipson’s 1992 theory on the spread of English?
spread of English disadvantages others, causing them to die out (bully on the playground), uniformity, one smack of English, other languages disintegrate as English bullies all
What is David Crystal’s theory on the spread of English?
a language is dying every two weeks, half the world’s languages will no longer be spoken in another century, English has to share the blame - uniformity, the idea of one world English with variants
How many English variants does Crystal say have emerged?
60-70 new Englishes have emerged since the 1960’s in countries across the globe
what is Crystal’s theory on bidialectalism?
bidialectalism (a combination of disintegration and uniformity) will persist and develop with people adapting their language to meet the context. This has real merit as our language is fluid and can quickly shift between standard and non standard to accommodate to different ages, cultures and traditions in context
what is a prescriptivist’s attitude to global English?
growth and acceptance of global English weakens the authority of British Standard English, as if they are scared of change. This has limited merit as if other people borrow it, our English will not change, English does not belong to anyone, we have no right to gate keep language
what is Jennifer Jenkins’ theory on English as a lingua franca? (2006)
5 characteristics of the lingua franca, use it as functional and there is no desire to blend in, they will adapt and accommodate to the communicative context, we shouldn’t be threatened by ELF
what is Nicholas Ostler’s theory? (1995)
set up the endangered language foundation to save, document and promote endangered tongues. Blamed spread of metropolitan languages and the younger generations using social media, minority regional languages becoming difficult to accommodate as a third language e.g. Scottish Gaelic has less than 50,000 speakers, only written in Gaelic Bible and speakers distancing themselves from the language, Latin stopped being taught in schools in the 1960’s
What is William Labov’s AAVE study? (1972)
studied preadolescent boys in New York, found boys more engaged in school used less AAVE but were on the peripheral of the group, those less engaged in school used more AAVE, were leaders of the group and were considered more street. Becomes about education and future life, AAVE will disappear if they try harder in school. Examples of AAVE including ‘the can’ meaning jail, ‘crib’ meaning home, and ‘homies’ meaning friends were created for identity and secrecy but some vernacular has entered the wider lexicon. Some boys were clever enough to downwardly converge (Giles) in the streets to feel valued/save positive face (Goffman)
What is Bill Bryson’s theory on the future of English? (1990)
English will grow indistinguishable between strands. Young people are using a more standard accent due to the need to moderate regional accents
what is Schneider’s dynamic model?
outlines the five major stages of the evolution of World Englishes, taking into account two major parties of agents - settlers and indigenous.
what are the five stages in Schneider’s dynamic model?
foundation, exonormative stabilisation, nativism, endonormative stabilisation and differentiation
what is foundation? (SDM)
English brought to area
what is exonormative stabilisation? (SDM)
elite converge
what is nativization? (SDM)
filtered, diluted, ties weakened
what is endonormative stabilisation? (SDM)
new normal
what is differentiation? (SDM)
dialect identity, counter cultures (e.g. AAVE)
what three phases did Loreto Todd identify in the development of Tok Pisin?
1) Casual contact between English speakers and local people developed a pidgin
2) Pidgin English was used between local people, over time a pidgin may begin to be used more extensively and may become the first language of new generations of speakers, when this happens the language becomes a creole
3) as the interracial context is increased, the vocabulary expanded according to the dominant language
what is meant by global English?
world wide, around the world. Doesn’t mean it is the same everywhere due to culture and history, so many regional variants as well as global ones
how has America Bastardised (simplified) the English Language?
use ‘z’ instead of ‘s’, remove the ‘u’ (‘color’ instead of ‘colour’), Microsoft word is set in American English and used by millions across the globe, Americanisation through technology e.g. Netflix, American TV, Disney and social media.
why is language always changing?
not static because the world is moving faster than ever, social media is changing language all the time - ‘influencer generation’ trendsetters with language, everyone wants to be in the loop, controlling and moving with language
what are the most spoken world languages?
1) Mandarin 2) Spanish 3) English 4) Hindi
what is the language of international business?
English, but there are still so many versions - beyond countable
what is the international language of space?
Russian
what countries are in the inner circle?
USA, UK, Canada, Australia, New Zealand
what countries are in the outer circle?
countries colonised by the inner circle, e.g. India, Jamaica and The Philippines (English as second language)
what countries are in the expanding circles?
the newly developed countries, e.g. China, Japan and Nepal (English as a lingua franca)
what is meant by English as a first language?
the language you have spoken your whole life
what is meant by English as a second language?
dual speaker, on a massive scale
what is meant by English as a lingua franca?
two non native speakers using English as a common language
How has the internet made the world a bigger place with language?
social media, same websites globally, info spread at a real pace, language (incl. dialect/regional borrowings) passed and transmitted, country to country contact, citizen journalism (everyone is given a platform), global markets, global communication resulting in global English
How is citizen journalism problematic?
your voice could be a bad one, spreading misinformation, hard to moderate
what does “our English” have connotations of?
connotations of Empire that WE created it, when English itself is a myth, it is all a myth, almost racist/superiority issue, we claim ownership of something that isn’t ours
what are the two futures if English?
disintegration or uniformity
what is meant by disintegration?
breaks down, people believe that English will become unrecognisable, so many variants that “our English” will become unrecognisable
what is meant by uniformity?
collective, unifying language that makes us speak the same, this might be ideal but the fact that there is no uniformity from city to city in the UK means that this cannot be possible e.g. between Sunderland and Newcastle there is real variant, you could drive 20 miles and not understand what people are saying
How has the internet made the world a smaller place?
we are much more exposed to other languages, cultures and traditions, transformed language and led to some uniformity - we have a desire to copy language trends, the younger generations aren’t in the same bubble the older generations were. “super” example - Americanism that has entered our lexicon and bastardised it (social media)
what would a descriptivist attitude on the lingua franca be?
global communication made easier, unity across the globe, increase borrowings for British English, commercial/political access for less powerful/developing countries
what would a prescriptivist attitude on the lingua franca be?
adulteration of British English, Global English becoming unrecognisable to inner circle speakers, loss of smaller native languages in favour of ELF, smaller languages could disappear - Latin is an example of a language that could die out, the language of law
what is Giles’ accommodation theory?
convergence and divergence to fit in or distance ourselves with language to build rapports, convergence is to move language closer to the context, divergence is to move language away from away from the context, this can be up or down
what is meant by rhetoric?
manner of speech