Key Global English/lang change theory (Paper 5 and 6)

Question 1

Kachru’s three circles of english

Answer 1

Inner circle (English is the native language) eg UK, USA

Outer circle (English as a lingua franca, not native tongue) eg India, Pakistan

Expanding circle (English plays no historical role but used as a median of international communication) eg China, Russia

Question 2

Robert Phillipson (1992)

Answer 2

Argues that the spread of English as a language disadvantages others causing them to lose prestige and die out (descriptivist)

Question 3

William Labov (1972)

Answer 3

Worked with a friendship network of American American boys in a project in New York

Findings: relation between the use of AAVE
Boys who took education more seriously were somewhat peripheral in the group and this status showed they used less AAVE

• All about identity, hierarchy and solidarity

Question 4

Jennifer Jenkins (2002)

Answer 4

Pick e out 5 characteristics of English as a lingua franca.

ELF is functional and there is no desire to blend in. They will adapt and accommodate to the communicative context

• We can’t be threatened by ELF

Question 5

Nicholas Ostler (1995)

Answer 5

Sets up the endangered language foundation to save, document and promote endangered tongues. He blamed this on the spread of large metropolitan languages and younger generations using mass communication, as well as minority regional languages becoming difficult to accommodate as a third lang
eg scottish galic

Question 6

Bill Bryson (1990)

Answer 6

Described the english language as “growing indistinguishable” ie won’t be able to recognise it

A bidilectic attitude and prescriptivist view

Question 7

David Crystal

Answer 7

Stated that “a language is dying every two weeks someone… half of the worlds languages will no longer be spoken in another century…”

*Uniformity with variants (prestige)

Holds the view that bidialectalism (combination of both uniformity and disintegration) will persist and develop with people adapting their lang to meet context

Question 8

Schneider’s dynamic model

Answer 8

Outlines 5 major stages of the evolution of the english language- it is filtered through a system and changing all the time

1) Foundation
2) Exornormative stabilisation
3) Nativism
4) Endornormative stabilisation
5) Differentiation